Philippine Flying Lemur (Colugo) (Cynocephalus volans)

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Here's another order checked off the list. I think this is a goal we'll reach, mammals! And what a mammal this one is. Have you ever heard of flying lemurs, also called colugos? There are two species, one that lives in the Philippines and one that lives in Thailand, Malaysia, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and the like. Both species have this amazing membrane that stretches from their neck…to the tips of their fingers…to the tips of their toes…to the tip of their tail. Compare that to the flying squirrel, who has skin for gliding just between, basically, its wrists and ankles. It's amazing, this colugo membrane.

Colugos flip their tail up, sort of inside out, when they're on the go so it doesn't get "soiled," according to Walker's Mammals of the World, or caught on a branch. They're truly arboreal, and they freak out if they somehow end up on the ground. They can climb in "a series of lurches" and they shuttle along horizontal branches hanging the way sloths do. But their most impressive mode of locomotion is their gliding. In a single glide, they can travel upwards of 100 meters (109 yards)!

These guys eat almost nothing but greenery. Walker's also says that "the gliding membrane of the mother can be folded into a soft, warm pouch to hold the young," and "the mother may leave the young in a nest tree or carry it with her while foraging," as you see this lady colugo doing. And colugos are crepuscular, a lovely word meaning "active at twilight." I wonder if there's an equivalent word that means "active at dawn."

Finally, please click to enlarge this photograph of a colugo in flight, which is from Pennsylvania State University. It's so amazing!

The Daily Telegraph: 'Your cousin, the 'flying lemur'"

Consecutive days of mammals: 16
Previous record: 11

New Feature: Mammal News Roundup

Sometimes I see articles online or in magazines that I think would interest Daily Mammal readers. When they concern mammals I haven't drawn yet, I can feature them as Daily Mammal Now posts. But when I've already drawn them, or just don't want to or can't draw them right away for some reason, I don't have a good vehicle to share them with you.

That's why I'm going to start occasionally (weekly? fortnightly? semiweekly? who knows?) pointing you to some very recent news stories and articles that you might want to read, or at least know about. Here's the first Mammal News Roundup.

Daily Mail, May 12, 2008: There's a cow the size of an elephant. He was left on the doorstop of an English animal sanctuary when he was an infant. The first picture makes him look especially large; check it out. Note to Americans: swede is what Brits call rutabaga.

Science Daily, May 13, 2008: Double mammal newsflash: In Brazil, they're training dogs to recognize the scent of various endangered mammals (like the jaguar and the giant anteater), helping researchers monitor their populations.

Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times, May 13, 2008: They're still trying to figure out what's causing white-nose syndrome, the strange ailment that's devastating some populations of bats in the northeastern United States. (Click on the Daily Mammal Now link above for more.)

U.S. Department of the Interior news release, May 14, 2008: Polar bears are now listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Since climate change is a major cause of polar bears' decline, but it's very difficult, to say the least, to prove how any particular action by Americans influences the climate change that's harming the bears, it is unclear how much the move will help the bears.

When I drew the polar bear, I found in my research that some people think that the polar bear is actually the same species as the brown bear. I looked into that a little more today and learned some interesting things. It seems polar bears, which are recognized as a distinct species by most anyone without an ax to grind, evolved from the brown bear pretty recently, some 200,000 years ago. And they were still developing adaptations as recently as 40,000 years ago.

I wonder how you would decide when the species was still the brown bear and when it had become the polar bear. Maybe there's a bare minimum of changes and differences that must be present? Or a certain number of DNA markers that should be present or absent? Or is it a case of "you know it when you see it"?

Some people, evidently regarded as nuts by some other people, think that melting ice in the Arctic will force the polar bear to evolve back into the brown bear, but it seems pretty likely to me that they're endangered enough that we can't expect them to be around long enough for that to happen with no intervention. Being an amateur biologist, though, I can just speculate.

BBC News, December 10, 2007: An Icelandic (yay!) scientist found the most ancient polar bear jawbone we have, a 150,000-year-old specimen. The article discusses, in brief, the evolutionary history of the polar bear.

(Polar bear photograph by Scott Schliebe, USFWS)

Aardvark (Orycteropus afer)

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Here's another order (Tubulidentata) that now contains only one family, one genus, and one species! Aardvarks live pretty much anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa that they can find ants and termites. They hunt the insects by smell, snuffling along the ground with their tongues sticking out. They're nocturnal and solitary and live in underground burrows. In fact, if you're an aardvark's enemy and you're going after it, it probably will escape you not by running away, but by digging a hole real quick.

In Afrikaans, the word aardvark means "earth pig." It seems aardvarks are very strong. Here's an evocative anecdote from Walker's Mammals of the World:

It is an extremely powerful animal. In one case, a man with a firm grip on the tail of an aardvark in its den was slowly drawn into the burrow as far as his waist and finally had to relinquish his hold, despite the additional leverage afforded by two other persons.

And how about this:

Its eyesight does not appear to be good, since the aardvark frequently crashes into bushes, tree trunks, and other obstructions when running.

Bless their hearts!

Consecutive days of mammals: 15
Previous record: 11

Monito del Monte (Dromiciops australis)

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One of my goals as the first year of the Daily Mammal comes to a close was to have drawn every order of mammals by June 3. If my calculations are correct, that's 10 orders (out of 28 or so, depending on who's counting; we've been leaning heavily on the carnivora, primates, and rodentia orders, I think). This one, Microbiotheria, caught my eye because in that order there's only one family…one genus…and one species. This guy, the monito del monte (little mountain monkey), is the last of his kind.

Weighing in at about as much as a dollar in quarters, the monito del monte (let's call him MDM, shall we?) makes his home in part of Chile and a sliver of Argentina. MDMs are marsupials, and in looking for pictures of them, I found notices of a recent scientific discovery. You see, in Australia, they've found the 55-million-year-old fossilized remains of a creature called the djarthia, which is Australia's oldest known marsupial and likely the ancestor of all of the marsupials living in Australia today.

What does that have to do with the MDM? Well, while scientists had long suspected that the MDM was closer kin to the Australian marsupials than to the few living in the Americas, finding these fossils proved it. (This has implications for theories about where and when marsupials evolved and from where and to where they migrated; some scientists believe that marsupials evolved in South America and went to Australia via Antarctica when the three continents were part of Gondwana, and this would indicate that the MDM went back to South America at some point before the continents split up, then got stranded there, basically.)

Anyway, I won't get into the whole train of investigation that set me on tonight (phylogenetics, cladistics, systematics…). It may be enough to know that the tiny monito del monte is cute, that it's "secretive," according to Science Daily, and that, in the colder parts of its range where it hibernates in the winter, it stores up enough fat in the base of its tail to double its weight in a week. Some Chilean Indians call it the colocolo. Finally, here's a new (to me, and maybe to you) word: scansorial, meaning "adapted to or specialized for climbing." In a sentence: "Some people think the monito del monte is arboreal, but since it doesn't really spend all its time in the treetops, it's probably more accurate to call it scansorial."

Science Daily: "Primitive Mouse-like Creature May Be Ancestral Mother of Australia's Unusual Pouched Mammals"

Two weeks straight of mammals! I have a full weekend and a business trip on Monday, so this streak will likely end soon—let's celebrate it while we can!

Consecutive days of mammals: 14
Previous record: 11

Long-eared Desert Hedgehog (Hemiechinus auritus)

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This prickly—but not too prickly, all things considered—little fellow is a member of one of two species of long-eared desert hedgehogs. This one lives in the steppes of Ukraine and Mongolia and Libya, Pakistan, and Cyprus, and the similar terrain between those areas. In some places, these hedgehogs hang out in people's gardens and backyards—another interesting example of everyday urban wildlife that seems exotic if you're from somewhere else.

Categorized as insectivores, long-eared desert hedgehogs eat not only insects, but other invertebrates, some small vertebrates, eggs, fruit, seeds, and carrion. I can just see a hedgehog smorgasbord laid out for their enjoyment, can't you?

Consecutive days of mammals: 13
Previous record: 11

Mammalthon 2: Guereza (Colobus guereza)

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Last one! That was sure a looooong 24 hours, wasn't it? My tía Laura let me pick for her, and I selected this black-and-white colobus monkey species, the guereza. It lives in Africa, and the white feathery fur you see off its shoulder here is called its mantle. It also has a very long tail, not shown here. This guy reminds me of a certain famous painting, and painter. Check it out:



Consecutive days of mammals: 12
Previous record: 11

Mammalthon 2: White-Nosed Coati (Nasua narica)

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My dad asked me to draw him a coatimundi. It turns out that the coatimundi, once thought to be a separate species, is actually a male coati. Coatimundi, in a Central American Indian language I can't pin down for certain, means "lone coati" or "solitary coati," and adult male coatis are a lonesome bunch, roaming about alone while the females form groups.

There are two species of coati. This one lives in Central America up to Arizona and New Mexico. In parts of its range, it's called the pizote. One of the coolest things about coatis is that they can move the tips of their noses around. Do an image search and you'll see what I mean.

One mammal left in Mammalthon 2! If you ordered a drawing: We sent out about half of them today. If you are related to me and live in town, I will give you yours in person. Otherwise, start checking your mail later this week or early next week!

Consecutive days of mammals: 11
Previous record: 11

Mammalthon 2: Fox Squirrel (Sciurus niger)

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Mammals, there are only two more drawings after this one and then the "24-hour" mammalthon comes to a close! Ted requested a fox squirrel. (He actually requested a gray squirrel, but since I'd already drawn one, he let me draw a fox squirrel instead.) When Ted and his brother and sister were kids, they had either gray squirrels or fox squirrels in their backyard. They'd feed them and let the squirrels run up and down their arms and onto their heads.

Consecutive days of mammals: 10
Previous record: 11

Mammalthon 2: Spotted-Tailed Quoll (Dasyurus maculatus)

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Quolls are one of those wonderful carnivorous marsupials, like my beloved (and extinct) (probably) thylacine. The spotted-tailed quoll used to be called a tiger cat, but that name was so off the mark that it has declined in use. Spotted-tailed quolls live in Australia, naturally, and eat small animals of many kinds. They've suffered from habitat loss, trapping, poisoning, and disease, and they are now quite rare on mainland Australia, although they're doing all right in Tasmania.

This quoll is for my mother (happy Mother's Day!), who let me pick for her. I actually drew him twice. The first drawing, below, was okay, but it wasn't too exciting, I didn't think. So I did a different pose and composition.

Consecutive days of mammals: 9
Previous record: 11

Mammalthon 2: Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus)

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My dad requested, among other mammals (thanks, Dad!), a mule deer. Big old mule ears! She looks sleep-deprived. But they kind of always do to me.

Consecutive days of mammals: 8
Previous record: 11

Mammalthon 2: Kit Fox (Vulpes macrotis)

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My uncle Jay, a great uncle in more than one way, requested a baby kit fox. This was at first confusing to research because baby foxes are sometimes called kits no matter the particular species (when they're not being called pups or cubs). But here in fact is a kit fox cub. They live in the Chihuahuan desert (I used to live in it too!) and elsewhere in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Animal Diversity Web says they get as far north as the deserts of Oregon. The kit fox's Spanish name is zorra del desierto.

You know those signs at work sites that say something like "consecutive days without an accident: 164" or whatever? I'm going to try something similar to keep track of how long I manage to post a daily mammal without missing one. We will see how depressing this proves when, say, I'm sick or out of town or something. It's certainly depressing that I've only ever gone 11 days before! (Of course, I've often posted after midnight, intending it to be for the previous day, and it would count for the next day.)

Consecutive days of mammals: 7
Previous record: 11

Assorted mammalian musings

• On June 3, 2007, the first Daily Mammal post went up. Almost a year ago!

• I was up until 3:30 am last night working on a spreadsheet that lists the Latin names and taxonomic situations of all the mammals of the world. (Don't worry, I didn't make that part, I downloaded it from the Smithsonian.) What I was doing was putting in the common names and the dates posted for the mammals I've drawn. I got them all in except for this latest mammalthon batch, and while I do feel a sense of satisfaction for having done that, I am very disappointed that I have drawn nowhere near the 366 mammals I should have. Luckily, my 14-year estimate was based on a rounding up of 13 and a half years, so I don't need to change that prediction yet. But I have to get on the ball!

• My first goal for the few weeks left in this first fiscal mammal year is to hit half of the 366 mammals that we needed.

• My second goal is to draw at least one species from every order of mammals by June 3. Orders are the groups like rodents, primates, ungulates, carnivores, etc. There are 10 orders we haven't covered, so unless one of them is extremely mysterious and no reference images can be found, that should be no problem. One of the remaining orders is represented by just one species!

• My goal for next year is to draw 365 mammals between June 3, 2008, and June 3, 2009. I think that hard as it is, it's still worthwhile to try to draw one a day. I know there will be times—business trips, for instance—when it's just not possible, but I can do mammalthons to make up for those times, maybe. Here is a quote from Andy Warhol (via Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project, one of my favorite blogs) that addresses this:

"Actually, I jade very quickly. Once is usually enough. Either once only, or every day. If you do something once it’s exciting, and if you do it every day it’s exciting. But if you do it, say, twice or just almost every day, it’s not good any more.”

• In creating this spreadsheet, I got to go back and look at all my old drawings. My drawing has improved so much in just a year! (Imagine how good I'd get if I actually did draw every day.) I think right now I've plateaued, but maybe I'll start an upward swing again soon. Here's something funny I noticed. I've drawn three different kangaroo rats over the past year, and each time I didn't think about the other ones I'd drawn. But look at the drawings. Every one is in the same position! And what's up with the style of that second one (from Mammalthon 1)? Here they are; which is your favorite?:

Mammalthon 2: Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)

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Here is a cheetah for my tía Yansci, who can go nearly as fast as one on her four-wheeler. We've lost about 90 percent of our cheetahs over the last century. And did you know that lions and hyenas prey on cheetah cubs?

Mammalthon 2: Ord's Kangaroo Rat (Dipodomys ordii)

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This kangaroo rat is for Tynan, who recently learned about them when his family visited the sand dunes. I think the Ord in this guy's name is George Ord, a 19th-century ornithologist. About Ord, the American Philosophical Society says, "George Ord made important contributions as an ornithologist and writer but is also famous for his contempt of fellow ornithologist, John James Audubon." Apparently, he called Audubon's work stupid and his illustrations vile. (He also called Thomas Nuttall, another naturalist, a "presumptuous ass." Nuttall is the namesake of a species of cottontail.) Basically, it sounds like the guy was a big old curmudgeon given to professional jealousies and petty sniping.

Mammalthon 2: Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus)

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Here is a cottontail for Sonja. It's the same kind as the ones in her backyard.

Mammalthon 2: Western Pipistrelle (Pipistrellus hesperus)

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Here's a little bat for Melinda! In fact, the western pipistrelle is the smallest bat in North America—far, far smaller than the drawing I made of it.

Here's a nice little article about western pipistrelles by Merlin Tuttle.

Mammalthon 2: Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia)

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This little bird (requested by Mary) is here to say that Mammalthon 2 raised $1225 for the Wildlife Center!
$1225!

That can buy them a lot of applesauce, baby food, blankets, and veterinary supplies!

Thank you so much for contributing to the mammalthon. The drawings are still coming, don't worry, but I didn't want to wait to celebrate how much money we raised!

Mammalthon 2: Raccoon (Procyon lotor)

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For Roger, a raccoon! This one is sleeping the day away, just like I did today. Seriously, I woke up an hour ago.

Mammalthon 2: Tiger (Panthera tigris)

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If you're still sticking around, thanks for sticking around! I have a lot of mammals left to draw, and I will try to draw them all this week. We raised more than $1,000 for the Wildlife Center, which is very exciting and will help them a lot. Here's a tiger for my cousin Joe.

Mammalthon 2 A Success!

This is Ted, guest-blogging for Jennifer.

At 6:20 this morning, Jennifer had to lie down for a little while, and asked me to wake her at 7:00. I did, but she quickly fell back asleep again. I've decided to let her sleep.

Last time she did the Mammalthon, you may recall I wrote how she made it look easy, staying up all night and drawing without a break. This time, it didn't look easy.

Jennifer got back from a busy business conference on Thursday, and never really rested up from that before undertaking the Mammalthon. She worked her heart out, and repeatedly said she didn't want to disappoint anyone.

Jennifer managed to raise over $1000 for The Wildlife Center, more money than she'd raised in the first Mammalthon for Defenders of Wildlife. She took on a very difficult challenge in order to raise that money, to entertain and to create some wonderful drawings for all of us to enjoy. And she managed to draw 15 of those drawings in 18 hours. Not bad, huh? Anyone out there feel disappointed?

Jennifer didn't want to let down anyone who made a donation for a drawing that she may not be able to draw today. If any of you do feel cheated, we'll be happy to refund your donation. But I don't expect anyone will. Jennifer will get to all of your drawings as soon as she can, and we'll get out the ones she did complete in the next week.

The task may have been to draw 24 mammals in 24 hours, but that wasn't the point of the project. The point was to have fun, bring a little drama and excitement to your weekend, raise money for a worthy cause and celebrate our love for animals.

I hope you'll join with me in telling Jennifer how proud we are of her work, of her spirit and of her heart. She brings a little beauty into our lives with every drawing, just for the love of doing it. I'm very proud of her.

And I'm happy to declare Mammalthon 2 a big success!

The situation

I'm about four mammals behind the goal of 24 mammals today, maybe five. I'm supposed to have a birthday dinner at 6:30—in twelve and a half hours—and I still have nine mammals left. Eek!

Ted thinks there's no shame in stopping after 24 hours, regardless of how many drawings I've completed, and finishing what's left later this week. I think that since I advertised I'd be drawing them all in a day and that people can see them come up, I should draw 24, regardless of how long it takes.

What do you think? I am tired.

Thank you for your support!

Mammalthon 2: Arabian Camel (Camelus dromedarius)

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This camel is for Andy. I used photos he took on his recent trip to Saudi Arabia for reference. Camels are very hard to draw. Their faces are not like any other faces I know.

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Now playing: Big Star - O My Soul
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Mammalthon 2: Long-Tailed Weasel (Mustela frenata)

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For Marc, a long-tailed weasel. Not shown: its long tail.

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Now playing: The Beatles - - It's All Too Much (Mono Mix)
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Mammalthon 2: Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina)

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Here are two harbor seals that will be waiting for Heather when she wakes up because I like her twice as much! Don't worry, there is almost no chance that they will fall victim to the Steller sea lion's intrapinnipedal appetites.

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Now playing: Nas - The World Is Yours
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Mammalthon 2: Canada Lynx (Lynx canadensis)

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Here is a lynx for Ramona, who has seen one in Santa Fe. I just hope this one is too tired to eat the rat she got from the last Mammalthon!

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Now playing: Otis Redding & Carla Thomas - Tramp
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Mammalthon 2: The Governor of Hawaii (Homo sapiens)

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Ah well. I tried, but I still can't draw Governor Paul (or sometimes Phil) Jameson, as played by Richard Denning on Hawaii Five-O, and requested by Chris. This does look more like him than my drawing of Eight Belles looked like her, sadly.

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Now playing: Flight of the Conchords - A Kiss Is Not a Contract
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Mammalthon 2: Dugong (Dugong dugon)

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These manatee relatives are big, slow-moving, marine vegetarians who swim around, dragging their flippers and munching on sea grass. In Living Mammals of the World, Ivan T. Sanderson tells us,

They are also rather easygoing, sluggish beasts that drift back and forth with the tides to feed; they used to be found in enormous herds and were so trusting in places where they had not previously been hunted that it is recorded in the accounts of early voyages that they could be patted on the head from small boats…They have been mercilessly persecuted, being harpooned or caught in mile-long nets and then drowned, for they are air-breathers and have to surface to fill their lungs at rather short intervals.

Dugongs live in the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Pacific, in warm waters from Australia to Africa. They are now rated either endangered or threatened, depending on who's doing the rating. This friendly dugong is for my cousin Hilary. (It was her birthday an hour ago.)

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Now playing: M.I.A - Galang
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Happy birthday to me!

It is now my birthday. And if I don't somehow really really really speed up, this will turn into 24 mammals in 48 hours.

Mammalthon 2: Least Chipmunk (Tamias minimus)

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This little guy is for my tia Leah. The wee least chipmunk is the smallest of all the chipmunks. They live throughout North America, and they build different summer and winter houses. They hibernate, but not too deeply, and they wake up frequently for midnight snacks.

Eight Belles

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If you know me, you know that I'm a long-time horse lover. I've been putting off drawing a horse for this project because once it's drawn, it's drawn, and there's another 13 years of not drawing horses. Also, if the goal is for me to draw every mammal species, well, I've drawn tens of thousands of horses already. But I was glad when Sandy requested a horse for her daughter, another horse girl like me.

Today was the Kentucky Derby. I love when it's in the weekend of my birthday. I think it would have been on my birthday if it wasn't a leap year. I decided to draw Big Brown, the gorgeous, talented bay who won the Derby today. But when I looked up his story—inexperienced but extremely talented—I saw what else happened at the race.

Eight Belles, a filly, came in second, which is rare enough for a filly. But at the end of the race, after everyone had crossed the finish line, something terrible happened: Eight Belles collapsed. She had broken both of her front ankles, running on them for who knows how long. In front of the second-largest-ever Derby crowd, Eight Belles had to be euthanized.

It's just so heartbreaking. Talk about having a gigantic heart—that's Eight Belles.

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Now playing: Solomon Burke - Valley Of Tears
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Mammalthon 2: Lycanthrope (Homo lycanthropus)

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For dear darling Leigh! I'd like to meet his tailor!

What Wikipedia has to say about lycanthropes
Dwight Schrute does not believe in lycanthropes

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Now playing: Raphy Leavitt - Fiesta En Mi Corazon
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Mammalthon 2: Yellow-Bellied Marmot (Marmota flaviventris)

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This is another one for my dad. Yellow-bellied marmots live in rocky, mountainous areas of western North America. They live in burrows where a male marmot has a "harem" of two or three females. In a nice change from the usual, yellow-bellied marmots are common throughout their range and not endangered. Yay yellow-bellied marmots!

Yellow-bellied Marmot Alarm Call Fact Sheet

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Mammalthon 2: Texas Longhorn (Bos taurus)

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The Texas longhorn, which is a breed of the domestic cow, is a pretty special American animal. It's descended from the first cattle that were brought to North America (by the Spanish), and it's the only breed of cow to evolve on its own, without human direction. Rangy and lean, longhorns can survive in extremely harsh environments. While they once roamed the plains and grasslands of the United States, they nearly went extinct early in the 20th century due to cross-breeding, but were saved by an act of Congress. This longhorn was requested by Donna.

J. Frank Dobie's book The Longhorns

Mammalthon 2: Black Lemurs (Eulemur macaco)

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Here's a portrait of me and Ted! Maybe not, but Ted did request a black lemur. He was inspired by this fantastic photograph by Joel Sartore. Like all lemurs, the black lemur is native to Madagascar. That means they're Malagasy! The female, on the left here, looks a lot different from the male, as you can plainly see. Also, there are two varieties of black lemur: the regular one shown here and another called the blue-eyed lemur.

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Now playing: NPR - NPR: 04-07-2008 Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
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Lunch is over…

…and the 'thon's back on. Another mammal coming up soon!

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Mammalthon 2: White-Winged Vampire Bat (Diaemus youngi)

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Good thing I drew this so early, while it's still light out, or we'd all be too scared to continue! It looks like this guy is in Joe's bedroom, getting ready to bite while Joe sleeps peacefully. Luckily for Joe, however, white-winged vampire bats get the blood they drink mostly from birds. When the white-winged vampire bat spots a likely target—perhaps an oblivious guinea hen resting on a branch—the bat slowly, carefully creeps along the branch until it can reach the bird's foot. It starts by licking the foot a few times, then makes an incision with its teeth. It then licks some more to get the blood. If the bird notices this and starts, the bat hides under the branch until the bird calms down and then continues feeding! This all lasts about 15 minutes, at which point the vampire bat flies away.

Check out New Mexico's own Rancho Transylvania, dedicated to a colony of white-winged vampire bats (they don't, however, live in New Mexico ordinarily, but rather in tropical South America). You will especially want to look at the photo gallery of baby white-winged vampire bats, which are extremely adorable, it turns out.

Now I must go have my own lunch. I think I hear a bird on the tree outside…

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Now playing: Great Lake Swimmers - The Animals Of The World
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Mammalthon 2: Steller Sea Lion (Eumetopias jubatus)

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Kate, the mother of my dear friend Sarah (who should be graduating with her MFA any day now—congratulations, Sarah!), requested a Steller sea lion. The largest of all sea lions, Steller sea lions live along the northern Pacific rim. They're carnivorous, and according to National Geographic's website, they have been known to eat smaller seals. I also learned from that page that in the water, a group of them would be called a raft of sea lions; on land, they're a colony.

Go here to hear a Steller sea lion!

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Now playing: The Andrews Sisters - Bei Mir Bist du Schöen (1937 Single )
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Mammalthon 2: Snow Leopard (Uncia uncia)

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Here's the first of several mammals requested by my dad for this second 24-Hour Mammal Marathon. A nice start, this furry and beautiful animal, don't you think? Snow leopards live in the mountains of central Asia and are very endangered. They're hunted for their coats, used in traditional Asian medicines, and killed when they prey on livestock. Then there's the ubiquitous habitat destruction, not only of the snow leopard's habitat but also that of its prey, which means it has trouble finding food.

The 'thon is on!

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Now playing: Prince - I Wanna Be Your Lover
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Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

Mammalthon 2 starts NOW! We've got 24 actual scientifically proven mammals, one perhaps mythical mammal, and one bird. (That one was the last request to make it in. Why not, right?) Let's see how far we get!

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