They Actually Eat That: Oysters.

Well, it's been a while since I did this column! I recently got back from New Orleans, AKA "foodie heaven." It's the best place ever if you want to try something you have never eaten before. I looove crawfish, and had my first taste of creole, which is its own thing. Alligator meat is...where else? Florida? A few farms? Basically, New Orleans is not Chicago, which could only ever win awards for "most poisonous junk food." There's really good, unique stuff, there.

Oh, and oysters. I can say I've had oysters, now.

Oysters are everywhere in New Orleans. It's hard to walk down a street there without seeing at least one oyster bar, or at least someplace selling oysters, on your way. Oyster shells can be picked up off the ground, if you have a good eye. Bourbon and Royal Streets, both interesting in their own rights, have their fair share of oyster bars as well as other fun things to look at (every sin known to man and antique stores, respectively).

It's not that oysters are as unique as alligator meat, but, rather, that New Orleans has a lot of them. New Orleans is located right along an estuary - a place where fresh and saltwater mix. This creates a home so ideal for the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) that several oyster reefs can be found right near New Orleans.

An oyster reef (or, confusingly, "oyster bar") is an area where successive generations of oysters thrive. There have been approximately 5,895 oysters recorded with in a single square yard of reef - that's 45 bushels, for the culinarily curious. Flatworms, small fish, and other molluscs all make their home in these massive oyster beds. Other things, such as cow-nose rays, also prey upon the oysters. There are plenty to go around, at least.

Source: Eatyourworld.com

So, how do they taste? It depends on how you eat them. If you coat them in butter, seasonings, or anything else, they'll almost inevitably taste like that dressing. It's a little hard to pick out the taste beneath that - I would call it more subtle than mussel. Eaten raw, they supposedly taste exactly like fresh and salt water - both at once. Eat them while you're in New Orleans, for sure.

A bonus point: raw oysters are a scientifically-proven aphrodisiac. Raw, and only raw, oysters, contain zinc and other minerals that boost sperm count. Casanova's secret is backed by scientific fact, so, while raw oysters sound good on a hot day anyways, don't be surprised to find more junk downstairs. If you feel the sudden urge to go down Bourbon St. after slipping in some raw oysters, nobody will blame you. I repeat: It is OK to have fun. 

New Orleans has a lot of creative food options. That said, I still haven't gotten bold enough to try escolar, which I did an entry on a while back. It's illegal in a lot of places, but my favorite N'awlins sushi haunt (Ginger Lime - Google map it if you're there!) is not one of them. 

Creature Feature: White Gators! and Wild Gators!

There are a number of advantages to visiting places that naturally have cool wild animals. One, you get to see wild animals in their natural habitats instead of behind glass. Two, the specimens that are behind glass are usually pretty cool. I tend to make it a point to visit the zoo whenever I go somewhere else; it's usually a good indication of how well-informed people are about exotics. The Audubon Zoo in NOLA had quite a treat, and I did not even get to see all of the grounds.

 Louisiana's zoo has a pair of leucistic American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis). Apparently they have wild white gators, too, but these were probably captive bred. These particular white gators are celebrities anyways.

A brief course in Alligators 101:the American alligator is native to most of the southern United States, from the Carolinas into Louisiana. These massive reptiles can get 999 lbs for males (who are indeed larger) and 13 feet long. As one could probably guess, most alligators are black- olive green, not white. They have powerful tails, can move faster than a human on land (25 MPH), and are armed with lots of teeth.

So, why is the gator above not albino? Take a close look. The eyes are black, and there is black speckling on the nose. An albino would have pink (or blue?) eyes and no black at all. Regardless, it looks like the swamps of Louisiana might be a "weird gene reservoir" like Florida is for corn snakes. They might also be intentionally protected like the Shirohebi of Iwakuni, but I wouldn't put money on that; the zoo got those white gators from somewhere, then probably bred them.

Along with seeing these unique gators in the zoo, I got to get up close and personal with wild alligators in the Louisiana bayou. Our savvy tour guide knew exactly where the gators were and fed  them marshmallows. (Our tour guide, by the way, was apparently the inspiration for a certain firefly in The Princess and the Frog.) Don't take a fan-powered boat; those things move so fast that I'd be amazed if you saw anything. We got to see gators snapping up marshmallows like nothing else. A waste of jaw power? Maybe, but it got us some incredible shots!

Unlike the whaling trip, on which I saw no whales, this tour boat had a guaranteed way to see an alligator: the boat had a baby on board! These gators are released into the wild when they get to be around two feet long. Imagine having an adult gator on a tour boat; at least you'd get your money's worth!

By the way, Louisiana is known as "hunter's paradise" for a reason. Alligator hunting is not only permitted, but encouraged. Some people also farm alligators (which have their own tours). Alligators certainly aren't an endangered species, and the Louisiana government allows a certain amount of them to be hunted. Don't worry about taking a tooth, paw, or gator head home; if any state knows what to do with alligators, it's Louisiana. Enjoy gator meat while you're there, too.

Creature Feature: Corn Snakes!

Remember when I said I had experience handling reptiles? Well...

These are all my hatchling corn snakes (Pantherophis guttatus; formerly Elaphe guttata). All of the above eggs hatched except for one, which unfortunately could not get out of its shell. They're rather neat little snakes, and one of the more common ones in the pet trade. It's totally worth doing an entry about them, if only because most people won't know what a corn snake is at a glance.

Corn snakes are mid-sized colubrids from the eastern United States, particularly the Carolinas and Florida. Like many snakes, they eat rodents. They are red, orange, and black, with speckled bellies that give corns Despite being called "red rat snakes," they are actually closely related to kingsnakes - one of the most beneficial snakes around, even according to people who hate snakes. They are also quite beautiful, even without a paintjob like my albino hatchies.

BEAUTIFUL normal from Ian's Vivarium!

Hey, speaking of paintjobs, you might notice that the wild-type ("normal") babies I hatched don't quite look like the awesome specimen above. That's because corn snakes exhibit something called "ontogenic color change." In laymen's terms, that means that they change color when they get older. It carries over into other morphs (color phases) too, so one really has to be patient to see what the adults will look like. Those drab normal babies will become bright red and orange in no time; that's part of the fun of corn snakes!

While ball python people have scores of morphs to mess with (the list is terrifying), corn snakes have a plethora of hybrids. "Jungle corns" are used to describe any mix between a corn snake and a kingsnake, and there are a lot of kingsnakes to choose from. One of the most common crosses, however, is with Emoryi's rat snake, leading to what are called "creamsicle" corns. It's almost as if, while insane breeding of ball pythons might narrow the gene pool to the point of being undesirable, the corn snake gene pool is expanding by incorporating other species. Dogs and cats, all over again. I can guarantee that we'll make a blue or green corn snake before a blue ball python, in any case.

That said, however, I still recommend a ball python for the first-time snake owner. There are several reasons for this, and they all come from personal experience. My first corn snake escaped from me and was never found again; likewise, colubrids are generally harder to catch than constrictors, being able to squeeze into a million tiny places. Especially if you have kids who might forget to lock the cage, balls are a better choice. There are millions of unwanted normal males out there for anyone wanting a first snake. Then, color your world with corns.

Little Shop of Horrors: Queen Anne's Lace.

Did you know you might have wild carrots growing in your backyard? It's true. Most flower guides, however, will not mention that the plants are in fact carrots. If you've ever wondered what carrot flowers look like, wonder no more. Anyone who's taken a hike through dry fields or alongside roads  may well have seen this bloom around:

Source.

 This is Queen Anne's lace, AKA the wild carrot (Daucus carota). It originated in Europe, but has since become wild in the United States and Australia. It is relatively easy to identify by its many clusters of small, white flowers in a lacy, overturned umbrella. It's largely considered a weed, but more on that later.

The plant supposedly gets its name from one or both of two Queen Annes: one from Denmark, who was in turn the mother of Anne, Queen of Britain. Legend has it that the red flower in the center is from an accidental prick of the needle when Queen Anne was weaving said lace. Of course, its real purpose is to attract insects, but that's not nearly as fascinating, is it?

Although a close relative of the domestic carrot, the wild carrot can be considered either helpful or harmful. Mostly, it is a wild weed perfectly capable of consuming one's garden. However, certain plants such as tomatoes may actually grow better in the presence of Queen Anne's lace. Queen Anne's lace is also used for several medicinal purposes, including general skin issues (burns and the like) and, surprisingly, anything relating to menstruation. If carrots can cure that time of the month and/or be a contraceptive, I'm on board.

That said, it is not advised that you attempt to eat wild Queen Anne's lace for a number of reasons. The first is that it strongly resembles poison hemlock, so a misidentification could be lethal. The other is that wild carrot roots are not nearly as tasty as the carrots one finds in the supermarket. The root becomes woody after a very short amount of time, and even then, there isn't much there to eat. It'll save you

Newsflash: U.S.A. Going Hog Wild.

Oh, hey, speaking of feral superhogs, wild pigs just hit a new record. They have been problematic in the Unites States for a long time, being fertile, intelligent, adaptable omnivores (sound familiar?). Bacon lovers rejoice: soon, you will be able to hunt your own. 

"Digging up fields and lawns, killing livestock and spreading disease, wild pigs have gone from a regional nuisance to one rapidly spreading across the nation.

The animals have razor-sharp tusks, a bottomless appetite and no natural predators, and experts say the invasion of the feral pigs has become a major problem that is moving north.

“This truly is becoming a national crisis,’’ John Mayer, the manager of environmental science at the Savannah River (S.C.) National Laboratory, told TODAY on Friday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that wild hogs, which can weigh more than 200 pounds, are responsible for more than $1.5 billion in agriculture damage and destruction every year. TODAY’s Kerry Sanders took a ride in a helicopter to see them firsthand, watching dozens on the run across the 2,000-acre South Fork Ranch in Okeechobee, Fla.

“It’s like having a rat in your house,’’ Southfork Land and Cattle Company’s Bill Wallace told Sanders. “They’re just not a good thing.”

In 1987, there were an estimated two million wild pigs in about 20 states, primarily in the South and concentrated in Texas and Florida. Now there are an estimated six to eight million wild pigs roaming 47 states.

“This increase that we’ve seen in wild pigs is unquestionably dramatic,’’ Mayer said. “We don’t have another species here in the U.S. that has increased at this same rate.”

Experts say the explosion in the wild pig population is partially due to hunters transporting them across state lines, plus some escaping from hunting preserves. The animals also produce two litters a year, rapidly swelling their numbers." - TODAY News.

Newsflash: North America, Why No Monkeys?

I've said it countless times: I am not a monkey person. That does not mean the monkeys will not be covered on this blog. They just are not my cup of tea. Every so often, however, I feel obligated to do something related to monkeys because a lot of people think monkeys make everything better- even blogs.

So, for all you monkey people out there, have you ever wondered why North America has no monkeys? Well, Popular Science did an awesome article explaining exactly why: 

"I spoke to Dr. John Flynn, a paleontologist and expert on mammalian evolution at the American Museum of Natural History, to find out why the US is stuck with lame squirrels and pigeons and stuff rather than cool monkeys. "In terms of modern primates, that's a true observation," he said. "But 50 million years ago, there were primates here." It turns out there are lots of reasons why the ancient primates that inhabited what is now the United States--and even Canada!--no longer call those areas home.

Primates came to the New World (meaning North and South America) from, we think, Africa. As improbable as it sounds, scientists think early primates crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed on the shores of both continents tens of millions of years ago, probably on some kind of vegetation raft. That's how most plants and animals get to isolated islands--which the Americas were, at the time. Fossils have been recovered of early primates in Texas a whopping 43 million years ago, the oldest primate fossil ever found in North America. But the continents looked very different then, compared to now; most importantly, North and South America were completely different islands. The Isthmus of Panama, which we now refer to as Central America, didn't appear until much later, by which time the climate on both Americas was very different from when the primates first landed there.
When they did first land here, the climate was much warmer than it is now, and the primates evolved and diversified to take advantage of that.

When they did first land here, the climate was much warmer than it is now, and the primates evolved and diversified to take advantage of that. During the Eocene, lasting from 56 to 33.9 million years ago, the planet warmed to an incredible degree. We've found evidence of palm trees in Alaska from that era. The entire planet, besides the very tips of the Arctic and Antarctic, was probably covered in rainforests, much of it tropical. For a monkey coming over from Africa, North America would have looked just great.

 Early primates thrived on both continents, with no contact between them. In North America, there were two main families of these primates: the omomyids and the adapids. There's some variation in size, behavior and diet, but in general, these were small, tarsier-like creatures with grasping hands and claws, large eyes, and bodies adapted to eat fruits, leaves, and insects. There's a lot of debate about the modern-day relatives to these primates; some think they're strepsirrhines, the family including lemurs, lorises, and bushbabies, but others think they're basal relatives of the tarsiers (which are primates, but not closely related to other monkeys).

Then the planet began to cool, and cool quickly. Forests died out. The poles covered with ice. Many of the flora and fauna that had populated the planet during the Eocene just couldn't survive in the new, colder world. This event is called the Grande Coupure--occurring about 33.9 million years ago, it was a mass extinction of animals, in which most of the world's creatures (aside from a precious few, like the Virginia opossum and the dormouse) were unable to adapt to the new climate and perished. It hit the primate family especially hard. In the New World, the primate population shrunk significantly. Any primate living in, say, the Great Lakes region simply went extinct, unable to cope with the new Wisconsin winters. " - Source with more. 


In other words, North America has no native monkeys for the same reason Paris and London are not crawling with monkeys. On some level, we have to sympathize; being relatively hairless primates, we wouldn't like living in Wisconsin winters, either.

Little Shop of Horrors: Burro Tail.

Remember how I said that there would be more weird plants now that summer has hit? I was right. Lo and behold, there was something very weird at a farmer's market in Frankfort. The lady at the stand called it "burro tail."

Burro tail is an odd one indeed. It's also called "donkey tail," but so are a few other things, so we'll still with "burro tail" or Sedum morganianum, thanks.  Like the chimeric "coral cactus" from earlier, it's a succulent, meaning that the plant's very wet on the inside as a means of surviving in dry climates. In this case, that means Ecuador and Mexico.

Burro tails are one type of trailing sedum - that is, they can get long. One of the most popular ways to present this houseplant is via hanging basket. As the plant grows, the "tails" drip down over the sides of the basket. These tails can get up to 24 inches - that's 2 feet- long. That's pretty impressive, especially after looking at its fleshy leaves.

This plant is weird in part because nobody is quite sure where it came from. Specifically, we aren't sure whether burro's tail is a domesticated subspecies of S. morganianum or a true cultivar. This is not weird compared to, say, Saliva divinorum, and there is no loss in fertility as would be expected of a hybrid, so at least it's stable regardless. It's a breedable plant, all right, but also sort of alien.

Y'know that advice I keep giving about how desert animals are easy to keep? That applies to plants, too. You can forget to water burro tails once or twice and they will do just fine. They also love sunlight, so keep succulents like this in a sunny spot with high temperatures. They're very hard to kill and look out of this world.

Creature Feature: Florida Sandhill Crane.

We sometimes envy people who grew up in the country. Yes, the poor education and sparse ukiie of technology would tend to suck, but there is usually a lot of nature out there. Florida is extremely blessed to have these guys:

Florida is home to a population of sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis). They range from the United States to Siberia, of all places. They are opportunistic eaters, and will pick on corn as well as small creatures. Some are migratory; others are not.

Sandhill cranes are usually a sight to behold, even if the adult plumage seems rather drab at first. A red patch of skin on the head makes the bird stand out. They are also amazing gliders, and enjoy riding thermals - updrafts of hot air - just as well as eagles and hawks do. The migratory sandhills gather in Bosque del Apache Wildlife Reserve in New Mexico; come in winter to see 10,000 or more cranes in one place!

Interestingly, sandhill cranes are intimately connected with the dinosaurs of old. They are almost living fossils, possessing the longest fossil record of any known bird species. The record goes back 2.5 million years. They also go into the karate "crane" pose, which looks an awful lot like an irate Velociraptor. And you thought Universal Studios was the only place they existed.

Although sandhill cranes in general are not endangered, there are a few subspecies that make the list and have conservation programs accordingly. As non-migratory birds, they are threatened by hunting and habitat loss. Killing a sandhill in Florida rakes up a hefty fine. Breeding programs exist, and should provide a bright future for this amazing bird.

Pterosaur Week: Why Pteranodon?

So, at the start of this theme week, we covered the rather casually tossed-around term, "pterodactyl." While it is technically a correct term for all pterosaurs, what bugs me about it is that the image that comes with the word "pterodactyl" is usually not a Pterodactylus. It is usually either some messy chimera of a pterosaur or, umm, this:

From this wonderful site here.

There is a 90% chance that this is exactly what came to mind after hearing the word "pterodactyl." While all pterosaurs are by definition pterodactylids, the pterosaur that comes to mind nine times out of ten is Pteranodon. That's the beaky, crested fellow. It was around during the Late Cretaceous (when all the cool dinosaurs except Stegosaurus lived) and has been found in much of North America. They were piscivores, likely behaving much like albatrosses. They were a lot bigger than albatrosses, but still not as big as Quetzalcoatlus.

There are two things that are really distinct about Pteranodon: the beak and the crest. Pteranodon's name means "toothless wing;"indeed, just like in a modern bird, there weren't any teeth in that beak. This does not stop artists from adding them in because rawr, dinosaur. That has to be their logic.

The crest is the most varied aspect in Pteranodon as a genus. Although other pterosaurs had crests, Pteranodon had amazingly prominent ones that curved back like the crest of a cockatoo- only immobile. Along with varying in size, the crests also varied with sex. Males had more prominent crests than females. That said, this pretty much cements Pteranodon's role as a visual creature - again, just like a modern bird.

But that's just the basic info. This entry will go one step further from the norm and try to answer the hidden question posed at the start of this week: why are all pterosaurs mentally lumped into the term "pterodactyl," anyways? Isn't that a lot like calling T-rex "tyrannosaurid" or Triceratops a "ceratopsid?" It's a weird, generic term (actually going back farther than the genus, but I digress) that applies uniquely to pterosaurs.

For starters, Pteranodon was a Pterodactylus before it was its own genus. There are a ton of complicated things involving naming dinosaurs. We could just say "the name stuck," but that still doesn't quite explain the popularity of Pteranodon versus, well...other pterodactyls. It may have been the biggest of its time, but if we Chicagoans can get used to calling the Sears Tower the Willis Tower, surely biology classes can update themselves accordingly.

Along with the name "pterodactyl" sticking, Pteranodon's popularity may well lie in how relateable it is. When marketing dinosaurs, one usually won't go for "OMG this thing is weird!" They want "just weird enough." It is easy for our minds to think things like lion = big carnivore, T-rex = bigger, meanier, scalier carnivore, rhino = big herbivore with horns, Triceratops = big herbivore with horns, and so on. Pteranodon is like a big, weird seabird of some sort - see how easy it is to make that parallel?   Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops are "just weird enough." So is Pteranodon; it's pretty tame as far as pterosaurs are concerned. (And yet, "Pteranodon" is a lot easier to say than "pterodactyl." Go figure.)

It also helps that there are many complete, in-tact specimens of Pteranodon. We more or less know what a Pteranodon looked like. T-Rex's image has undergone more revisions through the ages than Pteranodon has or will. Until Jurassic Park becomes real, we probably know all that we're going to know about Pteranodon aside from the odd new species to the genus. We know that they had sexual dimorphism, with males being larger than females and sporting larger crests. Yes, we literally know Pteranodon intimately.

I'm not even going to try to list every single pop culture reference Pteranodon has had. If a dinosaur thing has a pterosaur in it, there's a good chance it's Pteranodon or some creature modeled after it.  Instead, have a picture of Rodan, one of the most famous Pteranodon cosplayers ever:

As for the chimeric "pterodactyl" still running rampant? Just treat it as a dragon/wyvern. That's what it looks like, after all.

Newsflash: Manipulation of Monarch Butterflies.

It's almost March. That means Spring will be coming soon. This also means that several other animals, such as monarch butterflies, will soon be flourishing in our lawns. 

For those of you who know nothing about monarch butterflies aside from what they look like, you are missing out. Monarchs migrate from the cooler parts of North America down to Mexico as soon as winter hits. They give birth there, then die. The new monarchs that result then fly their way back up north when things get warmer. They are the only insects that migrate 2,500 miles a year. One of the classic butterflies happens to be one of the most impressive in several regards.

One mechanism has been found to play a tole in this intense migration: monarch butterflies have an uncanny genetic instinct to migrate to the exact same spot every year. The monarchs mate, then die, leaving their offspring to navigate the exact same path. That's 2,500 miles, all wrapped into genes like the world's finest GPS. Beat that, Google Maps.

Now, scientists have found what makes these butterflies tick. Here's the deal:

"Until now, researchers didn’t know what triggered the trek north. They suspected environmental factors such as temperature or changing day length could cue the monarchs. To find out, Reppert’s team studied southward-migrating monarchs captured in the eastern United States. The scientists housed one group of migrants in an incubator for 24 days and turned down the temperature to 4° Celsius during dark “night” periods and 11° C during light “day” periods — the average temperatures in the wintertime butterfly roosts. The team exposed a second group of butterflies to the same temperatures while also simulating the subtle increase in daylight that monarchs see over the winter while in Mexico.

Then the researchers took the two groups outside and tethered them one by one inside a flight simulator — a white plastic barrel that gauges flight bearings. In both experimental groups, the lab-wintered butterflies flew north. In fact, Reppert says, “the data were identical.”
Also, southern-migrating monarchs that had been captured in Texas and kept in the lab under fall conditions — with no pulse of nightly cold temperature — continued to head south when hooked up to the flight simulator.

“It’s astounding,” says ecologist Karen Oberhauser of the University of Minnesota, who supplied captured butterflies to Reppert’s team. She’s convinced that just 24 days of cold temperature is enough to switch butterflies’ flight direction from south to north. But she’s also curious about the effects of day length alone.

Reppert says the direction trigger might be modified by changes in day length, but “clearly coldness is the main factor.” Next, his team hopes to figure out exactly how the monarchs sense temperature."


Source + more here. 

This is neat stuff.A lot of people don't really think about seasonal cycles in wild animals. We're kinda used to animals, including humans, mating all the time. In reality, animal mating cycles are fine-tuned such that mommy only gives birth when there is an abundance of food available. Humans and domestic animals usually don't have to worry about that.

More importantly, however, this revelation on the impact of temperature may mean that the monarch is in trouble. If global climate change messes with their migration patterns, the species could die out. Enjoy the magnificent butterflies while we have them; if these findings are any indication, we might not have them around much longer.

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.

"They Actually Eat That:" Porcupine.

Is there any vertebrate that sounds less appetizing than porcupine? It's big, and there's a lot of meat there, but it has spines, teeth, and claws to deal with. Granted, boars and bulls can be pretty nasty, but their skin won't turn your face into a bloody mess (plus, bacon). Who looks at a porcupine and goes "yeah, that looks delicious?" Well...a fair amount of people, actually.

Wherever there are porcupines, people will eat them. They usually do not want to, though. Native Americans can and will use porcupines as meat during the winter. Kenya had a porcupine crisis in 2005 - the most logical solution, after the porcupines had dug up graves and destroyed crops, was to eat the buggers. This may have been dirty porcupine meat, but there is no greater revenge than eating the ones who ate your food.

Porcupine meat is not just for the non-industrialized, either. Porcupines are assholes, for lack of a better word, on a regular basis. They carry diseases, nibble on everything, stick you or others with their hair-turned-needles, and generally are just unpleasant to have around. Last year, people in Pennsylvania started eating porcupines, too- or at least made hunting them legal in the wake of a porcupine outbreak. Again, revenge.

The practice of eating porcupine is still largely reserved for Native Americans and people with porcupine issues in the West, but China and Vietnam at porcupine regularly. It is so popular over there that porcupines are actually threatened. We knew that Vietnam and China ate almost anything. It seemed unlikely that they would hunt a rodent enough to cause a population decrease of 20 percent. Revenge? Noooo, this is just how Southeast Asia rolls. They even farm porcupines.

So how does it taste? Supposedly...weirdly good. It has been described as being "like duck meat, but with more flavour and very crunchy." That particular person actually liked it better than duck; given what I've seen from people's reactions to duck, that is quite the compliment. Maybe the Vietnamese are onto something.

Creature Feature: Bigfoot Porcupines.

In the vein of speculation about the new Grass-type starter, "porcupine" has come up repeatedly. The idea of getting a massive porcupine as a starter brought to mind a certain "Bigfoot" video that was debunked in a flash. We already had a yeti Pokemon; a porcupine becoming Bigfoot would not be out of the question. I doubt Game Freak will be that creative, but just in case, the stuff connecting porcupines and Bigfoot is pretty crazy anyways.


Late last year, this video was blogged by an ardent cryptozoologist. Unfortunately, not only was it a year or two too late, but the video had been debunked. Not "no way, you're avoiding the truth!" debunked, but legitimately, "OK, yeah, our bad" debunked. It continues to fool people today regardless. So, what was it, really?

A few PhotoShops and de-fuzzes later, "Bigfoot" was revealed to be a rather large North American Porcupine. For those of you who are secretly mole people, porcupines are spiny rodents native to virtually every landmass except Australia and Antarctica. They are herbivores, but are armed with spiny hairs ("quills") which they do not shoot, merely bristle whenever a predator approaches. They are also fairly large, third only to the beaver and capybara in size.

It turns out porcupines can look an awful lot like large primates when they want to. The first instinct of a porcupine is not to turn buttwards towards a mouth of teeth; they would rather run than fight, and resemble rather large, furry, short-tailed monkeys when they climb away from predators. Giant, short-tailed thing? Clearly Bigfoot.

One of the craziest conspiracy theories has a basis in fact: that porcupines may be hiding Bigfoot bones. Macabre as it sounds, porcupines do indeed hoard bones. Bones are the rodent version of vitamin tablets. If a porcupine finds a bone, it may well chew on it in order to gain phosphorous.  Whether Bigfoot wound up in there and absolutely nowhere else or not is another matter entirely. I would suspect the men in black before a porcupine conspiracy.

...

You didn't see anything.

Creature Feature: Horned Gophers.

Looking at the design of one of the latest Pokemon, Chespin, made me notice something: it is really, really hard to make rodents anywhere near badass. Even giant rodents like capybaras are seen as buck-toothed meat. Adding horns and fire to a fuzzy mouse wouldn't make it any more -

Oh, wait a second. That actually looks pretty cool. Still not intimidating, but cool. 

Horned gophers (Ceratogaulus) were once very real, very alive creatures.  There are four species known in the genus, all of which had nasal horns like small, fuzzy rhinos. They lived in burrows, much like modern gophers. Presumably, they were also herbivorous. They lived in what is now the modern U.S. Great Plains, particularly Nebraska, in the Miocene and Pleistocene eras. Everything cool there is dead.

Horned gophers had many things in common with modern rodents and moles, which are not rodents (so please hold your Gurren Lagann jokes). They had flat paws with sharp claws that were perfect for digging, and thus likely spent much of their time in burrows. These gophers were just shy of a foot long, so even if they had facial horns, they were far from terrifying. This makes horned gophers the smallest horned mammals to date. A shame they're all extinct.

To this day, nobody really knows what those horns were for. They're the wrong shape for digging. Moderns rodents similar to these gophers have terrible vision, so a mating display is virtually out of the question. The best guess, judging by the horns' positioning, is that the horns were used as a defense against predators. They even evolved further towards that end as the species progressed.  This rodent had teeth and horns for any preds to deal with. Not bad for a rodent!

The horned gopher's unique look has not gone unnoticed by the media. Although you will never see these guys in Jurassic Park, games like Tiny Zoo offer them as extinct oddities. They are fairly popular as far as small, extinct mammals go. I kinda wish the new Primeval would have one as a mascot character.

Oh, hey, speaking of...

Newsflash: Mass Squid Beaching - A Sign of the End!

OK, I've been bad. It would be downright cruel to you all if I didn't do something relating to the apocalypse. December 21st, 2012 has come and gone, but nothing happened on that day. Some weird stuff happened before that day, but, with the exception of it being Friday (and therefore awesome by default), nothing happened.

Were there still signs of the end times? Sure. North Korea launched a "satellite" up into space. There were two mass shootings on the opposite sides of the country (no offense meant). Oh, and this, which happened on December 11th, 2012:



"Hundreds of squid intentionally stranded themselves on the shores of California and scientists only have guesses as to why. The Santa Cruz coastline is littered with squid carcasses. Sure, but what does the Bible say about this? Check the Book of Revelations...Nothing!?... Seriously!?...Ok... Check the Mayan Calendar...What, that doesn't say anything about this either?!...Fine, ask a Stanford professor...Oh. They say there's nothing to worry about? Probably just normal. Cool. That's great."

~Source.

I knew it was going to be Cthulhu. Even when people were ranting about the Four Horsemen and Judgement Day, global warming, and massive spiritual revelations, the most realistic answer turned out to be that Cthulhu is waking up from his millennia-long nap at the bottom of the ocean. Enjoy your sanity while it lasts, because it won't be around much longer.

Don't know who Cthulhu is (or why I bring him up around weird cephalopods)? You will...after looking him up on Wikipedia. 

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: Texas Longhorn.

Honesty time: I tried to resist doing this one. Texas Longhorns are awesome, but at first I thought them better for Freak Week. The juices simply refused to flow for bald cypress (a moderately interesting swamp conifer), and I'd already done cochineal in the OLD entry on scale insects. Cotton might have been interesting, but c'mon...it's Texas.

Texas Longhorns are, no kidding, a cattle breed native to Texas. Thanks to mixing with feral cattle, Texas Longhorns have no specific patterning - just huge horns. The closest related breeds are in Portugal; the Longhorn breed itself was established in the 1500's. The highest ever paid for a Longhorn was 140,000 USD, and exceptionally good lines can still fetch into the 40,000's. Even the cows of this breed have amazing horns.

The most obvious feature to pick on is, of course, the longhorn's headgear. Although not as impressive as Ankole-Watutsi horns, a Texas Longhorn's signature horns can get up to 7 feet long from tip to tip. As morbid as this sounds, their skulls do look amazing in a den. That said, they're pricey.

Longhorn cattle are very tough cows. They can find food and shelter all on their own in case of emergencies. They calve easily, which is one of the reasons to add them to breeding stock.This hardiness led to them being popular until the 1900's, at which point environmental durability and lean meat were no longer selling factors. With the demand for lean or free-range meat on the rise, Texas Longhorns have seen another surge in popularity.

The Texas Longhorn, alongside the Holstein, has to be among the most recognized cattle out there. Nothing says "southwest" like a bovine head with those horns. Texas uses them as a mascot for everything, even a women's basketball team. If you haven't seen a Texas Longhorn and live in the U.S., you must be living under a rock...or just unaware of exactly what you're looking at in those old westerns.

This looks awesome. People mess with horses; they do not mess with 7 feet of horn.

Creature Feature: Mexican Jumping Beans.

In Texas, every souvenir shop has something made out of a weird, dead animal. Hotlix are everywhere. Quite a few places had longhorn cow skulls. Leather exists there- very good leather. One of the most bizarre, however, just so happens to be quite common: the Mexican jumping beans. 

The beans actually 'jump' thanks to the larva of a moth called Cydia deshaisiana, or the "Mexican jumping bean moth." As per the name, they are native to Mexico and the southwestern United States. There are actually a number of shrubs, and a number of moths, that can make "jumping beans," but for now we will focus on the kind sold in random tourist junk shops.

The larval moth spends its entire life in the seed capsule (not bean) of a Sebastiana plant. An adult  C. deshiasana lays an egg on the seed, and the larva burrows in shortly after. If the seed is cracked, the little creature uses silk to repair it. The bean, if nothing else, is a source of food and shelter all at once. Not a bad home if you happen to be a caterpillar.

The "jumping" in jumping beans happens when the larva has eaten all of the inside of the bean. Then, for no explicable reason, they begin pulling silk around the inside of the bean, causing it to roll and fidget if not jump. They jump as an attempt to regulate their body temperatures - it's hot down south!

 Of course, the jumping bean larva cannot stay inside the bean forever. It pupates inside bean, meaning that the frail adult moth will have a hard time getting out. To escape, the larva forms a "trap door" in the bean- a small, round hole that it can push its way out of. This small hole is sometimes marketed as well, even though it defies the point of a jumping bean.

The adult moth is a small, gray, unimpressive creature. It's one of those bugs that reaches maturity only to mate; it doesn't even have jaws. In the span of a few days, it must mate, find an immature Sebastiana seed, and lay eggs. Thus the cycle of touristy crap begins again...but look on the bright side: other, related moths do this to seeds we actually eat.

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.