The Lord of the Fellowship of the Island Dwarves of the Lesser Sunda Islands

We've already talked about island dwarfism several times on the blog, with examples as varied as the Zanzibar leopard, the dwarf dinosaurs of Hațeg Island, and the Channel Island fox from Catalina Island.  But now is the time for something that is several times more epic.  Today, we are going to look at the wacky, crazy, and very odd sized animals that were native to the island of Flores in Indonesia as recently as 20,000 years ago!  And oddly enough, this paleoenvironment had many similarities with the fantasy world of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings.  Don't believe me and want to learn more?  Well that, my friends, is known as a hook, a literary device used in the opening paragraph of a work of literature to grab the readers attention.  So if you're not hooked right now, then that's because you don't like fun.  The day may come when your courage to read my blog fails....but it is not this day.  At least I hope not.

A size comparison of the brave little Hobbit, the dwarf elephant Stegodon, the Komodo dragon, and the giant stork Leptoptilos robustus, drawn by the illustrious illustrator Zach Evens!

If you aren't already familiar with island dwarfism, here's a brief summary.  Oftentimes, populations of animals will become trapped on islands.  Over deep time, they can either evolve and adapt....or die.  On islands, what was beneficial on the mainland might not be quite as useful on a smaller, isolated chunk of land.  For example, if you are a larger animal, you are going to need more food than a smaller animal.  On the mainland, where food can be found in relative abundance, this usually isn't as much of an issue.  Furthermore, being large helps ward off predators, and can increase the likelihood of passing off your genes to subsequent generations.  So for some mainland animals, it pays to be bigger.

Now slow down and grab on to something solid.  Imagine a group of elephants becomes isolated from the mainland, and trapped on an island with limited food supply and other resources.  Now all of a sudden, its the larger elephants that are dying off, starving to death.  The biggest of the bunch are unable to find enough food for their regular breakfast (not to mention second breakfast or elevenses), and unable to pass on their genes.  Suddenly, being small is looking pretty good!  Furthermore, if the island that these elephants are trapped on has geographical features that ensure mainland predators shall not pass onto the island, then the smaller elephants aren't being removed from the gene pool by predators.  If you hit the gas pedal and speed up a few thousand years or so, you might get a population of cute little pint-sized elephants.  Which, as we have talked about before, does indeed happen, and has happened numerous times throughout history.

So there's island dwarfism in a cute little nutshell.  This tiny little idea pertains to the island of Flores in a big way, as it potentially miniaturized a member of the human family tree!  Meet Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "the Hobbit" by its discoverers!  At only three and a half feet tall, this little guy would almost certainly be wasted at cross-country!  Initially announced in 2004, the discovery of at least six individuals of this cute little member of the human family tree have shown that this proto-human was not simply a genetic anomaly of this properly proportioned Pleistocene populace, but instead a participant in this posse of pint-sized people.

One small brained individual contemplates another.  The smaller skull is a cast of the skull of Homo floresiensis.  Photo Credit: Zach Evens

The evolutionary relationships of Homo floresiensis are still poorly understood, as different bits of the skeletal anatomy indicate different possible ancestors.  For example, brain shape, thick cranial bones, a short flat face, and a sloping forehead are features echoed in another early human, Homo erectus.  H. erectus does seem like a logical candidate for the ancestor of H. floresiensis, as H. erectus is thought to have inhabited southeast Asia as recently as half a million years ago.

Other scientists believe that there is more to this hobbit than meets the eye.  Not everything matches terribly well with the "Insular Dwarfing of Homo erectus as an Explanation Regarding the Small Stature of Homo Floresiensis" hypothesis.  In proportion to the rest of the body, the brain does not typically dwarf nearly as much when it comes to island dwarfism.  However, the Hobbit's brain size did seem to decrease dramatically, a phenomenon not typically seen in island dwarfs, with the possible exceptions of the Myotragus cave goat and the Malagasy hippo Hippopotamus lemerlei.  Therefore, some scientists hypothesize that H. floresiensis is not actually a dwarf at all, but was instead a "living fossil," an informal term used to describe animals whose closest relatives are all extinct.*  In this other scenario, scientists suspect that H. floresiensis shouldn't even belong to the genus Homo, and instead is a descendant of Australopithecus, another genus of ancestral human, members of which are thought to have survived as recently as two million years ago.  If H. floresiensis was instead a living fossil, then an island might be the perfect place for this brave little halfling to find refuge.

Besides dwarfism, islands can also serve as evolutionary holdout areas for animals that might not have been able to compete with other species on the mainland.  An excellent example of this is a member of the reptilian sphenodonts, lizard-like animals who can trace their evolutionary origins past that of lizards and snakes, all the way back to the Late Triassic Period, when dinosaurs were first evolving.  Today, the only place where you can find a living sphenodont, known colloquially as the tuatara, is on a number of small islands off the coast of New Zealand.  For whatever reason, this fascinating primitive reptile was unable to keep up with the rapid pace of evolution on the mainland, and found island life to be more its speed.  Unfortunately, introduced animals such as rats carry the potential to exterminate the tuatara within our lifetime.  With nowhere to go when the going gets tough, islands can be very dangerous places indeed.

Several lines of evidence support the idea of H. floresiensis actually being a descendant of Australopithecus, including morphological characteristics of the teeth and mandible, as well as the small brain size mentioned before.  A third hypothesis has been created to explain away the small size of this early human, which pertains to pathological conditions such as microcephaly, Laron Syndrome, and myxoedematous endemic hypothyroidism.  To read more about the support for and against these pathological conditions in regards to H. floresiensis, you can click HERE: this post goes ever on and on, and we still have a lot more ground to cover.  Besides, is it not strange that we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a being?  Such a little being.

A quality pic that shows a modern human skull on the left, and the skull of the Hobbit on the right.

"Boy, it sure would be easier to cover all of this ground if we could ride on the back of some giant elephant thing," thought an innovative member of the Haradrim people one day in Middle Earth.  Fortunately for this dreamer, he wasn't the only one who shared this vision.  The oliphaunts, giant relatives of elephants, were in no short supply, and were eventually made to carry large platforms on their backs.  Boy, that sure would be convenient if one of those dwarf elephants found their way onto Flores and got themselves shrunk, wouldn't it?  Well, lo and behold, meet Stegodon!  Although its mainland relatives were some of the largest proboscideans to ever evolve, a petite little version of Stegodon was endemic to the island of Flores at the same time the Hobbit was!

You know what else would have been easier?  If Frodo had taken an eagle and flown over Mt. Doom, and dropped the Ring into the volcano.**  It would be a little TOO convenient for there to be a giant eagle that lived on the island of Flores and, unfortunately, this time you are correct.  There was, however, a gigantic relative of the modern day Marabou stork, Leptoptilos robustus, which measured in at an enormous 6 feet tall!  Since it was so large, some scientists suspect that this fool would not have been doing much flying.  Instead, this gigantic stork is thought to have stalked the Pleistocene landscape of Flores, living a primarily terrestrial lifestyle, most likely due to a lack of mammalian predators.  Kind of the opposite of island dwarfism: instead of big animals getting smaller, its small animals getting bigger!  Boy, that sure would suck if that gigantism happened to something gross like rats, wouldn't it?

So we've got hobbits.  We've got elephants.  We've even got giant birds.  Is there anything we're missing?  Sure there is: dragons.  Although there weren't any fire breathing dragons on Flores during the Pleistocene, there was a gigantic lizard that prowled the landscape!  Meet the Komodo dragon which, as luck would have it, is actually still alive today!  At ten feet long and weighing several hundred pounds, the Komodo dragon is the heaviest lizard alive today, and will take humans as prey if given the opportunity.  As a matter of fact, there has even been some speculation that the Komodo dragon evolved so large in order to hunt the dwarf Stegodon that also made their home on the island, but as far as I know this is simply speculation.

Obviously, there is still a great deal that we need to learn about this ancient ecosystem, as well as about the individual species that were a part of said ecosystem.  Preciouusssssss fossils can be very difficult to find: unlike other inanimate objects, fossils don't really care one way or another if they are found by anyone, and just kind of sit there.  With any luck, in the coming years, paleontologists might discover evidence of humongous Floresian spiders, giant wolves, or intelligent trees.  Or maybe even elves.  Whatever the future holds, you can rest assured that I will be there to report on the new findings.  You have my word.

And my bow.

And my axe.



*Here on the blog, we've talked about animals such as the coelacanth and the horseshoe crab, both of whom are often referred to as living fossils.  In this context, I'm using the term loosely, as H. floresiensis is no longer alive today.  Instead, I am referring to the fact that at the time H. floresiensis was alive, it might have been considered a living fossil.

**If that didn't ruin that movie for you, keep in mind that Indiana Jones is irrelevant to the outcome of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that Luke and Leia are siblings and made out.


Works Cited:

Chiidax the Northern Fur Seal and the Evolution of the Otariids

Late last year, the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts received Chiidax, an orphaned northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus).  However, it was last July that Alaska SeaLife Center first took in Chiidax, after he was left outside the Alaska Department of Fish and Game offices.  A note which was included on the outside of the box that the pup came in said that the pup's mother had died while she was giving birth.  Notice how in the first two pictures of Chiidax below, the pup is covered in an all black coat, a mark of his young age.

After the pups are weaned at around four months old, they molt into their next coat, the cream and brown color of the young juvenile northern fur seal.  Look for those in these next four pictures, taken sometime last fall.  The post on ZooBorns (read that HERE) doesn't say exactly when the pictures were taken, but given that the post was published late last November, these last photos were presumably taken around then.  

When the first post on Chiidax was written on November 23rd of 2013, he weighed 18 pounds, but when he's full grown, he will definitely be a bit bigger: the males, or bulls, of the species can weigh nearly 600 pounds, which is several times more than the females weigh!  The males have to be so large because they create harems of thirty to forty females, and defend them from other males.  The seals are native to the Pacific Coast of the United States, as well as the coast of the Bering Sea in Canada, Alaska, and Russia.  

The last report on Chiidax was in late December, on the 29th.  Below are several pictures that were shared then.  You can see how smooth he looks, and how perfectly adapted for a life beneath the waves this creature is!  

The northern fur seal is the sole extant member of the genus Callorhinus, but there is also a fossil species of Callorhinus.  C. gilmorei is known from the Pliocene Epoch of southern California and Mexico, as you can see in this paper HERE.  Other sources cite another paper, linked HERE, as stating that this genus is also known from Japan, but I was unwilling to pay the fee to read the paper, so that fact remains unconfirmed.  If you have a subscription to this online journal, let me know what you find!

According to the first paper, the eared seals, or the members of the family Otariidae, can be traced back at least to the Mid to Late Miocene Epoch, approximately 11-12 MYA in California, in the form of Pithanotaria starri.  Another taxon, Thalassoleon mexicanus, is known from Mexico during the Late Miocene, approximately 5-8 MYA.  The authors of the paper suggest that between 5 MYA and today, between our time and the time of Thalassoleon, was when fur seal diversification took off, resulting in the eight extant species of Arctocephalus and the extant Callorhinus ursinus, which includes little Chiidax!  The genus Arctocephalus, along with the genus Callorhinus, comprise the extant members of the eared fur seals.  The writers of the paper also suspect that it is during this 5 million year period that the sea lions developed as well.

Things have probably changed a lot in this area of paleontology since this paper was published in 1986, but unfortunately I can't seem to access most of these papers.  Callorhinus gilmorei still seems to be a valid taxon, however, as do Thalassoleon and Pithanotaria.  Hopefully, new fossils will yield more interesting results regarding these creatures very soon!  

Unless otherwise noted, the photo credit for all of these pictures in the post go to ZooBorns, either this post HERE or HERE.  

Boston on Dwellable

Works Cited:

Otters of the Old World

In the last post (which you can check out by clicking HERE), we learned all about the otters of the Americas   In this post, we are going to look at the otters from the rest of the world!  First though, we aren't going to be looking at the sea otter again, as we looked at it in the last post, and even though it can be found along the coast of Russia and Japan, you can just click the link above to learn about it from the last post.  So, just like an otter, let's dive on in!

We'll start with the Eurasian otter, found from Europe down south to northern Africa, and as far east as India, China, and the Malay Archipelago!

Before heading over to Africa, let's focus more on the Asian otters!  First off, we have the smooth-coated otter!  The smooth-coated otter is one of my favorite otters for many reasons!  First off, it has been tamed in some parts of India and Bangladesh to not only catch fish, but also to herd them into fishing nets!  That's pretty awesome!  This otter is very social, living in groups between around 2-11, and fighting off crocodiles.  Wait, what was that?  Did you say fighting off crocodiles?  Technically, no, I wrote it, and you didn't really need to ask, you could have just reread that line again.

Anyways, yes, the smooth-coated otter will actually fight off crocodiles!  More specifically, a certain type of crocodile called the mugger crocodile!  I can sense that a few of you are a little skeptic, so below is the link to a video!

Our next Asian otter is the Asian small-clawed otter!  We actually have these at the Denver Zoo, but I have never been able to get a good picture of them (nor the fishing cats!) due to the weird way the glass was built!  Anyways, the Asian small-clawed otter is the smallest otter in the world, and, like the smooth-coated otter, is very social, living in groups of around 2-15.

Our next otter, our last Asian otter, is the hairy-nosed otter.  Not a lot is known about the hairy-nosed otter: as a matter of fact, it was actually thought to be extinct until 1998.  Since then, numerous pockets of the animal have been rediscovered, but it is still highly at risk.  The hairy-nosed otter is currently labeled as "Endangered" by the IUCN.

On to the African otters!  The African otter with the widest range is the Cape clawless otter, so we'll look at it first!  As its name implies, the front foot of the Cape clawless otter is, in fact, clawless, except for vestigial fingernails.  The Cape clawless otter will inhabit marine habitats, so long as fresh water for drinking is close by!  The Cape clawless otter will dine on, amongst other things, octopus!

The African otter with the second widest range is the spotted-necked otter.  The markings on the spotted-necked otter are unique to each individual animal: just like human thumbprints, no two are alike!

The final African otter (in fact, the final otter altogether), is the Congo clawless otter.  The limited data that scientists have seems to indicate that, despite their similarities, the Congo clawless otter is, indeed, genetically distinct from the Cape clawless otter.  One interesting fact about the Congo clawless otter pertains to its diet: earthworms form a very important component of the diet of this particular otter in many parts of its range!  The otters will root around in the mud in search of their prey, oftentimes consuming up to three earthworms a minute!

Make sure to check out the first post in our "Otters of the World" duology by clicking HERE.  Furthermore, this was the birthday post of Julie Neher! Happy birthday, Julie! Want to see some cute (or ugly) baby animals featured here on your birthday? Well, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in! And if you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!

An Amur Leopard Upchucks

On Saturday, January 26th, my father and I drove down to Colorado Springs to see a few of my friends perform in the Colorado All State Jazz Band.  Before the concert, we met up with my grandma and grandpa, and went up to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for an hour or so.  We saw a few cool things, all of which I will share with you in the next post, but this post I wanted to devote to the "Critically Endangered" sub-species of the leopard, the elusive and mysterious Amur leopard.  Fewer than thirty of these amazing creatures are thought to be alive in the wilds of southeastern Russia and northeastern China, in the Primorye region.  Poachers have taken an immense toll on the numbers of this cat, as its pelt is highly prized.  Like that of the snow leopard, another fairly large cat that also lives in a very cold, harsh environment, the Amur leopard has a very soft and, for lack of a better term, floofy, coat.

The Amur leopard prior to its little....episode.

Since the number of people who see an Amur leopard in the wild per year could almost certainly be counted on one hand, you are very unlikely to see this animal lose its lunch.  For that, you would have to go to a zoo. Now, don't get me wrong, we didn't go to the zoo just to see animals throw up, but it was definitely an interesting addition to our day!  I do hope that the poor animal is feeling better, though.  If you want to see the video of the animal barfing, click on the link below.  It's not actually as gross as it sounds, trust me!  Also, please enjoy some pictures of the beautiful cat PRIOR to its cookie tossing.  

The leopard recovers after it loses its cool

Zoo Babies: Bison

Today, in honor of the birthday of Kevyn Llewellyn, we are going to be looking at a few photos of a baby bison born about this time last year at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois.  Although frequently incorrectly referred to as buffalo, they are simply different animals, despite the outward similarities between the two groups.  If you see something that looks like it could be either a buffalo or a bison, there is a very, very good bet that you are looking at a bison.  Unless something very strange has happened, and in that case, you will be excused for looking foolish when it comes to your knowledge of the bovids.

Anyways, the bison, despite their once immense numbers (numbering in the tens of millions), were hunted almost to extinction in the 1800s, but have made a stunning comeback, with about 20,000 living in protected areas such as National Parks, and a further 500,000 living on tribal lands and ranches.  Nevertheless, their range is vastly reduced from what it once was.  Many people have come to the aid of the bison over the years, including Theodore Roosevelt and a man named William Hornaday, who together co-founded the American Bison Society at the Bronx Zoo in New York in 1905 in order to help protect these wild creatures. Today, they are labeled as "Near Threatened" by the IUCN due to these conservation efforts. 

Today, the bison is the largest North American mammal, but it wasn't always this way.  In fact, it wasn't always even the largest member of the genus Bison in North America!  Ancient ancestors of the North American bison have been traced by paleontologists to southern Asia to about 400,000 years ago, during the Pliocene Epoch.  Once the bison managed to make it across the land bridge into North America, it diversified and evolved.  One species, Bison latifrons, had a horn-span of a whopping nine feet!  Another species, Bison occidentalis (of which I have a scapula!) is thought to be the direct descendant of the modern bison, and evolved sometime during the late Pleistocene Epoch.

While talking bison with Dr. Robert Bakker and Matt Mossbrucker at the Morrison Natural History Museum, I learned that if you are looking at postcranial elements of a fossil bison (that is fossilized bones from behind the head), they are almost impossible to differentiate from each other.  Not only that, but they are extraordinarily difficult to differentiate from cows, too!  As a matter of fact, the species barrier is quite tentative between the bison and domestic cattle, resulting in the domestication of some bison, as well as hybrids, such as beefalo and cattalo.

Photo credit for all of the photos used in this post goes to the website for ZooBorns.  If you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!  And remember, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in!

There Be Dragons

I think when it comes to reptiles, easily the most interesting are the monitor lizards and their relatives.  The monitor lizards are scientifically known as the members of the genus Varanus within the family Varanidae (which, in turn, is a family within the superfamily Varanoidea), and are widely considered to be the lizards with the most intelligence.  The largest extant (still living, opposite of extinct) lizard today, the Komodo dragon, is a member of this family, as is Megalania (often referred to as Varanus prisca), the largest known lizard ever to have existed.  Let's learn a bit more about these interesting reptiles!

According to a paper by American biologist Eric Pianka (link included in References section), the monitor lizards as a group are thought to have evolved on the continent of Laurasia (see map below) earlier than 65 million years ago (MYA), before even the dinosaurs died out.  After evolving in Laurasia, they then dispersed into the continents of Africa and Australia.  As of the writing of his paper, 44 species of monitor lizard are around today, with around 27 of these native to Australia, where the highest species density of monitor lizards are.  In the tropics of northern Australia, up to ten species of Varanus can reside together!

There are numerous families related to the monitor lizards within the superfamily Varanoidea, both living and dead, such as the earless monitor lizard, the sole member of the family Lanthanotidae.  The other extant family within the superfamily Varanoidea is the family Helodermatidae, which includes the beaded lizards and the Gila monster from southwestern North America, Mexico, and Guatemala.  However, in my opinion, it is the extinct family Mosasauridae that is the most interesting of the monitor lizard relatives.

The mosasaurs were the dominant marine predators throughout the Late Cretaceous Period, and were wiped out by the traumatic K/T Extinction Event, just like the dinosaurs.  Some of these mosasaurs could grow to enormous lengths, such as Tylosaurus, the apex predator of the Western Interior Seaway of North America during the Cretaceous Period.  Tylosaurus could grow to an enormous 50 or so feet long, and fossil discoveries of the stomach of this creature indicate that it fed on pretty much everything that swam in the sea: the remains of sharks, the flightless diving bird Hesperornis, fish, plesiosaurs, and even smaller mosasaurs have been found in the stomachs of Tylosaurus fossils!

The mosasaurs share something else in common with the monitor lizards: they both have a third eye on top of their head.  It's not the same as the eyes we have on our head, or even the eyes that the mosasaurs and monitor lizards have on their heads, either. A good comparison is if you close your eyes and look at a light source, and then move your hand back and forth in front of your face.  You can see something moving , right?  Just a shadow, but you can still tell that something is there.  That's kind of what the third eye of the monitor lizards and the mosasaurs is like.  If you are a baby Tylosaurus swimming in the sea and you see something pass overhead, you are going to swim to safety as fast as you possibly can: there are a lot of things in this sea that would barely noticed they swallowed you.  However, if you are a 50-foot long adult Tylosaurus and you see a shadow swim above your head, you are almost certainly going to go investigate.  Whatever it is, it's probably edible!

Another interesting thing that the mosasaurs most likely shared with the monitor lizards is their forked tongue, similar to that of snakes.  But what purpose does this forked tongue served?  Well, when the animal sticks the tongue out of its mouth, it is smelling the air.  As it draws the tongue back in, scent particles are pulled in as well.  The fork-tongued creature is able to determine which side of the forked-tongue has more scent particles on it.  If the animal was attempting to locate a dead animal or something like that, and its head was facing directly towards where the dead animal scent particles were floating from, the reptile would know that it was on the right track.  If, however, the fork-tonguer was facing due north, and the dead animal was due west of its position, when the tongue is drawn into the mouth, its owner can tell that there are more dead animal scent particles on the left side of the tongue, as opposed to the right, and now knows which way it must go to find its meal.  Pretty neat!

Can't get enough of the monitor lizards?  Well, below I have links to five videos featuring some monitor lizards (one spiny-tailed monitor, four Komodo dragon)!  Enjoy!

Spiny-Tailed Monitor Attempted Feeding

Komodo Dragon Moving Around at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Komodo Dragon Relaxin' to the Maxin'

Up Close and Personal With The Komodo Dragon at the Cheyenney Mountain Zoo

Komodo Dragon Close Up at the Denver Zoo


And now, for some pictures of various monitor lizards I have taken over the years! First off is Herkemer, the resident Dumeril's Monitor Lizard at the Morrison Natural History Museum!

Next, we have a few photos that I took of one of the Komodo dragons at the Denver Zoo.

After that, we have a few Komodo dragon pics that I took at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!

Finally, we have a trio of pictures that I took of some tree monitors at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, as well!

And now, last but certainly not least, we have some pictures of some baby Komodo dragons at the Phoenix Zoo in Arizona!  They are pretty darn cute!
This was the birthday post of Gookhyun Jeong, happy birthday big guy!  And remember, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in! 

References:

http://www.conservation.org/FMG/Articles/Pages/gila_monsters_human_health_mexico.aspx

http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~varanus/varanus.html

Top Ten Most Interesting Arboreal Mammals (Part 1)

Today, in honor of the birthday of Charlie Bowers, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" approach to some pretty cool arboreal mammals.  FYI, for those of you who don't know, arboreal means an animal that lives in the trees!  So let's dive right in!  For Part 2 of this duology, click HERE.

10.  Squirrel - Although a fairly common animal and really not that exciting at first glance, the squirrel is actually quite the exciting animal!  Incredibly acrobatic, the squirrel is superbly adapted for an arboreal lifestyle.  Need more proof?  Click the link right HERE to be amazed!

One of the koalas at the San Diego Zoo in California.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

9.  Koala -  Other than the kangaroo, the koala is probably the most iconic Australian marsupial.  Many myths abound in regards to the koala.  For example, many people believe that the koala is constantly "adjusting its altitude," so to speak, due to something in the leaves of the eucalyptus trees that they consume.  While it seems quite likely that the koala is constantly baked due to its lackadaisical attitude, it's not actually true: the koala just spends a great deal of its day asleep in order to digest the tough vegetation that composes its diet.  As a matter of fact, the 20-22 hours a day the koala sleeps makes it the sleepiest  mammal!  (For more information about the koala and its digestion, click HERE). 

8.  Primates - Perhaps the order of mammals that is most superbly adapted to a life in the trees, the primates include everything from the aye-aye to the orangutan, from the tarsier to us humans!  Thought to have started evolving in North America or Asia around 65 MYA or so, before even the dinosaurs died out, today there are over 200 extant species, with new ones still being discovered, like the lesula monkey that was discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012 (pictured above).

7.  Binturong - Often called the "Bear-cat," the binturong is the largest of the strange group of animals known as the civets.  (For more about civets and their relatives, click HERE).  Native to southeastern Asia, the binturong is omnivorous, but seems to consume fruit the most in its diet, and is particularly partial to figs.  Although the binturong is labeled as "Critically Endangered" in China, the IUCN labels the species as a whole as merely "Vulnerable."

6.  Sloth - When you hear the word "sloth," you might think of someone or something being lazy.  There is a very good reason for that association: the sloth is quite sloth!  As David Attenborough says in the excellent BBC production "Life of Mammals," "The sloth moves as if it's powered by the wrong sort of batteries."  Sleeping around 20 hours a day, the sloth is the second sleepiest mammal, right after the koala.  While it sleeps, the sloth hangs upside down from tree branches.  Sounds like a lot of work, right?  Actually, it really isn't: the sloth simply hooks its claws over the tree branch, and relaxes all of its muscles.  If a human hunter shoots a sloth hanging from a tree, it will usually simply remain hanging from the tree branch, anchored by its claws!  Then the hunter actually has to physically climb up into the tree to retrieve its prize!

Top Ten Mammals That Look Like Something They Aren't (Part 1)

Today, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" look at some mammals that look a lot like something they aren't.  Sometimes, these two animals are fairly closely related: other times, they are quite far apart!  All of these examples will be results of a fascinating phenomenon known as "Convergent Evolution," which is where similar ecological and environmental factors cause two very different animals to evolve in a similar fashion.  So let's dive right in!  But first, this is the birthday post of Joseph Kleinkopf, happy birthday Joseph! (For Part 2, animals 5-1 of the countdown, click HERE.)

10.  Bear Dogs - As their name implies, the bear-dogs are a group of mammalian carnivores that greatly resemble both bears and dogs.  However, they are neither!  According to The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives by Alan Turner, they are thought to be fairly closely related to dogs, and more distantly related to bears.  Their remains are most commonly found in North America, although they are also found in Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Temporally, these animals lived during the Miocene Epoch, and are though to have arisen about 15 MYA, and fallen into extinction around 12 million years ago (MYA).

9.  Entelodonts - The Entelodonts, frequently referred to as "Hell" or "Terminator Pigs" greatly resemble the extant (still around, opposite of extinct) pigs and peccaries.  However, they are in a separate family from both the pigs and the peccaries, the family Entelodontidae, but all three do reside in the order Artiodactyla.  Some paleontologists believe that these guys are more closely related to whales and their relatives than pigs, but their exact phylogenetic relationship is unclear.  They inhabited North America and Europe during the Oligocene Epoch, around 34-32 MYA. 

8.  Hyrax - This little guy looks like he would be a rodent, but his true relatives are actually much more surprising!  Weighing between about 5 and 10 pounds, the hyraxes are actually fairly closely related to the members of the family Proboscidea, or the elephants and their relatives!  The extant hyraxes have their own family, Hyracoidea, but their ancient ancestors are thought to have branched into the extant hyraxes, the elephants and kin, and most likely the manatee and its relatives!  Hyraxes are found exclusively in Africa and the Middle East.

7.  Red Panda - The red panda has a long history of uncertainty in regards to its phylogenetic relationship to other animals, as has its namesake, the giant panda.  However, now we know that the giant panda is in the family Ursidae, or the bear family, and the red panda is now classified in its own family, Ailuridae, closely related to the mustelids, raccoons, and more, distantly bears.  For more information about the red panda, click HERE.  For more information about the giant panda, click HERE.

6.  Rabbits and Pikas - Even up until just a few years ago, I had assumed that the rabbits and the pikas were both rodents.  They look a lot like them, and they share the trait of continually growing teeth.  However, the members of the order Lagomorpha, which is the order that includes the rabbits and the pikas, differs from the order Rodentia in that they possess four incisors, as opposed to two for the rodents.  Furthermore, most rodents are omnivorous, while the lagomorphs are almost entirely strictly herbivorous.

For Part 2, animals 5-1 of the countdown, click HERE.

And remember, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in! 

23-Fact Tuesday: The Polar Bear!

Everyone loves polar bears, so today, for the birthday post of Brooke Harrower, we are going to be taking a 23-Fact Tuesday look at them!  Allons-y!

1.  Despite the fact that the polar bear can be quite a fierce animal, it can also be very playful and gentle.  For proof, click HERE to see a very cute video of polar bears playing with sled dogs!

2.  A group of polar bears is called a celebration.

3.  In an attempt to safely film polar bears up close and personal without disturbing them, one production company resorted to an interesting array of spy cameras.  To see an awesome video of the polar bears playing with the spy cameras, click HERE.

4.  As we saw in the previous video clip, the polar bear is quite the curious animal.  It has to be, to survive in such harsh conditions!  The polar bear is also a lot smarter than many other bears, as can be seen in a comparison of a few different bear brains, below!  Look at how much larger (comparatively) the brain of the polar bear is than that of the American black bear!  Also keep in mind that more wrinkles=a greater surface area=a smarter animal!

5.  Unlike the color of its fur, the skin of the polar bear is actually jet black!

6.  Despite the fact that they are often erroneously pictured together, it is almost entirely impossible for penguins and polar bears to meet naturally in the wild, as no penguins ever really make it past the Equator, with the Galápagos penguin living the furthest north, right on the Equator!  For more information on the subject (as well as some really funny stories) click on the link HERE, to check out a page on the awesome blog March of the Fossil Penguins.

7.  As you can see in the video clip HERE, filming the polar bears for the excellent BBC series Planet Earth could be quite a challenge (see the full post HERE), especially when they come knocking at your door!

8.  The polar bear is the largest extant (still living, opposite of extinct) mammalian carnivore.  The males can grow up to a whopping 1,500 pounds! 

9.  It occurs to me as I eat this delicious cherry popsicle that the polar bear must have some sort of special evolutionary adaptation to prevent brain freeze as it consumes a cold and frozen meal.  Research should be done into this.

10.  Polar bears, after their emergence from their dens following the harsh Arctic winters, have been observed sledding down the hills on which the dens are associated.  Some scientists believe that this action is solely intended to clean the fur, but many others (myself included) believe that it is probably more for fun!  Check out the video HERE.

11.  The polar bear is native to only five countries.  These are Russia, Denmark owned Greenland, Norway owned Svalbard, Alaska, and Canada.

12.  The polar bear is a descendant of the grizzly bear, and was once thought to have diverged from the grizzly possibly only even around 70-100,000 years ago.  Others are more conservative in their estimations, as DNA analysis on one particular fossil specimen indicates that the polar bear diverged from the grizzly bear around 160,000 years ago.  It now seems more likely that the age of divergence of was much earlier in time than even 100,000 years ago, and polar bear fossils dating from earlier than that (round 115,000 years ago) have actually been discovered.

A picture of one of the grizzly bears at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo doing what the zookeepers call the "Yoga Bear."  This was from the behind the scenes experience that my dad, grandma and grandpa, my friend Masaki and I got to do with Kelley Parker a few months back!  Photo Credit: Masaki Kleinkopf.

Another picture of one of the grizzly bears at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo doing what the zookeepers call the "Yoga Bear."  This was from the behind the scenes experience that my dad, grandma and grandpa, my friend Masaki and I got to do with Kelley Parker a few months back!  Photo Credit: Masaki Kleinkopf.

13.  The oldest polar bear fossil known to science, the lower jaw of a male, was discovered in 2004.  It's age is thought to be between around 110,000 and 130,000 years old. 

14.  The scientific name for the polar bear, Ursus maritimus is "sumitiram susru" spelled backwards.  This means absolutely nothing and is really not that exciting, unless you are me and think it's funny and clever to spell things backwards and make stupid jokes about it.

15.  Algae, while not threatening to a polar bear in any significant way, can be extremely hard to wash out of the bears fur.  So therefore, in the summer of 2008 when three bears at Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens in Japan got a bunch of algae stuck in their fur, they were green for the entire summer!  True story!

16.  The polar bear is a fantastic swimmer, aided by its streamlined body and skull as well as its partially webbed feet, and have been spotted swimming strongly in open waters as much as 200 miles from the shore!

17.  The polar bear will consume a wide variety of foods, including everything from seals to walrus, beluga whales to bowhead whale carcasses, birds, and even kelp!

18.  The polar bear is labeled as "Vulnerable" by the IUCN, a position which may deteriorate in years to come with the further melting of the ice caps.

19.  Hybrids of the polar bear and the grizzly bear, sometimes called grolars, have been known to occur both in the wild and in captivity, a further testament to the close genetic relationship between the two bears.

20.  Baby polar bears are possibly some of the cutest animals on the planet, as can be evidenced by the picture below of baby Anori from Germany's Wuppertal Zoo.

21.  Humans are the only animal that hunt polar bears.

22.  So well protected against the cold is the polar bear that they can quickly overheat, even when the temperature is below zero!  In order to combat this, the polar bear will try to avoid running and will rest for many many hours at a time.  Maybe my cat's a polar bear.

23.  Polar bears, like myself when Windows Movie Maker refuses to work, have actually been observed by scientists to throw tantrums when they fail to catch their prey!  The bears have been observed growling disappointedly, kicking piles of snow, and even throwing ice chunks!

Happy birthday Brooke, hope you enjoy!  And remember, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in!

Feeding Some Tigers!

So here are two more videos that I have uploaded from the behind-the-scenes visit to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo that I took a few months back with my father, sister, and grandma and grandpa, under the guidance of Kelley Parker!  It was a lot of fun, and we got to feed the Siberian or Amur tigers while we were there!  The Siberian tiger, Panthera tigris altaica,  is a sub-species of the tiger, Panthera tigris, and is labeled as "Endangered" by the IUCN.  The Siberian tiger is found in the Primorye region of eastern Russia.  Anyways, enough chit-chat, here are the videos!

Feeding the Siberian Tiger!


Siberian Tiger Jumps Up To Get A Pumpkin

Green Mountain Falls on Dwellable

Animal Spotlight: Gasparinisaura

Gasparinisaura is just one of those many dinosaurs that are not very famous at all, and not very well known.  In fact, I hadn't even heard of it until this morning, when my episode of Dr. Who made the computer momentarily freeze, so I picked up my Jurassic Park Institue: Dinosaur Field Guide by Dr. Thomas R. Holtz and Dr. Michael Brett-Surman that was sitting next to me on the computer table and turned to page 74.  Learn something new every day!

Gasparinisaura is considered to be a part of the basal, or primitive, ornithopods.  Ornithopods are different from other ornithischian dinosaurs in that they have a premaxilla bone that reaches further than their maxilla bone, and that their jaw joint is further down than in other dinosaurs.  Most of the basal ornithopods were around during the Jurassic Period, such as the Late Jurassic Othnielia rex, who inhabited what would become the rocks of the Morrison Formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.  Most of the rest of the basal ornithopods didn't survive past the Early Cretaceous Period, but Gasparinisaura has been found in rocks dating from around 80-90 MYA, right smack-dab in the Middle Cretaceous Period of Argentina.  According to the Jurassic Park Institute, "Remains of dinosaurs from this time span are so extremely rare, all the specimens in the world would fit in one small exhibit hall!"

Let's take a brief look at what we know about the evolution and the dispersal of the basal ornithopods, shall we?  According to my massive, 861 page book called The Dinosauria, every member of the clade Ornithopoda (which includes the iguanodonts and the duck-billed hadrosaurs, as well as the basal ornithopods) had a common ancestor that came from Asia.  This is interesting to note, because two other major clades of dinosaurs, the Marginocephalians (which includes the ceratopsians like Triceratops and the Pachycephalosaurs like Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch) and the Thyreophorans (which includes stegosaurs like Stegosaurus and ankylosaurs like Ankylosaurus [yes, I know, that sounded incredibly redundant]) are hypothesized to have originally evolved in Asia, before spreading out to other parts of the world.  Whew, that would have been a mouth-full if I had had to say that out loud.

Anyways, paleontologists believe that this common ancestor would have inhabited Asia during the Early Jurassic Period, or perhaps even before that.  According to the book, prior to the Late Jurassic, a "major dispersal to North America took place."  Following this dispersal to North America, two "subsequent dispersals from North America" followed, one to Europe, and the other to South America.  (Keep in mind that, at this time in Earth's history, the continents were intermittently connected, allowing for the over-land dispersal of animals that would be entirely unable to do the same thing today.)  The European dispersal contained ornithopods of the lineage that would one day lead to the relatively famous dinosaur known as Hypsilophodon.  This dispersal is thought to have occurred before or during the Early Cretaceous.  Meanwhile, the South American dispersal "took place (at the latest) during the early Late Cretaceous," and was composed of members of the lineage that would one day lead to our home-dawg, Gasparinisaura.  Boy, am I the only one who just skimmed those last two paragraphs?

Gasparinisaura, like many of the basal-most members of the ornithopods, was just a little guy, only around two feet long, and probably weighing about as much as a chicken.  Remains of Gasparinisaura are found in the Río Colorado Formation.  With further digging (oh so witty) in The Dinosauria, I have been able to come up with other dinosaurs found in this formation. Here is a list of all of the dinosaurs mentioned in the book. 

Alvarezsaurus, a member of the group of dinosaurs known as the alvarezsaurids, a group of Maniraptoran dinosaurs thought to be fairly closely related to the ornithomimosaurs.  

Patagopteryx, a flightless bird that probably weighed around as much as a turkey.  

Neuquenornis, a small, pigeon-sized bird.  Apparently, paleontologists have not only discovered a partial skeleton of this animal, but also some eggs with embryos!  Pretty neat!  

Velocisaurus, a four or so foot long ceratosaur, not very well known.  A noasaurid, and, as you can see in the pictures below (all four of the pictures are of Velocisaurus), looks a lot like its close relative, Masiakasaurus, whose picture you can see if you click on the word "Masiakasaurus" where it is yellow. 

Aucasaurus, a thirteen or fourteen foot long abelisaur, thought to be a close relative of Carnotaurus.  Known from a skeleton that is quite complete, but not yet fully described.  

Neuquenosaurus and Titanosaurus, a pair of sauropod dinosaurs.