the photograph-hare and the tortoise

This is a Padloper tortoise, Homopus areolatus, in the beautiful surrounds of Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens. He was moving so fast when I first spotted him I thought he was a pangolin until I got binoculars on him.

Once I realised what he was I jogged up for a few close ups whereupon he decided to play hide and seek

before running off into the undergrowth.

I've written about Kirstenbosch previously here , here and here but since then Charlie has done a much better job of it.

Leopard Tortoise

The coolest member of the so-called "little 5" and one of my favourite chelonians is the leopard tortoise.

 They come in two flavours; normal....


....and chargrilled.


The second tortoise appeared to be a burn victim. I say victim but other than his horrible appearance he seemed utterly unphased by the injury and was doing his leopard tortoise thing (their thing seems to be walking as quickly as they can in a straightline ignoring a) people, b) other things, c) the obvious stupidity of their chosen route. Maybe they just know where they're going.

They get pretty big too.

Tortoise; no hares

We don't have any hares, rabbits or other lagomorphs of any kind running around the island (yet) but we do still have the odd one or two of these ruddy cheeked fellows ambling about.

This is the red footed tortoise, Geochelone carbonaria. The history of red foots in the Caribbean is an interesting one. They are probably not originally native to the islands; their original range extends from extreme south central america through a wide swathe of south america. There are a few different regional phenotypes. oh yeah: why the red-footed tortoise? Well check it out:

In the caribbean they have a fairly random distribution. It seems likely they arrived by ship in the 17th century and were released to provide a food supply. These are fairly large tortoises; 16 inches or so when full grown and would provide a fairly decent meal. They would also be useful from a food perspective in that they would fend for themselves and upon reaching a harvestable size they can be stored alive without food 0r water for vast periods compared to other animals.

Also tortoises are classified as fish by the catholic chuch and so large numbers continue to be eaten on Fridays in South America hence an increasing risk to the species. Out here they aren't doing to well on the main islands - this one is one of two roaming an urban park in semi-captive status and I haven't seen any others. I'm sure there are a few adults wandering about somewhere though. Young tortoises are rather vulnerable; especially to feral cats, mongooses, dogs and eggs fall prey to rats. Hence the population isn't rejuvenating itself. I'm told a couple of outlying islands and cays; free from such feral nastiness are stacked with baby tortoises though; time will tell.

Fancy meeting you here

This is not a Caribbean species nor is it an invasive pest....yet here it is in the Caribbean.

No, this is, of course, an Aldabra Giant Tortoise (Geochelone or more correctly Dipsochelys gigantea). Males can grow to well over 500lb in weight and big enough for a small child to ride....which is awesome.

Even more awesome is the fact that these guys are now being bred in sufficient numbers for a few to make it into the pet trade which is joyous because a) captive breeding suggests the species is safe; b) it means we can have several aldabran colonies instead of just one (the multi-egg basket theory), c) we have spare aldabrans for other interesting projects (see below) and d) the sort of people who own large luxury resorts and private islands down here can have their own herds. There are I'm reliably informed a number of monsters on Richard Branson's Necker Island, these photos were taken elsewhere.

Nowadays when we think of Giant Tortoises we tend to think only of these guys from Aldabra atoll in the Seychelles or of Lonesome George and his various close relatives from the Galapagos. But historically a number of islands have had very big tortoises including several in the mediterranean, Mauritius and a couple of islands in the Caribbean. This raises the interesting prospect of these free-roaming pets performing a useful quasi-pleistocene rewilding exercise by fulfilling the role of long-departed huge tortoises here. Before one gets too carried away by how exciting this is one should note that big tortoises are actually not all alike and that the various Galapagos species have evolved to fullfill various roles and therefore we cannot assume that just because a tortoise is big it will make a like for like swap for the poorly known extinct Geochelone sp. of the Caribbean.....but they do look cool, they are too expensive to unleash excessively and they won't do much harm so I'm in favour of it. More on Pleistocene Rewilding of Caribbean Islands to come btw.

Where's my elephant? (and I'd prefer the right one)

With a hat tip to Brian's awesome Simpsons referencing title your correspondent humbly offers some further thoughts on Pleistocene rewilding. By way of introduction according to wikipedia:

''Pleistocene Rewilding promotes the reintroduction of descendants of Pleistocene megafauna and/or the closest extant ecological equivalents for those large mammals that went extinct during the Pleistocene. This proposal assumes that communities today are ecologically similar to communities in the Pleistocene and thus that introducing megafauna that are functionally similar to those that went extinct 13,000 years ago would promote biodiversity. Pleistocene rewilding is an extension of the conservation practice rewilding which involves reintroducing species to areas they went extinct from in recent history (hundreds of years ago) (Rubenstein et al. 2006). The fact that Pleistocene rewilding is based on ecosystems that evolved 13,000 years ago makes it very different from and much more controversial than rewilding."'

So for those of you wondering when the Pleistocene was we're talking about 1.8 million to 10,000 years ago and for our purposes the last few thousand years of that time period. If you're wondering what megafaua the Pleistocene had think Mammoths, Mastodon, Camels, Horses, Bison, Lions and Cheetah. Less familiar may be sabre-tooth cats, glyptodonts, giant ground sloths, short-faced bears and so forth (the clickable names will take you to wonderful reconstructions of the various species by Carl Buell). In fact some 70 odd species weighing over 100lb disappeared from North America around 13,000 years ago. Our ability to bring these species back ranges from simplish (Bolson's tortoise survives in parts of mexico and is being reintroduced already) through semi-complicated (modern lions are the same species as the extinct American lion, Jaguar are still sighted occasionally in the USA but with both being large Panthera sp and therefore, you know, capable of hunting, killing and eating humans aren't the best reintroduction candidates for a skeptical public) through very complicated (you've probably seen the Discovery Channel shows about Mammoths - we might be able to rebuild them) to absolutely done for (Glyptodonts, Giant beaver and Ground Sloths anyone?).

The logic behind Pleistocene rewilding is that whilst piecemeal reintroductions (such as those of captive bred Bolson's tortoises or Aplomado Falcons) are ok, to truly make the ecosystem work again it is necessary to reinsert all the missing working pieces or facsimiles thereof. By way of example Yellowstone with its wolves back is a very different place to Yellowstone without because the wolves influence behaviour of herbivores and so affect the herbivores' impact on plants which affects the whole landscape (Donlan has referred to this as the need for a "landscape of fear"). Similarly missing mammoths are important in how they no longer browse vegetation - we can see this in modern Africa where ivory poaching reduced the number of elephants which caused thicker scrub which reduced the number of cheetah which couldn't hunt effectively therein. In fact you can see shadows of these missing mammoths whenever you look at massively armed american tree species like locust (Robinia pseudoacacia).

So I think the idea that modern ecosystems are flawed as a result of a pleistocene die-off works. Does the proposed solution?

Well sort of. Lets be clear - it is easy to poke holes at the concept, holes like:

- we can't restore everything, some animals have no modern analogue;

- how do we know we're correctly identifying the right modern analogue?

- it could be a huge risk inserting exotic species; invasive non-natives can cause huge environmental damage;

- lions, elephants and other suggested introductions are, like, dangerous and stuff;

- it won't be "really wild" if we have to fence it and intervene; and

- how do we even know its working?

And yet. There is something about this idea that takes hold in the mind of a naturalist. Something that suggests pronghorn without cheetahs aren't wild, aren't pushed. Something that suggests that, even if just in a fenced off ranch, man shouldn't be the only influence on landscape. Something that says we should fix what our ancient ancestors broke.

I think both the "faults" against and emotional "motivations" in favour of Pleistocene rewilding above are kind of wrong. What is gone can in all likelihood never be restored, at least not by the hand of man. Nonetheless there is every reason to suspect that a Pleistocene rewilded area in North America would function somewhat better than the same area would if not rewilded and there is only one way to find out. Wicken Fen (one of the world's oldest nature reserves) uses a herd of Konik ponies to maintain the status quo of its vegetation. They are not native, not quite right for the region but they do the job perfectly.....and that is how we should view the "Pleistocene analogues" as living tools to help reshape a damaged landscape closer to how it should look. Its not perfect but its one of the best schemes we've got and if there's a billionaire American rancher reading this and looking for a fun project I say lets roll the dice and see what comes up.

Meanwhile in Russia Sergey Zimov is creating a similar ranch for an animal that may never arrive. Pleistocene Park will (hopefully) repopulate an area of Russian wilderness with Saiga antelope, Wood bison, Musk oxen, Siberian Tiger and Amur leopard....oh and hopefully mammoth. Without successful cloning the keystone species will never turn up; its too cold for any living elephant and it will probably remain a dream. But whilst we're dreaming lets dream perfect....then lets wake up and try to achieve something close to perfect.

Further reading.

This was of necessity a somewhat superficial look at a rather complicated idea. I hope you found it interesting enough to maybe read some of the links below and leave your love it/hate it thoughts in the comments.

Shifting Baselines blog (feat. Josh Donlan)

Pleistocene Park proposal

Search Magazine on PW

original Nature PW proposal

American Naturalist paper on PW

I and the bird #43: IATB at the Movies!

Welcome to the I and the Bird multiplex cinema. I’m glad you found us. Why don’t you head over to the lobby where you can pick up some nice refreshments; perhaps a warbler-friendly coffee or a nice glass of wine (from a bottle stoppered with a real cork naturally). Anyway enough chat, here’s your ticket so once you’ve picked up your refreshments make your way through to the screens and enjoy our feature presentations.
Currently showing on our 24 screens are a range of new and classic movies. Here’s this week’s listings:

Screen 1: A Man For All Seasons (1966) - One of the main characters in the tale of Sir Thomas Moore is a cardinal; just like in Pam’s backyard over at Tortoise Trail [I know what you’re thinking and yes the film links are all going to be this tenuous].

Screen 2: The Maltese Falcon (1941) - The real Maltese falcons were a famous race of peregrines so prized for falconry they were the only rent paid by the Knights of St. John for possession of Malta during their tenure. Sadly the peregrines of Malta (like most of the other birds) are long gone but Duncan of Ben Cruachan Blog went searching for peregrines in Australia and found a whole lot more.

Screen 3: Winged Migration (2001) - the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory gives us some background on the practicalities behind the wonders of bird migration and what happens next.

Screen 4: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) - To quote the titular Mr Burgundy “Stay classy San Diego”. Amy of Wildbird on the Fly stays classy birding at the San Diego Bird Festival.

Screen 5: Batman Returns (1992) - We’re not showing the recent Christian Bale effort but Tim Burton’s gothic classic in which the Bat does battle with a bird; the Penguin. Over at Neurophilosophy we can learn about real life bat and bird battles.

Screen 6: Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) - I think my pirates are a bit more interesting than Johnny Depp’s although I will concede my post lacks the Keira Knightly factor.

Screen 7: Singin’ in the Rain (1952) - The Bird Ecology Group of Singapore don’t sing, they go birding in the rain (well perhaps they sing also but the post doesn‘t mention it so who knows?). As an aside maximum respect for this because when it rains in Sg it can absolutely bucket down. As a second aside I wish I'd found these guys during my six months in Singapore as they find some amazing birds.

Screen 8: Le Grand Bleue (1988, French, subtitles) - Luc Besson’s masterpiece is about two competing freedivers exploring the ocean; Craig of Peregrine’s Bird Blog encounters two freedivers of his own, 1 mammalian and 1 avian, as well as a few other treats.

Screen 9: The Gold Rush (1925, silent) - Chaplin’s Little Tramp heads to California to prospect for gold, 82 years later Liza of The Egret’s Nest visited an historic gold rush town whilst prospecting for birds. The chocolate sounds nice too.

Screen 10: It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) - I’m talking not about a gigantic rubber octopus attacking San Francisco but rather the horned puffins popping up in the Channel that were an unusual sighting for Matt of Sitka Nature.

Screen 11: Miami Vice (2006) - I’m sure Charlie was well behaved on his trip to Miami but the black markings around the throat on the yellow-throated warblers in the gallery at his Bird Blog do remind me a little of Colin Farrell’s handlebar moustache.

Screen 12: The Seagull (1975) - Should Chekov have referred to one bird or four? Nemesisbirder investigates lumping.

Screen 13: Carnival in Costa Rica (1947) - Patrick abandons the Hawk Owl’s Nest for warmer climes in sunny Costa Rica. He may or may not have visited a carnival whilst there.

Screen 14: Welcome to Pooh Corner (1983, animated short) - Disney fans, I’m afraid Woodsong’s Cindy isn’t blogging about that adorable yellow bear with a fondness for hunny but the other type of pooh : manure (and the birds that love it).

Screen 15: Revenge of the Nerds (1984) - Should it’ve been called “Flight of the Dork-winged Sparrow”? Leigh from Alis Volat Propiis has the gen on a new species.

Screen 16: The Longest Spur (1968) - 10,000 Birds’ Mike shares a tale of 2 longspurs; one seen, one unseen (but without the original film’s western style gun fighting obviously).

Screen 17: Confessions of a window cleaner (1975) - Well I presume Sunnybank keeps the windex handy to enjoy all these birds. Nice pictures too. How appropriate her blog is the "View from my Window"

Screen 18: Private Benjamin (1980) - In this film Private Benjamin (Goldie Hawn) ends up spending time with elite regiment the Thorn Birds. Trevor of Trevor’s Birding came across some thorn birds himself; Chestnut-rumped Thornbills.

Screen 19: Cold Mountain (2003) - I don’t know if Jayne’s Journey Through Grace took her up a mountain but she’s obviously somewhere very cold - check out this Carolina wren.

Screen 20: The Birthday Party (1968) - Bogbumper’s Katie and Darren celebrated Darren’s Birthday in style with a trip round the English coastline of the county of Norfolk. Unlike the film they weren’t menaced by mysterious strangers but were mobbed by friendly snow buntings.

Screen 21: Where Eagles Dare (1968) - This must be a film about Birdfreak's expedition along the Mississippi River in Illinois, USA. Not just a few eagles either; lots and lots of eagles.

Screen 22: The Eagle has Landed (1976) - Not only did Birdchick see eagles land, but she saw some actual celebrities too. All the details are here in a post that I trust has the requisite truthiness.

Screen 23: The Da Vinci Code (2006) - This film features a monk who keeps turning up where one wouldn't expected. So did David's GBBC. All the details and more at Search & Serendipity.

Screen 24: Night of the Living Dead (1968) - Although this isn’t a blog post I couldn’t resist the chance to pun about the good news that somewhere in Australia the Night parrot is still Living and not, as thought Dead (geddit?). Especially since no-one contributed posts about nesting cuckoos.

-----fin-----

Well this sucks.

Pam, author of Tortoise Trails and possessor of bird feeders of which I am very very jealous, asked in relation to a recent post on turtles about 2 fish that look like sharks hitching on the turtles. Well these chaps are remora. There are a number of species around the world which range from cute, stripey juveniles living in whale sharks' ears to the big turtle sitting efforts in that post.

Above is a picture of an unattached remora (its blue because the flash didn't fire in the shallows) showing the "sucker" on top of its head. Those on top of a turtle are upside down. You can see the sucker is made up of various ridges which by manipulation can create an addhesive suction. You also often see unattached remora swimming alongside their host taking advantage of the aerodynamic (well hydrodynamic) draught (just like F1 or NASCAR drivers). They then fully detach and pick up scraps when the host feeds - you can see this behaviour in my turtle feeding frenzy post.

Here's a small remora hitching on a carribean reef shark's chin. As my dad always says if I was a shark I'd eat those free-loading little so and so's.

Links, Links, Links!

So one of my New Years Resolutions was to set up a proper links page with proper links and some sort of order. Good communications are important as this american kestrel has discovered.

I'm continuing to add new blogs as I find them but if I've omitted you from the list below in spite of your links, my comments on your blog or you want to be on the list below for any other reason please forgive my omission and either comment below or email me at p.taihaku at gmail.com . Thanks in advance. If I haven't neglected you why not take a moment to check out some of the stuff below your less familiar with - I promise you it is all good stuff.

Plants
Garden Rant
Tree Growers' Diary
Botany Photo of the Day
Pollinators Welcome

Underwater
Optical Ocean
Pond Lady's Pad

Birds
10,000 birds
Mike's Digiscoping
Charlie's Bird blog
Wildbird on the fly
Stokes
Nene Washes World
A DC Birding Blog
Hawk Owl's Nest

Natural science blogs
Darren Naish - Tetrapod Zoology
Bootstrap Analysis

Natural art blogs
Olduvai George
Rigor Vitae
Endment

Nature blog
Tortoise Trails
Ben Cruachan
Bogbumper
Firefly forest
Niches
Swamp Things
Pure Florida
Gallicissa

If you're wondering about the nudi comments the kestrel above has replaced this tuesday nudi.

sweet tortoise lurvin

So, I headed to San Diego zoo yesterday with my better half with a view to exploring one of the world's best conservation-minded zoos. San Diego zoo/wild animal park has had massive success as part of any number of endangered species breeding programs especially with reptiles. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised things got slightly x-rated in the reptile section. The video below is more hard shell than hard core but is best viewed with the sound up so you get the, erm, full experience.



He was still going when we left but, since the reptiles are by the exit, we popped in to look for a couple of species that hadn't been showing when we first walked round before leaving and he was still going several hours later.

Carribean Anole Blues #1

The cool thing about islands and island chains is weird endemic variations. Take the Galapagos. You start out with one generic finch and one generic largish tortoise (or possibly two). Spread them out over a few different islands, leave 'em for a while and you end up with a load of slightly different species and as always its the little differences that makes life interesting. But this doesn't just work for far flung islands like the galapagos and exotic creatures like flightless rails or super-tortoises. Take America's favourite island playgrounds; the Carribean. It has so many variations on the standard Anole that it needs a database.

The pics above and below are both the same lizard which I think may be Anolis krugi, a bush anole. I actually saw at least 3 and possibly 5 species of lizard in the same garden. Since anoles often have sexual dimorphism as well this is where things get confusing.

More anoles and hopefully more accurate id's to come.

A little online reading

I've updated my list of favourite blogs on the right. As always the themes of my favourites are in some way nature related. Two blogs have disappeared not because they are nolonger favourtiesm of mine but because they related to birding the last calendar year and are no longer being updated. Keeping up the yearlisting theme I've added "the not very big year", a blog of 2 birders aim to see all the breeding birds native to the uk in a year. This strikes me as a much healthier attitude to listing than chasing half-drowned yankee vagrants that have been sand-blasted accross the atlantic by a hurricane and its very entertaining and well written.

Optical Ocean is written by one of my fellow regulars at digitaldiver.net. These guys are all wonderful underwater photographers far more talented than I, and Jack is no exception. Check in to check out his stunning images and thoughts on the world above and below the water.

Bootstrap Analysis will be familiar to IATB regulars and is a very erudite and nicely written blog. Tortoise Trail is written by another blogger-photographer from Arizona, Pam, what is it about Az that produces lots of good nature blogs?

Olduvai George earns his spot on the list because of his wonderful nature illustrations drawn using photoshop in the main. Not only that but his nom-de-plume is one of the best paleoanthropology puns ever and I'm a big fan of puns.

Finally there's Botany Photo of the Day. I've mentioned this before and had a couple of different entries use my images, which I continue to submit via the BPOTD flickr pool. I like this one because in addition to a great image you get a lot of info about that image every day. Always educational.

Cape peninsula reptiles

My recent trip to South Africa was focused on water based activities so unfortunately I didn't have time to take a trip to any of the major game reserves. I did spend half a day at Solole game reserve which is a small game park on the Cape Peninsula which is effectively within the suburbs of Cape Town. Work is being done to restore the flora there to natives of the Cape Floral Kingdom, and antelope, buffalo and a sole black rhino have been introduced so far. What caught my eye though was the number of small reptiles that were abundant in the area.
This is a Southern Rock Agama (Agama atra)

and this is the Cape girdled lizard or Black Zonure (Cordylus cordylus)

I was pleased to see these species as it showed me the area was relatively unspoiled for the smaller animals and that the whole ecosystem could be maintained.

Down by Solole's excellent restaurant this huge Leopard Tortoise (Geochelone pardalis) was wandering about (hat included for scale). I got the feeling he was a regular used to treats from the salad bowl.