North Carolina Week: European Wild Boar (Sus scrofa)

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Native to Europe, North Africa, and Asia, the European wild boar came to North Carolina in 1912 when a man working in the Snowbird Mountains had 14 of them shipped over to start a game preserve. By the early 1920s, those 14 had grown into 60–100, and a hunt was held with dogs. Well, the hunters managed to kill only two of them, and many of the rest escaped. They multiplied and thrived, and I suppose that most of the wild boars now common throughout North Carolina are descendants of those first 14. (This is all according to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission's wild boar section.)

About the European wild boar, our old friend Ivan T. Sanderson has this to say:

They are most competent and single-minded beasts and are intolerant of any interference. Even the babies will put up a determined defense and the males will attack with calculated strategy. Their bite is worse than that of any mammal with the exception of the Killer Whale, and actually much worse than that of the Great Cats though being a ripping rather than a slicing action.

Be careful, North Carolina!

Make an origami wild boar

North Carolina Week: Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)

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It's North Carolina Week at the Daily Mammal, and in fact, next time you're in Raleigh, you really should visit the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, where, in the Coastal Carolina area, you can see gigantic gorgeous skeletons of several whale species, including this one.

The humpback whale's Latin name means giant wing of New England. Isn't that beautiful? The "giant wing" part refers to the whale's pectoral fins, which are huge. Everything about the humpback whale is huge, actually. They get to about 50 feet long and weigh around 50 tons. They're known for the beauty and mystery of their songs, which researchers have recently discovered have a complexity we didn't understand before. In fact, the whales' vocalizations share some basic elements with human languages. One neat thing is that whales in different parts of the world have completely different songs, and the songs in a given area develop and evolve collaboratively.

At one time, we had hunted humpbacks almost to extinction. In the '60s, the world adopted an international whaling ban that brought them back from the edge. Now, some countries have begun whaling again, and it was only because of the critical outcry of dismay that Japan last month postponed its plans to kill dozens of humpback whales for "research."

Take this mammal home with you!

North Carolina Week: Evening Bat (Nycticeius humeralis)

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All week on The Daily Mammal we're looking at mammals of North Carolina. Evening bats, like this one here, live throughout the eastern United States in the lower elevations, and they're particularly common in the southeastern states, like North Carolina. They're similar to brown bats but much smaller—their bodies are only about four inches long and their wingspans are less than a foot. They roost mainly in buildings, but also in tree cavities and underneath loose bark; you may find them in a bat house every now and then. They eat insects—they love moths, junebugs, and beetles.

It's rare to spot a male evening bat in the northern parts of its range, and we're not completely sure exactly what the bats do during the winter. Reports of winter sightings in the south indicate that they probably migrate. In the short time I've been working on The Daily Mammal, I have been continually surprised by the things we don't know, the mammals we've never seen, the adaptations we can't explain, the behavior we're not sure about. Maybe it's because there's so much flashy news about technology and quantum physics and whatnot that I've tended to assume that we know pretty much what there is to know about the more basic facts of life on earth. It's so amazing and magical that there's still so much mystery to figure out just by looking closely.

Take this mammal home with you!

North Carolina Week: Star-Nosed Mole (Condylura cristata)

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Continuing with the mammals of North Carolina theme, allow me to introduce you to the star-nosed mole. This fascinating fellow, as you cannot but help to notice, has 22 finger-like appendages on the end of his snout. Star-nosed moles use their "stars" to touch and sense their surroundings, as well as to cover their nostrils when they're burrowing, keeping dirt out.

The appendages that make up the star are hairless and covered with tiny protuberances I'd never heard of called Eimer's organs. Here's how Animal Diversity Web describes the star-nosed mole's Eimer organs:

Each Eimer's organ contains 3 types of tactile receptors, 2 of which are found in the skin of other mammals. The third type is unique to the star-nosed mole and is thought to allow the mole to identify objects by their microscopic texture.

Isn't that amazing? It can identify objects by their microscopic texture! Star-nosed moles are also semi-aquatic, and get this: they (along with water shrews and possibly other aquatic mammals) can smell underwater! Basically, they blow bubbles out their nose and into an object, then quickly inhale the bubble back again, taking in the object's scent molecules in the process. (You can read here about how a very interesting scientist called Ken Catania figured all this out. His work with star-nosed moles actually earned him a MacArthur "genius" grant!)

Here's an article from the website of Vanderbilt University (home of Dr. Catania) about star-nosed moles. Scroll down to the pictures near the bottom, and you'll see three remarkable ones: a close-up view of a star-nosed mole's nose star, an illustration that exaggerates the size of the mole's body parts to indicate their relative importance with regard to the mole's brain, and an image of a star-nosed mole fetus.

Take this mammal home with you!

North Carolina Week: Southern Flying Squirrel (Glaucomys volans)

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Today inaugurates a special theme week at The Daily Mammal: the mammals of North Carolina. I was in Raleigh on a business trip this past week, and I had the opportunity to meet not only many mammals of the human persuasion, but one non-human, a male flying squirrel, like this one here. I'd never seen one before, and I have to tell you, they're my new favorite mammal. This flying squirrel is for Jesse. Stay tuned for the rest of this week to meet more North Carolinian mammals.

The southern flying squirrel lives in forests throughout the eastern United States, up a bit into Canada and down into Central America. Their Latin name means flying gray mouse, and they are small—around mouse-size—with grayish-brown fur up top and creamy yellowish on their undersides (that is, ventral). They glide "in a descending curve" from treetop to treetop; Mammalian Species says that the record longest glide was 90 meters, which is nearly 300 feet! Usually, their glides are no more than about 9 meters long.

At the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, where they introduced me to the flying squirrel, I also got to see the shells of nuts that flying squirrels had eaten. They have a unique way of getting at the meat of the nuts. They create a round hole in the shell and then scrape the meat out with their teeth. Also, I saw a bit of Life After People on the History Channel, and while I wasn't paying complete attention, it seemed to suggest that if humans disappeared, domestic cats would eventually develop adaptations similar to those of flying squirrels, which would allow them to glide among skyscrapers!

This mammal is sold. Find another one to take home with you!

Sand Cat (Felis margarita)

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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!

Daily Mammal Original Art Now for Sale

I've opened a Daily Mammal Original Art Shop where you can buy your very own original mammal drawings. Already-existing drawings cost $50 each, or you can make a request—any mammal you want—for $60. And $5 of each purchase goes to an animal-related charity. All the drawings come with a mat and are ready to frame.

Visit the Daily Mammal Original Art Shop

Teledu (Indonesian Stink Badger) (Mydaus javanensis)

This teledu is for Chris and for Croydon. Teledus are related to badgers and to skunks. This one lives in Sumatra and Java. Among other things, it eats earthworms. Its generic name means wet, damp, and moldy substance, which brings me to the most special thing about the stink badger: it shoots a green liquid from its anal glands. It smells so bad it can asphyxiate other animals (and cause blindness if it hits 'em in the eyes). According to Mammalian Species, this secretion is used in perfumes in Java!

Mydaus javanensis species account from Mammalian Species (PDF)

Buy this drawing at the Daily Mammal Original Art Shop

Back Orders: Steller Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus)

My father-in-law, Steve, requested a sea lion, and I selected the Steller for him. These big sea lions (males get to about 11 feet long and weigh around 2,500 pounds) live in the northern Pacific Rim from Japan up and around to Alaska and down to northern California. They are divided into two populations, western and eastern, with the eastern stock comprising, basically, those in Canada and the lower 48 (well, lower 3 in this case) and the western living in Alaska and Asia.

The western stock of Steller sea lions declined quite dramatically—by 75 percent—between 1975 and 1990, and nobody knows exactly why. In fact, the western sea lions are still diminishing in number. Theories include disease, climate change, and the decline of the fish that they eat due to industrial fishing. Under the federal Endangered Species Act, the western stock is listed as endangered and the eastern as threatened. (The endangered status indicates that a species is in imminent danger of becoming extinct; threatened means that the species is on track to become endangered in the future.)

Steller sea lions on NOAA's website

Back Orders: Arctic Fox (Alopex lagopus)

The Arctic fox is Nicola's favorite mammal, so this one is for her. My own favorite thing about the Arctic fox is that it is Iceland's only native land mammal; all the other terrestrial mammals there were brought by humans.

Arctic foxes' coats are generally white in the winter and a lovely gray or gray-and-white in the summer, although this also seems to vary geographically. They like to eat lemmings, fish, birds, and eggs, and sometimes they follow polar bears around to get at their leftovers.

Back Orders: Golden Lion Tamarin (Leontopithecus rosalia)

Tynan requested a golden lion tamarin, which is a small monkey that lives in the rain forest in eastern Brazil. It's extremely endangered—only 1,000–1,500 survive in the wild—mainly because of industrialization and cultivation of its forest habitat. Golden lion tamarins are omnivorous, eating insects, lizards, and fruit. I wonder why they're so beautifully tangerine-colored.

Golden Lion Tamarin Conservation Program (National Zoo)
Golden Lion Tamarin skulls from Digimorph

Back Orders: Campbell's Russian Dwarf Hamster (Phodopus campbelli)

This just came from a new Daily Mammal reader. If you're in the LA area and can help hamsters, here's your chance. Thanks!

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!

I KNOW THIS IS AN ODD REQUEST!

EAST VALLEY HAS WAY TOO MANY HAMSTERS, AND BECAUSE THERE ARE TOO MANY THEY ARE HURTING EACH OTHER AND PROCREATING AND ALL THE THINGS THAT WE JUST DON'T NEED. IF YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW WOULD LIKE A HAMSTER,PLEASE SEND THEM TO THE SHELTER AND HELP US OUT!!! THERE ARE PLENTY TO GO AROUND! (OVER 40)

PERMISSION TO CROSS POST FAR AND WIDE!!!

Valerie Markloff - New Hope Coordinator

Department of Animal Services
East Valley Division
14409 Vanowen St.
Van Nuys, CA 91405

main: 888 452-7381 ext 1-4-5
fax: 818 756-9110
valerie.markloff@lacity.org

And now the original post:


Something that I never really thought about before is the idea of hamsters in the wild. It seems so strange somehow to imagine little hamsters living outside of cages. Campbell's Russian dwarf hamsters live in the steppes of China, Mongolia, and Russia, but people also keep them as pets. In the wild, they live in a system of underground tunnels. They only weigh about 23 grams, which is about the same as 23 paper clips would weigh (using the conversion equation my third-grade teacher Mrs. Beard taught us). This particular hamster is for Luca.

Back Orders: Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris)

Here is a funny fellow for Joanna. Sea otters, which live in the coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, have the thickest fur of any mammal. That's because unlike other aquatic mammals, sea otters don't have blubber and rely on their fur to insulate them. They spend most of their time on their backs. As Ivan T. Sanderson says, "It has the most engaging habits, not least of which is floating on the surface on its back and using its broad flat chest as a lunch counter on which to lay out its food." They also sleep on their backs, and mother sea otters float on their backs with their babies resting on their chests. At night or when they're resting, sea otters wrap themselves in seaweed so they won't drift away.

Back Orders: Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth (Bradypus variegatus)

About the three-toed sloth, which he insists on calling the three-FINGERED sloth, Sanderson says, "Aggravatingly and quite erroneously, they have been called the two-toed and three-toed, when both have five toes. However, one the Unau, has only two fingers, and the other, the Ai, has three fingers."

But as far as I can tell, he's wrong! Animal Diversity Web says all sloths have three toes; some have three fingers and some have two, and darn if all the pictures I've seen don't look like that's the case. But he is right that it's more precise to call this guy three-fingered, not -toed.

This sloth was requested by Susan. I think sloths are just about the most gorgeous creatures around. I hope I get to meet one someday.

Back Orders: Fossa (Cryptoprocta forex)

Jennifer's stuck on a bus, so I'm posting this one for her. No, really, she is.

This one was requested by Russell.

This little cat-like carnivore is endemic to Madagascar. It spends most of its time sleeping, which is why Jennifer didn't draw its amazing brown eyes. Now she wishes she had. But I like this little tyke just the way she is! What do you think?

Back Orders: Arctic Wolf (Canis lupus arctos)

The arctic wolf, which Nancy requested, is a subspecies of the gray wolf. It's a little smaller with a shorter nose and ears and a white coat year-round. The arctic wolf is very isolated in the northernmost parts of North America and in Greenland, and the World Wildlife Foundation tells me that it's the only wolf subspecies that isn't threatened, which is good news for it, at least.

Meanwhile, wolves in Alaska are up against the nightmare of aerial hunting, which you may want to help stop. (That link includes a video that isn't terribly graphic but does show the hunting, which is upsetting.)

Arctic Diary: Tracking Wolves from the BBC (by a professional explorer, a job title that I didn't know still existed but I'm sure glad it does)
Arctic Wolves and their Prey from the NOAA

Behind the Scenes: Daily Mammal Process Part 1

I got a request for a post about my drawing process, and I've noticed that people are often surprised when they hear how I make my mammals, so I thought I'd give you a look into how I do what I do. This is part one of a two-part series.

1. Book research

Every daily mammal starts with research. If I'm drawing a request, I start by looking it up in my mammal books. And if I'm not drawing a request, I start by flipping through my mammal books until a mammal catches my eye. The books let me get a very general sense of the mammal's behavior, distribution, and taxonomy, and they often offer strange and illuminating editorial asides that help me feel I know the mammal.

If you're a regular reader, you know I'm partial to Mr. Ivan T. Sanderson, author of Living Mammals of the World and, I recently noticed, How to Know the American Mammals. He writes like a guy with a pencil mustache and "one of the largest private zoos in the United States," which is what he was. My admiration for him only increased when I read on Wikipedia that his father was killed by a rhinoceros. Mr. Sanderson was also a leading cryptozoologist and author of Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life: The Story Of Sub-Humans On Five Continents From The Early Ice Age Until Today.

I have other books, too, though, and some of them are helpful in ways Mr. Sanderson is not. For instance, Handbook to the Orders and Families of Living Mammals has incredibly helpful line drawings of bat noses, which were fairly incomprehensible to me until I saw the book. I checked out Mammals: Their Latin Names Explained from the library last summer, and that one was great for, well, explaining their Latin names. There's a two-volume set called Walker's Mammals of the World that I really want, but it's pricey, so I have to wait.

2. Internet research

After I get a general handle on a mammal from the books, I start gathering pictures of it. The best source for this, of course, is the Internet, so I spend some time collecting 12–20 photos, which I save to my computer and then open in Preview, arraying them across my desktop. The idea is to accumulate enough images to let me form an idea of the mammal's typical pose and attitude. I also use multiple images in order to help stop myself from copying any one photograph. It's important to me that these drawings are original works.

Next (or sometimes after I've finished the drawing), I do a general Google search on the mammal's name. If I find interesting resources or articles, I like to link to them in my post. For instance, for today's possum, I found an article about how scientists are collecting possum droppings, dissecting them, removing cells that were shed from the possum's guts during digestion, analyzing the DNA contained in these cells, and creating a sort of rogue's gallery lineup of individual possums. Then, they can analyze how often they end up dissecting the poop of a possum they've already identified and extrapolate from that to create an estimate of just exactly how many possums there are in any given area. Interesting, right? So I helpfully provided you with a link to it.

The next part of this series will look at how I actually draw the things.

Back Orders: (New Zealand) Brush-tailed Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula)

Sure, he's cute, but don't get too attached. The New Zealand brush-tailed possum (requested by Lauri) is a tragic figure indeed, and it's best if we can desensitize ourselves a bit.

Introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century in order to start a fur trade that didn't survive into the 20th century, the possums now form an overwhelmingly rampant crew of ecodestroyers. See, and I didn't know this, there are actually only two native mammal species in New Zealand, and they're both little bats. This means that New Zealand's plants and other types of animals evolved in utopian isolation. The plants, for instance, are all inviting and delicious, whereas in, say, Australia, they've evolved helpful don't-eat-me adaptations, like spines, thorns, and bitter flavors. Also, mammals introduced to New Zealand have very little competition for resources and no larger-mammal predators, so not only is there lots of food, there's no one else trying to stop you from eating it. Sometimes, possums breed two times a year in this seeming possum heaven.

Now, its evolutionary isolation also means New Zealand is home to a lot of unique plants and birds. And the estimated 70 million possums that ravage the country nightly (somewhat like the vampires in I Am Legend, I imagine), just by being their hungry possum selves, are an extreme threat to the survival of these very vulnerable species. The situation is so dire that even New Zealand's largest conservation organization endorses the use of 1080, a biodegradable poison that's dropped from the air (to be eaten not only by possums but also, it is feared, the occasional special bird).

New Zealanders have also created a burgeoning dead-possum-products industry, with slogans such as "Possums: Not Just Roadkill Anymore" and "Undressing the Possum to Redress Our Forests." Apparently, possum fur, when mixed with merino, makes a lovely wool for knitting. You can buy possum-fur scarves, teddy bears and unmentionables and possum-leather lampshades and planters. And you can help yourself to a big serving of possum pie. Just doing your part to secure New Zealand's biodiversity.

Luckily, the Australian population of brush-tailed possum must deal with dingos and brushfires and prickly foliage, and by all accounts is a lively and agreeable segment of the local fauna.

"Alien Possums Gobbling New Zealand Forests, Birds" from National Geographic News
"Possum Poo Gives Clue to Possum Numbers"

Back Orders: Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)

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

Mammal Delay

I started drawing an action pose of an animal with a very stylish coat, and it's taking me it's taking me too long to finish it tonight. Well, and I watched Project Runway. So I will finish it and post it tomorrow.