Monday, December 19, 2005

Animal of the Week of the Year, 2005

Dear All,
I don't really believe I have been doing this for a whole year... this time last year, there were four people on the mailing list for my sporadic nonsensical outpourings. Little would I have believed you if you'd told me that 12 months hence there would be over 130 people receiving said nonsense (it may not sound like many, but I'm impressed). Still here we are. Thanks to everyone who voted, the results are now in! There was an early surge centred around a certain Kennington residence for the flammulated owl (24/01/05). However, as in the fable of the hare and the tortoise, slow and solid voting for Brian Sewellel (the mountain beaver [25/07/05]) took this weepy eyed bundle of fluff out into the lead. The mountain beaver managed to fight of the challenge mounted by the Sunda stink badger (04/04/05), but in the end was bested by your Animal of the Week of the Year, 2005: the wholphin (18/04/05)! I had a look and can't find any updates on the health or the name of the do-wholphin calf, but nevermind. Anyway, that's me done for this year, have lovely holidays/new years. See you in 2006.
Ta,
Pxx

Hello Lovelies,
This week's animal of the week is a tricky one, normally I just rattle off the latin name, put the common name in brackets after, and then launch into the informative and entertaining text about the animals. But, in a break with style, this is not about a whole species, rather it's about Kekaimalu and her un-named daughter -- the world's only known wholphins!

19-year-old Kekaimalu was born from an unholy union between a female bottle-nosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and a male false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens). Now, the saucy thing has gone and had a female calf with another bottle nosed dolphin. Typically species hybrids are infertile (mules, for example, so rarely are able to have offspring that such an event is considered a portent of Armageddon in parts of north Africa), so no-one expected the only wholphin to be able to reproduce.

The convention for naming hybrids (mule doesn't fit obviously) is to combine the first part of the sire species' common name with the latter part of the dam species' common name, hence wholphin (male whale, female dolphin)--in researching this week's animal I came across the example of li-liger (cat sired by a lion with liger dam [male lion X female tiger]), so really the calf is a do-wholphin! Other hybrids include ligers and tigons, leguars, lijaguleps (I kid you not). Some of you may be interested in this website, which contains, among the many battles, an account of a fight between a lijagulep and a giant anteater http://www.bobsanimalfights.com/index.html. I do not believe it to be true.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Animal of the Week December 12, 2005 -- Cat monkey

This week's animal of the week has to be the new carnivore discovered in Borneo. With so little information available it's difficult to know what to say, it has no name, there are only two pictures of it caught by motion-triggered cameras, and for all we know may never be seen again. But how great is it that there are still things left to be discovered?

Southeast Asia is one of the hotspots of new discoveries; a more usual way to discover new species is dead in food markets, as with the Saola (a strange antelope like animal) in Vietnam and a primitive rodent related to procupines in Borneo.

This new thing, is likely to be a viverrid. Other viverrids include civets, genets, and bintourongs (AOTW 27/06/05). I also attach images of a fossa (left), a Madagascan viverrid that resembles the new one more by convergence than relation (I guess) and a linsang (right), which is spotted but lives in the same area as the new species. Fossas, Linsang, and other viverrids spend a lot of time up trees, so who knows, maybe as they cut them all down to replace them with a palm plantation they'll discover a load more new species just as they die out.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Animal of the Week December 05, 2005 -- March of the penguins

If 2005 is going to be remembered for one animal (assuming Siegfried and Roy don't get back on stage in the next few weeks), it's going to be this week's animal Aptenodytes forsteri (emperor penguin). March of the Penguins (La Marche de l'Empereur) belly flops onto UK cinema screens on Friday, so I thought it high time to acknowledge these monochrome wonders.

The largest living penguin species, emperors are the only vertebrates to brave the Antarctic winter, choosing to breed on pack ice or land 100 km from the edge of the Southern Ocean. I've not yet seen this film (naturally I can hardly contain my excitement), but the remarkable journey of monogamous couples, their dedication to the family that means the male loses nearly half his bodyweight waiting for the egg to hatch then goes to replenish his reserves while the fatted female goes through a similar weight loss (think Oprah Winfrey dressed as a nun), and the cooperation between the penguins huddling together for warmth has inspired Christian bods to claim this as evidence of God's work. Messages of love, perseverence, positivity, and the existence of a creator are the very fabric of this film by all acounts, and US Christian groups block bought tickets for it because they think (a) it promotes christian values of mongamy and dedication to the family and (b) it is evidence of intelligent design by an omnipotent being, because only an all knowing creator could create a situation in which 120 cm tall birds trek 70 miles across frozen wastelands to stand their ground through the harshest weather in order to raise one chick. I contend their point on two main grounds: first I've never once heard mention of the chritsian values of having feathers and existing solely on a diet of squid; second that's just not intelligent design, it's bloody stupid design—for a start an intelligent designer wouldn't come up with flightless birds. Furthermore, they're not even monogamous, each year they pair up differently.

There are a couple of great Christian film-review websites, checkout the WISDOM score on the Capalert site (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/marchofthepenguins.htm; http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2005/marchofthepenguins2005.html). Not wanting to bombard you with Christian propaganda (apparently bona fide male geese are also evidence of God's work [booom boooom]), here's a counterpoint to the intelligent design theory in the website http://www.venganza.org/ (see why global warming has caused a decline in pirates).

Anyway, that's it from me, what a big one. Next week I'm going to start the end-of-year review proceedings and would like your suggestions of your favourite animals of the week of 2005. I'll send a complete list so you can pick ones you didn't get if you only recently joined.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Animal of the Week November 28, 2005 -- Baby Luv

Ahhh, Paris, Miss Hilton, isn't she lovely? The shiny, fragrant, and spookily expressionless Paris Hilton has worked tirelessly over the past few years to raise awareness of off-the-wall animal companions. From Tinkerbell the chihauha that seems to have more eyes than it has room for them, to Cinderella the ferret adopted after filming an advert with it, to that weird pig thing, Nicole Ritchie. Paris' latest pet, Baby Luv, has inspired this week's animal of the week Potos flavus (kinkajou).

Baby Luv made headlines recently as he set about Paris' face during a shopping trip to Agent Provocateur; fortunately for the hospitality millionairess, no major harm was done and Miss Hilton went on to spend $4000 on underwear and a bull whip. In many reports Baby Luv has been described as a monkey, but that's because celebrity columnists don't give a fig about zoological accuracy. Kinkajous are actually procyonids, the family that contains racoons (OK), coatis (yeah?), cacomistles (really!), olingoes (they do exist), and (in some classifications) pandas, not monkeys at all. Maybe their prehensile tails, a similarity shared with new-world primates, has led to this confusion, but the tail is convergent evolution not a trait shared due to common ancestry. Primarily frugivorous (fruit eating), kinkajous also like honey and for this and their light golden pelage they are known as honey bears.

Paris Hilton is not the first person to own a kinkajou, they are quite popular exotic pets, but if you are thinking about getting one of your own you will need a large cage (the size of a bathroom) be prepared to spend quality time with them, clean their housing once a day, feed them loads of fruit and occasional yogurts, and put up with their nocturnal lifestyle. To help you converse about kinkajous with people all over the world, below is a list of other nationalities' words for kinkajou.

As these animals are Central and South American in origin, it's no surprise that there are six Mexican words for kinkajou, what I do find odd is that there are four Norwegian words for kinkajou—any suggestions as to why this might be would be gratefully received.

Mandarin Chinese: mi xiong
Polish: Kinkażu, wikławiec, chwytacz
Czech: kynkażu
Hungarian: kinkaju
Dutch: Rolstaartbeer, Kinkajoe
German: Wickelbär
Danish: snøhalebjørn, honnigbjørn
Norwegian: viklebjørn, honningbjørn, gripehalebjørn, snohalebjørn
Swedish: veckelbjörn, kinkaju, gripsvansbjörn
Finnish: kierteishäntäkarhu
Portugeuse: kinkajú, jupará, macaco-de-noite
Esperanto: kinkajuo, rul-vosta urso
Italian: cercoletto giallo
Spanish: mico leon, mico de noche, martucha
Mexico: marta, martucha, tancho, oso mielero, godoy, mico de noche
Honduras: micoleón, guatuza
Belize: nightwalker, martilla
Nicaragua: mico de noche, cuyusa, cuyu[s] (Matagalpa region)
Costa Rica: martilla
Panama: cusumbi, mico de noche, gato del noche, guiso
French Guiana: singe de nuit
Suriname: meti-keskesi
Venezuela: cuchicuchi, pui-pui, mono de noche
Colombia: perro de monte, oso mielero, micoleón, leoncillo, leoncito, cuchicuchi
Ecuador: martica, tutamono, chuche, cuchicuchi, cusumbo
Bolivia: mono michi
Peru: chosna, martucha, chuchumli
Brazil: jupará, macaco-de-noite
Chile: kinkqeos
Miskito: uyuk
Warao: simo anahorotu, simo anajorotu
Maya: akabmaax

Monday, November 21, 2005

Animal of the Week November 21, 2005 -- Harry Potter's Eagle owls of Yorkshire

Another Harry Potter film, another flurry of news about owls. The exciting news for British peoples this time is that the world's largets owl is breeding in the UK! Bubo bubo (Eurasian eagle owl) is thought to have bred in the UK until about 200 years ago, when persecution by gamekeepers and farmers drove it to extinction. However, a pair have been breeding on the North York Moors for the past 8 years and there is also a breeding pair in Northumberland.

Standing about 70 cm tall, with a wingspan of nearly 2 m, and weighing up to 4.5 kg, these birds are large (unlike the previous owl Animal of the Week -- flammulated owls which are small). Not only the largest owl, Eurasian eagle owls are the world's most widespread owls: found from Japan to portugal and from Finland to the Sahara. They prey on pretty much anything they bloody well choose up to the size of small deers, and since the UK ban of hunting with dogs, several hunts have tried to use these birds to hunt foxes.

Where the birds now breeding in the UK came from is something of a mystery, some people suggest they've been released by people who had been keeping them as pets. Others think they might have crossed the channel of their own accord, tempted by generous benefits and employment opportunities. The latin name, Bubo, is not, as far as I can tell, related to bubo, the plague symptom (from middle Latin for swelling from Greek for groin), rather it is just the Latin name for horned owl.

Many thanks to everyone who let me know what cute animal they are. More of you were ducks or monkeys than any other animals.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Animal of the Week November 14, 2005 -- Pouchy fluffy wuffkins

Hewo,
Dis week's animal is a wittle fluffy wuffkins from Australia Petaurus breviceps (sugar glider) and it's just about the cutestest ickle fing in the whole wide world.

Like most mammals from Australia it's a marsupial, which means it raises it's babies in a pouch (marsupium) after they are born in a very undeveloped state. One of the commonest marsupials, there are seven subspecies found from Papua New Guinea, all the way down the east coast of the mainland, and in Tasmania (where they were probably introduced a hundred or so years ago). They dine on a diet of insects, birds, eggs, fruit, nectar, pollen, and sap; big fans of sweet foods, they gnaw into eucalyptus trees to release a stream of lovely sweet sap.

As well as liking sugar, sugar gliders, glide. A fold of skin, the patagium, extends between forelimb and hind limb. Luckily for sugar gliders they have a patagium (like Mis-Teeq's classic 2001 album was Lickin') on both sides. Another thing that male sugar gliders, like most marsupials, have two of is winkies—it's actually just one organ that is bifurcated, but it serves as two. I will say no more on this, there may be children reading.

The mentalist who designed this online quiz missed a trick not including sugar gliders as a cute animal, but why not find out what cute animal you are (they don't really go into species details or anything so it's not really that informative, and he/she thinks that frogs are cute, so not that accurate; but, as they used to say in French colonial Vietnam, a mindless diversion is as good as a wink to a three legged washstand). http://www.cuteducky.com/cute_animal_quiz.html

My result

You Are A: Frog! [Keeper: Thanks!]
Independent yet still part of a large community, frogs are unique creatures known for their distinctive sound and ability to hop. As a frog, you spend your days sitting on lily pads or climbing trees, searching for delicious insects to eat. While there are some frogs that aren't exactly cute, you are certainly not one of those!

[Keeper: actually, most of it's quite accurate, except the insects thing]

Monday, November 07, 2005

Animal of the Week November 07, 2005 -- Flightless midges from the freezer

Greetings Animal Fans
Sorry for the lateness, but I was on holiday yesterday you see, I had the good fortune to catch a little daytime tv and watch Mary Queen of Scots with Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson, what a film!

This week's animal of the week is Belgica antarctica (Antarctic wingless midge). As the weather refuses to turn properly cold in the UK and athletes ran the New York marathon wearing sunglasses and sunscreen and in danger of overheating, I thought I'd invoke some chilly thoughts by doing one of the world's hardiest animals. This midge is, improbably, Antarctica's largest land animal (penguins and seals spend more time in water than on ice or land -- Belgica is confined to the land).

Other permanent animal residents of the southernmost continent include mites, lice, springtails, and tardigrades but this behemidge dwarfs them all at 12 mm in length. They are able to survive 70% dehydration and temperatures below –50 centigrade for months on end. They spend 2 years as larvae building up reserves for their 10 day adulthood in which they enjoy the pleasures of the chitin and ensure the continued existence of their species.

Like their extended larval stage and dark colouration, winglessness is an adaptation to their environment in which animals foolish enough to take off are likely to be blown out to sea by violent winds. Few people are ever going to see such a creature; but, unpreposessing as they are, chufties to Antarctic wingless midges, the most sotherly living of all the true insects. In this week's picture the ickle-wickle larvae are huddling together, not for warmth, but to prevent moisture loss.... aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.

Monday, October 31, 2005

Animal of the Week October 31, 2005 -- Hallowe'en special

Crank up the dry ice, buy some laxative chocolates for the trick-or-treaters, and arm yourself with a tacky plastic skull on a stick, it's Halloween -- and in a rare, themed edition, this week's animal of the week is Desmodus rotundus (common vampire bat) **lightening flashes, torrential rain begins**.

These most ghoulish of all creatures sicken me with their devilry, which I shall herein describe. On dark, still, tropical nights in Central and South America, vampire bats are abroad (as in out and about, not on holiday). Flitting along close to the ground, by use of echolocation and smell the bats locate sleeping farm animals, such as innocent lambs. Once they have selected their hapless victim, they land on the ground and using their unholy heat sensors locate blood vessels close to the skin. Vampire bats then use razor sharp fangs to slash a throbbing vein; chemicals in their saliva anaesthetise the wound and stop the blood from clotting while they gorge themselves.

Having had their fill, with blood-smattered chops and fangs scintillating in the moonlight, the bats return to their roosts where they cower from the just light of dawn. At about the size of a human thumb with a 30 cm wingspan, these evil beasts are the scourge of godly (as in holy not as in Kevin Godley and Lol Creme) pastoralists of Latin America. They live in rank clusters of up to 40 individuals in hollow trees, if a vampire bat is unsuccessful in its attempts to find a blood feast one evening it will rapidly starve to death, fortunately one of its contemptible neighbours will regurgitate some of its sickening supper to sustain the other to the next evening. The altruism* shown by these filthy winged demons of the tropical night is clearly a mockery of all that is good.
Felicitous Samhain!
*Not completely selfless, this is an example of reciprocal altruism: bats that feed another one night can expect to receive the same service should they fail to find food one night, and bats that get fed but never feed, will eventually be ignored by their roostmates.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Animal of the Week October 24, 2005 -- Shhh, daddy's got a headache

The sun seemed reluctant to rise on the cold grey October morning. Peter, feeling the effects of excess in every tissue, sinew, and ventricle of his body, sought the one thing that might help him to regain some sense of wellbeing, a smoked salmon (Salmo salar) bagel. Normally shunning such corporate ventures (preferring to patronise more independent sandwich makers) in his weakened and needy state, Peter turned into the Pret A Manger by The Oxford Arms. At the early hour, many of the shelves were empty, not yet stocked for the day, instead signs in the spaces happily declared that if customers couldn't see what they wanted they could ask the staff at the counter who would be pleased to make a sandwich if the ingredients were available.
"Er, hi", Peter slurred.
"Good morning", responded the girl behind the counter, trying her best to sound happy about being in Pret at 8.30 on a dark Monday morning in October.
"Could you do me a smoked salmon bagel?"
"Sorry, we haven't got any smoked salmon, we haven't had the main delivery yet."

Disappointed, Peter turned around and walked from the shop. Standing on the street a short walk from his office, Peter contemplated going into work to see if the canteen could sort him out, but on previous occasions when he had wanted a smoked salmon bagel, the office canteen had been unable to provide, and he really wanted that bagel, so he decided to see if Boots, Marks and Spencer, B2, Somerfield, the other Pret, or Sainsbury's could provide. Walking from let down to frustration via serious disgruntlement, Peter lurched around the streets of Camden. For twenty minutes or so he sought his sandwich, and for twenty minutes his hunger grew without a glimmer of satisfaction.

Venturing up Parkway in the hope that some unknown cafe would appear before his eyes, Peter was giving up hope, resigning himself to toast and marmite from the Canteen. The miracle Parkway cafe did not materialise, and with slumped shoulders, slumped attitude, and slumped expectations for the day the crestfallen young man turned onto Gloucester Avenue. Six men in burgundy boiler suits and high-visibility tunics were involved in the vital public service of scraping moss from between the paving stones outside Alan Bennett's house; what a waste, Peter thought.

A man with a well-coiffed lion-mane of hair walked a few steps in front down Inverness Street; Peter regarded him jealously as he pondered his own itchy manky scalp sparsely covered in fine hair. Peter's stomach growled. With leaden legs and leaden heart our subject trudged up the steps to his office and entered the realm of his ritual demoralisation, or work, as it was sometimes called.

After dropping off his bag and coat and picking up his mug, Peter headed down to the canteen to get some toast. Opening the door he inspected sandwich shelves, a last ditch display of optimism. Golden brown, oozing cream cheese, divided by a pale pink line of cured fish flesh, packed in plastic, there it was. With mixed feelings of elation, anger, and nausea, Peter allowed himself to be ripped off by the thieving shets at the canteen. Having consumed the bagel, Peter felt sick. It was one of those days.

There are many species of salmon. I am guessing that in the bagel was Atlantic salmon. This assumption is rash.

Back in January (oh my god I have been doing this for nearly a year) I nominated tigers as animal of the week after seeing one kill a crocodile on the tv, I sent a picture of a statue of a generic big cat (probably more lion-like) killing a crocodile. Here, finally, is a website with the video http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/1083/Croc_Vs_Tiger.html. Thank you very much for this Mr Graham-Brown. Although, typically of today, it's not working. Shet!

Monday, October 17, 2005

Animal of the Week October 17, 2005 -- Um Bongo, Um Bongo, They drink it in the Congo

Good day one and all.

This week's animal of the week is the marmoset that works for Libby's, manufacturer of popular 1980s soft drink Um Bongo. Apologies to those of you who are unfamiliar with the classic advert, but the anotated song lyrics below describe how the drink is made.

Way down deep in the middle of the Congo*, a hippo (AOTW: is this a full size hippo [Hippopotamus amphibius] or pygmy [Hexaprotodon liberiensis]? My guess is full sized, pygmy hippos live in west Africa, possibly getting as far east as Nigeria, but not known in the Congo) took an apricot, a guava and a mango. He stuck it with the others, and he danced a dainty tango. The rhino (AOTW: black [Diceros bicornis] or white [Ceratotherium simum]? Two species live in Africa, none are known from the Congo, prefering savanah/scrub habitat, although because over the past million years the forests have receded and expanded it is possible that some have in recent times lived in areas now covered by forest; there is a legend of the elephant killer, Mokele Mbembe, among natives of the Congo, sometimes reported to be a living dinosaur, when some inhabitants were asked to describe Mokele Mbembe by a National Geographic reporter, it was very reminiscent of a Rhino) said, "I know, we'll call it Um Bongo", Um Bongo, Um Bongo, They drink it in the Congo. The python (AOTW: possibly African rock python [Python sebae]) picked the passion fruit, the marmoset (AOTW: What the flip is a marmoset doing in the Congo? Marmosets are new world monkeys native to South and Central America**) the mandarin. The parrot (AOTW: many parrots live in the Congo, Poicephalus spp, for example) painted packets, that the whole caboodle landed in. So when it comes to sun and fun and goodness in the jungle, They all prefer the sunny funny one they call Um Bongo!

*used in a general sense to mean the forested river basin of the Congo river, not specifically Congo or the DRC.

**So, I don't know what type of marmoset it would be, but I'm going with Cebuella pygmaea (pygmy marmoset), because it is so little it could have more easily stowed away on a flight to get to the Congo from Peru. Like other Callitrichids (marmosets and tamarins), pygmy marmosets are polyandrous, living in groups with one breeding female and several males.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Animal of the Week October 10, 2005 -- Crack squirrels of Lambeth

This week's animal of the week is Sciurus carolinensis (eastern gre/ay squirrel). Reports over the weekend suggested that grey squirrels in south London, specifically Brixton, had become addicted to crack cocaine.

The bushy-tailed rodents are apparently digging up stashes that dealers and users have buried in their gardens for safekeeping and wolfing them down. There are tales of crack-addict squirrels in New York and in Washington DC, but it seems that, like the squirrels themselves a couple of hundred years before, the habit has crossed the Atlantic.

I recall a news story from several years ago, in which smoking was banned in some London park, and shortly afterwards squirrels began to attack people, it turned out the squirrels had been chewing on cigarette butts and become addicted to nicotine. So maybe stories of the crack-addict squirrels of SW9 are not so far fetched. I can't imagine the problem escalating beyond the relative safety of the urban environment, it will be difficult for squirrels to avoid their natural predators if they are wearing a hooded top and exaggeratedly dragging a leg as though someone has "popped a cap in their ass".

One squirrel that certainly doesn't have a crack problem -- but has enough to contend with besides -- is Sugarbush http://www.sugarbushsquirrel.com/, a neocon squirrel.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Animal of the Week October 3, 2005 -- Ants ants everywhere!

Hello Chaps,

Last week's animal of the week, the giant anteater was a voracious devourer of ants and termites, so in the interest of balance and for all lovers of hymenoptera out there, this week's animal of the week is Solenopsis invicta (red imported fire ant). These ants are some of the most widespread invasive alien species -- not from space sillies, but rather appropriately like Sting in New York. Originating in Argentina, these little red and brown ants have hitched with people to many Pacific islands, Australia, India, and North America. Wreaking havoc wherever they go, fire ants trounce native ant species; they prey on hatchling turtles and birds (they can swarm into the chipped egg of a hatching quail and devour the chick before it gets out); they can even kill people should anaphylactic shock result after a sting. Fire ants farm crop pests such as aphids and mealy bugs, they do this because, in return for their protection, the pests secrete honeydew which the ants drink; these alien ants' farms can be very damaging to agriculture. A little etymology for this entomological issue, the word ant is from the old English "emmet" apparently; hymenoptera (the group containing ants, bees, and wasps) are so named for their membrane "hymen" like wings "ptera".

Last week I introduced a poem about an anteater written by Shel Silverstein... I only realised this weekend, while alphabetising my CDs (not really! I was just having a country-music festival in my bedroom), that Silverstein was a prolific folk and country songwriter. Two of his most notable contributions were One's on the Way by Loretta Lynn (see below) and A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash. Props to Shel (25/09/1930–10/05/99).

They say to have her hair done, Liz flies all the way to France
And Jackie's seen in a discotheque doin' a brand new dance
And the White House social season should be glittering and gay
But here in Topeka, the rain is a fallin',
The faucet is a drippin', and the kids are a bawlin'
One of them a toddlin' and one is a crawlin', and one's on the way
I'm glad that Raquel Welch just signed a million dollar pact
And Debbie's out in Vegas workin' up a brand new act
While the TV's showin' Newlyweds, a real fun game to play
But here in Topeka, the screen door's a bangin'
The coffee's boilin' over, and the wash needs a hangin'
One wants a cookie and one wants a changin', and one's on the way
Now what was I doin'? Jimmy get away from there, darn there goes the phone
Hello honey, what's that you say? You're bringin' a few ole buddies home?
You're callin' from a bar? Get away from there!
No not you honey, I was talkin' to the baby, wait a minute honey the door bell
Honey could you stop at the market and... hello, hello, well I'll be
The girls in New York City, they all march for women's lib
And Better Homes and Gardens shows the modern way to live
And the pill may change the world tomorrow, but meanwhile today
Here in Topeka, the flies are a buzzin'
The dog is a barkin' and the floor needs a scrubbin'
One needs a spankin' and one needs a huggin' Lord, one's on the way
Oh gee I hope it ain't twins again

Monday, September 26, 2005

Animal of the Week September 26, 2005 -- An anteater

Hello Ani-pals!
The exact number of insects one swallows in a lifetime is a common matter of debate (sorry vegans). Some, no doubt less than well-informed, web sources put the figure at 14 in your sleep in your lifetime, others reckon on that figure being about ten a year; this doesn't factor in the number of small flies one always seemed to be choking on when learning to ride a bike or taking part in sports days as a child. Whatever the case, it's probably fewer than the number swallowed by this week's Animal -- Myrmecophaga tridactyla (giant anteater) -- which can swallow up to 30 000 insects in a day! With hooters the envy of supermodels the world over, anteaters have a range of other talents, not least the ability to flick their tongues in and out of their mouths around 150 times a minute -- although should that fact give anyone ideas, you should be aware that the 61 cm long muscle is covered in little spines. Longer-term recipients of AOTW will recall this supposed battle between a hybrid cat and a giant anteater (http://www.bobsanimalfights.com/jaglion_anteater.html); although the provenance of this is, IMHO, doubtful, pumas and jaguars tackle anteaters with caution for fear of their mighty claws. Able swimmers and climbers, giant anteaters have few natural enemies, but they do frequently fall victim to collisions with cars. So next time you're on a road trip through the pampas, drive safely gringo. As you know, I like all the animals, but I do find these chaps particularly handsome. The hunagrian for anteater is hangyász; egyptian hieroglyphics here:


Here is a poem about anteaters written by someone called Shel Silverstein:


"A genuine anteater,"

The pet man told me dad.

Turned out, it was an aunt eater,

And now my uncle's mad!

Monday, September 19, 2005

Animal of the Week September 19, 2005

Ah-ha me hearties.
OK, that's as far as I go with Talk Like a Pirate day. I can't believe that people humour such ridiculous frivolity... here's Animal of the Week. This week's animal of the week is the Ara tricolor (Cuban macaw)—or should I say was, because like a few other AOTWs before (Haast's eagle, Gigantopithecus, Megalodon, Homo floresiensis off the top of my head), this multicoloured parrot is an ex-species. Last recorded in 1874, Cuban parrots were, I like to think, one species adopted by pirates (there's no evidence that pirates kept parrots but they very likely did trade them when returning to Europe so may well have kept them as pets themselves). The golden age of piracy was between the 1670s and 1730s when presumably these birds were still relatively—to extinct—common, as were a few other of the seven macaw species, the five of eight parakeet species, and the three of twelve parrot species of the Caribbean that are now extinct. So who knows what species were favoured by Blackbeard, Emanuel Wynne, Jack Rackham, et al; but maybe Cap'n Flint should be imagined as one of these. Cuban macaws were much smaller than the large Amazonian Red and Green or Blue and Gold macaws used in parrot displays at zoos today; unfortunately, their ability to ride penny farthings along tightropes is not documented.

Monday, September 12, 2005

Animal of the Week September 12, 2005 -- Fetch me a wedge of lemon

Manic Monday!
The grolsch-swilling UK liberals among the readers of AOTW (surely that's everyone) will have been wowed by a picture in the Guardian's Weekend magazine. The picture was of a large, hideous, wobbly-looking pink creature with massive bulbous eyes, handily placed next to a Declan Donelly for perspective (boom boom). No really, in the feature on a new book, Extreme Nature by Mark Carwardine, about interesting animals (where do these ideas come from?!) there was a picture (attached) of a colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). Over the weekend I was asked on several occasions whether this was real. My initial reaction sparked by it's bright pink colour, it's huge huge eyes, and the rigid nature of it's body was: Jesus no! But then, I began to doubt my conviction (has anyone done a study on the effects of cheap-vodka hangovers on gullibility thresholds? I think there may be something in that). The remarkable nature of this picture has encouraged me to feature colossal squids as animals of the week. The largest of these monstrous molluscs found so far was nearly 18 m long (attached), although people speculate they may grow up to 40 m long -- of course a lot of that length is tentacle, but when the tentacles are covered in suckers and hooks, yes hooks, that doesn't really make one feel any more confident about dancing a tango with one. Sperm whales, big fans of calamari, like to eat these squid, but injuries found on the skins of the whales suggest they don't have it all their own way; there is even a report of a sperm whale being drowned by one. The squids are featured in the book because they have the largest eye of any known animal, which is about 30 cm in diameter (the size of a volleyball, apparently). Anyway, the creature pictured in the Weekend was a fake, out of the water colossal squids do not have enough support to appear so fabulous (think about the squid you see at a fishmongers -- if you weren't doing so already), but the animal is real; can you spot the real picture?

Monday, September 05, 2005

Animal of the Week September 05, 2005 -- one be deadly they both are armless

Apologies one and all, a press day and wave of sickness prevented yesterday's regular service. But you know I'll deliver in the end, like a genial local milkman with a crate full of bunnies. Although, if I put bunnies in my crates with this animal of the week, they'd likely be a bit upset. This week's animal is actually two species (a first for AOTW) Micrurus fulvius and Lampropeltis triangulum (eastern coral snake and scarlet king snake, respectively), but I can't discuss one without the other, and sending a picture of only one would be like having a poster of just Sonny Bono (please don't scrutinise that simile, it doesn't work). Coral snakes are poisonous, really quite so, and their bite can be fatal to humans let alone smaller predators that might like to eat a snake (for example, a fox). King snakes are not poisonous, but because they look like coral snakes, predators (for example, a fox) avoid them in preference for less threatening species (for example, bunnies). If only foxes could speak or at least write, they'd be able to remember the simple rhyme "Red on yellow, kill a fellow, red on black won't hurt Jack" (see the red bands abut the yellow stripes on the coral snake but touch the black on king snake) and merrily they would dine on king snakes. This form of mimicry is called Batesian mimicry after someone whose surname was Bates, possibly Cathy and/or Simon (another example of Batesian mimicry). Interestingly, coral snakes sometimes eat king snakes. Anyway, that's me nearly done for another week, but before I go, does anyone know what WC Fields is on about?
"I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy."W. C. Fields

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Animal of the Week August 30, 2005 -- Mantis kills bird; Dostoevsky sues Hayward

Bonjour tout le monde!
Now, last week I came in for some flack for the brevity of my email...there was me thinking that the delightful picture was enough. But it seems that some of you actually look forward to this drivel! Who am I to disappoint you? This week's animal is Mantis religiosa (European Mantis). There are over 180 species of mantis in the world, but the European one, plain and green, is as good as any. You may have seen them when you've been in warm parts of Europe, stalking shakily about like a camden drunk, trembling as a leaf so as not to frighten their insect (or not, see photo) prey. They are also widespread in North America (again see photo), having been introduced in the late 18th or early 19th century and spreading across the country like tuberculosis through the native Americans. In the picture, the mantis has caught an unusual dinner, stabbing it through the chest with it's left forelimb. As well as their piety, mantises are famed for sexual cannibalism, the male commonly being decapitated during the act. The nuptial gift of his corporeal being might increase the fitness of the female, thus enabling more offspring to survive. Anyway, by way of an apology for last week's lack of verbosity, below is a piece of fiction about mantises that I knocked up this morning. I hope you enjoy. God! This week I've got everything, blood, sex, violence, literature...

The Brothers Mantis
Alexey Fyodorovitch Mantis was the third larva of Fyodor Pavlovitch Mantis, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic instar, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this "bug"- for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own leaf- was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless insects who are very well capable of looking after their worldly ichor, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest leaves; he ran to dine at other men's crickets, and fastened on them as a tick, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand elytra in hard chitin. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical mantids in the whole garden. I repeat, it was not stupidity- the majority of these fantastical insects are shrewd and intelligent enough- but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.
He was married twice, and had three larvae, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first wife who tried to eat him after mating so he left her, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second who had her mandibles wired shut. Fyodor Pavlovitch's first wife, Adelaida Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble swarm, also mantises in our district, the Miusovs. How it came to pass that a larva, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those vigorous intelligent girls, so common in this garden, but sometimes also to be found in the neighbour’s, could have mated such a worthless, puny weakling, as we all called him, I won't attempt to explain. I knew a young mantis of the last "romantic" generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a cockroach, whom she might quite easily have eaten at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid puddle from a high twig, almost a branch, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own carapace, and to be like Shakespeare's Odonata. Indeed, if this twig, a chosen and favourite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bit of moss in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and probably there have been not a few similar insects in the last two or three gardens. Adelaida Ivanovna Miusov's action was similarly, no doubt, an echo of other people's ideas, and was due to the irritation caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of her swarm. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic infection, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured mantis and nothing more. What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an egg sack, and this greatly captivated Adelaida Ivanovna's fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch's position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To attach himself to a good tree and obtain a dowry was an alluring prospect. As for pheremonal attraction it did not exist apparently, either in the bride or in him, in spite of Adelaida Ivanovna's beauty. This was, perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any well-turned tarsus on the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only larva who made no particular appeal to his senses.
Immediatley after the egg sack Adelaida Ivanovna discerned in a flash that she had no feeling for her husband but hunger. The marriage accordingly showed itself in its true colours with extraordinary rapidity. Although the family accepted the mating pretty quickly and apportioned the scuttle-away bride her dowry, the mantis and mate began to lead a most disorderly life, and there were everlasting scenes between them. It was said that the young larva showed incomparably more generosity and dignity than Fyodor Pavlovitch, who, as is now known, got hold of all her mealy bugs up to twenty five thousand bugs as soon as she received them, so that those insects were lost to her forever. The little village and the rather fine town leaves, which formed part of her nuptial gift he did his utmost for a long time to transfer to his name, by means of some deed of conveyance. He would probably have succeeded, merely from her moral fatigue and desire to get rid of him, and from the contempt and loathing he aroused by his persistent and shameless pumping of air through his spiracles. But, fortunately, Adelaida Ivanovna's family intervened and circumvented his greediness. It is known for a fact that frequent fights took place between the husband and wife, but rumour had it that Fyodor Pavlovitch did not eat his wife but was eaten by her, for she was a hot-tempered, bold, dark-browed, impatient mantis, possessed of remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left the house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovitch with a destitute entomology student, leaving Mitya, a larva of three years old, in her husband's tarsi. Immediately Fyodor Pavlovitch introduced a regular harem into the house, and abandoned himself to orgies of drunkenness. In the intervals he used to stalk all over the province, complaining tearfully to each and all of Adelaida Ivanovna's having left him, going into details too disgraceful for a mantis to mention in regard to his own married life. What seemed to gratify him and flatter his self-love most was to play the ridiculous part of the cannibalised husband, and to parade his woes with embellishments.
"One would think that you'd got a new instar, Fyodor Pavlovitch, you seem so pleased in spite of your sorrow," grasshoppers said to him. Many even added that he was glad of a new comic part in which to play the bumble bee, and that it was simply to make it funnier that he pretended to be unaware of his ludicrous position. But, who knows, it may have been simplicity. At last he succeeded in getting on the track of his scuttle-away wife. The poor mate turned out to be in Petersburg, where she had gone with her entomology student, and where she had thrown herself into a life of complete emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovitch at once began bustling about, making preparations to go to Petersburg, with what object he could not himself have said. He would perhaps have really gone; but having determined to do so he felt at once entitled to fortify himself for the journey by another bout of reckless drinking. And just at that time his first-mate’s family received the news of her death in Petersburg. She had died quite suddenly in a garden, according to one story, of roadrunner, or as another version had it, of starvation. Fyodor Pavlovitch was drunk when he heard of his mate's death, and the story is that he ran out into the street and began shouting with joy, raising his tarsi to Heaven: "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," but others say he wept without restraint like a little larva, so much so that people were sorry for him, in spite of the repulsion he inspired. It is quite possible that both versions were true, that he rejoiced at his release, and at the same time wept for her who released him. As a general rule, insects, even the winged, are much more naive and simple-ganglioned than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Animal of the Week August 22, 2005 -- Photo of yo mumma

Sweet baby non-religious reference point! What in the name of Angela Lansbury happened to your face?
Pygathrix roxellana (Rhinopithecus roxellana, golden snub-nosed monkey).

Monday, August 15, 2005

Animal of the Week August 15, 2005 -- A very very big shark indeed, but extinct, phew

Last Monday evening, I was watching CSI Miami when there was a peculiar percussive sound. I looked up and saw on the ceiling a large round beetle, on closer inspection it turned out to be a harlequin (animal of the week March 21, 2005)!!! First thing on Tuesday morning, I logged my sighting with the harlequin survey (http://www.harlequin-survey.org/).

This week's animal is a little bigger, welcome Carcharodon megalodon (megalodon). At something approaching 15 m long and 20 tons we should be pretty glad that this close relative of the great white doesn't still exist. Until about 1·5 million years ago, warms oceans were home to the largest meat eating sharks that ever lived. Because sharks have cartilagenous skeletons, the fossil record of megalodon is rather poor, but their teeth survive in abundance. Although there's not much evidence to go on, the size of the teeth and their similarity to those of great whites suggests that megalodon was a scaled up Jaws. Likely preying on whales—the babies of which they could have swallowed whole—it is difficult to imagine what caused the extinction of this super predator. The loss of warm tropical seas due to continental drift may have played a part. But maybe the evolution of warm-blooded, highly smart killer whales turned the tables on the fishy leviathan. Although some people reckon there may still be a few megalodon left in the depths, this seems unlikely. But these people might be pleased to know that the director of Speed, Jan de Bont, is working on a film, Meg, due out some time next year about such a conceit, the rest of us will probably remain indifferent (if I thought there were going to be more cows in tornados as seen in de Bont's Twister, well, I might be more enthusiastic).

Monday, August 08, 2005

Animal of the Week August 8, 2005 -- You are!

May your gods bless you one and all,

As the UK gay-pride season comes to a close, with a joyous day for many on Saturday in our gayest of towns, Brighton, it's time to wheel out a gay animal. Although there are many instances of actual gayness in the animal kingdom, from lesbian seagulls to rams with proclivities for other rams, this animal is rather symbolically gay. Welcome, Columba mayeri (Mauritius Pink Pigeon). In the early 1990s there were fewer than 20 of these birds left in the wild, but captive breeding programmes have established a much larger and more robust population of 350 to 400. Brought to the brink of extinction due to the classic combination of limited range, habitat destruction, batty behaviour, and introduced predators (mongooses, rats, cats, macaques) the remarkable recovery of the population is likely due to an interesting facet of population genetics. Animals that live on remote volcanic islands are nearly always descended from a very few founder individuals, and to have established a population with intense inbreeding they must have very few deleterious genes in the whole population. So, after a population crash, whereas other animals would have trouble bouncing back as inbreeding exposes lethal combinations of bad genes that have been hidden in the large population, island populations need not worry because they don't have any bad genes in the first place. Either that, or they cottoned onto the turkey-basting techniques shown to them in the captive breeding programmes. This week's picture is of Brad and Randy who are watching an episode of Will and Grace, their conversation is going a bit like this:

Brad "Show me more Karen, they should have more of Karen and less of Grace."

Randy "Wouldn't it be great if they just gave Karen a show on her own, with Bette Midler in it, soundtracked by Cher"

Brad and Randy photographed staring into the middle distance in rapt contemplation of such a fabulous concept.

Monday, August 01, 2005

Animal of the Week August 1, 2005 -- Camel spiders of Iraq

Hello Animal Freaks!
This week's animal of the week is Galeodes arabs (sun spider, camel spider, wind spider, wind scorpion). The most common question people ask when I start talking about Animal of the Week is "will you shut up about this for just five seconds?" Another common question is "will you ever do a made-up animal?" And, like Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman with regards to kissing on the lips, I say "no, it's one of my rules". Camel spiders are therefore an interesting case; a few years ago troops in the middle east derived fun in the homely way of mocking up photos of giant spiders that ate human flesh. This urban (desert?) legend did the rounds on the world wide web and were emailed around, and everyone thought there was a foot-long, ten-legged spider biting chunks out of people and camels. Someone mentioned this to me the other day and they still thought it true! Durr, spiders don't have ten legs! Durr, spiders don't grow to a foot long! Durr, that's not even a spider, it's a solifugid? These arachnids aren't spiders. They don't even really have ten legs, the first pair of limbs are large, modified mouth parts (pedipalps). And they don't grow to a foot long. Galeodes arabs is one of the biggest with a 5 inch leg span and 2 inch body. Here is a real picture, without scale you can't tell it's not a foot long, but take my word for it, it's not, I wouldn't lie, not to you.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Animal of the Week July 25, 2005 -- Mountain beaver

Neither an inhabitant of mountains nor a real beaver, this weeks animal of the week is Aplodontia rufa (mountain beaver, sewellel). These medium-sized rodents are of an ancient North American lineage that has changed little for millions of years. Their primitive kidneys are unable to concentrate urine so they have to drink loads of water. Like several other rodents, sewellels are copraphagic–ie, they eat their own doings! Several subspecies live in a limited range in America's western states. When threatened or spooked, they secrete a thick rheumy liquid from their eyes, why they do this is not clear, and it doesn't really sound like a great defence to me, but last time I looked I wasn't a burrowing rodent of a group ancestral to squirrels. Apparently they are grumpy animals that wouldn't make good pets, but if I had a pet mountain beaver I would call it Brian. Then I could say to people that "Brian sewellel is a weepy-eyed, sh*t-eating beaver".

Monday, July 18, 2005

Animal of the Week July 18, 2005 -- Bring back the grey whale

Wow, I almost forgot about animal of the week, senility! This week's animal is Eschrichtius robustus (grey whale, gray whale, devilfish). Grey whales (15 m long, 36 tons heavy) were once widespread throughout the Atlantic and the Pacific but their love of shallow coastal waters proved disasterous when whaling really took off as an extreme sport in the 1700. By the late eighteenth century there were no more grey whales in the eastern Atlantic, soon after they were gone from the western Atlantic. Populations clung on around South Korea and around the western coast of the USA. The US population of gray whales has recovered so much that two academics from University of Lancashire at Penrith will, at a conservation meeting in Brazil, suggest that several dozen of their 26 000 whales be flown to Cumbria to re-establish an east Atlantic population. Given the joy of having the great bustard back in the UK (although I've yet to see one) and the ever growing number of red kites along the M40, I am all for this (although one is unlikely to a whale wheeling gracefully in the skies over the Stokenchurch cutting). Grey whales were named devilfish (tch! fish?!) by early whalers because mothers fiercely defend their calves when threatened. Their only natural enemies besides human beings are killer whales who apparently favour the tongue and throat.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Animal of the Week July 11, 2005 -- Fish-eating jelly-fish

Hola Animalistas,

Hope everyone is OK, and my sincerest condolences, thoughts, and good wishes to anyone who, for whatever reason, is not.
So, AOTW will now resume normal service for the foreseeable future, fulfilling the promise of its moniker by weekly delivery.
This week's animal of the week, Erenna sp, is all over the science news but probably wont cross over to general media. This newly discovered deep-sea species belonging to the same phylum (Cnidaria) as jellyfish, corals, and anemones is attracting media attention with the red fluorescent organs it uses to lure prey. Few creatures that live at great ocean depth can see red light because light with longer wavelength travels poorly through water, hence throughout evolution predatory animals at depth have lost the ability to see red light and prey animals have developed red pigmentation. However, some canny (not canned) fish have cottoned onto this fact and realised that over small distances myriad red animals stick out, quite literally, like sore thumbs (although this simile is wasted on fish) and make easy pickings. Now, this as yet unnamed species of the genus Erenna exploits the fact that some small fish hunt out the red light omitted by their prey copepods. With their red fluorescence they trick fish into thinking they are a tasty bite of tiny crustacean, when it turns out they're in reality a baguette sized bundle of stinging cells and venom. Neat!

And the best thing about the whole story is that the chief researcher is a marine biologist called Dr Steven Haddock.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Animal of the Week June 27, 2005 -- In memory of Richard Whitely

Dear All, this week's animal has nine letters in its name, a top score of 18 points in Countdown, or a possible conundrum: bring unto; on but ring; rung on bit; bout n ring; etc. Richard Whiteley, the host of popular tea time quiz Countdown for 23 years who died yesterday, would have, I hope, liked this animal.

THE START
Door opens on darkened indoor animal enclosure. The exibit is empty but for a keeper in a uniform sat in a chair eating a cheese sandwich.
Child: Peeeee-eugh, mum it smells
Mum: It does rather, doesn't it? What is it?
C: (pointing) Oh, look mum, up there, at the top of the tree, a bear
M: Oh yes, a small, shaggy, grey bear
Keeper: Actually, it's Arctictis binturong (binturong). Also called a bearcat
C: Oh, mum, it's a cat, not a bear
K: It's a civet, not a bear or a cat
C: But you said it was a bear cat, and a sausage dog is a dog and a fish eagle is an eagle, and a wood worm is a worm...
K: Beetle larva
C: What?
K: (agitated, the keeper might have had this conversation before) Wood worms aren't worms, and binturongs aren't cats, or bears. They are civets, small to medium sized carnivores. Binturongs are large civets that live in south east Asia. They are predominantly arboreal and they have prehensile tails. Like other civets, they have a powerful scent. Musk civets are exploited for perfume.
M: But who would want to smell like a mouldy dishcloth?
K: (almost snapping) That's musk civets, not binturongs. People don't exploit binturongs.
M: I can smell why. Come on, lets get out of here.
The mother and child leave, stepping outside to where the Oryxes are paddocked. As the door closes the keeper hears:
C: What a stinky cat, mum. Oh look, a pony with horns.
They keeper sighs and rubs his temple. THE END

Monday, June 13, 2005

Animal of the Week June 13, 2005 -- Dreamtime fish

Hallo Freund der Tiere,

This week's Animal of the Week is Lates calcarifer (barramundi, Asian sea bass). Two fish are called barramundi; to avoid confusion, the other (Cromileptes altivelis) has been rebranded as the barramundi cod by the Fish Names Committee (I kid you not, it's a big thing in Australia). Dreamtime is the period in Australian myth when the world and the creatures on it were formed, and the barramundi features prominently among the legends about this period. Barramundi is an Australian name meaning "river fish with large scales". One story has it that the Giant Dreaming Barramundi Fish, in escaping the hunter Nagongbid, created the East Alligator River (you will, like me, be perplexed as to why there is an "Alligator River" in a country famed for its crocodiles and distinct lack of alligators). In another story, two young lovers called Yungi and Meyalk run away from the tribe so that they can be together as Meyalk is promised to an older man who she doesn't love. This disobedience is an offence punishable by death. Pursued by their tribesmen, the pair escaped into the sea where they transformed into barramundi; the spines on barramundis' backs were created from the spears thrown at Yungi and Meyalk. Barramundi are popular food fish and are farmed across southeast Asia and Australia; earlier this year the Australian Fish Names Committee launched a campaign to ban other nations from using the name barramundi, claiming people were cashing in on an Australian image of the Bush Tucker Man—an image more Paul Hogan than Nagongbid.

After 6 months of weekly updates the animals and I are puffed, so over the next few weeks we're all going to take a couple of breaks. Service will be fortnightly for the next 4 weeks. I apologise for the temporarily misleading nature of the name. Next week, as there will be no animal, you might like to choose your favourite from the past and revisit it.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Animal of the Week June 06, 2005 -- Oi va voi, what's this?

Hello Chums,

This week's animal of the week is Deinacrida heteracantha (giant weta, wetapunga, Little Barrier Isalnd weta, demon grasshopper). Our recipient in the land of the long white cloud will likely be more than familiar with wetas by now, but others among you (those who never watched Shortland Street) may not be. Weta's are ancient flightless crickets, although widespread in the southern hemisphere they have reached astounding diversity and size on New Zealand. Until the maoris delivered the polynesian rat a thousand or so years ago and Europeans took ferrets to the islands a couple of hundred years ago, wetas filled the ecological niches filled by small mammals. Giant wetas, known to Maoris as "god of small ugly things", are the heaviest insects in all the world. The heaviest recorded weighed 71 g, not huge granted, but still, three times the size of a house mouse. Despite their less than cuddly appearence, weta's are quite docile, this is what comes from evolving where your most feared predator is a kiwi. In hit ninetess soap opera, Shortland Street, plucky female nurse Carmen was afraid of wetas, with hilarious consequences.

I give you the following song: a man named Johnny eats things that bite him. He also eats a weta which does not, according to the available history, appear to have bitten Johnny. This seems unfair to the weta. I believe it should be sung to the tune of Alouetta http://folksong.org.nz/ate_a_weta/

[Chorus]Ate a wetaJohnny ate a weta, Ate a weta Johnny ate one too!
Johnny ate a katipo, 'cos it bit him on the toe. Katipo, on the toe, and then a weta . . . . Chorus.
Johnny ate a Buller eel, cos it bit him on the heel. Buller eel, on the heel Katipo, on the toe and then a weta . . . . Chorus.
Johnny ate a bumble bee, cos it bit him on the knee. ETC Johnny ate a big sandfly, cos it bit him on the thigh.
Johnny ate a possum, cos it bit him on the bottom. Johnny ate a mountain goat, cos it bit him on the throat. Johnny ate a wild deer, cos it bit him on the ear.

Monday, May 30, 2005

Animal of the Week May 30, 2005 -- Giant salamander

Dear Zoophiles (not in the dirty sense, I hope none of you are like that),

Apologies for the delay, I hope that those who had one had a good bank holiday.

This week we are back in China, but contrary to the case of Gigantopithecus blackii, we are in the present day this time with Andrias davidianus (Chinese giant salamander). I didn't realise it until after I chose this that I have probably been subconciously influenced by my sister who is currently in the region of China and does not remind me of a salamander but has told me about all the giant things she has seen their (river, dam, panda, Buddha). Chinese giant salamander's probably wont be on my sister's sightseeing list, but they should be. These are the biggest of all the living amphibians and grow up to 1.8 m in length. This one is 1.2 m; which gives you some idea of how big the men are! The salamander is in the middle of the picture being held by the two men who rescued it from a road. I would post the news story where I lifted this from but am maddened by the translator's insistence on refering to the Chinese giant salamander as a "reptile". The picture comes from a paper called the Daily Sunshine, which sounds like the kind of paper I could get in to, if only they'd get their taxonomy right! Salamanders are not reptiles! One might reasonably argue that reptiles, mammals, and birds are amphibians but that's a lesson in systematics none of us wants to go through.

Saturday, May 28, 2005

Animal of the Week May 28, 2005 -- I'll have a surfeit thanks waiter

Hello One and All,
Sorry for the delay, but animal of the week takes bank holidays too. This week's animal is Lampetra fluviatilis (river lampreys). These aquatic vertebrates are not true fish, neither are their closest relatives hagfish. Rather, hagfish and lampreys are agnathans (without jaws) and represent an ancient lineage that existed before and possibly gave rise to jawed fish and all other animals with backbones, including you and me. River lampreys are found throughout Europe where they parasitise jawed fish using their round mouths with many sharp hooks to bore into the flesh of their hosts from where they suck the blood. Although they damage fishery fish they can be eaten themselves, apparently the flesh is very meaty and was thus favoured on religious fasting days when fish could be eaten. Indeed, this is the first animal of the week to have been responsible for the death of an English King -- Henry I, youngest son of William the Conqueror and all round good king, died from a "surfeit of lampreys" in Normandy (France) in 1135. If you can get hold of them and you fancy eating river lampreys without precipitating a civil war, try the recipe below but eat in moderation.

Lamprey au Sang
Ingredients
Lamprey
Lamprey Blood
Vegetables:Onions, Carrots,Leeks
Bacon
Garlic & Bouquet Garni
Red Wine
Butter
Method
Bleed Lamprey and keep blood aside to flavour sauce. Scald fish and remove skin Line a buttered pan with the vegetables, garlic and bouquet garni. Add lamprey and enough red wine to cover fish, boil for 12 minutes. Cook slices of leek with bacon in a buttered pan. Drain lamprey and add to pan alternating with the leek. Make a roux and moisten it with lamprey juices, pour back over fish. Simmer gently until fish is cooked. Arrange fish and vegetables on a dish. Add the reserved blood to the sauce and pour over dish Serve with fried bread.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Animal of the Week May 23, 2005 -- New monkey

Hi!
Yes, you guessed it, this week's animal is Lophocebus kipunji (highland mangabey). So, this has already been called by a couple of AOTW recipients, but I never said I was unpredictable. And besides, AOTW has a long history of reporting new monkeys, some of you may recall the Arunchal macaque (Macaca munzala), which was, I believe, the first regular AOTW about 6 months ago. The highland mangabey is light brown in colour and lives up some mountains in the southern highlands and Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. The species name kipunji is the Wanyakyusa people's name for the the monkey, of which they have known for a long time; their stories led US researchers to the fluffy wuffkins. Mangabeys are closely related to baboons. Not much more to add due to the newness of the species, besides, of course, their low-pitched "honk bark" which is apparently unique among primates. I suggest anyone who thinks this unique among primates checks out some ladies' tennis matches this summer.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Animal of the Week May 16, 2005 -- I appear to have a man in my ovaries

Oh hello... it's you... welcome. It's been a while, well, a week. Come in, sit down, put your feet up.... how rude of me, how terribly rude, let me introduce you to Bonellia viridis (green spoon worm), this week's Animal of the Week. Green spoon worms were brought to my attention by the recent Channel 4 tv series Dr Tatiana's Sex Guide to All Creation. These worms live in the Pacific ocean and are special for three main reasons. 1: They have the greatest sexual dimorphism of any species, but unlike many familiar species, in which the males are bigger (eg, humans), female green spoon worms are bigger than males, 1000–2000 times bigger to be approximately precise. 2: Males live inside the ovaries of females in a chamber called the androecium, they absorb nutrients through their skin because their mouths are too busy spewing sperm. 3: Even though they have this bizarrely extreme and extremely bizarre differentiation between the sexes, their sex is not genetically determined; whereas, for example, mammal males have an X chromosome and a Y chromosome and females have two X chromosomes, green spoon worms have no gender-defining genetics. Their sex is determined by the events in the first three weeks of their lives; if they don't meet another green spoon worm they settle down on a rock and become a 2 m long female; however, if they run into one of these mammoth worms they are swallowed by her and become a male, never growing bigger than 1–2 mm.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Animal of the Week May 09, 2005 -- The largest primate ever

Good Monday one and all,
Well, it seems like a while since I have done a terrestrial mammal, so, here's one. Unlike last week's animal which was recently rediscovered, this week's animal, Gigantopithecus blacki, is very much extinct. The origins of the genus Gigantopithecus are somewhat hazy, but they were likely distant cousins to orangutans and even more distant cousins to humans, chimps, and gorillas; this species was roaming around China and parts of southeast Asia 1.5 million to 500 000 years ago. What makes G blacki such a noteworthy species is that it was the largest known primate to have ever lived. Your modern day gorilla and extinct giant lemurs and baboons come nowhere close. Conservative estimates put G blacki at 8 ft tall and about 800 lbs, but some people reckon males might have reached 1200 lbs (about the size of a cow!). G blacki was identified from fossilised teeth sold in chinese apothecaries as "dragon bones", which palaeoanthropologist von Koeningswald realised must have belonged to a massive primate. Despite its size, evidence of silica granules in the teeth suggest that G blacki ate bamboo -- no one is quite sure why G blacki became extinct, but it is just possible that these are the only animals ever to have been outcompeted by giant pandas. Although there is no evidence of their existence beyond about 400 000 years ago, some people suggest that elusive extant G blacki are behind the stories of yetis and bigfoot.

Monday, May 02, 2005

Animal of the Week May 02, 2005 -- Phoenix woodpecker

Dear Friends,
This week's animal of the week is Campephilus principalis (ivory-billed woodpecker). You've probably all heard a lot about this species, and I'm sure you followed with great interest the story of its rediscovery in the Big Woods of Arkansas last week, but I am so excited about this I can't not have it as AOTW! Indeed, one put-upon recipient is hearing about this from me for the second time. Anyway, ivory billed woodpeckers were thought to have become extinct on the North American mainland as a result of habitat destruction in the 1940s; the Cuban subspecies was last sighted in 1986 and is also feared extinct. However, the rediscovery of its mainland cousin gives hope that the Cuban is still hanging on in remote forests. Ivory-billed woodpeckers are the third largest woodpeckers and are predominantly black and white, males have a red crest (presumably the Cuban subspecies is more red). Numbers and range of the birds in North America are unknown, but for them to have survived the past 60 years there must be a short-term sustainable breeding population. The latin name Campephilus does not mean "lover of drag acts", rather "lover of grubs". I like to imagine that the pair in this picture by the father of American natural history, John James Audobon, are planning where they can hide out for a century or so before surprising a naturalist or a naturist.
Other notable mention: while we are on the subject of phoenix like reappearences, Hippotragus niger variani (giant sable) deserves a namecheck. Thought to have been killed off by local hunters 30 years ago it has been rediscovered recently in an area of Angola only reachable on foot (there a tasteless joke there, but I'll let those of you with such minds come up with the punchline yourselves).
This week, Animal of the Week reaches Outer Mongolia and Cornwall.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Animal of the Week April 25, 2005 -- Nautilus

Hello Animal Freaks!
This weeks animal of the week is Nautilus pompilius (chambered nautilus). I thought it was about time we had a cephalopod is all. There are seven species of extant nautiloids today in two genera (Nautilus and Allonautilus). N pompilius is one of the more common species, but even so, little is known about these animals. During the ordovician era (510-420 million years ago) nautiloids were very common in the oceans and the species much more diverse -- some had shells up to 1·5 m across. Nautiloids clung on to the present day unlike their not dissimilar cousins, ammonites (the spiral-shell fossil things that crop up everywhere), but their time was passed and other cephalopods without external shells (tasty ones like squid and octopus [licks lips]) have become much more prominent. Nautiluses live only in the western pacific, swim slowly, breed slowly, and are pretty, all of which puts them in danger of exploitation. Do you remember making pinhole cameras in school, nautiluses have pinhole-camera-like eyes with no lens -- their eyes are filled with sea water.
See a Russian rock group called Nautilus pompilius http://www.nautilus.ru/

Monday, April 18, 2005

Animal of the Week April 18, 2005 -- Interspecies loving

Hello Lovelies,

This week's animal of the week is a tricky one, normally I just rattle off the latin name, put the common name in brackets after, and then launch into the informative and entertaining text about the animals. But, in a break with style, this is not about a whole species, rather it's about Kekaimalu and her un-named daughter -- the worlds only known wholphins! 19 year old Kekaimalu was born from an unholy union between a female bottle-nosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and a male false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens). Now, the saucy thing has gone and had a female calf with another bottle nosed dolphin. Typically species hybrids are infertile (mule's, for example, so rarely are able to have offspring that such an event is considered a portent of Armageddon in parts of north Africa), so no-one expected the only wholphin to be able to reproduce. The convention for naming hybrids (who knows about mule) is to combine the first part of the sire species' common name with the latter part of the dam species' common name, hence wolphin--in researching this week's animal I came across the example of li-liger (cat sired by a lion with liger dam [male lion X female tiger]), so really this new thing is a do-wolphin! Other hybrids include ligers and tigons, leguars, lijaguleps (I kid you not). Some of you may be interested in this website, which contains, among the many battles, an account of a fight between a lijagulep and a giant anteater http://www.bobsanimalfights.com/index.html.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Animal of the Week April 11, 2005 -- Charlie Bustard

Hello All, I hope this finds you well.

This week's animal of the week is Otis tarda (great bustard). Great Bustards are sometimes said to be the world's heaviest flying birds, but some people reckon that accolade goes to (insert joke re fat women on planes) the kori bustard. Whatever, at 20 kg, Otis tarda has to be up there (ostriches, I know you want to know this, weigh up to 160 kg). Now, the exciting thing for those of us who live in the UK is that they're back. After an absence of 200 years or so chicks rescued from abandoned nests in Russia (there you go, folks in Russia, a reference for you -- now email your mothers, they're worried) have been introduced to Salisbury plain. So, next time you're dancing around stone henge for some ritual or another and a great big shape blocks the sun, it might not be a plane, it's definitely not superman, it's not even an average bustard, but it might just be a great bustard. I like to think that the male in the photo is playing a game with a friend in which they each take it in turns to try and look like another animal.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Animal of the Week April 04, 2005 -- Yes, there is a stink badger

Hey Kids,
This week's animal is, believe it or not, Mydaus javanensis (Sunda stink badger). Stink badgers are just two some of the crazy sounding badgers of southeast Asia: Imagine the Formosan ferret badger or the Hog badger. Sunda stink badger's are found at high elevations on Sumatra and Java in Indonesia and Borneo in Malaysia. Stink badgers secrete a noxious smelling liquid from glands around their anuses; and their affiliation with either true badgers or skunks is hotly debated by them as debates these things. In some parts of their range they are occasionally eaten by indingenous people as a cure for fevers. Apparently they sometimes live in porcupine burrows with the porcupines...imagine that it stinks and it's full of spines. In Norwegian they are called Stinkgraevling. (apologies for the pictures both being small, but there's no way I'm not having sunda stink badger as animal of the week this week)

Monday, March 21, 2005

Animal of the Week March 21, 2005 -- Immigration special

Ah spring,
The daffodils are fluttering and dancing in the breeze, the birds are nesting, lambs are gamboling in the field, and any day now the bees will be a buzzing, butterflies will be flitting lazily by, and what else? Ladybirds of course! Specifically Harmonia axyridis (harlequin).
In the far-east where they are native, harlequins are a colourful, varied, and versatile component of the food web, feeding on aphids, nectar, fruit, beetle eggs and larvae, and many other things. In non-native countries, away from their natural parasites and predators, harlequins are pernicious invaders feeding on native ladybirds' food and even native ladybirds. In about 20 years from their introduction as biological control organisms in the southeastern USA, harlequins have become the most common ladybird species in North America. And now, harlequins have landed in the UK. They first appeared last year and look set to have similar success here as they have on mainland Europe and in the US. There is a survey in the UK to track the spread of this species across the country, if you would like to get involved go http://www.harlequin-survey.org/. So, look out for this AOTW as the weather warms up, and cherish the other ladybird species you spot as you go about it.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Animal of the Week March 14, 2005 -- Curly-coated piggywig

Hi One and All,
This week's animal is Sus scrofa (domestic pigs and wild boar). New research published in the past week suggests that, rather than being domesticated once and spread as farmers moved around, wild boar have been domesticated in at least five separate locations--from Europe, to the Near East, to southeast Asia--in the past 9000 years. Despite appearing in a great array of forms, from the miniature pigs of Vietnam and polynesia to the huge pink land-race creatures, all pigs are the same species as wild boars, with which (size allowing) they can breed quite merrily. One of my sources (http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Sus_scrofa.html) contains the following: "Not only can they [pigs] perform repetitive circus tricks, such as jumping through hoops and walking tightropes, but they can also solve simple problems such as opening a bolted door." Hands up anyone who would not pay to see a pig on a tightrope.
The pig pictured here is a Mangaliza from the central plains of Hungary. I wanted to send a picture of the now defunct breed the Lincolnshire Curly Coat, sadly the only picture I could find was too small (and I got it in the neck about the vampire finch picture last week).

Monday, March 07, 2005

Animal of the Week March 07, 2005 -- Vampire birds of Wolf Island

Happy Second Week of March guys,

This weeks animal of the week is Geospiza difficilis (sharp-beaked ground finch). This inocuous looking LBJ (a birders' classification that stands for little brown job) is notable for a couple of reasons. Geospiza may be familiar to you as the genus of finches found on the Galapagos Islands. As they arrived on the remote archipelago, various ecological roles were not occupied so the birds diverisfied to fill these roles and eventually became distinct species. Although this radiation is commonly said to have led Darwin to the theory of evolution by natural selection, it is not so. Darwin's collection of finch specimens was slapdash at best and the significance of all the similar looking LBJs occupying different niches on the Galapagos was not recognised until years later. An unlikely role occupied by Geospiza difficilis (from the ominously named Wolf Island [not Wolf Lake, that's a whole different mailout]), is that of vampire. These little birds climb onto the backs of nesting or resting boobies (like gannets), peck at the skin until the blood starts running, and lap up the resulting flow.
(image from: http://www.justbirds.org/Galapagos/Sharp-beaked%20ground-finch.htm)

Monday, February 28, 2005

Animal of the Week February 28, 2005 -- Giant Clam

This week's animal of the week is Tridacna gigas (giant clam). These tropical bivalves are the heaviest of all the molluscs (mysterious/fictional giant squid notwithstanding), they grow up to 1.3 m across and can weigh up to 250 kg (that's 4'4" and 550 lb for our imperial American friend). Although depicted in many an adventure story trapping the foot of a happless pearl diver, there is not a single documented case of someone being drowned by a giant clam, indeed some of the largest ones can't close there valves fully. Instead of dining on divers extremities, giant clams obtain most of their food from symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae), although Tridacna gigas does obtain some (~10%) of it's nutrients by filtering phytoplankton and zooplankton from sea water. These clams live in shallow coral seas and are found no deeper than 20 m below the surface. They breed by ejaculating vast numbers of eggs and sperm into the sea, which makes me wonder about the diver in this week's picture.

Monday, February 21, 2005

Animal of the Week February 21, 2005 -- River dolphin

Hi,

First of all, my apologies for the lateness of AOTW, obviously the biggest losers are the animals which only get the title for a few days. I hope never to be so tardy again.

This week's animal of the week is Inia geoffrensis (Amazon river dolphin or boto). Botos are the the largest river dolphins (other species found in South and Central America and Asia) and reach a maximum size of about 2.5 m. These are some of the only dolphins that can bend their necks, as the vertebrae aren't fused. From the mouth of the Amazon to the foothills of the Andes, botos—which can be bright pink in colour (although white is more common)—feature strongly in Amazon folklore, some indigenous people believe botos can transform into human form at night, come onto land, and cause harm to people who have been naughty (or twee). When the river floods, botos leave the chanel and swim among the tree trunks and low branches of the forest in search of a fish supper.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Animal of the Week Ferbuary 14, 2005 -- The most dangerous animal in the world

This weeks animal is the most deadly of all the animals, but it also pretty small. Human malaria is cause by four different species in the genus Plasmodium. Plasmodium falciparum is the most dangerous of these species. There are upwards of 300 million cases of malaria (~5% of the world's population) and in excess of 2 million malaria deaths each year. The picture here is of a macrogametocyte among some human blood vessels. The male and female Plasmodium gametocytes are taken up by female mosquitos when they drink human blood, there the males parasites fertilise the females, progeny develop, and these then migrate to the mosquito's salivary glands... etc etc etc