Au story - Oct 8

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so here's an AU story to cheer you up.

The transition zone between the high scree and the lower crags is quiet, wrapped in the deep blue hush of pre-dawn.

Down by the margin of a glacial meltwater pool, the mountain sheep move like ghosts. They do not care about the hour; they care only for the wind and the sharp edge of stone beneath their hooves. Every step is deliberate, silent—not a single pebble loosens or clatters down the slope.

The lowland leopard cares even less about the time. He has been trailing them for an hour, belly-low to the frost-rimed slate, using every shadow and fold of the rock as cover. When he surges forward, exploding from an overhang, his pounce is a blur of kinetic violence. The sheep scatter instantly, their sure-footed panic a sudden flurry of white rumps and flashing horns up the ravine.

Before the leopard can secure a flank or pin a lagging yearling, a heavy, long-tailed shape drops from a higher ledge.

It is the snow leopard—the ounce—, which had been silently shadowing the trespasser, down the mountain. With a heavy, thudding impact and a low, resonant hiss, the ounce intercepts, claiming a young ewe that stumbled in the scramble.

There is no prolonged fight, no roaring battle for dominance. Both cats know the cost of broken ribs on a vertical slope. With heavy breathing and ears pinned back in mutual disdain, they establish an immediate, pragmatic hierarchy. The ounce drags its prize further up the steep, jagged incline to a sheltered shelf of rock to feed out of the wind.

The leopard does not press the issue. He follows at a distance, padding up the slope with measured, sullen steps. He will wait. Once the ounce has torn its fill and retreated into the grey morning mist, the leopard will step in to take what remains. It is an uneasy truce carved into the stone—a fragile, cold coexistence where survival always outweighs pride.

The morning sun climbs higher over the arid expanse where the desert meets the scrubland, casting long, sharp shadows across the dry earth. A small family herd of domestic camels—long-limbed, thick-coated, and notoriously stubborn—has wandered far from the shelter of the low-lying human settlement. The air is still cool, and the desert flora, wrapped in prickles and tough fibers, offers a tempting morning harvest.

As the mud-brick walls and low roofs of the settlement fade behind a low ridge, the camels slow their pace. They spread out, their split upper lips deftly selecting the resilient desert shrubs while the sun climbs higher and the air begins to bake.

They are not alone on the plains.

Crouched in the meager shade of an acacia scrub, a coalition of young nomadic lions watches them. Recently separated from their pride, the young males are lean, inexperienced, and ravenously hungry. Spotting the wandering camel family, they misread docility for weakness.

The lions break cover, fanning out in a low, determined stalk. However, these are not panicky sheep or fragile gazelles. As the golden-maned shadows close the distance, the lead camel—a massive, broad-chested beast—stops chewing. It turns square to the threat, lowering its head, stamping its heavy-nailed feet into the dust with a hollow thud, and baring a formidable set of long, sharp teeth designed for crushing tough desert wood.

The young lions hesitate for a fraction of a second, but hunger and bravado override caution. They drop their shoulders, twitch their tail-tips, and prepare to spring.

Before the first cat can launch its pounce, the lead camel's throat expands. With a sharp, guttural retch, it abruptly hurls a massive, foul-smelling wad of half-digested stomach cud straight across the intervening gap. The projectile flies with surprising speed and force, striking the front-running lion squarely on the shoulder with a wet thwack that leaves the big cat reeling as if hit by a heavy stone.

The shock halts the charge instantly. The lions freeze, confused and unnerved by the chemical stench and the sheer audacity of the counter-attack.

That single heartbeat of hesitation is the entire margin required. From over the ridge comes the sharp cracking of staves and the urgent, high shouts of the human owners, who have tracked their wandering stock. The herdsmen fan out, waving heavy cloaks and hurling stones with practiced precision, backing their display with the fierce, protective authority of keepers defending their livelihood.

For the young, recently independent lions, the calculus shifts. Outnumbered, disoriented by the foul-tasting missile, and facing shouting bipeds with weapons, their thin veneer of courage evaporates. With a low, frustrated huff, they wheel around and bound away through the brush, melting back into the heat haze.

As the sun bakes the dry plains into a shimmering glare, the tension drains from the landscape. The camels resume their steady, rhythmic chewing, turning unbothered back toward the distant walls of the settlement, flanked by their watchful human companions.

The sun beats down with a heavy, shimmering glare, baking the desert floor until the air dances above the sand. Out on the open dunes, the heat is palpable, driving even the resilient young lions to seek whatever meager shade they can find. They press their lean bodies into the hollows beneath low, sun-baked dunes and sparse, wiry bushes, their tawny coats dissolving into the pale earth.

Yet, hunger and restless curiosity are hard to sleep off.

One of the young males lifts his head, his amber eyes catching a flicker of movement through the pale stalks of a desert shrub. A long, undulating tail—distinctly banded with dark, rhythmic stripes—is switching slowly among the vegetation.

Convinced it is an easy meal or an animal foolishly cornered, the lions rise silently from the sand, fanning out in a loose, opportunistic semicircle. They creep forward, shoulders low, ready to pounce on whatever is hiding in the brush.

At the very first brush of a paw against the twigs, the owner of the tail whirls around with surprising, explosive speed.

It is a massive desert monitor lizard—an ancient, armored titan of the sands, stretching nearly as long as a big cat from snout to whip-like tail, though riding low and flat to the ground.

Before the startled lions can close the distance, the monitor rears up slightly, flattening its massive body and inflating its muscular throat into a dark, pulsing balloon. It opens its jaws wide, unleashing a fierce, guttering hiss that sounds like escaping steam, while its forked tongue darts rapidly in and out to taste the air.

For the inexperienced young lions, who have never faced an aggressive reptile of this magnitude, the sudden display is entirely disorienting. The sheer alien posture, the hissing armor, and the intimidating size make them balk mid-stride. They pull back, ears flicking in uncertainty.

That single moment of hesitation is all the monitor needs. With a sudden burst of powerful, splayed limbs, the giant lizard whips around and bolts for a deep rocky crevice between the dunes, kicking up a spray of sand as it vanishes into safety.

Left behind in the glaring midday heat, the young lions stare after it, shaking their heads in bewildered frustration as the blistering desert wind sweeps across the empty sand.

Frustrated and still burning with hunger, the young lions do not give up easily. They push past the rocky hollow where the monitor vanished, their eyes scanning the hot sand for any sign of movement.

A sudden, sharp rustle in the dry scrub draws their attention. A long, sleek shape glides through the dust—the ancient, hooded sovereign of the sands.

It is a massive desert cobra. The queen of serpents coils instantly, lifting the front third of her body high into the air with terrifying grace. She flares her broad hood, exposing the stark, ominous patterns on the back of her neck, and emits a steady, low-pitched hiss that vibrates through the hot air.

The lions freeze. Even these inexperienced youths know the danger; they recognize the unmistakable posture of venomous death.

Instead of blundering forward, a deadly coordination takes over. The bolder of the two lions steps directly into the cobra's field of vision, stamping his paws, shaking his mane, and feinting forward to draw every ounce of the serpent's lethal focus. The cobra tracks him, her hood swaying, waiting for a chance to strike.

While the queen is locked on the front-facing threat, the second lion moves like a phantom. Stepping on silent, cushioned pads, he circles completely around the rear of the coil.

With a sudden, explosive contraction of muscle, the flanking lion delivers a massive, lightning-fast swipe with a heavy paw, its curved claws fully extended. The force of the blow strikes the snake off-balance, crushing her spine before she can pivot.

The brief, tense drama of the dunes ends in the dust. As the sun climbs relentlessly toward the blinding zenith of noon, baking the desert floor into an oven, the two young hunters finally claim their hard-won, meager meal—a grim reminder that out here, every meal is paid for in risk and strategy.

The sun hangs motionless at the zenith, casting a blinding, white-hot glare across the crags and slopes. The desert air is stifling, and most of the mountain life has vanished into deep, cool rock clefts to wait out the worst of the heat. Only the hardy mountain partridges peck steadily among the sun-baked stones, scratching for seeds.

From the meager shade of a granite slab, the lowland leopard watches them. His belly is still heavy from the ewe he shared earlier, and the punishing weight of the midday heat drains all ambition. A chase right now would be a waste of precious calories, especially with the odds of a successful ambush crippled by the blistering air. He stays put, content to let the birds pass.

High above, a sharp, metallic piping shatters the silence. A pair of crimson-winged wallcreepers flash across the rock face, their alarm calls echoing off the cliffs.

The partridges freeze, and then scatter instantly.

Looking up, the source of the alarm becomes clear: a snow leopard and her half-grown kitten are picking their way down the steep slope, stepping carefully over the hot scree. As the mother and her cub descend toward the winding stream below, the perspective broadens—far down in the valley, shimmering through the heat haze, the low mud walls of the human settlement and the camel corral stand exposed against the dust.

The sun slowly begins its agonizing descent, the harsh glare softening just a fraction into a heavy, brassy afternoon. Yet, the thirst of the high mountains is unrelenting. The ounce and her kitten need water.

A short distance behind them, the leopard rises from his shelter, shaking dust from his spotted coat. He, too, is parched. Keeping a careful, respectful distance from the heavier mother, he trails behind them down the mountain path, all thoughts of rivalry suspended under the oppressive weight of the day, as both predators make their quiet way toward the stream flowing down the mountainside.

The stream cuts through a sheltered mountain copse where silvery-leafed sycamores cluster thickly along the banks, casting deep, cool shade across the earth as the afternoon finally begins to cool.

The leopard is entirely in his element here. Freed from the glaring, open rock faces, he slips among the trunks, nose to the ground, checking the invisible bulletin board of the woods. So far, the scent markers tell a familiar, grating story: the stale, musky footprint of hyenas trailing up from the lowlands, and the heavy, lingering odor of the nomadic lions that pushed too far from the plains earlier in the day. The leopard wrinkles his nose in disdain; he cares nothing for the lions' passing, and neither does the female ounce, who has ventured unusually far down the mountain slope, away from the high alpine crags that form her traditional stronghold.

For now, the copse is wrapped in a quiet, humid hush. The only movement comes from the damp leaf litter underfoot, where emerald-green frogs leap away from the approaching paws, vanishing beneath the silvery, fallen sycamore leaves and into the shallows. Nearby, freshwater crayfish and armored crabs scuttle sideways between rounded pebbles, disappearing into dark crevices beneath the bank.

The adult cats ignore the scuttling micro-life, their focus entirely fixed on the clear, cold water of the stream. Nevertheless, the snow leopard kitten, full of restless energy now that the heat is breaking, swats playfully at the water, trying in vain to pin a darting crayfish. Every clumsy lunge misses, sending up tiny splashes of crystal spray.

Overhead, the fierce brass of the afternoon softens into long amber rays. The day begins to give way to the long-awaited evening at last, bringing a cool breath of mountain air down through the sycamore boughs.

As the long evening shadows stretch across the foothills, the oppressive heat of the day finally breaks, and the landscape begins to stir with nocturnal life.

From the rough shelter of a boulder field, a small pack of striped hyenas—leaner, shaggier, and more solitary than their massive spotted cousins of the open plains—stretches and wakes. True scavengers of the rough terrain rather than crushing apex bone-crushers, they lift their muzzles to the cooling air and break into a chaotic, wailing cacophony of giggles, yaps, and low whoops, broadcasting their awakening to the entire valley. Across the slopes, distant rival hyena families answer the call. Within minutes, the rocky foothills vibrate with the echoing din, a rolling chorus that marks the shift from day to night.

The sudden uproar is too much for the large cats. The leopard, having quenched his thirst, turns away from the stream and slips silently up a steep, rocky spine toward the middle elevations. A short distance away, the female ounce nudges her playful kitten, and the two ghosts of the mountain melt upward into the gathering dusk. The day is ending, and the true hunting hours are approaching; neither predator wants a noisy clan of scavengers tailing their moves or giving away their position.

Down in the valley, the human settlement secures its perimeter as twilight deepens. The villagers lock the heavy wooden gates of the camel corral, ensuring their livestock are safely penned away from the shifting dangers of the nocturnal wilderness.

Yet, deep in the scrub-fringed lowlands, a different power acknowledges the noise. Unbothered by the hyenas' chorus, the young nomadic lions lift their heavy heads. A deep, chest-rattling roar tears through the cooling air, shaking the brush and rolling across the darkening plains. They are here, holding their ground, and as the stars emerge over the vast landscape, it is entirely uncertain whose territory this will truly be tomorrow.

As the sun dips below the horizon, the desert air plunges from sweltering heat to a biting chill. High above, the snow leopards are entirely at home in the freezing mountain air, while the adaptable lowland leopards handle the thermal shift with ease. Neither cat has any desire to venture down onto the dark plains, especially with the lingering roars of the young nomadic lions still echoing in the distance.

On the open plains, twilight belongs to the wild asses. As dusk settles, the herd emerges to graze, relying on sharp senses and constant vigilance. While some feed on the sparse grasses, others stand sentinel, scanning the gathering shadows. Unlike the domestic camels tucked safely behind human fences, these wild equids have no refuge except their own speed and caution, knowing the fading light brings maximum danger.

The young nomadic lions know this, too. Moving with ghost-like stealth, they abandon their roars and stalk through the tall grass in absolute silence.

Then, the stillness shatters. A sudden, thunderous roar erupts directly behind the herd, terrifying the wild asses into a chaotic, multi-directional stampede. Before the dust can settle, one of the lions explodes from the gloom, smashing into a fleeing adult equid and dragging it violently to the earth. The struggle is fierce, but short.

The second lion races over to join his coalition partner. The desert cobra from earlier was a mere snack; now, they finally have a substantial, blood-warm meal to sink their teeth into.

They barely have time to tear into the flesh. A truncated, sharp cry from another wild ass echoes across the dark flats, and suddenly, the night-lights up with glowing points of reflected amber and green.

It is a ring of hungry spectators: the striped hyenas and giant monitor lizards, drawn by the smell of fresh meat. Worse than the scavengers are the new pairs of eyes catching the starlight from the ridge. The local, resident pride lions—the heavy-maned rulers of these traditional plains—have arrived, and neither the scavengers nor the young, trespassing nomads expected them to cross paths quite so soon.

The night folds over the vast, rugged landscape, blanketing the peaks and the plains in a deep, cool stillness. High above, on silent, leathery wings, bats weave through the pale moonlight to snatch frantic moths from the air, only to find themselves shadowed by the noiseless, sweeping descent of hunting owls.

Farther up, where the jagged crags bite into the stars, the mountain is quiet save for the soft scrape of padded paws. The snow leopards and their lowland leopard cousins move like smoke through the high forests and steep, rocky terraces. They keep their distance, reading the invisible language of scent-marks left on stone and bark—a silent, mutual agreement that keeps the peace for now.

Down on the dry plains, however, silence is impossible. Here, the social machinery of the cats takes over. The young nomadic interlopers and the heavy, entrenched resident pride face off in the dark. Low, vibrating growls and chest-deep moans roll across the grass as both sides’ posture, testing strength and resolve in an escalating game of territorial gambling. The hierarchy of the lowlands is being hammered out in real-time, and the question of who truly rules the plains remains fiercely contested.

As for the other great cats of this world—the stealthy jungle jaguars pacing beneath the canopy and the solitary tigers prowling the deep northern taiga—their stories wait in the shadows, ready for another night.

What do you think? Comments are welcome!

Big cats and Daredevil - April 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks – I just lot quite a bit of important data; it is important to me, anyhow, so its’ loss is being felt. By me, but still.

What is next? ‘Daredevil’ S2 is proceeding apiece; yesterday, two episodes aired. Fancy that! Looks like MCU might be in a hurry to get through their latest show; I wonder why.

The ‘Supergirl-2026’ movie is a strong contender; so far, it shows itself to be a thorough adaptation of a Supergirl comic book arc, one that was a one-time rather than a part of a greater continuum. In this one, Supergirl is not as wholesome as she usually is, but perhaps her newfound heroics, newfound friend, and the need to save Krypto before the latter dies, will change her outlook. Given how DCEU/whatever already tried to introduce a Supergirl in the Ezra Miller ‘Flash’ film, I am thinking that the odds of it are quite good.

The trailer itself… it is what it is, apparently. The other characters are one-shot themselves, the odds of them dying by the end of the movie (antagonists), or just vanishing afterwards (protagonists) are quite high too; the creative team here brought Lobo along for the ride; the main man of the DC comics appeared in various DC-based media since Superman/Batman Animated Series of the 1990s, so by now he’s tested and relied upon, at least in a certain sense of word. He just might liven up the movie and make it into something more than a by the numbers antihero journey, where Kara becomes a hero, or at least begins to become one. Pause.

In S2 of ‘My Adventures with Superman’, Superman, Lois and Jimmy had to deal with a Kara/Supergirl who was manipulated by Brainiac into becoming an oblivious villain, and who remained one for a long time – and that was only a part of Brainiac’s greater plan. Put otherwise, Supergirl is known to be going dark in the DC multiverse by now, eh? This version of Supergirl is relatively mild still. What next?

Well, I wanted to speak about the upcoming (Christmas-2026) HP TV series, how people are wound up about it, and perhaps – even the racial issue.

…And then I looked at the Nat Geo Animals YouTube channel, and what did I beheld? An ‘episode’ where Mr. Boone Smith held a ‘sport competition’ between African lions, tigers, and cheetahs. Pause.

First, the monikers. Modern DNA analysis showed that the Asian lion is a part of the same lion subspecies that still lives in Western and Central Africa too. (The lions of Eastern and Southern Africa are the other subspecies). Tigers, on the other hand, are divided into two subspecies, with both the Bengal and the Siberian tigers being a part of the same – the mainland - subspecies, and the cheetahs are tentatively partitioned into several subspecies, one of which lives, or lived, in Middle Ease, or Asia, rather than in Africa. So, if the lion is the African lion, then so’s the cheetah, while the tiger is something of the odd one out.

From the genetic/biological/evolutionary p.o.v., however, the cheetah is the odd one out. From the human p.o.v., the big cats – the ‘roaring cats’ – are the oldest modern cats, (as opposed to Smilodon and other alternate models that are not around anymore), while the ‘newest’ models are the domestic cat and its’ immediate kin; the cheetahs are not close relatives of lions and tigers, but proportionally are closer to them than they’re to the housecats. However, lions do kill cheetahs when they can, while the tigers… they and the cheetahs live, or lived in different parts of Asia… where are we?

When Mr. Smith compared lions, tigers, and cheetahs, he compared two close relatives, and an outright outsider. Lions and tigers are not as closely related as they look, (the same under the skin), there branches are separate – one is lions, leopards, and jaguars, the same is tigers and snow leopards, and the third is clouded leopards. The cheetah is related to the puma and the jaguarondi instead; the latter looks like an anti-cheetah, but that is not the point – the point is that the comparison was flawed: the cheetah’s too different, the lion and the tiger – too similar to each other, so the show just was not too satisfying to watch. (The tigers won, BTW). What else?

For the moment – nothing. DD is still a technical masterpiece, but so are Ms. Haynes’ books, as I wrote before. They are enjoyable to read, but nothing more, and DD S2 is enjoyable to watch, but nothing more. The data that I lost… might be recovered, in part, but nothing more. Real life sucks, eh?

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

D:BA and dire wolves - April 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but then Colossal Biosciences Company threw dire wolves at us. Pause.

Initially, I intended to discuss the penultimate S1 Daredevil episode, which had Bullseye coming back, and Murdock (Daredevil) taking a bullet for Fisk (Kingpin) because of reasons? Apparently? Does anyone care about those two anymore anyhow? Dire wolves are more interesting than MCU, these days.

…Of course, these days, at least some news outlets discuss with an authentic feeling, who makes a better jam and/or spread – king Charles III of Great Britain or Megan Markle, his younger daughter-in-law. Seriously, and compared to this sort of news, MCU’s D: BA show is cutting-edge political drama or something along those lines. Nevertheless, what about the dire wolves?

…I am a sceptic when it came to CB’s claims. See, while the RL dire wolf (let us leave Westeros out of this, the topic is already quite confusing), is a true canine, (as opposed to a bear-dog, a bear, or any other kind of mammal carnivore), it also belonged to a completely different genus than the modern wolves do. However, so what?

See, even CB admits (sort of) that their dire wolves – Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi – are not exactly purebred dire wolves, more like grey wolf/dire wolf hybrids. Eh? The problem with that statement that in nature hybrids occur only between animals that share the same genus, albeit belonging to different species. Pause.

Let us try again. We are talking only about mammals here; in other animal groups, such as birds (say, songbirds), or amphibians (such as the tailed salamanders) the hybrid situation might be quite different, but along the mammals? Either it works or it does not.

See for yourselves. On one hand, we have horses and donkeys, whose hybrids are sterile and can’t really make a new species; big cats, whose hybrids aren’t sterile but can’t survive in the wild due to health-related reasons; and the two species of the gnu antelope, whose hybrid offspring also aren’t sterile but have plenty of health defects that they die quickly enough. Pause.

On other hand, we have the beluga and the narwhale whales, for example, or the better-known polar and grizzly brown bears, whose hybrid offspring are viable and are increasing in numbers. The wolf branch of the wild dog family, incidentally, is in this boat too, as the various coyote/grey wolf/domestic dog hybrids of eastern North America are growing more numerous and are establishing their own independent populations…

That said, those wild dogs are all in the Canis genus, while the extinct dire wolf is not, not anymore, at least not at the moment. In addition, if you look at the related animals that belong to different genera, they do not form hybrids – just look at rhinos or elephants, for example. African and Asian elephants do not hybridize, not even in captivity, unlike the big cats, and the black and white rhinos of Africa do not hybridize – unlike the feral domestic dogs and the Ethiopian wolf. The latter is a separate, albeit related, species to the grey wolf of the northern hemisphere – the term ‘wolf’ covers almost two dozen animal species, living and extinct, most of whom are related to each other (i.e. they’re canines), but some are not…

Where were we? Right, the DNA of the dire wolf isn’t in as a good a condition as that of the woolly mammoth is – what’s left of the dire wolf are mainly fossilized bones, teeth, and the like. Extracting DNA from them, even if the dire wolf was in the same genus as the grey wolf, doesn’t guarantee success; the fact that the surrogate mothers were domestic dogs, aka a third canine species, separate from the other two (I’m going with this theory), only complicated the situation: how did their pregnancies go? How did the births go? Did the mothers survive or not? However, no, all we get are sterilized reports of a success, and automatic reactions to those reports. Neither is a reliable source of information and so far no one outside of CB has much to go on. Still…

Remember Ms. Nicole from my last week’s entry? Or rant, whatever. As it was said, she was hired by CB, or something similar to make six videos about mass extinctions; so far, two of them were aired, but we talked about this; the point is that one would expect her to jump onto the dire wolf promotion bandwagon, because CB are her employers or something, but no. She is keeping mum about them instead and seems to have outright distanced herself from the CB. Does she know something about this that we do not? Maybe, maybe not, but I, for one, am sceptical of just what CB’s latest wolf pups are. Real life does suck, but sometimes it is less sucky and more complex and complicated instead…

This is it for now. See you all soon!

X-Men/Mufasa - May 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now onto the home stretch of the X-Men ’97 season?

…Well, rather not, because by now we got the gist of the conflict in this season: it is the X-Men and most other mutants against yet another sentinel version – the Prime Sentinels. As far as Sentinels go, they are the X-Men version of the Mindless Ones, complete with glowing eyes. They can hardly be stopped, they can barely be reasoned with, they are yet another incarnation of the ‘evil mob’ kind of foe, and as such they cannot be sympathized, not really – and (the now dead) Gyrich is behind them. Of course he is. He is the mastermind behind the mob, (not to be confused with the actual X-Men character named the Mastermind). It was said before and it is said now, the X-Men ’97 franchise is going around in a circle like a snake in a wheel and going nowhere.

…Ok, this was uncalled for – with Magneto’s help the Prime Sentinels are defeated, but since the season’s finale is a 3-parter, and this was only the first part, so more excitement is ahead, really. Hell, even Jubilee and Roberto will be given something to do! Back in the 90s, Jubilee was all but written out of the main narrative, because it was no longer obvious what she was needed for in a show with a big cast, and the same is happening now, her and Roberto’s adventure in Mojo-land notwithstanding. This time she and Roberto are being dragged along for the ride like a couple of accessories to the main suit, and-

-and yes, Jubilee may grow up into a formidable warrior if she doesn’t die, and Morph is used as a prop to showcase various other Marvel mutant characters without them being actually around, and professor X is back, and everyone is excited, and the audiences are eating the show up, and there’s no specific background, unlike what is shaping up in the ‘Deadpool 3’ movie, and we’ve been here before, remember? Therefore, instead of beating up a (existential status undetermined) Deadpool, let us briefly talk about the upcoming ‘Mufasa’ film.

This is a spin-off of the ‘Lion King’ films, focusing on the childhood of Simba’s father instead. In this trailer, we see that 1) the (spotted) hyenas might be present, but they are playing a smaller role than they did in the original movie (both incarnations), which is good, because they need more good PR (the hyenas do). 2) Is that Mufasa’s brother Scar is not very prominent in the trailer either, but there are scenes of two lions of different ages fighting each other. In one scene, the background is on fire, and we get a glimpse of a small creature attacking the (enemy?) lion – perhaps it is Timon, who, alongside Pumba, is also supposed to be appear in the film. In the second fight, the background is icy, so either we are going to have a flashback into the past, into lives of cave lions instead, or Mufasa is going to get onto the Mt. Kilimanjaro or somewhere similar.

…The geography in the ‘Lion King’ franchise is just as bad as zoology is – in RL Africa has deserts at the ends, the jungle in the middle, and the savanna in-between, broadly speaking. In the world of Mufasa, Scar and Simba, we get the desert between the savanna and the jungle instead, therefore, an ice and snow covered mountain could fit quite well into this ensemble.

3) – in another scene, we have a lion cub, or cubs, having a misadventure with at least one Nile crocodile. In RL, this reptile is the only challenger to the saltwater crocodile in size and strength; the royal lion can defeat it, however – on land, and preferably in a pride. One on one, and especially in the water, the Nile crocodile has the upper hand, however. Since Mufasa (and his companions) are just cubs, they are in big trouble.

Finally, 4) – Rafiki. He is a mandrill, and this monkey, as well as its’ only true relative the drill, are not baboons, nor are particularly close cousins to them; rather, their closest relatives are the crested mangabeys, a group of guenon-like monkeys that don’t look anything like the drill/mandrill duo, as the latter look much more like the baboons and the geladas instead. Moreover, unlike the latter, the drill and the mandrill live in the African jungle, and as such, they appeared in Disney’s animated Tarzan-verse, and avoid the savannahs instead. Disney is certainly playing fast and loose with Africa in the ‘Lion King’ franchise; it will certainly be interesting to see how the movie will come out in winter of 2024.

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

About super-sized sauropods

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so we will talk about a magazine – i.e., ‘Scientific American’ – instead.

There is an article in the ‘Scientific American’ Sep 2023 issue, discussing sauropod dinosaurs and as to why some of them got super-big. The author proclaims that it is a mystery; I am no paleontologist, but I feel that I have a theory, here: it was a number of factors.

Why do animals do anything? Moreover, why do they evolve in the wild? To secure an advantage over competitors and predators/prey; a bigger body size is par de course here.

What are the advantages of being big, (super-big)? You get access to food sources that are unavailable to other herbivores, and predators are not as big of a threat to you, (pun intended). Conversely, though, you also need more food than the other herbivores do, and carnivores will eventually evolve their own adaptations, physical or behavioristic, that will even the score between them and a super-big herbivore. Let us widen the query.

What are the factors that allow the initial growth of super-size? An abundance of food, plant matter in the sauropods’ case. Wait. There is an arms’ race between plants and herbivores, just as there is one between them and the carnivores. In addition, just as some herbivores, (i.e. African [and Asian] elephants), get big to escape predators, (i.e. African lions and tigers), so do some plants get big in an attempt to ‘escape’ the elephants, (such as the baobab trees). The twist? This strategy does not work on all of the levels: under right conditions, elephants can bring down a baobab tree, (literally, topple it over), while a pride of lions can bring down an African elephant, (again under right conditions and circumstances). What is absent here?

Space. The more space there is, the more individual specimens of any given species occupy it. True, it does not necessarily mean getting big: a pine tree in a forest grows tall and thin, with its’ top high above the ground – a pine tree in a clearing grows shorter and squatter, with its’ top spread out wider than its’ crowded counterpart’s… but we digress. The point of this discussion is that just as modern elephants, (and baobab trees), got big because of several factors, so did the prehistoric sauropods…and trees, (or tree-like plants), that they ate. What else?

Right, not all of the sauropods evolved into super-sized plant eaters, some remained smaller. What about it?

First: sauropods evolved as bulk-feeders: their teeth and jaws were not designed for chewing, but for stripping foliage from branches, and for uprooting other plants whole. Another part of the reason as to why sauropods became the largest of the dinosaurs, extinct and modern, was because they had to become big to accommodate large and massive digestive systems that were almost constantly busy, because foliage, (as well as grass), isn’t very nutritious at all, and it has to be consumed in large amounts to satisfy not just hunger, but nutritious requirements of an organism.

Well, yes, but again, not all of the herbivorous dinosaurs got so big: even Jurassic ornithischians, such as Stegosaurus, never got as big as the sauropods did. That is correct, and it is competition again: by becoming big, the sauropods overshadowed their competitors: they could feed in places unavailable to the bird-hipped herbivores, and they were relatively immune to attacks to such theropods as Allosaurus, Torvosaurus, and Saurophaganax. That said, there was differentiation between the Jurassic sauropods themselves: some, like Diplodocus, were longer than they were tall, and their hips were taller than their shoulders – these dinosaurs could sit down on their hind legs alone, (forming a tripod with their tails), and be, well, construction cranes.

Other sauropods, like Brachiosaurus, were taller than they were long, and their shoulders were taller than their hips. They probably could also form a fulcrum tripod, but less well than Diplodocus and its’ relatives could, not that they needed too – they already were tall, taller than Diplodocus normally was.

Finally, there were less specialized sauropods, such as Camarasaurus, which were neither too tall nor too long, but just big, and fed on whatever Diplodocus would feed, but less well, and on whatever Brachiosaurus would feed, but less well. What is the moral?

We move on from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous and the world of the dinosaurs’ changes. The single super-continent of the Triassic and part of the Jurassic is gone, there are now two landmasses, Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south, and they are splitting as well. In the north, sauropods are practically gone, with some singular generalized species, such as Alamosaurus, remaining. In the south, they are flourishing, however…

However, Gondwana would eventually fall apart, as did Laurasia. The latter formed Eurasia and North America; the former – Africa, Australia, Antarctic, and South America, and it is in the last continent that the sauropods would reach their last peak of variety. Why? Because there were fewer bird-hipped dinosaurs in South America than elsewhere. In Africa and Australia, for example, there were such dinosaurs as Ouranosaurus and Muttaburrasaurus, smaller plant-eaters that were intermediate between the earlier iguanodonts and the true hadrosaurs, (like Edmontosaurus). If the sauropods depended on their guts to grind down and digest their food, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, (and especially the hadrosaurs and their kin), had more effective chewing systems than the sauropods did; they were better adapted to digest the new plants, (the first flowering plants appeared in the Early Cretaceous, just as the sauropods began to disappear), and they were able to outcompete the sauropods – just enough for them to die-out first, before the theropods and the bird-hipped herbivores, and before the K/T extinction.

In South America, it was slightly different. There, the sauropods remained dominant herbivores, and they began to compete with each other. As a result, some became extra-large, just as the African bush elephants are today. Others remained small; some, like Amargasaurus developed spiny crests, while others, like Saltasaurus, evolved bony armor, reminiscent of Ankylosaurus and co. These adaptations were defense mechanisms against their predators – carnosaurs, (Giganotosaurus and co.), and abelisaurs, (Abelisaurus and co.). Did they work…technically they did, though most paleontological texts give-off a feeling that the South American sauropods died-out before the K/T Extinction, again. Also, the biggest sauropods of them all, such as Argentinosaurus, never developed any bony armor or spikes or anything – it was too big to need this sort of armor, and not even the biggest South American theropods, (Mapusaurus, Giganotosaurus, etc.) were able to take it down…unless the circumstances were just in their favor.

Pause. We have come full circle. A learned person, a publicator in ‘Scientific American’ proclaimed that there is no idea as to why some sauropods became super-sized. For the same reason that some of the mammals did during the Cenozoic – to get advantage over their competitors, over their carnivores, and over their food source… and at the same time, to keep themselves alive and breeding, because bulk-food feeding comes with its own catches. Not such a mystery after all.

End

 

Quarantine entry #101 - June 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, though many people are still talking about the Thylacosmilus’ and its’ new ‘redesign’ instead. Fair enough, but today we will be talking about eagles instead.

However, the eagles are a very varied bunch, so let us choose for our sample bird… the white-tailed eagle. It is a very impressive bird, and an Eurasian version of the bald eagle of North America; out of all the sea eagles, these two are mostly closely related to each other, but some people, (cough, the Russians, cough), aren’t very fond of this theory and don’t talk about it very much. Next?

While the white-tailed eagle is a sea eagle, it is not as specialized for fish eating as the bald eagle is, and actually prefers to hunt waterfowl instead. For us, however, it is the ‘sea eagle’ moniker that is important for the moment – it is a label that designated a group of about a dozen or so of eagles as, well, aquatic, (or semi-aquatic) specialists. What next?

…While the sea eagles are semi-aquatic specialists, other eagle groups are not. For example, the harpy eagle of South America hunts in jungles, while the golden eagle of Eurasia and North America prefers more open spaces, period. That, and its’ preference for the West Coast over the East, are some of the reasons why as to how come it’s the bald eagle that is the U.S.’ national bird, and not the golden eagle instead.

…Yes, since Thomas Jefferson, people have argued against the bald eagle being the U.S.’ national symbol, but nothing has come out of it, so that is that. What next?

Well, if the falcons are built for speed, (just like the cheetah), and the hawks are more versatile, then the eagles are built for power, (just as the lion is). While a falcon’s whammy can be formidable if this bird picks up speed, an eagle’s version is even more so, and it needs less distance and speed to achieve it. All birds are light-weight as a rule, (there are exceptions, but not among the birds of prey, no), but the eagles are less so, which is why their flying style is more of a passive gliding – they prefer to soar on warm aerial updrafts for hours, (or sit on some inconspicuous perch instead, cough), using their superior eyesight to keep an eye on what is going on down below, while remaining less noticeable for their potential prey. Once they choose a potential candidate, they swoop down and strike.

A falcon smites its’ prey in mid-air, often slicing it apart at least partially. An eagle, rather seizes prey with its’ talons, which can be big and sharp enough to pierce skin and flesh to the bone, inflicting massive damage and killing it. A golden eagle can kill an animal the size of a red fox or a grey wolf, which is why native people of Asia have trained it. A falcon catches other birds; an eagle, (just like a hawk), is more geared to attack mammals instead.

The downside for this is greater physical exhaustion when flying actively, hence why the eagles glide and rest more often than the smaller birds of prey, including hawks and falcons; they also are not beyond scavenging – whereas the falcons usually aren’t found on corpses of dead mammals, the eagles are, and on such occasions they don’t look very regal at all. Of course, neither do lions, but anthropomorphic associations aside, it can also be remembered that while lions have resolved their endurance issues by becoming social, the eagles have not; in fact, the only modern ‘raptors’ that have embraced the social hunting of their Mesozoic forebears are the so-called Harris’ hawks, which are more closely related to the buteos, than to the ‘true’ hawks…

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 #53 - May 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and on this particular day, there is nothing going on in real life that is exceptionally noteworthy, the rant of a certain musician on Twitter aside. People are falling apart, as simple as that, and the fact that such captains of industry as the aforementioned Twitter, Google and Facebook are allowing their workers to work from their homes even in the post-lockdown world doesn’t help. Working from home means co-existing with your family 24/7, and this is what the lockdown has already exposed as overrated – you need to have some space from your family, some time off, and if that isn’t happening, then it isn’t happening, and you got an unavoidable meltdown instead. What else?

…People have been asking me as to why I have not been discussing Ubisoft’s latest ‘Assassin’s Creed’ installment – the one with the Vikings. My answer is plain: I do not do ‘Assassin’s Creed’ as a rule, and this version is essentially ‘Assassin’s Creed’ meeting the ‘Vikings’ of History channel, and in case you have forgotten, I wasn’t impressed with that TV series either. Frankly, I’m going to call a spade a spade and call out, saying that if it wasn’t for the lockdown, the ‘ACV’ wouldn’t receive as much publicity as it did, but this is the hand it was dealt instead, the end.

…As for ‘Stargirl’, the latest darling of the DC TV-verse, I’m not going to touch it right now either – I’m not a big fan of DC TV-verse, ‘Stargirl’ may be superhero drama meeting a teenage rom-com, or sit-com, or whatever – don’t care. This is not my TV show for now, the end. What is left?

…I feel like talking about lions, actually. Of course, we have talked about them repeatedly in the past, so let us do this now once more – I am feeling sufficiently nostalgic, here and now.

So: the lion is the king of the beasts. People claimed that it could stare into the sun without blinking. However, so can the other cats – the anatomy of their eyes permits that. ‘Tis just that the lion is so regal-looking, so majestic! It appears that a lion is never looking at anyone directly, but only at some point in the distance, as if it does not notice you. And its’ roar is something else – it isn’t roar, it’s thunder!

When it comes to strength, the lion does not attack only the African bush elephant, (namely, the fully-grown animals), the African rhinos, (ditto), and the polar bear, (because the latter is never found in the African wilderness). Anything else is fair game. The lion’s strength is such, that it can break a bull’s back with one paw strike. However, more often, the lioness will jump onto the prey’s back, grab the muzzle with its paws, and by jerking around, it either suffocates the beast or breaks its’ neck, whether it was a wildebeest, some other antelope, a zebra, or even the African buffalo.

…Yes, there are several subspecies, or even species, of the African buffalo, which is only a distant relative of the American buffalo, aka the bison that we have discussed in the past. However, right now, we are talking about the lions, which is the only species in the Panthera genus that hunts in packs, as the wild dogs do – aka in prides. All the rest of the ‘roaring cats’ are solitary hunters. Beyond them, we got the cheetah and maybe the cheetah’s South American cousin the jaguarundi, which also live in family prides, especially the cheetah. Too little is known about the jaguarundi to make a concrete statement.

Finally, the lions used to live beyond Africa – in Eurasia and even in North America, (which used to be connected to Eurasia via a land bridge in the past epochs). As you know, those beasts were called cave lions in Europe and American lions in North America. Whether they actually lived in caves, or were only depicted there by the Stone Age humans, is another story. These days, lions live only in Africa, and in the Gir Forest in India, Asia, and their status slash well-being is contradictory and worrisome. A sad end for the king of the beasts there!..

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

Quarantine entry #24 - April 14

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yesterday, Doug Ford insisted that the Canadian province of Ontario remains in the lockdown for another month – that is until the end of May or so. Ouch! The road to Hell is paved with best intentions and all – but at least this time I have seen a flock of grackles, which are some of North America’s bigger songbirds. What next?

I have returned to watching DW, in no small part because I do not want to go back to AFO instead – really, the only episode that we had not discussed in AFO is the ‘lion vs. tiger’ one, and I am not going to talk about it, it is so flawed on so many levels!.. So, let us talk – speaking of flaws – of the DW episode ‘Spartan vs. Ninja’, and-?

And here is the bottom line – Ninja had lost fairly, but with a caveat. This caveat is called mid-range weapons – Spartan had a spear; Ninja – a bunch of eggs, filled with pepper powder, or poison, or some similar crap. The result is that team Spartan received a major boost in points during that comparison, and team Ninja was never able to catch-up to their rivals.

As for the rest of the weapons… Ninja’s ninjato sword was actually superior to Spartan’s xiphos. Spartan’s javelin was slightly better than Ninja’s shurikens and blowgun, but not by much. In addition, yes, Spartan’s shield was better than Ninja’s kusarigama…but not by much, again. It was Spartan’s spear, not shield, that carried him to victory, period, but only because the DW team had set Ninja up, in a manner of speaking. Ah well, that was the expenses of growth, of inexperience, and in the next seasons the DW team was able to avoid such mistakes. Good for them, just…not good enough to save them after three seasons of various success. Ah well, that is life, live with it. It sucks, but live with it, would you?

…And yes, Spartan did come back for a ‘Back for Blood’ special, set between the DW S1 and S2, where he faced-off against Samurai. This time, he did win because of his shield, making me wonder as to how a Viking vs. Ninja face-off would have gone down? Considering that the black eggs still would have been used by Ninja, the latter would have lost altogether, but, still, it would have been exciting to watch.

…There was no ‘Back for Blood’ special between DW S2 and S3, and that indicated that something had shifted behind the scenes of the show, and not for the better. Ah well, let us not go around beating a dead horse more than we need to…

Anything else? …Actually, yes – here’s a brief drabble of original fiction about a lion, because the King of the Beasts deserves better than what AFO gave it – a dubious win over a tiger in one episode, and a clear loss to the Nile crocodile in another. Ah well, we are not going to discuss the former, and we have already discussed the latter, so here is the drabble in question instead:

Beware, ye wild horses the zebras! Beware, ye speedy antelopes! Even ye beware, great-horned buffalos!

The lions are abroad!

Thunder seemingly thundered, rolling through the Savannahs and scrublands. The lions Roared, the lions snarled. Everyone else hid.

Aside from the elephant, the rhino and the polar bear, the lion is the king of the beasts. Their teeth are strong, their claws are sharp, and the mane is thick.

Who will be eaten tonight, you know?

End

...Well, this is it for now; see you all soon! (Hopefully, the lockdown will end by the month of May or sometime around it, but I am not making any positive bets). Cheers!

Quarantine entry #19 - April 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Not only COVID-19 is still going on strongly, this morning we had a very nasty snowstorm. Fortuitously, we stayed inside, and now the storm is over, (it is the beginning of April, after all), and nature is coming back out – the birds are flying, singing, fighting over their nesting territories en masse, showing just how resilient life on Earth. The storm passed and is over; COVID-19 too will pass and be over and life will return to normal. …Well, relatively so, seeing how the politicians, businessmen, and who else have you, are trying to take advantage of the lockdown and all, are trying to take advantage of the lockdown, and it is all coming down like a great big mess; people are fleeing into the literal woods to escape both COVID-19 and everything else. What next?

Let us talk about the giraffe. Why the giraffe? Because it is unique. There is no other mammal on the modern planet like it. If the modern elephants represent the last scions of an ancient dynasty of herbivorous mammals that fell due to the competition with the artiodactyl mammals, then the modern giraffe is one of those evolutionary cousins of the main dynasty – aka the antelopes, gazelles, wild cattle, sheep and goats – that had its’ heyday in the past, (the Miocene & the Pliocene epochs), but is largely gone, these days.

Pause. The entire taxonomic-biological family of the giraffe consists of the giraffe, and the okapi, aka the forest giraffe. Frankly, the latter name is not used very often, because the okapi is only like the giraffe in the most generic ways; you can see the family similarity, but nothing more. With an effort, you can confuse an Asian elephant with an African one, or an Asian rhinoceros with an African one, but an okapi with a giraffe? Just no. …The families of the okapi and the giraffe have diverged during the Miocene slash the Pliocene, around 11.5 MYA, and the two have never been in contact since.

The okapi family is represented by a single species – the okapi itself. The giraffe, on the other hand, is murkier, as people in charge of biological classification still have not made their mind as to if there is just a single giraffe species, or four of them, or what. Even if there is just a single giraffe species, it may have up to nine subspecies, which is a lot. …Of course, with humans hunting them for all sorts of reasons, or even without any reasons at all, because we humans can be assholes, they may not be around for much longer, but that is not a good thing.

…Yes, COVID-19 has hit humans, even in Africa, hard, so they may not be up for the giraffes, but no one knows exactly how it affects other animals; for example, a tiger in Bronx zoo was discovered to have it; and with giraffes slash okapis, it is anyone’s guess.

So, why is the giraffe so unique? Because it is a very specialized animal – it is not big: it is tall. A good portion of the giraffe is its’ disproportionally long neck and legs; the neck, I think, amounts for about half of the giraffe’s body length, (while in case of the okapi it is about 30%, on average). Just like a human’s, the okapi’s and the giraffe’s neck consist of only 7 vertebra, but the giraffe’s are the most massive one out of the three by far, both in size and in weight. Isn’t trivia fun?

What next? …Um, aside from the humans, the main enemies of the giraffe are the African lion and the Nile crocodile; no one else really wants to tackle and fully-grown giraffe – compared to an elephant or a rhinoceros they may look like great big fragile land kites or something, but their head-butts are painful, and their kicks can be deadly. African lions, however, are known to tackle African bush elephants, (not fully grown, but not just calves either), who are even stronger than the giraffes are, and so they do overpower giraffes by working as a team, on occasion.

The Nile crocodile, on the other hand, is more of a case by case situation – it is a solitary hunter; crocodiles of these species may gather together to feed, (their anatomy of jaws and teeth makes it easier for them to feed together, rather than separately, on something bigger than what they can just swallow whole)… where were we?

Ah yes, unlike the African lion, the Nile crocodile is a solitary hunter, but a social feeder, especially if the prey is big – say, a dead African hippo. Then the not-quite-social crocodiles gather and tolerate each other, more or less, as they feed – with ‘tolerate’ being the key word here. The African lions hunt together, (though there is plenty of case-by-case variation there), and their society is quite complex, (cough, TLK is full of baloney, cough), but they and the Nile crocodiles do not have anything in common aside from both of them living in Africa.

…Yes, we have discussed the ‘African lion vs. Nile crocodile’ AFO episode a while back, and spoiler alert – the lion lost, (and the giraffe was not involved at all), which is fair: a male African lion is a fighter, but it is a team fighter, and on its own, it rather has a disadvantage against the crocodile. Plus, on that episode team AFO really did its’ homework, and their deduction that the Nile crocodile was a better fighter than the African lion was justified, so there!

Back to the giraffe? Er, did it leave while we were dealing with the lion and the crocodile? Why, we have not even mentioned the non-avian theropod dinosaurs, aka the meat-eaters, are the goal of a real discussion of whether they did hunt together as the African lions do, or just fed together, as the Nile crocodiles? And what did they feed upon? Sauropods, among other things, just look at the second episode of WWD, or the fifth episode of ‘Planet Dinosaur’ (2013), for example! Are sauropods like the giraffe?

No, not exactly. Some are – that is the Brachiosaurus and its’ relatives. Others are not – rather, they are big, (aka the elephant) – that is Argentinosaurus and the rest of the titanosaurs; or they are just long – aka Diplodocus and its’ relatives, (including the Apatasaurus). Yes, we are generalizing here so hard, but the thing is that many of the sauropods were built different from the giraffe, and many of them were not built like it.

Moreover, neither was the extinct Indricotherium, or whatever it is named now, (see the third episode of ‘Walking with Beasts’). Just like the extinct titanosaurs, or the existing elephants, it was big rather than tall, and quite proportionate. Why did it die out? Because not unlike the giraffe it was a specialized mammal, designed to eating foliage, and as the savannas, prairies, steppes, etc. spread, the Indricotherium could no longer survive. With the modern giraffe – it is pretty much the same thing: the giraffe survives alongside all of those antelopes and gazelles by being the best foliage eater in the African grasslands – a very specialized niche, to be sure, but it does allow the giraffe to survive over more of Africa as opposed to the more generalized okapi, which exists only in parts of the African rainforest, and whose overall population is worse off than that of the giraffe. Evolution and ecology sometimes play strange tricks upon animals!..

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

Quarantine entry #13 - April 3

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It goes on, but it still sucks. I am tired of reiterating it, but there is only so much fresh material that I can use, and what is left, anyhow?

…Well, not DW – I am putting it on hold again, maybe AFO? Therefore, I watched its’ penultimate episode – ‘American Alligator vs. Black Bear’, and again, I was hit that the Black Bear won where the lion had failed – in luck: the Nile Crocodile was able to get a good grip, and the American Alligator was not. That all it took.

…Now, when we have discussed this episode for the first time, I made something of a comment that it was important that both of those animals were American, because otherwise? There’s a Chinese alligator that lives in China, (i.e. only in the Yangtze River) and there’s an Asian black bear, also known as the moon bear, which is roughly the same size as the American black bear, save that it has a white spot on its’ chest. Now, the American black bear is usually monochrome in color – the basic color is black, but there is also cinnamon, brown, even white – the spirit bear of the West Coast. However, it is all solid color, no spots or anything else. As a matter of fact, only the American black bear, the brown bear, and the polar bear are all-monochrome: the giant panda, (which is lately been identified as a true bear once more), is decisively chiaroscuro, while the other bears, while usually black, also usually have a splash of white on their chests or muzzles.

The main coloring exception is the Malaysian bear, probably the smallest (physically) bear of them all: its’ spot on the chest is not white, as in case of the Himalayan bear, but yellow. Hence, the whole sun/moon bear dichotomy, I suppose…

Back to the alligators? Of the alligators and caimans, the American alligator is the biggest, while the Chinese alligator is slightly over two m in length and weighs about 45-50 kg – that is compatible with a grown-up human man. Considering that without firearms bears kill humans easily enough – well, the brown and the American black bears do – I doubt that the moon bear is any different, as it is the Old World counterpart to the American black bear. Plus, the Chinese alligator is less confrontational than its’ American relative, so, again, I doubt that it would’ve went after any bear the same way that the American alligator went after the American black bear on AFO. Anything else?

Well, the Chinese alligator is the only member of the alligator and caiman branch that lives in the Old World, while the New World has several species of true crocodiles living alongside alligators and caimans in the American tropics. However, aside from the American crocodile per se, they are fairly shy and retiring creatures, and they are much harder to see than the crocodiles of Africa and Australasia, especially the Nile and the saltwater crocodiles.

…The Old World also has the gharials, the final members of the crocodilian family. Previously, they were thought to consist only of the ‘true’ gharial, as opposed to the ‘false’ gharial, which was supposed to be one of the ‘true’ crocodiles’, but now it is also part of the gharial group. Sometimes animal classification can have some real twists and turns – just look at the pandas, (getting back to the bears). I.e., these days the aforementioned giant panda is a true bear once more, while the red or lesser panda belongs to its own family, and apparently consists of two species, rather than just one. And yes, the two species of red panda are very similar to each other, only a specialist can distinguish between them, but, nevertheless, there is two of them. Hah.

…Well, this is it for now. The lockdown still sucks. Life still sucks. Anything else is up for discussion. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #9 - March 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and the weather only makes it worse. So, let us try to turn to something else – say, to the previously mentioned movie, ‘When Dinosaurs Roamed America’. This time, we will be talking about the Late Cretaceous segment, (66 MYA, no duh), though not really because of the T-Rex, but because of its’ most known arch nemesis, the Triceratops.

The good old ‘Three-Horned Face’ is, of course, almost as well established in popular mass media, as the Tyrannosaurus itself is. Its’ iconic, well, three-horned face is known even to absolute ignoramuses of the dino world, and justly so – it is just that well recognizable, with its’ three horns, (of various sizes), and its’ parrot-like beak.

A note on those horns, of course – Triceratops belonged to the branch of the ceratopsid family that had large brow horns and small nasal horns, such as the already mentioned Triceratops and Torosaurus. The second branch usually had large nasal horns, but their brow horns were small or even absent, as in case of Monoclonius or Styracosaurus. On top of this, there were other, more primitive ceratopsians, often completely hornless, such as the previously discussed Protoceratops – such dinosaurs had frills and beaks, but no horns – the horns were a later addition.

Just as the other iconic dinosaurs of the Cretaceous, the ceratopsids appeared during the Jurassic: they were small, bipedal dinosaurs with beaks rather than jaws and with small frills at the back of their heads – features that lasted until the end of the Mesozoic, becoming only more and more derived.

Did these frills, not to mention horns, help against such carnivores as Tyrannosaurus Rex and Dakotasaurus? No more so than the modern horns and antlers help against wolves, hyenas, big cats and/or bears. Many of the modern herbivores sport such headgear… but it works mostly in inner species’ conflicts, between the males in mating fights, and against the carnivores…it is a mixed bag.

If taken by itself, however, Triceratops appears to be a very formidable dinosaur, the Late Cretaceous’ answer to the rhinoceros, or at least the African buffalo – animals that can fight-off even the modern African lions, (sometimes), but not because of their horns, but because of their physical strength. Their horns, (or antlers, as in case of the moose and elk), are only extensions of their physical strength, in a manner of speaking.

Remember, when we discussed the two-part series called ‘The Truth about the Killer Dinosaurs’? The first episode was centered precisely on the T-Rex vs. Triceratops conflict, and during this episode, it was established that Triceratops could fight-off and even kill a T-Rex, if it was a fair fight. And if it wasn’t?

Well, both WDRA and WWD avoided the entire T-Rex vs. Triceratops conflict entirely – in WWD, we see a single Triceratops that is already dead, probably from the T-Rex in question, but there are always versions; and in WDRA, a Tyrannosaurus tried to harass a Triceratops herd, but failed. It probably happened back in the Cretaceous. Instead, in both WWD and WDRA, the Tyrannosaurs went after the duck-billed hadrosaurs instead, (i.e. the Anatotian), with much more success, and this is where we return to the modern period – in WDRA, Tyrannosaurs’ hunted in a family pack, not unlike how modern lions of Africa and Asia do. Did that happen?

Hard to say. JFC once claimed that Tyrannosaurus Rex was not quite as smart as a modern house cat is, but considering that the house cats have largely taken over our houses, this might be an underestimation of the house cats instead. On the other hand, not only tyrannosaurid dinosaurs were found in mass burials, but also the more basic carnosaurs, (such as Giganotosaurus and Mapusaurus), as well. Were they as smart as the modern lions are? Probably not, certainly mammalian and reptilian brains are wired different for all sorts of anatomical reasons- pause. Dinosaurs, especially theropod dinosaurs – tyrannosaurs, carnosaurs, raptors, etc. – were closer to birds than to snakes and lizards, for comparison.

…True, but among the modern raptors, aka birds of prey, (which are a mixed bag themselves, but let us ignore this for now), only the Harris’ hawk of North America hunts in packs/family groups. The true social hunters among the modern birds are the corvids, mostly various crows and magpies, (the bigger ravens are more solitary instead). Were the tyrannosaurs, carnosaurs, raptors, etc. as smart as the modern crows and ravens, (which are among the smartest modern birds, period)? So far, no one has asked this question or answered it. Anything else?

And what about the Triceratops itself? Well, ‘The Truth’ established that Tyrannosaurus Rex was actually quite dumb, and Triceratops even dumber. Therefore, it is rather doubtful that Triceratops was able to launch defensive maneuvers in the manner of, say, modern wildebeest or reindeer…or that the Tyrannosaurus could launch offensive maneuvers as the modern lions, spotted hyenas, grey wolves and wild dogs do. Still, they probably had something, and not all fights were only one on one either. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, I would bet. Anything else?

Regrettably, yeah. These days, real life is not very condoning to long discussions, and I think that I have largely exhausted my interest in dinosaurs, at least for the next day or so. Therefore – this is it for now. I will see you all soon!

JW: Motion comics part 3 - Dec 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so sometimes when you go online and find a really great story that helps you get through the day – then you are quite lucky. And sometimes you go online and see the next installment of JW’s online motion comic, and that is something else. So, let us talk about it.

…Well, first let us make a shout-out to Netflix’s upcoming ‘The Witcher’ series. It is shaping up to be the next GoT series and rightly so, because it’s author, Mr. Sapkowski, had written the original ‘Witcher’ as a series of books, not unlike Martin’s ASOIAF series, but with some differences: for one thing, the first book (or two) of ‘Witcher’ are more like series of stories and novellas rather than proper novels. For another – Sapkowski has actually finished his ‘Witcher’ series, while Martin’s ASOIAF, (which separate from HBO’s GoT, FYI), remain unfinished, for all sorts of reasons, but still unfinished.

…Will I be watching Netflix’s version of ‘Witcher’? Having actually read the original novels, I’ll probably pass – yes, the goal isn’t unlike that of Martin’s ASOIAF, or the ‘Jupiter Ascending’ film that’d come up to the movie screens few years before now, (i.e. before 2019) – it’s a space/fantasy opera, full of swords and sorceries and politics and plots. There are actual monsters – ghouls, vampires, sirens/mermaids, etc. There are dwarves and gnomes and elves. It is everything that a fantasy fan wants, but you can only read the entire series once before having enough – it will stoke the fires of your inner fan for months to come. That said, I want to point out that the word ‘Witcher’ is nonsense: Sapkowski’s own word for it is ‘wiedzsmin’ or something similar, (I don’t know the Polish language all that well), which roughly means ‘man-witch’ or ‘witch of a male gender’ in other languages, and in English language specifically, there are several words that also have similar meanings, words such as ‘sorcerer’ and ‘warlock’; J-Ro has actually used the latter in her ‘Tales of Beedle the Bard’ story anthology, remember? …Probably not, since between ‘the Cursed Child’ and the current Newt Scamander series J-Ro has really muddled her own fandom, but it is there. Why did the English language adaptations of Sapkowski’s series had to create the word ‘Witcher’ and the good old ‘warlock’ could not serve is anyone’s guess. Human logic is one of those reasons as to why real life sucks.

And why does real life suck in this instance? For personal reasons – sometimes your life just changes for the worse and you cannot do anything about it, no matter how much you struggle to figure out a way out – but we digress. In other news, Weinstein – Harvey Weinstein – paid 25 million to get the charges dropped and be a free man – so much for #MeToo, put otherwise.

Listen. Back in 2016+, the whole damn process was supposedly precisely aimed at this sort of thing – for men in power not to be able to buy their way out of their crimes… but this is exactly what Weinstein seems to be achieving… so it all comes back to money. Not surprising – post Cold War, the U.S. philosophy was increasingly dominated by capitalism and it was all about the money, so now that the country is trying to distance itself from the all-mighty dollar – it does not work. It does not work for several reasons, including the one that is that from the 1990s onwards the U.S. increasingly tried to be a utopia and it failed for all sorts of other reasons, but regardless, money and the money cult do not make things any better either. ‘Frozen 2’ is a typical example of that… but we have talked about this movie already. Let us try to talk about the latest installment of JW’s motion comic, as we promised.

…Okay, here we got no money or philosophy, but a direct continuation of the first two parts; it even features Rebecca Ryan the news’ anchor and her nameless husband as well more new characters. Two of those characters are zoo workers – an Afro-American woman named Rachel, (yes, JW seems to have a problem with names that start with the letter R for some reason) and her Anglo-American co-worker, (of male gender), while the third is a journalist reporting to Rebecca, named Julie. Again, by utilizing the motion comic format, JW avoids from giving any characterization to any of its’ human characters at all, and as for the non-human characters…

…As for the non-human characters, this week’s motion comic featured that good old favorite, Rexy the T-Rex. Here, the motion comic picked up where the last JW film ended, (among other things): Rexy confronted Leo the lion at a zoo, and here we get to see what happened next. Nothing much, sadly: Rexy and Leo roared at each other some, and then human-piloted helicopters arrived and led Rexy off into some ravine. Kind of a letdown, especially since Leo was not backing down from a fight: the keepers may have been able to take wives and cubs to safety, but not him, as you can see in the motion comic. Maybe in the future installment he and Rexy will be able to have their final face-off? That would not be bad, especially since the actual franchise was never against blood and death, until now…

…Here I am talking about the pteranodon. The motion comic itself is confused as to how to call them: it calls them both ‘pteranodon’ (as a plural) and ‘pteranodons’ (ditto) within a couple of sentences, so let’s call them pterosaurs instead. In the motion comic, Rebecca wonders if they’re the same pterosaurs that were seen at lake Mead, and then one of them picks up some random guy off the street and drops him into a fountain, (so the shmuck probably survives this fall), and that’s problematic on so many levels.

Firstly, the lake. In the U.S., there is a lake Meade, which is located in Pennsylvania, and is not a lake, but an ‘unincorporated census-designated place’, whatever that means in normal English, and second, there is a Lake Mead, which is a lake, albeit an artificial one, which lies on the Colorado River. Which one was talked about in the motion comic is anyone’s guess.

Next, the pterosaurs themselves. The truth is that Crichton never wrote about pteranodons – his pterosaur species was the Cearodactylus, a flying reptile that looked more like the ornithocheirus from the 4^th episode of ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ (1999) – no horn on the head, and the jaws aren’t a toothless beak, but have teeth that function like a fish trap and a keel-like ridge as well. Why the franchise decided to replace them with the pteranodons onwards from ‘The Lost World’ film if not from the original JP one – is anyone’s guess, but by now the pteranodon are firmly a part of the JP franchise. Live with it.

…Living with the fact that the entire JP franchise, starting from the already mentioned ‘Lost World’ film depicted its pterosaurs bipedal like birds at least some of the time is harder. People know that on the ground pterosaurs moved on all fours like bats rather than just on their hind legs as birds do: just look at Hatzegopteryx in the final episode of ‘Planet Dinosaur’ (2011): the show showed scientific proof that on the ground those aerial monsters moved on all fours. So why are JP pterosaurs bipedal? Let us blame Dr. Wu, I guess.

Finally, the matter of size. Pteranodon was one of the bigger pterosaurs back in the 20^th century, (maybe even the biggest back then), but now Quatzalcoatlus and Hatzegopteryx shadow it: Pteranodon has only a 9-m wingspan; theirs was much bigger and they were even larger than the pteranodon was. So how did this flying reptile became so much larger than a human as shown in this motion comic, (not in any of the movies, mind)? Again, it is probably the fault of good doctor, so let us move on to the final part of this discussion:

I.e. on one hand, this motion comic is not so bad, the plot is fairly straightforward and the characters are consistent. On the other, the plot is also unsatisfying and tries to have it both ways: there are scary monsters, (I am sorry, but a T-Rex is certainly a monster, albeit a real life one), but also – that no one gets hurt.

Yes, this is the sort of ambiguity that has haunted the Western movies lately, ever since Rose Tico mentioned about defeating the First Order with love, not with violence. This is not how it works; this is not how it worked in the original trilogy, it was more of a ‘speak softly but stand-up for your principles’ instead, so Rosie, you got it all wrong. Still, the SW9 film is almost upon us, so it will be interesting to see as to how team Resistance co. defeats Palpatine and etc. Real life may suck, but often there are movies (and the like) to carry us through…

This is it for now, however – see you all soon.

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Leap' - July 19

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes you seem to get what you want, but the price is not what you have expected; karma just might be real, and if you try to play it…it will be played, but so will you. There is a reason as to why Gandalf tended to downplay his magical skills, and he was a Maiar, i.e. – not a human at all, more like a demigod that inhabited a human shell – but more on that later.

As we suffer from family problems and other issues, we turn to the magical world of make-believe to make us feel better, and what do we discover there? Disney is owning a large part of National Geographic franchise, which is why the latter is advertising TLK-2019, a movie so…unsatisfying, that there’s a man on YouTube, who made a video about 30 minutes long if not slightly more so, just ranting about how bad TLK-2019 is.

…TLK-2019 is not the best movie of 2019 so far, but neither is it the worst; it certainly does not deserve a 30+ minute rant either. If you do not like it, that is fine; the fact that the bloody Disney owns a large part of NatGeo franchise – not so much. Seriously, what does the House of Mouse want? To become real life’s analogue of the SW empire? Yeah, not cool, not cool at all.

Looking away from TLK-2019, which is an inferior remake of the 1994 film with some variant dialogue that doesn’t do anything, we see… the trailer for the upcoming ‘Cats’ movie… and what in seven Hells did we see?

Well, from a literal P.O.V. we have seen a number of famous actors and actresses singing around in digitalized anthropomorphic cat suits, singing and dancing. And why were they singing and dancing in digitalized anthropomorphic cat suits? Only the Lord knows. Well, maybe Nick Fury – the original Nick Fury – also does, but we’ve been already subjected to the above-described spectacle, even if in the previous incarnations of ‘Cats’ the cast wore real-life, regular cat suits and make-up, and it was just fine. ‘Cats’ is a musical, after all, so who the Hell cares about the suits, beyond their basic function of them?

…As for the main plot of ‘Cats’… listen. It’s a bunch of cats – literally speaking – who come together as a single tribe and debate via song and dance as to who will ascend to Heaven (for that is what it is, even it’s called differently here), and be reborn into someone new. Guess all of them are out of their nine lives or something, because otherwise? It makes even less sense than it does in the canon – but that is okay. It is a musical. It does not supposed to make sense! There already was an attempt to adapt it into a movie format, and it was not very successful – it was a direct-to-video format, and that never really works. Why should Cats-2019 be better? As TLK-2019 shows, a movie cannot get ahead on CGI alone; TLK-1994 is still the better version out of the two, (so far; maybe in another 25 years we will get TLK-2044 or something).

In addition, you must remember that ‘Cats’ is a musical, and they don’t transform into movies too well from the start. Does anyone remember the latest one, not a biopic of Barnum Brown or someone like that? Judging by the crickets chirping – no. There is no indication that Cats-2019 will endure any better, ‘Cats’ or no ‘Cats’.

I remember when Cirque du Soleil made a film, about human life from birth to death. The first dance was depicting the – fertilization of an egg by sperm; then the protagonist’s childhood; his first love, depicting by two statues dancing, (we’re talking a heterosexual couple here, BTW); then his maturity; then the scene where a bunch of proletarian types (the turn of 20^th century, here), confront the protagonist in his mansion; and the final scene, our protagonist, now an old man, leaving with a crowd of children for Heaven or someplace similar. All of the above was executed by nothing but dance and music. After going through it, I promptly went to the radio and listened to contemporary pop songs (J-Lo – at that time she was more of a singer than an actress unlike these days) until I returned to normal. There’s only so much edgy progressive culture that I can take – and movie musicals like that Barnum Brown piece, ‘Rocketman’ (sort of), and the upcoming Cats-2019 (we’re talking December of this year), have all that plus singing. What joy. Not. It’s really almost enough to make a blogger return to real life… just in time to see and hear POTUS the Donald open his maw and emit a series of racist insults that have no business being emitted by a POTUS; you motherfucking Yankees, impeach him now!

Try to escape back into mass media? To AoS, to be more precise? Oh wait, AoS is being cancelled at last – the upcoming 7^th season will be its’ end. So far, AoS is trying to give all that it has…more recycling, this time of the Ghost Rider plot arc. Further compounding the situation is the fact that Gabriel Luna does not appear to be returning to AoS, especially for the finale of S6 – he is busy preparing for his own ‘Ghost Rider’ TV series… Gregg is doing the best he can, playing a Coulson clone that has Ghost Rider powers… AoS has officially jumped the shark. It made sense for Luna and his character – Robbie Reyes – to return to AoS back when a fear dimension that is not a fear dimension after all, but he never did. Rather, Deathlok made his obligatory appearance – one per AoS season or even less – and that was the end of that. Only it is not, and Izel is about to take over the world via her alien space bats…sorry, shrikes. In real life, shrikes are carnivorous songbirds with some rather gruesome and disturbing feeding habits: when they catch a small animal, they impale it on a thorn, and strip flesh from the impaled corpse at their leisure. Real life can be stranger than any science fiction, and for North America, there are two main species of shrike, the loggerhead and the northern shrikes – but we have digressed.

No, not really. Not unlike S5 and especially S4, AoS is trying to combine several plot lines into one, just in time for the explosive mid-season finale. Yes, it is supposed to be the season finale, but this is just AoS being cute, among other things. They are losing cast members again – agent Davis has apparently died for good – and the numbers still are not so high, and the enthusiasm is on the decrease, now that the cast and the crew know that the gravy train has almost ended. Will AoS end up in an equally big mess as the last two seasons of GoT did? Since this week’s episode – ‘Leap’ – forgot/ignored about Snowflake’s existence completely, odds are that yeah, they will be, forgotten coffee cups and water bottles aside.

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

PS: Do not try to play the karma, please, unless you are that sort of a wizard/cleric/theurge. If you are – go ahead; if you are not – eventually you will lose control and then it will be really bad for everyone.

Now – see you all soon!