Happy Year of the Sheep! The Bezoar Goat.

Happy Chinese New Year, everybody! What better way to start off the Year of the Goat…Sheep…Geep? with a goat? Just look at this thing: 

Source. 

That goat is called a bezoar goat/ibex (Capra aegagrus aegagrus), and it is the stuff Gogoats (it's year of the Wood Goat, by the by) are made of. It's native to the Middle East, including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan - all those fun places! There are a few places where it's been introduced, but what you really need to know is that this: 

…came from this: 

Source. 

Although nobody's really sure how much the bezoar goat contributed to the domestic goat gene pool, it's either a direct descendant or a hefty percentage. Along with making them smaller and tame, bezoar goats lost their razor-sharp horns, gained curly tails, and now, some breeds have floppy ears. Also, some of them have been bred to faint, but that's not the fault of a goat with razor horns. Yeah, goat horns used to have a sharp, inner edge like a badass sword. 

Bezoar goats are very well adapted to mountainous, sometimes cold regions. At night, the temperature of places like Turkey sometimes drops drastically; wool is a good countermeasure to that. A goat's feet are also spongy and relatively narrow, allowing them to climb around in rocky areas. Have I sung the praises of those beautiful horns enough? No? Well, those are both sexy (to other goats, mind) and a great defense mechanism. 

At this point, some of you are probably wondering: isn't a "bezoar" something out of Harry Potter? Yes, and it does indeed come from a goat…or any other number of things, really. A bezoar is basically a stone of miscellany that didn't get digested, and thus wound up lodged in an animal's digestive tract. Goats are far from the only animals that have them; humans can get bezoars as well. Their poison-curing properties are greatly exaggerated, with only curing arsenic poisoning anywhere near consistently (and only with treatment). 

Oh, right, back on the topic of the wild goat. Another nasty thing that happens with domestication is the relative scarcity of the wild counterpart. The bezoar is technically only "Threatened," and then mostly due to habitat loss. Game hunting of these goats has also increased. Wolves and the aurochs are so very, very jealous right now, regardless. 

A Week of Hogwash: What Is It With Wild Boars?

If you look through old mythology, you'll notice one common thing: wild boars can be terrifying, awesome creatures. Boars were one of the mascots of Ares; whole war helmets have been made out of boar bits. Freyr, another warlike deity, has a metallic boar, Gullinbursti, as a pet. The Celts acknowledged the male boar's courage and the female boar's generosity and fecundity. They are pretty much universally acknowledged as badasses. As a reminder, they also spawned the domestic pig.

Source: Huntercourse.com.

This is what piggies (Sus scrofa) used to look like. Wild boar are native to Europe and Asia, but have since been turned loose in North America and Australia. Unlike the aurochs and wolves, wild boar are not under any threat whatsoever, being extremely fecund. They have also been domesticated since time immemorial, although exactly who decided taming hundreds of pounds of vicious pig was a good idea remains up for debate. They are omnivores and scavengers, just like most domestic pigs are.

Although the official size record for "world's largest pig species" goes to the giant forest hog, some populations of wild boar can outdo them in terms of size. European wild boar can get up to 700 pounds. Again, they also have razor-sharp tusks, charge swiftly, don't back down, and are covered in tough bristles as opposed to the relative hairlessness on domestic swine. As huntercourse.com put it, "boars will circle a human adversary, charge rampantly and attack from behind." Put a few hundred pounds onto that and you have something terrifying.

And now the part at least some of you have been waiting for: yes, wild boar hybridize freely with domestic swine. "Hogzilla" is the most famous example of a boar-pig hybrid, weighing 800 pounds and growing roughly 8 feet long. Thus far, this is still the biggest hybrid out there - and likely the biggest pig on record. Feral swine can get massive and retain all their wild behaviors; the pig is far less removed from its wild relative than, say, the dog or cow. You will never see ham the same way again.

The wild boar remains probably the most intimidating wild beast with a domesticated counterpart. A boar, male or female, will fiercely protect its piglets and charge with surprising vigor. The Year of the Pig is frequently changed to Year of the Boar in the wild counterpart's honor. The boar can still be seen on heraldic crests because it is one badass pig.

A Week of Hogwash: Kunekune Pigs.

Pigs are one of the more common domesticated animals on the planet. They have been kept by humans since at least 11,400 B.C.E., and have had two independent instances of domestication. Able to eat almost anything, the Chinese used them almost like a garbage disposal for table scraps. With all that history, we have to have at least one weird pig breed out there...right?

Source. With piggies for sale.

Ta-da! It's a bunch of Kunekune piglets! They are all members of a rare breed from New Zealand. The breed supposedly spawned from Asian pigs brought to the Maori in the 19th century. They are known for being fuzzy, easy to handle, and surprisingly colorful for swine. The word "kunekune" means "fat and round" - an apt name for any pig, really.

Less charming as adults.

There are two main features of the Kunekune: its fur and its wattles. Unlike the more common farm swine, Kunekune are furry like wild pigs. They come in a variety of colors, including black, ginger, and white with black spots. Some Kunekune pigs also have fleshy protrusions called piri piri. They're reminiscent of the wattles on goats, but are kinda rare in pigs.



As this video from Animal Kingdom indicates, Kunekune pigs are very popular at petting zoos. They can also live just fine on grass, as opposed to foraging and tearing up lawns. It helps further that they are miniature by pig standards- they weigh 240 pounds, tops. Yes, that is indeed small for a pig. It also makes them one of the ideal pet pigs if you are so inclined.

Alas, as far as pigs go, Kunekune pigs are rare. The breed went nearly extinct in the 1980's. Breeding programs in New Zealand and the United Kingdom are the only reason Kunekune pigs are still around. If a prospective pig owner can find one, great - they're intelligent (like most pigs!) and easy to train. Just be prepared, unlike a certain member of the Simpson family - Spider-Pig does not a good pet make. 

Creature Feature: Bongo.

Actually, those antelope in the trailer were kind of cool-looking. What were they, anyways?

Source: Allposters.com

Well, you're going to laugh. It's called a "bongo." Yes, like the drums. If you can't look at that without cracking up, its scientific name is Tragelaphus eurycerus. It is a nocturnal browser native to many parts of Africa, including Congo, Ghana, and Kenya. Kenya has a very small, unique subspecies of bongo that will come up again later.


Two things stand out about the bongo immediately: that coat and those horns. As in most animals with attractive pelts, the stripes are camouflage. The red pigment rubs off easily - so easily, it is said, that rain running off a bongo's back is stained red. Certainly a neat image, even if it is not true.

The horns are perhaps the bongo's most outstanding feature. Although looking somewhat similar to those of the eland, bongo horns twist only once and take on a sort of lyre shape. The bongo is actually one of the few species of antelope in which both sexes have rather decorative, spiraling horns. They are still larger in the male, but awesome nonetheless. Better yet, they are both functional and fashionable; a bongo's horns keep it from being caught in vegetation while running.

Oddly, there seems to be a lot of convergent evolution with the okapi going on. Both the okapi and bongo love salt licks. They also have long tongues to handle those licks. On a visual level, they are both red-brown with stripes. There was even an odd delay in discovery by Westerners. They aren't related - okapi are the only extant relatives of the giraffe while antelope are closer to cattle - but they sure evolved a lot of things in common.

As one might expect, some populations of bongo are endangered. The more common, western/lowland bongo is listed as near-threatened. Only the Eastern/mountain bongo from Kenya is in critical condition, with possibly fewer than 100 left in the wild. The usual suspects - poaching and eating - are at work. As if to put salt on the wound, bongo also have a high risk of goitre, i.e. they die from malfunctioning thyroid. Habitat destruction is another big factor in almost every endangered species. This one is no exception. Although  an interesting species of antelope,bonoshould probably be avoided in post-apocalyptic scenarios.

Creature Feature: Chevrotain.

Life is interesting. Sometimes it even completely surprises you, unearthing things you never thought possible.  Then there are things that come right the eff out of nowhere and make you wonder what you're on. That's what this blog is all about: freeing your mind with stuff you never knew was there.

This, good followers, is a mouse-deer (Tragulidae). It is also called a "chevrotain," which sounds like Chevy's latest attempt to appeal solely to the female demographic. There are four extant genera, with more being discovered and named every so often. Locations include Asia, Africa, and India. The English name "chevrotain" is actually French meaning "little goat." An Indian word means "deer and a pig." That's how crazy this thing is. It can't even decide what animal it's most like.

And why should it? Chevrotain are very primitive creatures, having not changed in over 34 million years. Chevrotain are probably close to what the first ruminant ungulate looked like. Ruminants include deer, cattle, sheep, and most cloven-hoofed animals except swine. Whales were once ungulates, too, so this little guy is related to Flipper. Sure, it's distant, but the little chevrotain like water enough to make it a distinct possibility.

Keen readers will notice that pigs are not ruminants. The chevrotain, being a transitional beast, has some piglike traits. Like pigs, both sexes of chevrotain have elongated canine teeth and no horns. The herbivore parts are there, but not quite complete. Chevrotain will also scavenge meat alongside botanical diets. They're "deer and pigs" as in India. Somebody got it right.

I wonder how many creationists know about this thing? It looks like the fossil record may well fill itself if this keeps up. Evidence of life being amazing happens every day. Look around for it.

Killer Cute: Hippos.

Picture a hippopotamus for a minute. The image that immediately came to mind was probably one of a cute, chubby animal with a wide snout, huge nostrils, tiny ears, and maybe even buck teeth. Often, they are colored in pastels, as if a chubby herbivore was not cartoony enough.

Even the CUTE hippos can kill you.

But wait. Remember, this is the week where "cute" meets "AAAHH WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN!"  That means that, yes, hippos have some insanely dark stories around them. Steve Irwin was able to tangle with crocs and venomous snakes, but would not go anywhere near hippos. That is the kind of nasty we are dealing with.

Oh my, has pop culture misinformed us about hippos. Virtually all that they have gotten right is that hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius)  are found in sub-Saharan Africa, and that the word "hippopotamus" means "river horse." They are also indeed herbivores despite being on this column. That cute, pudgy hippo is still a death machine waiting to happen, and it is not funny in the least.

If animals had stat cards like baseball players, we would be able to see that the hippo is not built for cuddles. It is a massive creature weighing around 8,000 pounds, capable of running 18 mph, and sporting teeth that would sent a pit bull whimpering into the nearest dark corner. Despite having no real armor, a hippo regularly takes damage from other hippos.  Not only are they tanks, they are mean, heavy tanks. Any human who gets between a hippo and her calf are in for a rude awakening. Then death.

Although a hippo could kill a person by simply by sitting, that is certainly not their weapon of choice. They have been known to capsize boats and, umm, bite people down to their torsos. Hippos have huge, powerful jaws with teeth that pierce a human exactly as well as a rail spike with a ton of power behind it. Vlad the Impaler and Genghis Khan would be proud.

Aside from having nasty tempers, hippos have a few other charming behaviors. As this little dog-bean will tell you, hippo sweat is pink. For a long time, people thought that hippos actually sweat blood; it's really more like a sunblock/disinfectant, and while that sounds like an excellent thing to find at your local Walgreen's, "Hippo Sweat Sunblock" would not leave the shelves. They need this disinfectant for several reasons including another lovely habit called a "dung shower." This is exactly what it sounds like: a hippo whirling dung around with its short tail, preferably over other hippos. And people wonder why hippos are never desired as pets.

Creature Feature: Wildebeest.

Ah, antelope. The mere word antelope conjures images of wild, open areas and elegant, deerlike animals. Home, home on the range and all that. Screw wolves, antelope should be the ones being called "majestic." Google Image a Thompson's gazelle, one of the most popular prey species for lions on nature documentaries. Look at those horns, that leap, that...

...wait a sec, what the EFF is that?!

That, dear friends, is a wildebeest (Connochaetes). You might know it a little better as the gnu. There are two species: the blue wildebeest (C. gnou)and the black wildebeest (C. gnou). Both of them are equally weird and native to Africa. They are among the least charismatic mammals on that continent. Granted, the blue wildebeest is still on the Serengeti, so the 'beest gets some screentime from that alone.

The wildebeest is probably the least enchanting of the antelope living on the African savannah. They look more like oxen than antelope, what with their wide faces, curved horns, and bulky builds. They have squarish pupils like goats, eyes that range from brown to deep red, and have faces that are slender rectangles as opposed to any other shape.  In other words, they're probably the best visible proof that antelope are, in fact, more closely related to cattle than to deer. Even cows don't have spinal ridges like that. The short 'mane' and hump call to mind the 'bad guy' of the savannah, the hyena. Yes, we're still talking about an herbivore.

This one just looks BADASS.

Wildebeest have exactly two presentations in popular culture: As food or as something utterly terrifying. Most of us probably first learned of wildebeest from The Lion King, in which - spoiler alert - a stampede of red-eyed, horned faces tramples poor Simba's father. I can see a number of reasons for them to pick wildebeest as opposed to some other ungulate, but the one that sticks out the most is that wildebeest and those hyenas both have a menacing, brutish hump that just makes them look evil. They're even colored similarly. Even though wildebeest themselves are completely benign, they can easily be sold as the most menacing antelope ever.

Interestingly, the wildebeest stampede in The Lion King may have been based off of an actual event.  Every year, massive herds of wildebeest and zebra migrate away from the Serengeti, the most filmed place on the planet. (Note how, even in the movie about this epic migration, the wildebeest are slated as prey for a cheetah- not that it isn't realistic.) Scientists think that this is due to the availability of surface water. They have also observed a sort of collective intelligence among the migrating herd - a hive mind that makes them conquer the obstacles on their path as one. (Humans seem to have the opposite mentality, acting more like idiots when in a group.) Horns, check; sinister eyes, check; evil hunch, check; hive mind, check.

Have a black wildebeest. Black makes EVERYTHING more evil!

The wildebeest is so famously monsterlike that ancient people actually made a monster out of it. Going back as far as ancient Greece, the wilderbeest of Ethiopia (itself kinda legendary) was mutated into the legendary catoblepas- a monster with the head of a boar and the body of a buffalo. It was forever doomed to look downward thanks to its heavy head. Pliny the Elder thought that the catoblepas's down-turned head was a rather fortunate adaptation, given that anything that made eye contact with it turned to stone. Another Roman historian disagreed about the beast's infamous stone gaze, but gave it toxic breath as compensation. Either way, the wildebeest, a real animal, was suddenly on par with the infamous basilisk. The main differences: catoblepas had the decency to keep its head down and could run you over if its breath and gaze did not do the job. Wildebeest have no such superpowers, but they are weird-looking enough to make one wonder.

And if they do have superpowers? There is no benevolent deity out there. Period. They already killed Mufasa unintentionally. We're next. 

Creature Feature: Tibetan Antelope.

Nobody likes talking about Tibet. Everybody's mad that they'll piss off China by doing so, so a lot of notions to free Tibet are swept under the rug. Shame; it's an interesting place, geologically. It's got a lot of water, strangely enough, and a bunch of unique fauna to boot.



Aside from the Dalai Lama, high altitudes, and a lot of rivers for a place that's practically a desert, Tibet also has this cute little fellow. He is simply called a Tibetan antelope or chiru (Pantholops hodgsonii). Tibetan antelopes eat what little vegetation there is, leading to many conflicts with local herders and humans.

These antelope are small. They get roughly a meter at shoulder height. The males are slightly bigger, sport horns, and have black striping on their legs. Overall, if one was going to pick an antelope to keep, these seem like an OK choice. Only the dik-dik could possibly be cuter.

The chiru is said to be one of the closest antelope to goats. It looks more goatlike than most antelope (people who are NOT heavily into artiodactyls will probably notice something a little wrong) and molecular evidence supports putting it into its own genus, if not subfamily.  Its closest relative lived during the Pleistocene in Tibet, so this little guy is almost a living fossil. Almost.

 

Tibetan antelope are highly endangered. The indigenous peoples  of Tibet use the antelopes' wool for something called shahtoosh. It might ring a bell; the wool is often smuggled through Nepal into Kashmir and India. Although the wool can be harvested without killing the adorable little antelope, many natives do it anyways. The antelope now live primarily on a single nature reserve, which is protected such that domestic animals and humans cannot use the antelopes' land.

Creature Feature: Sinonyx.

I admit it: I've been a bad girl and been doing more extinct creatures than stuff one can find in the current era.Any extinct creatures besides dinosaurs, saber-tooth tigers, and mammoths tend to get shoved to the side- or even combined in the same era. *GAG.* Pardon my favoritism towards the lesser-known beings that dwell in the depths of your nightmares...and actually existed, of course.



Enter mesonychids. Oh, how I love mesonychids at this blog. Sinonyx up there was one of the first, and was found in China. It lived around 56 million years ago. Like all mesonychids, it was a rare example of a hooved carnivore. It probably lived along shorelines, snapping up fish and whatever other forms of meat it could find.

Sinonyx was a little badass. It was about the size of the modern wolf and similarly built for stamina and speed. It had hooves, so it was probably a little faster than a wolf, even though the two animals were roughly the same size. This was small for a mesonychid, but still a threat.

Found here, please don't sue.

Two words: Those JAWS! Sinonyx had a huge skull in proportion to its body, much like a pit bull (no offense pitty lovers) or Tasmanian devil. Unfortunately, every aspect of that skull was geared toward jaw power; the skull housed an extremely tiny brain.


Sinonyx was, debatably, one of the first cetaceans-to-be. There's a lot of subtle detail that goes into defending that this particular mesonychid as a whale relative, but the best and most easily-explained piece of evidence is that insane jaw. It's very long and narrow, just like the jaw of a dolphin or killer whale. There are more subtle things (like earbones) that make people think Sinonyx was the first real step towards whales.

Also, that name. Seriously, tell me that that name doesn't sound like it should belong to the fursona of a teen trying to be goth and cooler than they actually are. In all seriousness? It means "Chinese claw." Still a cool name for a metal band or something, which I would totally listen to if they used the animal as their mascot.

Bio-Art: Hooved Shoes et al.

A little personal entry, this time: Ever since last semester, I have been interested in making wearable shoes out of real cow hooves. I still need to get some heels, some red fur, and a good way to cut solid, thick keratin, but the hooves I spray-painted gold are at my current apartment. Yes, I will make them into shoes that hopefully look fabulous; my last attempt at this was a spectacular failure. The only reason I ever go shoe shopping of my own volition is to make crazy art.

That said, I'm not the one who did shoes using real animal hooves first. The unofficial queen of hoof shoes is German taxidermist Iris Schieferstein. She loves mixing taxidermy and fashion...like this:

Source.

Schieferstein's first pair of hoof shoes were made of horse hooves. Although not as impressive as her pair of cow shoes, these are still pretty neat.  They cost around 5,500 USD, though, and can only be worn for a couple of hours.

Moo.

The "Vegas Showgirl" hoof shoes use cow hooves, fur, and toy pistols. They look snazzy, but I doubt they're actually wearable.  Apparently the horse ones are, however, so I would totally give these a shot. Someone with 12 years of creative taxidermy experience has to know how long they last, too.

If hooves are not your thing, how about doves?

Link.

Schieferstein has also done full-body snake mounts on shoes. Just sayin'.

He come to town (credit).

The idea of hoof-like shoes has since caught on in the fashion world. There have been shoes that I can only describe as "camel toe" showing up. Designers like Alexander McQueen made 'hoof shoes' that really look more like platforms with a narrow toe than actual hooves. One German company, Kronier, at least has the ankle length required for hooves about right. When designers start using actual animal parts in their works, then I might listen. Until then, I am avoiding all heels not made with real hooves.

Creature Feature: Red River Hog.

You know what else is in Africa, but nowhere near as well known as white lions? A lot of things. They have lots of cool birds, millions of not-so-huge herbivores, and even some smaller carnivores that get slighted in favor of larger animals. A lot of animals get pushed to the side in favor of rip-roaring big cats or, for lack of a better catch-all, pachyderms. After all, who would care about something as obscure as red pigs?

 

Meet the red river hog, a type of wild pig native to southwest and central Africa. Its habitat centers around the rainforests in Guinea and Congo. As its name indicates, it favors areas around rivers. It will eat anything that is remotely tasty and can fit in its mouth. Even roots are not off limit with its nose and excellent digging capabilities.



The boars of this species are only slightly bigger than the females. Like many pigs, they have tusks. They also have harems; these pigs roam the night in groups of up to 20, and the dominant boar will viciously defend his harem. Leopards are the pigs' main predator, so it really benefits them to be in a huge group!

Red river hogs are pretty snazzy-looking pigs. Along with the red fur, they have a sleek white stripe running down their backs. Their faces look like they belong to some sort of old, wise mythical creature - those of you wishing for a pig dragon for some reason, try using this hog as a basis for the face. If hogs had fashion shows that allowed wild contestants, we would be expecting to see these guys on the runway.

Red river hogs are by no means endangered. Unlike wild bovids, it is hard to find a species of pig under threat. We humans may think of swine as meat, but they are actually really hardy survivors. The biggest threat to these piggies comes from human encroachment upon their habitat. The second? Pigs will eat anything, including garden crops.  The good news is, red river hogs can be clicker trained, so maybe this proximity will have a happy ending.

Happy endings include piglets.

(Note: This one is short because tomorrow's going to be a little special. :3)

"They Actually Eat That:" Reindeer.

This is one "They Actually Eat That" that should not be. Nobody should be surprised that people can and do eat reindeer. They're just a different sort of artiodactyl herbivore, and we eat plenty of those. Absolutely nobody should be shocked that some people living up north have found ways to eat reindeer.



Reindeer have been hunted by humans for a long time.  We are talking since the Neolithic (i.e. New Stone Age) at least. Scandanavian, North American, and Russian hunters have been the main predators of reindeer since humans moved up into the cold climates from Africa (why, I still don't know). There are certain sites in Norway being designated as national monuments for their ancient reindeer traps. Hell, people in Quebec even used to drink reindeer blood with liquor!


Then a can of reindeer meat makes it into a London store, and all hell breaks loose with animal rights activists. This farmed reindeer pate is marketed as a Christmas delicacy and a "Farm-raised relative of Rudolph." British PETA argues that reindeer get very, very stressed on farms, and thus should not be made into pate. Reindeer herders are usually nomadic, true, but one would think that ages of handling reindeer would have taught us a thing or two.

So let me ask these activists something: Do you object to regular venison on the same counts? Sure, meat is still meat, but something tells me that the positive connotation of reindeer has gotten to you. Reindeer have been bred by certain tribes for so long that they have words for "a male castrated reindeer" and other such concepts that could only come from a lot of exoperience handling these animals. We would not have words like "heifer" or "steer" if we had not domesticated cattle. Do we distinguish between neutered male deer and deer with full endowments? No. If your objection is anywhere, it should be with regular, normal venison. (And, out of curiosity, I broke my pescatarianism to try some genuine hunted venison. Good stuff.) Reindeer pulling sleighs is not just for Santa.



The people selling the reindeer steaks in London have the right idea: Reindeer is indeed a native dish of people in northern climates. Are we really so narrow-minded that we will prevent them from eating their traditional food while the British somehow manage to enjoy jellied eels? Different strokes for different folks. Santa probably makes reindeer sausage every time one of his magical flying deer dies because, umm, there's not much else to eat up there. Herbivores like reindeer are usually good eatin's.

If I didn't tell you this was reindeer, you probably wouldn't know.

 

Mind, actually eating reindeer is one thing. Alaskan shamans have, for a while now, noticed reindeer getting high off of Amanita mushrooms - a 'shroom toxic to humans. The shamans, however, figured out that reindeer are subject to the same rules as drug testing in humans - i.e. whatever was in those shrooms was probably in their urine as well. Sometimes, reindeer get the same idea and drink human urine for the exact same reason. This trip is where the idea of flying reindeer came from. Thank poisonous mushrooms for Santa's sleigh-deer!

Quick, catch him for drug dealing!

P.S. There will be more reindeer on Christmas. They're actually fascinating animals.

"They Actually Eat That:" Giraffe.

Africa is probably the most filmed place on the planet. It has lions, leopards, elephants, gorillas, and most of the other big mammals little kiddies want to see. African animals are so popular that whole movies have been made with them as stars.

  

Oh, and giraffes, the ridiculous-looking tree-munchers of the savannah, are the source of an extremely popular drug in Sudan. Plant-based drugs such as weed and tobacco are banned in Sudan, so as you can imagine, they are always looking for ways to get high. We aren't sure if giraffes qualify as easy, but they sure do seem to work.

A drink called umm nyolokh is made from the bone marrow and liver of giraffes. Despite the name, no eldritch beings are harmed in its creation. (It is EXTREMELY hard to find good information on this drug; most of what the internet yields are drug forums.) The inner parts of the giraffe contain DMT, a psychedelic chemical found in plants and mammals. The stuff that causes the trip of umm nyolokh is the exact same substance that South American shamans use to go on spiritual journeys. It has oooone difference: The spiritual trips from giraffe bits ALWAYS lead to the location of more giraffes.

One drink of umm nyolokh is supposedly enough to get people hooked on hunting giraffes for life. We do not know who first figured out that giraffes were a good source of psychedelic chemicals, but they hit on a gold mine. The drug tells you where to get more of itself! It does, however, mean less giraffes for nature shows.

It probably looks EXACTLY like this.

There are probably also giraffe steaks somewhere with less trippy effects...but who would want that?

"They Actually Eat That:" Truffles.

Forgive my lateness. Had to stay up at campus a little later on Wednesday, but don't worry, I would never miss a chance to show you all some seriously weird food. This is a little bit hard during Breed Week - whoever would admit that certain breeds are good for food? Even if they are, most of them are not remotely weird. (The Belgian Blue is an obvious exception.)

So this is something different and tangentially-related to domesticated animals.

 

Connoiseurs of my blog have probably heard of the fungi called truffles. Besides being a delicious chocolate treat, truffles are a type of fungus usually found near the bases of various trees, particularly oak, beech, hazel, and pine. The European black and white truffles are delicious, but very, very expensive. Chinese truffles are often used as a cheap substitute.

Truffles are not domesticated, per se. They can be farmed (Australia has had the best luck), but are not sufficiently differentiated enough from their wild counterparts to be considered breeds. Truffle fields return to wildness easily, sending the search for easy truffles back to square one. These things are so hard to find that humans need special animals just to discover them, thus explaining the price tag...



...even though piggies can find them no problem.

The classic way to find truffles is to get a healthy sow and take her out for a little walk. Since truffles smell like a horny boar's saliva, the pig's sensitive nose will pick up the scent. Sows can smell the fungi up to three feet underground. We can only imagine that her desire would be doubled if she herself wanted some lovin'. As one might expect, pigs do sometimes eat the truffles. If your Playboys came with a hamburger inside the pages, you probably would, too.

Japan has the right idea.

Of course, pigs are not the only animals with a keen sense of smell. Dogs, specifically the Lagotto Romangolo (Romagna Water Dog) can also be trained to sniff for truffles. The Lagotto breed has been in the business for only 100 years, which is a short time compared to ancient Roman truffle hogs.

You can also tell it's hypoallergenic because of its poodle-ish fur.

For the record, yes, I have actually eaten truffles. If you want to try some good ones, they have truffles in everything in Piazza Navona, a certain square in Rome. They put truffles on pizza, in fettucine, and have a godly gelato called tartufo- no real truffles involved, just using the name. Truffles are delicious, but I personally would not go into any pig sties after eating them!

Myth Week: Unicorns.

 

Unicorns used to be solid badasses. Neither masculine nor feminine, the unicorn was able to cure any poison with its horn. Unicorns were lustful and wild, only able to be placated by a virgin girl. If you were not a virgin, you could safely be prepared for some serious pain. (The Eastern qilin is a different beast.)

Then My Little Pony and Lisa Frank got a hold on unicorns. No longer were they able to gore the knights of old even faster than a dragon. They were forever stamped on little girls' binders, notebooks, and customized by rabid MLP fans.

So much for badassitude.

 

But how did the unicorn get started, anyways? Was there really a one-horned ungulate that could cure poison AND kick ass?

In a word, no. Most unicorn horns (alicorn) came from a sea creature called a narwhal, which has already had its own entry. Other sources of alicorn included walrus tusks and the horns of various ungulates. It was basically a sugar pill for anyone hoping for a poison cure. Different story if their issue was a calcium deficiency.

1500 USD for a yearling pair of this nigh-extinct animal!

The particular ungulate that inspired the unicorn was probably the scimitar-horned oryx, which, when seen from the side, looks like it has only one horn. This creature is now only found on American game preserves, and has its own entry if you are more curious about it. Honorable mention goes to the rhinoceros, which Marco Polo mistook for a unicorn, and the aurochs, which, as the word "re'em," is frequently mistranslated as "unicorn" in the Bible.



Then there are instances of "unicorn deer." The roe deer above has a rare mutation that gives it only one antler. Having the 'horn' smack dab in the center is even rarer. We don't know if it can cure poison or has a lust for virgin women, but slap a white coat on a deer like that and it would look a lot like a unicorn. One researcher, Gilberto Tozzi, said that the unicorn deer was literally a "fantasy made real" - thus finally giving meaning to the title of this blog!

Creature Feature: Klipspringer.

"Human feet are inefficient!" We have said it again and again: human feet fail at being anything but mildly dextrous snowshoes. We have no claws, and although our five digits were useful for climbing trees, they are not so useful for running. As a rule of thumb, the fastest creatures are the ones who have the least of their bodies on the ground at any given time.



Nowhere is this more true than with the klipspringer (Oreotragus oreotragus - no relation to Oreo cookies). The klipspringer is a small antelope native to the rockier parts of southeastern Africa. It's so agile it makes other ungulates look like awkward turtles by comparison. The klipspringer looks at us and laughs its adorable little tail off as it dashes up the cliffs like so:



See that? That was Bambi ballet dancing (note: antelope like the klipspringer are not as close to deer as they look). We're not kidding - the klipspringer has evolved to walk on its toes just like a ballerina, only all the time. Ungulates normally walk on their toenails, but the klipspringer takes it one step further by walking on the tippy-tips of its toenails. The digits are so narrow that all four feet can fit on the surface of a rock the size of a Canadian dollar coin.



The klipspringer's rocky, dry habitat has given it another useful adaptation: It does not need to drink. At all. Like many desert animals, it gets all the water it needs from the succulents it eats. It is also one of the few truly monogamous mammals, staying in breeding pairs instead of large herds. Not that we would mind herds of cute, athletic antelopes dancing on their tiptoes.

Prehistoric Mammal Week: Mesonyx

Look under Andrewsarchus's tags for a bit. Wondering why I put 'artiodactyl' there? Y'know, under a carnivore?

Weeeelllllll...

This is not a wolf. Stay away from its kill, furries.

At one time, there was such a thing as a hoofed carnivore.  Although the favorite among most people seems to be Andrewsarchus, the genus Mesonyx shows a more typical hoofed carnivore, sporting four small hooves instead of claws on each toe. Mesonyx lived during the Eocene, a time when there were enough cool mammals to get their own week. Fossils of it have been found in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

Here's a small exercise in case you do not understand the true terror of a hoofed carnivore: Go to a farm (or Google) and pay a visit to a cow or pig. Now imagine said cow or pig using extremely powerful jaws to bite your neck, and you were too slow to run away because plantigrade feet really suck for that. Your feet are lame compared to those of a hoofed animal, which Mesonyx ate on a regular basis. Those not-wolf teeth would get you for that reason alone.

Hooved carnivorids went extinct simply by being Darwinized out. You can still see their modern relatives...

 

...at Sea World.

Whales and dolphins are the closest relatives we have to Mesonyx.  As time went on, Mesonyx's relatives became more and more water-worthy to pursue their fishy diets. Flipper's great great granddaddy could have torn you a new one easily.





Every whale from dolphins to orcas to the largest mammal alive at the current moment came from a wolf-like carnivore with hooves. Some whales and dolphins occasionally wind up with vestigial legs as a reminder. Evolution does some weird-ass things. This is one of them.

Prehistoric Mammal Week: Andrewsarchus.

When you're a paleontologist, squeamishness around skulls is not an option. Skulls tell you a lot. Was it a mammal based on the earbones and jaw? Did it eat plants, meat, or both? What were its strongest senses? How much space did it have for its brain? Hell, it's possible to theorize what an animal looked like based on the skull alone.



That's exactly what happened to Andrewsarchus mongoliensis. All we have from Andrewsarchus is one skull found in Mongolia, forever preserved in the American Museum of Natural History. It is three feet (approx. a meter) long from the tip of its snout to the base of its head. From that skull alone, we can tell that it was a mammalian carnivore.

A very big mammalian carnivore.

Andrewsarchus was the biggest mammalian carnivore that ever walked the earth. From the skull we have, we can guess that it was probably 6 feet high and 11 feet long from snout to pelvis. This is not counting how much it weighed. We would need a more complete skeleton to determine its build and weight.

The jaws of Andrewsarchus may have been the strongest of any mammal. Although not adapted for shearing, its jaws were capable of crushing bone, mollusc shells, and turtle shells. If we later find that it ate plants as well as meat, Andrewsarchus may have led a lifestyle similar to entelodonts - the 'terminator pigs' or 'hell pigs.' It lived around the same time as the brontotheres (Eocene), and probably ate them dead or alive.

Who's afraid of the Big Bad Not-Wolf?

Andrewsarchus probably had hoof-like paws as well. How do we know this? Wellll, stay tuned; tomorrow's beast will provide the answer to how we know a lot about Andrewsarchus, despite only having a skull...

...on a side note, this guy (under the name Andarch) was one of the authoress's favorite Vivosaurs to use in Fossil Fighters. Please help her get a 3DS by donating to the tip jar or clicking on the ads. This has been the first shameless plug on the blog aside from the tip jar itself, so it's not like we're nagging. 

Creature Feature: Llamas.

OK, that's two disturbing creatures in a row. Time for a cute!

Yes, yes, we know: Llamas (Llama glama) are not particularly weird. They are domesticated relatives of the camel and have been used for riding, wool, and meat since before the Conquistadors decided to take over South America. Like camels, they spit regularly and have jaws that look very strange to humans.


They are also bigger than frogs. Not that it matters.

Llamas also have a strange mating cycle. Unlike most large animals, they mate lying down. They have no estrus cycle and are induced incubators, meaning that they can and will have babies whenever they please. That every shot is right on target for a male llama is either awesome or terrifying depending on how much of a feminist you are; it is, however, very good for llama breeders and other people who love baby llamas (called "crias").


And awww, why not?

Llamas are very social, but bottle-feeding and other socializing should be done sparingly. Too much cuddling means that humans will be considered part of the herd (and thus spat upon). Otherwise, they are cute, friendly, curious creatures that make awesome guards for livestock. Yes, really. 

Llamas are familiar creatures to anyone who has been to a good petting zoo.  The internet has gone llama-wild, too. What is just so funny about them that deviantART, Disney, and even Monty Python cannot keep their mitts away?

 

Just...look at them. Llamas resemble camels that have been crossbred with sheep. Camels are already strange-looking artiodactyls. Seeing a fuzzy camel with banana-shaped ears and a poofy tail akin to that of a Pomeranian dog is just silly. Llamas do not just look funny - they look ridiculous. No wonder they have taken over the internet!

Someone needs to make a calendar of llamas. Like puppies and kittens, they brighten every room that they are in.

Tomorrow: Penguins in the Andes?! Wow, we're on a South America roll.