Back Orders: Fennec Fox (Vulpes zerda)

This fennec fox is for Kelsey, who used to be an absurdly adorable and entertaining young boy, but is now unaccountably a suave and self-possessed teenager. The fennec is his favorite animal at the zoo. I drew one a while back, but I never did like my drawing, so I'm glad I got the chance to redo it.

Back orders: Black Howler Monkey (Alouatta pigra)

This female black howler monkey is for Nicole, who let me choose for her. Why did I choose a female black howler monkey? Well, if you knew Nicole, you wouldn't ask! Just kidding!

Howler monkeys live in the South and Central American rain forests. They are the loudest land animal in the world! (Loudest animal, period, is the blue whale.) You can hear their howls up to three miles away. As usual, Ivan T. Sanderson describes it best: "They sound like the roll of distant thunder preceded by the death-agonies of half a dozen tortured jaguars." Mr. Sanderson loves the howlers, adding, "If South America selected an international emblem it should be this magnificent animal emblazoned in gold on a jungle treetop against the clear blue of the sky."

24 Hours: Progress Report: SHE DID IT!

Jennifer Atkins did it: She drew 24 mammals non-stop! It took her just over 26 hours, and she didn't give up until the 24 mammals promised were completed!

Here are pictures of our illustrator working on her final drawing of the marathon: the large flying fox for me. Compare these photos with how she looked at the start -- she's still fresh as a breeze and ready for more!

But she's going to stop after 24, for now at least, and I'm going to take her out for a good breakfast and a well-earned rest.

The 24-Hour Mammalthon is hereby declared a stunning success!

Thanks so much to all of you -- the fans, friends and family who have given Jennifer so much support before and during the Mammalthon. With your help, Jennifer raised around $800 for Defenders of Wildlife -- a group that will put that money to good use. You can all be proud of the role you played in this -- even if your role was simply watching the unfolding adventure and wishing Jennifer the best. Thank you all.

Okay, time for breakfast.

WE DID IT!

Wow! Twenty-four mammals in…twenty-six hours! We actually did it!

Thank you to everyone who contributed a donation, requested a mammal, or posted a comment. Your support got me through this mammalian marathon, and I really appreciate everyone's encouragement. I'm so happy that people cared and took an interest and wanted to help Defenders of Wildlife! So THANK YOU.

I'll be back…maybe not today…to draw the remaining 11 mammals from the 24-hour jubilee and to get the Daily Mammal back on its usual track! See you soon!

JR

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Now playing: Lyrics Born Featuring E-40 & Casual - Callin' Out Remix
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Large Flying Fox (Pteropus vampyrus)

For Ted, a Large Flying Fox! These are really huge bats, with wingspans up to 6'! I had to draw two of them because I couldn't decide whether to highlight its size in flight or its beautiful face. And it's the last of the 24 mammals, which is actually making me a little sad!

I have two questions for any bat experts who are reading this. First of all, do bats sleep with their eyes open or are they just very light sleepers who wake up when someone comes near with a camera?

Also, pictures of the flying fox from the ventral side, when its wings are spread out and all, make it appear as though it's wearing little rectangular pants! What are those??

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Now playing: Merle Haggard - I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink
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24 Hours: North American Porcupine (and who's left?)

Here's a rather wild-looking porcupine for Bradley. At first, I was very frustrated with how I was drawing it, but it ended up being a crazy color extravaganza. I'm trying to think whether I've seen a porcupine in person, and I don't think I have.

Okay, now we have but one mammal left to make 24! But several other people have made donations and requests. I thank those people for their patience, and I promise to draw their mammals and ship them out this coming week. Thank you so much for your donations and support. These are the people whose mammals are back-ordered, as it were. Please let me know if I missed anyone!

Kelsey M.
Nicole B.
Joanna R.
Nancy K.
Lauri D.
Stephen S.
Steve S.
Nicola G.
Luca G.
Tynan G.
Susan H.
Russell

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Now playing: TV On the Radio - Ambulance
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24 Hours: Stoat (Mustela something)

For Heather, a stoat! Do stoats eat oats? (I'm a little sleep deprived. Please forgive me.)

Twenty-two down, two to go!

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Now playing: Steely Dan - Hey Nineteen
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24 Hours: Progress Report, 9:30 AM

We're in the home stretch now for the Mammalthon! Jennifer has been working hard all night, while I've done my best to stay awake and be useful when I could.

Jennifer got a little behind early on in the marathon, but since then she's been steadily getting these drawings done one an hour. She's still full of energy, is in great spirits, and is having a blast drawing all these mammals for us! She's still singing along with her iTunes songs, for goodness' sake! What the heck?!?

Late last night we predicted Jennifer would finish her 24th mammal by around noon, and that prediction still holds. With a couple more hours to go, keep hitting that refresh button or checking your RSS feeders! We can see the finish line now, and Jennifer ain't slowin' down!

24 Hours: Kinkajou

This is another case where the donor asked me to choose a mammal. For my tia Laura, I chose the kinkajou, a panda/raccoon relative.

I know I was supposed to cut down on research and commentary, but I remember reading a book when I was a kid about a family that had a pet kinkajou (among other exotic pets). I think it had kinkajou in the title, something like Kinkajous in the Icebox. I was wondering what Ivan T. Sanderson had to say about kinkajous as pets, and I thought you might be wondering too:

"They are really very common though most dangerous pets because their honey-eating apparently leads to an insatiable appetite for alcoholic liquids of all kinds. When they are inebriated, they go quite mad, and will attack their owners, latch on with their sharp claws, prehensile tail, and vicious teeth, and continue biting like no other mammal."

P.S. Only three mammals left in the 24-mammal mammalthon!

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Now playing: Dobie Gray - The "In" Crowd
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24 Hours: Woolly Mammoth (Extinctus gargantuus)

Now, don't go getting any ideas from John's woolly mammoth request. This is a special occasion, but I don't have time to draw every mammal that ever lived! No saber-toothed tigers, no mastodons…maybe a thylacine, but that's it.

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Now playing: Jose Gonzalez - Crosses
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24 Hours: Elk (Wapiti)

This is for Maleta. She gave me my choice, and I choose an elk! I know Maleta likes animals that can be found in New Mexico, and this is one.

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Now playing: Explosions In The Sky - Welcome, Ghosts
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24 Hours: Giant Panda

Giant panda! For my tia Leah!

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Now playing: Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters - White Christmas
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24 Hours: Gerenuk (Who knows?)

Joe said "Pick something obscure that you think would be fun to draw," so here, Joe, is your gerenuk, also called the giraffe-necked antelope! He was indeed fun to draw. If you want to see some really strange and beautiful creatures, look for photos of the gerenuk.

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Now playing: Teddy Pendergrass - Love TKO
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24 Hours: Texas Kangaroo Rat (Something somethingus)

Texas kangaroo rat! For Kate! Sarah's mom! Yay!

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Now playing: Freddie Fender - Dime
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24 Hours: Pine Marten (Martes americsomething)

My dad likes pine martens. He saw one once on Pot Creek in Taos. So here's your pine marten, Dad!

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Now playing: Patsy Cline - Leavin' on Your Mind
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24 Hours: Progress Report, 2:30 AM

Jennifer is holding up extraordinarily well -- much better, in fact, than I am. I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open, and I'm not even the one who's been working non-stop for the past 15 hours.

Wow! 15 Hours! And she's still fresh as a daisy! How does my wife do it? And her drawings are only getting better and better. Incredible!

24 Hours: Silver-haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans)

A silver-haired bat! For Sara! I'm starting to really like drawing bats. That's all I'll say about that.

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Now playing: Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - Stay a Little Longer
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24 Hours: Dog (Canis familiaris)

Okay, time to get serious. I'm not going to look up Latin names anymore, and I'm going to try to keep my commentary as brief as possible. I'm too far behind, and I really have to meet this goal: 24 mammals, come what may! This black standard poodle is for Doris McDonald, aka the best-ever tooth puller!

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Now playing: The Rolling Stones - Memo From Turner
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24 Hours: Brown Bear (Ursus arctos)

You may recall from the grizzly I drew a while back that it's a subtype of this beautiful species, the brown bear. They're just so big and heavy and shaggy. I really like them. This one, who has just caught a salmon for dinner, is for Kari.

Well, it looks like I'm two mammals behind! I need to speed up somehow.

24 Hours: Alpaca (Lama pacos)

Well, I'm not quite half done, and I'm already starting to feel a little They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Luckily, I have a 44-ounce vanilla Dr. Pepper here to see me through! I apologize to everyone who requested a mammal after I'd already gotten 24; I promise to draw your mammals and send you your art next week! Thank you for your support. And on to our alpaca!

Here's another taxonomical controversy! It seems that some think the alpaca and the llama are the same species as the guanaco (Lama glama), just tamed. Others think these domesticated versions are separate species. For our purposes, let's come down on the side of MORE MAMMALS!

Jessica was kind enough to give me a choice among several mammals for her, her initial choice being a marmot. Since we've got a number of small, cute, sharp-toothed, marmotesque mammals tonight, I went with the fuzzy, comical-looking alpaca just for biodiversity's sake. (Also, Jessica, your drawing isn't necessarily as wrinkled as it looks in this scan!)

24 Hours: African Brush-Tailed Porcupine (Atherurus africanus)

The African brush-tailed porcupine lives in Kenya, Gambia, and Zaire. It hangs out in caves during the day and is nocturnal to the point of not coming out if there's a bright full moon. They attack their enemies by backing into them, releasing their spines from their backs. Yansci requested a porcupine, and Ted got to pick the species.

24 Hours: Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)

I've had a few requests for platypuses since I started this project, but I wanted to save it for a special occasion, which this is! While this platypus is most especially for Heather, it is also, in a way, for Allen and for Maggie. Maggie wants me to highlight the way the platypus produces milk. See, the female platypus does not have teats like most mammals. Instead, she has long glands under her skin—really long, like up to a third of her total body weight. The glands secrete milk into the fur, where the young platypus laps it up.

The male platypus gets into the weirdness act, too. He has, on each of his back limbs, a spur that is basically a sharp, hollow bone connected to a venom gland in his thigh! He can stab an enemy with a spur and secrete venom right into his enemy's body. The spurs get bigger during breeding season.

24 Hours: Domesticated Donkey (Equus asinus)

Hi Mom! Here's your donkey! It's too bad no one requested a lamb and a cow and a baby human, because this baby donkey looks like he'd fit right in at a nativity scene.

I just realized, when I looked up the Latin name for donkeys, that the word asinine means, literally, ass-like, in the same way canine means dog-like and feline means cat-like and ovine means sheep-like.

24 Hours: Progress Report

We're in the midst of Hour 9 here at the Daily Mammal Marathon, folks. Jennifer is holding up very well. You've been able to see that her work is coming out great -- I'm here to report that she's also in good spirits, having a great time, still excited about the work , and still keeping her shoulder to the proverbial and her nose there too.

Her iTunes is playing her favorite songs, and she's singing along! She says she likes to sing while she draws her mammals. It's obviously working because her drawings are looking terrific.

I'll post again later, as the Daily Mammal Marathon continues. Thanks again for your continued support. Stay warm and think kindly towards the mammals in your life.

24 Hours: Black Rat (Rattus rattus)

Soon, it will be the year of the rat, which is why Ramona requested this fellow. She's a rat herself—astrologically speaking—which is why we could call her Ratmona, but I don't think we should. Black rats are also called roof rats, house rats, and ship rats, which I suppose gives us a good idea of where we can expect to find them.

24 Hours: Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus)

This might sound incredible to you, but I have to tell you, I know what this koala is dreaming about. Really! He's dreaming about a little girl who lives in Philadelphia (a place he's never even visited!). Her name is Claire, and this koala is dreaming about how much he'd like to be friends with her.

24 Hours: White Tent Bat (Ectophylla alba)

I have to thank Elliot for introducing me to tent bats. I had never heard of them before. This particular tent-making bat species is also known as the Honduran white bat. It lives in Central America and is very small. Tent bats bite the ribs of big leaves to turn them into tents. Then they cuddle up under them to roost during the day. The leaves also provide a sort of camouflage for the white tent bats because the light coming through the leaves makes their white fur seem greenish, and they're harder to see.

24 Hours: Spade-toothed Whale (Mesoplodon traversii)

Whale, whale, whale, what have we here? It's a whale skull! Neil requested this spade-toothed whale, giving me its Latin name and apology. Turns out, no one's ever seen this animal. All we know of it is what we can gather from three skull parts that have washed up over the past 130 years or so. It's pretty amazing that there are still so many mammals—big ones!—that we've never seen, even though we think we've seen it all and know it all.

So Neil, I'm sorry your mammal has no skin, but I think this drawing is in the spirit of your request.

If you want to learn more about this mysterious whale, you can start with Wikipedia.

24 Hours: Domesticated Ferret (Mustela putorius furo)

Here's a furry fellow for Ame in Houston. A healthy domestic ferret will sleep up to 20 hours a day. Think of all the mammals it could draw in that time if it wasn't so lazy! Also, although I'd really like to look up putorius right now, since both the domestic ferret and the eastern spotted skunk have it in their names, I won't, as I need to eat my lunch and then draw more mammals! Who can tell us what it means?

This guy was fun to draw.

24 Hours: Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)

Here's a gray wolf for Jay. The gray wolf is the largest of the canines. It was once prevalent throughout the world; now it's restricted mainly to northern North America, Asia, and Europe, with a few small populations surviving in western Europe.

24 Hours: Eastern Spotted Skunk (Spilogale putorius)

Let's kick off the mammal extravaganza with a flourish! Kyle requested this eastern spotted skunk. They actually do handstands like this, waving their tails about threateningly, as a warning when they're about to spray! Ivan T. Sanderson, in How to Know the American Mammals, says that "like all skunks," the eastern spotted skunks make "delightful, friendly, intelligent pets." I think I would like a pet skunk.

...And she's OFF!

Hello everyone! Thanks for checking in on Jennifer during her 24-hour Daily Mammal Marathon (or Mammalthon as we like to call it here at Daily Mammal Worldwide HQ).

Jennifer got off to a bright fresh start just before 10:00 AM Mountain Time (Noon Eastern Time -- duh), and as you can see from the photos, she was bright and cheery and ready for a day-long, night-long, morning-long drawfest!

I'll be posting periodic updates throughout the marathon. Jennifer is really excited about embarking on this project, and I know she'd appreciate a comment or two of encouragement now and then. If you're a sponsor, maybe you'll see YOUR mammal come up, fresh off the drawing board, just as it's being posted to the world!

Red Agouchi (Myoprocta agouchy)

Check in throughout the day on Saturday, December 22, to see 24 28? Mammals in 24 Hours!

Here we go, stepping unwittingly into another mammalian taxonomic morass. This guy you see here is an agouchi, that much is certain. His exact variety, as well as its scientific name, is a little less clear, at least to me. My Handbook to the Orders and Families of Living Mammals says there are two agouchi species. A cursory search reveals that these are red agouchis and green agouchis. (So that's what "Red or green?" means!) Sure enough, some are reddish, some sort of greenish.

But are they two different species? There are authoritative sources that say that Myoprocta agouchy is the green agouchi; other authorities say Myoprocta agouchy is the red one. Some say that Myoprocta pratti is the green agouchi; others say the green agouchi is Myoprocta agouchy pratti, a subspecies, in other words. Some mention a Myoprocta exilis and call that one red, so if you're keeping up, that would indicate a possible three different species names for two agouchi species.

This one is reddish, and I'm going with the most basic Latin name. Surely sometime in the next 14 years this will all be ironed out, and then I can draw the green one or not, as warranted.

Agouchis live in South America, notably Brazil, and they are rodents. They're closely related to agoutis, which, you may recall, incurred the wrath of Ivan T. Sanderson. You will be relieved to know that Mr. Sanderson (who, incidentally, looks like Walt Disney) is much sweeter on agouchis, comparing them favorably to their agouti cousins:

"Although even more slender and delicate and supersensitive, it is altogether less hysterical and can be tamed, whereupon it shows remarkable intelligence and even apparent affection for those it trusts."

Saiga Antelope (Saiga tatarica)

Check in throughout the day on Saturday, December 22, to see 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!


I just love these guys; sadly, saigas are severely endangered, owing to habitat destruction and, especially, widespread poaching—their horns are a valuable ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, their numbers have plummeted almost 95 percent in less than 20 years, a rate that is unheard of and very alarming.

They live on the steppes of central Asia. Some think their strange proboscis helps filter out the dust; others think it heats up the air they breathe before it reaches their lungs.

I came snout-to-snout with a stuffed saiga specimen at the Wagner Free Institute of Science in Philadelphia. I hope I can see a live one someday. I hope it's even possible.

The saiga is number 62 on the EDGE list of 100 evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered species.

Saiga conservation in Russia

24 Mammals in 24 Hours Sold Out!

The first-ever Daily Mammal special event, 24 Mammals in 24 Hours, looks to be a success, so far! Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to Defenders of Wildlife and requested a mammal: 26 people in all!

I'm going to leave the donations open for now, so if you want to donate at least $25, request a mammal, and get the original art in the mail, you still can, just know that it's very likely that I won't draw it during the same 24 hours as the others! But I will draw additional requests in the order I receive them, at least one a day, and I'll take down the donate button on Saturday.

To learn more about this event, read this post. And stop by throughout the day this Saturday, December 22, to cheer me on! I plan to start drawing around 8 or 9 am MST. See you then, and thanks again for your support!

Meadow Vole (Field Mouse) (Microtus pennsylvanicus)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours! There are only five four three spots left!


The meadow vole, meadow mouse, field mouse, or field vole is among the most populous mammals in the northeastern United States. Female meadow voles have to start reproducing when they're three weeks old, and then they have litters about every three weeks thereafter, presumably until they die. (Males wait until they're around six weeks old to start reproducing.) Can you imagine?

Giant Forest Hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!


These wild hogs live in central Africa. The male of the species is a vicious fellow, liable to attack his fellow hog with great ferocity, sometimes butting heads so hard that someone's cranium busts. According to the Ultimate Ungulate website, when two male giant forest hogs fight, "The victor urinates, grinds his teeth, and bites at the loser, who in turn flees the area with his tail raised."

Giant forest hogs like to live in thicket and brush, favoring forested areas near watering holes. Their major predators are hyenas and leopards. I drew this hog's snout way too short, but you should get the idea. Can't you just hear him snorting?

Eurasian Badger (Meles meles)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!

This species of badger lives in Europe and Asia, and is highly popular in England. In a way, it's the British version of the American raccoon, getting into people's gardens and trash cans and whatnot (rubbish bins, I think they'd call them), only the badger seems to be much more beloved than the raccoon. People actually try to attract them to their gardens, and it's illegal, in the UK, to kill a badger or to disturb a badger's sett, which is an underground burrow where a group of badgers lives. Each group or clan is made up of about 12 badgers. They're very gregarious mammals.

Here's a website where you can listen to a variety of different sounds that badgers make and read what each sound signifies.

(Yesterday was Ted's birthday, so I took the day off from mammals to celebrate!)

Domestic Sheep (Ovis aries)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!


Sheep have been domesticated for between 9,000 and 11,000 years. Scientists still haven't figured out for sure which wild sheep species the domestic sheep descend from, but I can tell you that domestic sheep have smaller eye sockets and brain cases than their wild brethren. Also, various strains of sheep have been bred to have no wool, no horns, and no external ears. You may know of my obsession with Iceland. The sheep there are notably individualistic with a very weak flocking instinct.

Chilean Huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!


This tough little deer is also called the south Andean deer or the guemal instead of huemul. There are only somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 of them left in the world, but this is actually an improvement over their numbers a decade or two ago. This huemul is one of Chile's national symbols. The south Andean variety, like this fellow, lives only in Argentina and Chile. It's exceptionally hardy, thriving in high altitudes and winter temperatures that can drop as low as -50ºC. That's -58ºF!

Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!


This harbor seal is for Jeana. Harbor seals, which are also called common seals, live throughout the northern Pacific and Atlantic coasts. They are born on land, and while babies are born with fuzzy baby-wool, they lose it a few hours after birth. Living Mammals of the World says that harbor seals are "sometimes quite pathetic in their attachment to human beings." Rude, isn't it?

The Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, rescues and rehabilitates marine mammals. I visited once, and they had a sea lion with a gunshot wound, recuperating in the hope of returning to the Pacific Ocean.

Giant Kangaroo Rat (Dipodomys ingens)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!


The giant kangaroo rat, which is native to California, uses its bushy tail as a rudder to help it make sudden turns when it's leaping across the desert. It has big pouches in its cheeks where it stores its food and materials for building its nest, and it takes dust baths to keep its skin conditioned.

Giant kangaroo rats are critically endangered, thanks entirely to destruction of their San Joaquin Valley habitat by humans. In fact, 95 percent of the kangaroo rat's habitat is gone now, due to farming, ranching, mining, and the introduction of invasive species.

Common Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus)

Please consider contributing at least $25 to Defenders of Wildlife to get your own original Daily Mammal art! Read more about 24 Mammals in 24 Hours!


Do you know the vampire bat? If not, please allow me to make the introduction—I'd be delighted. Vampire bats live in South and Central America. They don't just fly, like regular bats: they actually have their own unique gallop, and I highly recommend this short video of a vampire bat running on a treadmill.

When it's time to feed, they first approach their victim from the air, sometimes emitting an odor that has a slight tranquilizing effect. Then they land nearby and run along the ground (with the aid of their large, fleshy thumbs and by tucking their wings up next to their arms), leaping onto their prey. They use their sharp front teeth to slash their victim's skin, then lap the blood out.

I'll let Timothy E. Lawlor and his Handbook to the Orders and Families of Living Mammals explain the biological process involved: "Efficient kidneys reduce the burden of transporting the large quantities of blood. As the bat feeds, much of the water in ingested blood is lost through the production of copious, dilute urine. Once the bat returns to the roost, the kidneys shift to the production of a highly concentrated urine, conserving water and thus avoiding dehydration."

In other words, while they're drinking your blood, they're also peeing on you!

If you're ever attacked by a vampire bat, you'll notice that you'll bleed a lot. That's because their saliva contains anticoagulants, which some researchers think could actually help stroke victims recover and lessen their chances of brain damage. (If you're ever attacked by a vampire bat, you should also get a rabies shot, I think.)

24 Mammals in 24 Hours!

I am pleased to announce the first-ever Daily Mammal special event: 24 MAMMALS IN 24 HOURS!

On Saturday, December 22, I will be drawing a mammal every hour. That's right, I'll stay up all night, draw and scan like crazy, and post the mammals here for you to see.

I'm not just doing this because it will be fun, though. It's for a special cause: Defenders of Wildlife, a 60-year-old nonprofit organization operating nationally that works to protect wild animals and their habitats. For more information about what they do, visit their website. If you have questions about how and why I chose them, post 'em here.

Now, here's where it gets fun for you, too. If you make a donation of at least $25 (using the DONATE button on the right-hand side of this website), you get to request a mammal. I'll draw it on December 22, then I'll send you the original art! Each mammal drawing is about 5" by 8". I draw on tracing paper (but I don't trace!) with markers, pens, and colored pencils. I'll send your original art along with a gray piece of cardstock, like the ones I use when I scan my drawings, to provide the perfect background for framing your mammal. I will send all the mammals out on Monday, December 24.

Tell me your favorite mammal (or, if you don't have one, let me choose one for you) and donate at least $25. You'll help animals and get a lovely piece of original art. The button's just right over there! And please stop by throughout the day on Saturday, December 22, to give me some moral support!

Azara's Agouti (Dasyprocta azarae)

Agoutis—there are 13 species—are large rodents that live in South America, Central America, and the West Indies. The Azara's variety lives in Brazil and neighboring countries. They have long legs and an elegant grace about them. My copy of Living Mammals of the World by Ivan T. Sanderson makes agoutis as a whole sound incredibly unappealing:

Admittedly, there is nothing much about an Agouti that catches the attention of the public…They are one of the most "nervous" mammals known…Despite their excessive timidity they are terrifyingly violent among themselves, individuals sometimes stamping other members of their family party to death systematically, relentlessly, and with no cause apparent to us…A twenty-foot leap from a sitting start is recorded, and they can jump chasms in a manner that defies understanding.

Malayan Tapir (Tapirus indicus)

My cousin Hilary asked me to draw a tapir, and as there are a few different species, I chose this one, the only tapir native to Asia (the others live in South America). This one here is a baby; when they grow up, they lose the stripes and spots and just get one wide white band across their middle and back end. (You can see a picture here, at ARKive.) Much like me, tapirs are retiring, solitary, primarily nocturnal, and vegetarian. Not so much like me, the Malayan tapir is a strong swimmer, communicates with a variety of whistles, and grows to about 8 feet long and 500 pounds. Its only enemy (other than habitat destruction) is the tiger.

Make your own paper tapir, courtesy of Yamaha.

Coyote (Canis latrans)

This coyote is for Maleta. Her favorite animal, like mine, is the dog, the plain old domestic dog, but I can't draw my favorite in the first few months of a 14-year project! So Maleta requested a coyote, which is also the mascot of the high school in Tatum, where she lives.

Coyotes are also one of my favorites. At my parents' house, you can often hear them barking and howling. I've seen them in my parents' driveway, just sort of milling around in the moonlight. Coyotes are a prime example of a wild animal that is increasingly coming into contact with humans as we take over habitats and alter food chains. While in a way this is magical—for the humans, anyway—it's a complicated issue that I don't think we address very intelligently.

How to Know the American Mammals warns, "They do not make reliable pets."

"Two Coyotes Killed in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco—Why Care?"

Least Weasel (Mustela nivalis)

The wonderful Doris McDonald of Tatum, New Mexico, requested (some time ago) a weasel. I picked this one, the least weasel, which is the smallest of the weasel species. How to Know the American Mammals says that the least weasel is small and nimble enough to fit through a hole the size of a "quarter," but it puts quarter in quotation marks like that. It also says that weasels are mighty vicious guys who kill even when they don't need to. They live off of small rodents like mice, rats, and squirrels.

Least weasel on Animal Diversity Web

Pallas Cat (Felis manul)

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

American Black Bear (Ursus americanus)

The mammals are back! After a hiatus in which I bought a house, moved into it, and wrote a novel, I have returned to mammalography with a renewed commitment to reaching my goal. Thank you for your support, and please stay tuned for an announcement later this week about a special Daily Mammal event.

This fellow here is a black bear. They live throughout North America, in pretty good numbers overall, although they have declined a lot in some places. Their coloring seems to vary regionally—in northwestern North America, there are even very pale ones, almost white—and they're larger in the east, where they don't have to compete with brown bears.

Black bears don't truly hibernate because their heart rates don't slow down that much, but they do "enter a state of lethargy" in autumn, according to my Simon & Schuster's Guide to Mammals.

Another thing I learned this week is that contrary to all the pro-New Mexico propaganda I've cheerfully taken in over the years, the character of Smokey Bear actually came before the real-life Smokey Bear, the black bear cub who lost his mother in a forest fire in Lincoln National Forest in 1950 (and whose first name was Hotfoot Teddy). The fictional character of Smokey debuted in 1944 and was named for a heroic New York firefighter called Smokey Joe Martin. Finally, it should be noted, his correct name is Smokey Bear, not Smokey the Bear.

See you tomorrow!