Waltzing Matilda

Recently, a new species of snake was discovered in the Tanzanian rainforest. It belongs to a genus of viper whose hemotoxic¹ venom has no known antidote. It is named after a young woman who has the honor of being one of the first people to take care of it. She happens to be seven.

Image by Tim Davenport

This is Matilda's Horned Viper (Atheris matildae). The Matilda in question is Matilda Davenport, daughter of Tim Davenport, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Tanzania program. She took an early interest in the specimens the research team brought in. They began to unofficially refer to the snake as "Matilda's Viper," and, before long, it was no longer unofficial. Though it seems that Matilda's younger sister now wants a species named after her too.

The location of Matilda's Horned Viper are being kept under wraps, as the researchers fear poachers may come after this exotic and brightly colored snake for the pet trade. They've started a breeding program to provide individuals to zoos to allow the public to get their first glimpse of this gorgeous snake.

On a more personal note, I now have an Etsy shop where you can order needle-felted versions of Endangered Ugly Things. I can even make things just for you; to order, click the "Request custom item" button on the side of the shop.



¹Short definition of hemotoxin: it kills your blood.

Black and White and Red All Over

This marks the 100th post on this blog. To celebrate, I intend to do something a little different from what I’ve done in the past. For this month’s species, I’ll be writing about an animal widely considered to be one of the cutest around. It has become China’s golden child and the face of the World Wildlife fund. I am, of course, talking about the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). While previously thought to be halfway between bears and raccoons, recent evidence puts them squarely in the bear family. Keep that in mind as you read this, as there is a depth to these animals that isn’t widely publicized.




The idea that Pandas eat only bamboo isn’t too far from the truth, as it makes up the large majority of their diet¹. However, they are not above enjoying carrion if they happen to come across it. This is beautifully illustrated in this ARKive video, where a Panda saunters up to a rotting deer carcass, rips off a leg, and sits back to enjoy his meal. There are even reports of a wild Panda killing sheep, though it didn’t eat any of them.

Carnivory is one thing, but surely aggression isn’t a trait of these cute fuzzy-wuzzys, right? I’m sure that’s what went through mind of the drunk man who jumped into a zoo enclosure to give Gu Gu the Panda a hug, right before Gu Gu bit his legs. Or the teenager that scared Gu Gu into biting his legs. Or the man who jumped into Gu Gu’s enclosure to retrieve his 5-year old’s toy. Guess what happened to him. “Not so Cute” or “Not too Cuddly” seems to be the response of reporters on incidents like these. How surprised would we be if these had occurred with a Grizzly Bear? This is just an increasingly frustrated animal trying to defend its territory. The story is likely the same for the Panda in this video, attacking a man sitting outside its enclosure.

While it may seem like I’m trying to vilify the Panda, it's only to prove a point. I’ve got nothing against scavengers, or even dangerous animals. But the Giant Panda just dropped a few levels in the cuteness scale in the last two paragraphs, didn’t it? I’ve got all sorts of tidbits that could make any Charismatic Megafauna seem less charismatic². Putting an animal on a pedestal just makes it that much easier to knock off, and turning an animal into a symbol makes you forget that it’s an animal. All creatures have behaviors that humans aren’t fond of, but we can’t expect them to act like giant teddy bears. While conservation efforts have helped the Giant Panda in the wild, over-exposure of the “cute” version of their life has left more and more people bored by its plight. The solution, as I see it, is to spread the exposure around to any other species that could use the help. Which is where I come in, I suppose. I hope I’ve managed to achieve that since I started this blog.

I really want to thank all of my readers who have stuck with me through these one hundred posts. I also have to thank my fiancée and my parents, who have helped with editing and ideas, but far more importantly have completely and utterly supported this fool idea of mine for four years. Thank you.

¹ All bears are omnivorous, but the meat to veggie ratio depends mostly on the availability of the food.
²For example, Gorillas and Lions will commonly kill the young of competing males. Chimpanzees and Dolphins commit murder of their own species. Black Rhinoceroses have the highest rates of death from fighting each other than any other animal. I could go on.

Night on Bald Mountain

My fiancée has had a deep-seated dislike of non-human primates for a long time. So when she told me to look at this ugly monkey she saw on the ARKive front page, I was doubtful of its ugliness. I was wrong. It looks like the gremlins from, well, Gremlins (Use this picture for comparison).
















The Brazilian Bare-Faced Tamarin, or Pied Tamarin (Saguinus bicolor), is unsurprisingly found in the Amazon basin in Brazil. Like most tamarins, it spends its time avoiding predators and eating fruits, tree sap, and small animals. They live in small groups, with between four and fifteen individuals.

Their group structure is a reverse harem—the alpha female gets to mate with whatever male she likes. Most tamarins give birth to twins, and the Pied Tamarin is no different. Dad takes care of most of the child rearing (other than nursing, of course), with the other subordinates helping out. The whole group sleeps in one big pile, which I’m sure would be adorable if their faces didn’t look like gargoyles’.

There is one main unanswered question I have about the Bare-Faced Tamarin—why is it bare-faced? What purpose does a hairless face serve? It’s not like these guys bury their head in carcasses, like storks and vultures. My guess, which is only a guess, is that it may have something to do with keeping their head free of parasites. The problem with this theory is that they groom each other, meaning that other members of their group should be able to help with the nit picking.

As far as their status is concerned, the Pied Tamarin isn’t doing so well. They are considered one of the most endangered Amazonian primates due to their small, fragmented range coupled with the constant rainforest destruction we’ve all been hearing about for the last decade. Primate conservation programs, as well as captive breeding programs are working on keeping this goblin-faced monkey around.

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.

Velvet Revolver

I have been somewhat disappointed with the limited ability for back-and-forth communication on Blogger, so, at the suggestion of some of my colleagues at the Writing Center¹, I’ve started a forum on another site, which can be found here. Please visit it, and let’s start some fun discussions. This month’s EUT comes once again from ARKive, though I’m sure I had seen it in the past, and skipped over it due to lack of information. I think I’ve got enough to talk about this time around, so here is the Pink Velvet Worm

Image from ARKive

At a little more than an inch long, the Pink Velvet Worm (Opisthopatus roseus) looks something like a squishy centipede. However, it belongs to the phylum Onychophora, though most of the members look quite similar to the human eye. Velvet worms, as they are commonly called, are quite closely related to the Arthropods, though they lack the jointed legs that give the latter group its name. Instead, they have dumpy-looking caterpillar-esque legs with a pair of claws on the bottom of each.

All velvet worms are carnivorous, feeding on any invertebrate smaller than them. Much smaller prey are simply hunted down and eaten, but for larger prey, they have the coolest prey capture method: twin projectile glue guns concealed in their face, which they can fire up to ten times their body length. This glue is also useful for deterring predators, because no one wants that in their eyes.

Back to the Pink Velvet Worm itself. It has been found in a single forest in South Africa, and this forest has been logged heavily since the 1900s, both for the wood, as well as for plantations of non-native vegetation. These three factors—the small range, the logging, and the invasive species—have conspired to place the Pink Velvet Worm on the Critically Endangered list.

Conservation efforts are still in the works, of which listing is just one. They are putting together education efforts, which have worked in the past for other animals. Also, there are five Pink Velvet Worms in captivity, and hopefully we can learn more about what they do from these squishy little ambassadors to our race.

¹Yeah, I’ve been working at a Writing Center for about a year now. It’s made me a heck of a lot more confident with my writing. There’s no better way to learn something than by teaching someone else.

Velvety Underground

I’m sorry I missed February, but I started the in-depth work on my thesis, which makes it difficult to get into the blogging mindset. However, I have found another parasite that has managed to get listed¹. They live on the bodily fluids of a single species, rarely even seeing the light of day. After that description, I want you to imagine an orchid.
Now, look at this picture.

Image from ARKive

This is the Underground Orchid (Rhizanthella gardneri). While many orchids are parasitic—living as the botanical equivalent of a louse—they produce pretty flowers, so no one thinks twice about trying to save them. The Underground Orchid’s lifestyle is not much different, except for the fact that it looks like a root with a tumor. It lives in the root system of the Broom Honey Myrtle, a pine-like tree from Australia. This orchid produces no chlorophyll, because that would be pointless if the flower might break the surface. Instead, it gets its energy and nutrients from the Myrtle, but it’s not as simple as that. It never is.

I had originally thought that parasitic plants work by putting its roots into the roots of the host and effectively sucking the tree’s blood. Some do. The Underground Orchid, however, is myco-heterotrophic. This means that there is a fungus living in the Myrtle’s roots, sucking out its juices. The orchid then subsists on the juices of the fungus, making this some sort of strange nesting-doll version of parasitism². The end result is still the orchid parasitizing the tree, but with some (unwilling) help from a root fungus.

The Underground Orchid relies on the existence of the Broom Honey Myrtle, and tracts of these trees are being cleared to make way for agriculture. People are also attributing a decrease in health of the myrtle to a decrease in the numbers of the orchid. Preservation sites are being set up throughout the Underground Orchids’ range to help save them. Also, botanists are also working on finding a way to breed these root-flowers in captivity.

¹Just so you know, the Pygmy Hog-Sucking Louse managed to get a mention on QI.
²I’m sure there is some Australian burrowing insect that would suck the juices out of the orchid, making this even more recursive.

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.

When I Get Home

I know, I know. The monthly idea didn't work out so well and I ended up missing August (and almost September). Expect a post in October, or, better yet, suggest an EUT for me to write about. Phantom Midge suggested the Oregon Forestsnail (Allogona townsendiana), but the blog that she linked to was well written enough that I don't think I would have much to add. So, a random ARKive search turned up a big beetle that is one heck of a homebody.

Image from the Zoological Institute of St. Petersburg

This is the Frigate (or Frégate, depending on your language) Island Tenebrionid Beetle (Polposipus herculeanus), and it is the largest known tenebrionid in the world. For all of you non-coleopterists out there, tenebironids are better known as Darkling Beetles¹, and their larvae are far better known as mealworms. In day to day life, mealworms are seen in two situations: you either have a pet insectivore², or you have flour that has been in your pantry far too long.

Now that we know a little about the family, on to the Frigate Island Beetle itself. Sources give it's length as 20 to 30 mm. That might not seem like much, but look at that picture again. That's not a small beetle. They are completely flightless--probably due to their size--and don't get around much. They spend the entirety of their lives on a few dead trees in a small area. The absolute farthest that they've recorded this beetle traveling is a whopping 19 meters³. The beetle is apparently able to find all its life needs on the few dead trees within those 19 meters. I haven't found what it eats, exactly; I wouldn't be surprised if scientists weren't sure. Looking at its kin, I would guess that the rotting trees are their main food source.

The Frigate Island Beetle has a fun defensive mechanism that I wish I had a visual for. It will, when threatened, exude a purple, stinking, staining chemical. I'm sure the t-shirts of the visiting entomologists look lovely after a day of research.

Frigate Island itself is a tiny island within a larger archipelago called Seychelles, just north of Madagascar. Of course, being from a small, pretty tropical island means that two things are threatening the beetle population: habitat loss and invasive species. A recent program to eradicate the rats (it's always rats) was succesful. Cooler still, the London Zoo has a breeding program, and you can even (figuratively) adopt a Frigate Island Beetle.

By the way, the Coconut Crab is also from Seychelles, and is listed as Data Deficient. It will likely get a post in the near future.



¹Not Darkwing, Darkling!
²I, for example, have a tub of 50 in my refrigerator for my Leopard Gecko.
³Even for a beetle, this is small. The American Burying Beetle is not considered a distant traveling beetle, and is about the same size as this one, but can travel two miles on the scent of carrion.

Purple Haze

As a comment on my Copperbelly Watersnake post, Gargoyle Grins asked—very nicely—for a post on the Purple Burrowing Frog. I’m not sure when the comment was made, but I only saw it recently. I am more than happy to oblige a reader.

Image by S.D. Biju via EDGE

Having only been formally described in 2003, there is a surprising amount of information known about the Purple Burrowing Frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis). So far, it has only been found in two small areas in Western India, where it spends most of its time buried underground.

There are two major reasons for its subterranean lifestyle: it’s moist underground, and that’s where the termites live. With minimal eyes¹, the Purple Burrowing Frog relies on smell and touch to hunt. The pointy nose is useful for shoving through termite’s walls, and it has a tongue specially shaped for sucking up the little morsels. The Purple Burrowing Frog depends on termites for more than just a food source. The structures and tunnels built by the termites help aerate and moisten the soil. It is the only burrowing frog that feeds underground; all others simply hide in the dirt to avoid predators.

During the monsoon season, however, the frogs come out to breed. They make their way to nearby water sources, and begin the mating process. Due to similarities to other species, it’s probable that the male temporarily glues himself to the back of the female during amplexus. Since it was only discovered in 2003, there are still quite a few uncertainties about its lifecycle.

Our lavender friends are listed as endangered by the IUCN because the range it has been found in is so small, and the forests under which they dig are threatened by expanding cultivation. Much more needs to be learnt about this animal before conservation efforts can be put into place.

¹Eye reduction happens a lot in underground animals.

Black Bead Game

I really wanted to write about the whipscorpion that Phantom Midge found, but I hate to say, there is little to no information about Trithyreus shoshonensis. So, my fall back this week is an animal that I got a picture of during my spring break trip to the Columbus Zoo. Growing up, I remember learning that the Gila Monster was one of two venomous lizards. This is the other one.

Image by me

Yes, the Mexican Beaded Lizard (Heloderma horridum) looks a whole lot like the Gila Monster. This so happens because they are within the same genus, and the major differences are that the Gila Monster is smaller and more colorful. Not having the hinged fangs of vipers, the Beaded Lizard delivers venom that flows along grooves in the teeth, and delivers by chewing. Digimorph gives a wonderful visual of that—check out the horizontal dynamic cutaway¹ and watch for the hollow bottom teeth. The venom is used mainly as a defense mechanism, and is typically non-fatal to humans—if you get medical treatment quickly enough. The small animals they prey on…well, that’s a different story.

The “beads” from which this lizard gets its name are osteoderms²: tiny bits of bone growing within the skin that lead to its studded appearance. This adds another layer of protection on top of the fact that they can maim with a single bite. They inhabit the scrublands and other semi-arid habitats of Western and Southern Mexico, explaining the other part of their name. Like some other arid-adapted lizards, the Mexican Beaded Lizard can store fat in its tail to provide food and water during times of scarcity.

Habitat loss, due to clearing for agriculture, is one large factor in this species’ decline. The one that really surprises me, however, is the pet trade. I’ve always been an avid fan of reptiles, and have no problems with keeping some as pets. But I draw the line at an animal that can kill me if improperly handled. To help stop this problem, they are listed by CITES, and there are breeding and head start programs to replenish their numbers in the wild.

¹Yes, it’s actually a Gila Monster. The principle is the same.
²Meaning “bone skin.”

Blood Meridian

It’s been a while since my last insect post, and I’m trying to decide if that’s a good way to go about picking the animals I write about. I fully intend to research the whipscorpion that Phantom Midge picked out for me, but I recently wrote about an arachnid—that’s why it took so long to write about the Copperbelly Watersnake. While looking through ARKive’s insects, I couldn’t help but note how interesting names play a part in which organisms I choose.
I just found the Dracula Ant. (Cue thunder.)

Image by April Nobile via AntWeb

It doesn’t particularly look like much. However, note the stinger on the Dracula Ant (Adetomyrma venatrix): much like their wasp cousins, worker Dracula Ants will seek out prey and paralyze it with its stinger, and then… fail to drink its blood. No, it’s far worse then that. The helpless prey are then dragged back to the colony, and fed to the larvae. Once the larvae are satiated, the adults proceed to chew holes in them, sucking out some of their blood¹. This is termed “non-destructive cannibalism” by scientists, because the larvae aren’t killed. ARKive goes on to state (a little creepily): “Nevertheless, when hungry workers enter the chamber, the larvae have been observed attempting to flee and escape their fate.”

As weird as this sounds, other ants will feed outside food to their larvae for digestion, some of which the larvae will regurgitate as food for the adults. This allows each individual ant to have specialized mouthparts for their tasks. Since larvae are always specialized for eating, this allows them to act as a stomach for the colony.

While these miniscule bloodsuckers were first described in 1993, and the first colony discovered in 2001, they are listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Like many animals from Madagascar, the island’s growing human population is encroaching on their habitat. Unlike most other ants, the queens are flightless, so they are that much more susceptible to habitat fragmentation. Their major protection lies in the hands of one guy—Dr. Fisher of the California Academy of Sciences. He was the one to discover the first colony, and he moved a few into his lab. If there is ever a need to start a captive breeding program, he seems to be the go to guy.

Edit: I just got new information (and a video!) on the Dromedary Jumping-Slug. I knew I created that e-mail address for a reason.

¹Technically, insects don’t have blood. They have hemolymph, which translates to “blood-water,” which is a pretty good definition of what it is.

Let a Frown be Your Umbrella

It’s been a while since I’ve written about birds. The major problem with them is that they tend to be, well, cute. With vultures, much like snakes, it is easy to throw them all in due to deep-seated associations people have with the whole taxa. So, I set out to find an ugly, non-carrion eating bird. What I found was a Muppet.

Image from Oriental Bird Club

This is the Sri Lankan Frogmouth¹(Batrachostomus moniliger), and I believe that if Jim Henson set out to create an animal, this would be the result. A comically wide, flat mouth. Bulbous, ping-pong eyes. A single, large eyebrow. Remind you of anyone²? There are good reasons for each of those traits, and in fact, the Sri Lankan Frogmouth is not the only one with those traits. There are a number of other Frogmouths—a relative of the Nightjar—though none look quite as cartoony as the Sri Lankan.

As a nocturnal insectivore, the Frogmouth needs to be able to pick moths out of thin air, while flying through dense jungle. This explains both the gigantic eyes, and the gaping mouth acts as a funnel to increase the chance of an unsuspecting insect getting drawn into their maw. I’m not sure of the exact purpose of the monobrow, but it certainly aids in the magnificent camouflage. These birds are able to sit perfectly still atop a mossy branch and look like nothing more exciting than a stump. While I can’t seem to find a major predator, there seem to be plenty of choices.

Alas, it was only after I had decided that I needed to write about this animal that I found out… it’s not really endangered³. For a time, it was considered Near Threatened (possibly due to its amazing camouflage), and ARKive suggests that if habitat loss by non-sustainable agriculture were to get out of hand, it could go right back there, or worse. And, frankly, such a thing is not hard to imagine.

¹Please watch the videos. It's even stranger looking when it moves.
²If you really want to freak yourself out, compare the pictures side-by-side.
³I would like to know what you think about this week’s other option, the Bare-Headed Rockfowl. Is it ugly enough for a future post? I value your opinions.

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.

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.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's a Gliding Mammal!

Image from Colugos.com

I don’t have any good quips for an introduction this week, but I’d like to let you know that this genus is much creepier in motion. Start this video at 5:31 to see it¹.

The Philippine Colugo (Cynocephalus volans) is also known as the Philippine Flying Lemur. I won’t use that term again in this post for two major reasons: a) it doesn’t fly², and b) it’s not a lemur. It is from the Philippines, so I can keep with that. They fit into the many, many gliding animals that are given the name “flying ___”³. There are only two species of Colugo, both in the genus Cynocephalus, which means “dog-headed,” which seems to be an accurate description. The Order, which is not too distantly related to the primates, is Dermoptera, which means “Skin Wing.” They’re not actually wings, but membranes that extend from the tips of their fingers to the ends of their toes.

Colugos spend their days in tree hollows. In the evenings, they dine on young leaves, which aren’t terribly nutritious (but more so than the older leaves), and run out on an individual tree fairly quickly. This is all right because, since they live in the Philippine jungles, fresh, new leaves are just a short glide (or not, they can glide for about 100 meters) away. Their hands and feet end in sharp claws for grasping onto trees, which is helpful if you never touch the ground in your life.

Young Colugos are born early and undeveloped, much like a marsupial. However, the mother lacks a pouch, so, instead, she folds up her tail and carries the young there until it can fend for itself. This means a mother can only have one, or at most, two, every few years.

Of course, a low birth rate means slow recovery from any threats that these animals face. The biggest threat, no surprise, is habitat loss. They don’t have a very large range, and the area is being developed fairly rapidly. Since they are wild herbivores, and like a good rubber tree leaf as much as anyone (probably more), plantation owners frequently regard them as pests, and deal with them accordingly. Habitat fragmentation is also causing a problem, as individual populations get cut off from one another, leading to less genetic diversity.

¹If you’re interested in African Hunting Dogs, Indian Tigers, or the Amur Leopard, feel free to watch the rest of it.
²The difference between flying and gliding is simply the fact that fliers are able to increase velocity in midair, while gliders just fall really slowly.
³ Squirrels, snakes, “dragons”, squids, frogs, fish, and geckos, to name a few.

Calling On - Weta

I was going to write about the Hairy Marron, the fuzzy crayfish from Australia, but I couldn’t find enough information about it, least of all why it’s hairy. So, this week’s post is about the other arthropod I mentioned in the footnote of the Hunter Slug post.

Image by Gerald Cubitt via ARKive

Wetas are cricket-like insects native to New Zealand and frequent (possibly even preferred) prey of Tuataras. The Poor Knights Weta (Deinacrida fallai) belonging to the genus of Giant Wetas¹, is amongst the largest insects in the world. They approach 8 inches in size when mature. As they are flightless, being light is not a concern, and thus, when laden with eggs, they can be heavier than sparrows.

The Poor Knights Islands are two small, uninhabited islands off the coast of New Zealand, apparently named for their resemblance to French Toast. Personally, I don’t see it. The islands are a nature reserve, and the 800 meters around the islands are protected as a marine reserve, and apparently a great diving spot². The trees on these islands are where these Weta live, moving to the ground to lay eggs. They may also live on another nearby island, as a Giant Weta fecal pellet was found there. Please, don’t ask me how they determined that it was from Giant Weta.

Poor Knights Wetas are nocturnal and herbivorous, and their main defenses lie in being gigantic and spiky. An adult female can lay 200 to 300 eggs per clutch, which appears to be a one-time deal in a two-year lifespan. They’re listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, even though they don’t seem to be declining. What they’re really worried about is the small size of their distribution, contained to small islands. They're also worried about the risk of a simple introduction of a non-native predator and its effects. The Wellington Zoo in New Zealand has a breeding program, both as a safeguard against extinction, and for public education.

¹The genus name, according to Wikipedia, means “Terrible Grasshopper”.
²At least, according to the Tourism Department

Gut Feeling

Well, this week I had intended to write about the African Wart Frog, which is both incredibly cute and unbelievably ugly at the same time. Alas, I couldn’t find enough information about it, so I had to find another amphibian to take its place¹. This one seemed to fit due to the fact that the WWF catalog that I mentioned in the last post was about “Wildlife Families.”

Image by Ella Tyler via EDGE

This is an image of the Southern Gastric-Brooding Frog (Rheobatrachus silus). In 2002, they were moved from their status as endangered to extinct². They looked like the typical grey and semi-aquatic frog, but their name gives away everything they were as parents. After mating, the female eats the eggs. Literally—there is no special mouth-pouch or anything like that; the eggs go straight into the stomach. This isn’t too much of a problem, since the female shuts down her digestive tract and does not eat anything from six to seven weeks. By this time, the frogs turn into froglets, and are ready to hop out of her mouth.

Living in Southern Australia, they were never found more than 12 feet from water. When they weren’t raising the kids, they’d eat all the insects they could catch. Their extinction is a mystery. The feral pigs that reside in the same habitat and the disruption of the water flow obviously couldn’t help, not to mention the problems that global climate change is causing all amphibians, what with more drought and higher UV levels. I suppose this makes the real mystery which one caused the most damage. If anyone was wondering why we care about the extinction of the Gastric-Brooding Frog, medical science will never know how the females turned off their stomach acid. Looks like I’ll have to stick with Nexium. Scientists have been on the lookout for them, but alas, none have been seen since 1981.

¹All right, it didn’t have to be an amphibian, but I really do try to be all-inclusive when it comes to the major taxa. Since it’s been about two months since the last amphibian, I thought it was time for another one.
²I was really trying to avoid using the past tense to make this a blow at the end, but the thought of writing three paragraphs without any forms of “be” seemed too difficult.

Hunter S. Slug

Much the same way I found the Astingy Leaf Chameleon, I was searching ARKive for some good invertebrates. I could probably spend a good month on animals picked solely from that section, but the two that stuck out the most were the Pondoland Cannibal Snail and the Snake Skin Hunter Slug¹. Since I was having problems deciding which one to write about, I asked a friend who randomly picked the slug. Don’t worry, I’m sure the Cannibal Snail will show up soon.

Image by Dai Herbert via ARKive

The Snake Skin Hunter Slug (Chlamydephorus dimidius) is everything its name suggests²: dark grooves on the skin give it a scaly appearance; it is a vicious predator, eating snails and millipedes, and possibly earthworms. How it hunts, I can’t find, but I’m sure any videos of the kill would be ripe material for Animal Planet. This hints at a serious problem with the Hunter Slug. There’s a lot unknown about it. So, we know it lives in the forests of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, and it’s carnivorous. Other than that… there’s not a whole lot. How and when they reproduce, who knows? What are its major predators? No idea. The Hunter Slug’s only protection come from the fact that they live in a few protected areas.

I know this is a short post, but this lack of information is a big issue for literally thousands of species like the Snake Skin Hunter Slug. Scientists simply don’t know enough about the organism to properly protect it. The only way to help these species is to learn more about them. This is my form of activism. If I can teach people about things that need their help that would otherwise go unnoticed, I feel that I have done my job.

¹Others include the Hairy Marron, which is a fuzzy crayfish, and the Poor Knight’s Weta, which is a giant cricket-like thing.
²Unlike some, such as the Puritan Tiger Beetle, the Hermit Ibis, or the Three-toothed Snail.

Karma Chameleon

All right, so this’ll be the second EUT in a row from Madagascar (and third total), but I saw this animal on ARKive¹, and it was so cutely hideous (or hideously cute, I’m not sure), that it needed to be written about.

Image from Animal Diversity Web

This is the Astingy Leaf Chameleon (Brookesia perarmata²). The Brookesia genus contains the smallest chameleons, and in fact, some of the worlds smallest reptiles. One picture on this website shows one sitting comfortably on a gum wrapper with lots of room to spare. The Astingy Chameleon, also known as the Armored Chameleon, isn’t quite that small, growing to a whopping five inches.

Astingy Chameleons aren’t quite your typical chameleon. Sure, they’ve got the zygodactyly, the projectile tongue, and independent eye movement, but no color change, and no prehensile tail. Actually, most of the Brookesia genus is collectively known as the stump-tailed chameleons. As a forest floor-dwelling species, prehensile tails are pointless, and, when the idea is to look like a dead leaf, and one is this good at it, why bother to change colors? They enhance the leaf-mimicry by rocking in the wind, and, when frightened, falling to the ground, motionless.

Astingy Leaf Chameleons are named after their home, the Astingy region of Madagascar. Since Madagascar is hot and muggy all year round, there is no real mating season, though it is thought that it tends to occur in the rainier times of the year. Eggs are laid under the leaf litter, where the constant background level of decomposition nicely regulates the heat and moisture content of the nest.

When you first saw the picture, I’m sure you either thought it was hideous or you wanted to take it home. I’ll admit, I was one of the latter--that’s the problem. The pet trade³ has affected chameleon populations worldwide. Granted, the Armored Chameleon has this problem less than the more colorful ones, but it’s still enough that CITES has put it on their list. Deforestation, as the human impact on Madagascar rises, causes habitat to be lost for our spiky friend here.

¹I’ve got to get around to e-mailing them to see if they’ll let me use their pictures here instead of just linking to them. They’ve got the strangest species, all on the IUCN redlist, which is exactly what I need.
²Mike, I’m liking the scientific name translations. Keep it up.
³Hm… this is the first EUT to have a problem with the pet trade. Does that make it cute? Nah.

Secret Agent Bat

It’s been a bit since I’ve written about a mammal (actually, a month to the day) so I decided to raid the EDGE¹ website, which deals with exceedingly endangered mammals, many of which are, unsurprisingly, small-rodent looking things, simply due to the large percentage of small-rodent looking mammals² (those may come later). In this post, however, I’ll to tell you about a bat with the coolest adaptation ever: suction cups.

Image from EDGE

Yes, the Old World Sucker-Footed Bat (Myzopoda aurita) has, as its name suggests, suction cups on its wrists and ankles. Because of this adaptation, it can attach itself in cheesy-‘60s-spy-film style to the sides of broad leaves and smooth stems, hence the title of the post. Otherwise, it looks much like any other microchiropteran (echolocating bat, as opposed to the fruit bats), with ears bigger than its head and small, beady eyes. As my grandmother put it, it looks like a bulldog with fins.

There is little known about this bat’s specific habits. It is a moth-eater (mostly) and may require specific broad-leaved palms to roost upon. Researchers believe the glands in the suction cups might produce a glue-like substance (since we all know how long those plastic suction cups stick normally). While most bats are observed by mist netting, the Sucker-Footed Bat (such a cool name!) maneuvers well enough to avoid them, leading to even less certainty about this animal’s lifestyle.

They’re found only on the eastern edge of Madagascar, though evidence suggests it once (in the Pleistocene) inhabited most of eastern Africa. Loss of habitat has certainly negatively affected the bat’s populations, and sadly, there aren't many conservation efforts in place (although just telling you about it has helped the situation just a little bit). Scientists have recently found another species in the same genus, making it possibly a little less Evolutionarily Distinct.

Oh, by the way, the last suggestion I got was that post last month that I talked about. I’m kind of hard up for new ideas. Pleeeeaaase?

¹That stands for Evolutionarily Distinct Globally Endangered, meaning that once these animals are extinct, nothing like them will exist in the world. Kinda chilling, isn’t it?
²Just because I’m describing them all as “small-rodent looking mammals” does not mean they’re all the same. Small-rodent looking mammals are exceedingly diverse.