Posts tagged as:

endangered

Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon chrysopygus)

by JR Kinyak on October 11, 2011

in Other Orders

Golden-rumped elephant shrew (click image to enlarge)


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Here is the golden-rumped elephant shrew, which is also known as a golden-rumped sengi, or a yellow-rumped either one of those. It’s not actually related to the shrews, although it is related to the elephants, distantly. Some things I’ve learned about this fellow:

1. Translating its scientific name at the website of a zoology course at the University of Alberta, I see that this sengi’s official name means snout-dog golden-rump. (Pygos means rump, and is found in the word callipygian, “having well-shaped buttocks,” which is one of those words that middle-schoolers delight in discovering in the dictionary.)

2. The rump is golden for a reason. That pretty blond fur covers a padded area of super-tough skin. The idea seems to be that predators will be attracted to the golden glow and bite there, rather than somewhere that might hurt more.

3. The golden-rumped sengi lives only in a tiny area of coastal Kenya.

4. It’s number 46 on the EDGE list of the top 100 evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered mammals—in other words, this endangered species is particularly irreplaceable.

5. This elephant shrew is monogamous, which is quite rare for a small mammal, or indeed, any mammal.

6. It can be very difficult to distinguish between the members of the Rhynchocyon genus, also known as the giant forest sengis, in the field, but the California Academy of Sciences has a page dedicated to helping you tell them apart.

7. According to the American Society of Mammalogists’ species account of this elephant shrew,

“If mildly disturbed, Rhynchocyon freezes until the danger passes, or, if further disturbed, it walks away while loudly slapping the leaf litter with its tail every 1 to 3 seconds. If pursued, Rhynchocyon takes flight using a swift half-bound gait…hammering the leaf litter loudly with its rear legs, and producing a characteristic “crunch, crunch, crunch” sound as it disappears.”

8. The golden-rumped elephant shrew is diurnal, or active during the day, and spends its nights in a nest it builds on the forest floor. For some reason, it requires a new nest every other day or so. It builds the new nest in the morning, and the construction takes about two hours.

Below is Coco’s golden-rumped elephant shrew. See you tomorrow!

Golden-rumped elephant shrew by Coco, age 12

Tagged as: coco, elephant, endangered, names, words

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Golden Snub-Nosed Monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana)

by JR Kinyak on April 10, 2011

in Primates

Golden snub-nosed monkeys (click image to enlarge)


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Golden snub-nosed monkeys live in central China, with the majority making their homes in the Sichuan province. They roam through mountain forests where snow covers the ground for half the year, eating lichens and other ploants and the occasional insect. They are endangered, and the IUCN tells us that the major threats to their continued existence are habitat loss and tourism-related activities.

I learned from the Eponym Dictionary of Mammals (I need a copy of that book!) that the roxellana part of the monkey’s scientific name comes from Roxelana, a Ukrainian woman who was captured and sold into slavery in the 1500s. She was put in the harem of the sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, where she became his favorite concubine and eventually his second wife. In his poetry, he called her his one and only love. Apparently, she had beautiful golden hair and a turned-up nose, just like these monkeys. But she probably didn’t have a blue face.

Tagged as: books, endangered, humans, names, threats

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Japan Benefit: イリオモテヤマネコ (Iriomote Cat) (Prionailurus iriomotensis)

by JR Kinyak on March 31, 2011

in Carnivores,Mammalthons

All week, my daughter Coco and I are selling our drawings of Japanese mammals to raise funds for Japan! If you buy one of them, whether matted or unmatted, your entire purchase price will go to help those affected by the earthquake and tsunami: half to the American Red Cross, half to Animal Refuge Kansai, a Japanese animal shelter taking in homeless pets. Please help, and please send your friends by, too!

Iriomote cat (click image to enlarge)


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This drawing has sold!

This cat may be the rarest feline species on the planet. There are only about 100 individual Iriomote cats living, and they’re found only on the Japanese island of Iriomote, which is just east of Taiwan. It’s an island that’s made up almost completely of impenetrable forest and home to some 2,000 people. Unfortunately for the Iriomote cat, the people like the same part of the island it does, and their highway goes right through the cat’s habitat. Despite efforts to protect the rare cat from harm, about four cats a year become roadkill. They’re also threatened by their habit of interbreeding with feral domestic cats, instead of mating only with each other.

Iriomote cats are quite elusive. They’re solitary and mostly nocturnal, and some researchers who dedicate their lives to studying them still go years without seeing one. According to this great article from The New York Times, some residents of Iriomote don’t even believe the wild cat exists.

Iriomote cat by Coco, age 12 (click image to enlarge)

Coco’s drawing has sold!

I said that this cat may be the world’s rarest feline because it’s been part of a taxonomic controversy almost since it was first described in the 1960s. Back then, scientists theorized that it was a “living fossil” species, the only existing member of an extinct group of cats. Then, other scientists decided it was actually a subspecies of the leopard cat, which is pretty common on the Asian mainland. Then it was back to being its own species, but in the same genus as the leopard cat, not in its own “living fossil” genus like before.

None of that ever got settled for sure, and now it looks like some people are leaning back toward the leopard-cat-subspecies idea. It seems that the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources considered it its own species until just a few years ago, but now the IUCN lists it under the leopard cat species, even though none of my other sources do.

This is important because the IUCN’s Red List is widely accepted and used as a definitive list of endangered species worldwide. Perhaps if I do a little digging in the records of the IUCN’s cat study group, I can find some of their reasons, and I may do that when I have the time. It’s good to remember that the designation of endangered species is dependent on many actors other than just counting how many cats there are that look alike.

If you’d like to help Japan without buying a drawing, click the Donate button below and we’ll add your contribution to our people-and-animals fund. And we still have two monkeys and one squirrel available for sale. See you tomorrow!


Tagged as: cat, coco, endangered, japan, taxonomy, threats

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Goodfellow’s Tree Kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi)

by JR Kinyak on March 25, 2011

in Marsupials

I’m eager to introduce you to an enchanting tree kangaroo, but first let me remind you that starting Sunday, Coco and I will be selling original drawings of the mammals of Japan with all proceeds helping victims of the earthquakes and tsunamis. See yesterday’s post for the details!

Goodfellow's tree kangaroo (click image to enlarge)


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I have fallen in love with tree kangaroos. They are my new favorite animal. They’re magical; they sound like something someone made up for a children’s storybook. Like regular kangaroos, tree kangaroos are marsupials, and the two kinds of animals are related. It seems that all the kangaroos—tree and otherwise—evolved from a common ancestor. According to the 1947 book Furred Animals of Australia by Ellis Troughton (which, incidentally, has a most endearing dedication: “To my mother…to whom any originality of written thought is lovingly dedicated”),

“The tree-kangaroos are of particular interest in having undergone an unusual twist or secondary phase of evolution which is reflected in their appearance and habits. Originally descended like their fellows from primitive tree-dwelling stock, the adoption of a hopping means of progression resulted in marked lengthening of the hind-limb, with a corresponding loss of the possum-like clinging great toe, while the tail changed from a prehensile to a balancing implement. After the long period of terrestrial existence which moulded the kangaroo-like appearance, the animal reverted to the trees again for foraging and safety, with a corresponding reversal in general structure towards the arboreal type.”

In other words, in case you are not a natural at interpreting the words of early-20th-century naturalists like I am, Troughton’s saying that all the kangaroos descended from an early tree-dwelling mammal, then adapted to the plains through the evolution of big ol’ feet for hopping. They didn’t need to grasp trees with their back legs or prehensile tails, so they lost their handy big toes and their tails became big and sturdy—not agile for swinging through the branches but stable for balance. Then, the tree kangaroos re-evolved back into a treetop lifestyle among the branches of the cloud forest. That’s why they look, indeed, like kangaroos incongruously perched in the trees.

Troughton also says that this evolution—from treetops to the ground and back to the treetops—is an illustration of “the irreversible law of evolution wherein features lost owing to disuse cannot be regenerated.” The tree kangaroos’ ancient ancestors had prehensile tails; they evolved to have big balancing tails instead, and there’s no going back. If you’re a regular reader of this site, you know that I’m a fairly new student of evolution, and I believe this is the first time I read this “irreversible law,” or at least the first time it sunk in. What do you think of that idea?

There are 12 species of tree kangaroos, and they live in Australia and Papua New Guinea. This particular species, Goodfellow’s (and another question: why are some possessive scientific names spelled with two Is, like the other day’s finlaysonii and prevostii squirrels, but some only have one I, like today’s goodfellowi? I was expecting it to be goodfellowii) is endemic to Papua New Guinea and is endangered. Tree kangaroos have long been hunted for food by indigenous people, and their pelts are used in traditional ceremonies. Now they’ve been overhunted, and of course their habitats are also being destroyed because whose isn’t?

Another thing I like about tree kangaroos: if they jumped off a measly little boulder in an arroyo, they would not break their calcanea, the way I did two weeks ago. In fact, they routinely jump from the treetops to the ground 60 or more feet below without getting hurt! Isn’t that amazing? Here’s a remarkable video that includes footage of one of those jumps as well as “Crittercam” images from two tree kangaroos wearing cameras around their necks. (The beauties in the video are a different species, the Matschie’s tree kangaroo.)

I tell you, I adore them! I really do! And I’m not the only one. In fact, I found this lovely little story that says that before you judge someone else, think of the tree kangaroo, and remember that the other person loves the tree kangaroo just as much as you do. With that common foundation, can’t you find something else to agree on?

Tagged as: endangered, evolution, love, threats

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Tehuantepec Jackrabbit (Lepis flavigularis)

by JR Kinyak on March 24, 2011

in Mammalthons,Other Orders

Before we meet a long-eared jackrabbit from Mexico, an announcement:

Like everyone, my daughter Coco and I have been saddened by the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan this month. We’ve decided to have a Daily Mammal fundraiser to raise some money to help people and animals affected by the disasters.

Next week, beginning Sunday and running through Saturday, the two of us will post drawings of Japanese mammals. We’ll post a new mammal each morning of the week at 10 am mountain time. Our drawings will be for sale with all proceeds going to help victims of the Japanese earthquakes. Half of the money will go to the American Red Cross, to help human mammals, and half to Animal Refuge Kansai, a Japanese organization that’s rescuing animals who lost their homes.

My drawings will be selling for $50, or $60 with a mat. Coco’s will be $25 unmatted and $35 matted. (The drawings are 6″ x 9″ and the mats are 9″ x 12″.)

Please come back Sunday and all next week to meet some beautiful mammals from Japan and consider purchasing a drawing to help victims of the tsunami and earthquake, and please invite your friends to stop by, too.

Now on to the jackrabbit!

Tehuantepec jackrabbit (click image to enlarge)


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This jackrabbit lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. It used to live in Chiapas, too, but that population seems to be gone. The rabbit is quite endangered; fewer than 1,000 individuals remain. It lives in savannas and grassy dunes along the shores of salt lagoons, and it is threatened by hunting, habitat destruction due to agriculture and human settlements, and fires caused by humans. I would venture that this jackrabbit’s enormous ears are not to enhance its hearing but rather to act as cooling devices, like the huge ears of the fennec fox. If you’d like to read a scholarly article about this hare’s home range and social behavior, here is a link to a PDF of one from a 2006 issue of Journal of Mammalogy by Verónica Farías et al.

Isn’t it sometimes so difficult to remember or even to believe that humans are just another kind of mammal? We would make the top ten list of anybody’s list of the world’s strangest mammals—if we weren’t the only ones who make such lists. In the two-volume Walker’s Mammals of the World, which I believe is one of the definitive reference works on mammal species, we humans are represented solely by images of astronauts. Isn’t that remarkable? Can you think of a better way to show what makes us distinct in the world? Well, you could show us as the only species that willfully destroys its own habitat (surely we are), but that’s a bit of a downer. We’re great apes…who figured out how to visit the moon! It’s amazing.

Anyway, a mammal named Coco drew the Tehuantepec jackrabbit, too, and her drawing is gorgeous. You will likely want to begin collecting her work next week, when you can still get an original drawing for $25, instead of waiting until she’s grown up and famous and they’re selling for $25,000.

Tehuantepec jackrabbit by Coco, age 12 (click image to enlarge)

Tagged as: coco, endangered, hare, humans, japan, rabbit, threats

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Bactrian Camel (Camelus bactrianus)

by JR Kinyak on March 8, 2011

in Ungulates

Bactrian camel (click image to enlarge)


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The Bactrian camel is the one with two humps. The Arabian camel or dromedary has only one hump. You can remember that by imagining the capital initials of their names turned on their side: B for Bactrian has two humps, and D for dromedary has one. (I didn’t come up with that, I read it on Ultimate Ungulate.)

Then again, maybe you don’t think there are two types of camels, not really. As far as I can tell, some scientists agree with you, believing that both the one-humps and the two-humps were originally one species. They can interbreed, but it’s possible that males born as a result are sterile. Then again, you may think that there are two kinds of Bactrian camels: domesticated ones, which you’d call Camelus bactrianus, and wild ones, which you’d call Camelus ferus. That distinction might make a bigger difference than you’d think. There are no Arabian camels/dromedaries in the wild, and fewer than 1,000 Bactrian camels in the wild. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) categorizes this camel (under the name C. ferus) as Critically Endangered, the last category before Extinct in the Wild, which is followed, of course, by plain old Extinct.

The reasons for their looming extinction in the wild are mostly human-related. Fifty or so are hunted each year for meat, and when there are only 1,000 of something, taking away 50 is a big deal. Much of their habitat—which by the way is in the rocky, sometimes very cold and sometimes very hot Gobi Desert of China and Mongolia—is being taken up by the raising of domesticated animals (including domesticated Bactrian camels). And continuing droughts, which some might call human-related if they’re connected to human-caused climate change, mean that wolves are increasingly preying on the camels. A human-related situation that actually hasn’t seemed to affect the camels is that part of their range was China’s nuclear-testing area for 45 years. It’s nice that that didn’t bother them, I suppose.

Tagged as: endangered, humans, taxonomy, threats

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World Cup: Chilean Pudú (Pudu puda)

by JR Kinyak on July 8, 2010

in Theme Weeks,Ungulates

Pudú (click image to enlarge)


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The Mammals of the World Cup series is almost finished! Just two more countries after today’s representative from Chile, the Chilean or southern pudú, which is the second smallest deer in the world, the first being the northern pudú, this guy’s cousin. The Chilean pudú is less than a foot and a half tall and is vulnerable to becoming endangered because of habitat loss (join the club, little pudú) in its forest home, poaching, and domestic dogs.

There’s a Chilean metal band called Power of the Pudú, and they have a song called “Oda al Pudú,” or “Ode to the Pudú.” Check out the video below, which has translated subtitles (seemingly translated by a computer). It’s pretty good!

As for Chile’s soccer team, they have a long and sometimes disgraceful World Cup history. They’ve made it to the big tournament eight times, earning third place in 1962, when they hosted, and making it to the Round of 16 this year. But in 1990, the team was banned from that year’s tournament and the next one, too (1994), because of something that happened at a 1989 qualifying game against Brazil. Chile was behind 1–0 when a Brazilian fan threw a firework onto the pitch. The goalie, Roberto Rojas (nicknamed Cóndor) fell to the ground, his head bleeding, and the team doctor came out to have a look at him. They took him off on a stretcher, and then the Chilean team captain came out and said the team would not be returning to the game because conditions were unsafe.

Well, it turned out that the firework did not hit Rojas, but that he had cut himself deliberately in order to stop the game. It also came out that the team doctor had submitted a “fraudulent medical certificate” and that the coach had ordered Rojas and the doctor, by walkie-talkie, to stay on the ground. In the end, Rojas, the doctor, and the coach were all banned from soccer for life, the team captain who kept the team from returning to play was banned for five years, and the team was banned from the following two World Cups. In 2001, FIFA lifted the ban against Rojas.

YouTube has several videos about the incident, but they’re all in Spanish or Portuguese. Here’s one, marking the game’s 20th anniversary. You may or may not be able to understand the words, but the footage of the firework and the injury say a lot on their own.

Tagged as: deer, endangered, humans, threats, World Cup

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