Zoadex

The amount of space a given body part or sensory system takes up in the brain increases, unsurprisingly, with the sensitivity of that organ/system. Think about your fingertips versus, say, your lower back. You can feel tiny distinctions of texture with your fingertips (which allows humans to learn braille, or move thumbs with the kind of timing and careful control required for those bulltrues on Halo). I don't think you can do that with your lower back. 

So, the area in your brain dedicated to fingertip control/sensitivity is much larger than the same area for the lower back. 

This may not seem that exciting by itself, but it sets up the real point here: Hedgehogs have a second, secret set of tiny whiskers far more sensitive than the long, conspicuous ones. 

These are microvibrissae, and are located beneath the tip of the snout, in dense concentrations. While the long, obvious whiskers take up only a small portion of the hedgehog brain, these microvibrissae have the largest representation in the second somatosensory cortex. They are, as a consequence, incredibly powerful tactile receptors1.

The relative space taken up by sensory organs in the brain. Image from Catania KC (2000) Cortical Organization in Insectivora: The Parallel Evolution of the Sensory Periphery in the Brain. Brain Behavior and Evolution 55:311-321

Their location at the base of the snout permits high resolution information about changes in texture and vibration in the ground, perhaps contributing to the ability of hedgehogs to sense prey even four centimeters beneath the ground2. Along with their keen low-light vision and excellent sense of hearing, these powerful, tiny whiskers make hedgehogs formidable predators to small lizards, insects, and Russian robot scientists. 

1. Catania KC (2005) Evolution of sensory specializations in insectivores. The Anatomical Record Part A: Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology. Special Issue: Nature's Experiments in Brain Diversity, 287A:1038-1050

Convergent evolution, the process by which organisms (potentially entirely unrelated to one another) evolve very (sometimes ridiculously) similar traits when they are adapting to the same niche. There are ideal forms or strategies for fulfilling certain functions.

The pig-footed bandicoot (Choeropus castanotis) was already being driven to extinction by Aboriginal Australians when Europeans arrived, and the last confirmed individual was killed in 1901. Unconfirmed sightings persisted for another couple of decades1.

John Gould's portrait of the beast. 

Aside from being totes adorbz, the pig-footed bandicoot is an interesting example of convergent evolution. Bandicoots are, contrary to Playstation’s opinion, relatively small, omnivorous foragers who spend most of their time rooting around in the dirt and eating whatever they can find. For the most part their feet end in long claws, good for digging and snagging grubs2.

Or, y’know, holding onto jetpacks.

But because the pig footed bandicoot danced and pranced around the Australian woodland (much like a very small pig, or deer), with a need to negotiate tricky obstacles at high speeds, their legs became long and elegant, their ears lengthened3, and, strangest of all, their toes turned into something like hooves. On the front feet, only two toes remained functional, and evolved long, hard, nails. On their hind feet, all but one of the toes withered, and the fourth turned into a tiny, horse-like hoof2. It’s worth noting that they retained muscular control of two of those reduced hind-foot toes, apparently for the purpose of keeping their fur nice and tidy4.

Normal bandicoot foot

Pig-footed bandicoot foot (front)

Pig-footed bandicoot foot (hind)

Similar, but totally unrelated, animals include the muntjack Muntiacus vaginalis (a deer) and the pygmy hog Porcula salvania (a pig, duh).

Muntjack

Pygmy Hog

Fun (and by fun I mean absolutely horrific) fact: the reason the species is occasionally named Choeropus ecaudatus is because the first specimen captured was “mutilated” and therefore lacked a tail2.

Burbidge A, Dickman C, Johnson K (2008) Chaeropus ecaudatus. In: IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Lydekker R (1945) A hand-book to the marsupialia and monotremata. Allen’s Naturalist’s Library. W.H. Allen & Company,

Shimer HW (1903) Adaptations to Aquatic, Arboreal, Fossorial and Cursorial Habits in Mammals. III. Fossorial Adaptations. The American Naturalist 37:819-825

Pigeons are awesome. Expect them to be featured often here. But special mention for straight up weirdness goes to a small clade (group of animals descended from a common ancestor) of five known species based on islands in the Indian Ocean.

Islands are sort of the evolutionary equivalent of Las Vegas, in the whole what-happens-in/stays-in sense. Tons of strange variations on the animal life we’re used to occur on islands, including variant humans (those “hobbits” you’re always reading about, for example1). One of the most famous examples of island endemism is the magnificent, much-maligned Dodo (Raphus culculatus). Or, as I like to call them, Giant Pigeons of Doom.

Everyone knows the Dodo’s tragic story, but what you might not know is that they have some fairly close living relatives2.

The Rodrigues Solitaire (ok, this one’s not living).

The closest relative of the Dodo was the Rodrigues Solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria), a bizarre, ferociously monogamous, kinda goose shaped pigeon. The Solitaire had bony knobs on their wings, which they used to beat each other up. They lived on the island next door. Unfortunately, they went the same way as their much better known sister taxa, for exactly the same reasons (that invasive trinity, humans, rats, and pigs)3.

The Nicobar Pigeon

The other three taxa in the group still survive. The closest living relative of the Dodo is the Nicobar Pigeon Caloenas nicobarica. The Nicobar Pigeon has a kind of mane of feathers, a gizzard stone that’s used as jewelry (one of the major threats to their continued survival) and is classified as “near threatened.”4 The Nicobar can still fly, and their immediate ancestor is believed to have flown to the islands Mauritius and Rodrigues and, finding no predators and an abundance of food, become fat and sassy and evolved into Dodos and Solitaires2.

The Victoria Crowned Pigeon

The Victoria Crowned Pigeon Goura victoria is among the most fabulous of living columbiforms. They’re bigger than your average chicken, have beautiful plumage, and are highly social, traveling with mates or in small flocks. They sport a pretty snazzy Mohawk and are considered “threatened” (from overhunting and the illegal pet trade5). They’re definitely the easiest Dodo relative to lay your eyes on in person, though, as they feature prominently in several zoos (including Central Park).

The Tooth-Billed Pigeon

Winning points for being possibly the weirdest of the surviving bunch is the Tooth-Billed Pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris). They’re endangered, and the few remaining individuals live in deep forests on Samoan islands6. Their name comes from the thick, curved beak, superficially similar to a much smaller, shorter, Dodo beak. The big difference, and the trait from which they get their name, are the toothlike structures on their lower jaw. Their name (Didunculus) means “Little Dodo.”7

Kaifu Y, Baba H, Sutikna T, Morwood MJ, Kubo D, Saptomo EW, Jatmiko, Awe A, Djubiantono T (2009) Craniofacial morphology of Homo floresiensis: Description, taxonomic affinities, and evolutionary implication. Journal of Human Evolution 61:644-682.

Shapiro B, Sibthorpe D, Rimbaut A, Austin J, Wragg GM, Bininda-Emonds ORP, Lee PLM, Cooper A (2002) Flight of the Dodo. Science 295:1683

Hume JP, Steel L (2013) Flight Club: A unique weapon in the wing of the solitaire, Pezophaps solitaria (Aves: Columbidae), an extinct flightless bird from Rodrigues, Mascarene Islands. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 110:32-44

BirdLife International (2012) “Caloenas nicobarica” IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1 International Union for Conservation of Nature.

BirdLife International (2013) Species factsheet: Goura victoria. Downloaded fromhttp://www.birdlife.org on 18/10/2013BirdLife International (2012) “Goura victoria” IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1 International Union for Conservation of Nature.

BirdLife International (2012) “Didunculus strigirostris” IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.1 International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The jungles of Central America feature a constant, cacophonous chorus exceeding the loudest battles-of-the-bands or the most exuberant southern Baptist ceremony. Many creatures lend their voices; monkeys howling, jaguars roaring, toucans screeching, and mice singing.

This is a thing. (image property of Disney)

Male singing mice, Scotinomys spp., are the Lloyd Dobblers of the rodent world. When attempting to seduce females in estrous, they belt out songs that range into the ultrasonic. In at least one species (Scotinomys teguina) quality of the song seems to be directly related to testosterone production, and castrati are (sensibly) rejected by females, their songs considered unappealing1.

When you’re a little rodent in the jungle, looking for a baby-daddy who can pass on some survival skills to your pups, you want DMX, not James Blunt.  

A high-quality male Dobblering it up. 

The larger of the singing-mouse, S. xerampelinus, is musical as well, and produces a louder, simpler song, compared to S. teguina2, but when a teguina male hears xerampelinus, he shuts up and gets out of the way3.

Humans can’t hear parts of the song, but what we can hear sounds a bit like small birds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwjjxj6ambY 4

1. Pasch B, George AS, Campbell P, Phelps SM (2011) Androgen-dependent male vocal performance influences female preference in Neotropical singing mice. Animal Behaviour, 82:177-183

2. Geographic variation in the songs of neotropical singing mice: testing the relative importance of drift and local adaptation.

3. Pasch B, Bolker BM, Phelps SM (2013) Interspecific dominance via vocal interactions mediates altitudinal zonation in neotropical singing mice. The American Naturalist, 182: DOI:10.1086/673263

That title was a little misleading. Chickens (Gallus gallus) are very modern birds, and certainly evolved long after the extinction of the dromaeosaurids.

The dromaeosauridae are the group of dinosaurs to which stars like Deinonychus antirrhopus, Velociraptor mognoliensis and Utahraptor ostrommaysorum (what you were actually seeing in those movies – does it really make sense for Allan Grant to be excavating something called mongoliensis in like, Montana?) belong. To wildly oversimplify, you could imagine them all as variations on the basic Velociraptor bodyplan, with some genera (like Utahraptor or Achillobator) reaching six or seven feet at the shoulder and twenty or more feet in length, and others (like Velociraptor or Microraptor) being about the size of a fox or chicken1. They were probably all carnivores, and most could be recognized by the trademark “terrible claw” on their feet2.

This thing. Arguably the coolest weapon evolution ever forged.

There’s evidence that many of them were intelligent pack hunters: “clever girl” stands as one of the few probably-accurate comments made about them on Jurassic Park. But just as some Canids today fit this bill (like wolves and African wild dogs) while others are solitary or at least mostly so (like foxes) there was likely a lot of variation in dromaeosaurid sociality3.

All this is just to introduce them. They’re incredibly charismatic, as evidenced by their death-grip on the popular imagination, and occupy a very significant place in evolutionary theory as the group of dinosaurs which most frequently left fossilized feathers. Even before we started finding those feather imprints, the dromaeosaurs were touted as the most likely direct ancestor of modern birds, and the inventors of avian flight4.

Dromaeosaurs like the four-winged Microraptor were at least capable of sustained gliding, and show some skeletal traits very similar to those birds use for flight5.

Others, like Rahonavis ostromi, may have had the wing structure and deep chest necessary to support flight muscles6.

But what if they didn’t invent it? What if they lost it?

The history of avian flight is much debated and the theories are often revised. Recent studies on the lineage of the dromaeosaurs suggest that the larger terrestrial predators (Utahraptor, Deinonychus, etc) are the more derived (meaning, distant in descent and evolution from the “original” dromaeosaur) and the smaller, feathery guys, like Xiaotingia, were the basal (meaning, O.G.) forms. Xiaotingia probably had fancy iridescent feathers and certainly had well-developed wings7

Xiaotingia – probably among the first dromaeosaurs

Deinonychus – among the later dromaeosaurs

The implication here would be that, like modern ostriches, the dromaeosaurs had once been proud-soaring dinoavians very similar (maybe identical) to primitive flighted birds. They would have been flitting around the Mesozoic skies until they saw an opportunity (like a habitat without other major predators), and, like the giant flightless birds we know and love, landed to take over the turf8.

To give you fair warning, this theory has been heavily criticized9. If you prefer, another is that they evolved flight as a way of holding onto their prey and ripping it to shreds while it was still alive. Paleontology: it’s one big choose your own adventure book4,8,9.  

Hwang SH, Norrell MA, Ji Q, Gao K (2002) New specimens of Microraptor zhaoianus (Theropoda: Dromaeosauridae) from Northeastern China. American Museum Novitates, 3381:44

Ostram JH (1969) Osteology of Deinonychus antirrhopus an unusual theropod from the Lower Cretaceous of Montana. Peabody Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 30:1-165

Maxwell WD, Ostrom JH (1995) Taphonomy and paleobiological implications of Tenontosaurus Deinonychus associations” Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 15:707-712

Fowler DW, Freedman EA, Scannella JB, Kambic RE (2011) The Predatory Ecology of Deinonychus and the Origin of Flapping in Birds. PLoS ONE 6: e28964

Chatterjee S, Templin RJ (2007) Biplane wing planform and flight performance of the feathered dinosaur Microraptor gui. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104:1576-1580

Makovicky PJ, Apesteguia S, Frederico L (2005) The earliest dromaeosaurid theropod from South America. Nature, 437:1007-1011

Senter P, Kirkland JI, DeBlieux DD, Madsen S, Toth N (2012) New Dromaeosaurids (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Lower Cretaceous of Utah, and the Evolution of the Dromaesaurid Tail. PLoS ONE 7:e36790

Mayr G, Peters SD (2006) Response to comment on “A Well Preserved Archaeopteryx specimen with Theropod features” Science 313:1238c

The world has changed a lot in 200 million years. You probably know about PANGAEA: SUPERCONTINENT, and at least one of our original readers will certainly be familiar with the geological sequel: SUPERCONTINENT 2: A HAUNTING IN GONDWANALAND. It’s in the later days of Gondwanaland, approximately 130-105 million years ago, that this particular fact (or theory, as the case may be) makes manifest1.

At this point, East Gondwana had separated from Africa and was, essentially, a crazy fusion of Antarctica and Australia. The result was like nothing on earth today. Scientists estimate the average yearly temperature around 40 degrees, ranging low enough to support permafrost, of which there is also evidence. Vast, chilly, forests covered large areas of East Gondwana, and the local dinosaurs evolved to handle strange circumstances1,2. Chief among these would have been the long nights. While the temperatures of Cretaceous Antarctica were higher than those in the area today, the months of darkness, the polar night, remained the same.

To cope with these long periods of cold and dark, some dinosaurs hibernated, others migrated2 – but some decided that sleep was for the weak, and vacations to Boca for retired Jewish ladies, and stuck it out3.

  Leaellynasaura are our poster dinos here: their enlarged eyesockets and signs of year-long metabolic stability are strong evidence that these dinosaurs were able to stay highly active in what even the Starks of Winterfell would consider bad weather2,3. The enlarged eyesockets are typical of creatures with extreme night vision, and their stable metabolisms (shown in bone growth) are a good indicator that they had no hibernation period.

Of course, this brings up an interesting question: if at least some species of dinosaur were well adapted to prolonged periods of cold and dark (thought to be the instruments by which the meteor impact did its deadly work), what really killed them?1

Rich TH, Wagstaff BE, Mason JM, Douthitt CB, Gregory RT, Felton EA (1988) Evidence for low temperatures and biologic diversity in cretaceous high latitudes of Australia. Science, 242:1403-1406

Bell PR, Snively E (2008) Polar Dinosaurs on parade: a review of dinosaur migration. Alcheringa. 32:271-284

“Our cruisers can’t repel firepower of that magnitude”

-        Admiral Gial Ackbar (saying something OTHER THAN “IT’S A TRAP,” PEOPLE. Please. Show some damn respect), Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi1

In 1979, a 29 year old dude was doing some day-drinking. As 29 year old dudes are wont to do, he followed that up by taking a poorly conceived dare from what I assume to be his friends (this was seven hours after the drinking had occurred, so presumably he had some time to sober up). The dare involved swallowing a 20 centimeter rough-skinned newt (Taricha granulosa). A few hours later he was dead. The cause was determined to be the newt, in isolation (as in, while he had been drinking earlier in the day and therefore had some toxins in his system, the amount of neurotoxin – specifically tetrodotoxin – found in the newt was sufficient to end a grown man)2.

This rough-skinned newt was not a particularly deadly rough-skinned newt. It was not the Boba Fett of rough-skinned newts, or something. It was a standard rough-skinned newt. Most newts do not live under the threat of predation by large primates, or really any large animal. They swim around and do their newt thing, and occasionally get snapped up by terrapins, turtles, fish, frogs, other newts, maybe the occasional bird…you get the picture. Small bodied animals. Things you don’t need enough poison to kill a human to defend yourself against. So why does the rough-skinned newt waste energy and evolutionary resources on firepower like that?

The same reason billionaire genius CEO Lex Luthor walks around with radioactive meteor bling that gives him cancer periodically: they have an archnemesis.

The garter snake Thamnophis sp. is a widespread but unassuming snake. It has a very mild level of venom itself – so mild that for quite a long time we believed it had none at all3. They’re extremely widespread, and not very big. Kids catch them in backyards, harass them for a while, and let them go. That kind of thing.

You don’t need to call in Rikki Tikki Tavi for these guys.

But to rough-skinned newts, garter snakes are ferocious predators. So ferocious that their entire toxin defense system has become “overbuilt” (in the same sense as those Pronghorn) to deter garter snakes, which, in turn, have an insane level of immunity to the particular brand of tetrodotoxin (most snakes are 200 times as resistant as mice to rough-skinned newt toxin; garters are 2000 times as resistant). Or at least, the ones that live in the same areas as rough-skinned newts do (in the business, we call that kind of habitat sharing “sympatry”)4. In fact, the level of toxicity of any given population of rough-skinned newts is a close match for the level of resistance to tetrodotoxin found in the local garters – if you mix and match from different populations, one side or the other gets an advantage4,5.

But Kaa don’t raise no fools. Garter snakes taste-test individual newts for toxicity. If they’re overmatched, this can be fatal, or at least result in severe paralysis and a very painful experience (snakes will bite their own throats during the poisoning. If the newt is too toxic, they let it go. If not, in the words of Audrey II, “It’s suppertime.”6   

“Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi” (1983)

Bradley SG, Klika LJ (1981). A Fatal Poisoning From the Oregon Rough- Skinned Newt (Taricha granulosa). Journal of the American Medical Association, 246:247

Vest DK (1981) The toxic Duvernoy’s secretion of the wandering garter snake, Thamnophis elegans vagrans. Toxicon, 19:831-839

Brodie ED III, Brodie ED Jr (1991) Evolutionary Response of Predators to Dangerous Prey: Reduction of Toxicity of Newts and Resistance of Garter Snakes in Island Populations.

Brodie ED Jr (1968) Investigations on the skin toxin of the adult rough-skinned newt, Taricha granulosa

Pet care books often lag quite far behind the times, in terms of what we know (or theorize) about domestic animal behavior and needs. That's being charitable, of course, since probably a bunch of them are just making stuff up. One of the more pervasive myths about dog training that you're likely to encounter if you pick up a book on the subject at your local PetCo is that tug-of-war is a dangerous game. Lose against your dog (Canis lupus familiaris, or Canis familiaris, depending on your taxonomic bent), the books will say, and you also lose his or her respect. 

This isn't at all the case. For one thing, it's pretty hard to lose the respect of your dog.

I can't speak for the Jolly Olly Man though.

It has been shown, by a team of researchers from the University of Southampton, that far from taking a "win" in tug-of-war as a sign that their opponent is slipping and that it's time to take control of the household into their own paws, dogs are more obedient following play bouts with their humans, even if it is tug-of-war, and even if the dog has won or been permitted to win1.

Maybe (and to the best of my knowledge this link hasn't been made conclusively) the tug-of-war behavior with dogs stems from social meat-tearing, a regular component of feeding among packs of wild canids. In such a situation, the goal would not be to remove the meat from the mouth of the other dog, but to split a hide into readily consumable pieces.

Packs of Lycaon pictus, the African Wild Dog, will surround their prey and play a deadly tug-of-war with the doomed beast, each dog pulling at its skin from a different side. Once the prey has been killed, the process is repeated to dismember it. All of this goes a lot faster with more dogs2, arguably making it cooperative.

Anecdotal evidence supports the idea that bigger, stronger, more dominant wolves (Canis lupus) will permit younger, subordinate wolves in the pack to “win” food from them in tugging competitions, particularly if the food item belonged to the younger wolf in the first place (as, one might argue, most dog toys belong to the dog). This loss in no way undermined the stronger wolf’s dominance3.

So go ahead. Bond with your dawg over some rope, and you can both imagine it's elk intestine and feel super rugged.

Rooney NJ, Bradshaw JWS (2001) An experimental study of the effects of play upon the dog-human relationship. Applied Animal Behavior Science, 75:161-176

Courchamp F, Macdonald DW (2001) Crucial importance of pack size in the African wild dog Lycaon pictus. Animal Conservation, 4:169-174

The giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama) can shift dramatically in shape and color, playing off a grand cephalopod tradition that includes the internet celebrity taxa “mimic octopus”1 and, of course, Dread C-Money, the Dreaming Dead himself, Cthulhu. The Giant Cuttlefish males and females typically look quite distinct – but all is not as it seems. Mated cuttlefish pairs maintain their monogamy mostly by the constant vigilance of the male half. As they swim around the Australian seas in marital cuttly-bliss, he uses his extremely sharp cephalopod vision to keep a lookout for any potential rivals. Other big, flashy, male shaped cuttlefish.

But the “97 lb weaklings”2 of the cuttlefish world have adopted a different tactic. Unable to fight the big guy man to man, they follow closely behind, having taken on not just the color, but the distinctive body shape, of females.

Essentially, metrosexual molluscs.

When the mated male is engaged in fighting another big rival, these sneak-spawners will dart in, and suddenly return to their true male shape, flashing mating colors in front of the female. Turns out, this works a decent amount of the time3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8oQBYw6xxc “The Indonesian Mimic Octopus” Uploaded by marcelnad

Charles Atlas, “The Insult” Advertisement series, circa 1940, “Classic Ads” CharlesAtlas.com

“Roll back the rock to the dawn of time – when the Earth was smokin’ and the lava flowed.”

-        Rex, We’re Back.1

So, despite that being a wildly inaccurate portrayal of the Mesozoic climate, it’s one of my favorite songs and has been since I was like three. Whatever. Point is, Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) are super rough, and they’re singlehandedly (talonedly?) reminding everyone that birds are just dinosaur horcruxes, and that the mammals-who-lived better stay on their artio/perissodactyl toes.

Yeah. That is what happens.

Golden eagles have long been known for taking large mammals as prey. Besides absconding with foxes, raccoons, bobcats, domestic cats2 and gorram REINDEER3 (also making an attempt on a young human in that one youtube video from a while back)4, they’ve been known to hurl bighorn sheep off the ledges they climb, then meander slowly down for an easy meal of bighorn sheep pulp5.

One Golden Eagle, an interwebs celebrity as of September 2013) apparently decided to show us what it takes to run things on earth for 210 million years. He or she was recently captured on film taking out a sika deer6 (note, this is a fairly large mammal, which can weigh up to 240 lbs in some populations)7.

The eagle likely accomplished that by crushing the deer’s spine or causing internal bleeding with talons that have fifteen times the grip strength of a human hand6.

I assume grip strength is measured in a unit called “Stathams.”

The most intense part? This method of hunting (latching onto the back and flapping to stay upright while making the kill) is now suspected to be the origin of flapping behavior in general. It's how we think Deinonychus and other dromeosaurids (basically bigger versions of Velociraptor, which was actually about the size of a fox) hunted, way back when8.

So the next time a little kid asks you what happened to the dinosaurs, don’t tell him or her they’re extinct. Tell the truth: they’re waiting. In the sky. Watching you.

By the way, I don’t have any rights to any of these images, and don’t claim to. So please don’t sue me.

 We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993)

 Olendorff RR (1976) The food habits of North American golden eagles. American Midland Naturalist, 95:231-236

 Nybakk K, Kjelvik O, Kvam T (1999) Golden eagle predation on semidomestic reindeer. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 27:1038-1042

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9feAQtgX1fw youtube.com “Golden eagle snatches kid” Uploaded by Mirrorviewvids

 McGahan J (1968) Ecology of the golden eagle. The Auk, 85:1-12

 Kerley LL, Slaight JC (2013) First documented predation of sika deer (Cervus Nippon) by Golden Eagle (Aquila chrystaetos) in Russian Far East. Journal of Raptor Research, 47:328-330

Nowak RM (1991) Walker’s Mammals of the World. Fifth Edition: Volume 2. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.

The fastest land mammal in the world is (duh) the cheetah Acinonyx jubatus. It lives in Africa.

The second fastest land mammal in the world is the Pronghorn Antelope Antilocapra americana (actually not an antelope at all, but more closely related to giraffes…long story). It lives in Wyoming (and other parts of the southwestern US)1.

The pronghorn can sustain a run at speeds of around 40 mph2. That’s substantially faster than you need to be to outrun a wolf or a puma (the fastest predators, besides humans with cars, in its current range).

Why?

This.

Smaug put it best:

“I have laid low the warriors of old, and their like is not in the world today.”3

There used to be something called the North American Cheetah, Miracinonyx sp., which could run much faster than any living North American predator. Like most American megafauna, it died out with the arrival of Native American humans. The pronghorn, however, managed to stick around, and has been running from ghosts ever since4.

Beintema JJ, Gaastra W, Munniksma J (1979) Journal of Molecular Evolution, 13:305-316

Lindstedt SL, Hokanson JF, Wells DJ, Swain S, Hoppeler H, Navarro V (1991) Nature, 353:748-750

Tolkein JRR, The Hobbit. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973. pg. 215-216

Who’s the ballingest of them all?

Easy. $crooge “multiple cubic acres of money” McDuck.

You know why he’s baller?

Not ‘cause he’s rich (Flintheart Glomgold is rich), but because he swims in gold. That’s what balling is. It’s driving “two miles an hour, so everybody sees you.”1 It’s being a hermaphroditic slug alien and keeping scantily clad humanoid females around just to show you can. It’s having antlers with the span of a small car.

He's as attracted to Oola as you are to him. Probably less.

The Irish Elk – James Potter would ask us to contemplate what they say about guys with big antlers.

The concept of balling is easily summarized by urban dictionary as “to be full of money”2 but I prefer a slightly more nuanced idea – after all, we don’t call someone balling until we know just how wealthy he, she, or it, is. And that comes from conspicuous consumption. i.e. making sure everybody knows just how much you can afford to waste.

Not surprisingly, flashy grills and giant chains worn without fear in dangerous neighborhoods have been a staple of evolution since time immemorial. The biological “baller” concept is known as the “handicap principle” (a term coined by zoologist Amotz Zahavi in 1975)3.

Think about antlers. Does it make sense to have gigantic, sprawling branches coming out of your head if your job is running through the forest really fast to avoid wolves? No. No it doesn’t. But when rutting season comes ‘round and your job is showing how much better you are at running through the forest really fast to avoid wolves than that other guy…if you can do that with a gigantic, hooked, obstruction on your head, the does are going to think you are teh sexx. Same goes for peacock trains and male cardinal colors and so on…(ibid).

You’re a pretty large bird that looks a lot like a nice turkey dinner living in the Indian jungle. How much of your energy could YOU afford to devote to growing, and then dragging around and showing off, something that makes it this much easier for leopards to catch you?

Ludacris feat. DJ Toomp, 2004, “Two Miles An Hour” on “The Red Light District.”

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=balling

The Latin name for the Mongolian Gerbil (the kind everybody has for a pet) is Meriones unguiculatus1. This binomial piece is often translated as "warrior with claws." The warrior in question, Meriones, is a character in Homer's Iliad described as "peer of murderous Mars."2 Gerbils, though exceptionally social and caring to their family (mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, and siblings all join in the raising of pups and look out for one another)3 will more than live up to their namesake's reputation when encountering an enemy4. 

Yeah. Like that.

Gulotta EF (1971) Meriones unguiculatus. Mammalian Species 3:1-5

Homer, "Iliad Book II," Project Gutenberg version.

Ostermeyer MC, Elwood RW  (1984) Helpers(?) at the Nest in the Mongolian Gerbil, Meriones unguiculatus, Behaviour 91:61-77