You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘hunter’ tag.
I only just got back from work, so I am going to feature a quick post which I have always wanted to write. A color which I think is extremely beautiful is hunter green–a dark yet vivid green. This is a classical color which has been mentioned frequently in English since the end of the 19th century. Hunter Green, as you might imagine, was named for the green garb which 19th century hunters wore in the field (a much richer and bluer green than the olive drab which soldiers and sportsmen wear today. I was hoping there was more to say about the history of the color (Because I think it is quite splendid) but, alas, that was all I could find. Here is a picture of a nineteenth century hunter!
In the popular imagination, marsupials are synonymous with Australia. Yet, once, in the age of Gondwanaland, Australia was linked to Antarctica (then a verdant land of forests) which was linked to South America. The marsupials have been a big part of South America’s ecosystems for a long time, but, ever since the place was overrun with placental mammals, they have kept a fairly low profile. Today’s Ferrebeekeeper post features a tremendously widespread and common marsupial from South America—yet this creature is nearly unknown beyond South America (except perhaps to mammalian zoologists and people who write alphabetical lists of beasts). The water opossum (Chironectes minimus), also known as the yapok, is the most aquatic living marsupial and the only living marsupial where both sexes have pouches.
The yapok is a formidable predator of fish, amphibians, snakes, and freshwater invertebrates like crayfish. In order to pursue these creatures underwater, it has symmetrical webbed back feet, short waterproof fur, and numerous sensory facial bristles (like a catfish! which it slightly resembles). The possums are small– 30 centimeters (11 inches) long with a 35 centimeter (14 inch) long tail. They have endearing little masks and cute stripes. Yapoks live from southern Mexico down through Central America to Southern Brazil. They are especially prevalent in Colombia and Northern Peru, but they do not live in most of the Amazon Basin.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about yapoks is the female’s pouch. While the mother yapok is taking care of her young, she still must swim and hunt—yet marsupial babies have a lot of development to do before they can be on their own (much less swim through swift streams hunting fish). Adult female yapoks therefore have a watertight pouch which can be sealed with a muscular ring so that they can take their offspring with them in the water. For 50 days she carries her brood of 1-5 little yapoks with her everywhere…and even after then, when they detach from the nipple, they still frequent her pouch.
Of course, as I noted above, male yapoks have pouches too. Wikipedia blandly notes, “The male also has a pouch (although not as watertight as the female’s), where he places his genitalia before swimming. This is thought to prevent it from becoming tangled in aquatic vegetation and is probably helpful in streamlining the animal as well.” My mind keeps approaching this concept and then reeling back from it. So I will just leave Wikipedia’s wording as it stands and say no more.
Flatfishes are an order (Pleuronectiformes) of predatory fish found in oceans worldwide. There are over 700 distinct species in 11 separate (and sometimes very distinct) families. Familiar flatfish include flounder, turbot, plaice, sole, and tonguefish (to name only a few).
Flatfish undergo two great changes. First they hatch out of an egg and become transparent tiny fry living among the zooplankton. These baby flounder have an eye on each side of their heads–like all the other vertebrates. Then, when they reach adolescence, they change a second time in a bizarre way. One eye migrates over the young fish’s forehead. Half of their body becomes pale and smooth. To reach adulthood they abandon the vertebrate’s familiar symmetry and become strange asymmetric monsters.
(An Adolescent Flounder, as its eyes migrate and it becomes opaque)
Very few animals have asymmetry of any sort (wrybills, hermit crabs) and even fewer are asymmetric in a systemic way (sponges). Flatfish give up their symmetry on adulthood: they lose their ability to swim smoothly and see all around them…but, in turn, they gain prowess as lurkers. This helps them to hide in an ocean full of strife and peril. Equally importantly, it helps them to hunt.
Flatfish are exceedingly gifted predators. They thrive by eating unsuspecting fish, mollusks, arthropods, and worms which are scampering (or crawling… or propulsing?…or whatever) along the ocean bottom. Pleuronectiformes are powerful, quick, agile, and invisible. The horrifying hunting strategy of the flatfish is to lie perfectly still on the ocean bottom and gradually change color to match the substrate (they can match sand and pebbles and ripples and even chessboards). Then, when a happy little shrimp minces endearingly along the ocean floor, suddenly the land itself opens a huge maw and SNAP! delicious shrimp supper for the stealthy flatfish.
For all of their gifts as predators, flounders are hardly the apex predators of their watery ecosystems. They live in a world of super-predators: diving birds, grabby cephalopods, sharks, bigger fish, and cunning marine mammals. And that is to say nothing of all-consuming humankind: fisherfolk hunt for flounder with spears, traps, hooks, and nets.
The flatfish, like most teleosts, are being fished to oblivion (even as their habitats rapidly change due to thermal fluctuation, invasive species, pollution, and acidification). This troubles me for all sorts of reasons. It represents the growing doom in the world ocean, from whence came all Earth life and upon which all life depends. We evolved from teleosts. Flounder are distant cousins. Also I think they are beautiful in a bizarre way. Their asymmetry strikes me as amazing and alien, yet somehow completely appropriate, practical, and compelling.
Also, um, I like to eat flounder.
Anyway, I mention all of this because lately flatfish have supplanted doughnuts as the central fixation of my art. They represent life to me…and so I have been drawing them by the dozen (and I am working on a book of intricate pen and ink flounder). Here is a teaser flounder. More next week!
Benevolent Flounder (Wayne Ferrebee, 2016, color pencil and ink)
Orion, the giant hunter, is one of the oldest figures in Greek mythology. He is mentioned in the most ancient surviving works of Greek literature (well, aside from linear B tablets). There are various contradictory myths about his birth and about his death (indeed, he seems almost to be from a pre-Ionic generation of gods and heroes), however out of this mish-mash, there is a rough consensus: Orion was an earth-straddling giant, the son of sea-god Poseidon. Alone among gods and mortals, he found romantic favor in the eyes of the exquisite virgin goddess Artemis, but, because of this affection, her jealous brother Apollo murdered him by means of a giant supernatural scorpion. Artemis was bereft, but together with Zeus, and with her contrite brother, they hung the giant in the sky as an eternal memorial and as a challenge to future heroes (and as an unspoken threat). During winter, Orion is arguably the most recognizable constellation from the Northern hemisphere.
There is a famous myth about Orion before he met Artemis and his doom. The king of Chios was attempting to bring agriculture and viniculture to his island people, but the howling of lions, bears, wolves, and other wild animals kept him up all night (this is one of those troubling myths about the distinctions between uncivilized hunters and civilized farmers). The king promised Orion the hand of his gorgeous daughter, Merope, if the hunter could remedy this problem. Night and day, the giant huntsman slaughtered wild beasts until the island was free of big (loud) predators, yet, when Orion applied to the king to wed his promised bride, the recalcitrant monarch kept complaining he could hear nonexistent wolves. Orion was wroth at the broken deal, but the crafty king plied him with flattering words and with wine, wine, wine by the barrel until even the giant was overcome and passed out in a drunken stupor. The king then had his bondsmen blind Orion, who stumbled off into the ocean (which, by the way, he could easily walk upon because of his paternal heritage). Orion wondered here and there across the Mediterranean, lost, until at last he heard the hammers of workshop of the great smith Hephaestus. The kind god took pity upon the blinded giant and lent one of his shop Cyclops to sit on the great hunter’s shoulder and lead him to a cure. With directions from the Cyclops, Orion strode due east until he came to the place of the dawn, whereupon the radiant light of the morning sun cured his blindness.
Landscape with Blind Orion Seeking the Sun (Nicolas Poussin, 1658, oil on canvas)
There is a reason I am bringing up the godlike giant Orion (whose likeness hangs so magnificently in the winter sky). And there is likewise a reason I am telling this story of perfidy and blindness at the hands of a greedy king. Tomorrow at 7:05 AM EST, the American space agency NASA will launch its new Orion spacecraft from America’s principal spaceport at Cape Canaveral. Orion is a crew capsule designed for deep-space missions—to take humans to the moon (or a comparable destination). After decades, we are again building vessels which can carry humans into beyond near-Earth orbit.
For tomorrow’s unmanned test flight, Orion will ride a Delta IV heavy rocket into orbit, but for actual manned missions, the capsule will sit atop the planned SLS (space launch system) rocket, a behemoth built for leaving Earth. The capsule will rise to 14 times the height of the International Space Station (which hangs near the Earth) and then reenter Earth’s atmosphere at a blazing 32,200 kilometers per hour (20,000 miles per hour). Although it is designed to hold 4 astronauts for a 21 day mission, during its test flight, Orion’s crew will consist of symbolic items such as one of Cookie Monster’s cookies, poetry, a rubber duck, and a piece of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Artist’s conception of Orion Spacecraft in orbit
It is high time we return to manned space exploration! The business and political masters of the United States have been busy building monopolies and gaming the financial markets rather than working on science, exploration, and progress. We have been blundering around blind for too long. It’s time to start crafting some long term space goals and working diligently towards them. Orion is a small step, but it is a small step closer to my fondest dream of colonizing the inviting skies of Venus.
The high Himalayas seen above the village of Ghandruk, Nepal (photo from http://holeintheclouds.net)
The world’s largest honeybee, the controversial Himalayan cliff honey bee (Apis dorsata laboriosa) lives high in the Himalaya Mountains among the craggy peaks of Bhutan, Yunnan, Nepal, and the Himalayan provinces of India. The large honeybees are renowned for building large nests/hives within the inaccessible overhangs of huge cliffs. These nests tend to be found at altitudes between 2,500 and 3,000 m (8,000 and 10,000 feet) built into cliffs which face to the southwest.
Although Himalayan cliff honey bees have complicated lives within a densely layered hierarchical colony, they are not controversial because of their social complexity, but rather because of taxonomical quibbles. Before 1980, Apis dorsata laboriosa was classified as a subspecies of Apis dorsata (the giant honeybee of Soth Asia), but during the eighties and nineties, the Himalayan cliff honey bee was thought to be a unique species (Apis laboriosa). In 1999, the species was demoted back to a subspecies of Apis dorsata (although some genetics-minded entomologists argue that it is a distinct species). Hopefully you followed all of that—it sounds like more vertiginous twists of naming might still lie in the near future.
Himalayan Giant Honey Bee (Apis dorsata laboriosa), photo by L. Shyamal
Perhaps some of this confusion comes from how inaccessible the bees are. Only gifted mountaineers and free-climbers could ever hope to reach the lofty hives where the bees deposit their precious honey and larvae. From their towering homes, the bees are able to forage nectar and pollen from upland meadows of the Himalayas (which burst into extravagant fields of flowers during the brief seasons of spring and summer).
A Nepalese Honey Hunter Risking his Life for Cliff Honey (photo by Eric Valli)
Sadly for the bees, there is a terrible catch—the spring honey which they harvest from the high mountains comes partially from the nectar of white rhododendrons (which contain a grayanotoxin). The spring honey from rhododendrons is red in color and, when fresh, reputedly has a narcotic effect on humans. Honey hunters risk life and limb to climb high up the mountains. They then use long poles to rob the bee hives–all while teetering hundreds or thousands of feet above a sheer precipice and being attacked by angry giant bees! The honey fetches a huge premium among the rich of Japan, Singapore, and China even though grayanotoxins are, you know, toxins, and can cause cardiac problems in addition to the soothing intoxicating effects.
Photo credit: Andrew Newey
A Giant Triton (Charonia tritonis) on an Indonesian Reef
Yesterday this blog took us to the depths of space to explore the frozen ice-moon of Triton. Today we atone for that cold voyage with a trip to the inviting tropical seas of the Indo-Pacific. In these vibrant waters can be found one of the greatest living gastropods, a prince among predatory sea snails, the mighty Charonia tritonis, (commonly known as the giant triton or Triton’s trumpet).
A Giant Triton climbs over a pillow coral in Hawaii
Charonia tritonis grows to over half a meter (20 inches) in length: it is one of the largest living snails in the world (and it is not much smaller than the biggest extant snails). Equipped with a powerful muscular foot, acute senses (particularly smell), and an agile tentacle-like proboscis, the snails are formidable hunters. Additionally they are protected from predators—even big fierce ones–by their beautiful spiral shells which are vibrantly colored orange, brown, yellow, and cream. Of course such a shell would become a liability for the snail if an animal ever evolved which killed the snails in order to harvest the magnificent shells solely for their beauty (but what are the chances of that?).
A man sounds a blast on a triton shell–which has spiritual significance in Hawaii
Giant tritons hunt at night. Their main prey are echinoderms—starfish, which can be large powerful and armored. Fortunately the snails are not just equipped with powerful muscles and superior brains. They also have salivary glands that produce sulfuric acid AND a chemical which paralyzes starfish. The tritons find starfish—even big spiny poisonous starfish like the invasive and all-consuming crown-of-thorns which bedevils the reefs of the Indo-Pacific—then hold them down and inject saliva into them. As the starfish dissolves from within, the snails rip them apart and feast!
A triton kills a crown of thorns
Tritons have a specific gender—they are male or female. They seek each other out for courtship and the female then lays a large clutch of eggs. When the eggs hatch, the young snails become part of the oceanic plankton for a (poorly understood) time before developing into adults. Triton shells are esteemed by many cultures as sacred musical instruments. The shells themselves are collector’s items and are arguably better known then the formidable long-lived predators which make them. Although the snails are not threatened with extinction as such, there are fewer and fewer really big adult ones (or even small ones) on today’s reefs. This is a real shame, since those same reefs are being devoured by the horrible crown-of-thorns. Hopefully a new generation of divers and wildlife enthusiasts will appreciate the triton on the reef and leave them to their invaluable hunting. Resist the urge to buy the beautiful shells and help save the reefs of the Indo Pacific!
Giant topiary reindeer in Covent Garden Piazza, London
When I was a child, my best-loved emblem of the Christmas/holiday season was the reindeer (although, admittedly, I thought they were “rain deer”). My poor mother had to track down reindeer-themed decorations and jumpers all over the place. The magnificent antlered beasts were not just my favorite ornaments, but they were also the subjects of my most-preferred songs (in fact, I still find Rudolph’s ascendancy to personal empowerment through effulgent appendages and meteorological coincidence to be quite stirring). Yet reindeer are not just mythical creatures made up for the holidays—the true nature of these magnificent cold weather specialists is even more remarkable than folklore.
Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus)
Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) are large powerful cervids native to the trackless tundra of the Arctic and to the taiga and bogs of the subarctic (a vast habitat which encompasses most of Alaska,Canada, Siberia, and northern Europe). The North American subspecies of reindeer are commonly known as caribou. Although the migratory caribou are rangier (with thinner bodies and longer legs than old world reindeer), they are fundamentally the same creature. The caribou are the last animals in the Americas to still migrate across the wilderness en masse. The largest herds number in the hundred thousands (!) and evoke thoughts of the Pliocene or of the Serengeti (although like most other wildlife, the great herds are quickly declining).
A caribou migration in contemporary Alaska
Adult male reindeer weigh up to 180 kilograms (400 lbs) although a few exceptionally huge bucks have been measured weighing nearly twice that. The fur of reindeer has two layers: a layer of long hollow outer hairs and a down-like layer of dense fluff. The fur can be all sorts of shades of stippled and variegated brown, black, cream, and white. Both genders of reindeer grow antlers, and the antlers are the largest in proportion to body mass of any cervid.
Reindeer have many special traits to help them survive the rigorous conditions of their northern habitat. In summer their hooves become sponge-like and flatten out to give them traction on mud. In winter reindeer hooves harden into sharp wedges for cutting through ice and snow. Unlike white-tailed deer, reindeer can see into the indigo and ultraviolet spectrum. This ability helps them survive in the grey tundra and the great monochromatic boreal forests. Many things invisible in the (human) visible spectrum pop out in ultraviolet (most notably fur and urine).
A reindeer poses in front a glacier in Svalbard
Reindeer/caribou live predominantly on grasses, sedges, and tender tree shoots during the summer, but in winter their diet changes in accordance with the barrenness of their environment. During the long lean dark times of winter reindeer largely live on lichen. The reindeer are almost alone among animals in possessing the enzyme necessary to metabolize the tough lichen (only a handful of gastropod mollusks have been found to also produce lichenase).
Young reindeer are hunted by golden eagles and wolverines. Mature adults are largely invulnerable to any animals other than polar bears, brown bears, and above all wolves. Wolves may be the ultimate predator of reindeer and certain packs live mutualistically with the reindeer herds and follow them all winter.
The Sami people prepare to migrate with the herd
Humankind has a similarly ancient and intimate relationship with the reindeer and caribou. Since the depths of the ice age, human hunter-gatherers have stalked the great herds of deer. Some tribes began to follow the herds along their entire migratory routes and eventually the people and deer gradually became integrated. The domestication of animals began similarly with goats (ibexes), cows (aurochs), and pigs, but, in the case of reindeer, the process stalled in the middle. Certain herds of reindeer are semi-domesticated: but the herders follow the deer as much as the reverse. The reindeer provide skin, meat, milk, and transportation to the tough herding/hunting nomads of the north (mainly the Sami in the modern world). The herders protect the reindeer from wolves, bear, and hunters.
A reindeer sleigh in Lapland (image from the Finnish Tourism Bureau)
Although they are not perfectly domesticated (and would probably keep on with their ancient migrations if humankind all dropped dead or decided to emigrate to Alfa-Centauri), reindeer are docile, gentle, and extremely beautiful. They are a perfect emblem of the season (although Santa’s presumably male herd would shed their antlers before Christmas), but they are an even greater emblem of the last great wilds which can be found in the far north. I devoutly hope that the great changes of the Anthropocene do not reduce the reindeer and caribou herds to a fraction of what they are today. I guess I still love them as much as ever. Where is that sweater with reindeer on it and the old Rudolph record?
Happy Holidays from Ferrebeekeeper! I’ll be away for the next couple days…
Marbled cone snail (Conus marmoreus) by shadowshador
In olden days, in Australia, young healthy beachgoers were sometimes found lying on the shore dead. Their bodies gave no evidence of trauma, indeed they had not even gone into the water. Something just struck them down as they sauntered along the beach. It was not until 1936 that the mysterious killer was finally revealed when a beachcomber picked up a colorful snail and began to scrape its shell with his knife. The unlucky young man uttered a cry as the snail somehow pricked him. He then fell down, went into a coma, and shortly died. Because of witness testimony, coroners knew what to look for and they removed a tiny poisonous harpoon the size of a small hair from the victim’s hand. The culprit turned out to be a cone snail, one of a diverse group of deadly gastropod mollusks.
The Geographic Cone Snail (Conus geographus) shows its siphon and proboscis. This snail is also humorously called “the cigarette snail” since if one stings you, you allegedly have time for one cigarette before dying.
There are over 600 different species of snail within the genus Conus and they are all poisonous predatory hunters. The smaller cone snails hunt tiny mollusks and worms but the larger snails feed on fish, which need to be quickly subdued (so that they do not injure the snail by thrashing about) and then consumed with equal dispatch so that other ocean creatures do not steal the meal. In order to quickly dispatch their prey (and defend against larger predators), Cone snails have a sophisticated weapon–a modified radula tooth which directly injects potent venom by means of a tiny harpoon-like “dart.” The snail finds prey by carefully testing/sniffing the water with a siphon. It then stretches out a long flexible proboscis and fires the disposable hollow radula tooth (filled with venom) into the prey by means of a powerful muscle contraction. Below is a shocking film which shows a cone snail killing and consuming a clown fish by such means. It is not for the faint of heart!
Although cone snails are obviously alarming to divers and shell collectors (particularly in warm tropical reefs where the large poisonous specimens live), the potent cocktail of neurotoxins utilized by the creatures is of great interest to pharmaceutical researchers. Since each species of cone snail has a very large number of different “conotoxins” in its poison, scientists have been struggling to catalog and understand the dangerous mixtures. These conotoxins are generally peptides which interfere with the ability of nerve cells to communicate with one another. Not only might such chemicals provide the key to curing neurodegenerative diseases and brain cancers, conotoxin research is now the most promising avenue towards effective medications to deal with certain sorts of chronic pain.
A lovely diagram of Conotoxin Peptides from “The Journal of Neuroscience”
Unfortunately all of this research has not provided any effective antitoxins for victims of cone snail stings. If a person is fully darted by one of the large poisonous specimens, their best hope is to go on a ventilator until their body expunges all of the poison—an uncertain prospect at best.
A Tiny Sample of the Exquisite Variety of Cone Snail Shells (Photo by Pet/Wikimedia Commons)
Many cone snails have beautiful colorful shells marked with vivid abstract patterns. Some of the most valuable shells ever came from cone snails–which continue to fascinate conchologists and shell collectors. Even today divers and beach combers are sometimes overwhelmed by the beauty of cone snails and reach out to grab the lovely creatures. Hopefully this article has convinced you that doing so is a very bad idea.
The Yellow-lipped Sea Krait (Laticauda colubrina)
The coral reef is a super-competitive ecosystem where every surface hides a hidden mouth, a poison dart, or a camouflaged hunter. However the reef is also a place rich in resources where it is possible to make a good living. It is sort of the New York City of ocean habitats. Some animals have been part of reef-like ecosystems for a tremendously long time, but one of my favorite reef animals, the banded sea snake or yellow-lipped sea krait (Laticauda colubrina) is a latecomer. Like the coral reef catfish (which descended from freshwater river fish ancestors but evolved into a saltwater coral reef dweller), the krait has put its land-dwelling roots behind it and moved out into the ocean—although it remains an air-breather like all snakes and it must also come ashore to drink freshwater since it has not yet evolved the super kidneys necessary for dealing with saltwater. Yellow-lipped sea kraits are widespread throughout the Indo-Pacific Ocean. They grow up to 2.2 meters (6 and a half feet long).
Laticauda colubrina
An accomplished hunter, the banded sea snake lives on cuttlefish, squid, fish, fish eggs, and small arthropods which throng the shallow reef. The krait’s venom is among the most poisonous on earth, but fortunately the creatures have easy going dispositions (and small fangs) and they rarely bite humans. Their closest relatives among the land snakes are the cobras.
Yellow-lipped sea kraits shed their skin far more often than do land snakes in order to protect themselves from parasites: sometimes they change skins as often as every fortnight. Kraits are viviparous and do not bear eggs but rather give birth to completely autonomous baby snakes which are born with their parents’ swimming and hunting ability. The snakes are such gifted swimmers thanks not just too their sinuous bodies but also to laterally compressed tails which they use like paddles to propel themselves through the water. Another feature which the kraits possess to deal with their watery habitat is nostrils which clamp shut
The kraits are extremely beautiful: their bodies are banded with black and pale blue rings. They have a balck head with a yellow snout. Their beauty gives them a special place in art and literature. I like to imagine that the yellow-lipped krait was one of the mysterious beautiful “water-snakes” who caused the ancient mariners unconscious epiphany which broke the curse he labored under and marked the climax of Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (a profoundly beautiful miniature epic about the importance of treating animals kindly):
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
Banded Sea Snake (Jennifer Belote, acrylic on canvas)
ferrebeekeeper 