"They Actually Eat That:" Poutine.

Early on Friday, I'll be headed into Canada. Specifically, I'll be in Quebec, putting years of French into practice. They also seem to have some exotic meats, including things like reindeer, so expect an entry on whatever my curious tongue happens to find. Thanks to the interwebs, I have a fair amount of Canadian friends, too. One of them recommended this:

My first thought: "You sure this isn't from Wisconsin? Looks like something they'd do."
Poutine is not from Wisconsin, but is a distinctly Quebecois dish. The recipe is simple: fries, cheese curds, gravy on the whole thing. It started somewhere in rural Quebec, then spread throughout Canada. Even people who don't like French people love poutine. 

Indeed, poutine is not French. Even though French fries are, well, not quite French (they were invented in Belgium, but French cuisine does use them), one look at this dish tells me that poutine is American. One of the popular origins of the word "poutine" is "pudding" - as in, this is a dish that makes you fat. Another is linked to the idea that the food will make a big mess - again, not something I can picture the French advertising. It also just looks so darn close to our disgusting cheese fries that I cannot unsee the similarity. Hopefully it tastes a lot better, using fresh cheese curds instead of artificially-colored "cheese."

The exact origins of poutine are a mystery. Everybody and their mother claims that they thought of poutine. We think it came from Drummondville, Quebec. At least, that's one of the places with a yearly festival devoted to cheese, gravy, and fries. The term has been used to describe gravy, cheese, and fries since 1978.

Then the dish became insanely popular. In a poll of the top ten Canadian inventions, poutine was ranked at #10, beating out the BlackBerry and the electron microscope. Canadians seek out poutine whenever they travel. It may as well be Canada's national junk food at this point.

Even if you can't make it to Canada, chances are there's a variation of cheese fries around you if you live in the Western hemisphere. It sounds good, if fattening, and I look forward to trying it.  It may be 740 calories, but sounds well worth trying at least once. I'm not saying it's bad; I'm saying I haven't tried it yet.

Creature Feature: Opabinia.

Has anyone ever wondered why aliens are in everything these days? Only conspiracy theorists, most likely. Has anyone ever wondered why the great majority of them look like little more than humans with makeup? There's the intelligence factor, but the real reason is most likely laziness. If you really want to get creative with aliens, you're going to have to go all the way back to the Cambrian.

Like this thing. Wow, is that even from Earth?

Opabinia above was from an earth waaayyy before the first chordates ever roamed the seas. We're talking the Cambrian (545-525 mya), the first period when life was noticeable in Earth's history. It was found in the Burgress Shale with things like Anomalocaris, so we can assume that these things were at least in British Columbia; a questionable specimen was also found in Australia. It was only about 3 innches long. We don't quite know what this thing ate, in part because of one very obvious trait.

Opabinia had a proboscis that looked and likely worked very much like a jagged elephant trunk. This means it probably ate shell-less, squishy little things from the sea bottom. The wormy schnoz was about a third of the length of this creature's body, and its digestive tract actually did a u-turn inside of its body. Quite twisted for one of the most primitive life forms.

Opabina also had strange limbs. Aside from the gill-covered blades, there are tiny little legs on the underside of the creature's body. They weren't jointed, so Opabinia was not quite an arthropod. The tiny legs may be precursors to arthropod legs, supporting the theory that Opabinia and its kin may be the first steps between annelids (earthworms) and arthropods. Trippy.

There has been some confusion as to Opabinia's family tree. Because of its odd "limbs," people have a hard time classing where exactly Opabinia belongs in the grand scheme of things. All sorts of things have been tossed around: arthropod, annelid-arthropod ancestor, and even the closest living relatives being water bears (tardigrades).

And tardigrades have already been made into aliens.

OPabinia is probably one of the best candidates for an alien design in the entire history of the planet. Ship or creature-get creative. Next time you design an alien race, guys, please be more creative than "generic LGM/human with makeup/reptoid." I've particularly wanted to see an alien with a different, completely inhuman jawline, more like a crow or dolphin. It's fine if you want to put aliens into everything, but think outside the box a little.

Blasphemy Week: Pustulated Carrion Beetle.

What could possibly be worse than the Irukandji? It's really hard to beat an invisible, tentacled blob of poison when it comes to blasphemy. I really hope none of you are eating anything while reading this. This is...icky.

Source.

The Pustulated Carrion Beetle (Nicrophorus pustulatus) is almost exactly what it sounds like: a beetle that mates and lays eggs on carrion, i.e. a corpse. The pustulated carrion beetle, however, ups the ante from mating on corpses to regular brood parasitism. It is native to North America, including much of the U.S. and Canada.

"Brood parasitism" does not involve any internal squick. No, this is parasitism done outside of the body, which actually opens itself up to more horror. Basically, "brood parasitism" is when an animal is forced to raise another animal's young - knowingly or not. Probably the most well-known example of this is the cuckoo bird, who has brood parasitism so down-pat that cuckoos will attack birds that refuse to raise their young. N. pustulatus is the pimp of brood parasitism, letting its young be reared by a number of insect species...oh, and snakes. 

Source.

Now, I realize not many people are sympathetic to snakes. A lot of you probably think that snakes are terrible parents, leaving their young as soon as they're out of the eggs. This is not necessarily true; quite a few snakes, most notably Burmese pythons, are very protective of their clutches and may even raise the temperature around their eggs with muscular contractions. King cobras build nests. (In species where the snakes give live birth, well, there's considerable parental investment already.) Point is, as creatures who do tend to young, we should be terrified.

N. pustulatus is the first known insect brood parasite of a vertebrate, in this case the Black Rat Snake (Elaphe obsoleta) and a few other species (including the Gray Rat Snake, which is becoming endangered). The beetle lays her eggs directly proportionately to the amount of eggs in momma rat snake's nest (so no, it never wipes out a nest). Unaware that her babies are literally being devoured from the inside-out, the rat snake guards her nest while the beetle tends her larvae alongside. Look on the bright side: the beetles don't have a mafia.

If the idea of finding beetle larvae in snake eggs is not unholy enough to warrant a spot in this week, the implications of it sure are. Imagine a brood parasite of, say, humans along the lines of what these beetles do to snakes. (Before you say anything about that being impossible, there are wasps that lay eggs inside caterpillars; human skin would be no issue, and this is all hypothetical anyways.) You're welcome.

Creature Feature: Mountain Pine Beetle.

Sometimes the deadliest things in the world are the ones we don't even see. For example, until today's class, I had no idea a certain beetle species existed. It turned out to be a native species that, thanks to subtle human activity, was running absolutely wild.

The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) is native to western North America. It ranges from British Columbia, Canada, all the way down to Mexico. True to its name, it bores into many a pine species in order to lay its eggs.

How the MPB lays eggs in pine trees is particularly nasty: first, obviously, the female beetle makes a hole in the tree. Then, she lays her eggs in there. They are not alone: they are accompanied by a fungus called "blue stain fungus" that shields the eggs from the tree's immune system. Once the larvae hatch, they spend the bulk of their lives beneath the bark, only emerging as adults to start the cycle all over again. They're also hard to detect; pine trees can remain green for a year after being infested.

Despite being native, this beetle has been wreaking havoc on North American forests. Normally, these beetles would only target damaged or dead trees. Now that there are no more cool temperatures to keep them at bay, they have to lay in live trees. After causing damage in its native range, it has moved onto other temperate forests. It makes the Japanese beetle problem look tiny by comparison.



Let's put those two into perspective, shall we? The Japanese beetle eats leaves from a variety of plants. The mountain pine beetle kills trees from the inside-out. Only the latter will result in more ground erosion, leading to the total collapse of North American forests. We have sparrows and other birds taking Japanese beetle blooms as a shiny green smorgasbord; the mountain pine beetle, however, will only diminish in numbers when it runs out of pine trees to eat. It has predators, but they likely will not be able to keep up.

This invasion has a mean ripple effect. Remember, climate change caused these beetles to overpopulate to begin with. Trees keep CO2 down. Less trees means more CO2, which means more climate change, which might mean more beetles. Even with pheromone baits and various pesticides being used to control these things, "we're screwed" is the appropriate reaction.

All too often, the media focuses on damaging species that freak us out. This is understandable since journalists are out to sell news. This little bug is bigger than giant pythons in terms of potential damage.

Creature Feature: Aysheaia.

Soft-bodied invertebrates do not preserve well in the fossil record. Their squishy bits rot away, leaving us with very little to guide us in regards to ancient invertebrate life. When we do find them, however, they usually freak us out.




Aysheaia are no exception. Another Cambrian arthropod from the infamous Burgess Shale, Aysheaia were strange, caterpillar-like creatures 1-6 cm long. They lived in the Cambrian seas right alongside Hallucigenia. Yes, your nightmares now have company.

Aysheaia resembled caterpillars or maggots with ten pairs of legs. If that image is not sufficient to freak you out, each of these pudgy legs had two needles sticking out of it. Finally, there were even more spikes around its mouth. If you're thinking that it resembles a parsnip left in the fridge for so long that it grew legs, you're on the right track.

 

Aysheaia were probably sponge eaters. All fossils of them have been found near sponges. There is not much nutritious about sponges, so it must have needed to spend a lot of time around them. The sponges may also have been providing he caterpillar-worms with protection. It would presumably wander across the seabeds in search of sponges...but that's all we know.

Unlike several other members of the Cambrian seabed, Aysheaia have modern relatives. Velvet worms are one of the oldest types of land-dwelling creatures ever. They are somewhere between water bears and arthropods. Despite being related to two other ubiquitous families, however,velvet worms are limited only to certain tropical regions of the world. More on them tomorrow!

Creature Feature: Geoducks.

We try not to turn this blog into a parade of dick jokes. That's what most of the internet is for. However, there are some times when we just can't help it. Nature sometimes THROWS dick and/or vulva at our collective face. Geez, nature, no wonder the Chinese consider geoducks an aphrodisiac:

 

 Those giant marine clams above are called geoducks (Panopea generosa). They are not ducks, and it's pronounced "gooeyduck." The name apparently comes from some corrupted Nisqually word meaning "dig deep," as they are rather large burrowing clams. Other fun names include "mud duck," "king clam," or "elephant trunk clam."

Geoducks are native to the coasts of Washington and British Columbia. They are the largest burrowing clam in the world (7.9 in/20 cm at largest), and can live over a hundred years (with the record being 168 years). Nobody really seems to care how large the shell is or how long they live; everybody wants to see the siphons, which...yeeaaah...



For those of you unaware of mollusc biology, bivalves like geoducks use their siphons for eating, breathing, excreting, and, yes, mating. Burrowing clams tend to have the longest siphons of any molluscs. The siphons of a geoduck can be up to a meter in length - a record among bivalves. Such a long extension also makes human males get inferiority complexes.

Geoducks happen to have some of the tastiest cock around. The siphon is valued by both Eastern and Western cultures for its meat, although some consider it an aphrodisiac anyways. (For once, China, we see eye to eye.) They sell in China for up to 168 USD per pound. A whole 80-million dollar industry has boomed over clam cock. Human porn, you have met your match in a single clam.

Creature Feature: Hooded Merganser.

"I want a new duck. 
One that won't try to bite 
One that won't chew a hole in my socks 
One that won't quack all night..." -Weird Al Yankovic, "I Want a New Duck."

Ducks do not get nearly enough love. Sure, when they're cute and fluffy little ducklings, it's all good.After they grow up and get either brown or white feathers, the 'cute' switch turns off in most people. The "pate, Chinese food, whatever shall I do with you?" switch takes over. Sure, as adults, most ducks look pretty bland, but one group stands out by looking like punks at full size:

Mergansers all look pretty funky, but the Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) stands out by being the most striking and popular. It is native to the northern U.S. and Canada, but has taken off in the U.K. as well. They are not yet naturalized, but getting there as more and more escape from gardens into the wild.
 
Hooded Mergansers are beautiful. The males have the striking, white-splotched hood that gives the species its name. Their yellow eyes stare straight into your soul. For once, I will not be ranting about how crappy the females look; they're still the Lady Gagas of the duck world.



Mergansers also beat the other ducks at being hardcore by eating fish. Other ducks eat water plants or whatever junk food the humans happen to toss in, but that is not how mergansers roll. A merganser dives down and, using its keen (and waterproof!) eyesight, snags a fish for breakfast. Merganser chicks can dive for their own food within 24 hours of hatching, making them more badass from birth than most mammal babies. To hell with your breadcrumbs - mergansers make like cormorants and snag fish with their toothy bills.

Wait. Wait. Toothy bills?

Different kind of merganser. Same terrifying toothy bill from the Mesozoic.

Except for the 'egg teeth' birds and reptiles have, mergansers sport the closest thing modern birds have to teeth. Mergansers have serrated bills to hold on to those slippery fish. This has given mergansers and their relatives the name "sawbills." As if this duck could not get anymore extreme.

(P.S. If you just pictured a duck wielding a chainsaw and/or on a motorbike yelling "EXXTTREEEME!", please donate to my tip jar. :) ) 

"They Actually Eat That:" Roadkill.

America has really low food standards. We don't know half the crap that's in our Big Macs, hot dogs, cheese, or even vegetables. All we do is pick unwittingly pick up said crap at the grocery store, fast food joints, and so on. High class restaurants are not exempt; they cut corners, too.

Some Americans actually choose to eat crap. I am not talking about 2Girls1Cup. (Don't look that up if you do not already know what it is, by the way.)

America is covered by a network of highways, which in turn supports a huge car industry (that people sweat buckets about in this economy). These highways run along forests, fields, and farms. This proximity to nature does make for awesome road trips, but also leads to many, many animals getting killed by traffic.

They actually eat that?!

Yep. Once an animal is killed, its meat has to be scraped off the road and taken to some place where people know how to cook it. There are a number of roadkill cafes, and a fair amount of individuals cook roadkill in their own homes.


(If Britain took it over, it has roadkill cafes. Russia uses roadkill in stew as well.)

Some roadkill chefs even lure animals with treats just to turn them into roadkill; you may as well shoot them at that point. The main difference is that EVERYONE owns a car, but only some people own guns.

Of all the weird foods I have looked at so far, this is the one that makes me go "why?" the most. OK, so the meat is leaner if it comes from a wild animal...but that does not change that it was not only run over by a car carrying GODDESS KNOWS WHAT kind of dirt on its wheels, could be full of worms and nasty bacteria, and...need I say anything more? There are reasons why roadkill cuisine has such precise cooking directions.

The sad thing is, it's probably cleaner than anything at an American McDonald's. That is how low the food standards are in the U.S. Roadkill is better for you than almost anything you will find at a given fast food joint...but be careful how you cook it.

(Sorry about the lack of pictures in this week's entry, by the way. Roadkill is not visually interesting at all - more often than not, as in the video, roadkill gets chopped into some miscellaneous stew, deep-fried, or is otherwise made indistinguishable as roadkill.)