Where'd the mammals go?

Hello, mammals! Just a note to let you know that the Daily Mammal is not gone for good! After the European vacation mentioned in the last post, I was out of the drawing habit…then I left my job to go freelance and had some work keeping me busy…and now I'm working on a redesign of the site. I'm not going to be on Blogger anymore at some point, so if you're reading this, you might take a moment to update your link to www.dailymammal.com if you're using the blogspot one instead. I have been drawing mammals, and will be back soon. Thanks for your patience! If you'd like me to let you know when there's a new mammal up, please e-mail me at jr(at)dailymammal(dot)com.

Przewalski's Horse (Equus przewalskii) and a vacation

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These tough little fellows from the Mongolian steppes are the only living example we have of a truly wild horse. (Other wild horses, such as the mustangs around these parts, are descended from domestic horses, and therefore not "truly" wild.) Unfortunately, Przewalski's horse is extinct in the wild. In fact, we nearly lost the species altogether. In 1977, we were down to 300 of them. At that point, a group called the Foundation for the Preservation and Protection of the Przewalski Horse was created with the goal of organizing breeding programs between zoos and eventually reintroducing the Przewalski's horse into the wild. Today, there are some 1,400 of the sturdy guys, and some of them are enjoying a semi-wild life in one of Mongolia's national parks.

The reason I chose the Przewalski's for today, other than the fact that I've had a fondness for the species since I was a horse-crazy little girl, is that tomorrow morning, I'll be leaving on a trip to Switzerland and then to France, where I'll be visiting some prehistoric cave paintings. Animals of various kinds were frequent subjects for the artists who created the mysterious and enduring paintings. Painted horses gallop through some of the caves, such as Lascaux and Chauvet, and although no one is sure whether they are the same species as Przewalski's horse, they certainly look like they could be. See for yourself in these photographs of Chauvet from The Bradshaw Foundation. The Daily Mammal will return the week of September 15.

Consecutive days of mammals: 1
Record: 16

Chinese Stump-tailed Macaque (Macaca thibetana)

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This fuzzy fellow is called the Chinese stump-tailed macaque for reasons that would be obvious if you could see his backside. But he's also known as the Tibetan macaque and Père David's macaque. These macaques are frugivorous (they eat fruit) for the most part, but they'll also eat some insects, leaves, and seeds when the situation warrants.

As for Père David, who inspired one of the Tibetan macaque's common names, he was a Catholic missionary named Jean Pierre Armand David. He was a clergyman by profession and an all-around naturalist by passion. Père David, who died in 1900, seems to have been one of those now-all-too-rare "Renaissance souls" with a wide range of interests and fields of study. He was, apparently, the person who introduced Europe to the panda (or the panda to Europe), and in addition to zoology, he also studied botany, paleontology, and geology, and he was a beloved science teacher before being shipped off to China.

Père David had two jobs in China: convert people to Catholicism and send back natural history specimens for a museum in France. While there, he became the first to describe 63 species of animals, 65 species of birds, plenty of other creatures, and hundreds (or maybe thousands) of kinds of plants. Not to fear, though. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "In the midst of his work as a naturalist Father David did not neglect his missionary labours, and was noted for his careful devotion to his religious duties and for his obedience to every detail of his rules."

(I just noticed, after I pasted that quote, that he was noted for obedience of his rules. His own? That could be a lot easier than obedience to, say, the Vatican's.)

Consecutive days of mammals: 1
Record: 16

Chinese Ferret Badger (Melogale moschata)

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The smallest member of the badger family, the Chinese ferret badger lives not only in China but in Assam, in northeastern India, as well. They live in burrows and come out in the evenings, going about their business into the night. The Chinese ferret badger occasionally eats fruit, but it especially loves small rodents, amphibians, and insects and other invertebrates. In some cultures, Chinese ferret badgers are welcomed into the home and encouraged to feast on any cockroaches they might find. This is a nice service to provide, but they may not be the most pleasant of house guests: like most other members of the mustelid clan, Chinese ferret badgers emit an offensive odor from their anal glands when provoked.

Consecutive days of mammals: 2
Record: 16

Chinese Mountain Cat (Felis bieti)

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The Chinese mountain cat is also called the Chinese desert cat, but it's not really known to live in the desert. It prefers to roam around mountain meadows, where it eats rodents like pikas and voles and mole-rats, along with the occasional pheasant for variety's sake. It seems to use its ears when it hunts, listening for the sound of mole-rats burrowing underground, then digging them up for dinner. The Chinese mountain cat is nocturnal and solitary. A major threat to the cat's continued success is the widespread prejudice against pikas, who are reputed to compete with livestock for grazing rights. When the pikas are poisoned, the Chinese desert cat suffers, too.

Consecutive days of mammals: 1
Record: 16

Mammal News Roundup: Goodness Gracious! Great Gorilla Gorilla Gorillas!

Good news today! I was planning a post on the study, released this week, finding that almost 50 percent of primate species are in danger of extinction. What else is new? More bad news from the Daily Mammal.

But! On the heels of Spain's vote to grant certain rights to the great apes comes more good news for our cousins. The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today that it has found more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas secretly going about their business in a couple of swampy areas in the northern Republic of Congo! What makes this such wonderful news is that's more than twice the number of western lowland gorillas that we thought were left in the whole world!

They're not out of the woods (so to speak) yet, though; they're still considered critically endangered. Major threats to the western lowland gorilla subspecies (Gorilla gorilla gorilla!) include the Ebola virus and poachers who kill gorillas and sell them on the bushmeat market. (Okay, it's not all good news…) In fact, it was a hunter who pointed the Wildlife Conservation Society researchers to the gorillas. Don't you almost wish they hadn't been found?

Here's a video showing the gorillas hanging out—in one case literally—in the swamp.

More western lowland gorilla info (and pictures and videos) on ARKive.

Gorilla photograph by Craig Gobler, used under a Creative Commons license.

Striped Possum (Dactylopsila trivirgata)

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Nocturnal, arboreal, and marsupial, the striped possum, who lives in Australia and New Guinea, is about the size of a squirrel. This fellow munches and lunches on insects, flowers, leaves, fruit, small invertebrates, and sweet local honey. If you're out and about in an Australian forest of a summer evening, listen for rustling and crunching sounds overhead, and watch for falling leftovers: you may be in the presence of a striped possum.

Thanks to the striped possum and the BBC, I have just learned a new Britishism: the verb "to winkle," which means to extract or obtain something with difficulty. Striped possums use their longer fourth fingers to winkle grubs out of rotten wood.

Here's a nice local news feature on striped possums in the Fort Wayne zoo: Wild on WANE.

Consecutive days of mammals: 4
Record: 16