Reindeer

Say what you will about reindeer (Rangifer tarandus, trans. ‘No, my nose doesn’t light up, that’s someone else’), there’s no denying that they are the rare mythical creature that actually turns out to be real.¹ They consist of six wild subspecies that can be found in Siberia and Norway, as well as Greenland, Alaska and Canada, where they call themselves caribou (a French version of the Mi’kmaq word qalipu, meaning  ‘snow-shoveler,’ a dismissive reference to the reindeer’s embarrassing habit of pawing through the snow for food). But though reindeer are indeed very, very real, the vast majority do not lead glamorous lives of working one night out of the year and then spending the remaining 364 days relaxing by Santa’s pool while being generally mythologized by an adoring public.  Instead, most reindeer spend their time looking for lichen to eat, migrating constantly, and working catering jobs to make ends meet and pay for their acting and flying classes.

More fruscetta, sir?

Choosing to become a reindeer is to choose a hard life of being prey for wolves, having four stomachs, possessing the second-largest set of antlers after the moose, and being a popular meat in Scandinavian countries. Of all the terrestrial animals, reindeer travel the farthest, making vast, massive migrations over thousands of miles between forest areas in the winter (to look for lichen) and their calving grounds in the spring. Along the way, the average reindeer will take 50 or 60 auditions and land not a single role.

Let me send you my headshot.

So why do it? Because the passion that burns inside these aspiring sleigh-pullers keeps them from just settling into a career in insurance sales. Reindeer are driven to constantly pursue a chance to audition for Santa’s sleigh one day. It’s a long shot, but the rewards are immense. And so reindeer continue having four stomachs, practicing their accents and stage-fighting skills, doing odd bartending jobs and working at coffee shops, chasing a dream.

I only do this job because I heard Mrs. Claus sometimes meets here with her book club.

Competition for a sleigh-pulling job is fierce, with every reindeer going out for the same jobs all the time. Even the females get antlers, which is indicative of the pressure to be the ‘perfect’ reindeer (and to find lichen under snow).

Compounding the fact that pretty much every single reindeer aspires to someday pull Santa’s sleigh is the simple reality that those jobs open up infrequently. The last addition to the Team was in 1939, when Rudolph was added, but that had far more to do with his bizarre genetic condition. Also his uncle made a few calls on his behalf. So most reindeer are left to migrate constantly and eat lichen. They do have a union, but every time it seems like there might actually be a strike, Prancer and Donner take out an ad in Variety accusing the union leadership of being unreasonable, and soon enough they’ll get a whole bunch of reindeer who haven’t done anything other than temp jobs in years to vote against a strike. Eventually many reindeer give up and end up domesticated in Russia, Scandinavia, or Iceland. A few more join petting zoos. Most, it seems, spend a lot of their time trying to guilt you into coming to their one-reindeer shows.

It’s Tuesday at 6:30 pm during rush hour in the middle of downtown. Tickets are $25.  See you there.

But even as we try to figure out how to get out of seeing their plays, and even as you really, really wish that every reindeer you meet would just stop talking about his or her ‘craft’ all the time, you still respect them for hanging in there and going for what they want, even when pretty much any other animal would hang it up and go back to law school.

GRADE: B-

¹ The other is the Grendel.

Swordfish

The swordfish (Xiphias gladius, literally translating to ‘swordfish sword,’ which is confusing but leaves no doubt as to what you need to remember about the swordfish) is one of a small number of animals with swords on their faces.¹ Of these, they are by far the most massive, reaching almost fifteen feet in length (much of it sword) and 1,400 pounds in weight (some of it sword).² They are also the sole member of family Xiphiidae; all the other members of the Xiphiidea family were found dead from sword wounds awhile back, and the police couldn’t make anything stick on their main suspect (the swordfish).

No comment.

A swordfish’s nose sword isn’t for decoration (though it certainly is a lovely nose sword). Instead, the nose sword is an important tool that is useful in a variety of situations, like a Swiss Army Knife that’s always open and has only a blade and no toothpick. The swordfish’s nose sword literally cuts through the water, allowing the swordfish to easily reach speeds of 50 miles per hour (which is especially dangerous since they lack seat belts and they’re waving a pointy sword). This speed, combined with their agility and nose sword, makes them deadly hunters. Contrary to popular belief, swordfish do not ‘spear’ their prey; their hunting technique is to dart through schools of fish, slashing their sword noses around, hacking and/or stunning the confused fish who have never before seen a sword where a nose should be. On a given charge, a swordfish may feast on mackerel, bluefish, hake, herring, squid, giant drumsticks, mead, roast goose, suckling pig, jugs of wine, and sometimes their enemies’ hearts – all the while surrounded by comely serving wenches. Oh, and their eyes and brains are heated (while the rest of them is cold-blooded), improving their vision dramatically and giving them a huge advantage over other fish in the sea. Anyway, the main thing is that eating with a swordfish is a bit of a grab bag, what with all the slashing and hacking.

Did you get my dinner party evite? I’m slashing and hacking something special.

The nose sword-aided speed make swordfish largely invulnerable to predators. Since these fish are huge (and are equipped with huge nose swords), the only animals that might reasonably make a go at them are Killer Whales, a few large sharks, and, to a less-likely extent, Grizzly Bears. The shortfin mako shark is the rare animal fast enough to catch it, but even if it does, it must still contend with Sir Sword Nose. Head-to-head, a mako probably has only a slightly better chance of biting a swordfish with its mouthful of long, curved teeth before the swordfish runs it through the belly or gills, making Mako vs. Swordfish (Quarrel In The Coral) the pay-per-view event of the year.³

What say we leave the massive super fast fish with the sword on its face alone and go check out Magic Mountain?

In sum, the swordfish is a really impressive animal.  Why?  Because it is a giant, fast fish that, in lieu of a nose, has a sword coming off its face.

Q.E.D.

GRADE: A-

¹ Thankfully, the last swordcheetah was killed by former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 while on safari with his son Kermit.

² They are often confused with sailfish, which also have swords for noses, but if anyone ever tells you that they caught a sailfish, you should inform them that sailfish rarely top the scales at more than 200 pounds and ten feet in length, and, you know, if they really wanted to go after something with a sword for a nose, they would have gone after a swordfish, but apparently they were too scared. (WARNING: They will probably then ask you to leave their daughter’s Quinceañera.)

³ This is one reason why it’s good to be human. We simply point at the leather-bound menu and the waiter says, ‘Le swordfish soup avec saffron rouille.’ And we nod and that’s all there is to it.

Hummingbird

The hummingbird (Family Trochilidae, lit. ‘Chill, dude’) is a flapping fiasco whose continued existence is a credit to the tenacity of life, once alive, to continue living, even if it is only for a short three-to-four year lifespan. Overreacted squeals of excitement over a hummingbird showing up at our hummingbird feeders notwithstanding, the truth is that, in all likelihood, the hummingbird suffers from a host of ailments, among them malnourishment, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), hypertension, a drug addiction, and a pretty gnarly case of jock itch.

Hey guys, the bird that shouldn’t be alive is back!

Any nutritionist can plainly see that the hummingbird is anorexic, but nutritionists make up only a small percentage of bird watchers, and the hummingbird has almost everyone else fooled. Friends and relatives jokingly ascribe its tiny size to that fact that it ‘eats like a bird,’ but still, when asked about its appearance in interviews, a hummingbird will insist that it eats all the time and then make a big show of eating a donut while the interviewer’s still in the room. But facts don’t lie. Proof of an eating disorder epidemic among hummingbirds lies at the extremes of the hummingbird weight spectrum. On one end, at 1.8 grams and only 2 inches in length, the Bee Hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae) is the smallest bird on the planet. And the largest hummingbird, the so-called Giant Hummingbird (Patagona gigas) of the Andes Mountains, weighs in at a mere eighteen grams. It goes without saying that any BMIs derived from these figures would be great causes of concern for a physician. Yet we find their delicate, fragile appearance just completely wonderful, not really ever hearing what we’re saying when we say things like ‘It’s so tiny!’ and ‘Wow, it looks great!’ and ‘Have you been working out?’

Yet despite being only hours away from starvation at any given moment, the hummingbird cannot calm down and focus. While its teachers describe it as ‘boisterous,’ the truth is that it suffers from a pretty severe case of ADD, and being the only bird in the entire world that can fly backwards, sideways, directly up, directly down, and hover doesn’t help things, either. Its homework is a disaster. Thus, although it’s endemic to the Americas – North, South and Cental – the hummingbird is unable to point out any of these places on a map.

Meanwhile, while the anorexia and ADD go undiagnosed, the hummingbird stands most precariously on the edge of a heart attack. Some hummingbirds, during flight, can get their heart rates up to 1260 beats per minute¹. Furthermore, some species take about 250 breaths a minute and flap their wings up to 80 times per second. You’d think someone would notice. But no, we find its acute tachycardia cute.

Oh look! His heart is gonna explode!

The common thread in all this is the hummingbird’s addiction to its drug of choice, floral nectar. Easy to make and disturbingly easy to find, floral nectar is a chemical compound consisting primarily of fructose (a 6-carbon polyhydroxyketone – available over the counter) and sucrose (technically: α-D-glucopyranosyl-(1↔2)-β-D-fructofuranoside – found in packets at any Starbucks). Like opium, it’s made by flowers — all the plants have to do is combine the two saccharide components (usually in the bathtub of a rented house).

There’s also a man-made version. Colored bright red to court its hopelessly addicted patrons, this artificial nectar is known on the street by a variety of hummingbird slang terms including: N-train, Sangria del Diablo, Beak Candy, Crimson Tweaker, Beijing Sugar, Kool Aid, Burmese Disco, Potpourri, Big Red, Skrump, Skrimp, Weasel, Cooler, Slurp, The Scarlet Letter, El Capitan, Fraggle Rock, Aqua Roja del Fresno, Sweet Ruby Slipper, and Juice. Yet despite the prevalence, we turn a blind eye, pretending not to see the damage we’re causing.

As expected, this nectar addiction further compounds the hummingbird’s already myriad issues. It has no teeth. It has no friends (hummingbirds and robins used to be tight… until the DVD player suddenly disappeared). And really, it has no self control. While all of the hundreds of species of hummingbirds would make excellent subjects for D.A.R.E. posters, the hummingbird constantly promises that it’s going to quit nectar tomorrow, but it never does. And what do we do this whole time? We leave their fix in our backyards.

The most impressive fact about hummingbirds may be that they are functional addicts. After all their personal problems and self-destructive behavior (that we encourage), they still somehow manage to hold down their part-time gigs of pollinating plants, eating insects (their rare source of protein) and working the counter at your local adult book store. Oh, and their nests are immaculate. But whatever self-esteem they might have ever had has long ago been replaced by deep, nectar-induced paranoia.

‘Shhhh. Did you hear that? Shut the blinds, man.’

But functional or not, we all know how this story ends. Cornered in his nest by a paramilitary army of nectar-running thugs, the hummingbird loads his grenade launcher, blasts through the door and stands at the top of the staircase, screaming over the gunfire (and his 1260-beats-per-minute heart rate). Then he encourages everyone to ‘say hello to my little friend,’ but the accent isn’t quite right and comes off as more Italian than Cuban, and it’s punctuated with awkward silence and a couple half-hearted smiles.

Then he gets shot like four hundred times.

GRADE: C-

1 The average resting human heart rate is 72 bpm. Maybe, after a few Red Bulls (or a liter of floral nectar), and a half hour of wind sprints, you could get it up to 230. But call an ambulance first.

Dung Beetle

The term ‘dung beetle’ encapsulates about 7,000 insect species in the superfamily Scarabaeoidea (trans. ‘You probably don’t want to stay for dinner’) that inhabit every continent except Antarctica, where dung beetles, along with military activities and mineral mining, are banned by international treaty.

Dung beetles are so named because their lives revolve around poop. While most animals would react with shame, horror, and possible bites at having a synonym for poop in their name, dung beetles consider it a point of pride. They just love the stuff. Once a dung beetle picks up a whiff of nearby poop with their extremely strong sense of smell, there’s no turning back. To them, the odor of poop is what the scent of a corner pizzeria on a chilly fall evening is to humans, only the pizza is topped with crack and we’re all crack addicts. They love poop that much.

Please don’t judge me.

There are three main branches within the dung community. There are rollers, who roll their poop finds into spherical balls for later use; tunnellers, who bury the dung wherever they find it for later use; and dwellers, who are so overcome with poop addiction that they simply live in whatever piles of poop they find. Regardless, all dung beetles share a common trait: an abiding, irrepressible love of poop.

How much do they love it? Well, let’s just say that one dung beetle can move 250 times its body weight in poop in a single night. And let’s just say that dung beetles are known to steal each other’s poop balls. And let’s just also say that one researcher observed a three pound mound of elephant poop carried away by 16,000 dung beetles in under two hours. And let’s especially also say that that researcher spent the rest of that day wondering why graduate school ever seemed like a good idea.

In terms of what that ‘later use’ is, it’s pretty straightforward: dung beetles eat the poop. The balls of poop they roll are simply being set aside for later consumption. Dung beetles do not eat or drink anything else, as the poop provides all the nutrients they need. The poop balls are also used as ‘brooding balls,’ which means that dung beetles lay their eggs inside the poop ball, cover it in more poop, and their future larvae, upon being born, have a whole ball of poop to feast upon.

Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.

As much as poop is central to the dung beetle’s identity, these are not just one-dimensional bugs. They have hidden sides, like a lumberjack who reads poetry. Dung beetles read poetry too, though, to be fair, most of the poems are about poop (‘Shall I compare thee to a ball of poop?’ is oft-quoted in many a dung beetle love letter). Beyond that, dung beetles spend their free time enjoying walks (looking for poop to roll), contemplating poop, talking about poop, reading about poop, and surfing.

I also whittle. But nobody ever talks about that.

But what’s in a name? Well, unfortunately for dung beetles, a lot (cf. ladybugs). But as immediate as the mental connection to poop is when talking about (or to) dung beetles, it is important not to forget that the world needs poop-rollers too. Dung beetles are important parts of ecosystems, getting poop out of the way so other species can go about their lives without stepping in it. They contribute to soil health by reintroducing nutrients from the poop. And dung beetles have even been introduced to agricultural landscapes to deal with cow poop issues that might otherwise harbor germs and parasites. In fact, were it not for dung beetles, the entire earth would be covered in a layer of poop (except for Antarctica).

Dung beetles’ cowillingness to really get down and do the dirty (and poopy) work of an ecosystem has earned it some strong admirers, most notably in Ancient Egypt, where the scarab was viewed as a symbol of life. (Of course, it should be mentioned that these were also the same people who thought it made sense to spend 30 years building a single tomb for one guy out of really heavy rocks, so maybe their judgment was a bit iffy anyway.)

After we’re done here, let’s move on to those beetles that eat poop and also invent beer.

Beyond Egypt, there is Aesop’s fable “The Dung Beetle and the Eagle,” which involves an extremely confusing storyline about a dung beetle, an eagle, a hare (which gets eaten by the eagle, which for some reasons upsets the dung beetle, who retaliates against the eagle), and Zeus. In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa is said to turn into ‘an old dung beetle.’ Then there’s the ill-fated 1970’s children’s book series Dung Beetles At The Disco, which was really more of a tribute to the disco culture and an allegory about the dangers of trampling than a paean to the dung beetle.

So next time you’re at a cocktail party and someone starts gossiping about dung beetles, consider standing up for the little poop-rollers. They’re doing all of us a big favor by obsessing over poop, and they deserve more than our respect – they also deserve a name change. Until someone suggests a better name than Hey Somebody’s Gotta Do It Beetles, we’re sticking with that.

And if you ever see a dung beetle hard at work on a pile of poop, take a moment to tell them, ‘Just so you know, I love you like a fat kid loves cake, which is almost as much as you love poop.’  They’ll appreciate the kind words.

GRADE: B+

The Turkey

As some 45 million turkeys come to terms with their own mortality at the insistence of the poultry-industrial complex this month, it seems as good a time as any for a review of this distinctly American bird. Well, this mostly American bird – Canada, Mexico, and Central America are home to some subspecies. And they’ve been spotted in Europe (transplanted, ex-patria all). Basically, turkeys are American in the way that basketball is American – the phenomenon originated here and is absolutely woven into the existential fabric of our country¹, but occasionally our hand-picked turkey Dream Team will inexplicably lose in the Olympic semifinals to Greece. Still, we own this thing.

Portrait of the artist as a young fryer.

The turkey most of us know today (corpulent, encased in reinforced plastic, its severed neck and a sack of its vital organs conveniently inserted into its own chest cavity by the helpful folks at Butterball) is a domesticated descendant of Meleagris gallopavo (lit. ‘Preheat oven to 250’), commonly known as the wild turkey. And although both domesticated and wild turkeys go perfectly with cranberry sauce and vitriolic political arguments with your entire extended family – there are some notable differences.

The single most important distinction is that wild turkeys can fly – at respectable speeds up to 50 miles per hour. By contrast, while their portly domesticated counterparts are genetically built for flying – and tend to flap their wings in some vestigial memory of flight – they find themselves perpetually grounded by a staunch, well-organized group who call themselves The Universal Laws of Physics. Simply put, domesticated turkeys are way too fat to slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God. For most of these animals, it would be too much to ask for them to touch their toes. Thus you will find fighter jets with names like F-15 Eagle and F-22 Raptor, but you will never watch a squadron of F-24 Domesticated Turkeys buzz the Rose Bowl, trailing tight curls of super-heated stuffing-flavored exhaust from their afterburners. Clearly, the Air Force Naming Team knows what’s up.²

Another key difference is that wild turkeys can actually run at about 20 mph. This capacity, along with keen eyesight, a quick-to-panic mentality, and the aforementioned ability to fly earn wild turkeys a great deal of respect from bird hunters throughout the country, though this esteem is not enjoyed by the domesticated turkey for patently obvious reasons.

‘Running? Nah. Too boring. Plus it hurts my knees.’

But ask any well-experienced hunter about wild turkey hunting, and he will mostly likely chuckle, stroke his chin, adjust his belt that not only clasps his jean shorts taut but also holds his massive cell phone in a leather pouch with a Velcro seal, and then say, ‘That’s why there are supermarkets.’ Then he’ll wait for you to laugh at his joke, and you’ll let out a forced chuckle.  Then you’ll look at the floor, confused, and only then will you realize that he means that hunting turkey is very hard. Now late to the joke party, you’ll say, ‘It’s tough, huh?’ And he’ll say, ‘Yup. You gotta be totally camouflaged, including your gun, tied to a tree, hoping they don’t run off before you get a shot. The calls take too long to learn. They’re very smart and they’re not easily fooled. Better you just go to the market and buy one.’ Then you’ll thank him for his time, grab your Department of Fish and Game map, and leave his sporting goods store as quickly as possible.

Whoever coined the term ‘turkey shoot’ never met Ned.

Back to domesticated turkeys, it turns out that being flightless, overweight and unable to run from impending decapitation is not the end of their problems. To add insult to injury, we humans also openly mock them as stupid. And not just in the plain old ‘You’re-a-domesticated-turkey-so-what-do-you-know?’ way – but as deeply and profoundly dim. In fact, the term ‘turkey’ has become such a generalized insult that the wild variety resent their domesticated cousins more and more each year, to the point that wild turkeys undertook the process of legally changing their name to Smith a dozen years ago but were rebuffed by the awful mess they made of the paperwork.

The clerk barely got through the first page before giving up.

Even as we plot to preserve their juiciness in the oven, we still perpetuate undignified rumors about turkeys, perhaps to ameliorate our guilt over eating them, perhaps to just make ourselves feel smarter. Here’s one rumor widely-whispered: Turkeys are so dumb they will stare up into a rainstorm until they drown. Here’s another: Turkeys consistently confuse astrology with astronomy. Not a good sign.

While the latter may be true, it’s also true of many animals. And as to the first rumor, it’s simply untrue that the turkey is dumb enough to drown itself. This has been confirmed by poultry scientist Tom Savage of Oregon State University who was the first to realize that an underlying genetic abnormality called tetanic torticollar spasms causes turkeys to look up at the sky for no apparent reason – a behavior that’s roughly akin to an uncontrollable nervous tic – not a sign of stupidity. Having proven this, Dr. Savage then concluded his paper with the sentence ‘Well, that wasn’t a horrible waste of research dollars at all.’

In short, the turkey has gotten a bum rap, most of it due to people’s decision to domesticate a great number of them. These soft, sad birds are like obese teenagers who look lazy, shiftless, and weak – but the truth is that the fault lies with us. We gave them too many calories and stopped expecting them to toughen up or exercise – and then mock the result, when we really are just angry with ourselves. One need only look out towards the impressive wild turkey to see its true potential. Would that we let them develop it. In the meantime, there’s a ton of leftover turkey in the fridge if you want any. Assuming you can manage to get off the couch.

GRADE: B

(A for taste)

¹To the point that Benjamin Franklin proposed it as the national bird, though as anyone who’s read much about Franklin’s later-life habits – or gazed at a picture of him in his coonskin cap – would agree that, whatever his many qualities, aesthetics was not among them.

²Being assigned to the Naming Team is the plum job in the Air Force, since it requires actual work only once every seven to twelve years when a new airplane is introduced. It’s nearly impossible to get, so don’t bother. And if a recruiter promises that he can get you a guaranteed slot on the Naming Team if you just agree to sign here, here, here, here, here, and here – then rest assured, he’s definitely tricking you, and you’re probably going to end up in the Never-Ending Pushup Squadron.

North American Mountain Goat

Not to overstate the somber lesson of the zebra, but the very first thing you learn in a veterinary comparative anatomy course is that, as a general rule of thumb, animals indigenous to North America are pretty lame compared to their counterparts in the rest of the world. That’s not to say that animals such as rattlesnakes and Bobcats are boring per se. But compare a Bobcat to a Siberian tiger or place a rattler side-by-side with a King Cobra (nota bene: you will instantly regret doing this), and you’re left with the inescapable conclusion that many North American fauna are rapidly falling behind.

Let’s face facts. Our eagles are bald, our trout are swimming at third-grade levels, the star-nosed mole is an unmitigated disaster, and, with the extinction of the American mastodon, 100 percent of our circus elephants are now imported from overseas. And to think North America was once home to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. These days it’s become so bad that even our myths fall short. The Pacific Northwest’s grainy, 18-frames-per-second Bigfoot vs. Nepal’s laser-eyed (apparently) Yeti? Game over.

Even North America’s pretend animals are clearly outmatched.

However, all is not lost. There is, of course, the Bear Category, where the American Grizzly regularly defeats China’s panda in under ten seconds (including the three-count). What’s more, there is also a shining hero of an exception in the Goat Division: the North American mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus, lit. ‘Mountain Goat American’). A large, sure-footed, attractive, aggressive, even-toed ungulate, the North American mountain goat manages to at least achieve parity with high-altitude goats across the globe. Even its harshest international rivals, when pressed, will admit it’s rather cool.

‘Any of you Gobi Desert wild camels wanna climb up here and try to knock me off? Japanese snow monkeys? Koala bears? Anyone? That’s what I thought.’

Sure, reflexively anti-American critics will point out that there are mountain goats in the world with much larger horns. But longer horns likely mean a more competitive mating environment, meaning that the North American mountain goat is, when it comes to mating, confident enough in himself to keep his horns to an understated length. His are horns that say, ‘Sure, I got horns – here they are – but there’s so much more to me than just horns coming out of my head.’

Pakistan’s high-altitude Markhor might be competitive were it not for the wine openers. Also, he reeks of cologne.

Likewise, the Ibex of Africa and Eurasia has cleared 22,000 feet but is disqualified by the bike rack, which is incredibly inconvenient to hook up to his rented Lamborghini.

Moreover, the American sense of restraint so present in our mountain goats’ culture doesn’t make them less effective, nor does it stop them from butting heads so hard that their hoofs sometimes fall off. Apparently less is more (though it can also result in fewer hooves).

Their first criticism rebuffed, the Le Monde columnists will likely then fall back on the old trope of scoffing at the relatively lower altitudes achieved by North American mountain goats. Yes, the reality is that North America’s mountains simply leave much to be desired, with not even one in the top 50 peaks. But let’s please not go punishing goats for the lack of compression forces in the lithospheric plates deep beneath their feet. If it were there, they would certainly climb it.

Most independent experts agree that mountain goats should be judged on two qualities: skill and looks. And the North American mountain goat more than holds its own in both departments.

First up, these animals can jump about twelve feet on their strong, thick legs. When they eventually land (on some precarious cliff in the Rocky or Cascade Mountains up to about 13,000 feet), it’s on split cloven hooves, each with two widespread toes to increase balance. Better yet, their hooves sport a unique super-grip surface that provides additional traction. This is why you have never seen poorly-shot video of a mountain goat slipping and falling into a wedding cake on America’s Funniest Home Videos. They climb ferociously, without oxygen tanks or ropes or sherpas or gorp or pretentious lecturing about how awesome Denver is. They effortlessly navigate inclines greater than 60 degrees with ease, never once bringing up some long-ago post-climb trip to a Denver-area microbrewery. And just to show what fearless adventurers they are, females prefer to birth their young up on the highest peaks they can find. For the North American mountain goat, it’s all about the thrill of the climb (and avoiding wolves). Never once is Denver mentioned.

As far as looks go, the North American mountain goat has a beard, which is because it’s a mountain climber who likes having a warm face. Even the females have beards. That’s how hardcore they are. They also have thick, beautiful, white coats to protect them against extreme temperatures reaching 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

There is one area where the mountain goat, well, falls down. They don’t have good mountain climber names. Male mountain goats are called ‘billies,’ the females are ‘nannies’ and, indicating a complete lack of imagination, they refer to their kids as ‘kids.’ Those who have seen Stallone’s Cliffhangar or read Krakauer’s Into Thin Air know that serious climbers should really go by names like Walker, Tucker, Weathers and Hall. Markhor and Ibex were on the right track here, but then they overshot things by adding techno music to their website.

Can we at least call him ‘Billie the Kid’?

Names aside, the North American mountain goat is a living tribute to all that is good and right with the continent: understated competence, a willingness to take risks, and a rich tradition of high-altitude birthing.

So well done, North American mountain goat. Here’s to you.

GRADE: B+/A-

Mosquito

The term ‘mosquito’ comes from the Spanish meaning ‘little fly,’ or ‘my shoes are sad,’ depending upon which region of Latin America you happen to be saying it in. Pretty much all reasonable people hate mosquitoes, and for excellent cause. Every waking moment, all over the world, mosquitoes are plotting to abscond with our precious blood. And the manner in which they carry out this sub rosa crime is surprisingly clever and underhanded. When all is considered, the modus operandi of the mosquito is less like that of an annoying winged arthropod and more like something you’d see in the Oceans Eleven/Twelve/Thirteen series. Instead of piles of cash in a casino, it’s the tasty blood flowing through a high-security mammal that they’re after. And so the game begins.

‘Are you in or out?’

To be sure, the mosquito (Family Culicidae, Lit. ‘Flying Grifter’) is one high-tech criminal. For starters, they’re equipped with chemical sensors that can detect trace amounts of CO₂ and octenol in your exhalations. That’s how they find and track large sources of blood (they call them ‘marks’) from a distance. Once at close range, the mosquito surveils from a fake plumber’s van, then switches to thermal receptors on their antennae to guide them the last few meters – often in the dark. By the way, it’s the female mosquitoes who do all the biting. Apparently, they require large amounts of iron and protein to sustain their eggs. Why this has suddenly become our problem, we’ll never know. But it somehow has.

With a suitable iron-rich mark selected, the mosquito lands and deploys a microsurgical instrument called a proboscis, which was previously constructed to the mosquito’s exact specifications by the Don Cheadle character. Among other curious things, the proboscis contains two tubes – one used to withdraw blood and the other to inject special saliva. Why the special saliva? The reasons will be laid bare as the plot unfolds.

In order to feast on our blood for the minute or so she requires, the mosquito must suppress and somehow overcome a massively redundant, top-notch security system. Like casinos and their cash, we humans aren’t exactly giving away blood. We actively discourage crimes throughout our sprawling vascular system with myriad, expensive (w/r/t energy) defenses. For starters, there’s our complicated clotting mechanisms with their infamous plasma coagulation factors. Past that, there’s the vasoconstriction pathways which limit blood loss by reducing the diameter of the vessels carrying said blood. On top of that, there’s our sophisticated immune system with its swift, local inflammation response (plus red lasers criss-crossing the floor). And finally, let’s not forget the world’s most advanced central and peripheral nervous systems that continually monitor everything and instantly inform us of an intrusion in any sector, however slight.

A T-cell rushes from the thymus. And that’s IF you make it past the plasma coagulation factors.

A daunting task by any measure. But it’s a walk in the park for the female mosquito, even without the help of a small Chinese acrobat. She’s smooth, cool and professional. After landing, she removes her flight helmet, releases her long flowing hair from a bun, and jams her proboscis through the skin to begin probing for a vessel. She then injects a biochemical cocktail specifically formulated for the task at hand. Mosquito saliva contains an anticoagulant and a molecule to counteract vasoconstriction. Together, these chemicals keep our vessels wide open for business while she loads the duffle bags.

She also injects us with a mild pain killer (to buy her some time) and numerous other molecules that scientists believe may further suppress our immune system’s inflammation responses. In essence, these techniques are the biological equivalent of patching pre-recorded video of vacant rooms and hallways into the casino’s TV surveillance system. The brain (security HQ) has no idea what’s going on. Alas, her tricks work only temporarily – maybe for a few minutes — but that’s all she needs to get in and get out with the loot.

In the end, we’re left with a big pile of missing blood, and an itchy red bump – the mosquito’s calling card – which we notice as our immune and nervous systems finally come back online. Great work, immune and nervous systems. Thanks. Way to be. Of course, as the mosquito flies off into the night, there’s one more surprise in store for us. Depending on our geography, we might also now have any number of additional problems¹ including malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, West Nile virus, encephalitis and even elephantiasis².

Here’s where the mosquito looks back over her shoulder and sneers, ‘That should keep ‘em busy for awhile.’ Or just makes a buzzing sound.

Roll credits.

Grade: C

(The final grade may surprise you. Sure, there’s a great case to be made for failing the animal that kills more people annually than any other, except Great White Sharks. And without a doubt, the world would be a happier place minus mosquitos. But that being said, you have to respect a criminal who can pull off a job like this.)

¹ Each year, more than 700 million people will be affected by a mosquito-borne disease. To fully grasp how dramatic that number is, imagine 700 million people, all of whom are affected by an illness they got from a mosquito.

² The one where you get the huge scrotum. Gross. Also note the proper spelling (and associated pronunciation), elephantIASIS. Not elephantITIS. Just saying. Oh and it’s caused by a microscopic parasitic worm. Double gross.

Remora

The remora is Nature’s Annoying Friend.  A fish in the order Echeneidae (trans. ‘Freeload McGee’), the remora spends its days mooching off other animals in order to avoid real work.  Within Echeneidae there are eight species in four genera, though all the species are pretty much the same deal: they have a sucker in place of their first dorsal fin, which they use to suction cup themselves onto the skin of larger marine animals, hitch a free ride, and commence mooching.  Though they can swim well on their own, remoras hold fast to the motto ‘Work smarter, not harder,’¹ which is why they are best known to most people for dangling off sharks on the Discovery Channel.

‘Can I bum a ride?  I’m totally on your way.’

Contrary to the popular notion (see Discovery Channel, above) that remoras specifically latch onto terrifying sharks in a show of jocular élan, remoras can be found stuck to whales, manta rays, turtles, tuna, and marlin. Remoras are equal opportunity suckers, and have been known to attach themselves to scuba divers’ legs and even boats.² In short, anything large with enough work ethic to move through water is apt to find itself being imposed upon by a remora.

‘We sort of helped ourselves to that leftover pizza in your fridge. We’ll totally get you back though.’

A remora’s relations with its host are what as know as commensalism, which means that one party (the remora) in the relationship benefits while they other (the animal with the actual job) gains nothing and loses little. Specifically, the remora gets a free ride, protection, and leftover food from the host, whether in the form of leftover fragments or feces, though both are the remora’s ‘favorite price.’

Indeed, we all have a friend who never really does anything for us and often bums us out but never hesitates to call us for ‘help with something.’ Sure, every so often you resolve to stop answering the phone, but then guilt kicks in and next thing you know you’re spending Saturday night showing Joe the Remora how to file his late taxes.

‘It’s cool. I know you have to see your real friends. I’m sure I can figure out these 1099s on my own…eventually.’

Some scientists believe that remoras actually do sharks et al a solid by removing bacteria and other waste from their skin. Even if this turns out to be the case, it’s probably done to play on everyone’s sympathies and make them forget what massive soul suckers they are.

‘As you know, I’m kind of broke now, so I showed my appreciation for everything you’ve done for me by cleaning some bacteria. It’s the least I could do. I love you, bro.’

When it comes to grading, there is obviously little to recommend the remora, just as there’s little to recommend your buddy with the late taxes. They both attach themselves to you and hang on for the ride. Yet, even though we suspect deep down that this kind of behavior is ultimately as destructive to the sucker as it is to suck-ee and we think it’d be best for all involved to just fail them, yet again guilt again takes over and we end up doing something that we can’t fully explain.

GRADE: D-

¹In private, remoras like to joke that their motto is actually ‘Work smarter, suck harder,’ but only say it to each other in the nearly-impenetrable Remora language. Another variation on this joke is ‘Suck harder, work ardor,’ but it only makes sense if you speak Remora and are extremely drunk.

² In ancient mythology, the remora was believed capable of stopping a ship from sailing (indeed, the name ‘remora’ comes from the Latin word mora, meaning ‘delay’ or ‘hold up’ or ‘totally annoy’). Also, as a normative aside, this particular belief, even by the standards of people who believed that there were only four elements, is beyond stupid.  But that didn’t stop Pliny the Younger for blaming remoras for Mark Antony’s defeat at Actium. Pliny the Younger was a massive disappointment to Pliny the Elder.

Zebra

The term ‘zebra’ includes three distinct (to them, anyway) species of genus Equus (from the Latin meaning ‘equinox’) whose range extends from South Africa through Angola and Kenya. There is also a small population in Long Beach. The word ‘zebra’ comes from the Old Portuguese zevra, meaning ‘wild ass (with stripes that lives in Africa).’

The zebra is a classic case of being a small fish in a big pond. If zebras had the sense to, say, move to Wisconsin, they would instantly be the coolest animal in the history of Wisconsin. Everyone would be going to Wisconsin just to see the weird black-and-white striped horses that run around the woods up there. Every time one showed up in your backyard, you’d scream like a maniac and take a thousand pictures and call the local news. There would be diamond-shaped yellow highway signs with striped horses stenciled on them to let you know that, in this area, you gotta watch out for crazy striped horses crossing the road. People who weren’t drunk would think they were drunk. Drunk people would think they were much drunker. Children would cry. Innumerable roadside shops would open up with people selling striped horse souvenirs and keychains. In short, literally nothing would get done in the entire country until someone – anyone – figured out what the dickens was going on with the Wisconsin Mystery Wild Ass.

Dude. Pull over and turn off the car. I think this is them.

Unfortunately the zebra has stubbornly refused to move to Wisconsin, even though the schools are great and there are good sports teams to root for. Instead, the zebra has stayed in their old neighborhood (Africa), and as such has consistently been voted the Least Awesome Animal of the Serengeti Plain. In the high school social structure that is Nature, zebras are the Emo kids who get picked on constantly but still insist on dressing weird. And even with their goofy outfits, nobody pays much attention to them anyway. Indeed, the number one question from tourists on African Safari is, ‘When can we stop looking at stupid zebras and go find a cheetah?’

Maybe they’d like us more if we learned guitar.

And as we all know, life on the plains of Africa is hardly easy for the average zebra, who has about a 42 percent chance of being run down and eaten by a big cat. Again – not to belabor the point – but this just makes the not-Wisconsin decision just all the more confusing. Even more confusing are zebra’s two completely ridiculous modes of defense against being eaten. These are a) running together in a group and b) standing perfectly still and hoping that lions are colorblind and thus unable to see their well-camouflaged-against-colorblind-lions-yet-still-delicious hides.

However, in all fairness, the zebra has several redeeming qualities as well. For starters, as anyone who knows someone who once took a trip to Africa knows, they make attractive and slightly exotic rugs that lend a cosmopolitan and even slightly pretentious air to almost any home.  Also, tasteless purses.  In addition, zebra have excellent hearing, limited night vision, and are thought to be able to see in color (though this last attribute is disputed by the zebra’s rumored habit of cheating on color blindness tests).

Moreover, their stripe pattern is white-on-black and not black-on-white. Why is that the case? Science says it is. Get used to it. But what’s really interesting is that their stripe pattern is thought to disorient tsetse flies who would otherwise be biting a less-striped animal.

Man oh man, these disoriented tsetse flies are dropping like…nevermind.  Sorry.

And on the subject of stripes – each zebra, like the giraffe, has its own unique stripe pattern, a fact that was related to the world during the longest and most tedious PhD dissertation in human history. Other findings include that zebras live in groups called ‘harems,’ which they actually chose as a name before learning what it meant and then just stuck with it rather than going back and changing all the stationery and business cards. In addition, while most regular horses just stand around quietly and only every so often do a little bit of neighing, zebras constantly communicate with each other with high pitched barks and whinnying.

And let’s not forget that zebras also smell really, really, really bad. This was discovered by Animal Review during a winter trip to the zoo. Because of the snow, many of the animals were being kept indoors, and suffice it to say that the olfactory experience that accompanied walking into the zebra enclosure was nearly debilitating.  So they have that too.

Finally, the zebra has proven itself nearly impossible to domesticate. Whereas Europe and Asia pretty much got the horse-riding thing down thousands of years ago, Africa’s zebra is famously panicky and difficult to control, essentially ruling out any hopes of domestication, with a few exceptions that prove the rule from crazy British colonialists. And from a historical standpoint, not having big, sturdy animals to ride is a pretty bad deal.  So while horses and camels were busy transporting goods for trade and winning wars, zebras were spazzing, kicking and barking, and not moving to Wisconsin.

Alright. We get it. You’re weird.

In short, the zebra is a cautionary tale of the importance of self-awareness. By insisting on living in Africa among much cooler animals, the zebra has allowed itself to become deeply underrated. The truth is that zebras have a lot to offer – the rugs, the stink, the complete uselessness as beasts of burden. They would be wise to move somewhere where these qualities could be nurtured and appreciated. Wisconsin is waiting.

GRADE: C+

 

Mimic Octopus

One of nature’s great truisms is that cephalopods aren’t known for their senses of humor.  Indeed, cephalopods are often so bereft of joy that their friends worry about them and try extra hard to get them to come out to parties while secretly hoping they still stay home, where they won’t bum everyone else out too.  So when a team of scientists working in Indonesia documented an octopus that does impressions to avoid predation, they just knew they were on to something.  It was way back in October of 1998 that the intrepid research team of Norman, Finn et al, donned their diving gear, reluctantly paid the two-drink minimum cover charge, and sat through a painfully awful ventriloquist act before they were treated to the main attraction, Thaumoctopus mimicus, which you may know by its stage/common name, ‘The Mimic Octopus.’

‘Flatfish are easy because they’re flat and they’re fish. Seriously, this stuff writes itself.’

Despite repeated warnings about the use of flash photography, the researchers recorded more than six hours of video footage of the mimic octopus doing a pretty tight set. It is now believed this nutty cephalopod can change the color and shape of its body to impersonate up to fifteen different marine animals, including flatfish, lionfish, sea stars, brittle stars, sea snakes, Al Gore, giant crabs, sea anemones, Jack Nicholson, jellyfish, John Madden,  and stingrays.  Currently, the mimic octopus is working on a Rodney Dangerfield. It calls the Indo-Malayan archipelago home and probably remained anonymous for so long because divers in the area were fooled into thinking they were looking at Jay Leno.

‘I’m not a tasty octopus that goes well with lemon and soy. Nope. I’m a feather star. Or a jellyfish. Anyway…maybe I need to work on this one.’

Like Saturday Night Live, evolution has produced groups of animals that employ impersonation as a survival strategy. There’s the Katydid bug, who looks like a leaf; the Stick Bug, who does a dead-on impression of inanimate wood (down to the subtle mannerisms); and a host of other innocuous creatures that can appear to be a more dangerous/venomous animal. There are also many cephalopods that use camouflage and mimicry to impersonate rocks and coral, which explains the heavy dosage of rock-and coral-impersonators on The South China Sea’s Got Talent.

But what makes the mimic octopus unique is that it’s the only animal known to science that employs dynamic mimicry, meaning it has a repertoire of various impressions and can toggle between them at will, depending on the situation, or to deal with hecklers.

‘This one literally kills in the clubs. You know, because sea snakes are venomous. Oof, I’m dying out here.’

For example, scientists noted that when the mimic octopus was attacked by damselfish, the octo-legged entertainer jumped straight into its sea snake character by burying six of its legs in the sand and extending the remaining two horizontally across the ocean floor and changing their color so the legs appeared yellow and banded and snake-esque. The banded sea snake is widely-known to prey on damselfish, which means that the mimic octopus understands this at some semi-conscious level.  In other words, welcome to Spookyville.  Please enjoy your stay.

For other predators, the mimic octopus may do a sea anemone or a venomous lion fish. Or, when it observes an aging predator, the mimic octopus distracts it with the vocal stylings of Perry Como.  The mimic octopus knows its audience, which is why it is known as ‘The Hardest Working Octopus in Evolutionary Biology Show Business.’

Here’s the problem: Although dynamic mimicry in the animal kingdom is downright thrilling to scientists who spend most of their time working with tedious sea urchins and even more tedious scientists, it does very little to impress normal people who are used to being around the 2-3 guys at the office who can do decent Christopher Walken and William Shatner impressions. And, like those guys, the mimic octopus is almost always ‘on.’ Even when scooting across the ocean floor looking for food, or standing around the microwave waiting for a frozen burrito, it does so goofing on a flatfish or a stingray. Enough already.

Look, we all get that Thaumoctopus mimicus is trying to make a living down there, but if it can’t turn off the improv faucet and just be itself in front of the underwater research cameras, it’s going to become the Robin Williams of the sea.  And to anyone with the slightest sense of propriety or taste, that is never a good thing.

You’ve been a great audience. I’ll leave you with my lionfish/loud Southern guy character! Thank you! Good night!’

GRADE: B+