Chinese Stump-tailed Macaque (Macaca thibetana)

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This fuzzy fellow is called the Chinese stump-tailed macaque for reasons that would be obvious if you could see his backside. But he's also known as the Tibetan macaque and Père David's macaque. These macaques are frugivorous (they eat fruit) for the most part, but they'll also eat some insects, leaves, and seeds when the situation warrants.

As for Père David, who inspired one of the Tibetan macaque's common names, he was a Catholic missionary named Jean Pierre Armand David. He was a clergyman by profession and an all-around naturalist by passion. Père David, who died in 1900, seems to have been one of those now-all-too-rare "Renaissance souls" with a wide range of interests and fields of study. He was, apparently, the person who introduced Europe to the panda (or the panda to Europe), and in addition to zoology, he also studied botany, paleontology, and geology, and he was a beloved science teacher before being shipped off to China.

Père David had two jobs in China: convert people to Catholicism and send back natural history specimens for a museum in France. While there, he became the first to describe 63 species of animals, 65 species of birds, plenty of other creatures, and hundreds (or maybe thousands) of kinds of plants. Not to fear, though. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "In the midst of his work as a naturalist Father David did not neglect his missionary labours, and was noted for his careful devotion to his religious duties and for his obedience to every detail of his rules."

(I just noticed, after I pasted that quote, that he was noted for obedience of his rules. His own? That could be a lot easier than obedience to, say, the Vatican's.)

Consecutive days of mammals: 1
Record: 16

Chinese Ferret Badger (Melogale moschata)

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The smallest member of the badger family, the Chinese ferret badger lives not only in China but in Assam, in northeastern India, as well. They live in burrows and come out in the evenings, going about their business into the night. The Chinese ferret badger occasionally eats fruit, but it especially loves small rodents, amphibians, and insects and other invertebrates. In some cultures, Chinese ferret badgers are welcomed into the home and encouraged to feast on any cockroaches they might find. This is a nice service to provide, but they may not be the most pleasant of house guests: like most other members of the mustelid clan, Chinese ferret badgers emit an offensive odor from their anal glands when provoked.

Consecutive days of mammals: 2
Record: 16

Chinese Mountain Cat (Felis bieti)

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The Chinese mountain cat is also called the Chinese desert cat, but it's not really known to live in the desert. It prefers to roam around mountain meadows, where it eats rodents like pikas and voles and mole-rats, along with the occasional pheasant for variety's sake. It seems to use its ears when it hunts, listening for the sound of mole-rats burrowing underground, then digging them up for dinner. The Chinese mountain cat is nocturnal and solitary. A major threat to the cat's continued success is the widespread prejudice against pikas, who are reputed to compete with livestock for grazing rights. When the pikas are poisoned, the Chinese desert cat suffers, too.

Consecutive days of mammals: 1
Record: 16

Mammal News Roundup: Goodness Gracious! Great Gorilla Gorilla Gorillas!

Good news today! I was planning a post on the study, released this week, finding that almost 50 percent of primate species are in danger of extinction. What else is new? More bad news from the Daily Mammal.

But! On the heels of Spain's vote to grant certain rights to the great apes comes more good news for our cousins. The Wildlife Conservation Society announced today that it has found more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas secretly going about their business in a couple of swampy areas in the northern Republic of Congo! What makes this such wonderful news is that's more than twice the number of western lowland gorillas that we thought were left in the whole world!

They're not out of the woods (so to speak) yet, though; they're still considered critically endangered. Major threats to the western lowland gorilla subspecies (Gorilla gorilla gorilla!) include the Ebola virus and poachers who kill gorillas and sell them on the bushmeat market. (Okay, it's not all good news…) In fact, it was a hunter who pointed the Wildlife Conservation Society researchers to the gorillas. Don't you almost wish they hadn't been found?

Here's a video showing the gorillas hanging out—in one case literally—in the swamp.

More western lowland gorilla info (and pictures and videos) on ARKive.

Gorilla photograph by Craig Gobler, used under a Creative Commons license.

Striped Possum (Dactylopsila trivirgata)

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Nocturnal, arboreal, and marsupial, the striped possum, who lives in Australia and New Guinea, is about the size of a squirrel. This fellow munches and lunches on insects, flowers, leaves, fruit, small invertebrates, and sweet local honey. If you're out and about in an Australian forest of a summer evening, listen for rustling and crunching sounds overhead, and watch for falling leftovers: you may be in the presence of a striped possum.

Thanks to the striped possum and the BBC, I have just learned a new Britishism: the verb "to winkle," which means to extract or obtain something with difficulty. Striped possums use their longer fourth fingers to winkle grubs out of rotten wood.

Here's a nice local news feature on striped possums in the Fort Wayne zoo: Wild on WANE.

Consecutive days of mammals: 4
Record: 16

Mammals of Iraq: Golden Jackal (Canis aureus)

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Golden jackals live not only in Iraq, but throughout northern Africa, Asia, and up into southern Europe. They mate for life, living in tight little family packs. They have one litter a year, and each time, a couple of their offspring stay on with their parents to help raise the next litter. These big brothers and sisters are called "helpers" and are vitally important to a jackal family's survival, offering assistance in guarding, hunting, and regurgitating food for the little ones. Speaking of food, golden jackals like to eat eggs, birds, other small animals, baby gazelles, and fruit. They also enjoy taking lions' leftovers, and they'll bury their scavenged food if another animal happens upon the feast. The golden jackal is the last animal we'll meet in this Mammals of Iraq series.

Incidentally, I want my husband Ted to start writing an advice column called "Help! My Jackal Looks Like a Cat!" He says there's no market for it, but I think the demand's there. What's your opinion?

Consecutive days of mammals: 3
Record: 16

Mammals of Iraq: Egyptian Fruit Bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus)

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The Egyptian fruit bat (also called the Egyptian rousette) lives in the Middle East, Turkey, Cyprus, Pakistan, and India, and throughout Africa. It dines on fruits and nectars and helps to pollinate trees. Unfortunately, scientists confirmed last year that Egyptian fruit bats can carry the Ebola-like Marburg virus. Until then, the virus had never been found in animals other than primates, and the finding supports the theory that bats had infected two people in Uganda. Between 25 and 80 percent of people infected with Marburg virus die, it's contagious, and there is no treatment.

Read about Marburg hemorrhagic fever on the World Health Organization website.

Consecutive days of mammals: 2
Record: 16

Daily Mammal Now: Common Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)

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Daily Mammal Now is an occasional feature that offers a drawing and discussion of a mammal currently in the news.

In June of this year, a committee of the Spanish parliament voted to grant limited "human" rights to the other great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas). The law, which is expected to go on the books some time in the next several months, will prohibit laboratory testing on great apes, as well as holding them in captivity for entertainment purposes. Zoos can keep their apes, but circuses and the like cannot.

As far as I can tell, the idea behind this new act has been pushed forward by the Great Ape Project, an organization cofounded by the ethicist and animal rights activist Peter Singer. The Great Ape Project calls for all great apes to be granted freedom from torture, the right to live, and the right to freedom. This includes the right of due process and the right not to be imprisoned without a fair trial. (I'm not sure whether the Spanish act uses the same language as the Great Ape Project or whether the Great Ape Project has just seized the Spanish act as an easy way to get its message out. It's not clear to me if the act uses the phrase "human rights" or speaks of all great apes—including humans—as equals.)

I have mixed feelings about this idea. I support a ban on using great apes as laboratory-test subjects, and I support banning cruelty toward animals in all forms. If I were in charge, factory farms would not exist, animal shelters would not euthanize animals just because they'd been there too long, high school students wouldn't dissect frogs or rats or cats, and almost all animal testing—maybe even all of it—would be illegal.

What's with my ambivalence toward the Great Ape Project, then? I support pretty much all of its aims. Where they lose me is with their talk about a community of equals and the right to due process. There's something condescending about it. If we are declaring ourselves the species that has the ability to grant rights, how can we be equal? Since chimps can't defend themselves in a court, a human advocate would need to be appointed. Who appoints that person? How do we know that what that person says is truly what the ape wants?

If all apes are to be granted freedom from imprisonment, where are we going to put the thousands of zoo, circus, and laboratory animals that we'd have to set free? Couldn't it be crueler to send them out into the wild when all they've ever known is captivity? I think it's shameful to keep apes in cold metal cages, and I'd love to see them in nice sanctuaries where they have social groups and plenty of space, but that's still captivity, or imprisonment if you want to use the Great Ape Project terminology.

I guess I just don't think we are equals. Our species, the great ape called Homo sapiens, has evolved so many capabilities so far beyond even those of our nearest cousins, the chimpanzees. I think that makes us responsible for them, and for all animals, and by accepting that responsibility, we help them far more than we would by calling them our equals and taking away our power to make choices about their treatment. Our dominion over the beasts doesn't give us the right to abuse, use, or hurt them. It's the opposite: it gives us the duty to treat them kindly. We don't need to grant them personhood to fulfill that duty.

The New York Times came out in favor of Spain's act: "When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans."

The Wall Street Journal was against it: "Monkey Business."

The Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection Act provides for peaceful retirement (as opposed to euthanasia) for "surplus" laboratory chimpanzees.

The Great Ape Project advocates for "equality beyond humanity."

42 Ways to Help Animals in Laboratories: download a nice PDF from the Human Society of the United States on this page.

The American Anti-Vivisection Society was founded in 1883 and works to stop experimentation on animals.

Consecutive days of mammals: 1
Record: 16