Happy New Year:Glowing Cockroaches For All!

 So let's start a new yearly tradition: Find our favorite new species discovered this past year. There were a lot of cool things, including a tyrannosaurid and a smallish extinct felid from Tibet. My pick, however, goes to...

Via Pintrest.

...a cockroach. An adorable, glow-in-the-dark cockroach, but still a cockroach. It has been dubbed  Luchihormetica luckae, with no good common name. We'll just call him "Lucky" for the rest of this entry; nobody wants to write that name out ten plus times, and face it, this is one of the more likeable cockroaches out there. Just don't get any ideas about stealing his Lucky Charms. He really doesn't like that.

Here's why this little cockroach of glowy awesomeness was picked over a T-Rex relative: I have never seen anything like Lucky! It's apparently mimicking another toxic, glow in the dark insect called a click beetle. This beetle is toxic; that paint job is warning colors. This is the only known instance of a glow being used as mimicry. Yeah, these guys will survive the apocalypse just fine.

Bioluminescent bugs are rare. The most commonly-known ones are glow worms and fireflies. Along with glowing on its body, the "eyes" on its glowy outline are pools of bioluminescent bacteria. Don't "ew" that - if you didn't have E.coli in your gut, let's just say digestion would be a lot harder. It's exciting to have another glowing bug to add to the short list!

Lucky was found in the rainforests of Ecuador near an active volcano. That's a pretty bizarre environment if you think about it. There cannot be too many rainforests like that around, meaning that this cockroach might only be able to live in that one area. Save the rainforest - it has neon roaches! It sounds weird to use a cockroach as a reason to protect the rainforest, but darnit, this is a gorgeous one!

Happy New Year! May many new species be discovered in 2014!

Creature Feature: Horned Screamer.

Well, it turns out I won't be getting a job this season because I won't be able to work Black Friday. There's always Christmas, but for now, I am formulating my revenge in the form of math and punnett squares. I'm not good at math, but reptiles will be involved. I do not mean snakes in mailboxes. For now, have an awesome bird:

Source.

This odd, not-pheasant is called a "Horned Screamer" (Anhima cornuta). It is the only member of the genus Anhima. It can be found in most of the top half of South America, specifically in lowlands and marshes. Despite their pheasant-like appearance, screamers are more closely related to ducks and geese than to chickens.

Right off the bat, the horned screamer is a weird bird. It looks kinda like a pheasant, but has slightly webbed feet. It's also huge- a little over a meter long. If a goose and a pheasant somehow managed to mate, you would get a screamer. Somehow. I'll get into the interesting-ness of avian genitalia at some point.

The Horned Screamer is odd by screamer standards, too. It is the one of the very few birds that has a horn - an actual piece of keratin loosely attached to the skull. The wings have very similar projections, making it look like an already-weird bird with batlike claws. These are fragile bits, and the tips are often broken off. Nobody really knows why it has this horn and apparently those claws, but it sure looks unique.

So why is this thing called a screamer? Let's go to YouTube and find out!



Well, it makes just as much sense as whatever the hell the fox says, right? I'm not sure I would call it "screaming," but what would you call that?

Oh, and by the way, this odd bird is not under any threats aside from perhaps habitat loss. Even though they are fairly easy to hunt, screamers don't make good eating. Their flesh is airy and overall unpalatable - in short, anyone who isn't starving doesn't actually eat that. Sort of a relief.

They Actually Eat That + Creature Feature: Living Rocks.

Apologies for the lack of entries. There are two reasons for it: one, vacation in Minnesota and summer in general made a mess of my schedule; two,  I've had a hard time getting motivated. No more of that! This is probably the weirdest creature I've ever seen. Behold...

Source.

...the not-so-giant rock!

Yes, that rock is alive. It's called Pyura chilensis - "piure" for short in Spanish. It's part of the extremely weird group of creatures called tunicates/sea squirts- primitive vertebrates that are free-swimming when young, then become stationary blobs as adults. In this case, the blob looks like a giant rock and lives off the coast of Chile and Peru. As with all other mature tunicates, it is a filter feeder, feeding on any microorganisms that find their way into its rocky, yet surprisingly squishy insides before squirting that water back out.

Yeah, maybe it's time for a refresher on what a tunicate is. Tunicates, sea squirts, and sea salps are, collectively, the weirdest chordates in existence. They start life as free-swimming, tadpole-like creatures with brains, spines, and other very vertebrate traits. When they mature, however, they change entirely, eating their primitive spinal chord and becoming little more than jellyfish or sponges. In this case, the piura becomes a living rock as an adult. Can it have the "best camouflage ever" award? It pretty much ate its brain for it.

Like all tunicates, the living rock is a sequential hermaphrodite. It's born male, then becomes female as it gets older.When it's on the edge of becoming female, it releases both sperm and eggs into a messy cloud in the water. Yes, the living rock can effectively mate with itself if the need arises. Consider your mind blown.

You may have noticed that this is also a "They Actually Eat That" entry. Yes, the living rock is actually edible, and quite popular at that. Peoples in coastal Central and South America are in fact quite fond of eating this tunicate. It has also taken on some popularity in Sweden and Japan. I'm personally more surprised about Sweden than Japan in this instance. It's described as being "bitter and soapy," but supposedly goes great on rice or as fried tunicate meat. Whose idea it was to break apart a rock for food in the first place

There are, however, some concerns about eating piura. For whatever reason, piura meat contains an exceedingly high amount of vanadium- look it up on the periodic chart if you've never even heard of that metal (it probably was not on your chemistry exam). The concentration of vanadium in a single rocky tunicate is ten million times that of the surrounding seawater. Vanadium has been suspected of causing liver damage in high amounts. This has not stopped people from going along the coast and picking up living rocks underwater.

This entry was so weird and strange that I may just go ahead and do a tunicate theme week...hm.. 

Creature Feature: Lake Titicaca Frog.

Some things in life are just funny.  For example, Lake Titicaca? That just sounds dirty. We know it's a Quecha word, but it sounds sexy, dirty, or both depending on what other languages you happen to speak. It doesn't help that some pretty darn weird creatures live there, too.

Source: Weirdimals.

This is a Lake Titicaca water frog (Telmatobeus culeus). It is entirely aquatic, spending all of its life in a relatively isolated lake. It lives only in Lake Titicaca and looks just as silly as one would expect of something living in such a hilariously-named lake. Its scientific name translates to "aquatic scrotum." Apt, scientists.

The Titicaca frog has a reason for looking like a nutsack. Lake Titicaca is 4,000 feet above the ground, making oxygen a bit hard to come by. The folded skin is effectively one giant gill for the frog. That doesn't mean we land-dwellers cannot make fun of it. At least it has a cute face. Seriously, take away the folded skin and this frog doesn't look half bad. 

Why are you laughing at me? You can't even stay underwater for an hour!

The Lake Titicaca water frog is also a pretty big frog. The famous diver Jacques Cousteau once went diving in Lake Titicaca, finding thousands of fairly large, wrinkly frogs. They used to get up to 50cm long - that's roughly 20 inches, or "almost as long as two footlong sandwiches." It's not even the largest aquatic frog, but that's still impressive. 

Also, we eat this guy. Surprise, surprise, people eat frogs, but this particular frog is sometimes juiced into a Peruvian aphrodisiac. The frog is skinned alive, then put in a blender with some honey and roots. I realize it looks like a scrotum, but...fine, that's more logical rationale than some aphrodisiacs. You win this round, Peru, but it's still not cool to hunt frogs just to put junk in your trunk.

Aphrodisiacs aside, the Lake Titicaca frog faces a number of other environmental threats. Trout were introduced to Lake Titicaca's ecosystem, upsetting the who ecosystem therein, but specifically eating this frog's tadpoles. Tribal people occasionally catch the frogs and put them in jars in hopes that the heavens with take pity on the scrotum frog and allow it to return to the water by making the jar overflow. If the gods somehow bring this frog back from being critically endangered, thank the Denver Zoo and whatever otherworldly entities made the Nazca lines.

Creature Feature: Maned Wolf.

Aww, wolves! The internet either loves or hates wolves, now.  If you love wolves, you're in good company; people will gladly roleplay wolves and/or werewolves with you. Hate them, likely due to the sheer romanticism, and a million users with "wolf" in their names will be down your throat in a torrent of furry fury. Try to look at the wolf without any bias, and you'll still have plenty of friends, but it's like carrying a match around in a room of dynamite. Wolves are cool, and I respect them as much as I do any other animal.

Wait a minute. That is not a wolf. That is a mutant fox.

Actually, it's a maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus). They are only loosely related to the "regular" wolf and slightly closer to the common red fox. Maned wolves can be found over much of South America, where they are the largest wild canid. By the way, they're carnivores, eating small animals such as rabbits, mice, and fish, but roughly half of this canine's diet is vegetable matter. Figure that one out.

The maned wolf is almost a species isolate. Its closest relative, the Falkland Islands wolf, went extinct in the late 1800's. The bush dog, also from South America, is the next best thing. Both of these canids are exotic and interesting enough to merit their own entries. There are plenty of wonderfully weird canids out there, yet most will not think outside foxes, wolves (including the domestic dog), and occasionally coyotes. Canids like the maned wolf are eye-openers to how interesting the family really is.

These wolves do not behave like gray wolves at all. They hunt solo. Those long legs are an adaptation to grasslands, unlike the stocky, cold climate build of the gray wolf.  They have a mane to buff up their profile if threatened. This is not the wolf we know; it's its own creature. Watch someone make a fursona out of it and get slammed by wolfaboos.

Snap, they're coming! Pic found on Wiki.

Along with looking bizarre, the maned wolf smells funny. It has also been called the "skunk wolf" because the scent is so distinct. Both sexes talk with their urine; a lot of animals talk with urine, but this urine has a very distinct scent. Thanks to a chemical in the urine (likely a pyrozine), the wolf tends to smell like hops, the plant used for beer, or cannabis, AKA weed. In short: These are already party animals, if the smell is any indication. The police have been fooled at least once by the scent.

The maned wolf is considered near-threatened. In the past, it has been suspected as a threat to livestock, particularly chickens. Its eyes were once considered good luck charms; one can only wonder where this idea came from. Measures by the Brazilian government have since alerted people that the wolves are not a threat and should not be hunted for their eyeballs; feral dogs remain a threat. There are a number of good captive breeding programs, so this odd canine will be around for many years to come. They are possible to keep with the proper licenses, but ask yourself: do you want your house to smell like weed and beer?

Creature Feature: Amargasaurus

Despite the strange subconscious connection between dragons and snakes, there is a very strong idea that dragons were either the last few remaining dinosaurs or based off of dinosaur bones. It's a valid theory to explain where the idea of dragons (and gryphons!) came from, even if snakes share a loooot of symbolism in the collective subconscious as guardian serpents. After all, who's to say that some dinosaurs didn't survive into medieval times? Then, well, humans were dicks and killed off the dinosaurs that weren't from the Congo. We're probably the meanest species ever, and wasps that lay eggs in caterpillars are a thing.

Anyways, dragons.

This is an Amargasaurus. It was found in La Amarga Arroyo, Argentina. The name simply refers to the area in which it was found. Like all sauropods, it was an herbivore, and lived in the Cretaceous Period with 95% of the other popular dinosaurs. It was relatively small, being only 30 feet (~10 meters) long. Yes, "as long as a school bus" is indeed small by sauropod standards.

Amargasaurus is probably the dinosaur that looks the most like a dragon. The long neck. The spikes. Since this is a sauropod we're talking about, it might even have given rise to lake/river monsters with only the head and tail visible beneath the water. It would indeed have looked like a bizarre giant snake. If there is any dinosaur that screams "dragon," it's Amargasaurus.

Disclaimer: May not be correct.

As of this entry, Amargasaurus is the only sauropod to ever flaunt spikes. Nobody knows what these neck and back spikes were for. A while back, it was popular to depict Amargasaurus with a sail spanning those spikes; this has since gone out of fashion, making it the most boss-looking longneck ever instead. Other theories include a mating display and, well, defense. Spikes are quite the fitting way to protect the most vulnerable part on a sauropod's body, no?

Despite looking a loooot like a Western dragon without the wings, Amargasaurus hasn't had very much screentime. Sure, it pops up in Fossil Fighters and Jurassic Park games, but that's about it. It suffers from the same syndrome all duckbills that aren't Parasaurolophus and all pterosaurs that aren't Pteranodon do: it doesn't fit the "modern analogy" mold and doesn't look a damn thing like the Apatosaurus or Brachiosaurus, AKA the "default" sauropods. It's also not as big as either of those two sauropods, making it possibly the most underrated sauropod ever. Try calling it a dragon; people will totally buy it.

Creature Feature: Myrmarachnids.

Not many people like spiders. The awesome lady with the spider jewelry last night was more an exception to the rule than anything. They are, however, fascinating creatures that really deserve more entries on this blog.

Look out, here comes the Spider-Ant! Actually, it's an ant-mimicking jumping spider (Myrmarachne formicaria), but close enough. It's native to Africa, with relatives in many places.

In all seriousness, though, there are a number of jumping spiders who have ants as alter-egos. They span at least two genera, and are native to most tropical parts of the world. A few live in temperate regions. Yes, they eat insects, like most other spiders. Despite awesome mimicry, this is not cannibalism. There are an amazing amount of these spiders. Cue mass-entry guilt.

For those of you who know nothing about arthropod anatomy, here's a little primer. Insects have three body segments and six legs. Spiders have two body segments and eight legs, plus two pedipalps. A number of tricks are used to pull off that visual trickery, including raising the forelegs like antennae and making the pedipalps look eerily close to an ant's head. It's a darn good job.

Why the spiders do this is something of a mystery. Always suspecting the worst of a venomous creature, scientists first thought that spider-ants were infiltrating anthills by going in undercover. This turned out not to be the case for many, but not all, ant-mimics. Unbeknownst to most humans, ants taste bad, and can also sting with formic acid. Not a bad thing to disguise oneself as.

Of course, this won't protect them from humans who hate ants, too...and there are quite a lot of those. You fooled nobody with A Bug's Life, Disney - ants are crafty little buggers who wind up in my bathroom every spring. Yeah, disguising yourself as an ant won't work well all the time.

Creature Feature: Glyptodon.

Cool though MonHunt may be, the majority of its monsters are reptilian. This tends to be a running theme with monsters in general; insectoids and reptiles are strange enough to scare most people, so, with the oddball exception of wolves, mammals don't show up in many horror movies. Maybe it's about time we fixed that.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Well, here's a strange mammal for you! It's a Glyptodon, and was native to South America in the Pleistocene Epoch. That's the same time when all the mammals we know and love, including people, were in odd, freakish proto-forms. Luckily, we're petty sure this one's an herbivore. There were four species in the genus, each of which can be identified by the patterns on the shell.

Armadillos are already strange little things. This is a prehistoric armadillo- that usually means it's bigger and even freakier. Glyptodon was about the size and weight of a Volkswagon Beetle. Let that sink in a minute: an armadillo the size and weight of a small car. OK, minute over.

Unlike modern armadillos, Glyptodon did not have a flexible shell. Its shell was so rigid that its spine was fused to the thing, much like a modern-day turtle's. Glyptodon was capable of tucking its armored head and tail over its vulnerable underbelly, making itself an unappetizing rock of a mammal. This is considered convergent evolution, as ankylosaurs and turtles share similar adaptations.

One thing we aren't sure on concerning this beast is its face. There's a space in its skull for a nose, but we aren't sure what kind of nose it had. The best guess is a tapir-ish trunk. Soft tissue doesn't preserve well, so a proboscis like that is a legitimate guess. Have fun seeing it in your nightmares.

The Glyptodon probably went extinct because of humans. As we've said before, wherever humans live, megafauna tends to die. It's nothing personal - it just tends to happen. Since humans were around for this, you'd expect drawings...but nope. Plushies, however, are a thing:

Source.

Don't be afraid to think outside the box. There were Glyptodon in Ice Age, and we're sure GameFreak could make a Pokemon out of this. There are plenty of strange mammals, both living and dead. Not everything has to be bugs and reptiles.

Creature Feature: Jacanas.

Ever notice that animals seem capable of miracles? Axoltols and planaria can heal at astounding rates. Ants can lift millions of times their weight.  Then there's this bird, who almost pulls off the basilisk's ability to walk on water:
Jesus bird? Hardly. That's an African Jacana (Actophilornis africana), a bird also called a lily-trotter. Technically, it's walking on lilypads, not the surface of the water itself. Jacanas of various sorts (in a few genera) can be found throughout the tropics, eating snails, insects, and other small critters while striding above the surface.

First off, even if these guys are not walking on water, you will see them. The younger ones are white and brown; older jacanas usually have striking patterns of brown, white, and black.  That may not sound too stunning, but it's a high-contrast design. There are lots of different types of jacana, and they all have pretty striking colors. Jacana eggs are glossy, dappled things that look more fake than real. There's even a pheasant-tailed jacana, which is exactly what it sounds like:

Source.

Jacanas have the ability to walk on water flora. They do this using very long, slender legs and wide feet, which distributes their weight so that the birds do not sink. This gives the illusion of walking on water. They can also swim, which is less impressive, but still cool.

Jacanas also have a few interesting mating habits. Unlike many birds, which mate using many females and one male, jacanas do it the opposite way.  The guy also does all of the work raising the chicks. The female is off philandering and reproducing as much as possible. Talk about your double-standard...turned on its head.

Source: San Diego Zoo webpage.

Remember, for every miracle, there's usually a more logical explanation. Science is all about finding out what those explanations are. In this case, it's a bird walking on lily pads instead of water- not as miraculous, but still quite astounding.

Pterosaur Week: Anhanguera.

 One of the things I keep stressing in pterosaur entries is how darn weird they are. Seriously, there are a lot of relatively-untapped monsters in pterosaurs, even without making them into dragons. Plenty of them would make one release one's bowels in an untimely manner on sight.

Source.

This is one of those. Anhanguera is a Late Cretaceous pterosaur straight out of somebody's nightmare. Its name means "ancient devil," and rightfully so. It looks freaky. The species was found in Brazil, and thus got a Portuguese name. By pure coincidence, it also shares that name with a Brazilian highway and a few individuals.

Anhanguera, along with all other ornithocheirids, has one of the freakier faces seen in pterosaurs. The group is characterized by a slender bill with a wider tip. In Anhanguera's case, this tip had teeth splaying out in all directions. These were excellent for trapping flailing fish. The tip was also weighted with a crest on each piece. This makes it the rough equivalent of a spoonbill mixed with a fish-eating, flying death machine. Oh, and it wasn't the only one with a strange bill - just the only one called a devil.

Surprisingly, we have been able to glean quite a lot of information about how Anhanguera worked. Through presumably a lot of simulations, we have found that Anhanguera likely took off from the ground. It had a running start, then flapped to get into the air. The skeleton also has a keel for flight muscles, making powered flight like that even more likely.

Anhanguera is too weird to not make it into popular culture. Like most things this week, it has a Fossil Fighters counterpart in Guera. As a bizarre, more subtle reference, Birdramon's toothy beak also bears an uncanny resemblance to Anhanguera's jaws (or that of its relative, Ornithocheirus). Subtle? Perhaps, but tell me there isn't some pterosaur, here:

Tell me there ISN'T ornithocheirid in this thing.

"Bird dragon monster" indeed. Anhanguera or one of its relatives made for one nightmarish phoenix.

Creature Feature: Apple Snail.

I apologize in advance for the video I am about to show you:



Yes, snails can actually be interesting to watch. I had the pleasure of seeing one of these up close and active. These are apple snails (family Ampullaridae), and they are among the most popular freshwater aquarium snails in the trade. The 6 genera in the family can be found in the freshwater areas of South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the lower parts of North America.  They are also marketed as "mystery snails," which is a complete marketing gimmick. These snails are far from a mystery, but still quite cool. We'll focus on Pomacea for now; other apple snails are fascinating in their own rights.

Apple snails are among the few truly amphibious snails. They have both primitive lungs and gills.  The mantle - the part of the body that yields a shell - is actually divided between the two types of respiration. Thankfully, most apple snails can stay aquatic; only if food runs out in the water will they move onto land. They have survived for over 50 million years for a reason.

The shell even looks apple-y.

That said, if you intend to breed apple snails, it is not as easy as it is with some other snails. Unlike most snails, apple snails have sexes - they aren't hermaphrodites. Each species of apple snail has its own egg-laying style and preferences, so adjust accordingly. We wish there was a cute Valentine's Day pic with snails, but these guys and girls sound difficult to sex properly.  If taken care of, some snails can get shells up to 6 inches in diameter.

Apple snails have mixed effects when introduced to non-native ecologies. In Taiwan, apple snails were marketed as a protein source, but fell flat on their not-faces and escaped into the wild after being unprofitable. The population then exploded; remember, these are versatile, adaptable creatures. Before they were bred in captivity, many apple snails were actually unwelcome hitchhikers in aquaria. Times change.

 Other people deliberately introduce apple snails (but not Pomacea) to out-compete and even eat more harmful snails that are vectors for parasites - some deadly, some just annoying. They are even eaten in Mexico. Mystery snails no more; apple snails are here to stay, but we make no promises about keeping the doctor away.

Megafauna Week: Intro + Titanoboa.

 Pinch, punch, last week of the month! You know what that means: It's a Theme Week! This month's theme is MEGAFAUNA. Let me say it in bigger letters:

MEGAFAUNA!!!!

Megafauna, in general, means "any animal larger than a human that has not been domesticated." The term can apply to both extant and extinct species. The term is usually reserved for giant, extinct animals that were much larger than their modern day counterparts. Giraffes, elephants, and many other famous African animals are also properly megafauna.  Believe it or not, the aurochs, the ancestor to the modern cow, was megafauna. We have bred cattle down a lot, and they're still pretty darn big. 

That said, there will be a lot of extinct creatures this week, too. Megafauna tends to vary inversely with human population - that is, the more humans there are in an area, the less megafauna there will be. There are a number of reasons for this.The most obvious is that humans are a lot like wolves in that anything big against us falls to coordinated effort. Less obvious things include competition for resources and habitat destruction (which kinda falls under "resources," in retrospect). Basically, humans and megafauna do not mix well.

So, without further ado, onto the first member of the heavyweight class:

Surprise, surprise: this week is starting with a giant snake. For those of you who have not seen this monster, its name was Titanoboa and it died out long before humans walked the Earth (so your hands are clean). The only known species, Titanoboa cerrejonensis, was found in the coal mines of Columbia.

Titanoboa was a giant, even among modern giant snakes. It was 48 feet long and weighed over 2,500 pounds. To put things in perspective, the longest snake, the reticulated python, is at least 10 feet shy of that. It was about as wide as a garbage can, if not slightly bigger. As for how dangerous it was, I believe the following demotivator makes the point best:

(Disclaimer: I love giant snakes.)

The discovery of a snake this big tells us a few very important things about its environment. For starters, there had to be prey big enough to accommodate such a large snake; large snakes need large food, after all. Huge reptiles also tend to live in tropical climates, meaning that Columbia was still hot millennia ago.

Before you ask, no, this snake did not eat dinosaurs. Titanoboa appeared in the Paleocene, around 60-58 million years ago. That is the time directly after the period when dinosaurs went extinct. If there were dinosaurs for it to eat, they would have been the stragglers from the KT event that refused to evolve into birds. The Paleocene had plenty of large mammals, birds, and reptiles for Titanoboa to feed on regardless.

Pop culture loves picking on giant snakes, and Titanoboa is no exception. The Smithsonian has a rather extensive page on Titanoboa, including what it would take to support one in a zoo. Primeval: New World also featured a Titanoboa, overlapping it with a Native American legend. Giant snakes are pretty common in folklore; who's to say that someone didn't discover Titanoboa before modern science? 

Creature Feature: Golden Lion Tamarin.

A rather interesting question came to me in the form of a fortune cookie: Which would you rather have as a pet: a pig or a monkey? Both are notably intelligent, messy, and carry diseases that can cross over into humans. It's a fair question; answer it below if you like.

Now, as anyone who follows this blog is aware, I am not the biggest fan of monkeys. My answer to that question would probably be the pig, hands-down, if one particular type of monkey did not exist:

It's called a golden lion tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia) (or "golden marmoset" for those of you without any imagination). It can be found in the Brazilian forests along the east coast. This monkey has a diverse diet of fruit, leaves, insects and eggs. Basics done - you may d'aww now.

The golden lion tamarin really looks like a little lion. Although not predatory like a lion, this monkey does have a "mane" of elongated hair along the sides of its face. This color supposedly comes from the carotenoids in their diet, much like flamingo coloration being the result of eating crustaceans. The tamarin also has claws - a rarity in primates, with the notable exception of all other New World monkeys.

Golden lion tamarins are also monogamous. Like wolves, they have a social structure in which the top male and top female mate. They mate for life while everybody else doesn't get any. Aww, just in time for- wait, it's not Valentine's Day, yet. Never mind. 

Alas, the golden lion tamarin is highly endangered, and not because it's darn adorable. A good chunk of its habitat has been chipped away by deforestation. The lion tamarin is considered one of the more popular endangered species - enough so that one of the characters in Tokyo Mew Mew has a tamarin as her animal splice. That said, any attempts to get one as a pet would probably be illegal. Guess I'd pick the pig after all.

Creature Feature: Monito del Monte.

In the rudimentary biology classes that most American schools offer, we are taught very few things about marsupials. They basically cover kangaroos, koalas, and maybe wombats. Marsupials give birth to babies that develop in pouches. All of them are native to Australia. That is the extent of our weird mammal knowledge.

Well, the weird can always get weirder, right?

Sourcing is cool.

This is a monito del monte (Dromiciops gliroides). It is a mouse-sized mammal native to South America, but is not a "little mountain monkey" as the name would suggest. Specifically, it is only native to the Andes Mountains of Chile and Argentina, which are not usually talked about when it comes to unique species. Its diet consists of insects and fruit- more on the fruit later. It has nothing to do with the brand of canned fruit on American grocery shelves.

So, why am I mentioning a South American mammal after that shtick about our limited knowledge about marsupials? Monito del monte is a marsupial. A South American marsupial. Consider your mind blown if you thought all marsupials were only in Australia's immediate vicinity. The opossum is commonly taught as an exception to the rule; monito del monte is not.

But it should be!

How did this happen? Long story short, Australia and the southwestern edge of South America were once very close together on a supercontinent called Gondwanaland.  For a long time, biogeologists were expecting to find ancestral marsupials in South America. They found the bones of a small marsupial, dubbed Djarthia,  in Queensland, but never found a living specimen until they found the monito del monte. Genetic evidence proved that the 11 million-year-old bones and the monito were almost the same organism. Fascinating, no?

The unique features of the monito del monte keep piling on. It is the only mammal that stores fat in its prehensile tail. It hibernates in little nests of waterproof leaves and moss when the weather gets too nippy in the mountains.  This is sounding more and more like a gecko; remember how cresties were once thought extinct? Are we sure the Geico gecko isn't wearing a fursuit? (Actually, finding a gecko in that area would be even more surprising!) Talk about weird, primitive animals!

This little fuzzball is also important for a plant called Tristerix corymbosus, a type of mistletoe native to the same area. The monito del monte eats the fruit of the plant. When the fruit is digested, out comes a seed of that particular mistletoe. The monito del monte is the only thing that disperses the seeds of this plant; it would likely go extinct along with the marsupial. Although the monito del monte is not in critical danger, it is near-threatened...but look at that face. Someone has to be captive breeding these...right? Right?

(P.S. - Apologies - these last few days have been spent with relatives in Minnesota.)

Creature Feature: Harris Hawk.

When we think "pack hunters," or even "social animals," wolves are usually the first things that pop into people's heads. Next up are dolphins and, by a stretch, Velociraptors. Sure, our image of the Velociraptor has changed over time, but we're still pretty sure they hunted in packs.

But wait a sec. Raptors -the dinosaurs, not the birds - used to be extremely effective pack hunters. Dinosaurs evolved into birds, right? Why aren't there any birds who hunt like that?

Source.

The good news is that there is one type of hawk, the Harris's Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), that hunts as a family pack. It is native from the southwestern  U.S. of A. down to Chile and Argentina. The name comes from Edward Harris, a friend of the famous John James Audubon. Birds of a feather flock together, yes?

Harris's hawks are nicknamed "wolves of the sky." They are the only birds of prey that hunt in groups. By that, I do not mean that they mob an animal and call it a pack hunt. We're talking actual, calculated attacks that even groups of humans have trouble pulling off. Here's a look at one hunt courtesy of National Geographic.



Let's look at a little play-by-play of this video: First, one Harris's Hawk sees the jackrabbit. The same hawk then chases the rabbit out of wherever it's hiding. By some clever signaling, another hawk knows exactly where that bunny will run, and has its razor-sharp talons ready and waiting. Bravo, let's have dinner.

Compare this to the lupine strategy. Both wolves and the Harris's Hawks will make their prey run. The stamina of a wolf allows it to run prey down until it is exhausted; the Harris's Hawk knows exactly what direction its prey will flee in. Your mileage may vary on which is more impressive, but I will say this: the genes for pack hunting have been with archosaurs a lot longer than they have been with canids.

Worry not, Jurassic Park fans. Your intelligent, group-coordinating Velociraptors are alive and well. That same cunning and coordination has, as with many traits of dinosaurs, taken to the skies. If you're looking into falconry, yes, Harris's Hawks are easily tamed and very popular; you can get a raptor of your very own.

Creature Feature: Burrowing Owl.

Aside from being nocturnal, owls are often depicted as the most human of birds. They have forward-facing eyes and round heads, just like people. Hell, they look almost like natural anime characters with their big eyes and tiny beaks; what's not to love? Sure, the Romans thought they were bloodsucking vampire birds of doom, but at the same time, they were a mascot of Athena/Minerva.

Burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia) have to be the cutest of the cute owls. They are only slightly bigger than a robin - a large-ish songbird, for those of you not in the States. That said, they are still predators, feeding on rodents and invertebrates. Burrowing owls can be found anywhere in the Americas, so there's a good chance you can find adorable owls near you.

These owls are exactly what they say on the can: owls that live in burrows.  More specifically, they form monogamous family units and raise babies in burrows. Instead of digging their own burrows they move into the homes of ground squirrels and prairie dogs, or whatever small burrowing mammal happens to be in the area. They will also use man-made objects such as pipe as a home. If push comes to shove, yes, they can dig their own burrows. They are nothing if not adaptable.



Although no species of burrowing owl are properly endangered, the arrival of Europeans did not treat them well. Cats and dogs are the greatest enemies of earth-dwelling owl. Nonetheless, the owls have adapted well enough to live on golf courses and airports.  They are tough little birds, even if their range has gotten a lot smaller.

Although burrowing owls frequently make cameos, the book/movie Hoot is all about them. In Hoot, a group of schoolchildren discovers a colony of burrowing owls on the site of a pancake restaurant, and the kids try to save the owls from being killed by development. They have also appeared in Guardians of Gahoole and Rango. Popular little birds indeed, but still not as ubiquitous as Hedwig. Ah, well.

Creature Feature: Nine-Banded Armadillo.

 That said, armadillos are fascinating creatures. Really, what's not to love about a mammalian pillbug with an anteater face, bunny ears, and sharp, pointy claws? Its native name means "turtle-rabbit," meaning that the armadillo is officially the bastard offspring of the Tortoise and the Hare; apparently they got along reaaaally well after that race.

Armadillos in general are mammals belonging to the super-weird superorder Xenarthra, which also includes sloths and anteaters. They eat invertebrates, particularly ants and termites.The nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) is the only species native to North America; the other 19 species are all farther south. This is largely because the armadillo has few predators up here.

Let's look at the obvious first: Armadillos are scaly mammals. Much like the pangolin, these scales are made of keratin- the same thing that makes up your hair and fingernails. (The same is true of porcupines; Sandslash suddenly makes a great deal of sense.)  As in turtles, the segments of an armadillo's spine are fused with the carapace. There are folds of skin, also scaly, between the main sections of armor in most armadillo species; these are easy ways of classifying armadillos. By the way, no, our nine-banded armadillo can't curl into a ball.

Armadillos spend most of their time underground, digging with those gnarly claws. A single armadillo can have up to 12 burrows in its range, each getting around 8 feet deep. If startled while out of the burrow (probably at night), they can jump up to four feet in the air and run surprisingly fast - prime roadkill fodder.

 Get this: aside from looking freakish, armadillos are also the only (multi-cellular) animals to achieve natural cloning. One single, fertilized egg leads to 3-4 genetically-identical offspring; take that, conservatives. They can also suspend their pregnancy for up to two years - y'know, in case the armadillo in question isn't quite ready to have kids yet.  That said, baby armadillos are adorable.

The nine-banded armadillo is the state small mammal of Texas. It is, however, considered a pest and common roadkill even in its 'home' state. Oh, and they can also catch human leprosy. It's funny how such a famous, strange animal can be treated like vermin in Texas...but we love them anyways. They're popular for a reason.

STFU, 02-haters. You knew Armadillomon would make it here someday.

"They Actually Eat That:" Armadillo.

For those of you who do not watch my Twitter or dA, I will be in Texas until Saturday. The next few days will thus be related, in some way, shape, or form, to the Lone Star State. What better way to kick this off than with Texas's state mammal, the armadillo?

Wait. This is Wednesday. Do people really eat armadillo?

Answer: Yep. Armadillos, aside from looking a little bit like crazy reptilian mammals, are available year-round, fairly low on the food chain, and legal to hunt everywhere. They range from the lower half of the U.S. into South America, so if you live anywhere near there, there's probably an armadillo into your backyard. And, yes, armadillos are eaten throughout their range.

Armadillos have been eaten since at least the days of the pioneers. They have been eaten by Florida Crackers for at least 100 years. Armadillo is also very popular in Argentina. Cook them just like you would any other meat; frying is better for smaller armadillos, and slow-cooking works more for larger ones.

There are two ways to get armadillo meat. One, as you probably guessed, is to trap a little armored one yourself. Regular animal traps work, but if you wanna be a pro, stick a six-inch PVC pipe into a burrow and wait for the armadillo to get stuck in it. Alternatively, armadillos can also be farm-raised...on CORN.

One of the most ridiculous rumors surrounding armadillo meat is that it can give you leprosy. This is not entirely unfounded, but still rather silly. Armadillos are the only mammals besides humans that can get leprosy, and hey, they're pretty scaly for mammals.  Still, armadillos rarely have leprosy, and if the meat is handled properly, you have no chance of getting it.

That said, if I see armadillo on the menu down here, this post will be updated. There are a million restaurants on the San Antonio riverwalk, and I'd bet money that one of them has armadillo. I'll be sure to let you all know where I find it!

Blasphemy Week: Golden Lanceheads.

Y'know how I keep saying "if you want to stop the exotic animal trade, stop humans from living there?" It turns out there is indeed a place where humans are not allowed, and that still doesn't stop people from taking venomous, hermaphroditic snakes off the island.

Wait, what?

Bothrops insularis, or the golden lancehead, is found on exactly one island in the entire world: Ilha da Queimada Grande, located off the coast of Sao Paulo, Brazil. It eats birds and lizards as an adult, and is occasionally cannibalistic. The island supposedly gets its name from a plotted banana plantation that did not go through thanks to one very obvious thing: There is at least one snake for every square meter of the place.

The golden lancehead is the only species of snake on this island. What it lacks in biodiversity it makes up for in sheer numbers. Locals say that there are 5 snakes per square meter on that island. Discovery Channel says there is really only one. The point is, everywhere you turn, there's a snake. It's amazing that good pics of this thing exist; most people would probably drop their cameras.

Think the brown tree snakes are more terrifying? Golden lanceheads are highly venomous. The snakes' closest relative is the jararaca, another lancehead whose venom's ACE inhibitors have recently been used in medicine to treat hypertension. The golden lancehead's venom is at least 5 times as potent as the jararaca's, and the fastest-acting of any lancehead. Luckily, no bites have been reported...yet.

Unless you have a deathwish or are a herpetologist, DO NOT GO HERE. (Source)

Oh, and no humans are allowed on the island. Period. The Brazilian Navy will arrest you if you are there without a waiver. The population is said to consist of exactly one human in a lighthouse and the occasional herpetologists that get waivers to go on the island. Even the natives avoid this place. There are no human settlements there except to warn people that they might land upon an island of venomous snakes. Lovely.

A lot of golden lanceheads are also intersexed. In not-so-polite terms, they're shemales, hermaphrodites, or chicks with dicks. They contain the sexual organs of both sexes, which usually results in infertility. Usually. Apparently some can breed, but regardless, this questionable sexuality is the result of extreme inbreeding.

In case you haven't guessed: Yes, these snakes are critically-endangered. The island is still farm potential, but as we all know, island ecosystems are fragile. That includes island ecosystems containing creatures of hermaphroditic, scaly death. They're terrifying, but goodness knows what'll happen if this one snake gets taken out of the great Jenga tower called nature.

And yet we somehow have photographs of these beautiful hellsnakes, as well as a few specimens in captivity. OK, fine- the reptile lover in me is showing her scales. I do, however, realize that an island full of poisonous snakes would be terrifying to most people, so there you have it. As for why it exists to begin with...either there's a holy relic there or God is a sadistic SOB.

Creature Feature: Sapo.

I am hard-pressed to find something terrifying that fits here and not in the theme week, "Proof That There Is No God." Yes, next week covers things so terrifying that we cannot believe that a merciful god exists anymore.

So here's a frog that gets you plastered. Enjoy!

The giant leaf frog (Phyllomedusa bicolor), or just Sapo, is a toad native to the Amazon rainforest. It is nocturnal, meaning that frog hunts must be done at night or in the early morning. The frog sings only after it rains. Presumably, it eats some of the many insects that fly rampant throughout the Amazon.

The five-dollar question: How giant is giant?  I'll put it this way instead of giving you numbers: It does not fit comfortably in a human hand. It was called a "beautiful, giant thing" by Vice Magazine.  Some people have also felt psychoactive effects just by touching it, so not only is it huge, it gets you high as a kite.

We have to presume you are not buzzed while holding this.

Before you ask: No, these are not toads you lick. The Sapo is a toad that the Mayoruna and Matses natives tie up with grass, then torment until the venom forms a gelantinous teal coating on the toad's skin. The venom is then put on sticks that are burned into a shaman's skin.

And then they get high on the frog venom. The frog affects everybody differently. It can lead to sedation, stimulation, hallucinations, anorexia, and apparently spiritual experiences. It reacts to the same receptors opium does, but the burn probably deters people from using it as often as opium. It almost makes you wonder "who tried this first and how long did he live?" Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

As one might have guessed, the Sapo is the target of considerable research. Aside from being a great drug, the waxy venom might be able to cure cancer and AIDS. There have been a few attempts to patent Sapo venom compounds, but no headway has been made in the research department. Hmm...I wonder why? Could they have achieved spiritual enlightenment and gone "Screw patents?"