sly samoyeds? i suppose not. their white coats definitely help them camouflage in the winter although i’m not sure how much that helps them as predators. they eat fish, rodents, rats, and such but in the dead of winter, there can’t be that many of those critters around, can there? ah, solution. they get their proverbial sloppy seconds by eating in the wake of the kills of polar bears. those beautiful white coats do protect them well from the cold though. they can survive temperatures around -50 centigrade…..brr chilly brr. also crazy: females give birth to sometimes fourteen little babies. fourteen! vulpes lagopus in moleskine.
still considered a fish, these guys breath air. i always thought that would qualify the animal as a mammal. because of this trait, they keep to the surface of fresh water. and while they feed on fish, their stomping grounds give them access to birds which they also sometimes eat. so they breath air and they eat birds. that’s a hell of a fish! this proximity to the the surface also exposes them to humans too though, and we like to hunt everything apparently. strangers still, their tongues are kind of bony and have their own teeth! crazy. arapaima gigas in moleskine.
i think we all have a bit of knowledge on ants. they live in really intricate colonies, sometimes underground, sometimes in wood, or sometimes not at all (depending on the species). their strength to weight ratio is incredible. there’s usually one queen in a colony. there are over ten thousand different species. they burn under focused light from a magnifying glass. i didn’t know that worker ants are typically female. and the males, well, they just mate with the queen. they possibly die afterward too. i’ve always found their method of communication fascinating and i didn’t learn this until my final year of university. a colleague’s thesis revolved around basing network routing rules on the chemical / pheromone based communication that ants use. as they travel, specifically in search of food, they leave a trail of breadcrumbs in the form of their pheromones. ants that successfively follow the trails sense the stronger or more, um, pheromonic trails and reinforce the “scent” as they follow the trail to the food source. the weaker trails tend to vanish. it works in nature, so why not try it elsewhere, right?
national geographic says that these are possibly the ugliest animals on earth. poor guys. they need love too, right? you might remember one such fish from a certain disney movie about a certain clownfish (link to appear when they’re drawn…if i remember). the largest of these fish (of which there are hundreds of different of types apparently) are over three feet long. that’s over a hundred pounds of ugly-fish! not my words, national geographic’s i swear. what’s crazier is that their mouths are flexible enough for them to be able to eat prey that is double their size. so if you are one such fish, don’t call them ugly and don’t look at their fishing rods dorsal protrusions. anglerish in moleskine.
these birds are so massive that they prefer to inhabit moutainous or ocean regions with strong winds so that they can glide more easily. i’m talking thirty pounds with a near eleven foot wing span. huge. they’re actually vultures (strange nomenclature in my mind) and as such feed on dead stuff, sorry, carrion. males have these offshoots from their snouts/beak called a caruncle – another interesting word. both males and females are bald and have white collars though these are more prevalent in males. i didn’t know that these birds are the national symbols for argentina, bolivia, chile, colombia, ecuador and peru. it’s interesting to me that these birds feed on the dead yet in andean mythology the birds are associated with a sun deity, essentially as ruler of the upper world, and are a symbol of health and power. andean condors in moleskine.
these guys live as long as humans. i didn’t know that, like many of the animals i have and will be drawing, they’re endangered. that’s part of the point of this project of mine. i remembered from school that you can tell crocodiles from (american) alligators by their longer but thinner snouts. also, they don’t like the cold as much as alligators. they seem to eat just about anything, including humans but that (apparently) is rare. crocodylus acutus in moleskine
these guys moo. seriously. they sound like cows. which is awesome. it seems like they’re pretty easy going. they live in many, many parts of north america, asia, south america, europe….nearly everywhere. seemingly like their cousins, they’ll eat just about anything they can put in their mouths. insects. of course. mice? yup. snakes. ok, let’s do it. birds. why not? wait, what? yeah, they eat birds. craziness. see? easy going. then again, some of the latter animals are also their predators so size matters here people. i didn’t know that they hunt nocturnally. also, people eat their legs. bullfrogs, aside, calling them american bullfrogs only makes me think of budweiser commercials from back in the day. rana catesbeiana in moleskine
not to mistaken with buffalo, these guys can weigh a tonne but can run at speeds of nearly sixty five kilometers per hour. they eat grass though so they won’t be coming after you for a meal, only if, you know, you piss them off. i didn’t know that the males and females generally live separately save for mating season. like many a good male, they fight over the ladies but they don’t go to the point of killing eachother. sensible, right? another fun fact is that their hides are so well insulated that snow can accumulate on their backs not melt. bison bison in moleskine.
