Georg Wilhelm Steller

As of tomorrow, a man named Georg Wilhelm Steller passed away 266 years ago.  Steller, as we talked about a few weeks ago, discovered a few very interesting animals, and was the first non-native (at least that we know of) to set foot in Alaska, in 1741.  He was therefore the first European naturalist to discover, as well as describe, a number of animals in the area.

Many of the members of the crew of the boat that he was on were coming down with scurvy, and Steller attempted to cull the growing epidemic by feeding berries and leaves to the crew.  No one really heeded his advice, which was why, on the returning journey, they all became shipwrecked, as only 12 crew members were actually able to physically move.  During the voyage almost half of the crew had died due to scurvy, and many, including the captain, died following the shipwreck.  With very little food and water, the survivors created a camp, suffering frequent raids by the arctic fox, which only served to increase their peril.

Nevertheless, Steller, apparently the stoic type, continued to learn more about the natural world of Alaska.  He recorded a good deal of information in regards to the Steller's sea cow (a relative of the manatee), which, as a species, only survived about 25 years after Steller first discovered them.  Other animals that he discovered, described, or both include the Steller's eider (a type of duck), the spectacled cormorant (like the sea cow, now extinct), the sea otter, Steller's sea lion, and the northern fur seal.

In 1742, the survivors were eventually able to build a new boat from the salvage, and returned to Avacha Bay in Russia.  Steller continued to explore the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia for the next two years, but died in 1746 in transit to St. Petersburg.

One final thing that I find interesting about Steller has to do with the post-mortem publication of his journals.  They were published by the German zoologist and biologist Peter Simon Pallas who, you guessed it, is the namesake of the Pallas cat, or Pallas's cat, who was the first person to describe the animal in 1776.  These journals proved to be useful to other explorers of the same region such as Captain Cook.

An excellent picture that I took of the Pallas cat (if I do say so myself) from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

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A Skunky Surprise and the Mimicry of the Steller's Jay

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night on Primos we didn't get any stupid little kids trying to steal the camera, and we also unfortunately didn't get any foxes, but we did get not one, not three, but TWO visits from a skunk last night!  I have absolutely no idea if the skunks were the same, or whether they were two completely different skunks.  Another, but slightly less alternative, is that there was a whole band of the little, sometimes stinky creatures, and they were all taking turns on jumping into the camera every 13 or so seconds.  (The camera takes 5 pictures in about two or three seconds for every activation of the motion sensor, and then waits another ten seconds before it will again activate).  Again, this hypothesis is slightly less likely, but not impossible.  So enjoy these pictures of the skunk/two skunks/band of skunks!  I also nabbed a picture of the "Least Concern" Steller's jay, a very attractive type of jay (hey, what Jay isn't?) native to the coniferous forests in and west of the Rocky Mountains in North America.

The Steller's jay is quite an interesting little creature, for many different reasons, so let's take a little look-see, shall we?  Let's start off with what I believe to easily be the most interesting tidbit of Steller's jay facts: it will mimic hawks!  The Steller's jay is omnivorous, eating about two-thirds plants, and the other third meat.  So when other birds are at an area where the Steller's jay wishes to feed, it will imitate the cry of the red-tailed hawk, or the red-shouldered hawk.  This, of course, would startle the other animals and cause them to flee, leaving the area devoid of competition from most other animals.  According to my bird book, the blue jay also "imitates hawks expertly."  Another excellent example of avian mimicry! 

The Steller's jay is also the provincial bird of British Columbia, in Canada, and is named for the Georg Wilhelm Steller, the German naturalist who first discovered the bird in 1741.  I wonder whether anyone ever told him that he spelled "George" wrong....

Steller has had numerous animals named after him, including: the Steller's sea cow (an extinct relative of the manatee), the Steller's sea lion, the Steller's sea eagle, and the Steller's eider (which is a type of duck).  He did much of his work in Russia, but is also considered to be a "pioneer of Alaskan natural history."  What a bro!

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