#lydekker

Wild European Hamster - Cricetus cricetus

The European (or Common) Hamster is a close relative to the Golden Hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) of Turkey and Syria, which was the only species able to be successfully domesticated, at first. Unlike the golden hamster, the European hamster is considered a significant pest of cropland, though in many areas, they’re also considered endangered species, due to aggressive eradication efforts.

Like most members of their sub-order (Cricetinae), European hamsters have cheek-pouches, which extend down to their shoulders. They hoard food in times of plenty, and unlike squirrels and many other rodents of the Americas, actually keep track of where they bury or store their surpluses.

East Caucasian Tur - Capra cylindricornis

Turs are goat-antelopes from the upper altitudes of the Greater Caucasus (between the Black and Caspian Seas, in the countries of Georgia and Azerbaijan) Mountains, and reproduce using a combination of the rutting and lek systems, which includes normally-solitary males showing off/competing for females each year -

WAIT. STOP. HAMMERTIME.

Greater Kudu - Tragelaphus strepsiceros

The Greater Kudu is the spiral-horned antelope you'll find if you travel farther south than the savanna of central Kenya (north of which, the Lesser Kudu reigns). As a browsing ruminant, they can be found in small herds - though their population is declining rapidly - in most dry, warm, southern grasslands of Africa, where browsing material (bushes and shrubs) and a water supply is present.

Though humans have hunted the Greater Kudu (both for their horns and their meat) since antiquity, and still do to an extent that they're decreasing in population faster than they can reproduce, there is a curious upside to the modern human presence in southern Africa: as humans divert rivers and water sources to irrigate crops and trees, the territory of the Greater Kudu has increased impressively. The increased amount of dry territory with a water source has allowed the species to roam much farther than it ever would have naturally. Whether the spreading out of the still-declining population is a net gain for the species is not yet known.

Hermit Crabs. ([189-?])

Scotoplana sp. - Scotoplane or Sea Pig

The Holothurian (sea cucumber) genus Scotoplanes includes the "Sea Pigs" - deep-sea dwellers that live on the abyssal planes of oceans worldwide, including in the Antarctic. Anywhere over 1000 meters probably hosts Sea Pigs in some number. They prefer freshly-fallen organic matter for their food, and can travel miles to find things like whale carcasses, thanks to their excellent olfactory senses.

Sea Pigs and other sea cucumber species are some of the few hosts that exist on the abyssal floor which are suitable hosts to parasitic snails and tiny crustaceans, and they also serve as an important food source for other deep-sea creatures, such as sleeper sharks.

Apteryx spp. - The Kiwi

Aside from its obvious qualities, the kiwi bird is surprisingly unique in general. Where flighted birds have hollow bones to conserve weight, kiwis have bone marrow, akin to mammals. They have no keel on the breastbone (to be expected with such nubby wings, as the keel is there to anchor wing muscles), no tail, and a weak gizzard.

Most of the unique traits of the kiwi evolved to allow the bird to fill ecological niches that were open on the New Zealand islands, owing to the lack of mammalian species. The diet, behavior, and even sense of smell are all directly tied to filling in the niche of terrestrial insectivore. Other notable oddities about the kiwi are the cat-like whiskers around their beak and the massive size of their eggs: the bird itself is the size of a chicken, but can lay eggs over six times as large - one quarter the weight of the adult female.

Balearica regulorum - Grey Crowned Crane

This flashy bird is the most primitive of the living Gruidae, the family of cranes. Its direct ancestors existed as far back as the Eocene (56-34 mya). Though at least eleven species of crowned crane once existed throughout Europe and North America, they are not a cold-hardy genus, and went extinct over several ice ages. Notable, though, is the fact that the primitive crowned crane was not particularly cold-sensitive, though it possessed a largely identical body form. We know this because the fossils have been found on both sides of the Eocene "Icehouse" event (as well as both sides of the E-O extinction event, though that mostly impacted aquatic fauna), and they clearly survived the Oligocene to have developed into the forms that went extinct during the Neogene Period of the Cenozoic Era.

These days, the Grey Crowned Crane can be found in South Africa and throughout the Serengeti.