Megafauna - Tumblr Posts

Illustrations Show Size Difference Between Prehistoric Animals and Modern Descendants

I actually never posted the finished titanis painting i did last year, which was the 2nd picture i uploaded onto my deviantArt.. better late than never! A Titanis walleri (based off of Florida Museum of Natural History mounted reconstruction and andalgornis ferox holotype skull) stalks the North American plains in the South-East looking for prey under the careful watch of some unidentified corvids and vultures from a dead tree. . . . #digitalpainting #digitalart #art #artistsoninstagram #artist #paleoart #paleoartist #theropod #terrorbird #phorusrhacos #phorusrhacidae #phorusrhacids #terrorsquacker #titanis #titaniswalleri #bird #birdofprey #blackandwhite #megafauna #iceage #carnivore #digitalsketch

Footnote: Heya, Feel like seeing more ramblings like this? Here is my current blog! Due to some technical issues with the old one, I will be rblging the original MMM and CFF posts on this account, as well as continuing both lil series further on!

Creacher Feature Friday 5: I’m Utterly Terrified of Moose and You Should Be Too

I have noticed, on occasion that some people, even avid animal lovers, can still have that one critter that just gives them a passive comic dread. And I don’t mean the normal “spiders scary” or “rodents have gross vibes” gut reactions that society virtually conditions into anyone, I’m talking about the “I know way too much of this animal for my own good” kind of irrational, obscure fear. An organism that has a trivia card that makes you feel like you had some kind of innocence robbed from you ever since the knowledge was allowed to permeate into your prefrontal wrinkles, laying their dastardly seeds of hyper-specific heebies and jeebies.

I’m not gonna pretend you didn’t read the title, so I’ll cut to the chase for the tea I’m about to spill about these utter beasts of the North.

Everyone for years has always been “do X to avoid/survive grizzlies” this or “watch out for cougars” that but DON’T let the framing of Bambi or The Land Before Time Make you overlook the one thing that makes the largest wolves and even brown bears look almost harmless: the herbivore that must be ready to defend itself against them at the drop of a hat.

By the numbers alone, moose are responsible for more injuries and deaths annually than grizzlies and Timberwolves combined.

Despite being another (the largest) member of the deer family, these things are no freaking whitetail. Throw away everything you have come to understand about smaller deer if you find yourself in the presence of a moose. For one, they largely do not have a strong baseline fear of human beings like more common deer would. In the temperate US and beyond, deer are more known to just immediately flee the area if an ant farts 5 feet away. Moose give z e r o fucks about your presence until you give them a reason to. And this in part leads to some horrible accidents and danger, because less savvy people sometimes mistake their boldness to being “friendly” or open to further approach. While not quite so temperamental as a hippo, they can quickly turn from apathetic to downright deadly from provocation or harassment. This is doubly a jeopardizing position to remain in when dealing with rutting bulls or calving mothers, both of which more likely to decide against fleeing and choose ruining your entire day and then some.

Ideally, at such point, you would have scurried as soon as humanely possible for cover or anything sturdy you could weave around to have between you, and that angry moose. Let’s say you don’t manage that, or that you were the kind of idiot that tries to stand their ground against a provoked moose instead of taking the first few hints. The good news is that you don’t have to worry too much about those horns bearing down on you, they’re mostly just for flexing on other moose anyway. The bad news is, you’re free and open to receiving the business end of those front hooves, instead. Try to struggle back or get back up and you’ll basically recreate that bear attack scene from The Revenant, only with less slashing and more rib-breaking blunt trauma in its place. Probably the same amount of screaming. Moose attack to eliminate a threat, so the only thing you can viably do in a trampling is to assume the fetal position, pray, and more or less play dead until the moose has moved on. Not “stopped stomping”, but straight on wandered a safe enough distance away to allow you to make a proper retreat to safety and some much needed medical attention, if you’ve survived.

And if you still have no idea how much of a bad time you’re in for against a pissed moose, look. at. The. Size. Of. Them.

Seriously, not even counting the antlers or the head, these behemoth beefstacks can tick a 7 foot or more height just from hoof to shoulder. In fact, even forgetting their spicy behavior for a second, one reason their sheer size is such a public hazard on its own is because of what happens when a moose and a car meet on the road.

You know how any common wisdom or Driver’s Ed course will tell you up and down, “Whatever you do, don’t swerve for animals! Hit the brakes and hope that deer/dog/opossum makes it, but for all that’s good and holy don’t rocket off into the ditch for them!”

Moose turn this lesson ass over tea kettle. They’re probably the only animal I know of where the explicit expert advice is to take your chances with the ditch over hitting one of these head on. Note this additional size comparison with an compact car.

Notice how the front of this thing is uh… right on level with being able to leg sweep a moose rather than directly hit it? I’m not going to go into too graphic detail of what happens when gravity gifts a 1,200 pound deer straight into one’s windshield, but let’s just say it’s not pretty.

Here’s some other cursed facts about NA Moose, besides their size put into perspective:

• They can move each eye and ear independently of the other.

•Their stomach can hold around 100 pounds of food at once.

• They can sprint about 35 miles an hour (in case you thought running was a valid option).

• They can easily kick in a 360 degree radius around themselves.

• Another term for “The fear of moose” is apparently Alkiphobia

• That flappy bit of flesh that sags beneath their chin is known as a “bell”, or dewlap. Males and females both develop one, and no one knows for sure what their main purpose is.

• One of the warning signs they can give before an attack, is to pee fiercely, staring you down.

• Due to wolves being a natural predator of theirs, they really, really hate dogs. Having a dog or few in tow has in some cases caused moose to go out of their way to attack them along with their human owners.

• You’re not safe in the water either! They’re not just competent swimmers, but natural professionals, able to dive almost 20 feet deep and hold their breath for a full minute.

• The above ^ fact is why there have been reported occasions of killer whales feeding on moose, as a treat.

• We should probably be grateful their even larger cousins aren’t still around instead.

• And, something a little haunting for me above the rest: North America moose can sometimes fall dead-end host to an infection of actual, unironic brain worms, which can make them behave much more aggressively and confused in the later stages of the disease. Here’s a video, in fact, of an individual with brainworm charging a man minding his own business.

I’ve never seen a moose up close in my entire life, I don’t live remotely close to where I would have to to even be able to do that, and you know what? I think I’m extremely and comfortably ok with that, but I am cursed with the knowledge that they are out there, like some Monster-Hunter esque boss that found itself a cozy footing (hoofing?) in the real world. Pouring one out for you, moose, you rudely massive ruminants. You have earned my distant respect, by which I mean you intimidate me enormously.

Extremely important to increase awareness that often large herbivores are even MORE dangerous to you than the majority of carnivores. We don’t have natural predators anymore. We actually look very inherently intimidating and unnerving to most animals because of our body language and build. There are incredibly few species, few and far between, that may opportunistically try and see if we are a potential food source, usually desperate and exotic predators our most vulnerable are severely unlikely to ever encounter.

If something that eats meat is attacking you, incredible odds are that it is defending itself, its resources, or its young against you as a last resort. If they come out of a fight with a disabling injury, they are practically already dead. Their ability to fight starvation is so determined on keeping themselves in fit shape. They might not be able to go without food long enough for a broken leg to heal or at all if their sight is damaged enough. Even if they are trying to test out if you are good prey, most predators will somewhat reliably give up the attempt as soon as you can prove you are more more trouble than you are worth the calories spent trying to subdue.

To prey animals, you are the predator they have to dissuade or terminate in order to save their own lives if they have decided you are threatening them. The options they have to survive you in their mind are fight or flight. And if they did not evolve to primarily flee, watch out. Any scuffle they start with you they have started with the full expectation that either you or them may not make it out alive. Megafauna like moose are literally evolved to stomp opportunistic wolves to death (why they attack sled dogs) and beat grizzly bears back just to earn another day of browsing greenery. Hippos are 3,000 pounds of fresh meat surrounded by half a dozen infamous large predators. Do the math and it will be obvious why they are the most aggressive beasts in Africa. Why they have to be to stay alive.

The nutshell at the end of the day, and what I think is a much more bumper sticker worthy piece of wildlife advice we all would love to beam into the heads of average people is this:

If it does not fear humans, humans SHOULD fear it.

Any entirely wild animal that doesn’t react to your presence by trying to leave the area is not something laymen should want to interact with. Ever ever. If it is approaching you, back away. If it is holding its ground, back away. If it is in fact trying to get away from you, ffs, don’t chase after and corner it. Not adhering to this one idea I really really feel is the number one reason preventable wild animal attacks happen at all. We need less of whatever everybody calls the Disney princess mentality and more immediate suspicion when animals don’t treat you like they treat any other unpredictable predator. Because when it comes to something like foxes or skunks, this is literally a potential red flag for rabies. When it comes to black bears, you might be about to become a victim of some idiot who’s been feeding them. And when it comes to moose, and it’s too late to get away from them, you need to be ready to respect some very hard boundaries, put the animal down, or play dead and pray to whatever higher authority may or may not be.

There is a ton to enjoy about wildlife, and it is unironically really majestic and wonderous and all that jazz. This is never meant as encouragement to lose that awe and wonder for the world, only as another reminder that it serves everyone in the long run when you channel that into loving and respecting the wild for what it actually is. 

If there was one animal literacy thing I could change with a wave of a wand, it would be increasing people's understanding of how dangerous megafauna are. I think that in the US (and probably other Western countries too), we're so removed from wildlife and even large domesticated animals that people really have no perspective on how much a big animal can fuck you up. Even if they're "gentle."

This is a discussion going on on Twitter, too, the last few days: there was a thing where an Iditarod musher shot a moose to protect their team, and a lot of people are confused as to why that needed to happen. Apparently this moose had been hanging around the course for quite a while and was becoming quite dangerous to the sled dog teams. Moose are territorial and not to be fucked with. Everyone from Alaska or areas with moose are like "yup, that's just reality."

Same thing with the bison birth I watched last year. Folk really thought the staff should be in the habitat on the ground with the bison herd, helping with the birth. Sure, that's what we do with cows if we have to, but... bison are definitely not cows and, again, will squish you.

People tend to get it more with the predators. Few people will argue that a cougar or an alligator or a bear isn't dangerous. I think people kinda go both ways on wild pigs / boars depending on their experience. But herbivores or things that don't look traditionally pointy... it just kinda doesn't click.

Any large animal is probably stronger than you think and more likely to hurt you than you realize. Be it a dolphin, an elk, a sea lion, or even an emperor penguin... just don't go near them, buds.

As shown above, the pumpkin isn't the only plant that were originally spread by megafauna, avocados are among such plants as well, even continued on by humans. As said before, most of the above plants & indeed most edible (or otherwise medicinal) plants have more than 1 edible or otherwise usable part. In fact, even such plants as decorative & ornamental plants (which my editor would be more than happy to tell you) can usually be used for more than that in such as food, drink, medicine & fabric making, to name a few human uses. He'd strongly recommend you look up the different uses of your local gardens' plants (including native ones) to get full use of them instead of just gawking at them. Saving & continuing on ancient plants is actually helpful in the long run to max your use of said plants (especially local ones).

Illustrations Show Size Difference Between Prehistoric Animals and Modern Descendants

Mildly annoyed by the vagueness of megafauna.

It applies to the properly mega fauna like elephants, rhinos, giant ground sloths sure.

But the actual definition has low enough standards that tapirs are megafauna. Also a lot of deer, and depending on where you look wolves.

Sure, those are big. But are they mega?

Do we need a whole other term (gigafauna?) to refer to the properly awe-inspiring critters?

Moose is megafauna

Illustrations Show Size Difference Between Prehistoric Animals and Modern Descendants

Skeleton of the Irish Elk, The Museum of Liverpool, Merseyside

I just realized that apparently I never shared this series here on Tumblr??  

I call it Living Paintings, as they are recreations of extinct animals that some artists actually saw and painted from memory, a long time ago.

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How did the snakes we know now get so small compared to the titan boa

that question is actually a little backwards- only once in their entire 65+ million year history have snakes EVER achieved the massive size of the titanoboa, and a couple of unlikely factors had to align absolutely perfectly for it to happen!

first, there had to be an open niche for a gigantic superpredator without any competition at all to allow the tiny existing snakes time to evolve into the role- and this happens less often than you think! an opening this size requires major ecosystem disruption to produce, but luckily (?) for titanoboa, its stars aligned somewhat literally when a meteor descended from the heavens to wipe out the competition and murder not only the nonavian dinosaurs, but most of the other contenders that could have quickly evolved to fill the newly-vacant superpredator niche had they not all died in a horrific fiery world-ending catastrophe! 

“oh shit! my ecological niche!” <art src: Donald E Davis>

(snakes, by the way, survived due to their ability to burrow and hibernate through the worst of it. when in doubt, snooze it out!)

and second, it turns out that in order to produce a 50-foot snake, you need a LOT of heat and humidity- and the titanoboa evolved during a period in earth’s history when the environment was much warmer and wetter than it is now. just an absolute sauna. (with giant snakes in it, watch out)

these two factors combined to produce a once-in-a-hundred-million-years event and allowed the titanoboa to evolve and reign absolutely supreme over its humid rainforest environment... until the climate crashed again just a couple million years later and brought an abrupt and chilly end to the age of the giant snakes.

au revoir, you beautiful bastard.

<art src: DarrenPepper>

Non-dinosaurians from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science