Top Ten Most Interesting Arboreal Mammals (Part 2)

Welcome to Part 2 of the Top Ten Most Interesting Arboreal Mammals in honor of the birthday of Charlie Bowers!  FYI, for those of you who don't know, arboreal means an animal that lives in the trees!  For Part 1 of this duology, click HERE.

5.  Fossa - The fossa has one of the most interesting and amusing scientific names: Cryptoprocta ferox.  Any guesses as to what that means?  If you guessed "Fierce Hidden-Anus," then you are spot-on!  Native to Madagascar (and, in fact, the largest carnivore of the "Lost Continent"), this cat-like creature is not actually a cat.  Instead, it is closely related to the civets and the genets, like the binturong.  To see a video of how incredibly acrobatic the fossa is, click HERE. 

4.  Cats - We talk about cats a LOT on this blog, and we are going to talk about them again today!  Quite simply put, cats are quite possibly the most acrobatic group of carnivores in the world.  Many of them are acrobatic on the ground (like the caracal, serval, and cheetah), while others are acrobatic in the trees.  Some of these are larger cats, like the leopard and the jaguar.  Others are smaller cats, like the ocelot and the margay, the latter of which can rotate its ankles around 180 degrees in order to climb down the trunks of trees head first!

3.  Ringtail/Cacomistle -  A member of the raccoon family Procyonidae like their relatives the coatis and olingos, the ringtail and the cacomistle are pretty obscure animals.  The ringtail actually lives as far north as southern Oregon, and throughout the southwestern United States, as well as in Mexico.  The range of the cacomistle actually overlaps that of the ringtail in Mexico, but the cacomistle also lives as far south as Panama.  They are both omnivorous, and insects, fruits, arthropods, and small vertebrates are important components of their diets.  They are also both listed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN.

2.  Tamandua -  Like all anteaters, the tree anteaters, such as the tamandua (pictured above) have very strong, large, and powerful claws, made to access the nests of ants.  These claws also happen to be perfect for climbing.  It's tail, like many other arboreal creatures, has evolved to be prehensile, which is an enormous benefit when climbing in the trees.  This fifth limb, if you will, is especially important when the tamandua has to tear into the bark of trees to expose the tasty insect treats within, helping to keep the tamandua from falling from the trees.  The tail is actually powerful enough to support the weight of the entire animal!  You don't often think of anteaters climbing around in the trees, which is why I think that the tree anteaters are excellent candidates for our number two spot on the list.  To see a video of the tamandua in action, albeit in Russian or something (it doesn't really matter, just watch without audio or something, but make sure to watch from 1:00 onwards) click HERE.

1.  Tree Kangaroos - Sometimes, nothing is quite as funny as a kangaroo.  But imagine a smallish kangaroo hopping around in the trees, a hundred feet or more above the ground.  Believe it or not, such a thing exists!  Having evolved from the rock-wallabies (who are in turn thought to have evolved from the pademelons), the tree kangaroos are pretty awesome creatures!  Reportedly pretty clumsy in the trees, it is hypothesized that, if there were any significant predators in the area (like many of the carnivores that we have been talking about in these two posts), the tree kangaroo would have either have had to evolve, or they would have been hunted into extinction by these predators.  Since it is so clumsy, and it spends so much of its time between 70 and 100 feet above the rainforest floor, the tree kangaroo has adapted to large and significant falls from high in the sky.  They can fall around 60 or 70 feet with no physical harm!  Don't believe me?  Once you click the video link HERE to learn more, go ahead to about 5:10 if you want the skinny.  You will be able to enjoy a tree kangaroo falling!  And don't worry, it won't be hurt: just check out the video!

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.