Alphabet Animals: The Letter Q (Extant)

Of the multitudes of animals, living and extinct, not a whole lot of them have names that start with the letter "Q."  Today, we are going to look at a few of these animals, so next time you are playing the Animal Alphabet game, you are quite prepared to handle whatever your opponent has to offer!  (Unless, of course, your opponent has also read this post, in which case you guys might reach a stalemate).  To make the post easier to deal with, I am splitting it up into two parts: the first one, this one, contains a list of some extant (still living, opposite of extinct) animals that begin with Q!  And yes, in the picture below, I know that the quagga is extinct....I just am too lazy to change the picture.  So you're going to have to find some way to deal with it.

1.  Quoll - A carnivorous marsupial native to Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania, the quoll is often called the marsupial cat.

2.  Quail - A collective name for a mid-sized bird that is often used for consumption by humans.

3.  Quokka - One of the first Australian mammals seen by Europeans and about the size of a domestic cat, the quokka is a marsupial, just like the quoll.  However, the quokka is a type of macropod, like the kangaroo and the wallaby.

4.  Quetzal - One of the most beautiful birds in the world (in my opinion, at least!), the quetzal is a member of the trogon family, and native to Mexico and Guatemala.

5.  Quail Thrush - Despite their name, the quail thrushes are neither quails, nor thrushes.  Native to Australia and New Guinea, the quail thrushes are close relatives of the jewel-babblers of New Guinea!  And yes, the jewel-babblers are, indeed, actual birds!

6. Quelea - A small nomadic bird native to Africa, the red-billed quelea is thought to be the most numerous bird in the world!

7.  Quahog - Also known as the hard clam, the quahog lives in the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of North America.

8.  Quique - A mustelid (often called the grison), just like the otter, the quique is native to South America.

9.  Quarter Horse - An American breed of horse that has been clocked at up to an astonishing 55 mph!

10.  Quarry Worm Salamander - An "Endangered" species of salamander that is endemic (native only to that one place) to Costa Rica.

11.  Queen Snake - A nonvenomous snake native to North America, the queen snake is very similar iin appearnace to the garter snake, and is often confused with it.

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!

Top Ten Most Interesting Arboreal Mammals (Part 1)

Today, in honor of the birthday of Charlie Bowers, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" approach to some pretty cool arboreal mammals.  FYI, for those of you who don't know, arboreal means an animal that lives in the trees!  So let's dive right in!  For Part 2 of this duology, click HERE.

10.  Squirrel - Although a fairly common animal and really not that exciting at first glance, the squirrel is actually quite the exciting animal!  Incredibly acrobatic, the squirrel is superbly adapted for an arboreal lifestyle.  Need more proof?  Click the link right HERE to be amazed!

One of the koalas at the San Diego Zoo in California.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

9.  Koala -  Other than the kangaroo, the koala is probably the most iconic Australian marsupial.  Many myths abound in regards to the koala.  For example, many people believe that the koala is constantly "adjusting its altitude," so to speak, due to something in the leaves of the eucalyptus trees that they consume.  While it seems quite likely that the koala is constantly baked due to its lackadaisical attitude, it's not actually true: the koala just spends a great deal of its day asleep in order to digest the tough vegetation that composes its diet.  As a matter of fact, the 20-22 hours a day the koala sleeps makes it the sleepiest  mammal!  (For more information about the koala and its digestion, click HERE). 

8.  Primates - Perhaps the order of mammals that is most superbly adapted to a life in the trees, the primates include everything from the aye-aye to the orangutan, from the tarsier to us humans!  Thought to have started evolving in North America or Asia around 65 MYA or so, before even the dinosaurs died out, today there are over 200 extant species, with new ones still being discovered, like the lesula monkey that was discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012 (pictured above).

7.  Binturong - Often called the "Bear-cat," the binturong is the largest of the strange group of animals known as the civets.  (For more about civets and their relatives, click HERE).  Native to southeastern Asia, the binturong is omnivorous, but seems to consume fruit the most in its diet, and is particularly partial to figs.  Although the binturong is labeled as "Critically Endangered" in China, the IUCN labels the species as a whole as merely "Vulnerable."

6.  Sloth - When you hear the word "sloth," you might think of someone or something being lazy.  There is a very good reason for that association: the sloth is quite sloth!  As David Attenborough says in the excellent BBC production "Life of Mammals," "The sloth moves as if it's powered by the wrong sort of batteries."  Sleeping around 20 hours a day, the sloth is the second sleepiest mammal, right after the koala.  While it sleeps, the sloth hangs upside down from tree branches.  Sounds like a lot of work, right?  Actually, it really isn't: the sloth simply hooks its claws over the tree branch, and relaxes all of its muscles.  If a human hunter shoots a sloth hanging from a tree, it will usually simply remain hanging from the tree branch, anchored by its claws!  Then the hunter actually has to physically climb up into the tree to retrieve its prize!

Top Ten Mammals That Look Like Something They Aren't (Part 2)

Here is Part 2 of this duo of posts.  For Part 1, click HERE.  What are these two posts about?  Well, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" look at some mammals that look a lot like something they aren't.  Sometimes, these two animals are fairly closely related: other times, they are quite far apart!  All of these examples will be results of a fascinating phenomenon known as "Convergent Evolution," which is where similar ecological and environmental factors cause two very different animals to evolve in a similar fashion.  So let's dive right in!  But first, this is the birthday post of Joseph Kleinkopf, happy birthday Joseph!

5.  Civets and genets - These two groups of animals are quite possibly some of the most unknown animals that are around today.  Members of the family Viverridae in the order Carnivora, if someone does in fact see one, they usually just assume that they are cats, dogs, or something else along those lines.  The family that the viverrids are most closely related to are, in fact, the cats, but they are also related to they hyenas and the mongooses.

4.  Maned Wolf - The maned wolf is neither a wolf, as its name implies, or a fox, as its outward appearance would indicate.  It is related to both, and is in the family Canidae (the dog family) just like wolves and foxes, but it is thought to be most closely related to the South American bush dog.  Interestingly, although small vertebrate prey is quite important to the maned wolf, it eats a great deal of fruits and vegetables, with the most frequently consumed fruit called the wolf apple.

A slightly fuzzy picture of a brown-morph black bear right outside of our tent-cabin in Yosemite!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

3.  Black Bear - When it comes to the names of the three bears that inhabit North America, they can be very misleading indeed.  ESPECIALLY the black bear, for the black bear, like many other animals throughout the world (including, of course, humans), has different color morphs.  The black bear is, of course, most frequently black.  However, some of the time, the black bear is actually brown, or cinnamon colored, which is not to be confused with the ACTUAL brown bear (or grizzly bear).  In Alaska and northwest Canada, there is the "glacier" color morph, a grey-blue phase.  But I think my favorite is the "Kermode" color phase, which is exclusive to the coast of British Columbia.  This bear is a creamy-white color, and looks a heck of a lot like the polar bear!  How very, very confusing!

2.  Thylacosmilus - Over the course of mammalian evolution, the marsupials have spat out a large number of look-alikes, or animals that evolved via convergent evolution to appear a great deal like other animals throughout the world.  One of the most amazing of all of these (by far, in my opinion) is Thylacosmilus, a marsupial carnivore from the Miocene and Pliocene Epochs of South America.  Thylacosmilus convergently evolved to resemble the saber-toothed cats of North America.  Unfortunately, following the creation of the Isthmus of Panama that connected North and South America around 2 MYA, the saber-toothed cats like Smilodon moved down the newly-formed land bridge to colonize South America during the Great American Interchange, outcompeting Thylacosmilus in the process.

1.  Raccoon Dog - The raccoon dog is a fantastic case of an animal that is now that it appears to be.  You take one look at it, and you decide conclusively that you are looking at a raccoon, no doubt about it.  Your second and third takes yield the same result.  However, the raccoon dog is not a raccoon, as both its name and appearance might indicate: its a canid, through and through!  Listed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN, the raccoon dog is native to eastern Asia, and is not very closely related to any extant species of dog.  Just a tip, if you are trying to make someone look foolish, showing them a picture of a raccoon dog and having them guess what animal it is is an excellent way to show off your animal-prowess.  Unless they know what it is, in which case you will be the more foolish.

Thanks for joining us tonight for our top ten list!  And remember, 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! 

The Ancestral Australian Aborigines As a Possible Cause for the Extinction of Australia's Pleistocene Marsupial Megafauna

A few weeks ago, in my Anthropology class, we had to do a cultural profile of one culture group of humans.  I chose the Australian Aborigines and, having just finished Tim Flannery's excellent book "Chasing Kangaroos," this whole concept of the Ancestral Aborigines being the possible cause of the extinction of Australia's Pleistocene megafauna was still quite fresh in my mind, so I included it in the paper.  I thought it was pretty interesting, and so I have decided to share it with ya'll, too, with a few brief modifications to make it more Blog friendly!  Hope you enjoy, and if you want a more comprehensive look at the topic, I highly recommend "Chasing Kangaroos!"

Interestingly, paleontologists today are using the Australian Aborigines to help them figure out when Australia's Pleistocene megafauna went extinct.  While today, there are no native animals larger than the red kangaroo, Pleistocene Australia was a very different place, as was the rest of the world.  The Pleistocene Epoch was the time of the Ice Age megafauna.  With the exception of Africa and south-east Asia, in most places nowadays, the Pleistocene megafauna is extinct, but back then, the megafauna were a world-wide phenomenon.  In Eurasia, there were the giant mammoths and rhinoceroses, the cave lions and hyenas, the Irish elk, and the giant polar bear.  In North America, there were the mammoths and mastodons, the short-faced bear, the giant bison, the dire wolf, the giant beavers, and the saber-toothed cats.  In South America, there were the giant ground sloths, the armored glyptodonts, and many large relatives of elephants.  

Australia also had its fair share of Pleistocene megafauna, with marsupial lions, the giant short-faced kangaroos, the hippo-sized wombat Diprotodon, and echidnas that were the size of sheep.  There are two main hypothesis when it comes to what caused the extinction of all these animals: climate change, or hunting by early human arrivals on Australia, the first Aborigines.  No one could figure out whether it really was the Aborigines that had hunted the megafauna to extinction, though, because no one could figure out the date that the megafauna had gone extinct, nor could they figure out the date that humans first arrived on Australia.  Some people believed that the megafauna survived until around 6,000 years ago, while others believed that they went extinct a great many years prior.  The same difficulties confronted those scientists attempting to determine when humans first arrived.  The sediments of Australia are notoriously hard to date, and since the animals of Australia are so unique (especially following the extinction of the dinosaurs), scientists were unable to correlate their data with other places around the world.[1] 

As more scientific discoveries were made, a new method of dating rocks was discovered, called optically stimulated luminescence (or OSL for short).  Using OSL, paleontologists were successfully able to date many different specimens of the various marsupial Pleistocene megafauna, and found that, while many of them approached the 46,000 years ago mark, none of them passed it.  Many different specimens were used from all across Australia, but they all said the same thing: 46 was the answer. 

Meanwhile, with the new OSL tool in their bag, other scientists headed off to sites of known human habitation to attempt to date them as well, and these efforts proved to be successful.  One of the main places that they dated was a place known as Devil’s Lair, a known area of ancient Aboriginal inhabitance.  What was especially important about Devil’s Lair was that there was sediment present for the last 63,000 years, meaning that instead of just a snapshot of time, the scientists had an uninterrupted sequence of time to figure out when humans started living there.  As the scientists dated the sediments with the first signs of human inhabitance, they came up with the magic number: 46,000.  Other sites came up with the same number too, including Lake Mungo, the oldest human burial known from Australia.  At Lake Mungo, the dates were a bit less precise, ranging from between 45,000 and 47,000 years ago, but the data still seems to point in the same direction.  The ancestral Aborigines arrived on the continent at around the same time that Australia’s Pleistocene megafauna went extinct.  With this new dating technique, scientists were also able to determine that there was no significant climate change for many thousands of years on either side of the 46,000 mark, effectively ruling out that hypothesis.  So it seems that, for a time, the people who believe themselves as part of the land and the natural world around them actually destroyed a significant part of it.

[1] For example, paleontologists studying dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation here in Colorado are able to look at closely related dinosaurs in other parts of the world like the UK and southern Africa (keep in mind that the continents were all together in one big landmass back then.)  That way, if the paleontologists are unable to determine the dates of, say, the Tendaguru Formation in Tanzania, they can look to the studies done on the rocks of the Morrison Formation for an accurate estimation.  This is a luxury that paleontologists, archaeologists and other scientists working in Australia simply do not have. 

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He Should Have Just Played Dead, Man

For those of you who are acquainted with the top-notch television show "Psych," you might be familiar with the "High Top Fade Out" episode with Blackapella.  If you are not familiar then you are very confused and wondering what is going on.  Bear with me, bad pun intended.  At one point in the episode, Joon, played by Keenan Thompson, says of a recently murdered friend, "He should’ve just played dead, man. I always said that’s what I would do if somebody was trying to kill me. Just play dead. I mean, they’d be like, 'We’re gonna kill you!' And then I’d be like - dead - and then they’d be like, 'Oh he’s dead, let’s go kill somebody else.' And then they would leave."

Despite the fact that this was a humorous scene in a humorous television show, Joon's logic is not terrible.  While it may not work all that well for a human, it does work quite well for a different animal: the Virginia opossum.

Despite the fact that one typically thinks of Australia and New Guinea when one hears the word "marsupial," marsupials are actually found throughout South America, and even in North America as well!  The Virginia opossum is actually the only marsupial to be found in North America north of Mexico, and is around the size of a house cat, European wildcat, Geoffroy's cat, African wildcat, marbled cat, margay, leopard cat, pampas cat, sand cat, oncilla, kodkod, black-footed cat, flat-headed cat, or the rusty-spotted cat.  (And yes, I am setting up a cat feature for next week). 

Originally native only to the east coast of the United States (i.e. Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Massachusetts, etc.), it was introduced to the west coast around the time of the Great Depression, likely for use as food.  Below is a map of its range today.

Anyways.  Have you ever heard someone use the expression "playing possum?"  This expression originates from an odd but effective behavior employed by the Virginia opossum: it feigns its own death!  Scientists believe that this is an involuntary reaction on the part of the opossum when it experiences fear.  The fear reportedly has to be intense, however, as if the opossum is only mildly afraid, then it will react fiercely, screeching, hissing, and just generally freaking out its antagonist.  Who wants to mess with an angry possum?

If the opossum becomes stressed enough, though, it will collapse into a coma-like state, sometimes for as long as four hours.  While in this coma, the opossum will secrete a green fluid from its anus, a terrible smelling mixture, to make predators think that it is a gross and diseased carcass so they don't mess with it.

Of course, if an opossum becomes super stressed because it sees a car screaming down towards it on a road, I'm guessing that playing dead will only be a temporary measure.  Cars don't appear to have made that big of a dent in the populations of these creatures, as they are labeled "Least Concern" by the IUCN. 

One final thing about the Virginia opossum!  When we were on our California/Oregon driving trip in 2011, we found a hilarious poster like the one below in a shop window!  I laughed so hard!

This birthday post goes out to Chris Koreerat, happy birthday Chris!  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!

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Introducing....the Primos Truth Cam; The Ostriches of Longmont, Colorado; And Engagement Congratulations!

The most recent addition to my proverbial arsenal is the Primos Truth Cam!  (For those of you who are wondering, my arsenal includes my camera, Denali; my backpack, Rocky; my First Aid kit, Reginauld; and my rock hammer.  You don't name your rock hammer.)  Equipped with both video and photo capabilities for both day and night, I have set it up in a place where I know there to be red foxes!  I can't promise anything of course, but I have sprinkled an alluring amount of fox urine near the cam, so, with any luck, tonight we will be successful in our endeavors!  I will let ya'll know what happens tomorrow!

Speaking of names, I would be much obliged if you all could help me think of a fantastic name for my camera!  THANKS.

Another pretty exciting event occurred yesterday!  During our first period Anthropology class (a hoot and a half, fyi), I was talking to my group members about the time that my father and I were driving down Broadway, in between Boulder and Superior.  Off to the right was a lot of farmland, and, at one point, I was almost positive that I had seen kangaroos!  I told my dad to turn back, and, once we got home (which was pretty much the very first place that we could turn around), we turned around, and we were back within five minutes.  I couldn't remember exactly where I had thought that I had seen them, but (unsurprisingly) there were no kangaroos.  To this day, every time we drive by that area, both my dad and I turn to look.  To this day, we have not seen the phantom kangaroos.

Anyways, I was telling my Anthro friends about this event, and one of them, a friend of mine named Grace Albers, said that she had seen ostriches in Longmont, not twenty minutes from my house!  Incredibly excited, I told another friend of mine, Claire Chen, about it, and we headed over there during the next class period.  (Don't you worry, I wasn't ditching, but our school has Wednesday and Thursday block, where we only have half of our classes, but they are each twice as long.)  AND GUESS WHAT WE SAW.

OSTRICHES.

OSTRICHES

THAT'S RIGHT.

THAT'S RIGHT. 

 OSTRICHES.

OSTRICHES

WHAT THE HECK.  Apparently there is an animal hospital thing, and at the place they have two ostriches!  Crazy, huh!

An OSTRICH  preening!

And finally, I would like to congratulate my cousin, Alexa Neher, on getting engaged to her boyfriend Christopher Koreerat!  Congratulations, you two!

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

War of the Wombats

There are three different types of wombat.  There is the common wombat (Vombatus ursinus), the southern hairy-nosed (Lasiorhinus latifrons) and the northern hairy-nosed (L. krefftii).  They have been classified by the IUCN, respectively, as Least Concern, Least Concern, and Critically Endangered.  Unfortunately, all three wombats face threats that could easily result in their extermination from the wilds of the earth.  Fortunately, steps are being taken to prevent such a wombacide.

In Queensland, Australia  lies Epping Forest National Park.  In just two square miles of this park live the last ninety individuals of the northern hairy-nosed wombat.  Surrounding this puny area is a 20 kilometer long perimeter fence, erected after 10 wombats were killed by dingoes a few years ago, which, considering the severity of a ten percent population loss in such a small population, makes total sense.

Although these steps are being taken to protect the northern hairy-nosed, this species of wombat still faces several severe problems.  One such problem is the fact that 75% of these wombats are male, making a boom in their population more difficult to achieve.  Fortunately for the northerners, the southern hairy-nosed wombat has a very similar reproductive system as the northern hairy-nosed.  Scientists are therefore using female southerners as surrogate mothers for the northerners.  This method is referred to as "cross fostering," and has been used successfully when it comes to other marsupials.

The other major problem confronting the northern hairy-nosers is the fact that all of the animals are located in the same place.  In the event of a disease, wild-fire, or some other similar catastrophe, most or all of these creatures could be exterminated in the virtual blink of an eye.  Conservationists think it wise to create a second population of northerners, not too far away from the first, but far enough away to ensure that a disaster could not take out both populations with one fell swoop.  Scientists and conservationists have decided that it would be most beneficial to the northerners if they were to assist in their burrow construction.

These burrows, which can be over 100 feet long, would be time-consuming construction projects.  Not only that, but a single wombat will often use up to five different burrows, moving to a different one each day.  The first wombat doesn't just leave his or her old burrow unoccupied, however, as another wombat, probably the same one every five days or so (I would guess), temporarily moves in.  It's really less of a permanent residence, like a house, and more of a time-share condo.

But just how time and energy consuming would it be to dig such a burrow if you were a wombat?  Wombats have a problem with keeping cool.  If you ask my opinion, I suspect it has a lot to do with their body design.  As we discussed a few posts ago, animals that live in hot environments typically adapt in ways to increase their Surface Area to Volume ratio, or SA:V for short.  To learn more about why this is, click HERE.  However, fossorial, or burrowing, animals, like the wombat, aardvark, marsupial mole, and many, many others, try to keep their bodies streamlined.  Like dolphins and sharks, these animals want to be able to glide smoothly through their desired area (be it water or burrows).  Having random chunks of body, i.e. the ears of an elephant or a deer, would merely slow the animal down.  That is my theory, anyways.

To keep cool in the heat of the Australian day, wombats will take refuge in their burrows.  However, to be efficient enough when it comes to trapping moisture (as water can often be very difficult to come by in the habitat of the northerns), it has been estimated that the burrow would need to exceed fifteen feet in length.  It has also been calculated that the approximate amount of energy required for a wombat to dig a three foot long chunk of burrow is about the amount of energy that a wombat would expend running twelve miles.  That means for the comforting fifteen foot length of burrow, the wombat could instead run about sixty miles.  Clearly no small effort.

The way that the scientists actually figured all of this out was really quite interesting.  To see how long it takes for a wombat to dig a burrow, experimenters Glen Shimmin and David Taggart put one wombat into a box.  (Equipped with breathing holes, of course.  As pirates and I like to say, "A dead wombat digs no holes").  The human duo then dug a hole in the ground the same size as the box.  Placing the wombat-infested box into the ground, they then opened up one end of the container, allowing the wombat free access to the soil.  Instinctively, the wombat would begin to dig.  A half an hour later, Shimmin and Taggart ceased the wombat-excavation, and carefully measured how much dirt was displaced by the wombat, as all of the displaced dirt would conveniently be shoved (by the wombat) into the box!  Convenient, huh?  During the half hour digging session, the wombat moved more than 100 pounds of dirt!  Impressive, but the team concluded that, if conservationists were to release a group of northern hairy-nosed wombats into their new territory without pre-dug burrows, it was incredibly likely that the wombats would simply dig themselves to exhaustion, and subsequent death.  An undesirable outcome for all parties involved, it was decided to dig man-made burrows, resembling those of wombats, throughout the habitat, prior to the installation of the wombat center-piece.

What are some other problems facing wombats?  Well for starters, some of these problems, even when facing the wombats in the face, are virtually invisible to them.  Wombats, like Stegosaurus, rhinos, and myself (without my contacts), are virtually blind.  You don't need eyes if you are a fossorial (burrowing) creature; just ask the marsupial mole, the golden mole, or many other types of fossorial animals who no longer use, or even have, eyes!  However, when it comes to crossing roads, their terrible eyesight really takes its toll.  Hundreds, if not thousands, are hit by cars each year.

Other problems include starvation, drought, mange, and other people problems.  Starvation can be easily caused by the gradual squeezing out of the native grasses typically consumed by wombats by other, inedible grasses.  Drought should be self-explanatory; without water, the food dies.  Without water, there is no water.  Both are not good for wombats.  Mange, for wombats at least, is a fatal skin disease.  And as for the other people problems?  Let's just say that prairie dogs can relate.  (And now, even though I just said "Let's just say," I am going to go into more detail).  Like prairie dogs, wombats burrow.  And also like prairie dogs, the habitat of the wombat is perfect for ranchers.  So it goes like this.  Ranchers come along, and bring their cattle.  The cattle step in prairie dog/wombat holes, break their legs, and die.  The ranchers, enraged, take their rage out on the culprits: the prairie dogs or the wombats.  And as we have discussed before, wombat burrows can be quite extensive.  Furthermore, the entrance holes would have to be quite fat in order to accomodate such...robust occupants. 

As we have also previously discussed, much is being done in order to protect the wombat.  Another bit of good news is that a population boom of around 10% was recorded for the sole population of the northern hairy-nosed wombat!  Another wee bit of hope in a world that we willfully wish not to become wombatless.

WOMBAT FACTS:

1. Cooling Off:  Besides retreating into their burrows, wombats will also flick dirt onto their bodies to keep cool.
2. Olympic Runners:  Despite its dumpy appearance, the wombat can reach a top speed of around 25 mph.  This means that it can outrun an Olympic sprinter, like Usain Bolt!
3. Cooling Off V 2.0:  Besides retreating into their burrows and flicking dirt onto their bodies, wombats are also nocturnal, meaning that they avoid the heat of the day.
4. Life Span:  Wombats can live around twenty years.
5. Wombat Wesearch:  Prior to around fifteen or so years ago, not much research had been done on wombats.  Most of what we know has been discovered since that time.
6. Power House Excavators:  For their size, wombats may be the world's most powerful excavators.

Whitsunday Islands on Dwellable

The Function of Cheek Pouches

A possible ancestor of Diprotodon (the largest mammal known from anytime in Australia, as well as the largest known marsupial known from anywhere in the world, and a relative of the wombat), the skull of Euryzygoma dunense, another extinct, megafaunal, eight foot long, quadrupedal herbivorous marsupial, is quite interesting: it has two extended cheekbones.  This gives Euryzygoma the unusual mammalian property of its skull being wider than it is long.  Although to most this probably doesn’t actually seem all that exciting, the extended cheekbones have led to two interesting theories regarding their function in the living animal.  One we will look at in a few weeks (the week of August 3rd to be more precise), but the other one we will look at now.

The hypothesis came about when the skull of Euryzygoma was first described.  The scientists who first described Euryzygoma thought that the lateral extensions of the zygomatic arch resembled those seen in squirrels, gophers and various types of Old World Monkeys, like the macaque and the baboon. 

 In the living animals just described, these lateral extensions function as cheek pouches, which make it so that the animals that possess them can store food in them.  That is why you so often see a squirrel running around with its cheeks puffed out.   

Some scientists think that Euryzygoma might have used its cheek pouches to store water; thus, it would not need to spend so much time near waterholes that were most likely infested with large crocodiles.  This would also help Euryzygoma travel longer distances during a drought, enabling it to move greater distances to reach waterholes that other animals would simply unable to reach, having a much more limited range.

Propleopus, the Carnivorous Kangaroo

Imagine you are on a safari to the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.  If you timed your visit right, then the Mara is inundated with wildebeest and zebra, as well as numerous other herbivores.  You will probably see a number of carnivores as well: cheetahs, leopards, lions, and especially hyenas.  What you probably don’t realize is that most places aren’t like this.  The Masai Mara has one of the highest predator populations seen in Africa, due in large to the great number of prey animals available for a meal.  Regardless, you are forced to acknowledge that there are a great many more prey animals than there are animals to prey upon them. 

                This is known as the predator/prey ratio, and it can be seen all over the world, and can also be seen in the past.  While hundreds, sometimes thousands, of fossils of a single herbivorous dinosaur can be discovered, it is far more rare to unearth the remains of a predatory dinosaur.  But why is there this unbalance between predators and their prey?  Well, let’s take a look at a continuous, cyclical event that takes place in a period of 9.6 years in the wilderness of Canada, that should be able to shed some light on the situation.

                At the beginning of the almost-ten year cycle, we see a sharp increase in the number of hares.  When food is plentiful, these hares often produce two to three litters of around 12 leverets (baby hare) each.  After their numbers reach their limit, their population density reaches around eight hare per football field.  At this time, the hares have eaten all of the edible material they can reach.  Not only are they out of food, but the plants that they feed upon begin to create bitter chemicals in their leaves and edible parts, that keep the hare from digesting the plant material very efficiently. 

                While the hare population is flourishing so, the hare’s predators find an especially easy time of it.  Owls, wolves, and foxes all flourish, but one predator does particularly well: the Canadian lynx.  Hares consist between 40 and 85 percent of the average lynx’s diet, and they generally kill two hares every three days.  With such an explosion in hare numbers, all of these predators flourish, successfully raising more owlets, kits, and cubs.  However, shortly after the plants begin to release the anti-digestion chemicals, the hare populations tank.  With not enough food, many of the animals die off.  Then, a year or two after the hare die-off, the lynx also experiences a massive fall in numbers.  With the lynx no longer over hunting the hare, and the predator/prey ratio returned to normal, the hare starts the cycle all over again. 

                While this cycle seems to be a healthy part of the Canadian ecosystem, in other places, a rapid rise in the number of predators or prey could be disastrous.  Therefore, nature has made it so that, in a healthy ecosystem, the prey animals vastly outnumber the predatory animals.  But how does all of this tie into kangaroos?  We will get back to that in a minute.  First, let’s take a look at an extinct, 26,000 year old relative of today’s rat kangaroo. 

                First described by Australian zoologist Charles De Vis around the turn of the century, the holotype of Propleopus at first remained unique.  It wasn’t until the year 1967 that more remains belonging to the genus Propleopus appeared.  More was discovered in the following years, but very few remains have been discovered even to this day.  With millions of fossilized mammalian bones discovered in Australia, Propleopus are “known from teeth and jaws attributable to less than 20 individuals.” 

                There are multiple reasons why an animal does not appear with a great amount of frequency in the fossil record.  Perhaps it is because the animal was small; smaller bones are much more delicate, and therefore less likely to survive the fossilization process.  (They are also a lot smaller, and therefore usually harder to find then, say the humerus of an Brachiosaurus!)  Perhaps the animal lived in an environment where fossilization is unlikely.  For example, in millions of years, when intelligent life again evolves on this planet, or we are visited by intelligent life from elsewhere in the galaxy, they would find very little or no evidence of mountainous animals, like bighorn sheep or the snow leopard.  This is because mountains are in a constant state of geologic flux.  At times they are being pushed up; but even when they are rising, they are already eroding.  Given enough time, entire mountain ranges can disappear, or almost disappear, like in the Australian Outback.  Sometimes, it is because paleontologists are simply looking in the wrong places, and there are treasure troves of these animals just waiting to be discovered elsewhere.  It could also be because the rocks where the animal was deposited simply don’t exist anymore, something that is called an unconformity in geologist’s terms.  Maybe the animal was just not very successful, and went extinct after only a short amount of time.  The fossilized animal could also represent a transitional fossil, so creatures with those characteristics would have only been around for a few thousand years.  Or, of course, it could be because the animal was a predator, and there were fewer individuals to begin with.

                Now you are probably thinking that this is quite a leap.  Just because this kangaroo didn’t appear all that often in the fossil record doesn’t necessarily mean that it was carnivorous.  And you are right, as if this was the only evidence of Propleopus being a carnivorous kangaroo, I would be laughed right out of the Neolithic Age: and they, at best, had only a very, very primitive form of language, and probably would, at best, barely understand what I was saying.  However, there is more evidence in favor of a carnivorous Propleopus.  As I am fond of saying, “the teeth tell the tale.” 

                Studies of the dentition of Propleopus show a close resemblance to small, extant insectivores or omnivores, i.e. the mountain pygmy possum and the musky rat kangaroo.  Where the teeth of Propleopus differ from the mountain pygmy possum and the musky rat kangaroo, however, the differences “could be interpreted as adaptations to meat-eating.”  To sum up, the incisors are short, stout, and appear great for stabbing, the premolars are strongly serrated, which is perfect for tearing into very tough stuff (perhaps tendon), and the molars are greatly reduced in size, as sometimes seen in the genus Wakaleo, one of the genera of marsupial lion, like Thylacoleo.  Furthermore, the molars, although reduced in size, share similar features to the largest extant marsupial carnivore today, the Tasmanian devil.  These features in the Tasmanian devil serve to keep bone splinters from penetrating the gums, and clearly would not be needed to serve that purpose in an herbivore. 

                The most revealing tale of the teeth can only be revealed by a microscope.  Studies have shown that, when you compare the microscopic wear patterns on the teeth of a herbivore and a carnivore, you can see obvious, and distinguishable, differences.  The teeth tell the tale of the diet of an animal, and help to show us what Propleopus might have eaten.  When compared with the wear patterns of closely related herbivores, like the musky rat kangaroo, and marsupial and placental carnivores, like the thylacine, Thylacoleo, and dogs, the wear patterns seen on Propleopus resembles that of the carnivores more so than that of the herbivores. 

                So was Propleopus a carnivore, or a herbivore, or both?  One hypothesis that has been put forward is that Propleopus was situated in a similar ecological niche as the modern day African baboon, eating whatever came it way, be it plants, eggs, insects, or meat.  Whatever the answer, is is doubtful that it could be answered now, and it is likely that only further research, and more discoveries, will ever hope to unravel the mystery surrounding Propleopus, the seemingly killer kangaroo.