Quarantine entry #23 - April 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, though supposedly the worst of COVID-19 in the U.S. is over. Great. Considering that NYC alone has at least one mass grave by now, I am not being overly enthusiastic and optimistic here. Anything else?

…Honestly, I would like to talk about the kangaroos now. Why them? Because they are both real and unique. They are one of the best-known symbols of the Australian fauna, alongside the koala, and they deserve it. There are other jumping mammals in the rest of the continents, but they are smaller than the kangaroos are, on average. Pause.

Strictly speaking, the term ‘kangaroo’, derived from one of the Australian Aboriginal language names for the eastern grey kangaroo, (as opposed to the western grey species), applies to only four species of those mammals: the already-mentioned eastern and western grey kangaroos, the red kangaroo, and the less-known antilopine kangaroo. All the rest of them critters are wallaroos, wallabies, tree kangaroos, potoroos, rat kangaroos, bettongs and so forth. The primary difference between all of those ‘roos is their size – the four species mentioned separately are the biggest, the three genera and the eight species of rat-kangaroos and co. are the smallest, but all of them can jump, (except for the tree kangaroos, I suppose), and they all eat plants. There are rumors that some extinct species of kangaroo were carnivores instead, but they do not surface very often. What next?

…The mention of the prehistoric kangaroos brings us to the last episode of the ‘Monsters Resurrected’ mini-series, one that dealt with the Megalania. It was a giant prehistoric monitor lizard, (in case there is someone who does not know; probably a unicorn), and it fed, among other things, on giant prehistoric ‘roos, such as Procoptodon. From what I can remember, the giant monitor lizard preferred to ambush its’ prey period, venomous bite or not, because otherwise? Its’ chances were more ambiguous, because even modern kangaroos, (I am talking about the big four here), are tough, even against people with firearms, and Procoptodon was even bigger and more massive than they are. Ergo, if the Megalania did not get lucky and Procoptodon could escape or fight back, then things could go in favor of either beast.

Aside from Procoptodon, that episode of ‘Monsters Resurrected’ also featured Diprotodon, a rhino-sized cousin of the modern wombats (there are several species) and the koala, (about one species, but maybe several subspecies), and the marsupial lion, Thylacoleo. Megalania defeated them all, but, again, it is only because the scriptwriters wanted it so. Otherwise… Diprotodon was as big as the modern rhinos are, had a powerful bite of its own, and was even more massive than Megalania was – with a successful counterattack, the giant lizard would be in so much trouble!..

Yes, the modern Komodo dragons kill the water buffaloes that co-exist with them, but, honestly, I feel that there is something artificial about the entire situation. Water buffaloes are not that stupid, and if the Komodo dragons harassed them regularly, the mammals would have figured something out. Instead, I’m guessing, the entire ‘hunt’ of a Komodo dragon for a water buffalo is so disproportionally slow, and when a water buffalo dies, so many dragons feast on it, that it is a completely different situation from water buffalos and tigers in the national parks on Asian mainland, for comparison. That said, Megalania was much bigger than the modern Komodo dragon is, so I am not entirely sure that it worked out in the same way.

As for Thylacoleo… Listen, during the Pleistocene, Australia was home to last truly huge reptiles of bygone ages; aside from Megalania, (aka a giant lizard), there was also Meiolania, (a giant horned tortoise), Wonambi, (a giant constrictor snake) and Quinkana, (the last of the truly terrestrial crocodiles). They all died out as the Ice Age ended; maybe it was because of humans, but as far as humans go, the Australian Aboriginals weren’t all that well-equipped or well-armed to handle a creature like Megalania…which brings us to ‘Monsters We Met’.

This was another mini-series, one aired back in the 90s, a trilogy of human take-over of the planet. There is a companion book too, ‘Land of the Lost Monsters’ (or something similar), and it is much more derived than the original trilogy; the point is that the second episode of ‘Monsters’ was about the human take-over of Australia and their interaction with the native fauna, which featured Diprotodon and Megalania. These depictions were not as good or realistic as they were in ‘Monsters Resurrected’, but the latter was certainly inspired, (at least in regards to this episode), by the former. That aside, in ‘MWM’, the second episode claimed that by using fire-based hunting – aka suddenly start a fire, kill or capture anything that escapes and pick-up the charred corpses afterwards – humans were able to defeat Megalania and its’ kin. Pause.

Yeah, there are the cryptozoologists, who insist that Megalania has survived in Australia even to this day. The same is said about its’ other predators – the marsupial mammals Thylacoleo and Thylacine, (the latter died-out during the European colonization of Australia instead). So far, there is nothing to prove the cryptozoologists right, but there is nothing to prove them wrong either, and it would be interesting to learn that the marsupial lion or wolf survive somewhere out there even to this day. Pause. Let us get back to the kangaroos?

Another pause. Procoptodon, Diprotodon, and similar mammals died out alongside the marsupial carnivores and giant reptiles; whether it was because humans arrived in Australia, the climate changed or something else, but die out they died. The smaller, proportionally tougher marsupials survived… in a manner of speaking. Last year, (or in 2018?) Australia was marked by some monstrous fires, even humans barely survived them, and Australian wildlife suffered even more; people had to help them survive, both professionally and on the spur of the moment; even so, quite a few mammals, (including the koalas), died. Did I mention that real life sucks? If so, then sorry, but that incident seems to have been forgotten already, because of the COVID-19 and all. Humans have really short memories, it looks like…

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

Quarantine entry #22 - April 12

Obligatory disclaimer: Happy Easter! Yes, real life still sucks, but Easter has nothing to do with real life, so enjoy your Easter! Or your Sunday, period. What next?

Firstly, on the topic of real life – people were telling me yesterday that while ibises and spoonbills share a family, and both of them share an order with the heron family, the storks are a separate order of birds’ altogether, and got nothing to do with the other three. Fair enough. Evolution itself is a mess, and convergent evolution only muddies things down, somewhat.

Just look at – the jellyfish. These critters, also known as the medusas, are the free-floating stage of several invertebrate groups, none of which is closely related to each other at all. Even on the layperson stage, there are ‘jellyfish’ that aren’t really jellyfish, such as the Portuguese man-o’-war, you know? And on a professional level…do not even go there! What next?

…So, yesterday, I got to watch yet another DW episode, this one being the ‘Nazi Waffen SS vs. Viet Cong”. In layperson terms – ‘Nazis vs. Communists’, and what can be said about this episode?

It was completely out of DW’s comfort zone, that is what! The final simulation, (let us start there), was really the American G.I.’s vs. the Viet Cong, and the latter have lost.

…Actually, the latter were set up to lose; in particular, in the long-range weapon comparison, the Viet Cong were given the MAT-49 firearms, which were inferior to the SS’s MP-28. Fine, but in the S2 finale, which put the U.S. against the Israeli commandoes, the Viet Cong had a cameo, and they had AKMs there instead, because of course they had! The AKM machine and submachine guns appeared in all 3 seasons of DW, and they were always superior to whatever their rival were; if they’d appeared in this episode of DW, the Viet Cong would’ve been more likely to win instead.

The rest of the weapons… it was a mixed bag – punji stakes against a flamethrower; a land mine vs. a grenade & a land mine combo; and a Mauser vs. a TT. Yes, the weapons for those two combatants were all over the place…but this is why this DW episode was rather fun to watch; but after it was aired, DW never really attempted to do something like that again, possibly until the S3 episode ‘Ivan the Terrible vs. Hernan Cortez’, but we’ll talk about that episode some other time.

So, why did the Viet Cong lose? I will not tell a lie – I have no idea, and that brings us back to the comfort zone. See, normally, after a DW episode aired, there was an online ‘aftermath’ episode, which would feature two of the show’s regular hosts, as well as a representative from both of the titular teams. For that episode, however, instead of one of the regular hosts in question, we got some other member of the DW team, who was never seen before or after this episode – and with his overall appearance of a stereotypical highwayman, it is easy to see why. So, why did he appear on that episode?

…Probably because he was the sponsor of that episode, (as well as of DW in general?). Yes, this theory smacks of conspiracy theories, but the fact is that for all of its’ positive aspects, DW had remained a flawed show, and in the end, this was why it got cancelled – it tried to play the real life version of GoT, and it backfired, with the show ending on ‘Vampires vs. Zombies’ note. Seriously, why not ‘Dragons vs. Griffins’ instead? The two face-offs are not that different from each other in terms of realism! Anything else?

Sadly no. DW is gone, and while the jellyfish are still around, and on occasion, they are wreaking havoc on our marine ecosystems, the latter is our fault. COVID-19 – I have no idea, the occasional conspiracy theory aside, but most ecological disasters are certainly our fault. Did I mention that real life sucks, Easter notwithstanding? Yeah…

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

Quarantine entry #21 - April 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Fortunately, yesterday, (aka April 10, 2020), we got the ‘Trolls 2’ movie, which offered an escape from reality… into what? Let us disassemble.

First, the disassemble part. Or the dismantling part, if you rather. As soon as the professional critics saw it, they noted the similarity to the last two ‘Avengers’ films, save that the Infinity Stones became replaced by six magical soul strings or whatever, (though still, whoever gets the all six will rule them all). That is one, for Marvel.

Two is for Disney proper, or more specifically – for the ‘Frozen’ franchise. As we talked about the ‘Frozen 2’ movie last year, in this franchise, Disney did a complete reboot – ‘Frozen 2’ fully abandons most of the premises built up at the end of ‘Frozen 1’ and goes off in an entirely new direction, while completely unacknowledging this fact. What reboot? Where? There is no reboot, everything is the same!..

And as for Elsa’s sexuality? Do not go there. Disney gave its’ audiences a teaser with Elsa and Honeymaren, but nothing else. Disney does not intend to officially rock the boat for their blue-eyed blonde breadwinner, and so they leave it to the fans to hype it up – whether Elsa is gay, straight, asexual, bisexual, etc., etc. The Disney execs themselves are not talking. One of them outright claimed, “Elsa herself will tell us whom does she like”! Great, she is a swinger then! …Oh wait, she is an animated character this Disney property. Quit acting coy people and just admit that you want the best of both worlds and do not want to rock the boat at the same time!.. Where were we?

…’Trolls 2’ got nothing like that, this movie is for an even younger audience than ‘Frozen 2’ was, yet just like the ‘Frozen’ franchise, they became fully rebooted. ‘Trolls 1’ was about the titular trolls, who were captured and eaten by some ogres or whatever they were called in the universe. Princess Poppy and her sidekicks (one or several – it does not really matter here), befriended an ogre laundry maid, helped her win the ogre prince’s heart, and freed the rest of the trolls. The end.

‘Trolls 2’ acknowledges none of that; this movie is all about the titular trolls and only about trolls, as ‘Trolls 2’ delivers a politically charged message about unity and self-identity, conquering and domination, good and evil. Pause. ‘Frozen 2’ did it as well, and in a much better manner – i.e. with a good deal less songs. This brings us to number three: ‘Cats -2019’.

‘Cats-2019’ are not the worst movie that came across me; ‘Doolittle-2020’ is not anything worth being smug about. However since it was not a musical, it ended up being just an insipidly unsuccessful movie, that is all. Tony Stark should stick to engineering, and not go into medicine after all, weird accents notwithstanding. ‘Cats-2019’ on the other hand is a musical – it is loud, it is stupid, it is proud, it is overwhelming, and in a large amount – it is intolerable and unendurable. ‘Trolls 2’ went down the same path – it is a glorified musical, or a variety show, about as intense as ‘Cats-2019’ were, and not in a good way either.

…Yes, ‘Trolls-2’ are designated for a younger audience than ‘Cats-2019’ were, (at least in theory), but the delivery method is the same – musical. The end result is still the same, though given the current circumstances, ‘Trolls 2’ came out on digital rental, and not just in the movie theaters, as ‘Cats-2019’ had, so thank the Lord for small mercies. Anything else?

Hard to say; I wanted to talk about this ibis today; the ibis is a cousin to the stork and the heron, differing from them mostly in its’ bill – the heron’s is straight and thin, the stork’s is straight and thick, while the ibis’s is thin and curved down.

Also unlike storks and herons, the ibises are tropical birds: storks and herons are found in Europe, including quite far up north, whereas the ibises are not – only the glossy ibis is found in the U.S., for example, while its’ relatives, including the members of the same genus, are found in the American tropics instead. With the spoonbills, it is the same story.

…The spoonbills are the closest relatives of the ibises, they look like herons or storks, whose bills got squished into spoon-like shapes, (hence the name). They are not very numerous in the U.S. either, nor in Europe – out of six species, only one is found in the U.S., and another on – in the European part of Eurasia. Storks, and especially herons, are represented by more species there. Why is it so? Is it because of humans? Hard to tell, though trolls, and especially – ‘Trolls’ aren’t really a part of it. Ah well, that is life for you. The snow is melting, the birds and other creatures are coming back, and (human social) life may begin to return to normal in May 2020. We will just have to wait and see.

…This is it for now – see you all soon! 

Quarantine entry #20 - April 10

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. The weather is back to snowing – it is almost the middle of April, and it has snowed all morning. In the middle of April, and now my computer is acting up. I really hate the place where my life took me right now, and there is no way out, thanks to the entire lockdown situation.

…Oh yes, the COVID-19 situation in Italy and Spain is worse than what it is here, no question about it; what I am worried about is as to how effective the entire lockdown situation will be in the long run. Real life sucks, you know, and all of those people who are taking advantage of the lockdown/quarantine situation are only making it worse.

…Oh, sure, there are plenty of people who are trying to make it better as well… it is actually a mixed bag, something that many people have forgotten: most people are both good and bad, it’s only a question of what, and who, will come on top. Yes, there are people who appear to be purely one or the other – human history was often made by them – but they are in a numerical minority, period. What next?

Hard to say. So far, it looks as if we are in the lockdown for the rest of April, period. Since right now, it is only the middle of the month in question, snowstorms or not, (albeit yesterday’s storm was more of a freezing rain one, cough), the next few weeks are going to get worse, not better, at least initially. (Drone footage is showing a mass grave being dug in New York. I am fairly sure that the mafia is not behind this one. Ouch).

Where does it leave us, then? Still stuck in the lockdown/quarantine, for there is no escape from it. In part, it was influenced by the popular stereotypes in the movies, books, TV series that deal with this sort of thing. Reality is proving to be somewhat different from the abovementioned, but it is the best thing we got, so far. The U.S. elections-2016 proved that mass media and its’ persuasion have limits, but they are still great forces, and its’ limits are quite far away. Therefore, again, we are stuck. Did I mention that I hate my life lately?..

Anything else? Well, to cheer up my followers, here is another piece of original fiction from yours truly about a hare, (not a rabbit, cough):

In winter, a hare’s coat is both warm in texture and white in colour. Therefore, it saves the hare both from frost and from hunters. Winter snow is as white as a hare’s coat. Try to find it! In addition, while you do that, the hare will flee and be gone.

Left to its’ own devices, a hare will chew branches, nibble the bark, however bitter it will be. It is waiting for the warm summer. For the summer is a time of plenty, especially for food. You are free to choose. If you want, - choose the clover, if you want - choose the fresh grass, any flower...

...That all said, the canny hare should leave human gardens alone, no matter how tempting the local carrots and cabbages may be!

End

This is it for now – see you all soon!

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 #18 - April 8

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and so, to distract myself, I went back to DW, to its’ final season for a change. This time, I re-watched the ‘Teddy Roosevelt vs Lawrence of Arabia’ episode, and again, I was hit as to how unbalanced the entire DW became by S3.

As I said before, since S2 onwards, DW became either prejudiced or partisan in favor of the U.S., but in S2, the show did downplay this fact. In S3, it did not... and it was bad at it. In the U.S. vs. North Korea episode, the U.S. team won by half a percent. Half a percent! This sort of fudging could have satisfied neither the U.S. partisans nor the fair play team. However, in ‘Teddy Roosevelt vs. Lawrence of Arabia’ the fudging was different, as I have written before.

To recap: in the first round, the U.S. team won fairly: the British’ Vickers machine gun jammed where the U.S. Gatling gun did not. That is fair. Third round – the British Jambiya got the edge of the U.S. Bowie. Fair again. Second round – the U.S. Krag tied with the British Lee-Enfield. This is where things got murky, because the DW team justified in using the Krag over anything else by mentioning the U.S. Cuban adventure – aka an attempt by the U.S. to capture Cuba. It failed, among other things, by the Krag’s flaws, so using the Krag on the DW was the sticky point.

The most disappointing thing for me, however, was this episode’s staged fight – Roosevelt’s tactics in taking down Lawrence were very much the same as Washington’s taking down Napoleon in the S3 premiere episode. This is not too surprising – apparently, for its’ S3, DW wanted to show the American supremacy over the British and the French – but rather disappointing. In the first two seasons DW was really good, for all of its’ flaws; in S3 – not so much. Maybe that is one of the reasons as to why it went down, aka got cancelled. I still enjoyed observing the WWI tactics displayed in this episode, though. Anything else?

Yes, in fact: today I want to return to my original fiction, so here is a short drabble of a story, to give you something different:

A fox was hunting during winter - for hares, mice, rabbits, etc. Once upon a time, it came across a hare, and promptly began to chase the latter. The hare fled past a stump without paying attention... and a really big great horned owl was sitting there. It saw the hare and took off, slamming the mammal into the snow, pinning it down. Only... this was not the Mesozoic, The age of reptiles and birds, for the fox, which had generated its’ own burst of speed, had half-leapt and half-slammed into the owl, knocking it off the hare.

A great horned owl is just as formidable as its’ relatives, the eagle and the snowy owl are, but the red fox got a really good grip this time...

When the noise ended, the hare looked out of its’ snowy pit and the first thing it saw was the red fox, busy plucking and eating the big bird. It shot the hare a look over a bloody muzzle, and the hare fled, leaving the fox in the field by itself with the prize. It may be the Cainozoic now, aka the age of mammals, but the mammals were not quite equal to each other either.

End

…Did you like it? Comments and criticisms are welcome! But for now this it, see you all soon instead!

Quarantine entry #17 - April 7

Obligatory disclaimer: as you all know, real life sucks, so where were we? Ah yes, yesterday, we have talked small – dragonflies. Today, let us talk big – elephants.

There are three species of elephants that exist in the modern world: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. In fact, we have talked about the African bush elephant way back when, when we discussed the AFO episode where this grey giant went against a white rhinoceros and won. Quite justifiably too, for elephants kill and dominate rhinos more often than it happens in reverse – but it does happen, so the elephant did work hard and took risks to take down the rhino. Next?

Again, the elephant featured in AFO was the African bush elephant; it is the biggest land mammal of the modern times as well as the biggest elephant species out of the three. The Asian elephant is in the middle, and the African forest elephant is the smallest. True to its’ name, this elephant is found only in the tropical forests of western and central Africa and is quite smaller than the African bush elephant is, and its’ ears are also more rounded in shape out of the two species. …In addition, the African bush elephant is found in a much wider range of habitats, and there is a well-justified theory that the two African elephant species are not all that closely related to each other, which may cause their taxonomic classification to be re-worked.

…The Asian elephant isn’t closely related to the African species to begin with, and if anyone cares as to how it is different from the latter, then the Asian elephant has smaller ears, smaller tusks, (its’ females are tuskless, and the males often are as well), and its’ trunk has only one ‘finger’ at the end, while the African elephants have too. In fact, the elephants that people usually see in circuses and zoos are usually the Asian species – they deal better with humans and captivity.

What next?

A mention of another TV show ‘Inside Nature’s Giants’, where a deceased elephant was investigated, and it was ‘discovered’ that as far as herbivores go, modern elephants are less efficient than, say, the modern giraffes are at digesting their food – plant matter. This is not surprising, since taxonomically speaking, elephants are not ‘true’ ungulates, but rather ‘near ungulates’, herbivorous mammals that aren’t hooved. Whether or not elephants have hooves or nails is another story, but their closest relatives are hyraxes, (small mammals that look more like hamsters or guinea pigs), and sea cows, (aka dugongs and manatees). It is a motley crew, and now that scientists put this trio into the Afrotheria group, which also contains African insectivores – golden moles, otter shrews, Madagascar tenrecs and the aardvark, it has become only motlier. Sometimes, scientific reasoning is really hard to understand.

…And now, some apologies. Firstly, when we were discussing camels, I forgot to mention that Old World camels can hybridize with each other; the result is a better version of the dromedary camel. The Muslims used it as a war beast when horses could not be used. There is also a llama/camel hybrid, but it is sterile, resembles a variant llama, and is not very popular with modern breeders these days; there certainly are not a lot of mentions about this ‘cama’ beast at all!

Secondly, when we were discussing dragonflies, I forgot to mention that while their eyes literally wrap around the dragonfly’s head, the damselflies’ eyes remain separate from each other. Informative, is not it?.. Anything else?

Sadly, no. There is a lot you can say about elephants, but none of it is too overwhelmingly exciting; the 3 modern species are the last remnants of once a great dynasty that practically closed with the last Ice Age, and humans have done their best to decrease the elephant numbers even more. Pity. Elephants are wonderful animals and they deserve our protection. Instead, humans have tried to make them into bioweapons, as the DW episode ‘Hannibal vs. Genghis Khan’ showed – team Hannibal used a live ‘war elephant’ on that S3 episode… but we’ve talked about in the past. …But as for the modern elephant circumstances, maybe with COVID-19 around, their chances will improve.

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