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:

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!

Jambiani on Dwellable

Island Hop (to the tune of "Thrift Shop")

Here we have the fourth song in the series, "Island Hop," to the tune of the very popular "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore.  Below is a link to the parody:

Here are the lyrics to the song:


Hey, Macklemore!  Can we go island hopping?

In-su-lar-ized...[x7]

Island, bio, geogra, phy... [x9]

[Hook:]
Australia and Tobag-
-o, Cross them both off my docket
Take a look at some of these animals close-up
Kakapo, Penguins and the Possum

[Verse 1:]
Nah, walk up to the map like, "What up with all these chunks of rock
Out in the deep blue sea, barely staying on top."
Ice in Antarctica, it's so dang frosty
That penguins like, "It's cold enough here to completely freeze a donkey."
Floatin' in, water's deep, I can see a dorsal fin,
Dressed for adventure, 'cept for one fact, I'm completely clean
Hoppin' off, walkin' round, I can really barely see
Probably should remember, there are some big animals here that need to eat-
(Hissssss)
But shoot, it's a Komodo Dragon! (Dang it)
Runnin' round, leap and bound, my death I hope to circumvent
Don't want to be a has been, someone needs to find my next of kin
But now I got a game plan
Run up to that tree and climb and
Wait up there 'til someone comes along and helps me down, really, it's a cinch
Next I'm off to Baffin Isle., turn the clock back awhile,
No for real - ask your grandpa - once the great auk here was found? (That's right)
Polar bears, arctic terns, and some things with flippers
And even more fossils if you just get diggin'
To avoid getting bored, let's head to the opposite seaboard
To the Channel Islands, much of which are rarely explored
Hello, say hello, to the Island Tree mallow,
The Channel Island fox and the introduced Catalina Island buffalo
Unfortunately, its now extinct, but at one point, there arose,
A 6-foot tall mammoth that would barely reach up to your nose

[Hook]
Australia and Tobag-
-o, Cross them both off my docket
Take a look at some of these animals close-up
Kakapo, Penguins and the Possum

[Hook]
Australia and Tobag-
-o, Cross them both off my docket
Take a look at some of these animals close-up
Kakapo, Penguins and the Possum

[Verse 2:]
What you know about island dwarfism?
What you know about the Cozumel Island fox, then?
I'm digging, I'm digging, I just can't find that page
An adult Cozumel's as big as a red one's pup
Thank your granddad for helping to slow the extinction and to-avert
'Cause right now we might still have the living thing
I'm in New Zealand, you can find me in (Wellington)
I'm not, I'm not sick of searchin' in that region (Wellington)
For the kea, the kiwi, the korora, the weka,
There ain't no native mammals in New Zealand, cept for bats, and of course whales and dolphins
Other marine ones like the seals and the sea lions
I hit the button and then through time we go flyin'
They be like, "Here we are at Hațeg - yo, let's check out the sites."
I'm like, "Whoa - that's Balaur and Hatzegopteryx."
Despite the transition, it's time to finish our mission
Magyarosaurus and Struthiosaurus - neither of which
Are very tall at all, they have both been shrimped
I call that island dwarfism at its most intenseness
That's not all that's here, though
Telmatosaurus, Bradycneme, and of course the Rhabdodon, or Rhabdodon't
But separating us from the mainland, no continental slope
In the future this place, separated from Romania it won't
Man it surely won't

(Hațeg...island dwarf...yeah!)

[Hook]
Australia and Tobag-
-o, Cross them both off my docket
Take a look at some of these animals close-up
Kakapo, Penguins and the Possum

[Bridge: x2]
Take the mainland and an island and juxtapose
It's quite incredible
They're surrounded by a moat
Which helps animals change their genetic code

[Hook]
Australia and Tobag-
-o, Cross them both off my docket
Take a look at some of these animals close-up
Kakapo, Penguins and the Possum

Is that your grandma's Balearic Islands cave goat?

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.

Top Ten Favorite Dinosaurs by Zack Neher (Part 4)

Part four of my Top Ten Favorite Dinosaurs list.  Enjoy!

2. Struthiosaurus

Just like Masiakasaurus, Struthiosaurus also lived during the Late Cretaceous Period.  Also like Masiakasaurus, Struthiosaurus was small.  But Struthiosaurus was small in a very different way than Masiakasaurus.  Remember when we talked about island/insular dwarfism in the context of the Channel Island fox?  Well, island dwarfism is back, in all of its glory!  A brief refresher, island dwarfism is what sometimes happens to animals that have become trapped on islands.  Over many generations, they shrink in order to match the limited food supply.  If there is a limited supply of food, then the smallest of your species, not the largest, are much more likely to survive.  Another factor that often helps island dwarfs is that predation is typically not as intense on islands as compared to mainlands, but that is not always the case.  Anyways, around 75 MYA, global sea levels were much higher.  In North America, we had the Western Interior Seaway dividing the continent, while Europe was simply reduced to a number of individual islands, one of which is now known as Hațeg Island.  And, if you are any good at guessing how stories end, you can probably see where this is going.  Yes, Struthiosaurus was an island-dwarf!  He is also really cool because he is an ankylosaur, a group of dinosaurs that are incredibly interesting!  Another thing that I absolutely have to mention here pertains to the picture of Struthiosaurus that we have below.  This picture was drawn by an incredibly talented young artist named Sam Lippincott.  Only in eighth grade, he is well on his way to achieving artistic greatness!  Below are some more pictures of his, all of them absolutely fantastic!  He made these pictures for my last lecture and I have the Struthiosaurus and Magyarosaurus pictures framed on my wall, I love them so much!  Let's all give Sam a round of applause! 

Struthiosaurus, an ankylosaur, by Sam Lippincott

Telmatosaurus, a hadrosaur, by Sam Lippincott

Magyarosaurus, a sauropod, by Sam Lippincott

Hatzegopteryx, a pterosaur, by Sam Lippincott

Europasaurus, another dwarf sauropod dinosaur, but from an island other than Hațeg Island

TO BE CONCLUDED IN PART 5

23-Fact Tuesdays: Polar Bear Celebrations, Eccentric Artists, and Unicorn Horns!

Welcome to our third "23-Fact Tuesday" which are never on Tuesdays.  I believe that this one is actually closer to a Tuesday than we ever have been before, however, so that's got to count for something!  I'd also like to thank Mona Kamath for her help on this post!  Enjoy!

1.  Despite the fact that polar bears are generally solitary, they gather annually in places like the city of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada, where they congregate together prior to the freezing of the sea ice.  When they gather in groups like this, the group is called a "Celebration." 

2.  The eccentric and incredibly odd (though undeniably gifted) artist Salvador Dalí had a pet ocelot named Babou.  He also had a pretty righteous mustache, if I do say so myself.

3.  In 1663, the German scientist Otto von Guericke "reconstructed" the mythical unicorn using the fossilized bones of a mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros, and the horn of a narwhal.  This reconstruction managed to legitimately fool some people, including Gottfriend Wilhelm Leibniz, the famous German philosopher and mathematician, who reportedly was dubious about the existence of the unicorn prior to this "reconstruction," but was convinced by Guericke's "fossil."  

4.  From wing tip to wing tip, Hatzegopteryx measured an astonishing 46 feet!

5.  Gasosaurus, a dinosaur that was described in the year 1985, was named "Gas-Lizard" because it was discovered by a Chinese gas-mining company.

6.  In order to hover and move in any direction, the hummingbird, often nick-named "nature's helicopter" moves its wings in a figure-eight pattern, as opposed to the up-and-down motion typical of other birds.

7.  Cotylorhynchus, one of the largest pelycosaurs, is quite possibly the funniest-looking extinct animal I have ever, ever seen.  It was also discovered by my 9th grade Language Arts teacher's great great uncle, J. Willis Stovall, a famous paleontologist. 

8.  One of the elephants at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is named Kimba, which means "Poop" (I used the nicer term for what the word actually means there) or "Corpse" in Swahili.

9.  Speaking of poop, fossil poop is known as a "coprolite."

10.  The acrobatic margay can rotate its ankles 180 degrees, which allows it to descend tree trunks head-first and hold on to branches with either their front or back paws.

11.  The white-tailed deer is named for the white patch on its rump and tail, while the mule deer is named for the fact that its face resembles that of a mules.

12.  About a third of the extant mammalian species are rodents.

13.  Hopping, the method of locomotion preferred by the kangaroos, is actually much more efficient than walking.  Of course, this is only the case if you have evolved in that fashion.  It wouldn't just be more energy efficient if we started hopping around everywhere.  

14.  Although you often hear people mention the "saber-toothed tigers," this is actually a bit of a misnomer, due to the fact that the saber-toothed cats to which they are referring to are not actually tigers, and are simply just cats.  

15.  The sweat of the Hippopotamus, is red or pink, leading people to aptly refer to it as "blood-sweat."

16.  Despite the fact that the polar bear has white fur, the color of its skin is the complete opposite: jet-black.  Talk about Yin/Yang right there.

17.  Island dwarfism is suspected to have occurred in one of our human relatives, Homo floresiensis, who inhabited the island of Flores in Indonesia up until around 12,000 years ago.  The nick-name for this ancient human is "The Hobbit." 

18.  The word "Mona" means "monkey" in Spanish.  Sure would suck if that was your name now wouldn't it!

19.  In Hindu culture, owls are a sign of bad luck.  That double sucks if you are Hindi and terrified of birds.

20.  Speaking of owls, due to the fact that they have binocular, or stereoscopic, vision (unlike other birds of prey, who have an eye on each side of its head), they have evolved the ability to turn their heads around 270 degrees in either direction.  Must be tough for them to crack their necks.

21.  Despite the fact that the creature in the picture below looks like a raccoon, it is not: that, my friends, is the raccoon dog!

22.  The tusks of the elephants are actually greatly elongated incisor teeth.  For reference, tap your front two teeth on the top or bottom of your mouth, it doesn't matter which, they are the same.  Those are your incisor teeth, you have two on each side of your mouth, eight all together.  

23.  In the narwhal, however, the tusk is their canine teeth, which (at least in our mouths) are the teeth right next to our incisors, towards the outside of our mouths. 

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Adventures and Island Lecture Thank You

First off, I would like to thank everyone who was able to come out for my "Island Living" lecture last Friday!  It was a ton of fun, and we were able to raise a significant amount of money for the Madagascar Ankizy Fund!  We put the "Fun" in "Fund."  Nothing like a terrible pun.

Anyways, if you missed it, here is the link to the youtube video.  Not the best quality, but still fairly interesting!  If you are interested in a specific section of the presentation, I have where each part starts and stops down below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-VkcirjWfU

Intro:  00:00-02:27
The Galápagos:  02:27-05:21
Penguins:  05:21-15:07
Flightless Birds:  15:07-20:30

NOTE:  SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE FLIGHTLESS BIRDS SECTION, MY MICROPHONE WENT OUT.  YOU CAN STILL HEAR ME TALKING, BUT YOU JUST HAVE TO TURN THE VOLUME UP REALLY LOUD.  IT IS NOT YOUR COMPUTER, IT IS THE MIKE RUNNING OUT OF BATTERIES.

Wallace's Line:  20:30-22:11
The Monotremes:  22:11-25:43
Herbivorous Australian Marsupials:  25:43-35:54
Carnivorous Australian Marsupials:  35:54-41:53
The Komodo Dragon and Other Insular Reptilian Megafauna:  41:53-45:59
The Dwarf Dinosaurs of Hațeg Island:  45:59-51:54
Island Dwarfism and the Origins of the Cyclops, Mermaid, Griffin, and Bigfoot:  51:54-59:37
The Aye-aye, Outro and Questions, and Two Funny Penguin Videos:  59:37-End 

Secondly, I would like to bring to your attention a few other youtube videos that I uploaded a month or so back.  A few months ago, my father, sister and I went to visit my grandparents in Colorado Springs, and, like we always do, we went up to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.  They had given me their camera the night before, so I took many pictures, but I also took a few videos.  We can talk about the pictures some other time, but the videos I wanted to bring to your attention, as I will probably be making a few more this weekend, as my father and I, along with my friend Masaki Kleinkopf, are going down to visit.  This time, my grandparents have gotten a few behind the scenes experiences in store for us, but I'm not going to spoil the surprise!  

The videos are in the playlist labeled "Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Adventures With Zack Neher."  There are only four videos so far, but they are all pretty exciting, if I do say so myself.

Mountain lion feeding and training at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

The first two clips are easily the most interesting.  They both document part of a mountain lion feeding and training thing.  It is really interesting!  At the beginning of the ten or fifteen minute long demonstration, the puma in question seemed to not really know what to do at all.  However, at the end, it seemed quite familiar with the routine; attack the tire swing thingy, and then you get food!  I believe that a one paw attack received less of a food reward than a double-pronged attack, but I am not certain.   Anyways, so I have one really super cool clip of the training, as well as another cougar-themed clip.  In the second one, you get to see a mountain lion quickly clamber up a steep slope.  Before you watch the video, though, make sure you read the description!

Clip One: Mountain Lion Feeding Demonstration

Clip 2: Humor and Mountain Lions

Mountain lion feeding and training at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

The third clip is a short little video that I got of the Siamang gibbons vocalizing.  They are quite interesting creatures, in that they expand this large pouch underneath their throat when making some noise.  Watch for that in the video clip!

Siamangs Make Some Noise

The last clip was recorded shortly after the last one.  After looking at the Siamangs, we mosied on over to the orangutan enclosure, which is a very short distance away.  We, and you as well, can still hear the Siamangs vocalizing in the video.  The video starts off with a very cute baby orangutan playing with a large piece of cardboard.  After watching the baby for a little bit, it shows the mother orangutan climbing for a few seconds.  Then, I go back over to the Siamangs, as they are continuing to make a lot of noise.

Baby Orangutan and Siamang Song

The mother orangutan at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

The baby orangutan playing at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

An interesting feeding technique employed by one of the orangutans at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Shrinky Dink: The Channel Island Fox and The Island Effect

If you (as a species) get trapped on an island, there is really one of three things that can happen.  The first thing, which seems to be like it would be the most common of the three things, is that you and your species would go extinct on the island.  Perhaps your species still survives on the mainland, but the island group has died off.  The second, and second most likely to happen (in my opinion) is you and your species, over many generations, shrink, to match the food supply.  If there is a limited supply of food, then the smallest of your species, not the largest, are much more likely to survive.  And the third happenstance is that you and your species grow in size over many generations.  Say you and your species are rats.  On the mainland, you are preyed upon by dogs, foxes, coyotes, cats, and the like.  When you and other of your rat buddies became trapped on the island, there was an abundnace of food there, but no predators to prevent you from growing bigger.  So grow you did.  We will talk about a very interesting occurrence of this later on. This shrinking and growing, called "Foster's Rule," is often simply known as "The Island Rule."

For now, however, we are going to focus on the more common of the two, and the more interesting (both in my opinion); island dwarfism.  This has occurred many, many times throughout history, and even to humans!  However, today we are going to look at one particular occurrence of this dwarfism.  The Channel Island fox of the Channel Islands off of the coast of California.

Scientists believed that the ancestors of these foxes "rafted" to the northernmost islands in the island chain sometime between 10,400 and 16,00 years ago.  These ancestors would have been the gray fox, very similar to the ones we see today.  The foxes rafted over during the last Ice Age.  This would have dramatically lowered the sea levels, and much of the water that is in today's oceans would be locked away in the ice caps at the poles, or in glaciers.

As you can see in the map below, the four islands of San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, and Anacapa are all located with only shallow water separating them.  During the Ice Age, with the lower sea levels, these four islands were all one island, called Santa Rosae.  Also at this time, the distance from the mainland to the "mega-island" would be much smaller, making the crossing for these gray foxes much easier.  It has been theorized that Native Americans then brought the fox to the four southern islands, as hunting dogs, or perhaps even pets. 

The mainland gray fox.  Photo credit Zack Neher, taken at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.

Today, the fox only lives on six of the eight islands, with distinct sub-species on each island.  The fox still inhabits the islands of San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, San Nicolas, San Clemente, and Santa Catalina (often simply called Catalina Island), and is absent from the islands of Anacapa and Santa Barbara.  While Santa Barbara is too small to support the food needs of the fox, Anacapa has no consistent source of fresh water.  The fox is the largest on Catalina, and the smallest on Santa Cruz.  The foxes on the southern three islands all have become separate at different dates, with the foxes of San Clemente estimated as being the oldest (becoming isolated between 3,400 and 4,300 years ago).  The San Nicolas fox is next, at around 2,200 years ago.  Finally, the foxes of Catalina Island, between 800 and 3,800 years ago.

Even smaller than the mainland kit and swift foxes, the Channel Island is the smallest of all of North America's foxes.  Like many island animals, the Channel Island fox is labeled as "Critically Endangered" by the IUCN, as they don't have much territory to spread into when humans influence them.  One influence was indirect, but still devastating for the foxes.  Prior to the 1990s, the golden eagle was a rare visitor to these islands.  The bald eagle, already well established in the area, was apparently a large deterrent for the golden eagle, preventing them from settling on the island.  DDT helped to eradicate the bald eagle on the Channel Islands, and with very few bald eagles in the area, the golden eagle moved into the gap: nature abhors a vacuum!

Anyways, the golden eagle, unlike the bald eagle (who is primarily piscivorous) would, and did, hunt the Channel Island foxes; at four times the foxes size, they were most definitely a force to be reckoned with.  That, coupled with diseases brought over from the mainland by domestic dogs, such as canine distemper, have also wreaked havoc upon the fox populations.  Conservationists are currently working on a solution, and tracking the foxes with radio collars seems to be helping them learn more about the foxes, in an attempt to prepare for the future. 

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