Thorny Trees and 20 Inch Tongues: A Case of Coevolution

A few days ago, I saw a very spiky-looking tree on the Bird of Prey Route near my house.  A few weeks ago, I saw another tree, much larger than this one, along the banks of Boulder Creek that had some enormous thorns on its branches as well, some of them easily six inches long, and super sharp on the end!  I don't know for certain what kind of tree this, or the Boulder Creek tree, is, but a good candidate I think is the honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), or some other tree closely related to the honey locust.  Below is the picture of the tree that I took on the Bird of Prey Route.

And here is the picture that I took on my iPhone at Boulder Creek of this tree.  The thorns look pretty similar to those of the honey locust, and I think that the trunk of the tree looks pretty similar, too.

Now why do these trees have such huge thorns?  When it comes to nature, everything evolves with a purpose.  There is no reason why a living organism would evolve something without a purpose, especially something as involved as giant, six-inch long thorns.  The question is, what purpose do these thorns serve?  Well that's a darn good question, and I am very pleased you asked.  Much like the "thorns" that you can see on the tail of a Stegosaurus, they likely were to help keep the organism from being consumed.  We see similar thorns on the branches of some trees in the genus Acacia in Africa today.  There, the thorns help protect the tree from attacks from one of the largest plant predators alive today, the giraffe.  This tree....well, suffice it to say that you probably won't see many activists hugging this tree.

"Oh, maybe these thorns look deceptively big," you're thinking.  Wrong.  These thorns do not look deceptively big.  If anything, they look deceptively small.  These thorns are frickin' HUGE.

So the real question is, why the long thorns, Goldilocks?  Many paleontologists believe that, during the Pleistocene Epoch (which lasted from between around 2.5 MYA to about 12,000 years ago), many of North America's mega-herbivores, everything ranging from mammoths and mastodons, to giant ground sloths and the North American camel Camelops, could have been preying upon these trees.  Selective pressures slowly caused these trees to evolve protection against these mammalian mega-herbivores.  Mastodons especially had very robust teeth, which would almost certainly have made them excellent bark-munchers.

In Africa, the acacia tree, also known as the whistling thorn, the thorntree, or (my personal favorite) the wattle, has a very similar defense.  Unlike the honey locust of North America, however, the acacia tree still has to deal with intense predation today, and from a wide variety of herbivores, everything from gerenuk to giraffe, elephants to more giraffes.

You see, the giraffes love the acacia tree.  If giraffes had Facebook, then they all would like the "I <3 Acacia Trees" page.  I remember reading somewhere that they can eat up to 60 or 65 pounds of acacia leaves per day.  (To understand this, try imagining a large hunk of butter that weighs 60 or 65 pounds.  Now you have an idea of how many pounds that is.)  They love it so much that, if the acacia tree hadn't adapted to keep up with the continual browsing pressure, the giraffes might have loved the acacia trees to death!  In response, the acacia trees convergently evolved these sharp thorns, just like the honey locust tree in North America.  (We talk about convergent evolution quite a lot as it is one of my favorite topics, so click HERE to learn more about it!)  

The giraffes love the acacia, though.  They aren't going to give up on those lovely leaves, just like that!  So while these acacia trees evolved their thorns to protect their leaves, the giraffes evolved something spectacular: a prehensile tongue!  Don't believe me?  Well, one of my favorite things about the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is that you can feed the giraffes there.  And guess what: their tongues are HUGE!  Below, I have a video of my good friend Masaki Kleinkopf also feeding the giraffes!  Check out my gangsta hoodie, yo.  

So, yeah.  Suffice it to say, giraffes have frickin' long tongues.  And they use these TWENTY INCH LONG TONGUES to help circumnavigate through the acacia tree's poky and spiny maze of thorns to reach the leaves!  The acacia tree wasn't going to just take this lying down, though: no giraffe is going to be feeding on my leaves, yo!  So the acacia tree adapted again.  This time, by employing the use of tannins.

Long story short, tannins are used by humans in a variety of ways, including tanning, food processing, and making cocoa and wine.  They also apparently taste terrible.  Don't ask me, I've never tried it, but then again I don't have a 20 inch prehensile tongue, so it's a whole different ballgame.*

Not only do tannins taste terrible, but they inhibit the digestion of the leaf matter in a number of nasty ways, none of which would be all that fun for the giraffe.  So when a giraffe starts munching on the leaves of the acacia tree, that tree will release tannins to make the leaves taste like....well, leather I suppose.  (Again, haven't tried either.)  This tannin releasing is a pretty cool adaptation all on its lonseome.  The giraffe begins to move off to another acacia tree nearby.  However, if it's within 50 yards or so (especially downwind) of the original, now tanniny acacia, then the giraffe is out of luck: the nearby acacias react in turn, releasing their own tannins, and rendering their leaves almost indigestible to the giraffes, as well!  I would imagine that, because of this, giraffes have in turn developed the behavior of moving upwind as they eat, and a cursory glance over the Internet indicates that this does seem to be a behavior observed in giraffes!  Coevolution at its finest!

Make sure to check back soon for our next episode in our coevolution series, all about a very fun little squirrel!  See you then!  In the meantime, you can read about what coevolution actually is, by clicking HERE.

*The second baseball metaphor that I believe has been used on this blog.  Refer to "23-Fact Tuesday: Prairie Falcon, Red-Tailed Hawk, and Great-Horned Owl at the Dino Hotel" and "Eye Black: What Works for Football Players Works for the Cheetah" to learn more about this sport.  

Works Cited:

The First Zoo

Where and when was the first zoo?  Of course, depending on your definition of the word "zoo," different people might have different answers to this question.  The oldest known zoological collection has been excavated at Hierakanopolis in Egypt, dating to around 3500 B.C.  So far, the remains of numerous animals have been uncovered there.  According to one source, 112 different animals have been found, including elephants, wildcats, hippos, cows, hartebeest, baboons, dogs, and an Aurochs, the subject of an Animal Spotlight awhile back!  (Click HERE to check it out!)  Since my source is a few years out of date, it is entirely possible that more discoveries have been made there since then!  Despite all of this, most scientists don't believe this is the first "zoo," at least not by modern definitions, a place where anyone can come and look at these animals.  It is thought that the site at Hierakanopolis is more of a private collection kind of thing.

Most people seem to agree that the first public zoo was created by Queen Hatshepsut, a zoo that people today would define as a zoo.  Not a lot of data (at least not that I can find) exists to tell us what sort of animals Hatshepsut kept in her zoo.  Some of the animals that we do know were imported include rhinos, cattle, giraffes, leopards, monkeys, and hounds.  Presumably, some of the other animals that we mentioned before made it into the zoo, as well.

What other animals could have made it into the zoo?  A lot of this is speculation on my part, but based on the animals of the surrounding area, here are some animals that I think likely made it into these zoos:

• Dromedary camels
• Jackals
• Hyenas
• Crocodiles
• Cheetahs
• Lions
• Jungle cats

There are many reports of other important Ancient Egyptians possessing captive lions, and it seems like captive lions would be a pretty impressive display of one's power.  I find it very likely that both cheetahs and jungle cats were members of the zoos, as well, as cheetahs (generally fairly docile around humans, especially compared to other large African cats like lions and leopards) have been domesticated a number of times throughout history.  These domestic cheetahs were used by many people, including Akbar the Great of India (who was thought to have around 9,000 cheetahs: not to be confused with Admiral Ackbar), for hunting, both for sport and for sustenance.  Jungle cats, too are reported to have been domesticated by the Ancient Egyptians in order to hunt water birds.  Mummified remains of the jungle cat are sometimes found in ancient tombs, put there by the burial people.  (I don't actually know if they have a special name or something).  

This was the birthday post of Grace Albers! Happy birthday, Grace! 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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Bongo (to the tune of "Conga")

Number three!  Here we have another good one, entitled "Bongo," and sung to the tune of Gloria Estefan's "Conga!"

Here are the lyrics to the song:


Come on everybody lets learn about the bongo
With bright orange fur its really gonzo
It's tongue can move a lot and is really longo
To learn about the bongo just relax and take a seat

Come on everybody lets learn about the bongo
With bright orange fur its really gonzo
It's tongue can move a lot and is really longo
To learn about the bongo just relax and take a seat

Like the giraffe and the okapi
All have two hooves on their feet
All three have a prehensile tongue
Which is really pretty neat
Unlike the giraffe, the bongo lives
The jungle and not in the heat
To learn more a-bout the Bongo
Just relax and take a seat

Come on everybody lets learn about the bongo
With bright orange fur its really gonzo
It's tongue can move a lot and is really longo
To learn about the bongo just relax and take a seat

More mountain bongos live in zoos than
Live in the wild and far away
Estimates from 2007
Say 75 to 140
Better get ourselves together
And hold on to what we've got
If we don't help then decrease in the
Population will never stop

Come on everybody lets learn about the bongo
With bright orange fur its really gonzo
It's tongue can move a lot and is really longo
To learn about the bongo just relax and take a seat

Come on everybody lets learn about the bongo
With bright orange fur its really gonzo
It's tongue can move a lot and is really longo
To learn about the bongo just relax and take a seat
Come on everybody lets learn about the bongo
With bright orange fur its really gonzo
It's tongue can move a lot and is really longo
To learn about the bongo just relax and take a seat

Come on everybody lets learn about the bongo

Photo Credit: zooborns.typepad.com

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.

Making Yourself Taller

In life, things often seem as if they are out of reach.  Sometimes, this is true, and you need a ladder or something to help you.  In the wild, however, animals don't have access to conventional ladders.  So what do they do to get there?  Some animals become adapted to climbing, like those that live in forests (arboreal animals).  Other animals don't want to sacrifice a ground-dwelling life style for an arboreal one.  These animals must somehow make themselves taller.

Lots of different animals make themselves taller, by many different means.  Some animals simply grow bigger, like the giraffe and the long-necked dinosaurs (sauropods).  With their long necks, these animals can reach vegetation that is a great deal higher than most animals can reach.  Other animals put special things on their feet to make themselves taller called shoes.  Some of these shoes, known to scientists as "high-heels," are apparently designed to put the girl at optimal kissing height (a fact that I learned about from a friend of mine just a few days ago).  And finally, some animals simply stand up.

Like the gerenuk.  This interesting African antelope is one of my favorites!  As you can see in the picture below, the gerenuk, in order to access vegetation on a higher plane than most animals can, will rear up so it is supported solely by its back two legs, and feed from there.  Many paleontologists hypothesize that the sauropods could also do something similar, as supported by the fact that Apatosaurus babies would run solely on their back feet to keep up with the rest of the herd.

Gerenuk standing on their back legs to access higher vegetation at the Animal Kingdom park at Walt Disney World in Florida.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Zoo Spotlight: The Living Desert

So at least a few times now, I have used pictures from a zoo we went to in Palm Desert called "The Living Desert."  An awesome zoo, this place (clearly) focuses a lot more on the desert animals of the world, and introduces you to a number of animals that you immediately recognize, and a number of animals that you might not otherwise be able to see at another zoo.  I thought I could share some of the pictures that I took at this exciting place, and recommend it to one and all as an exciting place to visit if you ever pass by that area!

Sand cat

Let's start off with some of the animals that you might not be able to see at most other zoos.  As regular readers know, I am a pretty big fan of cats, and The Living Desert definitely had its fair share!  For example, the "Near Threatened" sand cat (Felis margarita), the only cat that is found primarily in the desert.  One of my favorite small wild cats, the sand cat is found in the deserts of Africa and the Middle East.

Sand cat

Besides the sand cat, The Living Desert also has a few other small cats, including the Arabian wild cat, one of the many sub species of the wild cat, Felis silvestris.  Unfortunately, this little guy was asleep so I didn't get any pictures, but I did get pictures of two of the other smaller felines: the serval, and the bobcat, each of which we have done an Animal Spotlight on.  The serval is native to Africa, while the bobcat lives all over North America, in both forests and deserts.

Sleeping serval

Bobcat on the prowl

Bobcat....stretch!

Other, larger cats can be found at The Living Desert, as well, including the jaguar and the mountain lion (both of which I got no pictures of), as well as the cheetah.  We saw two or three cheetahs, but they were all doing what cats do best: sleeping! 

Sleeping cheetah!

Another very interesting thing about the zoo is the vegetation.  Many people simply pass over it: but if you do stop to take a look at it, you might notice something interesting: a whole bunch of the plants, both in and out of the exhibits, are very prickly!  This is because the people at The Living Desert have done their best to make the vegetation in their exhibits as accurate as possible.  Pay special attention to the trees once you reach the large exhibit with both giraffes and kudu, a type of African antelope.  These incredibly spiky trees are called acacia trees, and these trees are one of the reasons why the giraffe has such an incredibly long tongue.  I've been able to see this tongue first hand on numerous occasion at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, including the last time I went with my friend Masaki Kleinkopf, as you can see in this incredible video.  The giraffe has been forced to evolve its incredibly long, prehensile in order to circumnavigate through and around these spiny branches in order to reach the leaves. 

Look at those spikes on those acacia trees!

A picture of myself feeding the giraffes at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Grazing kudu

Another one of my favorite things at The Living Desert was the Miriam U. Hoover Discovery Center.  Indoor and air-conditioned (which, trust me, was very refreshing after being in a desert for a while!), the Discovery Center had a number of things for younger kids to do, but it was definitely worth stopping in, because they had an exhibit talking about the Pleistocene (2.5 MYA - 12,000 years ago) residents of California!  Here are what some of the coolest fossils were.

Mounted giant ground sloth skeleton

A full skeleton of the eight-foot-tall giant ground sloth.  The relationship between extinct South American ground sloths and the extant tree sloths was one of the most important things that influenced Charles Darwin into his Theory of Evolution, more so than the case of the Galápagos finches that most textbooks cite.  During the Great American Interchange, at a time when many South American species were going extinct due to competition from animals coming down the Isthmus of Panama from North America (like Thylacosmilus), the giant ground sloths were actually able to move the other way, with remains being found even as far north as Alaska.  

The skull of Panthera atrox, the North American lion

A skull of the North American lion (Panthera atrox), as well as a skull from Smilodon, colloquially known as the "saber-toothed cat."

The skull of Smilodon

Skulls of Camelops (a type of camel); a dire wolf (Canis dirus), a significantly larger relative of the extant gray wolf; and the Teratorn, one of the members of the family Teratornithidae, a group of birds of prey that lived in North and South America, and includes the largest flying bird known, Argentavis.  Finally, there was a life-sized picture of a mammoth on the wall with a fossil tusk sticking out which was pretty cool as well!

The skull of Camelops

The skull of the dire wolf

The skull of the Teratorn

A size comparison of a mammoth and a human, myself

Now, back to the living!  Here are some more pictures of some of the really cool animals that we saw!  

The "Critically Endangered" addax (Addax nasomaculatus), native to the Sahara Desert

The "Endangered" African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), native to (you guessed it) Africa

American badger

Bighorn sheep

Burrowing owl

Dromedary camel

Caracara

Sleeping fennec fox

Another sleeping fennec fox

Giant tortoises eating

Mexican wolf

Another Mexican wolf.  Despite the fact that this wolf looks like it is snarling, it actually wasn't!  I don't actually know what was going on!

A Mexican wolf running

Pronghorn

There were also tons of lizards running around all over the place!

There was also a really cool, huge, giant train set!  Here are a bunch of pictures of it!

Incredibly detailed: the Monticello vineyards!

Incredibly detailed: Mount Rushmore!

 

 

 

 

 

 

So would I recommend The Living Desert to anyone who is going to be in the area?  You bet I would!  Not only is it an excellent zoo, it gives the visitor an interesting and often difficult-to-find view of desert life from around the world!

South Palm Desert on Dwellable

23-Fact Tuesdays: The Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch!

Remember 23-Fact Tuesdays?  Not very surprising if you don't, since there was only one and it took place a few weeks ago.  But we are going to do one again (despite the fact that today is Sunday) and this time, all of the facts are going to be drawn from the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch (NBWR for short!)Adventure Guide Book!  If you recall, the Wildlife Ranch was the place that I talked about in our Animal Spotlight featuring the Aurochs a few weeks ago, where you drive through this large area and the animals will come up to your car!  Pretty neat, huh!?  And most of the pictures that I upload for this blog post will actually be ones that we took down there!  So, as Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus says, "Seat belts, everyone!"  Let's do this thing.

1.  The African bongo, a type of antelope, has a prehensile tongue that it uses to grab vegetation, much like a giraffe.

2. The "Critically Endangered" addax from the Sahara Desert has flat and broad hooves, which help to keep the animal from sinking into the sand.

A picture of an addax that I took while in Palm Desert, California, at the excellent zoo called "The Living Desert"

3.  The addax also is very lightly colored, which helps to reflect heat away from the animal, keeping it cool.

4.  The South American rhea can run up to 40 m.p.h.

A picture of the rhea that my mother took at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch on our visit in 2008.  The rhea is one of the ratites, like the ostrich and the emu, amongst others.

5.  The Patagonian cavy is the second-largest rodent in the world, second only to the capybara.

6.  The Watusi is the largest horned animal in the world, and its horns can be six feet across when fully grown.

A picture of a Watusi, with a calf, that my mother took when we visited the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in 2008

7.  The African springbok pronks, meaning that it jumps with all four feet off the ground.  Typically, when an animal pronks, it is either during pursuit by a predator, or simply during play.  During pronking, the springbok can jump ten feet in the air.

A small group of springbok at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in 2011

8.  The scimitar-horned oryx is labeled "Extinct in the Wild" by the IUCN, hunted to extinction in the wild for their horns, which the animal would sometimes use to spear predators to death.

 

 

9.  The gemsbok was kept in large, semi-domesticated numbers in ancient Egypt, where they were killed for sacrificial purposes.

10.  The Indian barasingha "has the unique ability to submerge their heads in water while closing their nasal passages," which "allows them to take advantage of vegetation in the swampy areas of their homeland."

11.  The name "wildebeest" came from the Dutch settlers who settles in South Africa.  It means (can you guess?) "wild beast."

12.  The nilgai, or the bluebull, is the largest of the Asian antelope.

13.  The "Near Threatened" white rhinoceros is the largest of all of the rhinoceros species, and the second largest land mammal, second only to the African elephant.

14.  The white rhino will wallow in mud to cool off, as well as to help protect their skin.

15.   The name "rhinoceros" comes from the Greek words "rhino" (which means nose) and "ceros" (which means horn).  Think about the name Triceratops real fast: tri=three, tops=face, so then cera (like "ceros") = horn!

16.  The "Critically Endangered" bactrian camel, the larger of the two camel species, can go several days without no water, spit when agitated, and can survive extreme temperature swings, from -20 degrees F, all of the way to 100 degrees F!

A picture of the bactrian camel that I took at the Denver Zoo when I went there with my friends Masaki Kleinkopf and Brynn Conroy in April of 2012

17.  The ostrich is not only the largest of all of the birds, but it is also the only bird to have two toes.

This picture of ostriches stalking our car looks like something out of Jurassic Park

An ostrich accosting my sister for food at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch in 2011

18.  The blackbuck, native to India and Pakistan, is a "Near Threatened" species.  According to the guidebook, there are more blackbuck in Texas than there are in India and Pakistan.

19.  The gait of the giraffe is unique amongst quadrupeds.  As they walk, they swing both of their feet on one side of their body at the same time.

A picture of one of the giraffes from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo from my visit a few weeks ago

20.  Giraffes eat around 75 lbs. of food a day, and can drink around 10 gallons of water in one standing!

21.  The heart of the giraffe can pump up to 20 gallons of blood per minute.

22.  There are two sub-species of sika (type of deer).  The Formosan sika, which inhabits Siberia, and the Japanese sika, native to Japan and Korea.

A picture of a Japanese sika that I took in 2011 at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch

 23.  The North American elk is frequently referred to as the "Wapiti."  Wapiti is actually the Native American term that refers to the white patch of hair on the rear of the animal.

A picture of a small herd of elk that my mother took in 2006 at Yellowstone National Park

North Palm Desert on Dwellable