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In some horrible irony, if I spend hours crafting an elaborate thesis and supporting it with fascinating points then nobody reads it. If instead I just slap down a cheetah cub in a bucket or a cute grinning snake everyone loves it. The amount of attention a post receives is inversely proportional to the amount of effort it takes. Argh!
I reveal this hard truth in order to introduce Ferrebeekeeper’s ninth and tenth most popular posts of all time!
The tenth most popular post was about the visually appealing but otherwise unremarkable green vine snake (Ahaetulla nasuta) of the Indian subcontinent. This inoffensive reptile spends its life pretending to be a vine! Apparently people love it though, because all sorts of visitors came to look at the two beautiful photos of the snake which I found on the internet.
Green vine snake (Ahaetulla nasuta) Photo by National Geographic
Ninth most popular was a post about adorable baby cheetahs playing in and around hats. Of course the post was really about more than how cute cheetahs are (and they are very cute indeed) but how they survive in a habitat which has moved away from their blazing fast skill set. I love cheetahs, so this was a special post to me too.
I said Cheetah with a hat not cheetah in a hat…oh, just go look at the post
So far, of the top ten posts on Ferrebeekeeper, the tenth most popular was about serpents– which is the best that serpents have managed to do thus far. The ninth most popular is about mammals, but (spoiler) there are more mammals as we get farther up the list. People really love those furry rascals (and ARE those furry rascals)!
A Young Cheetah Threatens a Hat
Things have been a pretty grim here at Ferrebeekeeper lately, what with the inexorable takeover of the labor market by machines, the child-killing Christmas demon Krampus, and the death of the universe. To cheer things up as we go into the weekend, here is a post about baby cheetahs. Some people may claim this topic is a cynical attempt to exploit the endearing cubs and drive up ratings. To those naysayers I respond “baby cheetahs!”
Cheetah Cubs must survive by hiding (image from http://cutearoo.com)
Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus)are well known as the fastest land animal–capable of running at blazing speeds of up to 120 km/h (75 mph). To run at such a velocity the cheetah was forced to forgo some offensive advantages possessed by other comparably-sized cats. Cheetahs’ jaws are smaller and their claws are permanently fixed in place–which makes their slashing implements shorter and duller than the razor sharp claws of other hunting cats. Because they concentrate on running prowess to hunt they can never risk a sports injury from fighting. These adaptations make it difficult for mother cheetahs to defend their cubs from predators. Naturally the tiny cubs can not rely on the mother cheetah’s best defense—her legendary speed.
A Mother Cheetah with her cubs at Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya
Female cheetahs gestate for ninety to ninety-eight days and give birth to a litter of 3 to 9 cubs which each weigh 150 to 300 g (5.3 to 11 oz.) at birth. Since they are so small and slow, (and since they impede their mother’s hunting) cubs suffer from high mortality. Evolution however has utilized certain tricks to minimize the danger they face. Unlike many feline cubs, cheetahs are born already covered with spots. They are adept from a young age at hiding within thorny scrub. Additionally the cubs have a remarkable adaptation to aid their defense. Until they are near maturity, they possess long punk-rock mantle of downy hair along their neck. These wild manes act like ghillie suits—breaking up the cubs’ outlines when they are hidden in dense scrub. The mantles also mimic the Don King style hair of the honey badger (well-known as one of the craziest, bravest, angriest small animals of the savannah). No animals want to mess with honey badgers since the angry badgers despise their own lives only slightly less than those of other living things and are thus extremely unpredictable.
Cheetah Cub
Honey Badger
When cheetahs reach adolescence they lose their mantles and acquire their extraordinary speed, but they still have a certain kittenish playfulness. I was once in the Washington DC zoo on Sunday morning (when the cheetahs are each given a frozen rabbit as a treat). The cheetah run in the National Zoo is long and narrow giving the animals space to build up full speed. The male adolescent cheetahs were excited for their rabbits. They were crouching and slinking back and forth faster than most people could run. One of the adolescent cheetahs got too close to the powerful electric fence surrounding the enclosure and there was a sizzling “pop” as he accidentally touched his delicate nose to the wire. The young male ran off and, because cheetahs are bred to the bone for the chase, his brother ran after him. They ran faster and faster, becoming an exquisite blur. The elegant forms left footprints of fire behind them until the first cheetah slid to a (10 meter) sliding stop and emitted an otherworldly angry chirp-yowl. The spectacle only lasted a moment, but compared to those cheetahs, all other runners I have seen–athletes, racehorses, greyhounds, rabbits–all seemed slow and awkward.
Pronghorns
The second fastest land mammal is the pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), a delicate artiodactyl which ranges across the western wilderness of North America from Canada to the Baja deserts. Although they look similar to antelopes, pronghorns are actually the last surviving species of the family Antilocapridae. They can run at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour and (unlike impalas or cheetahs) they can run at full throttle for a fair distance.
The Range of the Pronghorn
Pronghorns are named for their forked horns—which are not antlers but true horns made of bone with a layer of keratin. They shed the hollow outer sheaths each year in late autumn and grow a new pair over the winter. Adult pronghorns stand 90 cm (three feet) high at the shoulders and weigh up to 50 kg (110 pounds). Although pronghorns can run swiftly, they are poor jumpers. Herds of pronghorns make great migratory treks across the country and face pressure from human developments and from fences (which they can’t jump over but must run under). If you are a rancher in pronghorn country you might consider putting a non-barbed strand of wire as the bottom wire on your fence.
Two Pronghorn Bucks
Pronghorns once had many close relatives. The Antilocapridae family is most closely related to giraffes but the different family members filled many of the same niches that bovids do in the old world. These animals came in an array of shapes and were widespread across North America. There were once 22 varieties of antilocapridae (which you can explore here) but they died out ten to fourteen thousand years ago when the Clovis hunters arrived and slaughtered North America’s megafauna.
The distinctive head of Osbornoceros
Sick or injured pronghorns are sometimes preyed upon by wolves, coyotes, or cougars, but when they are healthy, adult pronghorns can easily outrun all contemporary North American predators. Their blazing speed is not an evolutionary extravagance: pronghorns once needed their swiftness to escape Miracinonyx trumani, the American cheetah which could probably run nearly as quickly as the living African cheetahs. Like the avocado the pronghorn was molded to fit an ecosystem which has died out: today they are literally running from ghosts.
An American Cheetah Hunting a Pronghorrn
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