Quarantine entry #71 - May 31

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just look at all the excitement, (word used in a negative way), surrounding the demise of George Floyd. It is a horrible thing, an awful thing, something that gone down really wrong – and now the entire U.S. is shaking because of it. Why?

The answer, of course, is ‘why not’, deep beneath. The American society is exhausted by the lockdown/self-isolation/quarantine/etc., this process was already breaking down, when George Floyd died, and now it is being thrown out as the proverbial baby with the bathwater, in all of the- in everything. Some people, according to Associated Press, claim that it is all the ‘outsiders’ fault, but I say to them – look at the Donald. When Tayler Swift is schooling you, then you know that you are in the wrong.

No, really, Taylor Swift, who once got embroiled in a fight with the Kardashian-West clan, has a better grip on the situation than the Donald does – and meanwhile, shit is hitting the fan from Miami to Seattle. The governor of California is ordering a lockdown in L.A., (though not citywide, admittedly). Yeesh!

…And on the other hand, Elon Mask’s SpaceX program is progressing at a steady pace – the latest rocket either had a breakthrough and went to space, or had a breakdown and exploded once again. What does COVID-19 have to do with it?

Everything in the background. People were sick and tired with isolation to begin with, and were looking for a good excuse to end it, and they got one, and it is one of the worst ones ever, (no, we are not talking of the SpaceX rocket here). Therefore, now, the lockdown has effectively ended, (no really), and with a fiery explosion too. USA! USA! They are not even trying to blame the RF for this one, thank God. Maybe there is hope for the Americans yet. What next?

Well, today I wanted to talk about the hippos instead. Why? Well, why not? After elephants and rhinos, they are the biggest land mammals of the modern world…though that is a relative term, as I may’ve mentioned it: a hippo, an elephant, a rhino, and a human can all stand on the black of a blue whale, and the marine giant won’t even notice their combined weight, so there!..

…Whales, (or rather – the cetaceans), are mentioned here for a reason: the hippos are their closest relatives out of all the mammals, and share many traits with the cetaceans, including a dependency on the water to live; there are important differences too, but that brings us to taxonomy, actually.

As people do not talk very often, there are two species of hippos in the modern world – the common hippopotamus, (aka Hippopotamus amphibius), that everyone knows about, and the much more obscure pygmy hippopotamus, (aka Hexaprotodon liberiensis), which has a much smaller distribution than their larger cousin does, (the two mammals may share the biological order and family, but each belongs to its’ own genus), is much smaller than the common hippopotamus is, period, and is also – proportionally more terrestrial than the common hippopotamus is. Pause.

Let us start again. The common hippopotamus lives… in fresh water, yes, but it also comes aground, where it prefers open spaces. Of course, it is also big and heavy enough to muscle its way through most of riverside vegetation (and beyond), and combined with its’ grazing, the common hippopotamus can turn many an overgrown space into open space instead.

The pygmy hippopotamus is much shier and more retiring, and while it spends more time on land than it cousin does, the land in question is the African jungle, which is much more obscure, dark, damp and less assessable to humans than the African savannah is. As such, the pygmy hippopotamus’ effect on the landscape is much smaller too, and as a result, people became aware of it much later than of the common hippo, (and no, I’m not talking about just the Europeans and Americans, but about the other people too, such as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, who became aware of the common hippo fairly early in the human history), and they began to interact, (hunt, capture, study, etc.), with this species much later than with the common hippo too. Such two superficially similar (closely related) mammals and two such different fates!..

…As for the Biblical Behemoth, which might have been inspired by the common hippo? The jury is still out on this one – it might be a hippo… or a rhino, an elephant, even an African buffalo, which we really should discuss one of those days, as we’ve discussed its’ cousins the bison, the yak and the zebu earlier.

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #70 - May 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so I am not certain how regular I will be able to update my blog in the next couple of days. Now, where were we?

Ah, yes, storks. I am quite aware that they rhyme with ‘dorks’, so, a warning – we will be talking about the actual birds. We have mentioned them already, especially when we have talked about ibises, spoonbills, and herons – how initially storks were considered related to those birds, but now they consist of their own order, more closely related to the pelicans instead.

How are the storks different from the other three avian groups, again? The storks’ beaks are long and thick, with the herons’ being thinner and sharper (looking), the ibises’ beaks are usually curved downwards, and the spoonbills’… do we even need to go there? In addition, the storks are larger than the herons and ibises, proportionally, at least. What is next?

There are six genera of existing storks, (there are quite a few discoveries of fossil/extinct stork species), and many species of storks. The most iconic storks in Europe/Eurasia are the common white stork (Ciconia ciconia), and its’ counterpart, the black stork, (Ciconia niger). Unlike the swans, where a black swan is a symbol, the black stork is not anywhere as popular; for a while, it was considered to be endangered, but not anymore, (unlike, say, their cousin the oriental stork Ciconia boyciana… previously considered to be a subspecies of the previously mentioned white stork).

In North America, the best known and the only stork is the wood stork Mycteria americana instead. Its’ cousins are found in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia instead.

…So is the marabou stork, but it is a close relative of the adjutant storks instead, (there are two species of them, the lesser and the greater). This trio of storks, (aka the genus Leptoptilos), may be some of the most terrestrial storks, the largest and the most aggressive; the marabou, in particular, is known for being a scavenger about on par with Africa’s vultures; like them, it eats carrion, and armed with its’ formidable beak, it isn’t shy from confronting them either. The adjutant storks are less formidable than the marabou is, and the lesser adjutant in particular is found more in wetlands than in savannahs, but they all look more like each other than like the other storks.

This brings us to ‘Storks’ the 2016 film, which founded on the old ‘storks bring babies’ premise. Hans Christian Anderson, who has also written ‘The Little Mermaid’, on whom the Disney classic was based, cough, has even written a short fairy tale about a white stork family. Why white? Because they are the most social European stork species; the aforementioned black storks, for example, actually shy away from humans, and are not anywhere as social even of each other as the white storks or the marabous are.

…The Andersen’s fairy tale, in particular, is a much more cut-and-dry type of tale than ‘The Little Mermaid’ had been; but there are folklore elements – both of storks bringing babies to humans and of storks have human-like societies with leaders and courts, where they execute their disloyal spouses or the weaker storks that cannot fly south for winter, for example. Both concepts are folklore, they were generated by generations of people who had lived along the white storks, and who have given them human-like characteristics, even though this bird isn’t too human-like in appearance. Ah well, familiarity breeds… well, contempt, yes, but also comfort and acceptance. The white stork is not the only bird to benefit from this situation – the painted stork of India and the sacred ibis of Egypt are more cases of such turnout of events – and the birds have benefitted from that familiarity, it seems… Ah well, such are the oddities of human/animal interaction!...

…Also, for now, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #69 - May 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but everybody knows it… What is next?

Let us talk about zebras instead. As everyone knows it, they are the wild, striped, (black and white), horses of Africa… only not.

Yes, zebras are kin to horses and donkeys, (as well as to the rhinos and the tapirs), and they look like horses covered in stripes. In reality, however, the genetic evidence shows that zebras and horses, (both wild and domestic) are the most distant relatives out of the three equine groups; the zebras and the donkeys, (again, both wild and domestic) are much closely related to each other than they are to the horses, no matter how similar the three groups of perissodactyl mammals may look to each other.

…’Perissodactyl’ means ‘odd-toed’ – horses, zebras and donkeys have a single toe on each foot; the much more massive and robust rhinos and tapirs have three toes on their front legs, and four on their hind. The artiodactyls – even-toed ungulates – have two or four toes on each foot, an even number instead. Next?

…The two groups of herbivores are not close relatives to each other; the artiodactyls, in particular, these days are recognized as the sister group of cetaceans – whales, dolphins and porpoises. The latter names are informal themselves, and are gradually being taken out of circulation or are being clarified and reworked in various official sources themselves.

None of that involves the perissodactyls – they are their own group, (ok, a biological order), separate from the cetacean—artiodactyl team. In the past, they had their own aquatic representatives… actually, the Malaysian tapir and the Asian species of rhinos still spend a lot of time in the water; moreso than the South American tapirs, let alone the African rhinos, which are the most terrestrial of the bunch, as well as the most biggest.

Horses, donkeys and zebras, however, shun wet places unless they need to drink, and actually can flourish in places where their artiodactyl counterparts do not do so well – for example, the dry steppes of Central Asia. Camels, of which we have talked before, of course, flourish in deserts, but camels themselves are an old group of ungulates, and their own heyday has passed – these days, there are three species of ‘true’ camels, and four species of ‘camelids’, but we’ve talked about camelids & camels before, and right now, we’re talking about zebras instead.

There are three species of zebra – Grevy’s zebra, plains zebra, and mountain zebra. They differ from each other in stripe patterns and in general body shapes, and they also live slightly different places from each other. The quagga, which is a perissodactyl ungulate that had a striped neck and head, but not the body, was a subspecies of the plains’ zebra instead.

Why the quagga is mentioned? Because just like the Thylacine and Steller’s sea cow, this animal died out in the ‘historical’ times; there are photos, and maybe skins and bones of the animal, but no live quaggas, not anymore. There are rumors of scientists being able to reverse-engineer extinct animals, such as the giant ground sloth, the woolly mammoth, and the passenger pigeon, but the initial rush of this excitement quietly fades away, and we are left with nothing, not even the status quo.

As for reverse engineering the quagga using breeding and hybridization… that is trickier. The modern zebras can hybridize with each other and have fertile offspring, but the zebra-horse and zebra-donkey hybrids do not do so well, on the other hand…

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #68 - May 28

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. AoS is in its’ home stretch, and I cannot access it – there goes my (almost) perfect streak. Ah well, as we have said before, now AoS is apparently ripping of DC’s LoT series…, which were a rip-off of AoS to begin with.

The other main influence here is Marvel’s ‘Agent Carter’ (AC) series, which were very good themselves…but got cancelled after just two seasons, because the actress behind the titular character, Hayley Atwell, decided to go back to U.K. at that moment in time. I do not know if it was her best call or not, since she continued to be associated with agent Carter the Marvel character on and off since then, but it did throw a wobble into MCU – enter Peggy’s niece Sharon Carter. In ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ and ‘Captain America: Civil War’, the ex-‘agent 13’ of S.H.I.E.L.D. was being set-up as Steve Rogers’ new love interest – and then that abruptly stopped, and Steve ended up back with Peggy thanks to the Infinity Stones and time travel. Fun! Anything else?

…Sharon Carter is, or was, going to be one of the main characters on ‘The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’ Disney+ show, as we have mentioned it several times in the past, but since we’ve mentioned it because it went down onto a producing hiatus first, it’s anyone’s guess as to how ‘F&WS’ will re-emerge after the COVID-19 lockdown and just who will be on it. From what we have seen of it pre-lockdown, the lines were – our titular heroes, (plus Sharon Carter?) vs. MCU’s version of Zemo, (first introduced in ‘Captain America: Civil War’, remember?) and MCU’s version of John Walker, U.S. Agent, who is something of an anti-Captain America, I suppose. ‘F&WS’ sounded like one of those ‘politically charged’ shows of America by Americans, and it was probably aimed at least some of its’ shots at the Donald’s regime of the U.S., but then real life happened, and ‘F&WS’ (and the rest of Disney+ shows… cough ‘The Mandalorian’ cough) are currently on some sort of an indefinite hiatus instead. Next?

…Since we cannot discuss AoS S7 because of real-life reasons – it sucks – I wanted to return to the yaks, which we have discussed in the not-so-distant past. But then real life happened, and past happened, and everyone is discussing the evidence that at least some of the Jurassic theropods, (aka the carnivorous dinosaurs) were cannibals. Pause.

My reaction to this: so what? The Cretaceous Majungasaurus, (featured on ‘Jurassic Fight Club’, “Dinosaur Revolution’ and ‘Planet Dinosaur’), was a cannibal. Modern dinosaur relatives, namely the crocodilians and the birds of prey, (not that the other avians are such nice guys themselves), are also cannibals. Ergo, people, and especially scientists, should have been aware (and accepting) of the possibility that at least some theropod dinosaurs, (aside from the Majungasaurus), were cannibalistic as well. What is with all the commotion? It about matches the one about Spinosaurus’ true tail!

…Yes, the news about Spinosaurus’ new tail were somewhat cool, but that is Spinosaurus for you – it rivals the T-Rex and the raptors for popularity, especially since the JP3 film. There is no indication that Spinosaurus will return for the third JW film, but who knows… Anything else?

No, not really. The Donald had had his actual birthday yesterday – whoopee. Given how much the U.S. society is getting divided over the lockdown decision as well as over that actual division, he really should be keeping a low profile instead. In the RF, president Putin is going to have an actual, real life parade on June 24 or so about – bully for him! He really should be more concerned about a revolution instead…

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #67 - May 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I do not even feel angry about it, I feel empty. Pause.

First, an alert – now, I will not be reviewing AoS S7, because it is not accessible to me. The lockdown shook everything up, and while lack of TV access is one of the least problems ever, it still makes a mark.

Secondly, today is the sort of a day that feels anything but good. An 85- and 86-year-old veteran couple were gunned down earlier this week. Wonderful. Four Minnesota police officers, (now fired), abused the Afro-American that they have arrested so badly, that he died in the hospital. Bully. Did the story of A.A. fail to teach them anything? Apparently, yes. Ergo, here is another piece of my original fiction for my entry for this day, because I honestly cannot come up with a good idea as to what creature is to discuss today – it is that sucky, (though better than yesterday, which had been sweltering hot instead):

…The donkey stood in the overgrown field. Somehow, he got to be tied up, even though there were no humans around.

“Hello, Mr. Donkey,” the kitten said cheerfully, even as the other animals held back due to the donkey’s incessant cries of “Hee-haw!”. “Are you hungry?”

The bigger animal actually stopped shouting and gave the kitten a look. “...Shouldn’t the two of you be inside the home, anyhow, or has the author decide to put humans into our story after all?” He finally asked, somehow sounding more British than the other animals did, (and they sounded more American).

“No, but if you give the girl a ride I’ll set you free anyhow,” the dog replied cheerfully, instead of the kitten.

The donkey gave him a flat look: “I like to see you try,” was what he said.

The dog exchanged looks with his new friends. “Do it,” the mother cat finally said. “We might as well see beforehand.” Therefore, the dog complied.

...The leather cord burst with a snap. The donkey came free, and began to prance around, channeling his inner horse. (The horse in question was actually nearby, having some sort of a race with the hare and his rabbit cousins - who knows why?) The dog backed down, wincing, and actually looking hurt. 

The mother cat rolled her eyes, muttered something about men in general, and began to lick the dog to make him feel better.

“Mr. Donkey?” The kitten asked again, sounding insistent.

The donkey stopped prancing like a colt and gave the trio a thoughtful look. “Fine,” he replied at last. “A promise is a promise, after all, even though I am rather hungry...”

“Oh men,” the mother cat sighed, as she went through the hole in the fourth wall and rolled several baobab fruits briefly later. “There! Will they do?”

The donkey ate the fruit. “...Right,” he said some time later and carefully allowed the kitten to climb onto him. “Let’s give you a ride, shall we?” In addition, this was what he did, while being gentle, and keeping on the horse - but that is another story.

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #66 - May 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, though it is weird sometimes – for example, there is a granny of a singer, who is both over 90, and owns over a dozen of mature and fully-grown lions and tigers, (though not bears, apparently – somehow, she had missed them). The good singer is actually half-boasting about that – I am guessing she is waiting for the mammals to eat the granny and then be acquitted, because they are, well, animals, and are not really subjected to the American law…and if they are euthanized or whatever when the granny gets eaten, it’s no skin off the singer’s nose either – win-win. What next?

The province of Ontario – during the long weekend – broke all of the rules of social distancing, yet they still want the borders with U.S. closed. Imbeciles. This is why I hate other people too, and not just myself. Ergo, let us talk about the other animals instead – and how about the walrus?

…Yes, we’ve talked about the walrus a long time ago, when we’ve discussed the AFO episode ‘Polar bear vs. Walrus’ – remember it?.. but first, here is a shout-out to NatGeo’s latest mini TV-series, ‘Barkskins’, which we’ve mentioned earlier as well. This is a fairly decent and enjoyable drama, and a pleasant change from ‘The Wrong Missy’ and ‘The Lovebirds’ that we’ve discussed earlier.

As for the walrus itself…where to start? The walrus is the biggest pinniped of the Northern Hemisphere – males can reach up to 4 m in length and weigh up to 2 metric tons. Despite its physical similarity with the eared seals, (aka fur seals & sea lions) rather than the true seals, the walrus is in its own group, not exactly too close to either of the seal groups, and it is a single species, with two or three subspecies, (scientists are not sure about the number).

The walruses prefer to live in the shallows of the northern seas, where they feed on bottom-dwelling sea animals – molluscs, worms, crustaceans, etc. There are stories about walrus orphans that became full carnivores, but that evidence is anecdotal, and in the last few decades there wasn’t any new ones, so that is probably a salty sea tale or whatever.

Once, the walruses lived all over the Arctic waters, living in herds of hundreds, if not thousands of animals. Now, however, their numbers have fallen – even with the conservation efforts, the global warming is affecting them as well as the polar bears, and the walrus females are not that much more fertile than their polar bear counterparts are – they become sexually mature only at four to five years of age, and give birth to new pups only every three to four years. The pups in question grow slowly – for the first two years they feed only on milk, but during that time, they grow up to 2 m in length and over 300 kg in weight.

…The walruses supposedly grow until they reach about 20 years of age, and they live for a very long time, if they survived their initial childhood. Humans aside, the only animals that mess with fully grown walruses are killer whales and polar bears – and it’s a mixed bag with polar bears, (they prefer to go after walrus pups and females, not the mature males, and if they can afford it, they go for seals instead), and as for killer whales… I have not seen much evidence of killer whale on walrus attacks, so I am guessing that they would rather eat anything else than a walrus first, especially a mature male one.

Finally, here is a piece of the original fiction about it instead:

A walrus is a big and heavy beast. It looks like a bag of blubber, but got plenty of brawn too.

A walrus has two ivory tusks jutting from beneath the bristly moustache. It got flippers instead of feet, too. A walrus is an aquatic beast.

A walrus will dive deep and graze on the sea floor like a cow on a meadow. It eats seaweed and mollusks, and once it is done, the walrus will emerge, grab an ice floe or the shoreline with its tusks and get out of the water completely. It will lie down and sleep.

… Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #65 - May 25

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes nothing goes your way, and you just have to accept it. What next?

Let us talk voles. Despite their similar-sounding names, they are not related to the moles, but rather are distant cousins to some of the mouse-named rodents, and close relatives to the hamster-named ones. Pause.

Yes, we have talked about moles in the recent past, and we did mention voles – maybe – when we have talked about mice much earlier. While voles and mice are similar-looking – both are small rodents with long, hairless tails, the voles are less likely to be found inside human homes; they prefer open spaces instead. Mice like those that surroundings that are cramped, with plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in; voles – not so much.

…On the other hand, despite them not being related to moles and shrews, (remember, we have talked about them?), voles prefer to dig tunnels to get around, while mice – not so much. Consequently, despite being roughly the same size, voles are stockier than the mice are; their eyes, ears and noses are smaller than those of the mice; the shrews, since we’re talking comparisons here, also have small eyes and ears, but their noses and snouts are skinny and elongated, almost like proboscises, instead. That is not surprising – shrews, moles and co. do not have much in common with rodents like mice and voles, aside from the latter being eaten by the former, if the opportunity presents itself.

…However, just like moles, voles prefer to dig tunnels to get around, as we have said above. Hence, the smaller eyes, ears and noses than those of mice. That is not too surprising – the vole branch of the rodent family also features such master diggers as the hamsters, which dig out impressive burrows and tunnels underground. The marmots and the ground squirrels, though, are precisely that – ground-dwelling cousins of the tree squirrels; even the chipmunk, which looks like a small squirrel with a shorter tail, is a very good digger – but then again, most rodents are.

Now the element of water – this gives most rodents some pause. Not so the muskrat, which is also a vole cousin, and is the biggest aquatic rodent after the beaver in the Northern Hemisphere. Of course, given just how much bigger the beaver is, that is a relative second… not to mention that the actual biggest rodent on the planet, the capybara, dwarfs both the beavers, (there are two species of them – one American, the second European/Eurasian), and the muskrat. Anything else?

Taxonomy, I suppose. The vole genera – and there are quite a few of them – belong… well, yes, to the Cricetidae family, as do the New World mice, rats, and similar rodents. The aforementioned hamsters belong to a different subfamily, however – Cricetinae, while the voles belong to Arvicolinae; the muskrat and the lemmings also belong to it.

Of them, the voles of the genus Arvicola deserve a mention, as they’re called ‘water voles’ for a reason – they’re aquatic, even if they’re only distantly related to the muskrat. They are the size of small rat, but are chubbier-looking, and are better swimmers than the rats are, which is not surprising – rats are generalists, while the water voles are specialists. There are animals that are called ‘water rats’ instead, but the European species is the European water vole in question, while the rest of those rodents live… mostly in Australia and Papua New Guinea, having few things in common with the ‘true’ mice and rats, but some species live in Africa as well as the New World. Of them, the Florida water rat/round-tailed muskrat, (Neofiber alleni), deserves a special mention, as it is too a cousin of the voles & the ‘true’ muskrat, but, again, it belongs to its’ own ‘tribe’ in the Arvicolinae subfamily.

…In the South America, the rodents that took to the water are also members of the Cricetidae family, but they are more closely related to the hamsters than voles instead. Are not evolution and rodents exciting?..

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #64 - May 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Well, it does not suck always, but ‘suckage’ is a relative term, so there is that. I mean, yes, several of the websites I frequent began to undergo technical works almost at the same time, but that’s acceptable, relative and understandable – Hell, if it wasn’t for the lockdown I wouldn’t even care about them so much, but there’s the lockdown, the self-isolation, the Donald vs. Trudeau manhood competition, and here we are, at the end of a line. We tried to work it out, time after time… where were we?

Well, yesterday was the World Turtle day or whatever, so I wanted to talk about turtles – and so I have. Maybe not too much, but there’s only so much you can spin around turtles when you feel forced, so today let us revisit someone else – the vulture.

The American black vulture, aka the Urubú bird, aka Coragyps atratus, the second vulture of the USA…or maybe the third, if the California condor is involved. This modern dinosaur is somewhat smaller than its’ cousin the turkey vulture, with a more delicate bill, (proportionally speaking), and more delicate constitution: the American black vulture is a tropical bird, whereas the turkey vulture was encountered, (including yours truly), in the Canadian south during the summer, where the climate certainly isn’t tropical.

Next, we get to the taxonomic aspect of this avian: we are calling Coragyps atratus the American black vulture because there are at least two other birds that are called black vultures…at least to a point. First, there’s the Eurasian black vulture, better known as the cinereous vulture, Aegypius monachus, (yes, it is called the monk vulture as well sometimes), whose claim to fame is a cameo appearance in Sir David Attenborough’s ‘Planet Earth’ 2001 TV series, where a flock of those birds was scared away by an Amur leopard and her cub; given that the stage was set in Siberia, late winter/early spring, which added to its’ surrealness – you’re used to leopards scaring away vultures from kills in the African or Asian tropics, not amongst the Siberian snows… The point is that vultures as a group are tougher than they look, and should not be underestimated either.

However, the other… the other-other black vulture is the Indian black vulture, better known as the red-headed vulture, Sarcogyps calvus, and it isn’t doing so well, being critical endangered in the wild and all. It is found only on the Indian subcontinent, with small separated populations in South-east Asia from India to Singapore and it is not doing so well. Pity, because with its atypical ‘ear lobes’ on the sides of its’ neck, the red-headed vulture might be the more formidable vulture out of the three; it might’ve been the vulture mentioned in the Hindu epic ‘Ramayana’ – as the king of Rakshasas, Ravana, was carrying Sita to his island kingdom, the vulture king tried to stop him – and Ravana carved him like a Christmas turkey, as the unlucky avian was that outmatched. Dying, the vulture fell to the ground, where he was found by Rama and Laxman and told them everything, which helped them find Sita and rescue her that much faster.

Back across the oceans, the American black vulture has also left a mark in culture – in particular, in one South American native adaptation (or original take) of the ‘Noah and the Great Flood’ myth, this bird used to be a white dove instead – but when it was released to see if the waters have receded, it didn’t go back but began to feed on carrion… and eventually transformed itself into the black vulture, (of the Americas). Sometimes, myths and legends call take as strange a path as taxonomy does.

Speaking of taxonomy? The red-headed vulture is also called the Asian king vulture sometimes, but the real king vulture is also found in the New World, as it is a cousin of the American black vulture instead. Although it isn’t as impressive as its’ condor cousins, the American king vulture, (Sarcoramphus papa) is a very extravagant bird of its own, and may be the most colorful of all the vultures… but we’ve digressed.

For now, this is it instead. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #63 - May 23

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just look at the grey wolf – one day it is a part of the native ecosystem, the next – they are villains in the script written by the Europeans and their North American descendants, and right now, the wolves are still very much in the grey, pardon the intended pun. What next?

…So, ‘The Lovebirds’. Now that they were released, we can talk about them, and what can be said about this movie? …It is inane. Pause.

Now, here is the thing. ‘The Wrong Missy’ was just… wrong. It is politically deaf, probably not very correct either, and outright grating, even if you keep ‘me too’ issues out of the bracket. ‘The Lovebirds’ aren’t anywhere as extreme – they’re a direct spoof of the various mystery/action movies, just as the ‘Spies in Disguise’ 2019 film was a parody of the spies movies, and ‘Onward’ (2020) – of various fantasy films. Pause.

…Yes, this is already a mixed bag, as ‘Onward’ seems to be a rather more popular film than the ‘Spies’ were, but both of them are rather forgettable – you watch them once or twice and move on. And ‘The Lovebirds’?

‘The Lovebirds’ are birds of a feather, even if they are live-action rather CGI. Featuring an interracial couple, (real life says ‘how cute!’), who were drifting apart but now they have to work together or they are doomed, this movie aimed to entertain and amuse – nothing more. The titular characters half-wander and half-blunder from one episode to the next, and you are left exasperated – why are you rooting for them?

…To be certain, are not as bad as ‘The Wrong Missy’, ‘Doolittle-2020’, let alone ‘Cats-2019’. It just isn’t truly good either – at best it is light-hearted comedy, at worst, it is inane, with more style than substance, and that style isn’t very everyone, you know?..

On the other hand, given how real life sucks, how its’ narrative is so poorly written lately, maybe this sort of comedy is what we all require right now; for those, who want something different, PBS is released its’ own nature mini-series, based on its ‘Spy in the wild’ series, i.e. a nature documentary, and does this bring us back to the natural world?

…On the other-other hand, NG will present ‘Barkskins’, a TV series adaptation of the 2016 novel with the same title, of life in New France, aka the French colony in what has now become Canada. I admit that I’m of mixed feelings here – such adaptations tend to be a mixed bag depending on way too many variables… but it is certainly something different from the aforementioned ‘Lovebirds’ and co., who aren’t bad, just forgettable. (Unlike, say, a scolopendra centipede). Anything more?

I admit that I wanted to talk about turtles once again today. As probably the oldest reptiles of the modern world, they are fascinating creatures, and endangered ones, as humans have fed on them and their eggs to near-extinction; actually, some species – the biggest ones – have become extinct for real, and the smaller tortoises are also in trouble due to the exotic pet trade.

…Yes, I know – we have discussed this – how the terms ‘turtle’, ‘tortoise’ and ‘terrapin’ are interchangeable… to a limit. When I was young and went to an animal-lovers’ club for a couple of years, we had a lot of terrestrial tortoises, and a single terrapin, (I do not know the species), in an aquarium/terrarium combo. The two reptiles looked quite different – the terrapin’s shell was much smoother, much more hydrodynamic, and it was not released from its’ enclosure anywhere as often as its’ terrestrial cousins did. Ah, the nostalgia of the past!..

…For the present, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #62 - May 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. On top of everything else, my summer allergies are beginning to act up, and no one needs that, believe me! So, let us turn away from the reality – given that lately a Pakistani plane has crashed, with 100 people on board or so, no one needs more reality news, I am afraid – and turn to… Netflix.

No, we are not talking yet about ‘The Lovebirds’ – let’s talk about ‘The Wrong Missy’ instead. Supposedly, it is the ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ movie, but without the good aspects. Some other people have compared it to ‘Shallow Hal’ – pause.

Here is the thing. ‘Shallow Hal’ was not as politically correct as the modern movies may be, but neither is ‘The Wrong Missy’. Moreover, out of the two films, ‘The Wrong Missy’ is the more jarring one out of the two. The humor is crude, the titular character – played by Ms. Lapkus – is especially crude, and the male lead is lukewarm, to say the least. Pause.

…Does anyone think that it is wrong or even odd, that a 30-year-old female lead is playing across a male lead who is in his 50s? No? Carry on. The male leading character is a bland milquetoast bitch who has no defining features at all, (especially in the first part of the movie), so why did ‘The Wrong Missy’ latch onto him? Is she a desperate ‘unmarried woman’? Ha-ha, my splitting sides, guess we’re done with the entire ‘me too’ and the rest of the ‘girl power’ topics for now, now that Hillary is done and gone, and the Donald wasn’t too affected by all the parades, protests, and what else you can you the letter p for.

…Back in the movie, we got ‘The Wrong Missy’, who clearly has many issues that she should take care, but obviously, she never does, and so she comes across as a woman with a lot of issues and a low self-esteem… that she buries under a busload – or a boatload, use whichever measure is bigger – of crazy and so she proceeds to drive most of people away from her, leaving ‘The Wrong Missy’ in company of such people as the male lead, who is simply emasculated in a political correctness manner done wrong. The man is clearly a moron – he hated his first date with the titular heroine, so why did he even kept her number? What, was the erasure of it some sort of defiance in face of the relative who would set him up with ‘The Wrong Missy’ and we couldn’t have that, because reasons? 

…For the most part of ‘The Wrong Missy’, the titular character is more obnoxious than sympathetic, and you almost feel sorry for the male lead, but you know what? He asked for this himself by keeping the titular heroine’s numbers, and so he got to reap it all, the good and the bad; good riddance to bad rubbish and sorry for Ms. Lapkus to star in such a tire fire of a film. Anything else?

…’The Lovebirds’ are a somewhat different movie, and we will talk about them some other time; right now, I want to talk about the sloths. No, not the cardinal sin in question, but the tree-dwelling mammals that are named after it, I reckon. The sloths are not exactly living by human standards, but their life pace is slow, even if you compare them to the non-human animals instead. Ergo, so what?

Well, the truth is that apparently the two groups of sloths are not very closely related at all. The three-toed sloths, (four species), are some of the ancient sloths, (alive and extinct), while the two-toed sloths, (two species), are some of the more modern ones, much more closely related to such extinct ground sloths as Megatherium, (featured in the 5^th episodes of ‘Walking with Beasts’), and Nothronychus, (aka the Shasta ground sloth in the 2^nd episode of ‘Wild New World’).  

…The Megatherium deserves a mention here also because just like the currently extinct giant, though yes, there’s a possibility that it’d survived in South America, giving rise to the legends about the Mapinguari, but I’m not certain – the latter seems to fluctuate from a realistic cryptid to an outright fairy tale ogre, with everything in-between… but that isn’t the point, the point is that just like the Megatherium, the two-toed sloths are more omnivorous: while the three-toed sloths are strict herbivores, the two-toed sloths eat some animal matter as well. Isn’t nature weird and grand?

…Well, this is it for now, though – see you all soon instead!

Quarantine entry #61 - May 21

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else, anything else, really.

There’s the final season of AoS…which I’ll miss, because I’m stuck in a place that has no TV, and I’m not so certain that I’ll be able to access them via my computer, because no matter how much I love AoS, I’m not sure that it’ll be worth the money. As it is, odds are that in their final season, AoS will turn into DC’s LoT, (remember those guys?), complete with time travel and all. S.H.I.E.L.D. must save Hydra because otherwise there will be no S.H.I.E.L.D. – sigh. In the CA: CW film, Zemo made a point in telling some Hydra/ex-Hydra colonel or another that Hydra is done, gone, lost in the junkyard of history.

…Zemo was contained at the end of that movie. He’s supposed to return on ‘The Winter Soldier and the Falcon’ Disney+ series, but that series was one of the first to go down once COVID-19 was here to stay, and so that is the end of that, for the moment.

…Speaking of team DC, Ruby Rose is leaving the DC-verse. Since she was the titular character in the new ‘Batwoman’ TV series, this raises a question – just who will take over from her, and how will ‘Batwoman’ be able to spin it? The reasons here actually aren’t COVID-19-related, but RR is gone from DC-verse all the same, so what next?

…’The Lovebirds’ movie is coming to the Netflix soon, (as in tomorrow – May 22, 2020), so we will talk about it then. The ‘SCOOB!’ film did come to the screens before today, and it is yet another reboot of ‘Scooby-Doo’ in particular and of ‘Hanna-Barbara’ in general, so what is left?

Well, I wanted to talk about snakes today. They may be the youngest modern group of reptiles, and probably the most infamous, thanks to the Biblical serpent. In reality, snakes are not any more – or any less – dangerous than their closest cousins the lizards are, and as for the crocodilians… do not go there.

We have talked about various snakes on and off in the past, especially regarding the AFO episode ‘Jaguar vs. Anaconda’, where the latter had won. Why this was the wrong decision was also discussed at length, so what is left behind?

…Modern snakes are characterized by the lack of limbs, though the oldest of them all, pythons and boas, have spurs as remnants of them. Snakes’ eyelids have also ‘fused’ into goggles, making them different from the various legless lizards, such as the slowworm and the glass lizard. Many snakes are venomous, meaning that it is dangerous for them to bite you, but not vice versa, because otherwise they would be poisonous instead. The venomous snakes of North America are mostly the various pit vipers; they tend to be much more aggressive than their non-venomous counterparts are and do not hesitate to warn others of their defences – i.e., the rattlesnakes rattle, their cousins the cottonmouths (and maybe the copperheads as well) show the insides of their mouths, and so on.

…The odd ones here are the coral snakes of the southern, especially south-west USA, which are more closely related to cobras and kraits of the Old World than to the pit vipers, (which are also found in Asia, though the American species outnumber them). They are shier than the pit vipers are, but are also much more colorful, in bands of black, red and yellow that warns other animals to back away, and rightfully so, because the coral snakes are quite venomous.

There are other snakes, all over the New World, really, that imitate the coral snakes’ coloration with various degrees of authenticity – this is called mimicry, and it is a really quite amazing evolutionary devices that allows the non-venomous, very venomous, and slightly venomous snakes to co-exist with each other, while protecting each other as well, (in a manner) of speaking – but that is another story.

…For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #60 - May 20

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. On top of whatever other issues I may have, I seem to have developed computer/Internet problems… hopefully, they will be resolved quickly enough. What else? Aside from the fact that the DA has switched and that is the end of that? What next?

So, yesterday, I have watched one of the ‘Monsters Resurrected’ episodes – the ‘Great American Predator’. It dealt with one of the more obscure North American dinosaurs – the Acrocanthosaurus. It existed during the early Cretaceous, millions of years before the T-Rex, and it was not really related to the Rex – rather, it was one of the carnosaurs, a cousin to both the Allosaurus of the Jurassic and the giants of the Cretaceous, such as the Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus, for example. Compared to them, the Acrocanthosaurus was smaller, more like the Allosaurus in size, but unlike Big Al and the rest of the carnosaurs in general, the Acrocanthosaurus had a ridge on its back. It was relatively short, nowhere as impressive as the sail of the Spinosaurus, for example, and when compared, the Acrocanthosaurus was the much more conventional theropod dinosaur out of the two, but it is still worth mentioning, because it is overlooked in favor of the T-Rex and the other latecomers.

…Speaking of T-Rex and the other latecomers, I found the ‘Great American Predator’ to be heavily influenced by Robert Bakker and his ‘Raptor Red’ novel, which depicted the life and times of an Utahraptor and her family in the early Cretaceous North America, with the Acrocanthosaurs’ being regular rivals to the Utahraptors in the first two thirds of the novel. Ergo-?

Ergo, my point is that the Utahraptor is the closest thing that real life had to the JP/JW franchise’s raptor, period, (which was initially based on the Deinonychus, also featured in ‘Raptor Red’). Proportionally, Deinonychus was smaller than the Utahraptor, (and the most obscure Dakotaraptor), but it was still the third largest raptor dinosaur in Earth’s history, and it appeared in the ‘Great American Predator’, while the Utahraptor did not. In particular, Deinonychus was shown harassing younger Acrocanthosaurs and eventually forcing this species into extinction, (though by middle to late Cretaceous, not just Acrocanthosaurus, but also Deinonychus and Utahraptor were extinct on the planet, it should be noted).

Other contributing factors to the Acrocanthosaurus’s extinction included the eventual extinction of large North American sauropods, such as Sauroposeidon/Paluxysaurus, and them being replaced by smaller, tougher prey, such as Sauropelta, a distant cousin to the better-known Ankylosaurus, for example. Whereas the jaws and teeth of the T-Rex and its cousins such as Tarbosaurus bataar and Daspletosaurus evolved precisely to crash through bony armor and skeletal bones of the other dinosaurs, the carnosaurs hadn’t evolved this sort of feature – their teeth were thin but sharp, designed to slice through flesh instead, and their jaws were longer and shallower than those of the tyrannosaurs, and so not as powerful as the latter. …The latter were the more derived theropods, I suppose, but now they are all gone, and how the kriff I am going to manage the new DA site, I have no idea. I am half-tempted to just destroy my pages there and all, and be done with them – I do not really have much of value on that site, so who knows?..

Getting back to theropods, let us talk about swans instead. No, not the extinct giants of the Mediterranean islands that used to harass the pygmy elephants that’d also lived there, but rather the modern species. The best-known species are the four northern ones, which belong to the genera Olor (aka the mute swan) and Cygnus, (the rest of the white swans of the Northern hemisphere), as they’d been immortalized in the various works of art and literature as symbols of purity, chastity, and the like, because appearance matters.

The other two swans, however, are quite different birds: the black swan of Australia, (Chenopis atratus), is all black, of course, but the oldest ‘true’ swan of them all, (Sthenelides melancoryphus), is the black-necked swan of South America, and it is white, with a black head and neck, giving it a rather odd appearance, and making one wonder, as to how the swan evolution has gone, color-wise at least.

…The continent of South America is also home to the so-called coscoroba swan, (Coscoroba coscoroba), which is solid white in color instead, but is considered to be more closely related to geese and shelducks, (especially to the Cape Barren goose of southern Australia), rather than to the true swans, appearances be damned…but we’ve talked about geese (and ducks) before, and right now I don’t want to get back to them.

Well, this is it for now. Real life sucks, and the new DA site is worse, but it doesn’t matter; see you all soon instead!

Quarantine entry #59 - May 19

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In particular, the COVID-19 lockdown got prolonged for another month – until June 2020, so here is a big middle finger to all of those who made this decision; I do not know as to how Doug Ford was involved in it, directly or otherwise, but I’m sure that he was, so there!

…Aye, on the other hand, J.C. from the team Snowbirds has it worse – she died. She took the risks and she died. What risks, you may ask? Well, from 1974 until now – that’s 46 years, almost half a century – the Snowbirds’ jets crashed every few years, so the odds were in odds of another crash now or sometime soon, and so it happened, last weekend, (aka May 17, 2020), and so Ms. J.C. died, and her partner broke both of his legs while escaping the crash. Canada! Canada! …And the woman’s from Halifax, Nova Scotia, aka the province where a certain mass shooting has occurred earlier this year already. Seriously, can we go back to the Asian giant hornets now?..

That said, because my personal state of affairs is derived from my family issues, (and I am not, admittedly, ready to share them on this blog online), here, instead, a piece of original fiction from yours truly. Enjoy!

Once upon a time, there was a mother rabbit, and she had two little bunnies...

The mother rabbit in question was not happy. The dog in the backyard was scary enough, (especially for a little rabbit), but the presence of cats was something else. True, the older feline preferred just to sit on the kennel roof, while her kitten played with the dog, but a mother rabbit is a worry-wart and couldn’t help herself, safety of an enclosure or not.

“Shouldn’t something be done about them?” She asked her neighbour, (a domestic pig, incidentally).

“Feel free,” the swine replied, as she went through a hole in the fence. “Personally, I am off to talk to my wild cousins - good luck!”

“Aren’t you worried about the humans-?”

“Silly rabbit - our story has no humans, at least not so far!” Commented the pig and left, leaving the rabbit family behind.

The rabbits just looked at each other, but before they could reach any conclusion, in popped their wild cousin, the hare.

“Yo! You!” He called out to the cats and the dog. “Where’s the lynx from our plot line?”

The mother cat just jabbed one of her paws in the direction of the hole through the fourth wall, (from the previous chapter).

“Is she coming back any time soon?” The hare pressed on.

The mother cat gave him a flat look.

“Oh good,” said the hare, “Since I was worried.” To further emphasize his relief, he turned around and jumping into the rabbits’ enclosure. “Hey there, cousins,” he told them brightly. “Want to hang around?”

The bunnies looked at their mom. “Fine,” their mother relented. “But let’s not get carried away, or our swine neighbour will come back or something!”

“Done,” agreed the hare, and the foursome went to the local vegetable garden, (which was located not far from the pigsty, actually), but that was another story.

…Well, this is it for now. Did you enjoy this piece? All comments and criticisms are welcome! See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #58 - May 18

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just ask the family of Captain Jennifer Cassidy, whose snowbird jet has crashed in Kamloops, B.C., this weekend, as she was promoting unity and the like in the face of COVID-19... Her fellow pilot survived, (albeit breaking both legs in the process), and she did not. What, how and when it all went wrong – it will be up to the investigators to, well, uncover, and for the rest of us – to just wonder about it all…

If we get away from the real life… well, I suppose that Netflix’s ‘She-Ra and the Princesses of Power’ (2018 onwards, until now, if I understand correctly), deserve an honorable mention as a good reboot of a 80s’ franchise. Yes, the show has flaws – it cannot quite figure out as to just who its’ target audience is – more mature people or the more childish ones, (age-wise), and the characters’ depictions are affected by this indecisiveness; in particular, Adora, (as Adora and not as She-Ra), comes across almost androgynous, which isn’t for everyone’s liking. Ah well, Netflix’s ‘She-Ra’ is wrapping-up and Netflix is promising us a slew of new movies, series, and seasons. Good for them!

…Getting back to real life, let us talk about quetzals. Many people, even those that do not deal with biology, ornithology, and the rest of life sciences, may’ve heard of the quetzal, as it is the national bird, (and also the national currency) of Guatemala, (which is a country in Central America, next to Mexico, if anyone cares. Cough, USA, cough). More particularly, though, the bird in question is the so-called resplendent quetzal, Pharomachrus mocinno, and for most people, it is the original bird that is called so.

In reality, however, there are six species of the quetzal birds these days. Five of them belong to the aforementioned genus Pharomachrus, while the sixth species, the eared quetzal of Mexico, and (slightly) the southwestern U.S., belongs to the monotypic genus Euptilotus instead, because of some differences, according to scientists that deal with birds and their classification.

This brings us to classification, because of course I like to talk about it. All of the quetzals, regardless of which genera they belong to, are a part of the Trogoniformes’ order of birds, which includes both the quetzals and the trogons. Both of those avian varieties look similar to each other, in no small part because they all belong to the same bird family, Trogonidae, differing only on the level of genera. 

Contrary to the popular belief, influenced by the quetzals, the Trogoniform birds are found not only in the American tropics, but in the African and Asian ones as well. How this state of affairs came to be is anyone’s guess, seeing how for such an old order, (Trogoniform birds appeared in the Eocene epoch, 49 MYA, almost at the very beginning of the Cenozoic era), it is still very vague as to how their true relatives are. Some scientists claim that the Trogoniforms are related to the Coraciiforms, an avian order that includes the kingfishers, the bee-eaters, the rollers, the motmots, and other small birds, some tropical, some otherwise, some obscure, some well-known… Other scientists claim that the trogons and quetzals are related to the owls and the mousebirds instead. Owls are well-known by everyone, whereas the mousebirds are two genera and six species of birds, (family Coliidae, order Coliiformes) that is currently considered to be a sister group to the aforementioned trogons and quetzals, as well as several other birds that make-up the Eucavitaves clade instead.

Physically, the mousebirds are like the anti-trogons and quetzals, who are colored very brightly, almost as bright as the parrots are, whereas the mousebirds’ plumage is grey, or brown – mousy in color, really. The mousebirds live in sub-Saharan Africa and nowhere else, though in the past, (and the mousebirds have appeared back in the early Paleocene, even before the trogons and quetzals did), this situation had been different, potential fossils of the prehistoric mousebirds were found on other continents, including Europe…

…Well, for now this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #57 - May 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes it isn’t so bad, as yesterday we went on a nature trail, and-?

And nothing, and everything, and all things in between. The nature trail, (actually, plural, as there were three of them, of which we completed one, and half-completed another), isn’t that different from the park back home… the park has just a paved path and as such, it is easier to get through.

…But what about the authenticity! – one can just hear the cry. True, but what authenticity? The nature trail may look real – as in wet, swampy, hard to get through, (especially for younger children), but it is largely safe, (provided that parents are there to prevent the children from getting too far into the water, period).

To elaborate: the wildlife there is safe – there are songbirds, (a cage bald eagle, raised in captivity, or two), chipmunks, (also squirrels, probably), waterfowl, (at this time of the year it were ducks), frogs, and snakes – as in garter and water snakes, naturally. The trail itself was peppered with children-friendly log piles, teepees, what else have you, so that the children wouldn’t get bored – and I doubt that there were any poisonous plants either, because children tend to put everything into their mouths, so poisonous plants are a no-no, parent supervision or not. What else?

Enter honeybees. I do not know if the Asian giant hornets were involved – we are on East coast right now, and so far, the giant hornets were found only on West coast instead – but the local honeybees were swarming, or doing something similar: a swarm of theirs was buzzing and flying around a hollow in a conifer tree.

…Honeybees, in particular North American honeybees, are not as aggressive as the Asian giant hornets, let alone the Africanized ‘killer’ bees, but when they are riled up, they can be quite aggressive on their own, especially when children are involved – hence I reckon that they won’t be around that nature trail for too long… or they will be, as the buildings were closed, and the staff appeared to be gone, period. The nature trails remain currently unsupervised, which raises, (for me), a question – how long until life finds a way and the nature trails will need to be reset? I have no idea… and this brings me back to our own park. It’s actually more dangerous than this nature trail complex, because aside from waterfowl, songbirds, squirrels and rabbits, our park also has hawks, (ok, they will never attack humans, unless the latter are bothering their nests, which is unlikely, given a number of factors), red foxes, (which can attack people, if provoked, cornered, or sick), and coyotes, (same as red foxes, but as larger animals that are more dangerous to humans, proportionally). Is it bad? Yes, but this is how nature is – it is not always safe for humans, period. What next?

Today I actually wanted to talk about pandas instead. There are two species of them – the giant panda, which is a ‘true’ bear, just the most ancient one of the modern species, and the red panda, which is a bear cousin, but has its’ own family. It is the size of a small racoon or a large marten, but just as the giant panda, it feeds on bamboo, and has false thumbs on its’ forepaws to better grip and handle the bamboo.

Pandas are not the only mammals that have false thumbs – so have the ‘true’ moles, for example, only their false thumbs have evolved to make their forepaws better digging shovels instead.

…The latest edition of Luke Hunter’s guide to the ‘true’ carnivorous mammals of the world that I had access to claimed that there are two species of the red panda rather than one, but most other sources id them as subspecies instead. There are also two subspecies of the giant panda, (aka the panda bear) – the well-known black-and-white one, and the more obscure cinnamon-brown-and-white one, which is found only in China. Isn’t real life surprising? In addition, sometimes, it does not even suck!..

…Well, this is it for now, I think. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #56 - May 16

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It is also tricky, both on a lesser level – i.e., co-existing with your family during the lockdown that cannot end because of various reasons, both of COVID-19-(directly)-related, and of Trudeau vs. Trump related. There are simple solutions, but no one likes them, and so the lockdown goes on, satisfying fewer and fewer people, no matter how good (and/or righteous) are its’ initial reasons were… What next?

Today, I want to talk about the otters, actually. To wit, they are 13 existing species of aquatic or semi-aquatic mammals, which belong to the Mustelid family, (aka the weasels and co.), but also – to their own subfamily, the Lutrinae. And-?

…Starting with the good old reliable taxonomy, there are about eight existing genera of otters, (that hold the aforementioned 13 existing species), and about twice as many extinct ones. As Mustelids, otters are more closely related to wild dogs, bears, and raccoons, rather than cats, hyenas, and mongooses. Their relationship with the pinnipeds – namely, seals, sea lions and walruses – is more obscure, taxonomically speaking, but ecologically? Otters and pinnipeds are two sides of the same coin… sort of.

Let us elaborate. The pinnipeds live in seas and oceans – as a rule. They come in several shapes, and in different sizes, but most of them are social, gregarious, noisy mammals that often are easy to spot on the shoreline; in the water, they may not be as formidable as the more ancient and derived cetaceans are, but they are still a force to be reckoned with; in one of his TV shows, Sir David Attenborough showed a bearded seal actually outmaneuver a killer whale, meaning that you don’t discount the seals just yet!

On the other hand, we have the otters. Aside from the well-known sea otter, and the much more obscure – and smaller – marine otter of South America, all otters live in freshwater bodies instead. They are social animals, and playful ones, but their basic unit is a single-family group, whereas pinnipeds – especially such big ones as the elephant seals, fur seals, and walruses – have harems instead. Proportionally, otters tend to be shier and less noisy and noticeable than the pinnipeds are; very often they are much less active during the day than at night, dawn, or dusk; in part, this is because of human pressure, but the biggest freshwater otters of them all – the giant otters of South America, (aka Pteronura brasiliensis), are freely active during the day instead, human pressure or not. What else is there?

The other animals. The aforementioned giant otter of South America is the most formidable of otters; family groups of these species were shown killing caiman, (cousins of the crocodile, remember?), and driving away jaguars, (though in the case of the latter, a safe, respectable distance was maintained, and the jaguars were young and not fully-grown or experienced). Put otherwise, as in most of them mammal societies, size and strength, multiplied by numbers of family group matter. The giant otters are the biggest and most social of the river otters, hence their also the bravest and the boldest. The other freshwater otter species – not so much, they are much more demure and tend to stay out of the way of such carnivores, as wolves, bears, and lynx, for example, (in the Northern Hemisphere, both in North America and Eurasia).

…The sea otter stands apart, not unlike the giant otter of South America; its’ closest relative – proportionally – is the spotted-necked otter of sub-Saharan Africa, (Hydrictis maculicollis), but the two animals don’t have much in common: the spotted-necked otter is a ‘typical’ freshwater otter, while the sea otter behaves more as the seals and pinnipeds do.

…There are freshwater seals – true, or earless, seals – in fast. They are subspecies of ‘marine seals’, the only truly freshwater seal is the Baikal seal, Pusa sibirica, and it is one of the smallest seals, under 1.5 m in length. It exists in the Baikal Lake, which is more of a freshwater sea, really, and is an exception that underlines the rule. The case of the sea otter, which is really the only otter known to most humans, that went into the sea, is the same. …The marine otter Lontra felina, a close relative of the North American river otter, looks much more like the other otters rather than like the sea otter. It behaves rather like the otters, instead of the sea otter does too… but we became carried away.

To summarize: otters have appeared later in Earth’s history than the pinnipeds did, and as such, they were unable to fully transition to the sea, as the seals and their relatives did, except for two species, of which only the sea otter can compete with the pinnipeds in the sea, ecologically speaking, and even it has some caveats in regards to its’ ecology, it is a very different mammal from the seals and etc.. On the other hand, they were able to keep the pinnipeds out of fresh water – the subspecies/species of earless seals that were able to make it there are found in places where river otters are uncomfortable to exist; all of them are more terrestrial than the pinnipeds are…

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #55 - May 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but it look as if my home province of Ontario will be opening next week, so things are certainly moving now, yay! Yes, real life is unpredictable, as well as somewhat brutal, as the entire conclusion of the lockdown/self-isolation/etc. comes down to your money or your life, aka the left vs. the right. Sad, this is! Anything else?

Well, I want to talk about the common nightingale bird instead. It’s impossible to imagine an overgrown garden, moist shadowy shrubbery, aspen and oaken forests without its’ songs. (We are talking Eurasia here, not North America, where no true wild nightingales exist, period). The wondrous songs of the nightingale, in all of their varied glory, are carried everywhere in such places. (BTW, among the songbirds, nightingales are part of the flycatcher family, which are not usually known for their singing skills). Every sound seems to be produced by the singer with the greatest of tension of its’ body, throat, breast, beak. Even the wings and the tail shake in the song’s rhythm. By mid-May, when the females of this species – the common nightingale – arrive, the males sing non-stop, except for two hours after sunset, when they rest.

At night, a male nightingale goes to its’ favorite perch, usually in the low-lying shrubbery. After sunrise, it flies to a treetop, and continues its’ song there. Thus, nightingale couples are made, male rivalries are settled, and songs, all different, accompany it all.

After the eggs are laid, of course, the nightingale males stop singing at nights, do not sing during the day for so long, but they still serenade at sunrises and sunsets. (As the rest of songbirds do, actually). When the chicks hatch, however, the nightingales are largely done – some lines during sunrise and sunset, some sounds during the day, not a peep during nights. Only bachelor and widower males continue to sing – but they can continue to do so until the end of June.

Both the nightingales themselves are colored drably and their nests are hardly noticeable. The latter are located on the ground, in shadowy places, among sparse grass. Old, last year leaves are involved in the nest’s construction – they are of the local variety, the ones that are lying around. Female nightingales are the ones that built nests, and the latter are built at a distance of 50-70 m away from the males’ singing position, lest uninvited guests arrive and find the nests.

The chicks of the common nightingale hatch in about two weeks and immediately they are fed. Common nightingales eat caterpillars, forest bugs, soft-bodied beetles, pill bugs, various gnats and spiders – the chicks and the adult birds eat them all. At 12 days of age, the chicks of the common nightingale leave their nest, but remain with their parents for another three weeks. These birds travelling through forest clearings, riverside copses and shrubs, field ravines through July and August. In mid-August, they begin to migrate south, and by September, they are gone for good. The common nightingale winters in southeast Africa. Anything else?

…The common nightingale actually has several cousins, at least in the Russian ornithology classification. There is the Siberian blue robin, whose males are bright blue – it appears in Europe only rarely. There is the Siberian rubythroat, which, despite its’ name, is a part of the nightingale/flycatcher group, and not the kinglet one, (kinglets do not have anything to do with nightingales or flycatchers). The males of this species do have a bright red patch on their chins and inner throats. Finally, there’s the rufous-tailed robin, also known as the whistling nightingale, which differs from the common nightingale with its’ song.

…If you think that the word ‘robin’ has come up too much lately, you’re right – the Eurasian robin doesn’t look much like the American robin, and the two birds aren’t very closely related, as the American robin is actually a bird of the thrust family. Flycatchers, (including nightingales), and thrushes are two different bird groups, so there is that.

…This is also ‘it’ for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #54 - May 14

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and odds that the U.S.-Canadian borders will not open until mid-summer or so are quite high. What will result from that is anyone’s guess, so let us talk something different. How about… moles?

Now, the word ‘mole’ has several meanings, but we are talking here about the animal ‘mole’. As it regularly happens in the animal kingdom, of course, the word ‘mole’ covers several different groups of animals, so let us begin.

First, the word ‘mole’ is the name of mammals in the Talpidae family of the Eulipotyphla order, and if the latter sounds familiar, you are absolutely right. We have talked about this mammalian order when we have discussed hedgehogs in the recent past; they, shrews, and the ‘true’ moles of Eurasia and North America are related to each other, though the moles are less derived than the hedgehogs and the shrews are, apparently. The solenodons, which also belong to the Eulipotyphla order make the other branch of this order, alongside the now extinct West Indian shrews, (apparently they were a separate family from the other mammals that are called ‘shrews’), so let’s not talk about them.

Now, as it was discussed, shrews look rather like mice, albeit with proboscis-like snouts, while moles look like themselves: their feet are tiny as are their arms; their hands are huge, and have an extra false thumb for digging; their eyes are almost non-existent, but their snouts are long and sensitive. The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) of North America deserves a special mention, as its’ snout is not just sensitive, but is equipped with multiple tendrils that make the star-nosed mole’s snout a unique touch organ, giving the star-nosed mole an almost alien look, (especially when seen from the front.

This animal is atypical among the moles, (both ‘true’ and otherwise) in that it is also the most aquatic mole, (there are aquatic shrews, but they don’t count here), as it can hunt in the water as well as underground; and in that it has an unusually long tail by mole standards, making it almost look like a desman.

…A desman is the name of two species of mammals that also belong to the mole family, Talpidae, but live in the water, not underground, and look more like giant shrews rather than moles. This brings us to the shrew moles and the mole shrews.

A shrew mole is a mole that resembles a shrew. Most of such mammals are found in China, but two live in Japan, and the third – in North America. Such mammals look like shrews, with long snouts, long slender tails, (in true shrews they can be quite short, actually), external ears and feet that are not adapted for digging. However, unlike shrews and like the other moles, their skulls have full zygomatic arches, (aka cheekbones), which the true shrews lack.

By contrast, the mole shrews are, well, shrews that resemble moles. They consist of representatives of two shrew genera, Anourosorex, which are found in Asia, and Surdisorex, which are found in Africa, (Kenya). They – and especially the Asian species – look more like moles than shrews, but, apparently, they lack the moles’ cheekbones in their skulls, (see above).

The mention of Africa brings us to the golden moles. In many ways, they are similar to the ‘true’ moles, but they are covered in golden-colored fur, (‘true’ moles are much more drab, usually black or dark brown), and they belong to the Afrosoricida order, which includes them and the tenrecs of the Madagascar, instead.

…From the ecological P.O.V., however, they are very much like true moles, save that their arms and especially hands are tougher, because they burrow not through soil, but sand. Consequently, they do not leave visible tunnels, mounds and molehills as ‘true’ moles do. They are also even more sight-deprived than the true moles are, (I think), because sand in the eyes is even more of an irritant than plain old earth is. Anything else?

Australia is a continent apart, which means that it has its own, marsupial moles, which are – proportionally – more closely related to the koalas and kangaroos that we have discussed earlier than to either ‘true’ moles or golden moles. However, these animals, (there are two species of marsupial moles, FYI), belong to their own order, Notoryctemorpha, within the Australian marsupial superorder; all of their true relatives are extinct. Of all the ‘moles’ mentioned here, these strange little marsupials may be the most adapted to a subterranean lifestyle; they are eyeless, while their noses and the fronts of their faces have shovel-like patches on their faces, for better digging through the sandy soil as well. (The African golden moles have them as well).

Pause. The mole may not look like much, and it does not appear in fiction very often – the best case is Andersen’s fairy tale ‘Thumbelina’, where it is a protagonist of sorts. (Was it Disney or someone else who made it into an animated movie in the 20^th century? The Soviets had made it into a cartoon adaptation instead, much more basic out of the two). In non-fiction, moles usually appear in various guides or, more often, in instructions of how to get rid of them from your lawn. Considering that the moles – like their relatives the hedgehogs – are insectivores that usually eat insect pests, this state of affairs is somewhat sad, but that is real life for you. It sucks, (just look at COVID-19).

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!