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Common Spotted Cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus) photo by Waterdragon62
This is the common spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus) an arboreal marsupial from the Cape York region of Australia and New Guinea. The furtive nocturnal animal is seldom seen by humans, but it is quite successful and has spread through Papua New Guinea, Irian Jaya, and the Cape York Peninsula. The common spotted cuscus is a species of possums, a group of approximately 70 species of arboreal marsupials which are native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi. The Indo-Australian possums are analogous in lifestyle to the opossums of the Americas. Because of their furtive lifestyles most possums and opossums are unknown except to specialist zoologists (with the exception of the incredibly successful Virginia opossum).
Spotted Cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus)
The common spotted cuscus is about the size of a housecat and weighs from 1.5 to 6 kilograms (3.3 to 13.2 pounds). The name is something of a sexist misnomer—among adults, only the males have blotchy spots on their grey/brown pelts. The spotted cuscus has numerous specialized features for its tree-dwelling lifestyle including nimble clawed digits on both its hands and feet, a prehensile tail, and strongly binocular vision. Its paws are particularly adapted for grabbing trees: the “palms” of its hands and feet are bare with special striations to give the animal a nimble clinging grip. Both its hands and feet have opposable grips—in fact the first and second digits of a cuscus’ forefoot are opposable to the other three digits so it can hold on to limbs with a deathlock. The cuscus has few natural enemies other than pythons and predatory birds, but if it is threatened it will bark aggressively and attack with its forepaws.
Spotted Cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus) by Mark Moffet
The spotted cuscus mostly lives on a wide variety of plant products—leaves, fruits, seeds, and nectar, however, given the opportunity, the cuscus also eats small animals and eggs. A mother cuscus usually has only one infant, which she raises in her pouch till it is big enough to ride on her back (although occasional larger litters of up to three are known).
Infant common spotted cuscus (photo by Ryan Photographic)
The common spotted cuscus lives in dense tropical forests and mangroves. It has a lifespan of up to eleven years. So far the common spotted cuscus has not been threatened by habitat loss and indeed remains common (although increased logging in New Guinea may put pressure on some populations).
22 Oct 2007, Tufi, Papua New Guinea — A hand-raised spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus), a member of the opossum family, in Tufi, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea. — Image by © Michele Westmorland/Science Faction/Corbis
Wake up, soccer fans! Today I will celebrate the 2014 FIFA World Cup Soccer Championship which is currently being played in Brazil. Well actually I was going to write about this year’s world cup tournament, but nothing interesting has happened so far except for that Uruguayan player who repeatedly bites people (and apparently he has already been captured, sedated, and returned to his native habitat without further human injuries).
Since nothing exciting has happened in this tournament, I will write about the previous World Cup Soccer Championship Tournament which took place in South Africa in 2010. Unfortunately I don’t remember anything that happened on the pitch in South Africa. Clearly I was otherwise preoccupied…plus I am an American and we are famously obdurate in our inability to understand soccer (also we already have several dozen better sports to follow). Only two aspects of those matches stick in my memory: 1) the fearsome buzz of the vuvuzela, AKA “the devil stick”, a horrid musical instrument which first arrived on Earth inside a radioactive comet (probably because humankind failed to win a cosmic moral bet); and 2) Paul the octopus, a magical cephalopod who could predict soccer matches with greater accuracy than any of the world’s human pundits, psychics, and bookies.
The vuvuzela being played by a lesser demon…
I believe that in-depth writing about the vuvuzela is now prohibited by international treaty, and I have nothing comprehensible to say about soccer (which seems to be a sort of agonizingly slow hockey with arcane kabuki-like dramatic conventions), but I would like to take a moment to eulogize Paul, who was not just a remarkable octopus but also a first-rate showman. Like soccer, Paul originated in England. In 2008, he hatched from an egg at the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, England. Paul soon moved to Oberhausen, Germany, which, Wikipedia informs us, is an anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage. Paul was a common octopus (Octopus vulgaris), a species known for intelligence, lively personality, tool-use, and acute senses. His oracular abilities soon became apparent during the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament. Before each match, Paul’s keepers would offer him two identical seafood treats in bags or boxes which were identical except for national flags of soccer playing nations. Whichever bag Paul chose to eat from first was reckoned to be his choice for match winner.
Paul chooses between Spain and Germany
Paul was a German Octopus and initially he only voiced his opinion concerning German matches. He distinguished himself by correctly choosing the outcome of 4 out of 6 of Germany’s matches. But 2008 was only a lead-up to his remarkable World Cup predictions. During the 2010 World Cup, Paul correctly predicted every match which he was consulted about. This resulted in unprecedented world popularity (and infamy) for the tiny sea creature. Fans of the losing teams threatened Paul’s life, (which ultimately lead the Spanish Prime Minister to offer him state protection). The president of Iran denounced Paul as a symbol of Western Imperial corruption. The German press speculated that 2008 Paul had died and been replaced with a savvier octopus in 2010. PETA demanded that he be released to the wild (which would certainly have spelled the end of the aging tank-raised celebrity mollusk).
Paul chooses the winners of this World Cup from the great hereafter
Sadly, Paul passed away on October 10th, 2010 at the age of two and a half (ripe old age for a cephalopod). He was memorialized with a statue and the very funny Google doodle seen above. Paul’s life illustrates that through PR savvy and complete random chance anyone or anything can become an International celebrity (although skeptical marine biologists note that Common Octopuses betray a preference for bright surfaces and horizontal lines—so those national flags may have played a bigger role than thought). Since I failed to blog about him in 2010, I thought I would take this opportunity to eulogize the most famous octopus in the world of sports (which is saying something, considering the role of Al the Octopus in hockey). His tragic passing marks the last time soccer (which is also known as “football”) was enjoyable…although maybe somebody will find a cuttlefish who can correctly calculate penalty kicks or a whelk that can play the Croatian national anthem…
Lesser Shrew And Common Shrew (Archibald Thorburn, 1903, watercolor on paper)
One of my favorite aspects of art is the foreground—the tiny and insignificant items pictured there frequently highlight the larger themes of the work (while wedding the larger figures to a microcosm of tiny dramas). This is true unless the painting is all about the foreground, as is frequently the case with the works of Archibald Thorburn (1860-1935) a Scottish painter who specialized in watercolor paintings of wildlife—particularly birds and small creatures. Here is a wonderful watercolor painting of two small shrews encountering a potentially dangerous larger shrew within a tiny landscape. The pebbles and grass blades become forests and boulders for the tiny insectivores as they size up this strange encounter. Of course there is a foreground in this tiny painting as well: a common wildflower grows into the composition from the right corner. The tiny salmon petals of the little flower lend color and drama to the scene (while reminding the viewer to always look for beauty, even in the world underfoot).
[As a special weekend treat–and in keeping with this week’s theme, kindly find a repeat of a post about brown bullhead catfish from 3 years ago]
The most common catfish in New York State is the brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) a fish sometimes also gracelessly known as the “mud pout” or the “horned pout”. The brown bullhead lacks the beauty and charisma of many other catfish. It is not electrical, has no armor, does not walk, and does not grow to immense size (average fish are usually 14 inches long or smaller). It has two-tone coloration: unremarkable brown above and off-white below (although, like most fish, it can adapt somewhat to local conditions).
- The Brown Bullhead Catfish
The fish does however illustrate one of the reasons I like catfish and write about them so much. It is the most common catfish of New York State, a state marked by extreme differences of population density, landscape, temperature, and water quality. The brown bullhead is a hard-to-kill generalist which does well everywhere in the state (and throughout the east coast, the Great Lakes, the midwest, and the south). It can be found in Prospect Park, a short walk from my apartment just as easily as in a cold Adirondack lake. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website describes the fish as follows:
Brown bullheads are probably the most adaptable member of the catfish family and live in a wide variety of habitats. They exemplify the hardiness of catfishes in general, tolerating both high water temperatures and low oxygen levels. They are present in many cool Adirondack lakes and often abundant in warm water ponds, lakes, and larger, slow moving streams. They occur in areas with or without aquatic vegetation and can be found over both muddy and gravelly bottoms.
The brown bullhead has the same exquisitely refined senses as other catfish. Its whole body is covered with taste buds, which are particularly numerous on its eight barbels. Though not especially large, the creature is strong, agile, and flexible. An omnivore, the brown bullhead is protected from predators by the extremely sharp spines on its dorsal fin and its pectoral fins. Both parents builds nests together and together they protect the eggs and even the young fry for a while after hatching. Most astonishingly, the fish is heartily indifference to water pollution which makes it the foremost city catfish. Below it is pictured with the other common New York City fish. It is apparently a reasonably fun sportfish, although some fishing experts think that it is only suitable for child anglers (due to how extensively it can be found). When not caught in polluted water it makes a tasty meal.
Whereas I usually write about invasive species coming from some exotic locale to the United States, the brown bullhead is the opposite. When introduced abroad it has been the classic ugly American, stealing food and habitat from native species or eating them outright (which seems even more gauche than my habit of anxiously overtipping). Large populations have now established themselves in Europe, Russia, China, Australia, and New Zealand and the fish keep expanding their range.
- “Free me petty human! Soon your world will belong to us!”
The Fulvous Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna bicolor) photo by Bob Hall
Fulvous is a color which is very prevalent in the natural world. It is a dull mixture of yellow and brown with hints of red. The name comes from the Latin word “fulvus” which translates as “a dull yellow-brown color with a hint of red” (sometimes etymology is easy). Since “fulvus” is a Latin word there are a shocking number of animal species which have the color incorporated in their binomial scientific name. There are also quite a few creatures (particularly birds) known as the fulvous such-and-such in English. Here is a little gallery of fulvous/fulvus beasties.
Cryptocephalus (Burlinius) fulvus, photographed by Josef Dvořák
Pacific Golden Plover (Pluvialis fulva)
The common brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus) photo by Emmanuel Van Heygen
The Fulvus Roundleaf Bat (Hipposideros fulvus) painting by Gray, 1838
The Fulvous Owl (Strix fulvescens)
The Fulvous Forest Skimmer (Neurothemis fulvia)
Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos macei)
The tawny grisette (Amanita fulva)
The Fulvous Limpet (Iothia fulva)
The Common Teal
The Common Teal (Anas crecca) is a gregarious dabbling duck which is widespread throughout temperate Europe during all seasons. Further east, great flocks of teals live in Siberia during the summer and then migrate to India and China for the colder months. But why is this duck being mentioned on Ferrebeekeeper? Well, as it turns out, this is a post about color–and the common teal gives its name to one of the most widespread colors, teal, a middle tone blue-green. The male common teal has a blue-green patch of feathers around his eyes–and these feathers are what the color was named after.
Situated half-way between blue and green, teal is a handsome tone which appeals to people who like both those colors. Teal featured prominently in the Plochere Color System, a color methodology favored by interior designers since the late forties. Additionally, teal was one of 16 original HTML web colors formulated in 1987, so if you are a web pioneer or came of age in the nineties you may also have seen quite a lot of it. But, even if you are somehow not an aging interior designer or an old school computer geek, you have still been inundated with the color teal by a different industry.
In order to make scenes comprehensible, television and movie producers (and visual artists for that matter) need to make the people in their shots stand out from the background. Most actors range in hue from pale to dark orange. As you can see in the color wheel which I have very helpfully included above, orange is opposite on the color wheel from teal. The easiest way to make actors contrast with the background and thereby have shots with adequate color contrast is to portray orange actors against a teal background. Of course gifted directors use a whole range of techniques to provide contrast to their shots—talented filmmakers utilize light and shadow, wide-ranging color contrast, and subtle visual cues to make shots comprehensible. But terrible directors (or producers running behind schedule) can simply have the digital effects technicians make everybody look like John Boehner running around in a swimming pool. It’s shocking how many movies (especially bad movies) do in fact look exactly like that.
Chevy Chase, is that you? You look like a pumpkin!
The most common catfish in New York State is the brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) a fish sometimes also gracelessly known as the “mud pout” or the “horned pout”. The brown bullhead lacks the beauty and charisma of many other catfish. It is not electrical, has no armor, does not walk, and does not grow to immense size (average fish are usually 14 inches long or smaller). It has two-tone coloration: unremarkable brown above and off-white below (although, like most fish, it can adapt somewhat to local conditions).
The Brown Bullhead Catfish
The fish does however illustrate one of the reasons I like catfish and write about them so much. It is the most common catfish of New York State, a state marked by extreme differences of population density, landscape, temperature, and water quality. The brown bullhead is a hard-to-kill generalist which does well everywhere in the state (and throughout the east coast, the Great Lakes, the midwest, and the south). It can be found in Prospect Park, a short walk from my apartment just as easily as in a cold Adirondack lake. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation website describes the fish as follows:
Brown bullheads are probably the most adaptable member of the catfish family and live in a wide variety of habitats. They exemplify the hardiness of catfishes in general, tolerating both high water temperatures and low oxygen levels. They are present in many cool Adirondack lakes and often abundant in warm water ponds, lakes, and larger, slow moving streams. They occur in areas with or without aquatic vegetation and can be found over both muddy and gravelly bottoms.
The brown bullhead has the same exquisitely refined senses as other catfish. Its whole body is covered with taste buds, which are particularly numerous on its eight barbels. Though not especially large, the creature is strong, agile, and flexible. An omnivore, the brown bullhead is protected from predators by the extremely sharp spines on its dorsal fin and its pectoral fins. Both parents builds nests together and together they protect the eggs and even the young fry for a while after hatching. Most astonishingly, the fish is heartily indifference to water pollution which makes it the foremost city catfish. Below it is pictured with the other common New York City fish. It is apparently a reasonably fun sportfish, although some fishing experts think that it is only suitable for child anglers (due to how extensively it can be found). When not caught in polluted water it makes a tasty meal.
Whereas I usually write about invasive species coming from some exotic locale to the United States, the brown bullhead is the opposite. When introduced abroad it has been the classic ugly American, stealing food and habitat from native species or eating them outright (which seems even more gauche than my habit of anxiously overtipping). Large populations have now established themselves in Europe, Russia, China, Australia, and New Zealand and the fish keep expanding their range.
"Free me petty human! Soon your world will belong to us!"
ferrebeekeeper 
