Tastes Like Chicken

I’m sorry for the lack of posts this year. It’s been a bit of a rough year, and, long story short, I’m now in a one-year master’s program to become a high-school Biology teacher. This came with 17 graduate credits this summer, so I’ve been a bit swamped. However, I have been able to get to the Akron Zoo every once in a while. There, I saw an animal that was perfect to pull EUT out of its eight-month slump. Meet the Mountain Chicken.

No, that’s the correct picture. Leptodactylus fallax also goes by Giant Ditch Frog or Crapaud (French for “toad). It is an impressively large frog¹, weighing in at eight inches long and 1 and a half pounds. It hails from a few Caribbean islands, namely Dominica and Montserrat.

With a common name like “Mountain Chicken,” it isn’t really difficult to understand the main reason this animal is endangered: it’s delicious. Other problems like habitat destruction and the Cytrid fungus that have ravaged all amphibian populations are also plaguing this regal animal².

As conservation programs tried to raise young froglets to maintain the population, they had to figure out the strange breeding and rearing habits of the Mountain Chicken. First, they don’t breed in water like other frogs. Instead, they dig burrows that fill with rainwater and do their business there. In this underground pool, the female releases a liquid that the male whips into a foamy nest. Then things get weird.

The above video gives a wonderful description of Mountain Chicken childcare, but I’ll give you a synopsis. Rather than resorting to grazing, hunting, or cannibalism like other tadpoles, the Mountain Chicken tadpoles rely on mom, who spews forth tens of thousands of unfertilized eggs. These are quickly gobbled up by the little babies, and the feeding frenzy is an image you’ll try to scrub from your mind for days.

Recently, hunting the Mountain Chicken has been outlawed. Scientists are still working on curing amphibians of the Chytrid fungus. Hopefully these, along with those breeding programs, can bring this Chicken back from the brink.

  
¹The Mountain Chicken is only about half the size of the Goliath Frog, but that’s still pretty hefty.
²When held, they make an alarm call that sounds exactly like a giant squeaky toy. It’s ear-shatteringly adorable.

Jabberjaw

I was looking through IUCN’s Species of the Day list and found something adorable. It fits the two facial features that define “cute”—big eyes and a short snout. Unlike most members of its group, it has been known to play by grabbing vegetation and trailing it behind itself as others give chase. It exhibits curiosity with man-made objects. It has a cutesy name that sounds like an embarrassing nickname.

It’s a six-foot long shark.



















Where the Porbeagle (Lamna nasus) gets its name no one is quite sure. The commonly cited combination of “porpoise” and “beagle” seems awkward to me, but there are a number of other etymological theories to pick from. They are built for speed, with crescent tails for powerful strokes, keels on the base of the tail for balance, and large gills for better efficiency. These adaptations help them chase after mackerel and other schooling fish to eat.

Their playful antics have been widely documented. They play tag using kelp, as mentioned above, as well as playing catch with driftwood. They will also poke at fishers’ balloon floats, and appear to be confused when they pop. The phrase “mindless killing machines” is so frequently thrown around with sharks, but the Porbeagle’s actions are causing a number of shark experts to question that concept. Other sharks (including the infamous Great White) have been described as “curious,” but they only have one tool with which to explore the world, and it’s filled with enough teeth to turn the object of their curiosity into mincemeat.

Despite their potential danger (see previous statement regarding teeth and mincemeat), the Porbeagle hardly attacks anyone - ever. The International Shark Attack File lists 5 total attacks, fatal and non-fatal, from the Porbeagle in 2003. Compare that to the Great White Shark with 244 fatal, unprovoked attacks. In fact, looking at the rest of the list, anything with fewer attacks than the Porbeagle either have no teeth, are impossible to find, or are too small to be a threat to humans. The infrequency of attacks may be due to the fact that “if the water is warm enough for you to be swimming, it is too warm for the porbeagle,” but it seems that this is a very docile shark.

One place the Porbeagle will fight ferociously is on a fishing line, and for good reason. Overfishing in the north Atlantic caused population crashes that devastated not only the shark, but the fishing industry that created the problem. These incidents have led to regulations to limit Porbeagle catch. Earlier this year, CITES set trade regulations in place to help save this playful, docile “mindless killing machine.”

My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

A spokesperson for EDGE e-mailed me, hoping to get me to plug their fundraiser. I think they do a great job of informing the public about strange animals, and could definitely use your £2 (about $2.88 if the online conversion calculator is correct).

This month’s animal I found after I discovered that the IUCN Redlist highlighted a new species every day. Looking through past Species of the Day, I saw some familiar faces¹, and a few new ones. One that caught my eye, featured in January, was the European Eel (Anguilla anguilla).
















The lifecycle of the European Eel is confusing, surpassing many arthropods in complexity². Spawning and hatching take place in the Sargasso Sea, the same area that makes up the Bermuda Triangle. As transparent, ribbon-shaped larvae called leptocephali, they eat whatever plankton is available to them. As they grow, the Gulf Stream carries them to the coast of Europe, where they metamorphose into round, but still transparent larvae called glass eels or elvers. Once at the coast, they migrate en masse up rivers and streams. Videos of this seem reminiscent of something you might have seen in a health class.

After finding their way upstream, the eels gain pigment and size in a third metamorphosis, after which they are called yellow eels. Here they spend their time eating small arthropods and growing. Then after a number of years (between five and twenty) they undergo a fourth metamorphosis to adulthood (finally!), gaining larger eyes and a silvery coloration, all the better to survive the open ocean³. However, they have to get to the ocean first, and they will even cross land to get there. Eventually, they find their way back to the Sargasso Sea, mate, die, and the process starts all over again.

There is one main cause for them to go from not listed in 2006 to critically endangered in 2008. They’re delicious. They work as sushi, as soup, smoked, and even as pie. There are eel farms, but those only collect the glass eels and raise them from there. Breeding is still done the old fashioned way, and if that doesn’t increase along with the increased global demand, they will be literally eaten up.

Research into captive breeding (read: more effective farming) is ongoing by fisheries who don’t want to see that size of a drop in a main export. Please don't read that as bitter, as industry support is one of the better methods of conservation. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has set up a program known as Seafood Watch, which educates the public on which seafood is sustainably harvested, and which is being overfished to death. So, watch what you eat.

¹ These are some featured animals from the last year that have been posted here: the Goliath Frog, the Vancouver Island Marmot, the Indiana Bat, the Sailfin Lizard, the Brown Hyena, the Boreal Felt Lichen, and the Chinese Giant Salamander.
²Though, their lifecycle isn’t quite as confusing as Malaria. To be fair, I’m not sure I’ve seen any lifecycle as confusing as Malaria.
³Wikipedia says that they lose their stomachs at this stage. I couldn’t verify that anywhere else, but it wouldn’t surprise me. A number of insects do something similar: the larva’s job is to eat; the adult’s job is to breed.

Look Out For Mr. Stork

I’ve wanted to write about the Marabou Stork for a long time. It is amazingly ugly. It has a bald head, except for minimal scraggly hair. The giant, pointed beak, perfect for ripping into large African carrion, is the color of decaying bone. There is only one reason that it hasn’t appeared on this blog yet: it’s not endangered. Amrita from Not Extinct Yet has saved me though. No, she didn’t go and shoot enough Marabou Storks to put them on the list¹. She found the Greater Adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) which is closely related enough the Marabou Stork to fill its place on Endangered Ugly Things.

Image from MangoVerde

The Greater Adjutant hails from Southeast Asia, roosting near wetlands that teem with its prey. What kind of prey? Whatever it can catch. Insects, crustaceans, frogs, fish, carrion, rodents, even slow ducks. Much like the Marabou Stork (and the vultures they compete with), the ugly bald head is a great adaptation for shoving one's face deep inside a rotting carcass².

Their large nesting colonies form in leafless trees around these wetlands during the dry season. As the water recedes, the aquatic animals this stork preys on are that much easier to grab. The Greater Adjutant uses this abundant resource to produce their eggs, and feed their hatchlings. I can't find any pictures of young Adjutants, but they can't be any uglier than the adults. Come the rainy season, they migrate to other wetlands in Northern India until the next breeding season.

The draining, clearing, and general messing-around-with of wetlands in the area has left only two breeding populations of these giant birds. One is in Cambodia, the other in Assam, India. Between these two areas, there are less than one thousand individuals. Along with the destruction of their habitat, the eggs and adults are also hunted, presumably because there's a lot of meat on a four-foot tall bird.

The Greater Adjutant is protected in the areas in which it's found, but enforcement is not always up to snuff. It seems that there was a big push to stop egg collection, which helped increase Adjutant numbers the next year. Hopefully these conservation efforts will continue to keep these magnificent, if horribly ugly, birds around.



¹ I’m imagining the IUCN listing—Threats: Conservationists.
²Think about eating a bowl of jello without your hands. Wouldn't that be so much more pleasant if you were bald?

Hail to the Victors Valiant

I apologize for the unintentional two-month hiatus. Thanksgiving, leading right up to finals left me little time to search for Endangered Ugly Things. Next semester, I am only doing thesis work and teaching the Invertebrate Zoology lab, so hopefully I’ll be able to get back to my regular update schedule. This specific animal had to wait until after the regular college football season, to not upset my relatives who are Ohio State University alumni.

Image by me

The Wolverine (Gulo gulo) is, for all intents and purposes, a very big weasel. Forty-five pounds big. They are found around the world, under the Arctic Circle. Due to the large amount of food each individual requires, they have massive home ranges, with males wandering around an area of nearly 250 square miles. They can take down large prey (up to Caribou), but tend to scavenge when they have the opportunity.

The Wolverine has gained the same sort of reputation in North America as the Hyena does in Africa—a mangy, dangerous, scavenger (my dad has other names for the University of Michigan Wolverines). They aren’t mangy, but they are mainly scavengers—why fight a moose when it’ll die of starvation soon enough? They can also be quite dangerous, but name a fifty-pound animal that isn’t¹.

I suppose what really irks me is the instant inclusion of scavengers into the “evil” category. Wolverines, hyenas, ravens and vultures all tend to get thrown into this role. I suppose this trend comes from the association with death, but I tend to see them more as janitors. They serve a vital role in cleaning up the ecosystem (would you like to be neck deep in deer carcasses?), and they get absolutely no respect for it. As the mutant Logan states "I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do isn't very nice."

Despite their ferocious image, the mothers take good care of their young, keeping them close and safe for more than a year after they are born. It’s at this stage of life that Wolverines are the most vulnerable to other predators in the area, but when there’s a protective mother Wolverine in the area, that’s not all that vulnerable. Videos of the baby Wolverines are just as cute as you’d expect baby mammals playing to be.

Despite declining numbers due to the expanding range of humans, predator poisoning regimes, and trapping, Wolverines are not listed by the IUCN. They’re not even federally listed in the US (despite multiple petitions for such), due to lack of data on their numbers, though there may be some pressure from groups who still want to trap these animals. They are, however, listed as endangered in Canada. As information grows about these animals, hopefully we can begin to better protect this ferocious (sometimes) scavenger.

¹Dad mentioned the Capybara. Wikipedia says they “…are gentle and will usually allow humans to pet and hand-feed them.” Dang. Alright, smart guy, name a second one.

Unsung- Helmet

It’s been a while since I’ve written about a bird. The problem with them is that they tend to be cute, pretty, or majestic. Except, of course, for the carrion-eaters, but I can’t just write about vultures and pretend I’ve covered the entire class. So, like I always do, I went trolling through ARKive’s bird section and found this beauty.

Image by Doug Janson

The Helmeted Hornbill (Rhinoplax vigil), hails from Southeast Asia, where it spends its time eating fruit, like the majority of Hornbills. They also hunt bugs, using their pointy beak in much the same way that a woodpecker would. This is not a small bird, growing up to around a five feet from beak to tail. Wikipedia describes their call as “hoots followed by maniacal laughter.” Listen to any of the recordings on this site all the way to the end, and you’ll understand what they mean.

The casque—the helmet that gives them their name—is solid, as opposed to most hornbills, which means the skull is about ten percent of the total body weight of the bird¹. This comes in handy, as the males participate in the aerial equivalent of Bighorn Sheep clashes, fighting over females and territory by running head-on into each other while flying. I can’t find any videos of this, but I’m sure it would be amazing.

Their headgear has also gotten them into some trouble. As it is solid keratin, it can be used as a reddish ivory-like substance for carving (called, surprisingly enough, hornbill ivory). As one can expect, this does not bode well for the bird. Well, it was all right when only the natives were doing it², but once the civilized world got wind of this material, things were not looking good. CITES has now clamped down on this, making any trade of hornbill ivory completely illegal. The constant rainforest destruction that everyone has worried about for as long as I can remember isn’t helping the Helmeted Hornbills’ population either.


¹Compare our atypically large head, with about 0.7 percent of our body weight.
²This tidbit isn’t entirely related, but I can’t think of anywhere else to put it: apparently the natives believe that a giant Helmeted Hornbill guarded the river between the land of the living and the land of the dead.

Come Sail Away

I'll be the first to admit that this month's EUT isn't all that ugly, but they can't all be eldritch abominations from the dawn of time. It does, however, look very dragon-like, though the color makes it look like it's straight out of a cartoon.

Image from SailfinDragon.com

This is the Philippine Sailfin Lizard (Hydrosaurus pustulatus). It lives up to its name well, with a tail that would not look out of place on a Dimetrodon¹. As one can guess from the scientific name, the Sailfin is not out of place in the water, using the sail to power its swimming through the rivers of the Philippine Islands. In this case, swimming is mostly a defense mechanism to avoid terrestrial predators, though they have been known to eat crustaceans. This supplements their mostly herbivorous diet of fruits and leaves.

The fact that the males have a larger tail fin, along with their crayon-blue color, suggests another reason for the fin; the same reason Blue Iguanas are blue--it looks sexy. If a male has enough energy to produce a fin that large, and can still escape predators despite being the color of an interstate sign, that means he's got some good genes to pass down to the kids.

The Sailfin Lizard is no longer listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN list. This is not necessarily a good thing. It has been moved to Data Deficient, which means we don't really know how bad it is. Life on a tropical island means habitat loss is almost a given threat, but overshadowing that is the pet trade.

Ah, the pet trade, such a mixed curse. It destroys the wild population, without killing that many of them. If they can be bred in captivity, it means they might be able to be bred to be released. It also means that there can be a higher demand for them, leading to more being taken from the wild. It about killed the Red-Kneed Tarantula and Macaws², but it might save the Axolotl. It looks like it could go either way for the Sailfin Lizard. This guy (where I got the picture) is selling captive-bred Sailfins as pets, and these guys are breeding them the same way to be released into the wild.

¹Dimetrodon are actually more closely related to us than they are to this lizard.
²You do not want a Macaw as a pet. They might be pretty, but imagine having a five-year old child for seventy years. Whose screams can be easily heard for miles. Who can bite through an eighth of an inch of steel.

I'm Not Dead

Last month, Phantom Midge made a wonderful suggestion for an EUT that I hadn’t thought about. I had known about it for ages, and, like her, had been pronouncing it wrong for years¹. Somehow, without any foreknowledge, I’m managing to post this on an exceedingly appropriate day, as today is the 70th anniversary of its discovery as a living animal.

^{Image from Dinofish}

Order Coelacanth (pronounced See-la-canth) had been well documented since 1836, and fossils show that it lived for 345 million years between the Devonian period and the end of the Cretaceous period, when the dinosaurs died out. This must have come as a big surprise for the West Indian Ocean Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) caught by fishermen off the coast of South Africa in 1938. These fishermen were friends with the curator of a small, local museum, and she would frequently check through their catch for anything interesting. Needless to say, something interesting was, in fact, found. Dinofish, who seem to be experts on this matter, have the whole long story on their site in far more detail than I can manage.

Coelacanths spend most of their time in deep (90-200m) caves, where they suction feed on any fish smaller than their head. Exceedingly sensitive eyes, along with an electro-sensory organ help them hunt. These are not small fish, getting up to about 6 feet in length and weighing about 175 pounds, thus surpassing the other “Living Fossil” fish I wrote about². Coelacanth tail fins are split into three fleshy sections, and all eight of their fins move in a mesmerizing, visualized wonderfully—as always—in an ARKive video.

I was surprised the Coelacanth is listed at all, much less as Critically Endangered. I thought there would be far too little information on its numbers and habits to be called anything other than Data Deficient. Analyses of populations in 1989 suggested that there might only be 500 individuals left. The low population, ironically enough, might be attributed to by-catch. This could explain why all the natives were so perplexed when the Europeans got excited by the catch of a fish they knew to be inedible³. Since then, conservation and outreach programs have given fishermen the tools to release the fish directly back to the murky depths from which they came.


¹In Freshman Zoology, I made a list of letter combinations that made an “s” sound. “Coe” always annoyed me, because I’ve never seen it outside of biology.
²Wikipedia has some nice articles about the term “Living Fossil.” Coelacanths are a “Lazarus taxon,” while the Australian Lungfish falls into the wider “Living Fossil” expression. I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to write about an “Elvis taxon.”
³Never underestimate the local population when it comes to ecology.

Put the Lime in the Coconut

Oversized arthropods will always be welcome on this blog. Alright, most arthropods are condidered icky enough, but there is a special type of revulsion saved for really big creepy-crawlies. Well, I've already written about the largest freshwater invertebrate, so the largest terrestrial invertebrate can't be far behind¹. Also hailing from order Decapoda, this is the Coconut Crab (Birgus latro).

Image from Cook Islands Natural Heritage Trust³

When I say "big," I'm sure that you're looking for some measurements to back that up. The Coconut Crab, also known as the Robber Crab or Palm Thief, has a body length of 1½ feet, with a legspan of 3 feet. It weighs up to 9 pounds but its strong claws can apparently lift up to about 60 pounds. Yes, this crab can lift a medium-sized dog.

Why is it so beefy? Well, anyone who has tried to open a coconut with simple tools can answer that. This is not an easy fruit to get into. The Crab will strip the outer husk near the germination pores (those things that make a coconut look like a bowling ball). It will then use one of its legs to punch a hole through the inner husk, and break the coconut apart. Once again, ARKive provides us with wonderful footage of this in action.

Mating occurs quickly and on land, and the female carries the eggs under her abdomen. She then drops those into the ocean, where they hatch into marine larvae that look something like shrimp. Coconut Crabs are closely related to the Terrestrial Hermit Crabs you'd see in pet stores, and the young will find snail shells to protect their soft rear-end. As they grow larger, their abdomen grows a thick carapace, so they lose the need to find snails. Good thing, too, considering their size. They also become fully terrestrial, though they can still drink seawater.

Coconut Crabs are found dispersed throughout islands in the South Pacific. Being a huge crab, no one would be surprised that they're hunted for food. Being an island species also means invasive species like rats, pigs, and ants are a problem for the juveniles. As the islands get more populated, habitat destruction is a problem as people encroach on the beaches. As population estimates vary from island to island depending on the number of people there, the IUCN lists the Coconut Crab as Data Deficient.

Conservation varies from island to island as well. Some places set hunting limits, while others have set up breeding programs. More research needs to be done to really find out how to help these huge creepy-crawlies out.


¹The fact that weight is pretty much meaningless in the ocean leads to some pretty big invertebrates down there. The Japanese Spider Crab²(Macrocheira kaempferi) with a 13 foot legspan wins as the largest arthropod, while the Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) puts all other invertebrates to shame with a body length of 33 feet.
²You can't tell me that picture doesn't look like a video game boss.
³The image that many of you were expecting to see was probably this one, which I would have used if I could have found an original source.

Be Prepared

Many of my readers may know that the Spotted (or Laughing) Hyenas’ (Crocuta crocuta) reputation for being scavengers is undeserved; they hunt at least as frequently as Lions. A smaller subset probably knows about the… um… interesting morphology found in female Spotted Hyenas. I hate to disappoint, but the Hyena I’m writing about today has neither of those characteristics. Meet the Brown Hyena (Hyaena brunnea).

Image from Lioncrusher's Domain

It is much scragglier than its spotted relative, as well as being smaller. Their main food source is dead things, which they find using their acute sense of smell. While most of their diet is made up of carrion, this doesn’t mean they don’t hunt. Do you want to see a moderately ugly animal become instantly vilified? Watch this video of a Hyena on the coast hunting a baby Fur Seal. Of course, there’s no reason for the vilification—the Hyena’s gotta eat.

While they hunt and eat on their own, they come home to clans made of three to five other family members. Females will mate with unrelated nomadic males—just passing through—to prevent inbreeding. Cubs are raised by the whole family, and females will (begrudgingly) suckle others’ young. When the babies are on solids, the clan will bring back food for them.

They live in southern Africa, south of the Spotted Hyenas’ range. They prefer semi-arid environments, though some live on the Namibian Coast¹. They can survive close to urban areas, which is what gets them in trouble. People will find them feeding on dead livestock, and assume the Hyena was the killer. ARKive states: "The brown hyena is a poor hunter, but will often make feeble, frequently unsuccessful, attempts to catch any small animal it encounters." Does that really sound like something that would take down a thousand-pound cow? This kind of persecution lead to the Brown Hyena being listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN.

It's not listed as Vulnerable anymore. Education programs have lead to farmers reconsidering their views on Hyenas. That, coupled with the maintanance of large conservation areas have helped the Brown Hyena back from Vulnerable; it is now listed as Near Threatened. If this continues, it might end up as another "Conservation Success Story," like the Bald Eagle and Lake Sturgeon.

¹One would assume that those are the ones catching the Fur Seals, unless the baby was really lost, and meandered 500 miles inland.

Horseshoes

I have been slacking and I know it. I graduate from the warm, quiet womb of my liberal arts college at 1:00 this afternoon, so I’ve been trying to set up a summer job and a grad school, and the blog has fallen by the wayside. I should be on schedule during the summer.

Greg e-mailed me an article about an endangered rat from Australia that people are desperately trying to protect. Unfortunately, there seems to be little information on the little rodent, but I thought you readers might be interested. This week’s animal is one I’ve looked at for a while, and I’ve just now gotten around to writing about it.

Image by Joan Krispyn

Three years ago, I worked in the Shores department at the Columbus Zoo. One of the scariest looking denizens of the touch pool was the Horseshoe Crab (Limulus polyphemus). With its fierce-looking eyes and pointy tail, it intimidated some of the visitors. It didn’t help that many people thought it was a baby stingray¹.

That scary-looking tail (formally called a telson) is about as sharp as a dulled pencil, and just about as dangerous. When adults migrate en masse onto the dry high-tide zone to lay eggs, flipping is a definite possibility. Right side-up, they present an armored shell to any seabirds. Upside-down, they are a bowl of seafood². The long telson allows them to right themselves, hopefully before any hungry seagulls show up.

The eggs they lay hatch into “trilobite larvae,” who look enough like their namesake. These stay buried for a few weeks, until the right high tide rolls in. They then swim like mad until they are below the intertidal zone. A few days later, they molt into juveniles, and start living on the bottom, living in deeper waters as they age. As adults, they aren’t exactly picky about what they eat; they live off of whatever animals have burrowed into the sand.

I know, they’re not actually listed as endangered, but there are a number of people worried about their conservation. There are two main uses for them, both of which costal states are setting limits on. The first is use as bait for eel and conch fishing, and this seems to be the largest source human-induced mortality in the Horseshoe Crabs. The other use is in medical research, as they are harvested for their literal blue blood (it’s copper-based). This can be used to test pharmaceuticals, but don’t ask me how. Research and education programs are popping into existence to try to help save the Horseshoe Crab before it gets listed.


¹Alas, the Touch-A-Shark pool had shut down years before.
²Upside-down, they also look like face-huggers from Alien.

Buzzsaw

This will not be the first time I’ve written about things with exciting nasal protuberances. I don’t find these noses ugly—they all do nifty things, and I can’t help but write about them.

Image from Elasmodiver

The rostrum of Green Sawfish (Pristis zijsron) is no exception. It uses its saw mainly for feeding—swiping at unsuspecting fish, stunning and injuring the intended prey, or raking up tasty crustaceans from the seafloor. The Sawfish is closely related to sharks and rays, and, like them, has sharp scales called denticles; these have been modified to form the “teeth” of the saw. Catching food is not the only thing the rostrum is good for, as it is lined with motion- and electric- sensing pores to find buried prey. That, and if anything happens to appear threatening, it couldn’t hurt to have a spiky protrusion on… um… hand.

I thought Wikipedia had a typo when it stated that the Green Sawfish grew as large as 7 meters—surely, they must mean feet. Nope. This is a big fish. They reach maturity at 14 feet. Think of the length of a typical bedroom. A little more than half of that is filled with a fish that looks halfway between a shark and a ray. The other five and a half feet is a nose with spikes. Don’t worry; humans are much too large to be considered prey, though you might not want to provoke them.

The Green Sawfish is the most common sawfish. It’s also critically endangered. That doesn’t bode too well for the other species. In fact, the Common Sawfish (Pristis pristis) is pretty close to becoming extinct. The biggest threat to all sawfish is accidental by-catch by the fishing industry. Let’s face it, with a proboscis like that, getting tangled in nets would not be pleasant. Less frequently, they are caught on purpose—for meat, for oil, or for an interesting six-foot long spiky thing. As of yet, they are only beginning to set conservation measures into place.

Blue Suede Shoes

I know I wrote about a bird recently, but as I said before, finding (non-vulture) ugly birds is difficult, so when ARKive has an ugly bird on their front page, I jump at the chance. It’s a bird I’ve known about for a while, but I didn’t realize it was endangered. Wikipedia states that Animal Planet’s “Beastly Countdown” lists this animal as “the #1 ugliest creature on Earth.” I don’t think so; I could probably come up with another ten uglier from earlier posts. But, I suppose, that’s for you to decide.¹

Image from Wikipedia

The Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) is a large stork (maybe), whose beak quite closely resembles footwear associated with 19th century Dutch (compare). They inhabit central African wetlands, where they feed on lungfish, catfish, frogs, lizards, and the like. ARKive puts their hunting strategy quite succinctly: “Prey is grasped from the water in the bird's sharp, hooked beak, which grips, crushes and pierces in one instant.”

When I said they were maybe a large stork, that was because scientists are still working on where to taxonomically put these huge wading birds. They could be with the storks, or the herons, or the pelicans, or the hammerkops². The latest studies put it closest to either the herons or the pelicans.

Shoebills are solitary birds, aggressively defending their territory, and the only come together to mate. They build a nest of papyrus and brutally attack any potential predators. Baby shoebills (exceedingly cute) hatch after a month, can walk after two, and can hunt after three. It takes three years for the young to reach sexual maturity, and they can live up to 36 years.

As the population of Africa increases, more land is required for agriculture, which takes away the swamps necessary for this bird’s livelihood. Like any decent sized bird, it has a good amount of meat on it, and is subsequently hunted for food. CITES is attempting to limit trade, and may make it illegal for any trade of Shoebill parts. Conservation efforts are iffy, as they are found in some reserves, but Africa is notorious for its political instability. Consistent wildlife management is a lot to ask for. There are suggestions that toting these as a great African animal, like the Lion or the Wildebeest, will be the biggest aid to its conservation. The easiest way to do that is to tell people about it.
I feel my work here is done.

¹Every once in a while, people take offence to me calling these animals ugly. I know that this is subjective, but there are animals that people will simply not find cute. The point is to show that those animals are just as important as the cute ones.
²I had never heard of these before. They look halfway between a roadrunner and a ball-peen.

Or Would You Rather Be a Pig?

Well, I saw it was just about time for another mammal post, so I searched through ARKive’s list on the subject. I found something that I really thought was ugly. This may seem like a non-issue (it is Endangered Ugly Things), but I realized that I haven’t written about much recently that I consider ugly. I mean, I try to write about species that don’t tend to make the spotlight, but I like bats and snakes and salamanders. I guess I’m really just hyping this animal up, so here you go; judge for yourself.

Image from Oregon Zoo

This is the Babirusa (Babyrousa sp.), a pig from Indonesia, whose name translates into “pig-deer.” Apparently, the… impressive dentition of the males look like antlers to some natives, but I don’t see it. While the picture may look like the top tusks grow through the snout, don’t let that fool you. They actually grow straight through the snout. While the males do fight fiercely for the females, the top tusks seem to serve only as ornamentation. While the natives claim that males can hang these tusks on branches to support their heads, other sources dispute this¹.

Despite the formidable canines, these swine are herbivorous, even more so than many other Suidae. Since the tusks prevent searching for food by rooting, they rely on fruits, leaves, nuts, and the occasional insect larva. With this plant-heavy diet, they have developed a complex stomach, to the point that some people argued whether they were ruminants, and thus Kosher, or not².

Unlike most other pigs, the Babirusa only give birth to about three babies a year, and are slow to reach sexual maturity. Add this to the facts that a) habitat loss, as forests are being cleared, and b) they’re a pig, and thus tasty, and you have the recipe for an animal listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN.

Conservation efforts are picking up, though. They’ve recently protected a large area of forest that the Babirusas inhabit, as well as increasing penalties for selling their meat. I even found an economic journal that states that, by their measurements, the penalties are enough to decrease poaching of these animals. Alas, captive breeding efforts aren’t going as well, as many of the Babirusas in American zoos are related, leading to definite genetic problems.

¹I’m always cautious refuting native claims. They’ve lived with the animals for generations, so they’ve probably seen some strange things that the visiting scientists only dream of.
²To anyone reading my blog who keeps Kosher: They’ve decided that the Babirusa is treyf, so if you felt like traveling to Indonesia to eat an internationally protected pig, sorry.

Meet Ya Down at the Crawdad Hole

I’ve got some exciting news that isn’t immediately related to the EUT of the week, but is still pretty cool. I got cited by Wikipedia! And, even more exciting, EDGE just put up a new Amphibians chapter… and I got cited by them! For the same post! Looking at my Sagalla Caecilian post, it’s not even particularly in-depth, but it’s somehow linkable by pretty big names. Excuse me while I go deflate my ego….

I found this week’s EUT a while ago, but somehow never got around to writing about it. Like a few other of my past posts, if you take a perfectly innocuous animal and make it huge, it slips right into the ugly category. On a side note, I’m surprised how few crustaceans I’ve written about so far.

Image from RamPumps.com

The Tasmanian Giant Freshwater Crayfish (Astacopsis gouldi) has enough modifiers in its common name that I don’t particularly need to explain its range, its habitat, or its superfamily. Its size could use some description, as it isn’t Giant Salamander or Giant Catfish giant, with a record of six and a half pounds and two and a half feet, it’s still a freakin’ big crayfish, not to mention the largest freshwater invertebrate.

I suppose I could also define its habitat more precisely, as they prefer clean, wooded rivers, and the juveniles are mostly found in headwater streams. Like most crayfish¹, the Giant Crayfish is omnivorous, or, as this site states: “Their diet consists mainly of decaying wood, but they will also consume leaves, small fish, and rotting flesh.”

As a general rule, as a species gets larger, it takes longer to reach sexual maturity, and this is no exception. It takes males nine years and females fourteen years before they’re able to make little Giant Crayfish, and they can live up to 40 years. This, coupled with the completely unsurprising problem of overharvesting, has lead to their decline in numbers, and subsequent listing. The problem of habitat loss exists for the Giant Crayfish, just like it shows up for most headwater species.

Tasmania is doing commendably well in terms of conservation efforts. It has been illegal to collect a Giant Crayfish since 1995, and there have been habitat conservation programs and education programs running around the island in an attempt to save these cute little massive crayfish.

¹I know, I know, not a fish. A lot of the Australian sources are calling it a lobster, and I suppose I could always resort to “crawdad,” but I’ve always called them crayfish, and never thought of them as fish.

Catfish are Jumpin'

I know I’ve been way behind on my posts. My college has a schedule where the semesters are split into a twelve-week section, typically with three classes, and a three-week section, where one takes a single class and stuffs twelve weeks’ worth of information into it. So, the number of posts has suffered—in November due to finals, and in December due to heavy work load¹. So, to make up for it, I’m going to see if I can put out two posts a week during Winter Break. First up, I present more evidence as to why Ugly Overload has an “Oversized Uglies” category.

Image from Fishbase

This is the Mekong Giant Catfish (Pangasianodon gigas), whose upper size limit is nine feet and 660 pounds, making it the world’s largest freshwater fish. They inhabit the Mekong River, the eleventh longest river in the world, which stretches through China, Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam. While the young have the whiskers that give catfish their name, those are lost as they age. I can’t seem to find a maximum age for these, but they can get quite old, considering the generation time is listed as 14 years.

The Giant Catfish is a grazer, eating the aquatic vegetation growing on the bottom of the river, though this source states that they’ll take “other food [read: meat] in captivity.” During the course of their lives, these massive fish will migrate up and down the river, from upstream breeding sites to downstream feeding sites.

As there is a lot of meat on a 600-pound catfish, it came to no surprise to me that one of the major causes of their decline is overfishing; even though that has mostly stopped, they’re still getting over it. Despite this, the Mekong Giant Catfish was moved from Endangered to Critically Endangered in 2003. The IUCN cites habitat loss and degradation—that is, damming and pollution—as the major causes.

Not all hope is lost. In an interview with National Geographic, one of the researchers says that there’s still a chance that these giants can make a comeback. They’ve been working on artificial spawning since 1985, and captive breeding since 2001. These, along with better pollution regulations, could bring the Mekong Giant Catfish back from the brink.

¹I just wrote a ten-page paper on genitalia evolution. Look up the Argentine Lake Duck (Oxyura vittata), if you dare. Or, for that matter, Echidna reproduction.

Up to My Neck in Trouble

I have found that I can no longer visit zoos without specifically looking for EUTs. I suppose this isn’t a bad thing, as it’s always useful to expand my repertoire. On the other hand, it makes the experience slightly insufferable for people who come with me. Sorry. This time, it was again my home zoo, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. There were a few good turtles, but I had to choose one over the other. One had to fall by the wayside, because a) it is slightly cute (as evidenced by my girlfriend going “aww” upon seeing it), and b) the picture didn’t turn out nearly as well¹.

Image by me

The Roti Island Snake-Necked Turtle (Chelodina mccordi) is fairly aptly named. It is found on Roti Island, which is a 460 square mile Indonesian island, and it does, in fact, have a snake-like neck. There is even a video of this turtle on YouTube, taken at the Columbus Zoo. Like a number of EUTs before it, it’s creepier when it’s moving.

For some reason, I am having problems finding specific answers to why it has such an elongate neck. It is an opportunistic carnivore, and having a neck it can whip around is probably helpful in catching the quicker things, like small fish and tadpoles. Much like the Map Turtles and Red-Eared Sliders I’m used to, the Snake-Necked Turtle is semi-aquatic, so it typically spends most of its time in lakes, swamps, and rice paddies.

There are two major threats to the Snake-Neck’s survival. The first one is simply the fact that it has a small natural range, so there were fewer of them to begin with. The big issue, however, is the pet trade. Its sister species, the Eastern Snake-Necked Turtle (Chelodina longicollis) is one of the most frequently-kept turtle species in Australia, and the Roti Island Snake-Neck is paying for it. As demand increases, the most economic thing to do is to increase supply, and up the price. Roti Island Snake-Necked Turtles can fetch anywhere from $300 to $500 on the black market.

This is exactly the sort of thing that CITES was created for. Now, any international trade of this turtle requires the right permits. It’s also been upgraded (downgraded?) to Critically Endangered on the IUCN red list. Other conservation programs have taken an interest, and there are breeding programs set up, though some confusions with similar species² has slowed down the process some.

¹For those who are curious, it was the Fly River Turtle (Carettochelys insculpta), which is neat because it’s a freshwater turtle that looks like a sea turtle.
²As infallible as we’d like to think we are, biologists don’t always get it right.

Here We Come a-Wattling

Well, I had hoped to get this (or something) up earlier, but finals and the end of the semester got in my way. Today, in honor of Thanksgiving¹, I’m writing about an Endangered Ugly Galliform. For those who don’t know the orders within Class Aves off the top of their heads, Galliformes is the order that includes the chicken-esque birds, such as pheasants, grouse, quails, and, of course, turkey². Granted, this week’s EUT is none of those, but it’s the taxon that counts.

Image from Birding Peru

The Wattled Curassow (Crax globulosa) is a seven-pound bird that inhabits the rain forests of western South America. They are fairly omnivorous, finding what fruits they can, but mostly eating invertebrates they find in the flooded forest and riverbanks. Despite spending all day foraging on the forest floor, they roost in trees, though specific information on their nesting habits seems a little thin.

Surprisingly enough, the Wattled Curassow has, in fact, a wattle. Around their beak is a set of conspicuous, fleshy protrusions. These turn bright red on the males during the mating season in June. Another visual oddity in these birds is their crest, which, to my eyes, looks exactly like meticulously gelled curly hair. Their white rumps are prominently displayed in the mating ritual, in which the males make high-pitched whistling noises, as opposed to most other curassows, which “boom.”

As I did introduce these as chicken-like, it should be little surprise that the largest threat to these birds is hunting. The addition of shotguns to the arsenal of people in those areas is cited as the cause of the huge population drop of the Wattled Curassow. Human population expansion is the easiest along rivers, and since this is the Curassow’s habitat, they are frequently picked off.

There are a number of people working on the conservation of this bird. A Bolivian Bird Conservation group has a Wattled Curassow Project in place, and they are trying to find suitable habitats. Ecotourism may be used to better protect their habitats, and many groups are trying to determine how these methods might be used for conservation.

Edit: I just found out that WWF has an Eastern Hellbender plushie. This makes me exceedingly happy, and leads me to believe that maybe I should let up on the WWF just a little.

¹The American one. The Canadians actually hold Thanksgiving about the same time of year the Puritans had theirs.
²I just found out that the North American Wild Turkey is the largest galliform in the world. Neat.

Blacksnake

Image from FWS

In April, I mentioned an Ohio endangered species that got some cable airtime, and rightfully so. Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs¹ traveled to Ohio’s north coast (that is, Lake Erie) to spend some quality time with someone I am proud to say that I (very briefly) worked with.

The Lake Erie Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon insularum) is, like most water snakes, very angry. They’re not venomous or dangerous in any way, just large and inclined to bite and musk. How large, you ask? They can get up to 3.5 feet. This “musking” is a defensive mechanism in which they spray the smelly contents of their cloaca³ all over whomever has grabbed them. It’s not pleasant.

They make their home on Kelley’s Island, a small (8 square miles) island just 3 miles off the coast of “Mainland” Ohio. I suppose that’s inaccurate, as that may be their geographic location, but they really make their homes squeezed among boulders of the rocky coast. From there, it is a short slither into the lake for some fishing. Water Snakes live up to their name well, as they are agile hunters in the water, and eat their share of small fish, frogs, and other similarly sized aquatic wildlife. They may be the same species as the common Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon sipedon), but as a separate population, they are entitled to their own protection.

As Kelly’s Island is a popular resort town, the snakes were not exactly the most welcomed of natives. For years, they were tormented by locals and visitors until, in 1999, there were less than 2,000 left. In May 2000, they were added to the Ohio and Federal Endangered Species Lists, and signs declaring “Save Our Snakes” were distributed through the island. Kristen Stanford, in an effort to change public thought surrounding these snakes, has become the Island Snake Lady, and the Lake Erie Water Snake population is now up to a minimum estimate of 6,500 individuals—not bad for seven years. The way she reaches the public is by reaching the children. At one herpetological meeting, she talked about a grandmother who wouldn’t harm the snakes any more because little Jimmy (name changed to protect the innocent) had talked with the Snake Lady, and the Snake Lady said the snakes were good.

Anybody who lives around the Great Lakes knows that the invasive Zebra Mussels have become an ecological nightmare. Well, not long after they were introduced, a natural predator of theirs, the Round Goby, was also (accidentally) brought into the lakes. This didn’t particularly lower Zebra Mussel populations, and Round Gobies boomed. However, the Lake Erie Water Snake seems to feed increasingly on these alien invaders. If the Gobies eat the Mussels, and the Water Snakes eat the Gobies, we might be one step closer to solving that problem.

¹One of my dreams is to have a research job so disgusting that it can be featured on a show like that².
²Another is to host a show like that.
³Latin for “sewer”. You can probably guess what it is.

Snap Yo' Fingers

This month, I intend to keep with a theme: Local Water Habitats in Danger¹. I could, if I felt so inclined, spend a good long time on aquatic larval insects. However, I would rather keep from stagnating on a specific taxon, so here’s an angry turtle.

Image from National Geographic

The Alligator Snapping Turtle (Macroclemys temmincki) is the largest turtle in North America, and the largest freshwater turtle in the world; it can reach weights of more than 100 pounds. They inhabit any freshwater area large enough to house them: rivers, ponds, swamps, and similar. Their range covers much of the Southeastern United States, and up the Mississippi River to northern Illinois. Alas, this majestic animal does not make it into Ohio.

They’re called Snapping Turtles for a reason. They will sit at the bottom of the pool blending completely with the rocks. Their tongue has a wiggling wormlike projection that acts as a lure for any unsuspecting fish or frogs. Any animal that looks too closely… WAPOW! The sharp beak instantly grabs on. I wish I could find better videos of this, but a search on YouTube brings forth a good number low quality videos of Alligator Snappers doing just that².

The biggest threat to this animal is hunting, primarily for food. There’s a lot of meat on a 100-pound turtle, if you can keep all your fingers³. Since it takes about 12 years to reach sexual maturity, these slow-growing animals need some time to recover. This, along with the issues of pollution and runoff, are why it is listed in three states, and on the IUCN list. Many states now prohibit Snapping Turtle collection, though it is allowed in others with a permit. The EPA has wetland assessment methods in place to limit the impacts pollution will have on those fragile habitats, keeping the Alligator Snapper and its cohorts safer.

¹There is a reason for this. My senior biology project concerns information that never gets from the scientists to the public, such as, say endangered species that people don’t hear about. I want to involve my summer experience of working with the Ohio EPA’s water control methods. Hence, Endangered Ugly Things: Midwest Water Edition!
²Many of them are pets. I don’t like that. A) They’re CITES protected, which, alas, doesn’t stop domestic trade. B) I’m against keeping any animal with the ability to bite your hand off in less than a second.
³Arguably, there’s more meat if you can’t keep all your fingers, but I’m not going to think about that.