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threats

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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Tibetan Fox (Vulpes ferrilata)

by JR Kinyak on April 5, 2011

in Carnivores

Tibetan sand fox (click image to enlarge)


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By request! A Tibetan sand fox, which is also known as a Tibetan fox or as a sand fox. These foxes live on the Tibetan Plateau in India, China, Nepal, and Tibet. The Tibetan Plateau is both the largest and the highest plateau in the world, and I know from Coco’s school report on Tibet this year that it’s called the roof of the world.

The foxes seem to mostly eat black-lipped pikas, chirpy little furry guys in the rabbit family. In fact, pikas may be pretty much the only thing Tibetan foxes eat, which would make them obligate predators: the biological term for a predator that eats mostly just one type of prey. That reliance on pikas means the Tibetan sand fox could be in trouble if people continue their current campaigns of poisoning pikas to control the pika population. Right now, though, the foxes are doing all right, endangerment-wise.

Tagged as: 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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