Showing posts with label mammals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mammals. Show all posts

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Happy Year of the Sheep! The Bezoar Goat.

Happy Chinese New Year, everybody! What better way to start off the Year of the Goat…Sheep…Geep? with a goat? Just look at this thing: 

Source. 


That goat is called a bezoar goat/ibex (Capra aegagrus aegagrus), and it is the stuff Gogoats (it's year of the Wood Goat, by the by) are made of. It's native to the Middle East, including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan - all those fun places! There are a few places where it's been introduced, but what you really need to know is that this: 


…came from this: 

Source. 


Although nobody's really sure how much the bezoar goat contributed to the domestic goat gene pool, it's either a direct descendant or a hefty percentage. Along with making them smaller and tame, bezoar goats lost their razor-sharp horns, gained curly tails, and now, some breeds have floppy ears. Also, some of them have been bred to faint, but that's not the fault of a goat with razor horns. Yeah, goat horns used to have a sharp, inner edge like a badass sword. 

Bezoar goats are very well adapted to mountainous, sometimes cold regions. At night, the temperature of places like Turkey sometimes drops drastically; wool is a good countermeasure to that. A goat's feet are also spongy and relatively narrow, allowing them to climb around in rocky areas. Have I sung the praises of those beautiful horns enough? No? Well, those are both sexy (to other goats, mind) and a great defense mechanism. 

At this point, some of you are probably wondering: isn't a "bezoar" something out of Harry Potter? Yes, and it does indeed come from a goat…or any other number of things, really. A bezoar is basically a stone of miscellany that didn't get digested, and thus wound up lodged in an animal's digestive tract. Goats are far from the only animals that have them; humans can get bezoars as well. Their poison-curing properties are greatly exaggerated, with only curing arsenic poisoning anywhere near consistently (and only with treatment). 


Oh, right, back on the topic of the wild goat. Another nasty thing that happens with domestication is the relative scarcity of the wild counterpart. The bezoar is technically only "Threatened," and then mostly due to habitat loss. Game hunting of these goats has also increased. Wolves and the aurochs are so very, very jealous right now, regardless. 


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Creature Feature: MONGOOSE!

So I'm in Hawaii, right now. There is flora and fauna that I've never seen anywhere else everywhere. Oh, and I've also caught a few glimpses of a species that one does not expect to see in Hawaii: the mongoose.

Source.


How did I not do the mongoose before? Mongooses are weird little carnivores that  are related to civets and hyenas- yeah, picture that family reunion for a sec. Like hyenas, they are more closely related to cats than dogs. Even the names "mongoose" and "ichneumon" are weird.  Although the Indian grey mongoose is the most well-known, there are some 33-odd species of mongooses, including the meerkat- which I did cover a very long time ago. Mongoose species are native to Africa and southern Eurasia, including India.

Like the honey badger, the mongoose is a badass. Its greatest achievement is taking down cobras. Mongooses are so well-known for this that Rudyard Kipling, the author of the Jungle Book (and the white man's burden) wrote "Rikki -Tikki-Tavi," an adorable little story about a mongoose saving a family of humans from a family of cobras. Seeing as mongooses are cute, fuzzy little things and cobras are cobras, it's obvious whom the audience will root for.

Nom nom nom nom nom....bring the kiddies. 


There's a bit of conflicting evidence about whether mongooses are technically immune to cobra venom or not. Almost everybody will cite that the mongoose has a thicker hide than most fuzzy animals. Most people will also cite a chemical immunity to at least part of a cobra's venom. Regardless, there's not much a snake can do against a mongoose. It's really not a fair match.

This snake-killing reputation has gone so far that researchers will consciously ignore everything else in order to sic a mongoose on snakes. There were efforts to curb the Okinawan habu, another venomous snake, by introducing the mongoose. Instead, it turned out that the two species were not even active at the same time, so the mongooses helped themselves to the native bird life. This incident was so famous that it remains a roadshow staple, and even got woven into Pokemon's Zangoose and Seviper. Y'know, even though it was an epic failure.


Image cropped from a Bulbapedia scan. N.B.- Zangoose has Immunity, and an overall better stat spread than Seviper. Once again, this is not a fair match.

Speaking of epic fail, introducing a mongoose to an island for any reason is a bad idea 99% of the time. Even if your excuse is rodent or snake control, mongooses are versatile little buggers. They don't really look to kill snakes as much as honey badgers do; if there's easier prey, they'll take it. Although they can kill venomous snakes pretty easily, the same really goes for almost anything smaller than the mongoose. The Hawaiian o'-o', among other birds, fell prey to the mongoose because they had no defenses against any predators. They had originally been brought over to kill rats and other vermin, but screw that- those birds had nothing to protect them. It's like choosing from a pre-packaged steak or getting out there and shooting the cow yourself. Maybe people trying to control pests should think of things that way!

Thing is, Hawaii also has Stitch. Mongooses are pretty awesome, but Stitch is immune to everything but water. Game, set, match, mongoose.

[Unfortunately, I could not find an image of Stitch VS a mongoose. You'll have to use your imagination. ]

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Creature Feature: Zorilla.

You've all heard something like this before: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck." If something has all the makings of something you know, it probably is something you know. That's usually pretty good advice to follow. 

The problem is, nature loves trolling us. There are nonpoisonous snakes that look like poisonous ones, spiders that look almost exactly like flowers, and hell, even butterflies that are really good at looking like dead leaves. 

And then there are furry little animals that look like skunks and stink like skunks, but aren't really skunks: 



This is a zorilla (Ictonyx striatus). It's a polecat (mustelid, similar to a ferret) native to most of Africa. It eats birds, rodents, eggs, lizards, and pretty much any running thing it can sink its pointy little teeth into. They can kill after only nine weeks of being in the world. For those of you who know Spanish, we realize zorillas look almost nothing like "little foxes" and almost everything like skunks. 

Even though it's related to skunks about as much as sea otters are, the zorilla is a really, really good example of convergent evolution. Those black and white stripes warn of the exact same thing a skunk is known for: its stench. A zorilla will turn buttward before firing, so you've got fair warning. The musk is supposedly less pungent than the musk of a skunk; haven't gotten to try this one personally, sorry. Other people claim that its scent can be smelled up to half a mile away, making it the world's smelliest animal. Still, it's not a coincidence that the zorilla looks like a skunk mixed with a Petco ferret; striking markings aren't a good sign. 


(No word on whether these guys make good pets or not, by the way.) 

Zorillas are also very communicative animals. Along with turning their tails towards you before spraying, they will growl and scream before firing. Baby zorillas even have different cries for when mommy is there or not. It doesn't sound as complex as bird song, but still very neat. 

The zorilla may not really be a skunk, but it does a darn good job posing as one. Hell, skunks aren't even in the same area, and the zorilla does the same thing. It's got its work cut out for it. So, umm, even though it's not really a skunk, can't we just call it even and treat it like one, anyways? 

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"What Does The Fox Say?"

First off, let me just say that the song I am referencing in the title is very silly. "Stupid" would imply that I hate it, which is not 100% true; I appreciate a catchy hook for what it is. The video is also okay. It is, however, still a very silly song in that it is about a guy wondering what foxes say, and why there is no convenient onomatopoeia for it like "moo," "woof," or "meow."

What? You don't know what "onomatopoeia" is? Let's fix that!

"Onomatopoeia" is the fancy, English major word for "sound effects" in word form. Words that represent sounds like "bang," "wham," or "zoom" are onomatopoeia. They have no meaning aside from the sound they are representing. There, you've learned something.

Foxes actually have a great variety of calls. For all you dog and cat owners out there, no doubt you have noticed different noises for when your pet wants to play, is hungry, or is not in the mood for much of anything. Foxes have an extremely versatile vocal range. Your dog is a singing bum on the street compared to the vocal rock stars foxes are.

Take a lookie here:



That's a lot of very distinct sounds for one animal, no? No wonder nobody really knows what the fox said; they probably didn't even know it was a fox. 

Here's the "Vixen's Scream" they mentioned, complete with facial expressions:



Oh, and for all you Pokemon fans, here's what your Fennekin sounds like when it is happy:



Or, "AHMG YOU GAVE ME A POKEPUFF, YAAAAAYYYY!"

So, you tell me: What does the fox say? Write your own onomatopoeia for what the fox says below. I'm sure Ylvis got it right somewhere. He said too many different things for one of them not to hit the mark.

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Creature Feature: (Drunk) Vervet Monkeys.

There are a lot of awkward things about humans. The feet and spine are far from ideal for a biped. We can eat meat even if we really shouldn't. For some reason, liquor has been a part of human civilization since forever. If the Aquatic Ape Theory is a thing, why not a Drunk Ape Theory?



OK, fine. Those aren't apes, they're vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus).Vervet monkeys are small monkeys native to the Eastern coast of Africa. Some populations also exist on Saint Kitts, Barbados, and Nevis as a result of the African slave trade. They eat mostly vegetation. Oh, and given the chance, they will also indulge in liquor. It's not uncommon amongst primates, really. Evolution is a thing!

These particular vervet monkeys are residents of Saint Kitts Island in the Caribbean. Since their introduction, the monkeys have taken to the drinks offered at Caribbean resorts. Scientists studied the monkeys for two years. They found shockingly close parallels with human behavior that, aside from signs of blatant drunkenness, would not be obvious to the casual observer. The ratios of, say, drinkers to teetotalers are exactly the same between the vervets and humans, for example. The drunken monkeys also seem to be the popular ones, but don't give yourself alcohol poisoning trying to prove this one in humans.

Hi, I'm Lori, and my monkey's an alcoholic. Disclaimer: this ranch probably does not give its monkeys booze.


But wait! These monkeys are pretty cool when they aren't drunk, too! They have hypertension and anxiety disorders exactly as found in humans. They are also among the few animals in nature who are actually spiteful, destroying the food sources of competitors instead of consuming it themselves. Primates: so much like us, in all the wrong ways. Your mileage may vary.

Vervet monkeys are also very vocal. They are among the few non-human animals to have something resembling words: specific alarm calls for specific predators. They have a different call for snakes than they do for eagles, a different call for eagles than baboons, and so on. I don't think anybody has tried to test the effect of liquor on these calls, but it would be funny to see.

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Creature Feature: Maned Wolf.

Aww, wolves! The internet either loves or hates wolves, now.  If you love wolves, you're in good company; people will gladly roleplay wolves and/or werewolves with you. Hate them, likely due to the sheer romanticism, and a million users with "wolf" in their names will be down your throat in a torrent of furry fury. Try to look at the wolf without any bias, and you'll still have plenty of friends, but it's like carrying a match around in a room of dynamite. Wolves are cool, and I respect them as much as I do any other animal.





Wait a minute. That is not a wolf. That is a mutant fox.

Actually, it's a maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus). They are only loosely related to the "regular" wolf and slightly closer to the common red fox. Maned wolves can be found over much of South America, where they are the largest wild canid. By the way, they're carnivores, eating small animals such as rabbits, mice, and fish, but roughly half of this canine's diet is vegetable matter. Figure that one out.

The maned wolf is almost a species isolate. Its closest relative, the Falkland Islands wolf, went extinct in the late 1800's. The bush dog, also from South America, is the next best thing. Both of these canids are exotic and interesting enough to merit their own entries. There are plenty of wonderfully weird canids out there, yet most will not think outside foxes, wolves (including the domestic dog), and occasionally coyotes. Canids like the maned wolf are eye-openers to how interesting the family really is.

These wolves do not behave like gray wolves at all. They hunt solo. Those long legs are an adaptation to grasslands, unlike the stocky, cold climate build of the gray wolf.  They have a mane to buff up their profile if threatened. This is not the wolf we know; it's its own creature. Watch someone make a fursona out of it and get slammed by wolfaboos.


Snap, they're coming! Pic found on Wiki.

Along with looking bizarre, the maned wolf smells funny. It has also been called the "skunk wolf" because the scent is so distinct. Both sexes talk with their urine; a lot of animals talk with urine, but this urine has a very distinct scent. Thanks to a chemical in the urine (likely a pyrozine), the wolf tends to smell like hops, the plant used for beer, or cannabis, AKA weed. In short: These are already party animals, if the smell is any indication. The police have been fooled at least once by the scent.

The maned wolf is considered near-threatened. In the past, it has been suspected as a threat to livestock, particularly chickens. Its eyes were once considered good luck charms; one can only wonder where this idea came from. Measures by the Brazilian government have since alerted people that the wolves are not a threat and should not be hunted for their eyeballs; feral dogs remain a threat. There are a number of good captive breeding programs, so this odd canine will be around for many years to come. They are possible to keep with the proper licenses, but ask yourself: do you want your house to smell like weed and beer?


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A Week of Hogwash: Warthogs.

How on Earth could this blog possibly do a week of pigs without covering the warthog (Phacochoerus africanus)? Outside of the wild boar, warthogs are among the most famous of wild swine. I'm amazed this pig wasn't covered already, seeing as I'm a fan of Disney's Lion King. Consider this entry an insight into Pumbaa's secret life.

Talking meerkat not included.


The team behind the Lion King was not as collectively stupid as some generic "jungle animal" film producers and actually picked a wild pig that lived in Africa. Warthogs are the only pigs adapted to savannah life, being able to graze and eat darn well anything they come across (including insects - the movie got that right, too). They are so named for the "warts" on the sides of their very odd-looking faces, which are at the very least a lot stranger than the wild boar's. No prizes for beauty contests, but impressive nonetheless. There are a few species of warthog spread across the savannah of Africa, making the whole species not threatened.

Wild pigs always have very impressive heads, and warthogs are no exception. The namesake "warts" are globs of fat used for surviving tough weather and added protection when fighting fellow male warthogs. The tusks of a warthog, which curve in crescents over the snout, are sometimes used to make tourist trinkets instead of elephant ivory. The lower pair of tusks is constantly rubbing against the upper pair, whetting them like little daggers all the time. Woe to any predator in the mood for pork chops.



The warthog is more than just a not-so-pretty face. They are also quite adaptable, despite having no protection from extreme heat or cold. A warthog is able to go up for a week without water. Those fatty warts are good if food ever becomes scarce. Speaking of food, a warthog can "kneel" on its front legs to get the lowest little bits of grub. They are pigs that can go without excessive food and water - neat.

As opposed to the downright vicious wild boar, warthogs would rather run than fight. They usually flee into a burrow - either their own or someone else's - and effectively block the entrance with their visages. Four tusks are a pretty good threat. Cowardly? Maybe. Effective? Well, considering that wombats do the same thing with their butts, a head armed with pointy tusks is a step up. Good on you, Pumbaa.


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A Week of Hogwash: What Is It With Wild Boars?

If you look through old mythology, you'll notice one common thing: wild boars can be terrifying, awesome creatures. Boars were one of the mascots of Ares; whole war helmets have been made out of boar bits. Freyr, another warlike deity, has a metallic boar, Gullinbursti, as a pet. The Celts acknowledged the male boar's courage and the female boar's generosity and fecundity. They are pretty much universally acknowledged as badasses. As a reminder, they also spawned the domestic pig.

Source: Huntercourse.com.


This is what piggies (Sus scrofa) used to look like. Wild boar are native to Europe and Asia, but have since been turned loose in North America and Australia. Unlike the aurochs and wolves, wild boar are not under any threat whatsoever, being extremely fecund. They have also been domesticated since time immemorial, although exactly who decided taming hundreds of pounds of vicious pig was a good idea remains up for debate. They are omnivores and scavengers, just like most domestic pigs are.

Although the official size record for "world's largest pig species" goes to the giant forest hog, some populations of wild boar can outdo them in terms of size. European wild boar can get up to 700 pounds. Again, they also have razor-sharp tusks, charge swiftly, don't back down, and are covered in tough bristles as opposed to the relative hairlessness on domestic swine. As huntercourse.com put it, "boars will circle a human adversary, charge rampantly and attack from behind." Put a few hundred pounds onto that and you have something terrifying.



And now the part at least some of you have been waiting for: yes, wild boar hybridize freely with domestic swine. "Hogzilla" is the most famous example of a boar-pig hybrid, weighing 800 pounds and growing roughly 8 feet long. Thus far, this is still the biggest hybrid out there - and likely the biggest pig on record. Feral swine can get massive and retain all their wild behaviors; the pig is far less removed from its wild relative than, say, the dog or cow. You will never see ham the same way again.

The wild boar remains probably the most intimidating wild beast with a domesticated counterpart. A boar, male or female, will fiercely protect its piglets and charge with surprising vigor. The Year of the Pig is frequently changed to Year of the Boar in the wild counterpart's honor. The boar can still be seen on heraldic crests because it is one badass pig.

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A Week of Hogwash: Kunekune Pigs.

Pigs are one of the more common domesticated animals on the planet. They have been kept by humans since at least 11,400 B.C.E., and have had two independent instances of domestication. Able to eat almost anything, the Chinese used them almost like a garbage disposal for table scraps. With all that history, we have to have at least one weird pig breed out there...right?

Source. With piggies for sale.


Ta-da! It's a bunch of Kunekune piglets! They are all members of a rare breed from New Zealand. The breed supposedly spawned from Asian pigs brought to the Maori in the 19th century. They are known for being fuzzy, easy to handle, and surprisingly colorful for swine. The word "kunekune" means "fat and round" - an apt name for any pig, really.


Less charming as adults.


There are two main features of the Kunekune: its fur and its wattles. Unlike the more common farm swine, Kunekune are furry like wild pigs. They come in a variety of colors, including black, ginger, and white with black spots. Some Kunekune pigs also have fleshy protrusions called piri piri. They're reminiscent of the wattles on goats, but are kinda rare in pigs.



As this video from Animal Kingdom indicates, Kunekune pigs are very popular at petting zoos. They can also live just fine on grass, as opposed to foraging and tearing up lawns. It helps further that they are miniature by pig standards- they weigh 240 pounds, tops. Yes, that is indeed small for a pig. It also makes them one of the ideal pet pigs if you are so inclined.

Alas, as far as pigs go, Kunekune pigs are rare. The breed went nearly extinct in the 1980's. Breeding programs in New Zealand and the United Kingdom are the only reason Kunekune pigs are still around. If a prospective pig owner can find one, great - they're intelligent (like most pigs!) and easy to train. Just be prepared, unlike a certain member of the Simpson family - Spider-Pig does not a good pet make. 

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Creature Feature: Bongo.

Actually, those antelope in the trailer were kind of cool-looking. What were they, anyways?

Source: Allposters.com


Well, you're going to laugh. It's called a "bongo." Yes, like the drums. If you can't look at that without cracking up, its scientific name is Tragelaphus eurycerus. It is a nocturnal browser native to many parts of Africa, including Congo, Ghana, and Kenya. Kenya has a very small, unique subspecies of bongo that will come up again later.


Two things stand out about the bongo immediately: that coat and those horns. As in most animals with attractive pelts, the stripes are camouflage. The red pigment rubs off easily - so easily, it is said, that rain running off a bongo's back is stained red. Certainly a neat image, even if it is not true.



The horns are perhaps the bongo's most outstanding feature. Although looking somewhat similar to those of the eland, bongo horns twist only once and take on a sort of lyre shape. The bongo is actually one of the few species of antelope in which both sexes have rather decorative, spiraling horns. They are still larger in the male, but awesome nonetheless. Better yet, they are both functional and fashionable; a bongo's horns keep it from being caught in vegetation while running.

Oddly, there seems to be a lot of convergent evolution with the okapi going on. Both the okapi and bongo love salt licks. They also have long tongues to handle those licks. On a visual level, they are both red-brown with stripes. There was even an odd delay in discovery by Westerners. They aren't related - okapi are the only extant relatives of the giraffe while antelope are closer to cattle - but they sure evolved a lot of things in common.

As one might expect, some populations of bongo are endangered. The more common, western/lowland bongo is listed as near-threatened. Only the Eastern/mountain bongo from Kenya is in critical condition, with possibly fewer than 100 left in the wild. The usual suspects - poaching and eating - are at work. As if to put salt on the wound, bongo also have a high risk of goitre, i.e. they die from malfunctioning thyroid. Habitat destruction is another big factor in almost every endangered species. This one is no exception. Although  an interesting species of antelope,bonoshould probably be avoided in post-apocalyptic scenarios.

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Newsflash: Polar Bears Not As Threatened As We Thought?

Since global warming was made a thing by Al Gore, the polar bear has been its spokesperson. We were, well, not thrilled to see the polar bear put on the endangered species list, but kind of glad it got there so as to raise awareness of global climate change.

But are they really that threatened?



It sounds like a silly question. After all, the polar bear is an environmentalism mascot, just like pandas, tigers, and whales. They're one of those animals every zoo either has or tries to get because the species is going out of fashion in the natural world.

Then this tidbit came up on NPR. Recently, a writer went to the Arctic to write about polar bears. While there, he found an honest scientist who kindly showed him some polar bear droppings.The droppings revealed that the polar bear, which according to the interwebs has a diet consisting largely of seals, was also fond of goose meat and reindeer- Christmas dinner, if you will. (If we had more citations, we would give them.)

And yet, we cannot find this blurb on the internet. It made it to National Public Radio, but the surprisingly diverse diet of the polar bear has not yet crept onto the interwebs. Consider it crawling around, now. Treat it as a rumor if you like; it will get confirmed/debunked eventually.
The absence of this information on the internet baffles us, even when it shouldn't. Considering how many places say that the polar bear mainly eats seals, surely this would revolutionize something.

There are a few reasons why this hasn't gotten out, assuming its truth to begin with.  Facilities who have polar bears want to make them as big a draw as possible, which means making the bears sound rarer and more fragile than they actually are. Hell, zoos have a special "polar bear diet" that I'm pretty sure does not consist entirely of seal meat (Google it). There's something shady going on.

Don't get us wrong. The polar bear is still under legitimate threat from global warming. It's just not quite as bad as we thought.

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Creature Feature: Chevrotain.

Life is interesting. Sometimes it even completely surprises you, unearthing things you never thought possible.  Then there are things that come right the eff out of nowhere and make you wonder what you're on. That's what this blog is all about: freeing your mind with stuff you never knew was there.



This, good followers, is a mouse-deer (Tragulidae). It is also called a "chevrotain," which sounds like Chevy's latest attempt to appeal solely to the female demographic. There are four extant genera, with more being discovered and named every so often. Locations include Asia, Africa, and India. The English name "chevrotain" is actually French meaning "little goat." An Indian word means "deer and a pig." That's how crazy this thing is. It can't even decide what animal it's most like.

And why should it? Chevrotain are very primitive creatures, having not changed in over 34 million years. Chevrotain are probably close to what the first ruminant ungulate looked like. Ruminants include deer, cattle, sheep, and most cloven-hoofed animals except swine. Whales were once ungulates, too, so this little guy is related to Flipper. Sure, it's distant, but the little chevrotain like water enough to make it a distinct possibility.

Keen readers will notice that pigs are not ruminants. The chevrotain, being a transitional beast, has some piglike traits. Like pigs, both sexes of chevrotain have elongated canine teeth and no horns. The herbivore parts are there, but not quite complete. Chevrotain will also scavenge meat alongside botanical diets. They're "deer and pigs" as in India. Somebody got it right.

I wonder how many creationists know about this thing? It looks like the fossil record may well fill itself if this keeps up. Evidence of life being amazing happens every day. Look around for it.

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Creature Feature: Glyptodon.

Cool though MonHunt may be, the majority of its monsters are reptilian. This tends to be a running theme with monsters in general; insectoids and reptiles are strange enough to scare most people, so, with the oddball exception of wolves, mammals don't show up in many horror movies. Maybe it's about time we fixed that.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.


Well, here's a strange mammal for you! It's a Glyptodon, and was native to South America in the Pleistocene Epoch. That's the same time when all the mammals we know and love, including people, were in odd, freakish proto-forms. Luckily, we're petty sure this one's an herbivore. There were four species in the genus, each of which can be identified by the patterns on the shell.

Armadillos are already strange little things. This is a prehistoric armadillo- that usually means it's bigger and even freakier. Glyptodon was about the size and weight of a Volkswagon Beetle. Let that sink in a minute: an armadillo the size and weight of a small car. OK, minute over.

Unlike modern armadillos, Glyptodon did not have a flexible shell. Its shell was so rigid that its spine was fused to the thing, much like a modern-day turtle's. Glyptodon was capable of tucking its armored head and tail over its vulnerable underbelly, making itself an unappetizing rock of a mammal. This is considered convergent evolution, as ankylosaurs and turtles share similar adaptations.

One thing we aren't sure on concerning this beast is its face. There's a space in its skull for a nose, but we aren't sure what kind of nose it had. The best guess is a tapir-ish trunk. Soft tissue doesn't preserve well, so a proboscis like that is a legitimate guess. Have fun seeing it in your nightmares.

The Glyptodon probably went extinct because of humans. As we've said before, wherever humans live, megafauna tends to die. It's nothing personal - it just tends to happen. Since humans were around for this, you'd expect drawings...but nope. Plushies, however, are a thing:

Source.


Don't be afraid to think outside the box. There were Glyptodon in Ice Age, and we're sure GameFreak could make a Pokemon out of this. There are plenty of strange mammals, both living and dead. Not everything has to be bugs and reptiles.

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So While I Figure Out DropBox...

...have a video of amazing rat tricks. Because, yes, rodents are trainable.



Tomorrow's post will be pic-heavy. Very, very pic-heavy.

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Killer Cute: Koalas.

Is there anything cuter than a koala? No; koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), which by the way are eucalyptus-munching Australian marsupials, look more like teddy bears than actual bears.  It's really hard to take a koala seriously. A koala could tell us that Yurlungr is awakening and the world will end as a result, but we'd bee too busy melting into baby talk to care. Awww, wookit his widdle head!



Oh, wait. Shoot, it's from Australia, the land where everything wants to disembowel you! Run for your life- KOALAS!

Actually, they aren't that bad. Koalas just have killer claws. These claws can dig into the bark of trees no problem; imagine, for a second, what they could do to your soft flesh. There are innumerable bacteria that will make those claw marks even nastier. Also, they can bite, but anything with a mouth can bite. Anything "stuffed animal" suddenly went out the window with those claws.

From scienceblog.com. Point made regardless.


Then there's the thing called a drop bear. Certain subspecies of koala have evolved into carnivorous little buggers that drop from their perches onto the unsuspecting Americans below. Rumor has it that wearing forks on your head or smearing Vegemite behind your ears can ward off drop bears, but don't hold your breath. Luckily, dropbears are about as real as jackalopes. You may take the forks out of your hair, now.

Here's the real deal: Koalas are slow, stupid, and usually asleep. 80% of their day is spent asleep. Their brains do not fit in their fuzzy little heads because they are so small. Anyone unfortunate enough to get hit by a koala who fell out of a tree was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's not like these things are out to get us.

While not as dramatic as the hippo, koalas can still be very nasty animals. Approach wild koalas with caution. They may look like teddy bears, but they have claws like real bears. You don't know where they've been. On the bright side, at least they cannot crush your head with their rears like our friend the wombat. Now that is lethal cute.

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Killer Cute: Hippos.

Picture a hippopotamus for a minute. The image that immediately came to mind was probably one of a cute, chubby animal with a wide snout, huge nostrils, tiny ears, and maybe even buck teeth. Often, they are colored in pastels, as if a chubby herbivore was not cartoony enough.

Even the CUTE hippos can kill you.
But wait. Remember, this is the week where "cute" meets "AAAHH WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN!"  That means that, yes, hippos have some insanely dark stories around them. Steve Irwin was able to tangle with crocs and venomous snakes, but would not go anywhere near hippos. That is the kind of nasty we are dealing with.

Oh my, has pop culture misinformed us about hippos. Virtually all that they have gotten right is that hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius)  are found in sub-Saharan Africa, and that the word "hippopotamus" means "river horse." They are also indeed herbivores despite being on this column. That cute, pudgy hippo is still a death machine waiting to happen, and it is not funny in the least.

If animals had stat cards like baseball players, we would be able to see that the hippo is not built for cuddles. It is a massive creature weighing around 8,000 pounds, capable of running 18 mph, and sporting teeth that would sent a pit bull whimpering into the nearest dark corner. Despite having no real armor, a hippo regularly takes damage from other hippos.  Not only are they tanks, they are mean, heavy tanks. Any human who gets between a hippo and her calf are in for a rude awakening. Then death.



Although a hippo could kill a person by simply by sitting, that is certainly not their weapon of choice. They have been known to capsize boats and, umm, bite people down to their torsos. Hippos have huge, powerful jaws with teeth that pierce a human exactly as well as a rail spike with a ton of power behind it. Vlad the Impaler and Genghis Khan would be proud.

Aside from having nasty tempers, hippos have a few other charming behaviors. As this little dog-bean will tell you, hippo sweat is pink. For a long time, people thought that hippos actually sweat blood; it's really more like a sunblock/disinfectant, and while that sounds like an excellent thing to find at your local Walgreen's, "Hippo Sweat Sunblock" would not leave the shelves. They need this disinfectant for several reasons including another lovely habit called a "dung shower." This is exactly what it sounds like: a hippo whirling dung around with its short tail, preferably over other hippos. And people wonder why hippos are never desired as pets.

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Killer Cute: The Slow Loris, Revisited.

(Apologies on the lateness for this entry. I actually have no idea why this bugger took me so long. It feels like I've been a bit off-kilter since Florida. That said, this did provide an idea for the Easter theme week: Killer Cute.)

Hey, remember two years ago when this blog covered the super-cool, unique primate called the slow loris? In 2012, the BBC released a documentary with new information concerning this cute, cuddly YouTube star. It turns out several corrections need to be made to that old entry, but the meat of that documentary is enough to say "screw it, let's just do another entry."



First off, it turns out that slow lorises are not that slow. They, like the gremlins the documentary compares them to, hate bright lights, and move slower because of it. In actuality, they are lightning-fast furballs that can snatch any little thing that moves. That said, they are also more predatory than previously thought, although the fangs and forward-facing eyes should have been a giveaway.

The scientist in this video has one question on her mind: Why are lorises poisonous? It's a good question, seeing as lorises are the only venomous primates and among the very few venomous mammals. The "how" seems to come from the loris's diet, much like how monarch butterflies are poisonous because the larvae eat milkweed. The "why" is a lot harder to figure out, and almost enters the realm of horror movies.

Pygmy Slow Loris- it's even cuter when it's small!


It turns out that this venom has a number of purposes. One, again as with monarch butterflies, the venom makes the loris smell and taste awful. Two, it prevents wounds from healing, making anything it envenomates susceptible to infection and necrosis. Lorises can use the venom in male-to-male combat, meaning that any battle-damaged lorises will die sooner rather than later. Creepier still, Indonesian natives figured out that things that the loris touched didn't heal, so they opted to coat their battle blades in loris blood. They are more terrified of loris venom than snakebite, and we're talking about a rainforest island chain with more venomous snakes than the entire U.S. of A. Screw Houndoom's supposed eternal burns; that's chilling.


I am going to keeeel you.



The documentary also takes a heartbreaking look at an exotic pet market in Indonesia. Conditions in the trade are hot, cramped, and smelly. Lorises and other endangered species can be gotten for a song. All slow lorises are taken from the wild; the documentary would probably have shown us adorable, well-tended baby lorises had any been available.

While I personally do not agree with this treatment, I do see the trade in general as a sort of inevitability. It's silly to think that humans would not try to expand the possibilities of domesticating animals. Anyone who thinks "get a cat or dog" is the acceptable answer to any exotic pet query is kidding themselves; menageries go back at least as far as the European monarchy, and conditions of zoos and the like have gotten better, not worse, through repeated interaction with "wild" animals. We know more about handling animals than we did way back when.

Some animals make good pets; others do not. The slow loris sounds like it is firmly in the "not" category, being venomous, smelly, loud, and not able to breed in captivity. Don't let that adorable YouTube video fool you. There are plenty of other exotic mammals that have proven to breed in captivity, if not make great pets. Wolves and skunks have a better track record in that regard than slow lorises.

You know that Killer White Rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail? That's what the slow loris is, for real. It's a cute fuzzy thing that kills people. The natives know it as a lethal, mystical animal that is to be feared despite its cuteness, and occasionally trap it for tourists. Scientists treat it as a mysterious creature that we need to learn a lot more about. The rest of the world see it as nothing more than the most memetic animal since LOLCats. Could LOLris be up next on the horizon? Hopefully not.

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Creature Feature: Egyptian Fruit Bat.



 At Brookfield Zoo, there used to be a cage of free-flight fruit bats. Ah, memories, sure, people got urinated on, but it was an amazing experience. Still, we never got good shots like in this video. My admiration of that camera work and that bat knows no bounds.

Bart up there is an Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus). It has a very wide range, spanning from Africa to Pakistan and India. As the name would imply, it eats fruit - insect-damaged fruit at that. This is pretty average as far as fruit bats go. In fact, it's small by fruit bat standards. That just makes it, well...adorable.



Egyptian fruit bats are among the very few megabats to use echolocation. Bats 101: echolocation is a means of using sound like sight. The best way I have seen it described would be like a blindfolded human bouncing a tennis ball against a wall to "see" exactly how far away said wall is; it is a difficult thing for humans to imagine. We utilize a similar method in the form of sonar. It looks like these bats can probably see and smell fairly well, too. They also communicate vocally amongst themselves, meaning that a roosting colony can get very chatty indeed.

Anyone who loves bats can tell you how ecologically-important they are. For fruit bats, that significance is on par with hummingbirds and bees: they're pollinators and seed dispersers. In the case of Egyptian fruit bats, they help keep the baobab population up. The trees are more endangered than the actual bats. They still do not deserve to be poisoned on sight; we just happen to have coinciding tastes in food. 

Egyptian fruit bats can be found in the exotic pet trade and are considered one of the easier bats to keep. They breed readily in captivity, but you need at least ten to constitute a colony, as well as space enough for a walk-in cage. They are not recommended for your average person. There is absolutely no need to buy an import if you really want one; in fact, wild fruit bats may carry a disease similar to Ebola, so best avoid imports entirely.  Better still, however, buy a bat house for your backyard. Enjoy some wild bats before attempting to keep them.

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Megafauna Week: Baluchitherium.

This is it. This is the big one. No, really, I've ended this week with one of the biggest mammals of all time. Anyone who knows their paleos probably saw the grand finale coming from a mile away. For those of you who have no idea what Baluchitherium is, however, feast your eyes:



The behemoth above is a titan among titans. It is one of perhaps a few different indricotheres, or "holy CARP that is a big mammal." Just like with the Elasmotherium, indricotheres were related to rhinoceroses. We're pretty sure this one was a browser, making this gigantic beast the unofficial bastard child of a rhinoceros and a giraffe. Its name comes from the first specimen being discovered in Baluchistan, Pakistan. It lived during the Oligocene epoch- 34-23 million years ago. It probably inspired a great deal of monsters if any survived alongside humans.

The first thing that one will notice when researching indricotheres is that the classification is very, very hazy. The species are distinguished by subtle skeletal differences. Paleontologists debate whether this is sexual dimorphism, maturity, or indeed different species from the same genus. Thus the same creature (more or less) has different names, including Baluchitherium, Paraceratherium, and Indricotherium. It's hard to identify distinct species when they can't make babies anymore. We think they're all the same genus.

Baluchitherium was the largest land mammal known. It averaged 5 meters (16 feet) at the shoulder and 8 meters (~26 feet) from nose to rear. The image above showed exactly how small a human was relative to this beast. No matter how many measurements I give, it will not do this creature justice. Just...look at this thing:

From Wiki, and apparently taken at the Tokyo Natural History Museum. Japan really does have giant monsters.


As the largest land mammal ever, Baluchitherium has made quite a dent in popular culture. It has been featured on prehistoric nature shows, sure, but the influence extends beyond that. This behemoth was the inspiration for the AT-AT Walkers in Star Wars, and it shows. The Digimon "SkullBaluchimon" is unfortunately a misnomer; it just barely looks like Baluchitherium, although its backstory as being made of counterfeit fossils justifies the dissimilarity. Does this mean we would be any less scared to encounter a Baluchitherium, much less a digital skeleton of one, in a dark alley? Of course we'd still be scared shitless! This is the biggest mammal in Earth's history, dead or alive.

It'll haunt you in your nightmares, too.



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Megafauna Week: Elasmotherium.

Ah, unicorns.  What would be cooler than meeting a unicorn? Wouldn't it be awesome if unicorns were, y'know, real? Then that unicorns VS zombies book would actually have some merit, and bronies would not be up in our faces anymore.

The good news: Macro Polo saw one. Here's what he wrote:

They have wild elephants and plenty of unicorns, which are scarcely smaller than elephants. They have the hair of a buffalo and feet like an elephant’s. They have a single large black horn in the middle of the forehead . . . They are very ugly brutes to look at. They are not at all such as we describe them when we relate that they let themselves be captured by virgins, but clean contrary to our notions.

It has long since been decided that Marco Polo was describing a rhinoceros, not a pretty white unicorn found on some chick's binder. Still, fossil evidence suggests that the traveler may have been onto something:

Chaaarrrlliiiiieee!


If the narwhal and oryx were not inspiration for the unicorn, one might suggest fossil evidence of the Elasmotherium, a relative of the rhinoceros. It lived from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene, and may have been around as recently as 50,000 years ago - old enough for a few people to have seen it and drawn it in caves. They spanned much of Asia and into Europe.

The most outstanding trait of this giant herbivore was the single horn on its face. Although "unicorn" or "monoceros" may refer to almost anything with one horn, only Elasmotherium has the horn placed right where the modern notion of "unicorn" has it - on the forehead. It was characterized as being capable of galloping based on having longer legs than most rhinoceros-like animals. We think it ate grass like a horse, too. Even with narwhals and oryx around, the Elasmotherium strikes one as a very likely basis for unicorns indeed.

Cave drawing from France.


So just how big was the real unicorn? Think 15-16 feet from head to tail. A basketball player could barely reach the top of its shoulder. It weighed 3-4 tons. Although far from the petite, slender creature depicted everywhere nowadays, Elasmotherium was still pretty amazing as far as unicorns go. Sorry, Twilight Sparkle was completely made up.

Cheer up, fantasy fans. Unicorns were once real. Sure, they weren't the prancing ponies we know today, but they were still around. The best part is, you'll never see a Christian arguing that unicorns never existed; they're in the Bible.
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