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. 

"They Actually Eat That:" Hummus.

Just to prove that I don't play favorites, the U.S. has some pretty gross foods, too. The crowning achievement, as of late, has to be Dunkin's newest breakfast sandwich. It consists of bacon and egg...on a glazed doughnut. Original, yet sickening.

Luckily, some of us have realized that foreign diets are pretty much unanimously better than the American "diet." Mediterranean food, from Greek yogurt to gyros, has always been pretty popular and is only getting more so as time goes on. One of the newer things from that area to hit the scene is hummus, which is unfortunately also greasy. Not as nasty as some of the things on this blog,  but certainly messy and interesting.

Biggest hummus dish EVER.

So, what is hummus, anyways? In short, it's a chickpea dip. Nobody knows when it started, but it has been around in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Egypt since time immemorial. The first recorded instance of hummus as we know it comes from 13th century Cairo. The dip consists of lemon, mashed chickpeas, olive oil, salt, garlic, and something called tahini (sesame paste). It is also usually served with pita chips, so chips n' dip go back farther than you might think!

Hummus is one of the healthiest foods ever. It makes something called a "complete protein" with bread, making it ideal for vegetarian and vegan diets. This is even better if one happens to be allergic to tree nuts. There are several commercial brands available in the States.  Strange as it may be, it's actually good that it's getting popularized.

You can also get creative with hummus!

Now, some people like the taste of hummus. That's fine. It does not change that it's still a greasy mess to clean, not to mention adds the scent of garlic to one's breath for the rest of the day. (This one's from personal experience.) So long as you don't have any important events to go to, enjoy your hummus. It's one of the few dips that's actually good for you.

Creature Feature: Pakicetus.

Yeah, no "They Actually Eat That" today. That's for tomorrow, when everybody in America will be bloated on the disgustingly-fattening food served on Thanksgiving, including corn. You're welcome.

For now, please have something far more pleasant: Fossil Fighters's answer to Vaporeon:

Except...wait, this is Fossil Fighters. Does this mean that Vaporeon were once real?

Ahaha, no. Paki up there is a Pakicetus, a prehistoric mammal that is considered a direct link between mesonychids (badass carnivorous ungulates). It was found in Pakistan (hence the name) with a number of other whale fossils and whale relatives, and lived around 50 million years ago in the Eocene. As one might expect, it was a piscivore. The creature was first identified as a whale relative by its earbones, in case you were wondering.

The first mysterious thing about this creature is where it was found. Pakistan, a place that is largely desert, has an abundance of ancient whale skeletons. The simple answer to why: Land shifts. The land evolved, and so did the life on it. Pakistan was once coastal. This led to a bunch of well-preserved whale skeletons as whales evolved from carnivorous ungulates. Neat.

Pakicetus is the first obvious transition animal between whales and land-bound mammals. The eyes are located on top of the skull, making it look almost like a crocodile. It lived on a coastal region in its time, leading to a theory that it may have first hunted in tide pools. There are a million different speculations about how Pakicetus lived - largely related to exactly how water-bound this whale of a mammal was.

There are debates over how aquatic Pakicetus was. The heavy bones suggest that it was at least partially-aquatic. The ears are more favored for hearing in air, but that didn't stop paleontologists from placing it near whales on the Tree of Life. Others have called it "no more aquatic than a tapir." Whatever the case, we're pretty sure it didn't have a tail fluke...although that would be awesome.

Creature Feature: Indus River Dolphin.

Is there anything happier than a dolphin? Really, name one creature that lights up a room more than a giggling, clicking, smiling dolphin. As Cracked put it, "no animal is more closely associated with Day-Glo rainbows."

Then we get into river dolphins. River dolphins are Flipper turned nightmarish. I won't go into a more thorough description than that. Just...

...that. Just that. You would not want that to save you while drowning. (Well, maybe Bogleech would.) This dolphin warps our perception of dolphin so well it's awesome.

"That," in this case, is an Indus River dolphin (Platanista minor). The Indus and Ganges River dolphins are technically the same species, although how scientists decided this is anybody's guess (how would you breed these two?). It eats shrimp, carp, and catfish, among any other small seafood unfortunate enough to get caught in those teeth. It is native to the Indus River in Pakistan, joining leopard geckos and sand cats on the "cool animals that can be found in war-torn areas" list.

When it comes to river dolphins, all things that make dolphins cute go downstream. That goofy smile is replaced with an elongated grin full of teeth that show even when the jaw is closed. There are no sympathetic eyes to look into.  Instead of being sleek and grey, this dolphin looks like a mottled pink dolphin corpse sent to float down the Ganges.

All dolphins echolocate, but the Indus River dolphin is entirely dependent on sonar. Its eyes are almost nonexistent; the most they can do is detect light and shadow, if that. It doesn't even have a lens in those rudimentary eyes. It is one of the rare mammals that is completely blind. Yeah, we're pretty sure this has to have some mythological relative - maybe the makara. A legless, scaleless makara.

An animal THIS weird MUST be a messenger of the gods! 

Like all river dolphins, the Indus River dolphin is highly endangered. Dams, industrial runoff, and irrigation have all hurt these creatures. Aside from habitat fragmentation, they are also hunted, and not because they look like creatures out of H.P. Lovecraft. Apparently some people are well-aware that dolphins are really horny bastards; the meat and oil can be used as an aphrodisiac. They can also be used as catfish bait - take your pick. Even if they freak us out, that doesn't mean we should kill them. They have enough problems.

Creature Feature: Spider-tailed Viper.

"Spider ball, spider ball...does whatever a spider ball does..." 

The above snippet is thesong that I must resist singing every time I pass by a spider ball python in the reptile store.For the uninformed, the spider ball is a pattern and color variation of ball python; the black bands are so narrow that they resemble a spider's webbing, and the overall snake looks a lot lighter as well. This entry is not about them, but, rather, a different sort of mix of spider and snake.

Mad props to Omid Mozaffari.

The spider-tailed viper (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) is a new-ish snake that was only recognized as a species in 2006.  It was found in Iran - y'know, one of those areas in the Middle East with a lot of desert. It eats birds and probably munches rodents as well. The rule of thumb with vipers is "it can kill you," so unfortunately anyone wanting one as a pet probably has a death wish as well.

First, a little bit about tail lures. There are several species of snake that use their tails to mimic a worm or some other appetizing invertebrate. The idea is that a bird or other animal will think that lure is a meal. Then, down come those jaws in a blur of teeth and poison. Mammals have absolutely nothing like this; as far as I know, it's purely a reptile thing. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!)

Same pic, emphasis on the lure.

That said, the spider-tailed viper is the unholy god of tail lures. It's one thing to move the tail like a worm, and quite another to copy something that has legs and distinct body segments. If you were not looking for a snake, you would think that it was indeed a desert spider. Hell, there are things that look almost like that in my basement. This snake is doing a really good job of bringing arachnophobes and ophidophobes together. High-Octane Nightmare Fuel, much?

The "spider" is made by strange scales that look like a spider's legs and abdomen. Birds, mammals, and quite a few lizards are visual hunters, watching for movement in order to hunt; this snake takes things up a notch by making its tail have the shape of a spider, too.All the snake has to do is wiggle its spider-tail just right and BAM! Bird in the jaws.  Given how long it took for this snake to be properly identified, birds were not the only ones fooled.

"Spider-tail, spider-tail...does whatever a spider-tail does...."

Feel free to shoot me for that one.

Creature Feature: Caracal.

The average human psyche has exactly two images in mind in regards to felines: big cats, like lions and tigers, and domestic cats. The small- and mid-sized wildcats are often overlooked. That's a shame, because a lot of them are really neat.

Enter the caracal, one of the most striking of the little cats. If you took a lynx and exaggerated its ears and tail, you would get something that looks like a caracal. Caracals are native to much of Africa and the Middle East, and the name derives from a Turkish word meaning "black ear." Although it looks related to lynxes, it is closer, genetically-speaking, to the African Golden Cat and the tabby cat down the street.

The ears are the most noticeable part of the caracal. They have long tufts that make lynxes jealous. Although nobody knows the exact purpose of those tufts,we have several theories as to why they exist. On lynxes, the ear tufts function almost like radio antennae, helping the cat to hear. They might also help break up the outline of the caracal's head.

There's more to caracals than just the ears. Their paws have stiff hairs that probably allow them to walk on the sand, sort of like snowshoes. The caracal is also known for snatching birds in mid-flight - sometimes many birds at once! They also get most of their water from their prey, and domesticate surprisingly well.

Caracals have been in human company since ancient times. India and Iran both have a good history with these cats. The Persians were fond of using them to hunt pigeons. They can kill up to ten pigeons in one hunt! Yes, these cats have been exotic pets for a very long time, and remain pretty popular today.

Keen observers probably noticed a while back that caracals look a looot like house cats; yes, the two can make babies.The Moscow Zoo tried it, and caracal-cat hybrids can be found in captivity as well. "Caracats" have many of the same traits Savannah cats do - larger size (12-14 inches at the shoulder, 25-30 pounds) and fertility issues in the males. (For those curious, yes, servals and caracals can breed, too.) They usually use Abyssinians as a domestic base. F2 (second generation) caracats still have the attractive ears of their wild relatives and make better pets than F1 hybrids. Above is a caracat kitten for your squeeing pleasure.

That said, this month's Theme Week is going to be a doozy. I'm a cat person,  darnit!

Creature Feature: Featherless Chickens.

Going green is a huge deal nowadays. Basically, we've realized that a whole lot of Earth's resources - fossil fuels, fresh water, wood - are finite, especially if we keep using them at the rate we have been. The meat industry happens to be one of the least green industries out there, responsible for as much greenhouse gases as public transportation (if not more). So, if we told you that some scientists had designed a greener, more energy-efficient chicken, you would assume that there was some horrible catch, right?

Umm...does a chicken with a big "fry me" sign written on it due to lack of feathers strike you as a  "horrible catch?"

The "featherless" or "naked" chickens were developed by scientists at the Rehovot Agronomy Institute located near Tel Aviv, Israel in the early 2000's. They are not genetically spliced with something that makes 'em lose their feathers. They have been selectively bred that way without the use of other organisms, so no complaining about Frankenfood. We would nonetheless like to add "zombiebird" to the list of potential names for the rooster above.

This chicken is not only easy to cook, but it is supposedly greener than your average chicken. Supposedly, it grows faster and is more energy efficient. Overheating is a real problem for chickens, especially in hotter climates. Too much heat might even lead to ugly, irregular molting, so the next best idea after turning up the A/C is to breed a chicken that doesn't have feathers to begin with.They are also supposedly low-fat.

Breeding a featherless chicken also saves considerable time and water on the part of farmers. If you have ever skinned, de-scaled, or de-feathered a fresh kill, you know that it is very time-consuming. On large-scale farms, the feathers are washed off, so breeding for no feathers curbs the fresh water issue, too. Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it?

There are some cons to having no feathers, obviously. These birds can live in exactly one climate: Hot and dry. Everywhere else, they have problems. No feathers means no protection from cold, parasites, or even the pecking of other chickens. Speaking of other chickens, plumage is also an important part of chicken mating rituals. I don't know what the human equivalent of this would be; it's just plain unattractive to be a featherless chicken.

Can selective breeding for exactly one trait really have that much impact on the farming potential of one animal? Sure. Anything with "Angora" in its name tends to do better in Ankara, Turkey, than anywhere else. Those animals are mainly bred for extremely long hair and are clearly meant for that climate. These chickens are also meant for a specific climate. If we see chicken meat coming in from Israel, we'll know that their zombiebird project was a success.

Creature Feature: Striped Hyena.

Hyenas are many things to many people: Enemies of lions, one of the noblest animals around (until you really look); the jokers of the savannah; the females of spotted hyenas darn near have, umm, lances where it counts. If you thought regular hyenas were crazy, wait until you leave Africa. They get a lot wilder as you head towards India. Seriously, this striped hyena has a mohawk running down its back.

Striped hyenas (Hyaena hyaena) are definitely not the hyenas that the media like to pick on. Their range covers most of northern Africa into the Middle East and India. At one point, they even wandered as far north as France and Germany. That said, they have very nice winter coats. Populations are generally declining, but not quickly enough to place this hyena on the endangered list.

Striped hyenas are a lot smaller than their spotted cousins. They also have a distinctly sloping back and very weak hind limbs.There is no significant sexual dimorphism - a rarity in mammals. The size difference is one thing; at least in striped hyenas, the males and females have normal junk. Overall, they look more distinctly canid than spotted hyenas, even though they are still more closely related to cats than dogs.

The striped hyena, unlike the 'normal' hyena, is a solo scavenger. At most, it hunts in pairs, and may live in groups of up to seven - not large at all. It feeds on small vertebrates and whatever meat it finds. This puts the striped hyena in the position of a detritivore rather than a predator. That's still valuable; you would not want to be in a world without scavengers and decomposers.



Finally, that mane is amazing. When threatened, the striped hyena erects all the hairs along its spinal cord in an effort to make itself look bigger. The mane is also used to communicate between hyenas; it is not a target in combat, even though everything else is fair game. We think making the hyena look like it should be a Fire-type Pokemon was an unintentional side-effect.

Creature Feature: (Egyptian) Jerboa.

And now for something completely different:




Cute, isn't it? Coming from roughly the same region as several adorable geckos, jerboas are among the many cute animals adapted to the deserts of the Middle East and Africa. The family containing jerboas, Dipodidae, contains six subfamilies and several genera of cute, hopping rodents. They eat tubers and  The jerboa in the video looks like an Egyptian jerboa, so we shall settle on those for tonight. Just bear in mind that there are plenty of other varieties.



Jerboas are, in a nutshell, bipedal mice that live in desert areas. They are nocturnal and spend the sweltering days and months in burrows. During the hottest months, they aestivate (i.e. hibernate), not leaving their more complex burrow systems at all. These burrows can get up to 2.5 meters underground and usually have food storage and a nesting chamber.

When these little mice are active, however, they are VERY active. Jerboas spring about like bipedal mice on coffee. These little rodents can leap up to 3 meters to get away from predators or zig-zag to confuse them. Their tails allow for a very good sense of balance...plus, who can resist a rodent with a lion-like tuft on its tail? Everything about jerboas is not only functional, but adorable.

Oh, and by the way, being truly bipedal is rare in mammals. Even humans are not fully adapted to walking on two legs. Jerboas, however, are. Just look at the proportions on this jerboa skeleton; those legs are even longer, proportionately, than a kangaroo's! They can jump and walk, too! (Am I the only one thinking that giant rodent mounts could possibly dethrone the ratite mounts we're used to? You're DONE, chocobos!)



Although both the Lesser and Greater Egyptian Jerboas are probably pretty similar, the Lesser Egyptian Jerboa (Jaculus jaculus) is the king of desert survival. I keep saying, over and over, that desert animals need very little water. The Lesser Egyptian jerboa does not drink. Period. Every drop of water it needs comes from its food. It laughs at us for not only being not-quite-bipeds, but also needing that weird thing called water many times a day. Yeah, rodents will rule the world along with cockroaches and snakes.

But would you love it if it ruled the world, world, world?

 

Creature Feature: Deathstalker.

If you were shocked by the title, you are probably expecting something epic. Without looking the creature up, you probably think that it has skulls, a scythe, or, better yet, flaming skulls and a scythe. The name is that appealing to fans of "darker and edgier." Hell, why isn't this creature blessed with its own heavy metal band, yet?

It already has a B-movie.

Thing is, most venomous animals don't roll that way. Often, the deadliest things are tiny, inconspicuous, and sometimes even cute. The same goes for the deathstalker - you will NEVER see it coming.

From Wikipedia. :)

 

That's the deathstalker (Leiurus quinquestriatus), the deadliest scorpion in the world. It is native to Israel, Pakistan, Egypt, and other blisteringly-hot, politically-intense areas in that range.  Like most scorpions, it feeds on insects. Watch out for your shoes if you wander into its range.

The deathstalker has the most potent venom of any scorpion. One sting from it contains no less than 5 different neurotoxins. The sting is extremely painful and should be treated as a medical emergency. Antivenin availability varies from place to place, with French and German pharmaceutical companies making it regularly, but NO support from the USFDA. Even with a name like "deathstalker," the sting is only usually fatal to the immune-challenged.

Of course, people want this bugger for more than just antivenin. Along with those neurotoxins, valuable chemical agents dwell in the deathstalker's tail. Chlorotoxin, a peptide, has been shown to help tame brain tumors. A few other chemicals might regulate insulin, making this little scorpion a lifesaver to diabetics.

Source:Offbeatpets.com

This does not mean you should keep this scorpion as a pet. Deathstalkers are by no means a beginner's scorpion, but are often sold to anyone willing to pay anyways. Some smart, yet ruthless person figured out that people interested in arachnids miiight just want something called a "deathstalker," regardless of how dangerous it actually was.

Creature Feature: Sand Cat.

Face it: I belong in a zoo. This blog is nothing but animal rants, I know a million people I can talk to about exotic pets (i.e. stuff that most people think belongs in zoos), and it's been my childhood dream to be some sort of animal-related scientist. (Then I found that not being able to do math worth a crap put a dent in that dream, and became aware of the exotic pet industry. I now have a zoo in my room.)

When you see this face, you might want to work in a zoo, too:

No, that is not a stray cat that wandered into  zoo exhibit. It is a sand cat, Felis margarita. Despite the name, it is not native to Mexico; it lives in the deserts of Africa and the Middle East with some general range around Pakistan. It is related to the domesticated cat on the generic level only, and I will be DAMNED if somebody has not tried to interbreed the two. Whether they succeeded or not, I don't know, but the result would be adorable.


What you say about breeding?

Sand cats differ from domestic cats in many ways. Aside from being perpetually cute (those aren't babies up there), they have larger ears that can hear prey scurrying underground, sandy coats, and extra fur on their paws that protects their feet from the sand (or, in some cases, snow). These fuzzballs can survive both scorching hot and freezing cold temperatures. They also get all the water that they need from their food. Desert animals just roll that way; the fennec fox has similar adaptations. 



Warning: Do not attempt to keep these cats as pets. Although my usual "I want one" tendency kicked in around these guys, they do not live long in captivity, and are vanishing from the wild for a number of reasons. Habitat loss and general human encroachment (a dog can eat one of these guys, remember) are the main factors. (Sand cats are actually too cute for their own good - the exotic pet trade is one of their main threats.)  One would think that an animal that can survive the harshest of conditions would be well-suited to captivity, but unlike fennecs, budgerigars, rosy boas and bearded dragons, these guys do not make good pets.


Lick it, bitch! 

Then again, some people would say that regular cats are not domesticated, either.