Mauka to Makai
A science blog for the massesArchive for October, 2009
Cool Critter: Pangolin
If it’s not a pinecone…or an artichoke…
…or a komodo dragon…or an anteater…
…then it must be a pangolin!
Disclaimer: Unlike our other Cool Critters, pangolins don’t DO anything especially cool. They do exist, though, and the mere existence of an animal that looks like the love child of an artichoke and an anteater is pretty freaking cool.
Pangolins are long-tongued, long-clawed, toothless, scaly, noxious fume-releasing mammals. In short, they’re weird-ass critters.
Pangolins do their pangolin thing (a.k.a. eat and hide) in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia. There, they scour the ground for anthills and termite mounds and use their long front claws* to tear open the nests. Once the ants are exposed, the pangolin closes its eyes, ears and nostrils (to keep the ants out, of course) and uses its wicked long tongue to collect the little buggers. That “wicked long tongue” attaches to the animal’s pelvis and, when the pangolin sticks it out, is between 10 and 16 inches long**. It (the “wicked long tongue”) is also covered in gobs of sticky saliva that the pangolin uses to pick up small stones, sand and live ants. The pangolin swallows everything as is—remember, it’s toothless—and sends the mess of bugs and grit to its stomach where the grit grinds up the bugs.
As cool as the pangolin’s “wicked long tongue” is, the animal’s real claim to fame is its ability to roll up. In fact, the name pangolin comes from the Malay word “pengguling” which has a few possible meanings. We like “something that rolls up” best. Anyway, when a pangolin feels threatened, it takes advantage of the sharp keratin scales that cover everything but its face by tucking its face under its tail and rolling up. Any predator would surely think it had come across an artichoke, or at the very least an animal that totally wasn’t worth the effort.
Alas, there’s one predator that isn’t deterred by a rolled up pangolin—or by the putrid acid a startled pangolin emits from its anal glands—and that predator, of course, is us. There are eight species of pangolin and all of them are declining. Pangolins are plagued by the usual problems like deforestation and poaching, but the main threat to these funny-looking animals is the growth in illegal pangolin trafficking. The growth in trafficking follows a growth in demand from China where pangolin meat is considered a delicacy and pangolin scales are believed to cure all sorts of ailments. A recent bust found 5 tons of pangolin meat, which officials estimated came from 1,481 pangolins. That’s a lot for a species that only gives birth to one young at a time.
*Because their front claws are so long, they often walk on four legs with their forepaws curled under or on their hind legs, using their tails for balance.
**Pangolins range in size from 12 to 39 inches.
Marine Mucilage, Ick!
What’s grosser than gross? How ‘bout a 100-mile long wad of E. Coli-infested mucus?
(Oh, sorry, did that make you gag? We said it was grosser than gross…)
Mucus wads—also known as mucilages—have been reported in the Mediterranean Sea since at least 1729, but recent research found that the loogies are getting bigger, lasting longer and harboring a whole lot of viruses and bacteria.
Mucilages are made up* of marine snow, a quaint term for little things (“snowflakes”) that fall to the ocean floor. These snowflakes include poop, dead or dying plankton, sand, soot and mucusy waste products from bacteria and plankton. In the coastal waters of the Mediterranean, where the sea is warm, shallow and relatively still, snowflakes glom together to form massive snotty blobs. As the mucilages grow they become heavier and heavier, eventually sinking to the bottom and smothering the ocean floor and all the critters that live there.
Suffocation by snot blanket is a miserable way to go, but this disgusting death is only the beginning of the mess caused by sinking mucilages. The sunken snot kills groundfish, an important, typically slow-growing part of the marine ecosystem. Groundfish are also an important fishery, but demand for snot-smothered fish isn’t particularly high.
All of this is thoroughly repulsive, but it gets grosser. Scientists recently discovered that mucilages are loaded with bacteria (including coliforms and E. coli**) and viruses. They found significantly more bacteria and viruses in a mucilage than in the seawater surrounding the mucilage. That means two things: 1.) Mucilages trap bacteria and viruses and 2.) Mucilages travel and they bring bacteria and viruses with them. In other words, a mucilage isn’t just a sinking blob of snot. It’s a roaming bacteria- and virus-infested snot ball—one that can kill or infect things that swim through it, fish and wetsuit-less humans, alike.
Ick.
Danovaro, Umani and Pusceddu (the scientists who reported that mucilage is teeming with bacteria and viruses) also examined the relationship between mucilage and environmental conditions. They found that mucilages tend to form in areas that people have been overfishing and polluting for years. They also found that mucilages were larger, more widespread and longer lasting when the water was warmer. Mucilages used to be a summer thing, appearing in May or June and vanishing by September. In the last decade, however, the Mediterranean has gotten snottier. Massive mucilages have appeared in November, December and January and lasted through the warm months. In March of 2007 (during a winter that was 2-3° C warmer than the normal average), mucilages stretched along more than 1,500 miles*** of the Italian coast.
Here’s the bottom line: marine mucilage is absolutely disgusting and destructive and, thanks to climate change, we could be seeing a lot more of it.
*The authors write: “Mucilage is made of exopolymeric compounds with highly colloidal properties that are released by marine organisms through different processes, including phytoplankton exudation of photosynthetically-derived carbohydrates produced under stressful conditions.” Aren’t you glad we translate this stuff for you?
**These bacteria are typically associated with the intestines of mammals…In other words, they’re usually found in poop.
***FYI: That’s greater than the distance between New York City and Dallas.
Danovaro, R., Fonda Umani, S., & Pusceddu, A. (2009). Climate Change and the Potential Spreading of Marine Mucilage and Microbial Pathogens in the Mediterranean Sea PLoS ONE, 4 (9) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007006
Endangered Cuteness
Meet the African wild dog (a.k.a. the African painted dog), perhaps the cutest endangered animal you’ve never heard of.*
African Wild Dog Conservation
Over the last 100 (or so) years, the number of African wild dogs has declined by 99% from 500,000 to 5,000. Most of that decline is our fault. Until recently, people killed wild dogs for two reasons: because they thought the way the dogs kill their prey was inhumane and because they thought the dogs would eat their livestock. They thought wrong. Wild dogs don’t eat livestock and the way wild dogs kill an animal is actually much more efficient (and therefore more humane) than the way lions and leopards do it.
People are still killing wild dogs today, but it’s mostly unintentional—they hit wild dogs on roads built through wild dog habitat and catch wild dogs in snares set to catch bush meat.
People are problematic, but the dramatic decline in African wild dogs isn’t entirely our fault. Lions, hyenas and the wild dogs’ own lifestyle are also to blame. Wild dogs are puny** compared to the other social carnivores that share their turf and that means they get picked on. Hyenas try (and sometimes succeed) to steal wild dogs’ kills and lions often kill wild dogs and then snag their kill for dessert.
How can African wild dogs survive in a land where humans are out to get them, hyenas steal their food and lions gobble them up? They have their ways…granted, given the 99% decline in their population, their ways aren’t necessarily successful.
To survive, African wild dogs have to avoid the big guys (the lions and hyenas) and to do that, wild dogs have to be different. The big guys have big stomachs that allow them to gorge on food when it’s available and wait a while between feedings. Wild dogs are different. With small bellies that allow them to run quickly, but limit the amount of food they can eat at one time, wild dogs are built for frequent, efficient pack hunting.
The whole pack hunts together with the exception of weak or injured dogs and young pups, who will stay with a babysitter. As a pack, wild dogs can take down an impala or a big animal like a wildebeest. Then, they dine by status. The youngest dogs eat first while the older dogs stand guard. When the young’uns have had their fill, the next oldest dogs dive in and so on. When the pack returns from the hunt, they’ll regurgitate for the pups, the babysitters and anyone else they left behind.
African wild dogs are totally dependent on their packs—their incredibly tight-knit lovey-dovey packs***–and that can cause problems. If a pack doesn’t score as much food energy as it needs when it hunts, it won’t have enough energy for reproduction. Without enough energy to reproduce, the pack is less likely to reproduce (says Captain Obvious) and that could lead to a smaller pack. Then, since smaller packs are less likely to have successful hunts, the pack ends up back where it started with too little food energy. This vicious circle is what scientists and economists call a “poverty trap.”
*Cotton-top tamarins are cute too, but in a funny-looking sort of way.
**Adult African wild dogs weigh between 37 and 79 pounds, which puts them somewhere between Springer Spaniels and German Shepherds, size-wise. Hyenas can weigh up to 190 pounds and lions typically weigh between 250 and 500 pounds.
*** Wild dogs are more social than other social carnivores. While wolves (a very distant cousin of the African wild dog) tend to maintain a distance of at least 15 feet between each other during rest, wild dogs snuggle up right next to each other.
****One more thing you should know: African wild dogs don’t bark. They twitter.
Kreativ Blogger
A few weeks ago, Lori from Green Gigs (a fabulously resourceful, but no longer active green jobs blog) honored us with a Kreativ Blogger award. Being named a Kreativ Blogger is quite an honor, but it comes with a catch: we have to pass the award on to 7 deserving blogs, comment at each blog to notify them of the award and, on top of that, we have to list 7 things we like. Geeesh! Choosing just 7 Kreativ Bloggers was a challenge, but here goes…
Deep Sea News – someone’s gotta write about the weirdness that abounds in the deep sea (did you know male chimeras have a retractable sexual organ on their forehead?) and these guys do a great job!
Malaria, Sea Lice, Bed Bugs and Sunsets – Promoting, in his words, “the vast left-wing conspiracy and queer, godless agenda” this coral reef scientist does a great job of being a champion for the deep.
Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) – She’s a scientist, a naturalist, a freelance writer and, last but not least, a funny person. So of course we like her stuff. She also started the wonderfully awesome Scientia Pro Publica (Science for the Public) blog carnival.
Observations of a Nerd – another scientist with a passion for making science interesting and understandable to the public. Obviously, we’re biased in our adoration of blogs that share our mission, but we don’t see a problem with that.
Lab Rat -We confess that we’re biased towards megafauna here at Mauka to Makai, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care about the little stuff. Lab Rat blogs makes little things—like bacteria that use antibiotics for food—cool.
Ange’s Story -the blog of a down-to-earth world-class triathlete and mother of 3… umm, inspirational would be an understatement
White Hot Truth -inspiration, motivation and a regular reminder that we’re all rockstars. Sure, sometimes it’s a little woo, but some days a hit of woo is just what you need.
And here are 7 things we like. Obviously, there are so many more, but we tried to keep it professional (ish):
-Killer whales
-Great green ideas
-Funny people (as in people who make us laugh, not the movie)
-Food (yes, we believe that food and chocolate each deserve a spot on this list)
-Juvenile trunkfish
