Pleistocene Amberjack (Seriola dumerili)

I watched Food Paradise with my wife the other night, and we heard the chef of a restaurant in Florida say grilled amberjack was the house specialty. My wife asked what an amberjack was, and I told her it was a fish. She knew that, but she wanted to know what kind of fish an amberjack was.  This blog article is for her.

The greater amberjack is a large predatory fish found in warm ocean waters around the world.  They swim in schools located 60-200 feet deep, but they prefer coastal waters studded with manmade and natural structures such as shipwrecks and rocky outcrops.  Amberjack migrate to those structures to spawn, so their small offspring can hide in the crevices from larger fish.  Greater amberjacks reach a length of 6 feet long and can weigh up to 40 pounds, and they prey upon fish, squid and crustaceans.  During summer they expand their range north, and some populations migrate toward shore.

Greater amberjack.

Greater Amberjack range map. They prefer deep waters near the coast.

As far as I can determine, not a single fossil specimen of amberjack has ever been found.  None are listed on the paleobiology database.  However, amberjack are a deep water fish and potential fossil locations are likely inaccessible.  Amberjacks belong to the Carangidae family which includes jacks and pompano, and they’ve existed for millions of years.  Genetic evidence suggests amberjacks from the Atlantic colonized the Mediterranean Sea during the Late Pleistocene after an existing population there had already split into 2 clades.  The population of amberjacks in the North Atlantic recently diverged from the population in the Gulf of Mexico.  Closure of the ancient Tethys Sea, and the rise of the Isthmus of Panama caused speciation in the Seriola genus.

Grilled amberjack. Some specimens of amberjack can be toxic.

Amberjack living in tropical waters can accumulate toxins in their flesh by eating smaller reef fish that have been exposed to dinoflagellates responsible for red tides. 

Fish is my favorite food to charcoal grill.  I think fish flesh absorbs the charcoal grill flavor better than any other protein.

References:

Bobie T. ; et. al.

“Two Seas, Two Lineages: How Genetic Diversity is structured in Atlantic and Mediterranean Greater Amberjack Seriola dumerili: Russ 1810 (Perciformis, Carangidae)”

Fisheries Research

Swart, Belinda

“The Evolutionary History of the Genus Seriola, the Phylogeography and Genetic Diversity of S. Lalandi (Yellowtail) Across its Distribution Range”

PHD Thesis Stellenbosch University 2014

Yellow Autumn Wildflowers in my Neighborhood

My neighborhood is on the top of a fall line hill in a sandy soil zone. The sandy substrate originated during the Eocene (55 million – 33 million years ago) when this region was a sea shore. It is a narrow zone found across 6 states, and it borders the oak-hickory-pine forest to the north and the open pine savannah zone to the south. The original dominant trees in this zone were sand laurel oak and longleaf pine, but the latter has been replaced by loblolly pine which is faster growing and less dependent upon frequent fire. Before European settlement the region was subject to periodic grass fires that thermally pruned the open woodland. Today, fire suppression results in thick growths of oak saplings on vacant lots. The original environment likely consisted of widely spaced pine and oak with an abundance of herb and grass species growing in the sunny undergrowth. The name of my road is “Piney Grove,” indicating what this area looked like about 50 years ago when the road was first paved.

This time of year 3 common yellow flowers bloom in my neighborhood, and there were probably acres of them here before it was subdivided into lots and landscaped with non-native turf grasses. Cottony goldenaster (Chrysopsis gossypinus) is a tough plant well adapted for growing in hot sunny conditions with sandy soils. I assume the name is based on the appearance of the bud before the flower blooms–it resembles an unopened cotton ball. I could find just 1 scientific study of this plant, and it focuses on anatomical distinctions between this and similar species. I’ve noticed 1 species of bee, 1 species of butterfly, and a small hornet, pollinating this perennial. This species has probably occurred in this region for millions of years because it has had similar climate and soil for ages.

I have a natural patch of cottony goldenaster in my yard. I don’t have to spend money on flowers.

Common sulphur butterfly (Colias philodice) pollinating a cottony goldenaster flower. The fall brood of this butterfly is greenish-yellow and they look like a leaf. They feed upon clover during their larval stage.

I don’t know what species of bee this is. But it is also pollinating a cottony goldenaster.

Sticktights (Bidens sp.), also known as beggar-ticks, produce a zoochorus fruit. The fruit sticks to fur, feathers, and clothing, and the seeds are spread throughout the environment in this way. It’s impossible for a deer, fox, or human to walk through a field and not inadvertently collect many of these fruits. 150-200 species of sticktights exist.

Fruit of the sticktight. These fruits stay on the plant after it dies and this increases the chances for the seeds to be spread by passing animals.

There are even more species of hawkweeds (Hieraciums sp.). Botanists count over 10,0000 species of hawkweed. I think the species in my neighborhood is field hawkweed (H. aespotosum), but I am no botanical expert and I don’t even know of a source with all 10,000 species illustrated, described, and compared.

Hawkweed.

Spotted Hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) May Have Persisted in Europe until 7,000 BP

European climate might be more suitable for spotted hyenas than African climate, according to a 10 year old study published in Quaternary Science Review. Ironically, the spotted hyena is presently extinct in Europe and survives on the continent of Africa and nowhere else, except zoos. Hyenas thrived from Spain to the Ural Mountains for about 3 million years. Genetic evidence suggests hyenas from Africa invaded Europe in 3 waves: 3 million years ago, 1 million years ago, and again 300,000 years ago. The hyenas in Europe were a subspecies of the African hyena, given the scientific name Crocota crocota spelaea and are commonly known as the cave hyena, though most individuals never ventured into a cave. Their primary prey consisted of horse and bison, but their diet also included rhino, deer, ibex, bear, lion, wolf, and other hyenas. Some of these prey items were scavenged, but hyenas actively kill most of their food. European hyenas were on average 40% larger than African hyenas–evidence European climate and habitats were a more optimum environment for them. European female hyenas (for hyenas females are generally larger than males) weighed up to 225 pounds, while African hyenas weigh up to 140 pounds. Hyenas occurred in Europe during all climate phases of the Pleistocene, including interglacials, glacials, interstadials (warms ups during cold stages) and stadials (cool downs during warm stages). This suggests climate change alone can not explain their extinction in Europe. Competition with humans was likely the cause of their extinction there, though scientists believe hyenas succumbed to a combination of environmental change and competition with humans. I disagree with this notion because if humans are eliminated as a variable in the equation, hyenas would still occur in Europe. Thus, humans alone are the cause of their extinction. Hyenas persist in Africa because tropical diseases kept human populations low on large areas of that continent.

Image of Crocuta crocuta spelaea.

Fossil Presence of spotted hyenas in Europe from 126,000 years BP-21,000 years BP. Note how they still occurred in the middle of Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (the white circles). Image from the below reference authored by Vareles et. al.

Scientists think hyenas went extinct in Europe about 11,000 years ago, but a new study touts evidence hyenas persisted in Spain until ~7,000 years ago. Some Spanish scientists studied hyena coprolites (fossil feces) found in 2 caves in Spain. The coprolites dated between 37,000 calendar years BP-7,000 calendar years BP. The authors of this study concede younger dated coprolites might have inaccurate dates due to contamination. However, the focus of their study was an analysis of pollen grains found in the hyena coprolites. Palynologists attempt to reconstruct past environments based on the composition of pollen grains, and they use them to estimate past climate. For example during cold dry climate phases pine and grass pollen predominates in samples, while moist warm climate phases show an increase in oak pollen. The pollen profile of the youngest dated coprolites are consistent with the floral composition of the early Holocene, so it seems likely the radio-carbon dates are accurate, and hyenas lived in Spain as recently as 7,000 years ago.

References:

Deidrich, L; and K. Zak

“Prey Deposits and Den Sites of the Upper Pleistocene Hyena Crocuta crocuta spelaea (Goldfuss 1923) in Hoorjostid and Ventral Caves of the Bohemian Karst (Czech Republic)”

Bulletin of Geoscience 84 (4) 2006

Ochard, J. et al

“Palynology and Chronology of Hyena Coprolites from the Pinur Karstic Caves Las Ventanas and Carihoula, Southern Spain”

Paleogeography, Paleoclimatalogy, and Paleoecology 552 August 2020

Vareles, S; J. Lobo, J. Rodriguez, and P. Baten

“Were the Late Pleistocene Climate Changes the Responsible for the Disappearance of the European Spotted Hyena Population? Hindcasting a Species Geographic Distribution over Time”

Quaternary Science Review 29 2010

Unusual Adoptions in the Animal World

11 cats live in my yard–2 adults, 3 subadults, and 11 kittens.  Stripey, the biological mother of 8 of my yard cats, is the tamest.  She runs inside our house like she owns it.  She is supposed to be an outdoor cat, so to coax her outside I open the door and throw food on the porch.  Naturally, this positive reinforcement encourages her to run inside the house whenever we open the door and are in an hurry to make it in time for a doctor’s appointment.  Stripey doesn’t let me exercise either.  When I jog up and down the street she follows me until I sit down in our special place and pet her.  2 of her subadult kittens are less tame, though they sit and watch me when I pet their mother.  The other adult cat in my yard is Midnight Runt who also sits and watches me pet Stripey but never quite has the nerve to get within arm’s length.  Midnight Runt is less tame than her subadult spawn, the Cardupnik, who purrs when she is near me and lets me pet her when she is eating. (Cardupnik is the Yiddish word for little person or shrimp.)

Stripey.  She lost her first 2 litters but has so far successfully raised her next 2.  She is less than 3 years old but has had 4 litters already.  Maybe I need to crush up some birth control pills in her cat food.

Midnight Runt watching me pet Stripey.

All the cats are good climbers.  A neighborhood dog chased some of them into this tree hollow.  They play on my roof every morning, hunting squirrels and birds there as well.

Stripey had a litter of 5 kittens a month ago.  The timing suggests she went into heat before her previous litter was weaned.  What a slut.  I really want 2 or 3 cats, not 10; but Stripey was not through increasing my cat population.  A kitten, a few weeks older than Stripey’s, wandered into my yard a week ago from the woods behind my house.  This kitten was stressed, mewling nonstop for 36 hours.  Its biological mother was probably a feral cat that was killed by a car, coyote, dog, or heartworm. Or perhaps the orphan wandered too far away and got lost.  Stripey adopted this orphan kitten, nursing it alongside her own.  The orphan has quickly learned when I put food out and no longer flees at the sight of me.  The orphan also watches me when I pet Stripey.  Nevertheless, there is a sad look in its eyes.

Stripey’s 5 biological kittens, plus the 1 she adopted.  The orphan is a few weeks older than the others.  The orphan is on the step.

It is not unusual for a mother cat to adopt kittens that are not her own.  The caring instinct is so strong they will sometimes adopt puppies, baby rabbits, and infant squirrels.  Their mortal enemies may be brought up to think they are a cat.

I did a little research and found some strange adoptions in the animal world.  Gorillas and crab-eating macaques have adopted kittens.  In the wild a lioness adopted a baby antelope.  Perhaps the most unusual adoptions occur in captivity where a baby hippo bonded to a giant tortoise, and a baby macaque became attached to a wild boar.  (See: https://www.thedodo.com/12-remarkable-interspecies-rel-523336558.html ) Most unusual of all would be an human raised by animals, but none of the accounts I researched are reliable.  Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome, were allegedly left for dead but were saved by a mother wolf that nursed them.  However, this legend originated 500 years after Rome was founded in 753 BC.  Reliable accounts of feral children do not clearly indicate they were raised by animals.  Instead, it seems more like they were living with wild or domestic animals and had little interaction with humans.  In some cases of neglect toddlers crawled around with cats and dogs and lived on pet food.  They never learned to act human during a crucial phase of development.  Another famous case involved a 5 year old slave of a goat shepherd in Spain.  He received some training in outdoor survival before his master abandoned him, and he lived in the wild for 12 years before police captured him.  He claims he blundered into a wolf’s den to escape a cold winter’s night and suckled from a mother wolf alongside her puppies, but he was not actually raised by a wolf.  He was probably used to suckling milk directly from goats, and it wasn’t that much of a stretch to nurse from another animal.

The Giant Short-Faced Bear (Arctodus simus) Ate Seals

Scientists excavated the foot bone of a giant short faced bear from Daisy Cave on San Miguel Island 30 years ago, but the most modern scientific techniques were not used to analyze the specimen until recently.  The giant short-faced bear was a large bruin, weighing up to 2000 pounds, that ranged across North America from Alaska to Florida until it went extinct about 11,000 years ago.  It was closely related to the extant spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) and the extinct Florida spectacled bear (T. floridanus).  The latter species was apparently more common than the giant short-faced bear in southeastern North America, but specimens of Arctodus have been found in Florida, eastern Alabama, and Virginia.  New studies of Arctodus have dispelled long-held erroneous misconceptions about it.  It was not hyper-carnivorous and was more of an omnivore like most extant species of bears.  Its legs were not unusually long as wrongly depicted in most illustrations, and its face was not that short.

Typical erroneous illustration of Arctodus simus.  It was very large, but its legs were not unusually long nor was its face unusually short.

The foot bone discussed on this blog entry.  Image from the below reference.

San Miguel Island is 1 of the Catalina Islands located off the coast of California.  The Arctodus specimen found in Daisy Cave is unusual because not many species of extant and extinct mammals occurred on the Catalina Islands.  Scientists are aware of just 10 species, including the extinct pygmy mammoth (Mammuthus exilis).  Today, Daisy Cave is located adjacent to the ocean, but 17,000 years ago (the age of this specimen) it was located well inland because sea levels were much lower during the Ice Age.  Arctodus specimens are known from 9 sites in California, but this is the only 1 known from the Catalina Islands.  The authors of the below referenced study propose 4 possible scenarios explaining the presence of this specimen here: a) it came from an individual that belonged to a population of Arctodus that colonized the island, b) it was an individual straggler than swam to the island, c) the bone was carried to the island by people, or d) a bird of prey such as a terratorn, condor, or eagle carried the bone to a nest on the cave.  No other bones of Arctodus have ever been found on the island, while dozens of pygmy mammoth bones have, suggesting it probably didn’t come from a population of Arctodus that lived on the island.  The date of the specimen pre-dates the known occurrence of man in the region by about 4,000 years, though there’s ephemeral evidence of people in the region earlier.  The authors of the study favor scenario d, but I doubt a bird would carry an heavy foot bone of a bear that far from the mainland.  I favor scenario b. During the Ice Age San Miguel Island was just a 5 mile swim from the mainland–not too strenuous for a strong healthy bear.

Scientists identified the foot bone using morphology and genetics.  It compared favorably to known specimens of Arctodus foot bones.  Though grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) can have similar size dimensions in their foot bones, they are not known to have occurred in California prior to 5200 years ago (the date of the oldest known grizzly bear specimen from within the state.)  An analysis of the genetics determined the bone belonged to a bear more closely related to the spectacled bear than any bear in the Ursid genus.

Scientists also analyzed the bone chemistry of the specimen to determine its diet.  Based on the chemical ratios, they estimate seals made up 16%-22% of this individual’s diet, while bison and/or camel made up the balance.  (I’m skeptical of these studies.  See: https://markgelbart.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/trust-the-coprolites-not-the-stable-isotope-analysis/ )  The authors of this paper assume the bear scavenged dead seals, but I’m sure a 2000 pound bear is quite capable of subduing a live seal.  Arctodus likely ate whatever it came across and could catch.

Video of a polar bear killing a walrus.  I’m sure a giant short-faced bear could easily kill a seal and would not necessarily rely on scavenging to obtain seal meat.

Reference:

Mychajliw, A. et. al.

“Biogeographic Problem-Solving Reveals the Late Pleistocene Translocation of Short-Faced Bear to the California Channel Islands”

Scientific Reports 10 2020

How to Cook Farm-Raised Quail

When I moved to Georgia during 1976 there was a beautiful old field between my neighborhood and a fishing pond.  We lived in the Cedar Creek subdivision located in Athens, Georgia, and I don’t know who owned the land with the pond we often trespassed upon.  Sadly, that land has been transmogrified into a shopping center parking lot.  Clarke County should have purchased the land and made it a park.  Back then, it was hilly and covered in tall yellow grass and within sight of a bottomland forest that grew alongside a chain of beaver ponds.  The outlet of the pond was a small waterfall that led to pools where large catfish often became trapped.  Crayfish and claw-less freshwater shrimp abounded in the creek, and signs of raccoons-their hand-like paw prints and discarded crayfish shells–could be seen all along the sandy creek side.  An otter slide led to part of the stream.  Deer darted into plum thickets.  One side of the 4 acre pond was bounded by a thick growth of alder; centuries old oaks shaded the other side where we usually fished.  Every Saturday morning while my friend and I headed toward the pond for another fishing adventure, we were frequently startled by the sudden drum-like explosion of a quail covey.  They could have stayed hidden in the tall grass and we would have never known they were there, but apparently we crossed a danger zone for them.  The explosive sound of a quail covey launch probably scares predators too.

Covey of Quail.

Populations of northern bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus) currently are in decline, and I have not heard its 2 note call in several years.  Quail prefer old fields, grasslands, and open pine savannahs–habitats that have been replaced by 2nd growth forests, pine tree farms, subdivisions, and urban sprawl.  Bobwhite quail survived population declines during Ice Ages.  A study of bobwhite quail genetics determined their populations declined during the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago but stabilized at the end of the Ice Age ~10,000 years ago.  Subfossil remains of bobwhite quail dating to the late Pleistocene have been excavated from 8 sites in Florida, 3 sites in Virginia, and 1 each in Georgia, Alabama, and Texas.  Quail remains along with those of ruffed grouse were the most common bird bones found in Kingston Saltpeter Cave in Bartow County, Georgia, dating to ~13,000 years BP.  Predators such as owls and hawks likely carried them into the cave.

Bobwhite quail belong to the New World quail family (Odontopharidae) group that is related to Old World partridges.  There are 32 species of quail in the Odontopharidae family, but the northern bobwhite quail is the only species native to eastern North America because this region has more continuous homogenous habitats.  They are a sister species to members of the quail family in the Callipepla genus which includes California, scaled, and Gamble’s quails.  Most other species in the Odontopharidae family are found in Mexico and South America.  The family likely originated there.

Photo of the inside of a quail farm in Georgia.  Nestlings like heat.

Kroger’s Supermarket sells a box of 4 dressed quail for $6.49.  Most other stores, if they have it at all, are double the price. These quail come from a farm in Greensboro, Georgia about a 90 minute drive from my house.

The best way to cook quail is to broil or grill them.  Unfortunately, most restaurants deep fry them–a culinary crime.

Farm-raised quail is readily available in supermarkets, and they are easy to prepare.  The best way to cook them is to sprinkle them with lemon juice, salt, and pepper; then stick them under a broiler for 15-20 minutes.  They can also be grilled.  Marinate them in your favorite marinade, and charcoal grill them for about 5 minutes per side.   (Wild quail may require a different cooking method.  I never cooked wild quail.)  Quail tastes a little better than chicken, but they don’t have much meat.  At least 2 birds per person should be served.  Deep-frying quail is a travesty, and they should never be cooked that way.  The breading covers up the delicate taste of the meat.

Reference:

Halley, S. ; et. al.

“A Draft De Novo Genome Assembly for the Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) Reveals Evidence for Rapid Declines in Effective Population Size Beginning in the Late Pleistocene”

Plos One March 2014

A Pre-Historic Sloth-Eating Monster

A real monster inhabited the wetlands of South America during the Miocene between 20 million years BP-6 million years BP.  Purussaurus brasiliensis, an extinct 34 foot long caiman, preyed on everything from fish to giant ground sloths.  No complete skeleton of this giant caiman has ever been found, but the size was estimated from several skulls.  It weighed over 10,000 lbs. and was more than a match for any beast living in South America during the time it existed. The few marsupial carnivores that lived then didn’t offer much competition.  It was almost as large as Deinosuchus rugosus, a 39 foot long crocodylian that ate tyrannosaurs during the late Cretaceous.

Purussaurus was a 36 foot long caiman that lived in South America during the Miocene and preyed on giant ground sloths.

Illustration of purussaurus preying upon a ground sloth.

Recently, scientists examined a fossil arm bone of a giant ground sloth (Pseudoprepothenum) and determined it had 46 tooth marks made by a purussaurus.  At least 6 other species of caiman and crocodiles lived then in South America, but purussaurus was the only species large enough to attack and subdue a giant ground sloth, though this particular specimen was estimated to weigh about 100 lbs. The sloth specimen was found near Iquitos, Peru along with many other fossils of fish, reptiles, and mammals.

Reference:

Pujos, F. and R. Salos-Gismonde

“Predation of the Giant Miocene Caiman Purussaurus on a Mylondontid Ground Sloth in the Wetlands of Proto-Amazonia”

Biology Letters 2020

Trump-Supporting Christians are a Bunch of Full of Shit Hypocrites

I have no respect for the stupid pieces of shit who voted for Donald Trump.  Their gullibility is astounding.  They believe every word this clownish con man says, no matter how ridiculous or easily fact-checked and debunked.    Indeed, they disregard facts and reality as “fake news” and would rather live in an alternate reality where they think Trump is carrying out orders directly given by Jesus.  Deep down, they may not actually believe everything Trump says, but they like the way he re-affirms their hidden and usually not so hidden racism.  They just love the way he demonizes brown-skinned people.  80% of white evangelical Christians support Trump, making this group his most steadfast supporters. They are colossal hypocrites.  During the Clinton impeachment hearings 60% of evangelical Christians thought poor moral character disqualified a candidate from being president.  Now that Trump, the most immoral man on the planet, is president, only 20% think poor moral character disqualifies a candidate from being president.

On NPR a few days ago, a journalist was interviewing wavering Trump supporters about their reaction to the Republican National Convention.  Some jerk from North Carolina said Trump won him over again when Trump invoked God as the savior who would solve all the current world problems.  (Incidentally, this jerk said he was to the right of the Republican Party which would classify him as a fascist.)  What?  Trump doesn’t believe in God.  Trump has broken at least half of the 10 Commandments.  He’s committed adultery with Stormy Daniels and numerous beauty queens and porn stars, and over 50 women have accused him of sexual assault.  He’s regularly broken the commandment against stealing, and he currently is still breaking that commandment.  He ripped off college students with his phony university, and he often didn’t pay the construction workers who built his buildings.  His entire family used a charity as a campaign slush fund.  And currently he is using the White House to enrich his business in violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution by continuing to own hotels used by diplomats and lobbyists attempting to curry favor with him.

Trump also violates the commandment against idolatry when he names buildings after himself, and laughably he asked how he could get a graven image of himself added to Mt. Rushmore.  Trump bears false witness on a daily basis–he’s told over 20,000 documented lies since he’s been president.  This is an astonishing number, even for a politician.  Trump has indirectly violated the commandment not to kill.  His incompetence has led to the deaths of over 180,000 people from Covid, and his policy of de-regulating environmental protections will lead to the premature deaths of tens of thousands more people.  When Trump invokes the name of a God he doesn’t believe in, he is using the name of the Lord in vain.

Look at the fanatical cult-like support Trump has among evangelical Christians.  Note also the sea of white faces.

I’ve been unfriended on Facebook by a few of my peers that I graduated from high school with because of my criticism of Trump and their support for that pig.  I’m sorry to say most white suburban men my age (I am 58) still support Trump, despite his obvious incompetence, failures, and inability to handle the job of presidency.  These Trump supporters are evangelical Christians who constantly post biblical scripture on their Facebook pages–it is “Praise Jesus this and Praise Jesus that.”  Their hypocrisy is disgusting.  Trump goes against just about all of Jesus’s teachings.  Jesus said it is easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.  Trump’s tax cuts benefitted the rich and increased the tax burden (especially in the long run) on the poor working class people.  His recent proposal for a payroll tax cut will bankrupt Social Security in 3 years.  Rich people don’t need Social Security, but poor people sure do.  Trump also wants to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act which would take health care away from tens of millions.  What would Jesus do?  Deprive poor people of health care?  Would he be for separating children from their parents and putting them in cages?

Trump deliberately incites strife, pitting groups of people against each other–certainly another action Jesus would not approve of.  Instead of working with big city mayors to quell civil unrest, Trump is blaming them and sending thugs in unmarked vans to abduct peaceful protestors, thus pouring gasoline on the fire.  Instead of a plan to bring police and protestors together to discuss their differences, Trump openly sides with police brutality, encouraging them to slam car doors on protestors heads.

One of my former Facebook friends told me he likes the way Trump is working to block illegal immigration because he doesn’t want them to bring drugs across the border.  This is another example of hypocrisy.  I enjoyed doing drugs with this Trumpanzee in college, he once bird-dogged a drug deal for me, and he was arrested by the DEA on a college campus where he was doing drugs in the open.  But now, he wants to stop undocumented people from crossing the border because a tiny minority of them might be drug dealers.  The bible says we should welcome immigrants whether they are legal or not.  In Hebrews 13:2 it says strangers shall be welcomed and even entertained.  And in Malachi 3:5 it says God will pass judgement on those who turn aside strangers.  My ex-Facebook pals probably think that only applies to white immigrants.

Trump’s following is cult-like.  I think he literally could shoot someone on 5th avenue and his support would not fall below 40%.  The absurd Qanon conspiracy theory is spreading most rapidly among evangelical Christians, and this is not surprising.  Shmucks dumb enough to believe in a bizarre end of the world cult are dumb enough to believe Trump is battling a secret deep state group of cannibals and child molesters.

I’m confident Biden would beat Trump in a landslide, if the election was fair.  Trump’s presidency has been an embarrassing failure, and thankfully enough smart people can see through his re-election strategy of blaming Biden for the civil unrest occurring during Trump’s presidency.  No president has ever been re-elected with an economy that includes a tripling of the unemployment rate, and Trump should have already been removed from office for asking a foreign leader to interfere in our elections.  However, I’m afraid the seeds of sabotage have been sown.  An overwhelming number of mail-in ballots sent in by Democrats just won’t be delivered in time because Trump’s crony is now in charge of the postal service.  Instead of a crushing defeat like Trump deserves, there will be a disputed close result, and it will be up to the Supreme Court.  I don’t really believe in prayer.  Nevertheless, I’m praying for John Roberts to side with decency.

 

Wilderness Rebounded Following the Black Death

The recent ill-advised lockdown that failed to stop the spread of the coronavirus reduced human activity for several months, and the wildlife noticed.  Deer and coyote, normally more active at night, began roaming big city streets in broad day light.  It doesn’t take long for wilderness to rebound when the presence of humans is diminished or eliminated.  The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is now 1 of the greatest nature reserves in the world, thanks to radiation fallout which makes the area an unpopular place for people to reside.  Past epidemics have led to the rebound of wilderness.  Europeans introduced many infectious diseases to the Americas, resulting in an 80% reduction in Indian populations.  Many Europeans then mistakenly believed the Americas had always been a sparsely populated segment of the world.  They collectively forgot their own past history with the bubonic plague.

The bubonic plague is believed to have originated in the Gobi Desert, possibly in the gerbil population.  Fleas spread the dangerous bacteria (Yersinia pestis) to the Mongolian raiders descended from Ghengis Khan who then carried it to Europe during hostile invasions and through free trade.  During 1347 a merchant ship with an 100% infection rate arrived in Venice, Italy and soon the plague spread throughout Europe in fleas carried by rats.  People slept on straw mats, crowded together in unsanitary condition, and bubonic plague outbreaks exploded.  In addition to being flea-borne the bacteria could be transmitted through the air between people in close contact with each other. The plague is an horrible disease, killing people in 3-4 days, and the victims die in agony–their lymph glands literally burst with toxic bacterial waste and white blood cells.  The victims turn black, hence the name “Black Death.”  50% of the population died.  Not enough agricultural workers remained alive to harvest the crops, and combined with bad weather from the onset of The Little Ice Age, famine soon followed the plague.  Wild animals and wilderness soon took over much of rural Europe.

Bubonic plague, originating in Asia, decimated European populations for 2 centuries and wilderness areas rebounded.

Birch and aspen trees quickly sprouted in abandoned fields that were soon replaced by oak forests with trees that eventually grew 150 feet tall.

Huge oak trees like this grew on abandoned agricultural land following the Black Death.

Grass growing in abandoned grain fields fed herds of wild cattle and horses recently freed from their dead human masters, and these escapees interbred with their wild cousins.  Bison expanded their range.  Soon birch and aspen forests sprouted in the fields, and moose invaded the new natural areas to feed on the saplings.  Brown bears enjoyed the fruits of long neglected orchards.  Eventually, oak trees shaded out the birch forests, and they grew to enormous size–the acorns feeding wild boars and roe deer.  Lynx and wolves reclaimed land they’d lost in the previous centuries.

The aurochs, the ancestor of modern cows, along with cattle that went feral roamed the European countryside in the years following the Black Death.  The Black Death likely delayed the extinction of the aurochs by centuries.  They didn’t become extinct until 1527.

Red deer and horse populations increased when human populations decreased.

King Jagiello escaped an outbreak of the plague in 1426 when he retreated to an hunting manor in the Bialowitza woods.  No roads or bridges penetrated this vast wilderness.  Royalty protected this wilderness for centuries, and today it is just a partial remnant of the post Black Death rebound of nature.

Wolf packs took over when humans disappeared from large areas of Europe.

Spotted Lions

Vast areas of Africa remained sparsely inhabited until well into the 20th century, and I think this is why more megafauna survives on that continent than any other.  Some quite large African animals were unknown to Western science until the 1900’s, including mountain gorillas, bonobos, and okapis. A rare big cat, probably extinct now, could be added to that list. Last week, I wrote about post speciation hybridization events in big cats, and following the completion of that article, I recalled reading about reports of spotted lions in Africa.  I wondered if a population of leopard/lion hybrids might recently have existed on the dark continent.  I researched everything I could find about spotted lions on the internet, and the verdict is inconclusive.

Photoshopped image of a spotted lion.  

A pelt of a spotted lion killed by a Kenyan farmer in 1931.  This is the only proof they ever existed.

During 1931 a Kenyan farmer shot and killed a pair of spotted lions that were stalking an herd of buffalo.  A few other locals had also seen spotted lions, and the natives knew this animal as the marozi and distinguished it from a leopard.  Later, Kenneth Dower led an unsuccessful expedition to find spotted lions.  Lion cubs often have spots that they retain through sub-adulthood, but reports of spotted lions hunting suggested these were adults.  Spotted lions were reportedly intermediate in size between lions and leopards.  There are 3 possibilities.  The marozi may have been a distinct species or subspecies of lion adapted to living in a forested montane habitat.  (All of them were seen at high elevations in the mountains.)  They may have been a population of lion/leopard hybrids.  Or they may have been a population of lions with a mutation for a spotted coat.  Scientists could answer this question with a DNA analysis of the pelt from the specimens shot by the Kenyan farmer, but so far no one has attempted to do this.

Lions share a close evolutionary relationship with leopards, but presently the physical appearance and behavior patterns of the 2 species are much different.  Lions live in prides and hunt in open habitats, while leopards are solitary and prefer environments with more trees and bushes.  The common ancestor of both likely had a spotted coat.  Lions lost their spots when they began occupying tawny-colored savannahs and deserts where a plain coat offered better camouflage.  It’s a curious possibility that a population of spotted lions, closely related to the ancestor of all lions and leopards, may have continued to exist until the 20th century.  I’m convinced they are extinct now.  They may have been a relict population killed off by farmers.