Critter Huntin' With Chris (Day 2, SC 2014)

On the morning of our second day in South Carolina, we visited the farmer's market, and then the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston.  The museum was incredible, especially for a small college museum, and they had so much cool stuff that I am in the process of writing a Top Ten post just about the museum.  We will also feature lots of the pictures that I took there in future posts, as a lot of the fossils that they had there are animals that have popped up on the blog, and will likely continue to do so.  Now, though, I'm sure you all are being eaten up from the inside with questions.  "What did you do for the rest of the day, Zack, after you returned from the museum?  I'm sure it was something fascinating, no doubt!"  No doubt.

When we got back, Chris and I decided to go out critter hunting.  The Beckley's live next to a golf course with several small ponds fairly close by, and we decided to look into two of the closest ponds to see if we could find any gators (Alligator mississippiensis) or cottonmouth moccasins (Agkistrodon piscivorous)!  In the first pond, we startled an anhinga (Anhinga anhinga), and it flew up into the trees.  The anhinga is a type of cormorant-like bird, and spends most of its days either swimming through freshwater in search of tasty fish, or sunning itself and preening on the bank.  They are not only very good at swimming underwater due to a reduced buoyancy created by heavy bones and wet feathers, but they are also very good at soaring and riding the thermals, similar in fashion to certain types of raptors.  Turns out, I would be seeing more of this interesting bird on our trip.

In Colorado, it is not altogether uncommon to spot a great blue heron (Ardea herodius) hunting along the banks of a pond or lake, or flying overhead with their impressively elongate neck drawn back in a tight s-curve, reminiscent of certain types of theropod dinosaurs (such as Compsognathus, pictured below).  However, in South Carolina, you can hardly go anywhere without seeing a heron, be it a great blue heron, an egret, or some other type of heron.  Right after spotting the anhinga, we noticed a great blue heron on the opposite bank.  In the picture below you can see the usually majestic bird caught in the not-so-majestic act of shaking itself dry.

A picture of a first generation cast of Compsognathus from the Solnhofen Quarry of Germany.  Although this animal almost certainly lived a very different lifestyle than the anhinga, it is interesting to compare the necks of these two animals.  You can also compare the anhinga's neck with the neck of another theropod dinosaur Coelophysis (who has a neck more similar to a heron's than that of Compsognathus) by clicking HERE to check out a short feature we did on this dinosaur awhile back.  This cast is a first generation cast in the collections of the Morrison Natural History Museum.

As we went around the pond, I got an opportunity to take a shot from much closer.  Check out how long that neck is!!  It always makes me think of other, extinct animals that are thought to be piscivorous, or fish eating.  The protorosaur reptile Tanystropheus, the long-necked plesiosaurs and nothosaurs, and many types of pterosaurs are all thought to be primarily piscivorous, based on studies of their dentition, anatomy, depositional environment, etc.  The long neck seen in many of these animals seems to be pretty similar to the long neck that I see in the great blue heron, which is a pretty good design for catching fish.  If you are trying to sneak up on something, the less of you the animal can see, the better!

The protorosaur Tanystropheus.  Photo Credit: Sam Lippincott

Inevitably, we got a little too close to the great blue heron, and it took off for the far side of the pond.  As it was flying away, almost out of sight, it got dive-bombed by a red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)!  I thought that was kind of interesting.  It's relatively common place to see smaller birds attacking larger predatory birds like hawks or eagles, who potentially might bring them harm.  Apparently, great blues will also eat other birds, but I suspect that would be more of an opportunistic feeding opportunity, and not something the heron would purposely go out with the intention of catching.

As we continued our search, two more members of the heron family (family Ardeidae) graced us with their presence, the reddish egret (Egretta rufescens) and the great egret (Ardea alba).  I'd also like to point out that the egrets aren't really a natural grouping of birds, and is simply just one name, like heron, that is frequently attached to different members of the heron family, family Ardeidae.  For example, both the great blue heron and the great egret are in the same genus, the genus Ardea, while other herons and egrets are in different genera.  Kind of like how frogs and toads are all in the same family, the family Anura, but toads are generally characterized as having dry skin, while frogs are characterized as having wet skin.

The reddish egret.  It's a little tough to see, but the bird is flying roughly in the middle of the photograph, a little more on the left hand side.

The great egret.  It's a little tough to see, but the bird is flying a little below the middle of the photograph, and a tiny but further to the right of center.

With nothing but birds and turtles in the first pond, Chris and I headed over to the second.  The second pond was much more secluded, surrounded by more trees and bushes.  We couldn't really see anything in their either, but we skirted around the edge of the pond through the trees.  Suddenly, Chris spotted some bones a few feet to the right of us.  He had spotted the skeleton of South Carolina's state animal, and only resident species of deer, the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)!  This deer is actually the state animal of Illinois and Pennsylvania as well.

I'm definitely not an authority on such matters, but the teeth looked really sharp and not very worn down, so I was thinking maybe it was a younger animal.

The skeleton was pretty well articulated, with the front legs being the only major part of the body that was missing.

We moved on from the deer skeleton, and I promptly walked into a spider web.  Now, the thing about the spiders in South Carolina is that some of them grow nasty-big, and seem to have a propensity to spin their webs in between hip and head height for your average adult human.  I'm specifically talking about the banana spiders (Nephila sp.), or golden silk orb-weavers.  I'm not entirely sure how large the biggest banana spiders get, but I've seen ones that look like they have a leg span of three to four inches.  Disgusting.

Anyways, the one I walked into had spun a web at hip height.  Despite the fact that the web was between two ferns, I did not find the situation to be amusing in the slightest.  For a second, I thought I was going to be alright, and that maybe I had walked through a web without a spider in it.  But of course this was not the case, otherwise I would not be weaving you the tale of woe, much like this particular banana spider wove it's irritating web at hip height right in my path.  The spider started to stir, and crawl towards my crotch, which is one of the top two places that I don't want a spider to be, right after in my face holes.  I started moving my right hand, still holding my camera, away from my body to try and grab a stick to get it the heck off of me, when the spider started crawling up a line of web that it had somehow attached to my camera.  As I continually called out pitifully to Chris for help (he was probably laughing to hard at me to come and help even if he wanted to), the spider continually crawled toward my camera, which was in my hand, strung around my neck, and also several hundred dollars.  Too expensive to drop.  Right before the spider reached the camera, I was able to brush it off onto a nearby leaf.  Then, my desire to get a picture of the disgusting little arachnid overrode my other desire to get the heck out of there, so I was able to snap the picture that you can see above you.  Now you can understand the terror that I had to go through to get that picture.  Enjoy it.  Please.

Before we got out of the woods, I found a raccoon skull with both jaws nearby, as well as some other isolated bones.  I saved the skull, and hopefully I can remember to upload a picture later!  Raccoons are omnivorous, so they have fun teeth, an interesting combination of carnivorous and herbivorous dentition.

We also found a pair of what definitely looked like burrows.  We found lots of bones in the vicinity of the burrows, clearly from different animals, so I think it likely that they were created by a more carnivorous critter, likely a fox.  Gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) not only climb trees, but also don't seem to burrow under the ground, unlike the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), so if it is a little carnivorous mammal burrow, I think that the red fox is a good guess as to the den maker!

Chris also spotted a small crushed turtle shell which I also collected, and hopefully I will remember to upload a picture of that specimen, too!

On our way back to the house, I noticed an interesting flower that I later identified as the trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans) which, according to the USDA, can cause itching, redness, and swelling amongst mammals if the leaves and flowers are touched.  Well, later on, I picked up a flower, and did not find that to be the case.  Perhaps I didn't touch it enough, or maybe different people experience different reactions.  I thought they were interesting because I noticed that the long, tubular flowers might be a perfect example of a type of flower that has coevolved (learn about coevolution HERE) with hummingbirds and butterflies, pollinators with the means of reaching nectar from deeper within a flower, and it looks like that might indeed be the case!  Interestingly, for the first half of the trip, I don't remember hearing or seeing a single hummingbird...odd.  The trumpet creeper is a member of the Bignonia family, the family Bignoniaceae.

After we returned to the house, I thought the excitement was temporarily over.  That turned out not to be the case, as I promptly realized my right leg was under an attack from a small arachnid: a tick.  Ticks, spiders, scorpions, and solfugids (amongst others) are all members of the class Arachnida.  I believe that the tick I had on my was an adult female lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum).  The adult female is the only one with the little white dot on her back, which was something that my tick had.  Again, disgusting.  Fortunately, I was able to brush the little bloodsucker off my leg before he could bite.  Jean Ann, Mary Sullivan and I then tried to kill it with our shoes, my laptop, Honey's dog bowl, and Kleenex, but nothing worked.  I eventually just crumpled it up as best I could in several Kleenex, and then shoved it in the trash.  Ticks are tough to kill, they seem pretty well armored, and they are pretty flat, too, which makes them tough to even brush off.

After a few hours of downtime, we went down to the beach as the sun set.  Didn't see much, except part of a molted horseshoe crab shell, the Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus).  Once they reach adulthood, horseshoe crabs shed their shells annually, usually in July or August.  Arthropods shed their shells, or exoskeletons, as they grow larger, kind of like how snakes will shed their skin as they grow larger.  Turns out, I would also be seeing a whole lot more of these later on, too!

After we got back from the beach, my father, sister and I all went gator hunting.  This was to be our first gator sighting of the trip, although we really couldn't see much.  The small reddish dot in the photograph below is actually the eyeshine of the gator, created by the reflective tapetum lucidum (read more about that interesting bit of eye anatomy by clicking HERE).  So we really couldn't see much unfortunately.

We also saw another American toad (Anaxyurus americanus), possibly the same one that I spotted the previous night!

So as of the second day, here's a faunal list of the animals that I've spotted and identified thus far.  I haven't identified really any of the plants, so I will just include plants that I've included on the blog.  Some of the animals on the list I didn't blog about, usually because I didn't get good pictures.

Amphibians:

American Toad (Anaxyurus americanus)
Green Tree Frog (Hyla cinerea)
Southern Leopard Frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus)

Birds:

Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)
Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
Great Egret (Ardea alba)
Mississippi Kite (Ictinia mississippiensis)
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)
Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens)
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

Invertebrates:

American Cockroach (Periplaneta americana)
Atlantic Horseshoe Crab (Limulus polyphemus)
Banana Spider (Nephila sp.)
Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum)
Squareback Marsh Crab (Armases cinereum)

Mammals:

Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
Raccoon (Procyon lotor)
White Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

Plants:

Trumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans)

Reptiles:

American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)

Mount Pleasant on Dwellable

Works Cited

Raccoon Dance (to the tune of "Moondance")

Number shichi (in Japanese) song in our song list thingy!  This one is "Raccoon Dance," to the tune of "Moondance" by Van Morrison!  Below is the link to the song:

Here are the lyrics to the song:


Well, it's a marvelous night for raccoon dance
With a little black mask on their eyes
A fantabulous night to take a chance
And then carry it off with my prize
The owls above are all calling
As they have since so long ago
Across the road I go crawling
There's a good dumpster here I know
But even though I look quite cute, and a lot like a little kid's plush
If you try and hug me your face I will bite and crush

Chorus:
Every single night the raccoon dance helps keep the streets bereft of
All of the trash you filthy humans leave behind we dispose of

Well, my very image seems to cause some fright
'Till over the horizon the sun has come
Although my bark is worse than my bite
But you still don't mess with me just for fun
But on the raccoon you best not be hating
Because I eat everything from plants to bone
I'm an omnivore just like a bear, dear
And I'm found in the north temperate zone
And every time you touch me, you must tremble inside
And I know how much you want to run but still you can't hide

Chorus

Repeat 1st Verse

Chorus

One more raccoon dance with you in the moonlight
On a magic night
La, la, la, la in the moonlight
On a magic night
Can't I just have one more dance with you my love

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 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!

Viagra, Pornography, and the Giant Panda

Today's birthday post goes out to Maggie Zhang!  Happy birthday Maggie!  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!

One of the many pictures of the giant panda that we took at the San Diego Zoo in California.  In fact, all of the giant panda pictures in this post were taken by my family and I.

Today we will be looking at a very interesting animal known colloquially as the "giant panda" (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), which translates to "black and white cat-foot."  Classified as "Endangered" by the IUCN, the giant panda is not only a symbol of its homeland of China (as well as its only land), but also for conservation efforts worldwide, being the symbol for the World Wildlife Fund.  It's closest living relative is the South American spectacled bear, and is frequently referred to as a "living fossil" due to its early branching from the rest of the family Ursidae.  Due to its basal position in the bear family, controversy surrounded the panda for many years as scientists struggled to determine where it belonged, often suggesting a close relation to both the raccoon and the red panda, who gets its name from the giant panda.  These two are only distantly related, however, despite the fact that they live in the same area, have largely the same diet, and both have what is essentially a thumb on their front paws.

Notice how the panda is grasping the bamboo, employing the use of its thumb appendages

It is estimated that the giant panda has been evolving away from the other bears for more than three million years due to the discovery of Ailuropoda microta, or the "dwarf giant panda."  The first skull discovered of the dwarf giant panda was in rocks in southern China that are around two million years old.  The skull indicates that this relative of the giant panda would have grown to around three feet in length, while the modern panda grows to a length of around five feet.  Despite the size difference, the skulls of the dwarf and giant pandas are actually quite similar anatomically, and dentition studies (studies of the animals teeth) indicate that the diet of Ailuropoda microta consisted largely of bamboo, much like the extant panda, for whom bamboo composes about 99% of its diet.  The giant panda will also consume tubers, grasses, and even meat when it can get it, like carrion, but also rodents and birds.

The giant panda at the zoo searching for the food that the zookeepers left for it around the exhibit

And now the reason why most of you are here: panda pornography and Viagra.  When I was researching the giant panda for this post, I ducked on to Wikipedia to employ the use of their range map of the giant panda.  At the bottom of the page, under the "See Also" tab, I couldn't help but notice the page entitled "Panda Pornography."  More than a little intrigued, I investigated, and its really quite funny, and not as weird as many of you were probably expecting.

No panda pornography here, but more of "The giant panda at the zoo searching for the food that the zookeepers left for it around the exhibit"

Many attempts to breed the giant panda in captivity have been made, given its "Endangered" status.  They are doing better now, and many pandas have been bred in zoos in China as well as at the San Diego Zoo in California, where apparently six have now been born.  (To see the "Panda Cam" at the zoo, click HEREEEEE).  Zoologists at a Chiang Mai Zoo in Thailand showed their pandas "panda pornogrpahy," literally just a bunch of videos of other giant pandas mating.  They hoped that the pandas would use this as a guide, and that it would arouse them.  Huh.  Despite the fact that this particular group of zoologists seemed to think the whole thing a success, efforts to duplicate the experiment have failed, causing the whole concept of panda pornography to come under intense scrutiny. 

The giant panda at the zoo searching for the food that the zookeepers left for it around the exhibit

The giant panda at the zoo searching for the food that the zookeepers left for it around the exhibit

The giant panda at the zoo searching for the food that the zookeepers left for it around the exhibit

Furthermore, some Chinese scientists at the Wolong Nature Reserve attempted to excite the pandas by giving them Viagra.  Again, huh.  I mean, wouldn't you think that Viagra would be geared towards humans, and not necessarily bears?  I would, but I guess I don't know.  Despite their efforts, the Viagra trials were unsuccessful. 

The giant panda, again grasping its food with its "pseudo-thumb" thingy

Now for those of you who want a funny panda video, click on the link before to see one of my most favorite videos of all time: the Sneezing Baby Panda.  And for those of you who want more, just click on one of my new favorite videos, the "Escaping Baby Pandas" video, below the link below!  Enjoy!

The Sneezing Baby Panda!

Escaping Baby Pandas