"The idea that there might be arboreal voles is not that radical – after all, tree-climbing and tree-dwelling are all over the place within muroid rodents – but what’s especially odd about Arborimus is that it’s only the females that live in trees; males (while capable of climbing) live in subterranean burrows or in piles of vegetation. In order to meet up with females (who might be 30 m up in the trees), the males do of course climb, and they also build nests in trees during the mating season (this lasts from February to September). Nevertheless, it seems that we have a fundamental difference here in how males and females partition the habitat. Is this reflected in their morphology? I don’t know, and I don’t know if anyone else knows..."

-Darren Naish waxing astonished re. obscure, freaky voles (The tree voles under discussion live in Oregon and California, which I didn't know before today.)

 Magpie hunts a baby rattlesnake:

 Cuttlefish pass marshmallow test

To examine whether cuttlefish could delay gratification for a better reward, researchers (Schnell et al. 2021) offered them an Asian shore crab (a less preferred food) immediately, or a grass shrimp (a more preferred food) if they were able to wait. The food was offered in two chambers with sliding doors. Before the test, cuttlefish were trained to recognize symbols on the doors that indicated if it would open immediately (a circle) or with a delay (a triangle). Most of the cuttlefish waited 50 to 130 seconds to get the more desirable grass shrimp, comparable to time delays shown by chimpanzees and crows.

Huchen and taimen appetites have also found their way into folklore. Ainu stories from Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido speak of monstrous taimen (known as chirai in Ainu) large and voracious enough to eat deer, bear, and humans whole. In Mongolia, legend tells of an especially harsh winter when starving herdsmen discovered a giant taimen trapped in river ice. Relieved to find food, the herdsmen chopped off pieces of its flesh. They survived the winter, but when the river ice melted in spring, the giant taimen came onto the land, tracked them down, and ate them all.

More taimen lore and biogeography here.

 Silphion discovered growing in Turkey (maybe).

 Razib Khan's latest quiz. Median score is 16. I got 27, and felt pretty good about it.

 Sloth bears! (with excellent photographs)

The Deep Sea.

I was not prepared for some of the mammals.

...it isn’t surprising that this [necrophagous] habit in armadillos has led to various concerns and superstitions: the idea that armadillos might excavate graves and consume the recently deceased is present in several areas, most famously in the Paraguayan Chaco. There are also all kinds of rumours about armadillos being especially abundant, or especially plump and healthy, in or near cemeteries.

An odd tidbit lifted from this longer piece from Tetrapod Zoology on predatory armadillos.

 Przewalski' horse cloned.

Now a portion of this lost genetic diversity may be recovered by cloning historic Przewalski’s horse from frozen cells. Successful breeding can increase genetic diversity by reintroducing lost variants to the surviving population. This is the hope for the new foal, Kurt, who was cloned from cells that had been cryopreserved at the SDZG Frozen Zoo in 1980. These were cells from a stallion that was born in 1975 in the UK, was transferred to the US in 1978, and lived until 1998. He was recorded as Stud Book number 615 (SB615) and known as “Kuporovic” by his zookeepers.

Sketches made alongside Darwin on the Beagle voyage:

A fish dying of decompression sickness reveals that the Congo is the world's deepest river.

Oldest fossilized slime mold: 100 million years in Burmese amber.

Depth perception in cuttlefish:

“Not only did the [team] provide compelling evidence that cuttlefish employ stereopsis, but they demonstrated that cuttlefish can be trained to wear equipment and respond to virtual stimuli.”

An update on those Russian foxes:

The Russian Farm-Fox Experiment is the best known experimental study in animal domestication. By subjecting a population of foxes to selection for tameness alone, Dimitry Belyaev generated foxes that possessed a suite of characteristics that mimicked those found across domesticated species. This ‘domestication syndrome’ has been a central focus of research into the biological pathways modified during domestication. Here, we chart the origins of Belyaev’s foxes in eastern Canada and critically assess the appearance of domestication syndrome traits across animal domesticates. Our results suggest that both the conclusions of the Farm-Fox Experiment and the ubiquity of domestication syndrome have been overstated. To understand the process of domestication requires a more comprehensive approach focused on essential adaptations to human-modified environments.

While the story of how they extracted proteins from dental enamel, then reconstructed the DNA, to link this giant ape to orang-utans is cool, the main takeaway is: there were ten-foot tall giant apes and I have missed them by a mere 1.9 million years. O tempora!

Parthenogenesis in anacondas

Welsh Neanderthals

Excavations at the cave by Amgueddfa Cymru between 1978 and 1995 unearthed a total of 19 teeth, discovered found deep inside the cave. These have been identified by experts at the Natural History Museum, London as belonging to an early form of Neanderthal..

Lambing season!

As an aside, the piebald lambs like this flecket are noticeably friendlier. Another data-point for the domestication/neoteny theory.

Shetland markings. Warning: rabbit hole.

Crocheted wire anatomy