Eyes on Ears and Mouth on Toes

Despite the clever if misleading title, we will not be talking about mouths on toes today (although many creatures such as butterflies can taste with their feet).  I just said that to make it sound like the line from the classic song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" by Bob Dylan.  Instead, we are going to be talking about eyes on ears: eyespots, at least!

A picture of one of the Amur tigers at the Denver Zoo.  See those white bars surrounded by dark fur on the ears of the cat?  Those are the topic of today's discussion.

On the cover of the August/September issue of the National Wildlife magazine, there was a picture of a drinking bobcat, its ears folded back in the posture that some refer to as "airplane ears."  On both of its ears were two white bars that made the ears look a lot like eyes.  I never really paid attention to this pattern on the coat, but once my friend Aidan Cook pointed it out, it got the proverbial gears going.  I remembered that servals also had the eyespot-like patterns as well, but did other cats?  Turns out a lot of them do, with just a few shared throughout the post.  Notice how defined the eyespot is in both the bobcat (top) and the serval, below.

To learn more, I consulted my "Wild Cats of the World" book by Mel and Fiona Sunquist.  The authors state that many cats have this pattern on their ears, "almost as many species" have the ear eyespots that are "poorly defined or absent."  One of the many examples that they include is the lion.  As you can see in the pictures below, lions do have this pattern to a certain degree, but nowhere near as derived as in the serval or the bobcat.  Below we have pictures of a young adult male lion, two of females, and one of a cub, and you can see that none of them have a very well defined eyespot.

Mountain lions also generally don't have it as well defined.  It seems like some mountain lions really don't have that much black on their ears at all, and some have a higher degree of black and white.  Presumably, whatever the function the eyespot serves in other species, it is not as important for the mountain lion, and natural selection therefore does not favor it highly one way or another.

It's a little tough to tell in the picture below, but the sand cat is another one of those cats that has a poorly defined eyespot.

Cheetahs also don't have terribly well defined eyespots.

Yet another cat that does not have very well defined eyespots, the ever fantastic Pallas cat!

I thought I had read somewhere that the eyespots served to help communicate between individuals when they were hunting.  This doesn't make that much sense, though, because most cats are solitary individuals, with the main exception being lions, and we already noted that their eyespots are not quite as specialized.  The Sunquists state in their book that the exact function of the eyespots is unknown, although some scientists believe that they serve as a "follow me" signal to their young, which "may be especially important in low-light conditions."  I assumed that this might mean that the young cats wouldn't have the eyespots, but this is clearly not true, as you can see the photograph of Sochi, the new male Amur leopard cub at the Denver Zoo.  There, you can see that Sochi (named after the Russian city that is holding this years Olympics) also has the ear spots.  So while this doesn't necessarily support the idea of a "follow me" signal to the young, it doesn't really not support it either: it's just something interesting that I wanted to point out.

We already talked about how tigers have a pretty well developed eyespot, but here are two more pictures of tigers to drive the point home.

I can't remember for certain if the picture below was a bobcat or a lynx, but I am pretty certain it is a bobcat, looking at the size of the feet.  (Lynx spend a lot more time in the snow, and therefore have larger feet, a snowshoe-like adaptation to keep them from sinking in.)  This cat, one of many at the Wild Animal Sanctuary, seems to have much smaller feet in proportion to the rest of the body.  Regardless, you can see the well defined eyespots.

The snow leopard, one of my favorite cats, has well defined eyespots as well, which you can kind of see in both of these pictures.

Photo Credit: Masaki Kleinkopf 

The fishing cat is another cat that has these well defined eyespots.

And finally, the Canadian lynx, much like its bobcat relative, also has pretty well defined eyespots!

Works Cited:

Goldilocks and the Three HOLY CRAP THAT IS A BIG BEAR

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This was the birthday post of Mark Neher! Happy birthday, father! If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animals, 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!

Credit for the photos used throughout this post goes to:
-Grace Albers
-www.facebook.com
-drawception.com
-animalstown.com
-www.pbase.com
-www.collegehumor.com
-www.zimbio.com
-connect.ncircle.com
-passfail.squarespace.com
-www.suprmchaos.com
-andrewsmoving.wordpress.com
-www.stvinc.com
-commons.wikimedia.org
-www.nightmare-fuel.com
-www.themillions.com
-houseofgeekery.com
-www.buddytv.com
-www.travelalaska.com

The Zanzibar Leopard: A Lesson in Island Dwarfism....and Extinction

Very few people have heard of the Zanzibar leopard, unless of course you are a person from Zanzibar, an island ecologist interested in insular leopard populations, or you are another Zanzibar leopard.  (Which might be problematic, being another Zanzibar leopard, but we'll get to that later.)  In the meantime, let's look at what makes the Zanzibar leopard so special: its size.

When a population of animals becomes trapped on an island, they have to adapt or die: it's just that simple.  While many populations simply succumb to death, other populations of animals can sometimes shrink over the course of many generations, eventually becoming dwarfs of their former selves.  It's called island dwarfism, and it's happened many, many times throughout the history of life: the dwarf dinosaurs of Hațeg; the Channel Islands pygmy mammoth and the Channel Islands fox; the Cozumel Island fox and the Cozumel Island raccoon; and many, many others.  The subject of today's post is (you guessed it!) the Zanzibar leopard and, as you also might have already guessed, this particular leopard is an island dwarf!  

The leopard (Panthera pardus) is simply a fascinating animal.  Able to drag prey weighing more than three times its own weight in some cases, this mid-sized feline is the midnight stalker of the African savannah.  An occasional man-eater, there are numerous sub-species of the leopard, although no one can quite agree just how many there actually are.  While some people claim that there are just a few sub-species, others have claimed that there are around thirty!  However, most scientists agree that, at least for now, there are only eight or nine sub-species.  For regular readers of the blog, you've actually met a few of these sub-species already!  Probably the most famous, the African leopard (P. pardus pardus), was featured in a post about a year ago, entitled "Predators of Baby Leopards: You Might Be Surprised," in which we talked about....well, just read the post for yourself!  More recently, we met the Amur leopard (P. p. orientalis) in a post entitled "An Amur Leopard Upchucks."  I'm pretty sure you can figure out what that post is about all on your own.

There is some debate about whether the Zanzibar leopard is simply a separate population of the African leopard (P. p. pardus), or whether it is a distinct population defined by genetics.  When it is defined as a separate sub-species, the Zanzibar leopard has the scientific name of Panthera pardus adersi.  We'll talk more about this genetic confusion later: but that's enough about the genetics,  let's get to the interesting stuff!

Scientists think that the Zanzibar leopard has been isolated from the rest of the African leopard population on the mainland since the end of the last Ice Age, at which point global sea levels would have risen, cutting off the two main islands of the Zanzibar Archipelago, Unguja and Pemba, from the mainland.  Unguja, which is informally known as Zanzibar, is where the Zanzibar leopard can be found: at least, it used to be found there.

Remember when we were talking about how scientists can't really agree on whether the Zanzibar leopard is a distinct sub-species or not?  Well, their research is not aided by the fact that the Zanzibar leopard seems to be extinct.  Following the Zanzibar revolution in 1964, the government began a program to eradicate the Zanzibar leopard, both to stop apparent live-stock killings attributed to the cat, as well as to eliminate the leopard as an apparent source of witchcraft.  Research conducted in 1996 indicated that the leopard still survived on the island, but more recent research in 2002 has found no sign of the leopard.

Adapt or die: that's the mantra of the island animal.  When you throw humans into the mix, unfortunately its the second option that seems to occur most often.  Thousands of island animals have been exterminated by humans as their habitat is destroyed in the name of progress.  With nowhere else to go, they die out, leaving behind a legacy of destruction.

This was the birthday post of Ted Neher! Happy birthday, Grandpa! If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animals, 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!

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Not Enough Bacteria, Too Many Allergies

If you were to hear someone say "by making our world more sterile, we're actually making ourselves sicker," you might think they were full of it: initially, it sure doesn't sound like it makes any sense. Interestingly, however, it seems as if this may, in fact, be true: our attempts to make our world a cleaner place, we are slowly and steadily weakening our own immune systems!

It all started yesterday as I was working at the Morrison Natural History Museum, watering and destroying the angiosperms from the Jurassic Garden with "extreme prejudice," as angiosperms do not appear to have inhabited Colorado during the Jurassic Period. I started wondering why there was so much dead plant material around the base of the plants in the garden, and, for lack of a better conclusion, decided that it was probably because the bacteria that would normally digest these plants didn't actually live here. (I still don't know whether that is true or not). The topic of bacteria triggered my brain to start thinking about digestive bacteria: I was quite hungry, you see. It had been brought to my attention in the past that, even if humans were somehow able to miraculously clone a dinosaur, we almost certainly couldn't keep them alive. Each animal on the planet has its own, unique set of bacteria that helps it to digest its food. With the extinction of the dinosaurs, it is almost certain that the bacteria that constantly accompanied them in their digest tracts went extinct, as well.

This line of thought made me think about the passing of bacteria from the parents to their offspring. How is it done? I assumed that they weren't born with it, but I wasn't sure. I ended up thinking that perhaps, in animals that regurgitate food into the mouths of their young (like penguins), perhaps this was how the bacteria was passed. With perfect timing, out came Matt Mossbrucker, the director and curator at the Morrison Museum. I asked him whether it was, indeed, regurgitation that passed the bacteria on, and he said yes: partially. You know how many animals (such as your dog and cat at home) will eat poop? That's at least part of the reason: they're trying to get bacteria from the poop to help them digest their food!

After thinking about it for a few seconds, I realized that humans (most of us, anyways) neither regurgitate our food for our young 'uns, nor do we eat each others poop. So I asked Matt whether humans get this bacteria through breast milk: turns out, we don't. So how do we get the bacteria?

According to recent research, humans aren't getting enough bacteria to digest their food. Much of this research seems to indicate that perhaps this is the reason why so many humans have digestive issues, allergies, and the like. Matt also said that, just like I said in the introduction, "by making our world more sterile, we're actually making ourselves sicker." Still sound paradoxical? Well, ultimately, humans are trying so dang hard to sterilize their world with hand sanitizer, bleach, alcohol, and soap, that we aren't being exposed to as many pathogens. While in some cases this is a good thing, in other cases, our immune systems, just like the six-pack of someone who doesn't exercise, slowly weaken.  And, of course, a weak immune system is good for no one!

So is the moral of the story to stop washing your hands?  No, of course not.  It's to go out there and eat poop.  See you later, everyone!

Lions and Tigers: Less Than Meets The Eye

If you are in a zoo or out in the wild, differentiating between a lion and a tiger is much less impressive than many other feats, such as walking and chewing gum or recognizing that yellow snow is not for consumption.  However, when all you have is their bones, differentiating between the two becomes much more of a challenge.

According to the authors of the excellent book "The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives," around the turn of the century (meaning the 1800s to the 1900s), French paleontologist Marcelin Boule devised a number of criteria to differentiate the skeletons of these two animals from each other.  However, these criteria aren't just "the lion has an extra vertebra," or "the tiger has a striped femur."  Nothing that simple.  It's more like "the tiger has a slightly more pointy fronto-nasal suture as it reaches towards the posterior end of the skull."  Yeah.  For the most part, not all that explicit.  In the picture below (scanned from the Big Cat book mentioned above, all photo credit goes to them), you can see how subtle these differences can be.

So what are the implications for paleontologists?  Ultimately, it shows us all how very little we can actually figure out about animal behavior from their bones, as well as how very similar such different creatures can be.  Sure, looking at the skull of a lion or a tiger, most people would have little difficulty figuring out that they ate meat.  But would looking at that slightly pointier fronto-nasal suture in the tiger really show us how much less social it is compared to the lion?  Would the minute differences in the fronto-parietal suture reveal that the male lion sports a mane?  Would any sort of suture be able to tell us that the lion is one of very few cats to sport a solid colored coat (like the mountain lion and the jaguarundi), while the tiger sports orange and black stripes?  In the end, these minute differences in the bones remind us that we will probably never be able to learn everything there is to know about ancient and extinct species, and that there are probably many more extinct animals out there that are waiting to be discovered.  It's more than likely that we already have the bones: we just need to tools to differentiate between them.

This was the birthday post of Tom Bonan! Happy birthday, Tom! If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animals, 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!

Drop It Like It's Hot (A Song About Spiky Animals)

The sixth song in our song series is entitled "Drop It Like It's Hot (A Song About Spiky Animals)," to the tune of the song "Drop It Like It's Hot" by Snoop Dogg!  Below is the link to the song:

Here are the lyrics to the song:


Spikkkkky
Spikkkkky

[Chorus]
When you pick up an echidna
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When the hedgehog tries to get at ya
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Pufferfish won't give you latitude
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When it comes to these guys it don't have to do with brawn
They got spikes all on their body and they got it going on

Uh! All these nice dudes, have a common theme
If they are pursued, probably make you scream
The little hedgehog, spied by a little stoat
But attacking this little mammal I simply can't promote
The echidna, though it still lays eggs
Is still a mammal, don't be misled
Although it seems like, a reptile instead
Milk is still how it's babies get fed
Put one on your seat, I know that's gonna bring the heat
Feel like steel stabbed into you like Chinchilla with deceit
But don't try to pick it up with your fingers, they will split
Probably hurts a bit
Do your best to contain the pain and don't throw a fit
You should think about it, take a second
Matter fact, you should take four, see
And maybe you should turn around and go now, flee

[Chorus]
When you pick up an echidna
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When the hedgehog tries to get at ya
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Pufferfish won't give you latitude
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When it comes to these guys it don't have to do with brawn
They got spikes all on their body and they got it going on

It's not a scratch like you get from a cat
It's like being bit by a vampire bat
When you're out on the beach and out goes the tide
Keep an eye out for the sea urchin, because if the two of you collide
Ain't no other way to say the way I feel, dismay
I got poked so very much that you probably thought today
That I'm a pincushion, I think we can agree
That with my luck next thing I grab will be a killer bee
I can't take it, just break it, and when I make it
To a safe place I will probably be invaded
I have to find a place where no poky things reside
Cause the way I'm going I'll be lucky to get out of this alive
Take me back in time it'll be just a little
I'm tired of always being the monkey in the middle
But no matter where I go, I'm followed by the spiny animizzles
Aetosaurs have found me and I break like peanut brittle

[Chorus]
When you pick up an echidna
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When the hedgehog tries to get at ya
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Pufferfish won't give you latitude
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When it comes to these guys it don't have to do with brawn
They got spikes all on their body and they got it going on

The thorny devil, really goes to show
That wherever you walk, you better watch your toes
The little guy's tough, one not to cross
Big thorny devil, yeah he's so sharp
On the TV screen and in the magazines
You see a creature which looks like something from a crazy dream
You got a time machine so you wanna pop back?
To the Burgess Shale, let's go check out that
Wacky critter that looks like a worm that moves
With a bunch of little legs, and will likely confuse
Anyone who takes a look at this dude
No matter what you think it don't look easy to chew
This little guy looks through and through
Like the last thing you want to find inside of your stew
Now before we leave make sure it's not inside your shoe
Or in your other clothes, you don't want to suppose!

[Chorus]
When you pick up an echidna
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When the hedgehog tries to get at ya
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Park it like it's hot
Pufferfish won't give you latitude
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
Drop it like it's hot
When it comes to these guys it don't have to do with brawn
They got spikes all on their body and they got it going on

Spikkkkkkkkkky
Spikkkkkkkkkky

Are you diggin' the songs?  Well, then check out our playlist below!

CLICK HERE TO BE DIRECTED TO A FUN-FILLED PLAYLIST OF AMAZING SONGS.

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

17 Truths Episode 1: The Cheetah

If you haven't seen the "True Facts" video series, then you are missing out.  Assuming, of course, that you have a good but slightly inappropriate and sarcastic sense of humor, and are not young enough that your parents will become angry with me if they find out where you found out about them.  That is why I am not providing a link to them here.  Anyways, I find them absolutely hysterical, and was quite eager to try my own hand at one!  One of my favorite animals is the cheetah (which is pretty obvious for people who are regular readers of my blog), a sentiment which is shared by people all across the world.  There are many interesting things about the cheetah, and many questions that people have about this fantastic and acrobatic feline.  So I thought that, for the first True Facts-esque video, I could make it about the cheetah!  It didn't hurt that I had a bunch of pictures of it, as well as a video!  However, I did use a few photos from some friends of mine, so I am going to give photo credit to Grace Albers and Shira Wood-Isenberg!  I would also like to give Joseph M. Roessler credit for the fantastic music that I used in the video!  It was both composed and performed by him!  HERE is a link to the song (called Dream Waltz), HERE is a link to some more of his music, and HERE is a link to his SoundCloud!  Enjoy!  And, of course, we have to have a link to the video!

And here we have some of the pictures featured in the video!  Enjoy!

This is the birthday post of Govind Kudva!  Happy birthday, Govind!  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!

The Animal Statues of Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens near Myrtle Beach in South Carolina was a fantastic place to visit.  They had something for everyone, from a zoo, amazing flowers, a butterfly garden, and some amazing statues!  Today, I'm going to share some pictures of the cool animal statues with you, taken by my mother and I!  Enjoy!

A pair of jaguars attacking a tapir!

A pair of bears!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

A pair of bears!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

A pair of bears!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

  A regal looking lion!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

What look like a king penguin and a pelican

A pair of chortling penguins

What looks like a stork and a shoe-bill

Some people using giant tortoises as a means of transportation!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

This just looked really cool

Platypus

Bessie the Belligerent!

A giant anteater.  Photo Credit Julie Neher

A mammoth

A mastodon

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