Kicking It In Crested Butte and a Little Geology Lesson

Over the summer, my family and I took a driving trip to several sites in Colorado that we hadn't been to before, or at least not in awhile.  I never got around to sharing pictures from that trip, but now that I have some free time on my hands, I've decided to go back and share some of the cooler pictures from that trip!  Let's start in the awesome and beautiful Crested Butte!

First off, a little geology lesson!  According to some of the signs placed along the path near town, Crested Butte* is something called a laccolith.  As you can see on the diagrams below on the sign, laccoliths look kind of like pimples that form at some places on the earth's surface.  First, layers of sedimentary rock were deposited.  Next, igneous rock in the form of magma melted its way through several of the underlying sedimentary layers, as you can see in the second picture.  The presence of more matter caused the overlying sedimentary layers to be pushed up, while the underlying layers remained flat.  

Over time, the magma cooled and crystallized, forming a granite-like igneous rock, with crystals of feldspar mixed in.  By using radiometric dating, geologists have determined that these rocks were formed around 30 million years ago, during the Oligocene Epoch.  Over those last 30 MY, erosion and weathering have broken down those layers of sedimentary rock that once covered the laccolith, and exposed the intrusion.  The intrusion is what makes up what you would walk on and see when you are on the mountain. 

A picture of some of the rocks near the summit of Crested Butte.  You can see a little pika peeking out from behind a rock in the center of the picture!  Interestingly (at least to me), the last time I talked about either pikas or the Oligocene Epoch was in the same post, the "Top Ten Mammals That Look Like Something They Aren't (Part 1)," a fun post if there ever was one!

Crested Butte (the mountain) has been further isolated from the surrounding mountains due to the influence of glacial forces.  Telltale signs of past glaciation are abundant in and around Crested Butte, including the u-shaped valleys, polished bedrock, giant boulders in places where they have no business being, and moraines (defined below), amongst other lines of evidence, all point to past episodes of glaciation.  Geologists have dated most of the moraines as about 22.5 to 16.5 thousand years old, during the last Ice Age, and believe that glacial retreat occurred rapidly about 15,000 years ago.  Even older glacial deposits date back to around 100,000 years ago!  

The scenery was truly spectacular between the town and where we were staying, up near the mountain resort, which in turn was next to the very confusing home rule principality of Mt. Crested Butte.  At times, the path turned into a boardwalk, which helped to preserve the wetlands in the area.  

Towards town, we passed over the Slate River.

A shot of the bridge over the Slate River in the foreground, with Crested Butte in the background.

As you can imagine, the area was populated by numerous birds, several of which I got pictures of.  I am fairly confident that this first one was a female mountain bluebird (Sialia currucoides).

We also saw a ton of killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), a fascinating bird, the adults of which will feign injury to draw predators away from fledlings, nests, eggs, and the like.  I've included a video which shows one of these animals doing its injury feigning!  In case the internal link or whatever it's called isn't working, click HERE to view the video.

Here are the pictures I took of the many killdeer running around!

A few more shots of the amazing scenery!

The next day out the window of the hotel room, we saw a pudgy dog walking by with a neck pillow looking thing around its neck.  A little research revealed that this was a KONG Cloud E-Collar, which pretty much serves the same purpose as the cone that you put on dogs and cats after surgeries or the like.  

Here is another picture of the dog.  This time it is relieving itself.

We ate breakfast at a fun little place along the creek!  I had a pancake that was ridiculously enormous.

There were lots of very pretty flowers all over town, including these yellow or wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum).  

I don't remember which building it was exactly, but one of the buildings in town had the mounted head of what is supposedly the world's largest rack of elk antlers, shot in Crested Butte in 1899 by a man named John Plute.  The antlers were certified as the largest in the world in 1961.  They definitely did look pretty large!

We'll be looking at more pictures from Crested Butte later!  See you then!

*Point of interest and possible confusion: Crested Butte can refer both to the town with a population of around 1,000, or the mountain with an elevation of 12,168 feet.  If you hear someone talk about Mt. Crested Butte, then they are most likely referring to the home rule principality by that name.  I don't really know what a home rule principality is, and a little bit of research nearly put me into a deep, trance-like state.  

Crested Butte on Dwellable

Works Cited:

The New World Vultures: Top Ten Vultures (Part 2)

On Thursday, I published the first of our two-parter "Top Ten Vultures" posts, all in honor of International Vulture Awareness Day!  (Learn more HERE.)  In the last post, we looked at only the Old World Vultures, a group of birds that are native to Asia, Africa, and Europe.  Today, we will be looking at the New World Vultures who, despite their name, are not actually very closely related to the Old World Vultures at all!  Instead, the similarities in body design between the two different groups is a result of one of my favorite topics of all time, convergent evolution!  So let's do it: the last five of the top ten!  Meet my favorite five New World Vultures!  (For the previous post in the Top Ten Vultures duology, click HERE.)

5.  Number five on the list is the turkey vulture, a classic vulture for us Coloradans!  The only vulture alive today in Colorado (I suppose the occasional black vulture may wander in from the south), the turkey vulture is what many people think of when they hear the word "vulture."  I have noticed a lot (thirty or more) of turkey vultures circling this one place on the CU Boulder campus, so I am planning a little excursion to figure out what it is that is drawing them to that particular spot in such large numbers!  Recently, the folks at the Raptor Education Foundation brought a turkey vulture in to the Best Western Denver Southwest, a fun hotel that is currently undergoing renovations to become a functioning natural history museum!  (REF website HERE, BWDS website HERE.)  So here are some awesome pictures from that event!  If you guys ever get a chance to check out one of the presentations given by the folks at the Raptor Education Foundation, you definitely should go, it is a REAL treat!  In the pictures below, you can see the curator of the foundation, Anne Price, holding the turkey vulture, while the director, Peter Reshetniak (background), tells us a great deal about the bird!

4.  With nearly a ten foot wingspan, the California condor is the largest flying bird in North America!  (If you're having trouble visualizing ten feet, either go purchase ten one-foot long rulers and lay them end to end or, more simply, go find a good-sized California condor and stretch out its wings.  That's probably the best visual right there.)  The California condor is unfortunately labeled "Critically Endangered" by the IUCN, and it has experienced a pretty good comeback, and hopefully will continue to do so well into the future!  According to the IUCN website, the last six remaining wild individuals were brought into captivity for captive breeding purposes, making the species "Extinct in the Wild."  However, due to intense involvement from scientists, the species is on the rise, with around 213 individuals in the wild!

3.  Meet the only fossil vulture on our Top Ten list, Phasmagyps!  Some paleontologists are unsure whether Phasmagyps is actually a vulture, and this uncertainty is definitely understandable, as Phasmagyps is known from but a single bone!  If it is a vulture, then Phasmagyps might be the oldest known New World vulture!  Discovered in a Colorado quarry containing a number of fossils belonging to a 35 million year old rhinoceros called Trigonias, this single bone is now housed in the collections facility of the University of Colorado Boulder!  I'm not really sure what I'm doing yet, but I've tried to input a request to check out the bone, we'll see how that goes!

2.  Meet the Andean condor, one of the largest flying birds alive today, with more than a ten foot wingspan!  With an incredible lifespan of over 75 years in captivity, the Andean condor, much like most animals that live for a very long time, does not reproduce very quickly: and therein lies its vulnerability.  If, say, half of the population of Andean condors was shot in one year by humans, then it would take much longer for the population density to regain its former glory.  By contrast, if you destroy half of the population of, say, rats, then they would almost certainly regain their former numbers very quickly, as they reproduce at an alarmingly fast rate.  (The same principle applies to the California condor, who we talked about above.)  Fortunately, the Andean condor is nowhere near as vulnerable to extinction as its close relative, the California condor.

1.  At last, we come to my most favorite vulture of all time: the king vulture!  This guy is absolutely ridiculous looking, resembling a cross between a vulture, a turkey, and who knows what else!  It also has a very fun scientific name: Sarcoramphus papa!  Don't exactly know what it means, but I like to think it has something to do with being the Vulture Daddy.  I found on some sources online that the blood and feathers of the king vulture were used by the ancient Mayans to help cure disease, but I couldn't find any more information on that: all I found was the exact same sentence copied over and over again: "The bird's blood and feathers were also used to cure diseases."  An enigmatic sentence for a very engimatic looking bird.  But let's face it: it just looks awesome.

Thanks again for joining us today!  I do hope I have made you more aware of vultures of an international level!  But seriously, check out their page: http://www.vultureday.org/2013/index.php

The Old World Vultures: Top Ten Vultures (Part 1)

This coming Saturday is International Vulture Awareness Day, and in honor of the event, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" look at the vultures!  Before we dive right in, I must make an important distinction.  Despite the fact that both the Cape Griffon vulture (native to Africa) and the turkey vulture (native to North America) are called vultures, they don't all belong to the same group!  Despite the often startling similarities possessed by these two different avian families, these similarities are not the result of a common ancestor, but the result of convergent evolution!  The Old World Vultures (native to Asia, Africa, and Europe) are in the same group of birds as the hawks and eagles do.  Meanwhile, the New World Vultures (native to the Americas) are just kinda out there, not too closely related to the Old World Vultures, but still birds of prey.  In order to keep this post from rapidly getting out of control (as has been known to happen to my blog posts), I have decided to break this Top Ten list into two parts.  The first part focuses on five awesome Old World Vultures, while the second post lists the last five vultures on the Top Ten list, all five of whom are New World Vultures!  Happy International Vulture Awareness Day, everybody!

10.  We'll start off with the lammergeier!  I remembered this one from a David Attenborough special that I saw several years ago!  This particular Old World Vulture was featured in a brief segment of "The Living Planet," and it was smashing good fun!  (That was a pun.  Unless you display a higher than average familiarity with your Old World Vultures, you probably won't get it.  But you will).  The lammergeier enjoys a nice meal of animal bones, especially the marrow on the insides, but oftentimes these bones are simply too tough for the bird to crack.  To successfully reach the innards, the lammergeier launches itself into the air, bone in hand, and flies upwards.  Once it has reached a satisfying height, the lammergeier will release the bone and, if all goes well, the bone will crack open upon impact with the hard rock below!  To see a video of this fantastic bird in action, make sure to click the link HERE!

2.  The smallest of the Old World Vultures, the palm-nut vulture is definitely quite distinctive, and, at least to my eye, looks a lot like an eagle!  (Not so much in the picture below, though, there it just looks like a bat!)  The palm-nut vulture, unlike most birds of prey, regularly consumes vegetable matter, with the primary component of its diet being the fruit of the oil-palm!  The palm-nut vulture does eat other foods as well, though, including crabs, fish, small mammals, reptiles, and birds.  Unlike most other vultures, rarely will a palm-nut vulture be spotted at a large carcass.

3.  The Egyptian vulture, much like the palm-nut vulture, also has a very varied diet.  This particular vulture also has ties to the lammergeier in the ways it gets to its food!  As is typical of vultures, the Egyptian will scavenge large carcasses, and this carrion is the primary component of its diet.  Just like the palm-nut, the Egyptian vulture will also consume rotting vegetables and fruits and, even grosser, it will eat poop!  (Although it may be gross, it is thought by many scientists today that part of the reason that so many people have allergies is because we don't eat poop!  Well....kind of.  Just read the post HERE.)  The Egyptian vulture also loves to eat eggs, but to get at the soft interior, the bird employs the use of tools, throwing rocks at the eggs to break them open!  To see a video of this, check out the YouTube link below!  But honestly, you might want to mute the video, the guy's voice is SOOOO annoying....

4.  Although this guy doesn't look quite as funky as some of the other vultures that we have already looked at, I really like the Cape griffon vulture (oftentimes simply called the Cape vulture, not to be confused with the griffon vulture) because I get to see them in the giraffe exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo most times we go down!  I was unable to figure out what the scientific name of the Cape griffon vulture, Gyps coprotheres, means.  I found that the genus name, Gyps, means "Condor" in Greek, and I am thinking that the species name, coprotheres, might have something to do with poop, given the fact that the Greek root "copros" means dung or excrement (i.e. coprolites are fossil poop).  However, I couldn't find anything on the Internet that would either confirm or deny my assumptions, so instead of hearing about some fascinating aspect of the Cape griffon vulture's feces, you instead can view some pictures and a video that myself and Grace Albers took at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!

The video is indeed the link below, I didn't just accidentally upload two of the same picture!

5.  Finally: number 5, the last Old World Vulture on our Top Ten list!  Meet the white-headed vulture, aptly named due to the fact that it has a white head and it is a vulture.  The white-headed vulture is an early riser, often the first vulture to arrive at a carcass.  Because of this, it would have been funnier for me to put the white-headed vulture at the very top of this list, but I'm too lazy to change it so you will have to get by with me just telling you about how funny it is.  Often considered to be an "aloof" vulture (meaning that it generally sticks to the outskirts of a group of feeding vultures), the white-headed vulture can be very aggressive, rushing into the midst of a large group of vultures to grab a scrap of food, and then rushing right back out!

This concludes the first half of our "Top Ten Vulture" posts.  Check back soon for the second half, the New World Vultures half of the posts!

The Truth Behind the "Truth" Behind Megalodon

Today, the great white shark rules the seas and haunts our imaginations.  After the release of the 1975 movie "Jaws," the great white shark and other sharks were feared and loathed more than they already were, although much of this fear was unbiased.  Ever since Jaws, hundreds of books, movies, television programs, and more have all capitalized on the shark craze, producing everything from the fantastic Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter specials to the recent TV movie Sharknado.  One of the most popular shark-related features in the media is Discovery Channels "Shark Week," an annual event that features a week of shark-related programs.  Although many of these programs, as is to be expected for television programs nowadays, push the limits of reality, I think that the premiere of this year's Shark Week went too far, and I'm not the only one who thinks that, either.

First off, let's meet the star of this program: megalodon.  Estimates of the size of megalodon have varied widely and wildly, with some older estimates as high as about 100 feet long.  Today, however, most scientists agree that the largest megalodon could grow to around 60 feet long.  Which is still pretty massive, given that most great white sharks don't exceed lengths of around 20 feet, and look at how much people are afraid of them!  megalodon would have easily been able to swallow the average human in one bite: just take a look at those reconstructed jaws, below!  Also, below that picture, make sure to check out the size of just one megalodon tooth.  Suffice it to say, this shark was one massive bruiser.  This shark WAS one massive bruiser.  Notice how I emphasized the "was?"  Well, that's because megalodon went extinct about two million years ago.

Pyg encounters a mid-sized megalodon tooth, graciously donated to my collection of fossils and things that I take to local schools by local paleontologist Wayne Itano

Megalodon sounds pretty awesome, right?  I mean, to be honest, it's one of those extinct animals that just doesn't need to be "sci-fied up," because it's already cool enough as is, on par with other animals such as Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus, and Utahraptor.  Well, just because it didn't NEED to be sci-fied up doesn't mean that television networks didn't do it anyways.  And this years Shark Week premiere was the culprit.  Discovery Channel aired a two hour "documentary" showing "biologists" on the hunt for a megalodon.  Today.  In the present.

One of those extinct animals that just doesn't need to be "Hollywoodized!"  Meet Stan, the resident Tyrannosaurus rex at the Morrison Natural History Museum!  You can see Pig seated in the bottom jaw for scale!  Yeah, this guy was huge.

We have no evidence to indicate that megalodon is alive and with us today, and the "evidence" included in the "documentary" was very clearly doctored.  For example, below is a picture of a whale that has supposedly been bitten in half by a megalodon:

And here is a photo "uncovered from Nazi archives" of a giant shark fin surfacing behind a pair of U-Boats:

The first picture just screams CG.  And the second one....really?  Nazi's? Very Indiana Jones-esque.  OK then, Discovery.

The "documentary" starts off with "found footage" of a "boat capsizing off the coast of South Africa and several people being eaten, but whose bodies were never recovered."  Already, this reeks of a typical television plot.  Especially given the fact that a quick Google search of this supposed incident, as well as any of the "biologists" in the "documentary," yields diddly-squat.  Apparently the prospect of a giant shark brutally attacking and destroying a fishing boat just wasn't exciting enough to make it to the news, despite the fact that every news story relating to sharks and shark attacks spreads like wildfire.  Perhaps the South African press was just busy that day?

People refute our naysaying by pointing out that "we know more about the surface of the moon than the ocean," and "the coelacanth (which you can learn more about by clicking HERE) and the giant squid were only discovered recently!"  Yeah, that's true.  But megalodon is very different from a giant cephalopod or a five or six foot long fish.  We are talking about an active, 60 foot long predator that's feeding on much, much bigger prey than the giant squid or coelacanth would.  The giant squid and coelacanth eat a lot of fish, and are considered to be primarily piscivorous.  The giant squid, although very large, is by no means at the top of its food chain, and is fed upon by the largest of the toothed whales, the 60 to 70 foot long sperm whale.  And two million years ago, megalodon would have made up the final link in this food chain, feeding on the 60 to 70 foot long sperm whale.

Am I saying that there is no possibility that more giant animals exist in the deepest depths of the ocean, just waiting to be discovered?  No, I most definitely am not.  I do, however, encourage you to consider the ecological resources that would be needed by such a massive animal.  With no evidence of mutilated whale carcasses that could be attributed to such a massive animal, and an equal amount of evidence from first-hand accounts....I think that the conclusion should speak for itself.

The biggest issue that I have with all of this is not that a television program was made that packages myths, untruths, and exaggerations: it was with the fact that they packaged it as a documentary, no quotations this time.  Discovery tried to balance out the fact that they blatantly made stuff up to appease some of their viewers by pointing out that they included disclaimers in the show.  Yeah, true, there were disclaimers: but click HERE to see how short and hazy these disclaimers really were.  The disclaimers read:

None of the institutions or agencies that appear in the film are affiliated with it in any way, nor have approved its contents. Though certain events and characters in this film have been dramatized, sightings of "Submarine" continue to this day. Megalodon was a real shark. Legends of giant sharks persist all over the world. There is still debate about what they might be.

Notice how they never really say that none of it was true.  When he gave a press release, the executive producer of Shark Week, Michael Sorensen, said that “With a whole week of Shark Week programming ahead of us, we wanted to explore the possibilities of megalodon.  It’s one of the most debated shark discussions of all time, can megalodon exist today? It’s Ultimate Shark Week fantasy. The stories have been out there for years and with 95 percent of the ocean unexplored, who really knows?”  The part that bugs me the very, very most about that statement is the line "It's one of the most debated shark discussions of all time."  It isn't, I promise you.  It really, really isn't.  I have never heard of any paleontologist who seriously believes that megalodon swims the oceans today.  There might be some paleontologists who won't discount the possibility, which is fine.  Science changes all the time.  But with a complete and total lack of evidence, no serious scientist will really debate that sort of thing.

There's many more issues that people have had with this presentation, varying from thousands of people on social media voicing their complaints, all the way to actor Wil Wheaton, who wrote about the megalodon fiasco on his blog, which you can read HERE.  Others, such as popular paleo writer Brian Switek, went to Twitter:

I do hope that this backlash will cause the people at Discovery, as well as at other television stations, to reconsider what they make into a television program, and consider the possibility that, just maybe, there's a significant chunk of people out there who don't want to be fed this garbage.  I do hope that this causes some changes in any future programming, and if we are all really lucky, this event might spawn a South Park episode.  You have to admit, it'd be pretty perfect.  Let's just cross our fingers, shall we?

Big @$$ Eyes

I recently acquired a laptop for my graduation gift, and have been enjoying the crazy pictures that you can take on the Photo Booth!  I think my favorite way to mess with the pictures is by making our eyes ENORMOUS!  Incidentally, some of my favorite animals are those with gigantic eyes, and after coming to this realization, I sensed a post in the making!  Today, we're just going to take a look at a few of my favorites, but you can be sure that we'll be taking a look at other big-eyed creatures in the future!

The spookfish is an absolutely terrifying fish.  Do I need to say anything more?  I suppose I'll say a little more.  The spookfish is the only vertebrate animal known to ever have evolved mirrors instead of lenses in its eyes.  OK, that's enough, it's really starting to creep me out now.  Time we moved on.

Next we have another oceanic animal: the giant squid!  The record for the largest eyes in the animal kingdom is held by this animal, at around 10 inches in diameter: the size of a dinner plate!  WHAT THE HECK!  These animals live at extreme depths and, and where other animals would fail to see spectacularly, the giant squid is able to live and see quite comfortably!

The only extinct animal that I have included in this post, Opthalmosaurus was literally named after its enormous eyes: its name means "eye lizard" in Greek!  Although it looks a heck of a lot like a dolphin, Opthalmosaurus was a type of marine reptile called an ichthyosaur that swam the oceans during the Jurassic Period.  A bony ring called the scleral ring in the eye of the animal helped to keep the eye from collapsing under the intense pressure of the ocean!

Let's move out of the ocean now, and into the trees: meet the tarsier!  The tarsier is a terrifying little primate that is native to southeast Asia and HOLY CRAP.  I JUST LOOKED UP A PICTURE OF THE SIZE OF THE TARSIERS EYES AND LOOK.  AT THAT PICTURE.  BELOW.

OH MY GOD.  THAT IS INSANE.  AND NOW CHECK OUT HOW BIG ITS SKULL IS.

That is really, terribly creepy.  My goodness.  I....I don't even know what to say.  Let's move on now.

Another arboreal primate, the aye-aye is one of my favorite animals of all time!  Native to Madagascar, this lemur is nocturnal (of course, given the eyes), and as you can see in the picture below, definitely doesn't like having its picture taken with the flash!

Flying above the ocean and the trees are the birds, and the creepiest birds with the biggest eyes are the owls.  The owls and the tarsier both share something in common: their eyes are so big in comparison to their head that their eyes are unable to move in their sockets!  That's why both of these animals have such an enormous range of motion in their neck: to look to either side, they have to move their entire head around!

The First Zoo

Where and when was the first zoo?  Of course, depending on your definition of the word "zoo," different people might have different answers to this question.  The oldest known zoological collection has been excavated at Hierakanopolis in Egypt, dating to around 3500 B.C.  So far, the remains of numerous animals have been uncovered there.  According to one source, 112 different animals have been found, including elephants, wildcats, hippos, cows, hartebeest, baboons, dogs, and an Aurochs, the subject of an Animal Spotlight awhile back!  (Click HERE to check it out!)  Since my source is a few years out of date, it is entirely possible that more discoveries have been made there since then!  Despite all of this, most scientists don't believe this is the first "zoo," at least not by modern definitions, a place where anyone can come and look at these animals.  It is thought that the site at Hierakanopolis is more of a private collection kind of thing.

Most people seem to agree that the first public zoo was created by Queen Hatshepsut, a zoo that people today would define as a zoo.  Not a lot of data (at least not that I can find) exists to tell us what sort of animals Hatshepsut kept in her zoo.  Some of the animals that we do know were imported include rhinos, cattle, giraffes, leopards, monkeys, and hounds.  Presumably, some of the other animals that we mentioned before made it into the zoo, as well.

What other animals could have made it into the zoo?  A lot of this is speculation on my part, but based on the animals of the surrounding area, here are some animals that I think likely made it into these zoos:

• Dromedary camels
• Jackals
• Hyenas
• Crocodiles
• Cheetahs
• Lions
• Jungle cats

There are many reports of other important Ancient Egyptians possessing captive lions, and it seems like captive lions would be a pretty impressive display of one's power.  I find it very likely that both cheetahs and jungle cats were members of the zoos, as well, as cheetahs (generally fairly docile around humans, especially compared to other large African cats like lions and leopards) have been domesticated a number of times throughout history.  These domestic cheetahs were used by many people, including Akbar the Great of India (who was thought to have around 9,000 cheetahs: not to be confused with Admiral Ackbar), for hunting, both for sport and for sustenance.  Jungle cats, too are reported to have been domesticated by the Ancient Egyptians in order to hunt water birds.  Mummified remains of the jungle cat are sometimes found in ancient tombs, put there by the burial people.  (I don't actually know if they have a special name or something).  

This was the birthday post of Grace Albers! Happy birthday, Grace! If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animals, and I will do my best to get a post in! And if you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!

Luxor on Dwellable

Otters of the Americas

Most scientists today accept that there are thirteen extant (still living, opposite of extinct) otters in the world.  Of these, five are native only to the Americas, while one, the sea otter, lives in both the Old World and the New World!  In this post, though, we are going to be only looking at the New World otters, the otters of the Americas!  Let's start up north and work our way downwards!

If we're starting up north, then that would mean that our first otter of the day is the North American river otter!  The diet of the river otter is primarily composed of slow moving, bottom feeding fish, but will eat many other different animals given the opportunity!  Reports of river otters catching and eating snowshoe hare have been recorded, as well!

When my friend Masaki Kleinkopf, my father and I were able to go on a behind the scenes tour at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo with my grandparents, one of the keepers at the grizzly bear enclosure told us a very interesting and funny story!  A few years ago, the four river otters had managed to create a hole in their enclosure large enough for them to squeeze through, and some of them escaped.  One of the river otters was never found, and to this day is still probably roaming the mountainside (unless it got eaten).  If I remember correctly, another one of the otters was captured a few weeks later farther down the mountain, swimming around.  The final two otters were much easier to capture, however, and this is the funny part of the story!  If I remember correctly, the zookeepers figured out that the otters were missing because they went up and visited the nearby grizzly bear enclosure.  Instead of being greeted with the typical blue pond loaded with fish, they were met with a vision of a bloodbath: the waters were red with blood, and there were fish parts everywhere!  And there, on the side of the pond, were two fat and happy otters!

In other river otter news, one was recently captured on a camera trap in Boulder, Colorado, the first such sighting in the area for around 100 years!  Click HERE to be directed to an article to learn more!

Next up, we have the sea otter, the heaviest mustelid, and the only other otter native to North America!  Sea otters also have the thickest fur of any mammal, with around an astonishing ONE MILLION HAIRS PER SQUARE INCH!  Now THAT'S a lot of hairs!  This unfortunately has attracted many, many poachers over the years, and sea otter populations the world over took a serious tumble.  However, in recent years, they have recovered to around two thirds their historical numbers, making it one of the most successful marine conservation movements ever!  The sea otter will also hold hands with other sea otters to avoid floating away from each other, and sometime will form what scientists call "rafts" of around 2,000 individuals!  Click HERE to learn more about the hand holding and the rafts!

Let's take this trip south of the Equator to Mexico, Central, and South America!  The next otter is the neotropical otter and, as you can see by the range map below, is native to all three of those places!  A solitary animal, not a great deal is known about its behavior and habits.

Next up is the second largest mustelid in the world (after the sea otter, of course), the aptly named giant otter!  Although much longer than the sea otter, the giant otter is much more slim.  It is, however, the longest mustelid, growing to lengths of about five and a half feet!  Unlike most mustelids, the giant otter is a fairly social animal, living in groups generally numbering between around four and thirteen individuals, usually composed of one pair of breeding individuals and their offspring from one or more generations.

One of the most interesting things that I have learned about the giant otter is entirely and categorically false: according to one TV show (I am pretty sure it was Survivorman), the giant otter is a threat to people.  I can't remember the exact quote, but in one episode in which he was in the Amazon, he says something along the lines of "I definitely have to watch out for jaguars and insects here, but I've also been told to watch out for the highly aggressive giant otter."  Which is total crap.  The giant otter is often regarded as a nuisance to indigenous peoples, but nowhere have I been able to find anyone saying that they can be dangerous to humans!  I don't recommend that show.

The second to last otter of the Americas is the marine otter.  Much of the marine otter's time is spent out of water, and it rarely, if ever, ventures into rivers or estuaries.  The marine otter is the second smallest otter (the only smaller otter being the Asian small-clawed otter), and, like the neotropical otter, not a lot is known about it.

Finally, we have the southern river otter, another otter about which not a great deal is know.  Although called a river otter, the southern river otter spends a great deal of time in both fresh and salt water.  Some people believe the southern river otter simply to be a sub-species of the North American river otter.

This was the birthday post of Julie Neher! Happy birthday, Julie! Want to see some cute (or ugly) baby animals featured here on your birthday? Well, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in! And if you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!

Alphabet Animals: The Letter Q (Extant)

Of the multitudes of animals, living and extinct, not a whole lot of them have names that start with the letter "Q."  Today, we are going to look at a few of these animals, so next time you are playing the Animal Alphabet game, you are quite prepared to handle whatever your opponent has to offer!  (Unless, of course, your opponent has also read this post, in which case you guys might reach a stalemate).  To make the post easier to deal with, I am splitting it up into two parts: the first one, this one, contains a list of some extant (still living, opposite of extinct) animals that begin with Q!  And yes, in the picture below, I know that the quagga is extinct....I just am too lazy to change the picture.  So you're going to have to find some way to deal with it.

1.  Quoll - A carnivorous marsupial native to Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania, the quoll is often called the marsupial cat.

2.  Quail - A collective name for a mid-sized bird that is often used for consumption by humans.

3.  Quokka - One of the first Australian mammals seen by Europeans and about the size of a domestic cat, the quokka is a marsupial, just like the quoll.  However, the quokka is a type of macropod, like the kangaroo and the wallaby.

4.  Quetzal - One of the most beautiful birds in the world (in my opinion, at least!), the quetzal is a member of the trogon family, and native to Mexico and Guatemala.

5.  Quail Thrush - Despite their name, the quail thrushes are neither quails, nor thrushes.  Native to Australia and New Guinea, the quail thrushes are close relatives of the jewel-babblers of New Guinea!  And yes, the jewel-babblers are, indeed, actual birds!

6. Quelea - A small nomadic bird native to Africa, the red-billed quelea is thought to be the most numerous bird in the world!

7.  Quahog - Also known as the hard clam, the quahog lives in the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of North America.

8.  Quique - A mustelid (often called the grison), just like the otter, the quique is native to South America.

9.  Quarter Horse - An American breed of horse that has been clocked at up to an astonishing 55 mph!

10.  Quarry Worm Salamander - An "Endangered" species of salamander that is endemic (native only to that one place) to Costa Rica.

11.  Queen Snake - A nonvenomous snake native to North America, the queen snake is very similar iin appearnace to the garter snake, and is often confused with it.

23-Fact Tuesday: Strange Evolution of the Wild Pacific

So the other day, I enjoyed a Discovery/BBC program entitled "Wild Pacific," all about animals and humans in the Pacific.  This episode was entitled "Strange Evolution," and boy, were some of these guys strange!  Let's take a 23-Fact Tuesday look at some of these bizarre creatures!  Allons-y!

1.  The dingiso, a bear-faced, dog-sized tree kangaroo native to the rainforests of New Guinea, only became known to science in 1994, showing that there are still many, many fascinating natural phenomenon that have yet to be discovered by humans!

2.  Prior to the arrival of humans on Hawaii, it has been estimated that only one new species of animal or plant washed up on the shores every 35,000 years!

3.  With few terrestrial predators on the islands of New Zealand, the Fiordland crested penguin has moved from nesting along the shore to nesting within forests, moving along freshwater streams to reach their nests!

4.   The young of the Fiordland crested penguin are, of course, born in the forests.  They don't actually see the ocean (although the nests are usually close enough to hear and smell it) until they are about three months old, at which time they embark on their very first fishing trip: alone!

5.  On the island of Santa Catalina in the South Pacific, local fisherman fish in a simply fascinating fashion: they actually use spider webs from the golden orb spider that are reportedly as strong as kevlar to capture fish whose mouths are too narrow for conventional fishhooks!  Click on the link HERE to watch a short and fascinating video about this!

6.  Prior to human colonization of New Zealand, the only mammals that made it to its shores were bats and marine mammals.

7.  With so few terrestrial predators, one bat, the short-tailed bat, actually spends much of its time on the ground, foraging through the leaf litter, searching for the flightless weta, a relative of the locust.  In order to prevent damage to their delicate wing membranes, the short-tailed bat has developed special sheaths on its wings.  Interestingly, this terrestrial foraging behavior is probably very similar to how the bat's mouse-like ancestors behaved.

8.  The flightless kakapo is the world's largest parrot, and has developed sensitive whiskers on its face in order to help it navigate its way through the dark.  It's nocturnal behavior, as well as its size I would assume, has earned it the nickname "the owl parrot."

9.  The favorite food of the kakapo are the tiny seeds of the rimu tree and, since the bird is flightless, it has developed strong claws to help it climb up into the trees to reach the seeds.  Interestingly, the kakapo only breeds when the trees produce a "bumper crop," which is only about once every four years or so.

10.  Due to this odd cycle of breeding of the kakapo, the bird reproduces less often than almost any other bird.  By contrast, however, it lives longer than most others, sometimes up to 60 years!

11.  During breeding season, the male kakapo makes a "booming" sound to attract a female.  The male booms nonstop each night for 8 hours a night for up to three nights, resulting in thousands of booms.  The wind can carry the booms for up to three miles!  The female, of course, only responds to the males booms if the rimu seeds are plentiful.  Click HERE to check out some footage of the kakapo booming.

12.  LAST KAKAPO FACT, I PROMISE!!  The kakapo was almost hunted to extinction by humans for food and feathers, but they are making a human-assisted comeback now, climbing from only 51 individuals in 1995 to 91 individuals today!  (Possibly more, as I believe the television program is a year or two old or so.)

13.  The Australian brushtail possum was imported by colonists for fur to New Zealand over two centuries ago.  With no natural predators, however, it has spread like a plague, stripping trees of their vegetation.  About 70 million of them are estimated to inhabit the forests now.  That's like 350,000 a year, not including the ones that died.  Holy.  Cow.

14.  Introduced species can cause terrible problems to insular (island) ecosystems.  One of the most extreme examples is thought to be Easter Island, where it has been hypothesized that rats were what did in the colony.

15. For nearly 100 million years, the tuatara and its ancestors have remained almost entirely the same.  During the time of the dinosaurs, the tuatara's ancestors were very numerous, but following their extinction 65.5 MYA, they just couldn't compete, and were slowly extirpated across the globe.  Except in New Zealand, where they still reside today!  Incredibly, the tuatara sometimes can go an entire hour with only one breath!

16.  60 MYA, what is now the island of New Caledonia broke off from Australia, and is now 800 miles from the mainland.  This has allowed its native fauna to evolve in new and fantastic ways: such as the flightless, chicken-sized kagu, the only extant member of an ancient lineage.  HERE we have a fantastic video of this ridiculous bird!

17.  The monkey-tailed skink is the largest skink in the world, and is native to the Solomon Islands, an archipelago of nearly 1,000 tropical islands).  The monkey-tailed skink grows to around 3 ft. in length and weighs around 2 lbs., which is about 1,000 times heavier than the world's smallest skink.

18.  The monkey-tailed skink is an oddity amongst skinks.  Not only is it the largest skink in the world (as we mentioned above), it is also the only skink in the world to have a prehensile tail, which it uses to grasp branches while climbing in trees, assisted by its thick, sharp claws.   This is also an oddity, as most skins are terrestrial (meaning they live on the ground), as opposed to arboreal (which means that they live in the trees).  Furthermore, most skinks are insectivores, while the monkey-tailed skink is mostly vegetarian, consuming the leaves in the trees.

19.  The New Zealand kea, named for its call and native to the southern Alps, is considered to be one of the most intelligent and playful birds in the world.  As a matter of fact, some keas will damage cars out of curiosity!

20.  Up to thirty non-native species arrive on Hawaii every year due to humans, such as the Jackson's chameleon, native to east Africa, which was imported in the 1970s to Hawaii as an exotic pet.

21.  Another biological organism introduced by humans to Hawaii was sugarcane.  Like most places that humans visited, however, they also accidentally introduced rats.  And the rats ate the sugarcane.  Well, the humans who were trying to make a profit off of the sugarcane didn't like that, not one bit.  So, in the hopes of extirpating the rat population, the humans introduced the Indian mongoose.  However, what the humans failed to take into account was the fact that the Indian mongoose is diurnal, or lives during the day....while the rats are nocturnal, and move around at night.  So instead of eating the rats, the Indian mongoose eats the native birds.  Hawaii: 0.  Human Stupidity: A whole lot more than it should be.

22.  The ancestors of the I'iwi, a long billed honeycreeper endemic to Hawaii, were blown to Hawaii about 4 MYA, and looked very different from what they looked like today.  It is thought that they looked something like the Palila, a short billed finch that uses its tough beak to tear open tough seed pods.

23.  The last fact isn't from the program.  It's from "The Song of the Dodo" by David Quammen, one of my favorite books of all time.  It's a quote: "Islands are where species go to die."  He means that islands can be very dangerous places for animals to live.  But now with all the messes humans have introduced, that effect has been exasperated.  Just something to think about.