Posts tagged as:
click image to enlarge
Here is a lynx for Ramona, who has seen one in Santa Fe. I just hope this one is too tired to eat the rat she got from the last Mammalthon!
—————-
Now playing: Otis Redding & Carla Thomas – Tramp
via FoxyTunes
{ 8 comments }
click image to enlarge
Here’s the first of several mammals requested by my dad for this second 24-Hour Mammal Marathon. A nice start, this furry and beautiful animal, don’t you think? Snow leopards live in the mountains of central Asia and are very endangered. They’re hunted for their coats, used in traditional Asian medicines, and killed when they prey on livestock. Then there’s the ubiquitous habitat destruction, not only of the snow leopard’s habitat but also that of its prey, which means it has trouble finding food.
The ‘thon is on!
—————-
Now playing: Prince – I Wanna Be Your Lover
via FoxyTunes
{ 6 comments }
We’re looking at New Mexico’s mammals to get ready for this weekend’s mammalthon, which benefits The Wildlife Center in northern New Mexico, a wonderful wildlife hospital. Today, let’s talk about a mammal The Wildlife Center has not yet treated.
Although I tend to associate jaguars with rain forest habitats, it turns out that at one time, they ranged as far north as northern Arizona. These biggest of North American cats were seemingly extirpated from the U.S. by the ranchers and others who had economic reason to want them dead, and the guns to kill them with. In 1963, the last one was killed. However, in 1996, a mountain lion hunter in southern New Mexico got a big surprise when his dogs cornered not a lion, but a jaguar. Since then, the same hunter photographed another of the animals, and motion-sensor cameras have snapped a couple pictures of jaguars in Arizona.
Still, it may be a stretch, or wishful thinking, to call jaguars mammals of New Mexico. It seems that female jaguars tend to stay in one place, while males roam around impregnating the ladies hither and yon. The jaguars spotted (ha) in New Mexico and Arizona have all been males who have wandered north from breeding populations in Mexico. And the Bush administration is planning to build a little 700-mile fence along our border with Mexico, which will prevent jaguars from crossing over as surely as it will people. And that will be the end of jaguars in the United States once again.
The New York Times: “Gone for Decades, Jaguars Steal Back to the Southwest”
Scientific American: “U.S. Jaguars Threatened by Mexico Border Fence”
{ 1 comment }
click image to enlarge
Hi, mammals! I’ve learned many things since I started on my quest to draw every mammal species on earth. The most recent: business trips and a daily drawing blog just don’t mix. I’ve been traveling a lot the past few weeks—a whole lot—and it doesn’t look to let up until this summer. Sometimes that means I don’t get to draw; sometimes that means I can’t post my drawings. Please stick with me, though: I’m just as committed to this goal as ever, and your visits, comments, and general support mean the world to me!
This cat is an example of another way new mammal species are “discovered.” Science has known about the clouded leopards that live on Borneo and Sumatra for quite a while, but always thought they were the same species as the clouded leopards that live elsewhere in southeast Asia. A scientist quoted in The Daily Mail, though, had a different idea:
“The moment we started comparing the skins of the mainland clouded leopard with the leopard found on Borneo, it was clear we were comparing two different species.“It’s incredible that no one has ever noticed these differences.”
Isn’t it, though? DNA testing confirmed that not only were the two kinds of leopard completely different species, they were, all the articles point out, as different from each other as lions are from tigers. The new species was officially described in 2007.
I suppose scientists are busy people, and no one had bothered to really think about this particular cat and whether it was a subspecies or a species or just slightly darker in color because of geographical variance or what. But clouded leopards were first described in 1821, the Bornean subspecies in 1823. That’s nearly 200 years, people!
Science Daily: “New Species Declared: Clouded Leopard on Borneo and Sumatra“
{ 2 comments }
click image to enlarge
Apologies for the delay in getting this cat up. I was on a business trip this week and wasn’t able to post.
The sand cat is a mysterious, solitary, nocturnal creature that lives in the Sahara, on the Arabian peninsula, and in central Asia. They are quite well adapted to their desert homes, with large outer ears to protect from blowing sand, thick fur to handle cold nighttime temperatures, pale coats for camouflage, and neatest of all, wiry black fur on the bottoms of their feet to let them walk in sand without sinking and protect their feet from heat. This hair, however, also makes them hard to study, as it renders their footprints nearly invisible.
I learned a lovely new word in researching this cat: isabelline, which means sandy grayish-yellow. (There’s a strange, likely apocryphal legend about the origin of this word that relates to one or another Queen or other royal named Isabella refusing to change her underwear to protest something. Another possibility comes from the Arabic word for lion, as isabelline is a lion kind of color.)
This mammal is sold. Find another one to take home with you!
{ 9 comments }
My brother-in-law Stephen is a runner. I think that’s why he requested a cheetah. In a sprinting contest, though, Stephen would stand no chance: the fastest human sprinters hit about 20 miles per hour, while the cheetah goes at about 65–70. The cheetah, however, cannot go nearly as fast as the peregrine falcon, which is the fastest animal on earth. Diving in for a kill, peregrines reach speeds approaching 300 miles per hour.
“Don’t try to outrun a cheetah or a falcon” from the Albuquerque Tribune
{ 0 comments }
I ran across an intense pair of big yellow eyes in a mammal field guide and introduced myself to the Pallas cat, also known as the manul. Pallas cats are really no bigger than domesticated house cats. They live in the steppes of central Asia, especially in Mongolia, and have long silver-yellow fur and funny little ears. They haven’t been studied to the extent that bigger, more glamorous wild cats have, and we don’t know a whole lot about them (other than that they are officially threatened).
Pallas’ Cat Conservation Project
{ 2 comments }
Get smart with the Thesis WordPress Theme from DIY Themes.
