Creature Feature: Sebastopol Goose.

Hey, come to think of it, we've never looked at domestic geese on this blog. This is my fault entirely; there simply hasn't been a goose breed that has gotten my attention. Just looking at domestic geese for one little pic, however, led me to quite a strange goose indeed:

This is a Sebastopol/Danubian goose (Anser anser domesticus).  The breed originated in Ireland from the wild Greylag goose. It only became popular in the 19th century in Europe, and is considered a rare breed. They used to be common everywhere around the Black Sea, and came to England by way of a port in Sebastopol (now in the Ukraine) sometime in the late 1800's. The typical coloration is white with blue eyes and orange feet, but others are available.

The most outstanding trait of the Sebastopol goose is, obviously, the feathers. A similar trait has been found in parakeets. The feathers are so curled that the goose cannot fly. They do, however, make lovely feathers for pillows and quills. Nonetheless, the trait is considered bad for the goose, and it is recommended that curly feathers be kept off the goose's chest so as to avoid wing deformities. (Compare: the taboo against breeding Harlequin Dane x Harlequin, so as to avoid deafness in the puppies.)

From Breed Savers.

Other than the feathers, this goose looks...fairly average. It's frequently crossed with another common goose breed, the Embden, which is one of the more typical "farm" geese. Both are typically bred with a white body and orange legs. It also heavily resembles the Roman goose in color and stature. One trait makes these geese stand out from all the rest, but it's a doozy.

Who knew geese could be so interesting? Perhaps there are more bizarre geese out there waiting to be made into good entries. Hmm...a whole theme week of geese? It's very possible, especially since not many aside from goose enthusiasts will ever see the weird ones. Keep watching!

Newsflash: Guard Geese?!

For centuries, dogs have been used to guard houses. The instinct of a dog to protect its pack has been honed to perfection. Indeed, the bark of a large dog still makes me jump a little. It's hard to think that anything would change something so normalized.

There seems to be a revolution in thought, however. Recently, in China, the typical guard dog has been usurped...by geese. Chinese police stations now use geese instead of dogs to guard their stations at night. Supposedly, it works well enough that National Geographic decided to look into it further. They likely got stared down by some irate waterfowl in the process.

What're you lookin' at, punk?  (Source.)

Could geese actually be better guard dogs than, well, guard dogs? According to National Geographic, the short answer is yes:

"Would geese make good guards?

They have amazing hearing. And almost all birds have amazing eyesight. Not only do they see better at a distance than humans do, they can also see things up close [better than we do].
Our eyes have three different color sensors that combine to build the picture in our brain. Birds add a fourth—ultraviolet. They have a much wider range of wavelengths they can view. Things are going to look sharper. And they can pick out smaller things [as well as movement].

And I guess they're not shy when an intruder is sighted?
In terms of alerting people to activity, yeah, they're very vigilant. They're territorial. And certain species can be quite loud, especially the barnyard varieties.

So they're just really good watchdogs.
That's the beauty of it: It's instinct for them. They're territorial. They could fly off anywhere they want to, but they hang around their home. That's just the way a lot of geese act. Certain of them can be rather vigilant in defending their territory." - Source with more.

They also brought up the idea of guard swans. For the record, although swans may look pretty, they  are aggressive bastards. I can see why someone would think that they might be a good idea.

The one thing geese don't do better than dogs is bite. Yes, a nip from a goose hurts, but still not as much as the bite of a Rottweiler or German Shepherd. Geese simply aren't meant to bite like that, which is probably why the idea won't catch on. Yes, they're louder, but they won't necessarily attack with the same fury as a dog.  To each his own, and if it works, don't fix it.

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.

"They Actually Eat That:" Mastika.

I do not talk about it frequently on this blog, but every Monday, I go down to Greektown (Chicago) and volunteer at the Hellenic Museum. This exposes me to all sorts of Greek foods and drinks on a regular basis. A lot of people know about stuff like baklava, spanakopita, and ouzo, but there are some very traditional Greek things that no doubt some people avoid because they haven't heard of it. This entry is devoted to one of those things.

Greece- no, Europe- loves a drink/gum/flavoring called mastika. It is so named for being made from mastic ("tooth-gnashing") gum. In Greece, it is frequently served with appetizers (meze) and almond-based desserts. I'm fairly sure that this was what I had as "medicine" in Greece the one time I went there. It's also popular in Romania, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.

Mastika is made from mastic gum, which is made of the resin of Pistacia lenticus. P. lenticus is an evergreen shrub native to the Mediterranean region. It has been produced since ancient times on the island of Chios in Greece, which is so famous that it has its own variety of mastika. For this reason, "mastic" is often synonymous with "gum." Should you find yourself near an actual mastic shrub, the sap drips off from the tree in "tears," and the result is sold as a yellowish, crystallized droplet. 

Source with more.

Mastika can be described as tasting like anise or licorice. I personally see it as having a taste all its own. If you've ever had Riesen candy, there's a little bit of that flavor, too. It's worrisome that it's 50% alcohol - people with low tolerance, stay away. The tiny medicinal dose given my Greek place likely won't hurt you, but be warned that it's strong stuff and indeed has a flavor.

For all you teetotalers out there, it is possible to find mastic gum by itself. The Hellenic Museum has mastic candies, both hard and gummy like Turkish delight. Mastic itself is fine chewing gum, albeit expensive. It's good for you, sporting antioxidant and antibacterial properties. Try some if you get the chance; traditional Greek food and liquor stores might carry mastika, or, better still, hard candies flavored with the stuff. Have your gum and chew it, too...for hours.

Creature Feature: (Drunk) Vervet Monkeys.

There are a lot of awkward things about humans. The feet and spine are far from ideal for a biped. We can eat meat even if we really shouldn't. For some reason, liquor has been a part of human civilization since forever. If the Aquatic Ape Theory is a thing, why not a Drunk Ape Theory?



OK, fine. Those aren't apes, they're vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus).Vervet monkeys are small monkeys native to the Eastern coast of Africa. Some populations also exist on Saint Kitts, Barbados, and Nevis as a result of the African slave trade. They eat mostly vegetation. Oh, and given the chance, they will also indulge in liquor. It's not uncommon amongst primates, really. Evolution is a thing!

These particular vervet monkeys are residents of Saint Kitts Island in the Caribbean. Since their introduction, the monkeys have taken to the drinks offered at Caribbean resorts. Scientists studied the monkeys for two years. They found shockingly close parallels with human behavior that, aside from signs of blatant drunkenness, would not be obvious to the casual observer. The ratios of, say, drinkers to teetotalers are exactly the same between the vervets and humans, for example. The drunken monkeys also seem to be the popular ones, but don't give yourself alcohol poisoning trying to prove this one in humans.

Hi, I'm Lori, and my monkey's an alcoholic. Disclaimer: this ranch probably does not give its monkeys booze.

But wait! These monkeys are pretty cool when they aren't drunk, too! They have hypertension and anxiety disorders exactly as found in humans. They are also among the few animals in nature who are actually spiteful, destroying the food sources of competitors instead of consuming it themselves. Primates: so much like us, in all the wrong ways. Your mileage may vary.

Vervet monkeys are also very vocal. They are among the few non-human animals to have something resembling words: specific alarm calls for specific predators. They have a different call for snakes than they do for eagles, a different call for eagles than baboons, and so on. I don't think anybody has tried to test the effect of liquor on these calls, but it would be funny to see.

Bio-Art: Mermaids: The Body Found.

A while back, there was a huge controversy about how Animal Planet had gone from being an educational channel to more of an entertainment channel. This sentiment reached its peak with Mermaids: The Body Found, a pseudo-documentary (2012) that worked around making mermaids as realistic as possible. They did such a good job that people were fooled into believing it was real. So just how do you make such a realistic pseudo-documentary, anyways?

Here's a hint: start with facts. The documentary opens with mention of conspiracy theories, and how even conspiracy theories need evidence. In particular, it mentions two events: the "bloop," a mysterious noise heard on sonar, and whale beachings brought about by sonar testing. These are both real.Pseudo-science, you're doing it right.

Throughout the film, the narrator details how mermaids could have evolved from a humanlike ancestor, taking to the sea instead of staying on land. Now, marine mammals are not my forte, but in spite of much of the documentary being fake, I'm going to give Animal Planet the benefit of the doubt when it talks about marine mammal evolution. The stuff about whales coming from wolflike (!UNGULATE) ancestors is definitely true. Point is, I didn't see any obvious flaws like I did in Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real. If mermaids did indeed wind up being real, this is some pretty solid reasoning of how they could have evolved.

The documentary also mentions the Aquatic Ape Theory. This is a thing, not something made by Animal Planet. Due to having little hair, a certain balance of body fat, and requirements like iodine for healthy brain function, the theory posits that part of mankind's evolutionary history happened in a marine environment. Unfortunately, even a mere glance at the linked site will tell one that a lot of this stuff has been discredited. It was still used well in the documentary, so I'll give it the paragraph it deserves.

Suffice it to say, the mermaids look amazing. As if the tail was not enough, the creators also factored in brain composition, communication (with dolphins!), sensory adaptations for life in the deep sea, and other features that one would usually not think of on the average mermaid. The transition stages are also pretty believable, with ancestors sporting tails like pinniped fins at one point. Neat.

Granted, there is one huge flaw almost unrelated to the content: the pacing of this thing is awful. It's one thing if you're trying the "American Godzilla" approach of not letting us see the monster without us seeing the movie. It's another when you advertise "Mermaids: The Body Found" and the first hour or so of the 1 hour and 21 minutes deals with bits and pieces and random, apelike creatures that are not the body promised. The word "mermaid" does not even come up until like 50 minutes in. In my personal opinion, that's a little bit too late for something advertising mermaids. This is in-character for science, which would indeed be in denial about such a subject. At least Dragons showed us the body right out of the gate; the mermaid "body" is a mess when we see it. Talk about beating around the bush.

That said, it's still a great documentary, and I'd advise anyone interested in pseudo-science or mermaids to give it a look. It's not quite as good as Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real (which still has flaws), but in the same vein and an enjoyable, if uncanny, watch. The mermaids themselves look believable.  The people making it did a darn good job.  Check it out, and do as the documentary advises: continue to treat mermaids as mythical creatures, even if they are out there.

Creature Feature: Rufous-backed Kingfisher.

Some readers are bound to ask: what's the deal with the URL of this blog? Originally, it was intended to push the boundaries of fantasy and reality, showing how "mythological" things could either be real or have a solid basis in reality. Since this blog has covered phoenix bases in the past, I feel pretty safe putting this little bird up:



This is a rufous-backed kingfisher (Cyex rufidorsa), so named for its reddish back. It's native to Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. It eats fish, insects, frogs, and reptiles. The bird is small enough to fit in one's hand.  Unlike many entries from steamy rainforests, this little bird is not even remotely endangered. The only threat it faces is a slight decline due to habitat destruction.

The rufous-backed kingfisher does not seem real. It's bright red and purple, like a little phoenix. Its head is disproportionately large compared to its body. The bill is particularly huge. It's adorable and psychedelic. This should be a Pokemon; make it a baby Moltres and it'll sell like hotcakes (pun totally intended).

The rufous-backed kingfisher's appetite is just as extraordinary as its coloration. Thesebirds will hunt a number of things from high perches overlooking water, then dive in after them; that's how kingfishers roll and should be no surprise. What's more surprising is that it's not afraid to eat things twice its size. How does it pack all that fish into its little stomach? Probably very carefully.


There is some confusion when classifying this kingfisher. Another species, Ceyx erithaca, was discovered first. Both are properly "Oriental Dwarf Kingfishers," depending on whom you ask. They also overlap in some areas, leaving one to wonder if there's a difference aside from color. Whatever you call it, it's quite remarkable for a little bird, no?