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humans

What I’ve Been Doing

by JR Kinyak on October 27, 2011

in Carnivores,Operations

Roll of tigers in progress

I’ve been wanting to write a post about the animals killed near Zanesville, Ohio, last week, but I’m not sure how to say everything I want to say. I did have the idea, though, to draw a tribute to the 49 unfortunate mammals who died, and I’ve been working on it the past several days, which is one reason why there hasn’t been a Daily Mammal for a while.

Tigers in progress

So far, I’ve drawn 14 of the 18 Bengal tigers, though I have yet to color them. I’m not going to color them as elaborately as I do the Daily Mammals, and you can see that I was a lot more general with my line work, too. After the tigers, I’ll draw the 17 lions. Lions are sexually dimorphic and eight of them were lionesses, so they won’t be as monotonous as the tigers. But drawing the tigers has become a bit of a sacred act, in a way, an act of witness and regret.

Tagged as: about drawing, humans, lions, tigers, zanesville

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Primorye Week: Sable (Martes zibellina)

by JR Kinyak on September 28, 2011

in Carnivores,Theme Weeks

Sable (click image to enlarge)


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Welcome back to Primorye, an ecologically diverse region in the far east of Russia that we’re visiting this week. (Read Monday’s musk deer post for more about the area.) Today’s mammal is the sable, he of the beautiful coat, prized by rich ladies the world over. Sables are carnivores, related to weasels, skunks, ferrets, and so on, and they live in Finland, China, Japan, North Korea, Mongolia, and Poland, in addition to Russia.

According to a New York Times article called “Behind the $100,000 Sable Coat, a Siberian Hunter,” from 2000, during the Soviet era, most sable fur came from farms, but post USSR, the fur-farming system has given way to hunters, and now (or rather, in 2000), most fur for fur coats comes from wild sables. That article begins, “Wearing a hat made from pelts of hunting dogs that had disappointed him…” Another article, this one from the Japan Times, is headlined “Cuteness belies killers’ true nature,” but the sable is not enough of a killer to make a match for a man with a gun.

Tagged as: humans, primorye, threats

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Primorye Week: Siberian Musk Deer (Moschus moschiferus)

by JR Kinyak on September 26, 2011

in Theme Weeks,Ungulates

Siberian musk deer (click image to enlarge)


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I’m reading a book called The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant. It’s about Siberian tigers and tiger trackers in the far east of Russia, a region called Primorsky Krai, the Maritime Province, or Primorye. It’s a fascinating place, closer geographically to Beijing and even to Australia than to Moscow, and amazingly biologically diverse. Vaillant says that “Primorye is also the meeting place of four distinct bioregions,” the taiga, the steppes, the subtropics, and the far-northern forest:

“Here, timber wolves and reindeer share terrain with spoonbills and poisonous snakes, and twenty-five-pound Eurasian vultures will compete for carrion with saber-beaked jungle crows. Birch, spruce, oak, and fir can grow in the same valley as wild kiwis, giant lotus, and sixty-foot lilacs, while pine trees bearing edible nuts may be hung with wild grapes and magnolia vines. These, in turn, feed and shelter herds of wild boar and families of musk deer whose four-inch fangs give them the appearance of evolutionary outtakes. Nowhere else can a wolverine, brown bear, or moose drink from the same river as a leopard, in a watershed that also hosts cork trees, bamboo, and solitary yews that predate the Orthodox Church. In the midst of this, Himalayan black bears build haphazard platforms in wild cherry trees that seem to fragile for the task, opium poppies nod in the sun, and ginseng keeps its secret in dappled shade.”

Beautiful, isn’t it? And inspiring to an amateur mammalogist like me. This week, we’ll look at some of the mammals of Primorye, like those mentioned above, beginning with today’s fellow, who isn’t Bunnicula, but rather the Siberian musk deer.

Musk deer, as their name suggests, are the traditional source of the musk that we use in perfume. Musk comes from a gland, or musk-pod, in the male musk deer, and generally, someone who wants that musk-pod will kill the deer for it. The musk deer has been so heavily hunted that it is now internationally protected, but still, poachers poach, and our friend’s numbers are declining.

Here is a link to a video from Arkive of the musk deer in action. It has powerful hind legs and weaker front ones, like a rabbit, and it moves through a series of bounds. I also like the sound of the cold wind in this video.
ARKive video - Siberian musk deer - overview

Tagged as: books, deer, humans, threats

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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: コウベモグラ (Japanese Mole) (Mogera wogura)

by JR Kinyak on April 1, 2011

in Mammalthons,Other Orders

This week’s Daily Mammal drawings are of mammals of Japan, and they’re for sale, with the entire purchase price going to help people and animals affected by the earthquake and tsunami earlier this month. You can buy a drawing by me or by Coco, we can mat it or not, and no matter what you choose, half the purchase price will go to the American Red Cross and half will go to an animal shelter in Japan called Animal Refuge Kansai. If you don’t want our drawings, we won’t get offended—you can still help out by clicking the Donate button at the very bottom of this post. We’ll add your money to our fund. On to the mole!

Japanese mole (click image to enlarge)

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Researching this mole, I found a short story in the Paris Review by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese, called “Mogera Wogura.” It is a fantastic story, in both senses of the word, and it seems to be digging its mole claws into my mind. It’s strange and I suspect it will haunt me a while. Somebody else please read it so we can discuss it!

Japanese mole by Coco, age 12 (click image to enlarge)

Coco’s drawing has sold!

The moles are very common and have no major threats, which is great for the little fellows. I wonder about the origin of the Japanese mole’s scientific name, but I can’t find anything on it. It seems that the common Japanese word for a mole is mogura, which is pretty much a combination of this mole’s generic and specific names. Hmm. There is only so much I can learn, and this shall have to be a mole nomenclature mystery in my life, I imagine.

Tagged as: books, coco, humans, japan, names

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Japan Benefit: ニホンザル (Japanese Macaque) (Macaca fuscata)

by JR Kinyak on March 30, 2011

in Mammalthons,Primates

This week’s drawings, by me and by Coco, are for sale to benefit animals and people affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan! If you buy a drawing, we’ll give half of the purchase price to the American Red Cross and half to Animal Refuge Kansai, an animal shelter in Japan. You can select a matted drawing or leave it unmatted. Unmatted, they’re 6″x9″ in colored pencil and marker on vellum. The mats are 9″x12″ and black. On to today’s monkey!

Japanese macaque (click image to enlarge)


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This drawing has sold!

The Japanese macaque is also called the snow monkey. They’re the guys you see relaxing in hot tubs and hot springs like this:

(That photo, as you no doubt noticed, is from National Geographic.) I wish there were Japanese macaques at Ten Thousand Waves, our local Japanese-style spa. It would be the perfect addition for the transporting atmosphere. Except I can imagine that they’re pretty noisy, and that might not be relaxing. Here’s a pretty fascinating article about why the macaques started hanging out in hot tubs, along with why they started playing with rocks and washing their sweet potatoes and wheat. The big trendsetter there was an 18-month-old baby girl monkey!

Here is Coco’s Japanese macaque. You should consider buying it to help Japan: all her other drawings have sold out. Collectors are lining up, people.

Japanese macaque by Coco, age 12 (click image to enlarge)

Coco’s drawing has sold!

My Japanese squirrel is still available for sale, too, and if you’re not big on art but you’d like to help the American Red Cross and Animal Refuge Kansai, consider clicking the button below. We’ll put your contribution into our fund.

Tagged as: coco, humans, japan, monkey

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African Buffalo (Syncerus caffer)

by JR Kinyak on March 26, 2011

in Ungulates

There certainly is a fierce beast to meet today, but don’t forget that tomorrow is the beginning of the Japan Mammalthon, and Coco and I will be posting original drawings that you can buy, with all proceeds benefiting victims of the tsunamis and earthquakes. Read this post for all the details.

African buffalo (click image to enlarge)

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“…[I]t has an unpleasant habit of remaining quietly in its lair until the unsuspecting traveler passes closely to its place of concealment, and then leaping suddenly upon him like some terrible monster of the waters, dripping with mud, and filled with rage. When it has succeeded in its attack, it first tosses the unhappy victim in the air, then kneels upon his body, in order to crush the life out of him, then butts at the dead corpse until it has given vent to its insane fury, and ends by licking the mangled limbs until it strips off the flesh with its rough tongue.”

John George Wood,
The Illustrated Natural History, 1865

The African or Cape buffalo provides a fine case study for anyone interested in the human relationship to other mammals. This buffalo, which lives in southern Africa, is one of the “Big Five” specially prized trophy animals for hunters on safari in Africa. The five animals—the others are the leopard, the lion, the rhinoceros, and the elephant—are considered the most difficult and dangerous to hunt, and no more so, I’m sure, than this behorned fellow.

I searched Google Books for 19th-century accounts by naturalists and self-satisfied hunters and found descriptions including “grim and vicious,” “ever sulky and completely inaccessible to any mollifying influences,” “fierce, treacherous, and savage,” “terrible in outward aspect,” “savage ferocity,” and “fierce and malignant aspect.”

Seasoned hunters of the 1800s advise that “unless you are tired of life,” you should not attempt shooting this beast from the front, for it “fears nothing” and is “one of the few animals which seem to cherish the spirit of revenge.” One writer says that its ugly mug is a good illustration of the principle that “the face is the index of the mind or disposition”; another says that the buffalo’s “little fierce eyes twinkle with sullen rays.” Beware, says one chronicler of the ferocious buffalo, for it “will willingly meet the hunter half-way and try conclusions with him.” Wounded buffalo, in particular, are depicted as ruthless in their bloodthirst, power, and vengefulness. As a vegetarian, I particularly enjoyed this comment:

“It is singular that so much malignity should be found in a beast which subsists only on vegetable food; but such is undoubtedly the case.”

Not only are these buffalo depicted as dangerous, they are universally said to be downright homicidal. I read several references to their insanity and treachery. Interestingly, unlike the similar-looking Asian water buffalo, the African buffalo has never been domesticated, at least not successfully. In interviews—or at least press releases—from a couple of years ago, a scientist who published a study pinpointing genetic “regions” connected with domestication mentioned the African buffalo as a particularly hard case, one that might be helped with some sort of genetic modification.

I do not dispute that African buffalo are incredibly dangerous and responsible for many deaths, but I can’t help but think that some of these anthropomorphized accounts of their ferocity are exaggerated by the pomp and bluster of vainglorious “white hunters” who feel compelled to make their “sport” seem as perilous as possible. Hunters still spout the same lines: safariBwana.com, which calls itself “the African hunting authority,” says that the African buffalo is a “worthy hunting adversary” and “one of the only beasts in the bush that looks at you as if you owe it something.” I tried—not very hard at all—to find video of a buffalo attacking hunters, but I didn’t find much to remark on. Anyway, someone who’s being shot by a powerful rifle with a reinforced bullet—because the buffalo has such thick skin—has a right to be angry, even vengeful, if animals ever do feel such emotions.

Tagged as: books, humans

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