OF HEADS AND HORNS
Natural wonders, including two-headed snakes and goats, and a longhorn who really lives up to the name
TWO-HEADED BABY SNAKE
An Australian snake catcher was called out by a Victoria resident who had reported a snake in his yard. Stewart Gatt, aka Stewy the Snake Catcher, trapped the female tiger snake in a bag and loaded it into his car, but was then surprised when the serpent gave birth to several babies – one of which had two heads. Sadly, the two-headed baby was euthanised as it was thought unlikely to survive; but the rest were healthy, and were released into the wild with their mother. upi.com, 20 Mar 2020.
THE JANUS GOAT
A two-headed goat was an unexpected recent arrival on a Wisconsin farm. The baby goat, named Janus after the two-headed Roman deity, was born on 5 April and appeared healthy, despite his side-by-side twin mouths and four eyes. “He’s a normal goat. We just have to help him,” said Jocelyn Nueske, head of the Wittenberg goat farm. “We try to help him as much as we can, and give him a break when he gets tired.” She said Janus had already proved popular among visitors to the farm’s Facebook page.
Nueske, who has run the farm for six years, said she didn’t even know it was possible for a goat to be born with two faces. “I’ve heard of two-headed cows, and lizards,” she said, “but not a goat”. Sadly, the now famous goat became ill and died in early May. “So many people were rooting for him,” the farm wrote on Facebook. “He will surely be missed but is a reminder that though unexpected challenges may come into our lives, we can choose to face them with kindness! And kindness is contagious!” upi.com, 15 Apr; Wausa Daily Herald, 5 May 2020.
EMOTIONAL MICE
Researchers claim to have demonstrated that the facial expressions of mice show emotions just like humans. They fed sweet and sour solutions to the lab rodents, and believe a range of five emotions were displayed, from a ‘joyful’ expression after being given sugar, to a ‘disgusted’ face after being offered salt. The study claims to be able to measure “intensity and nature of an emotion” in milliseconds and compare with brain activity. Sun, 3 Apr 2020.
LONGEST HORN
Bucklehead, a West Texas longhorn steer, has entered Guinness World Records after his horn span was measured at 11ft 1.8in (3.4m). The previous record holder’s horn span was a mere 10ft 7.4in (3.2m). Bucklehead’s owners affix tennis balls on the tips of his horns to protect them when he’s travelling inside his trailer. D.Telegraph, 20 Oct 2019.
WEAPONISED PARROT
A “malicious” pensioner who tormented her neighbours with a parrot was given a restraining order and suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to criminal damage and harassment. Catherine Searle, 81, of Sevenoaks, Kent, repeatedly encouraged the parrot to perform by playing loud opera music, causing the bird to squawk in a “very loud, piercing” voice “in a continuous repertoire over and over”. Ms Searle’s neighbours were subjected to years of harassment, not limited to parrot disturbance. Dog excrement was thrown into their garden and grease smeared on their car bonnets. , 28 Feb 2020.
STORKING A PLACE IN HISTORY
Last month, I reported how the common crane was re-establishing itself as a breeding bird in the UK after having previously died out here back in the 1600s [FT393:24]. Now I’m delighted to say that another tall, equally spectacular bird is attempting to do the same after an even longer absence. The last white storks, Ciconia ciconia, known to have nested here did so in 1416, at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, since when the species has been but a rare non-breeding visitor to Britain from continental Europe – until last year, that is.
Founded in 2016 by a partnership of private landowners and nature conservation charities, the White Stork Project operates in three localities in Surrey and West Sussex, and using a series of injured storks from Poland that cannot fly far, it hopes to re-establish the species as a breeding bird here. Last year, one of its females plus an unringed, possibly wild stork visiting from the Continent paired up, built a nest in a tree within the Knepp Castle Estate, West Sussex, and laid some eggs, but tragically they failed to hatch. As all storks do, they then spent the winter in warmer, African climes, but returned to the same estate this spring and built a nest in a tree near the one they used last year. The female laid some more eggs – and this time, in early May, they hatched! The White Stork Project is naturally delighted, and hopes that this event will herald the beginning of the breeding pair’s stately species staking its muchdeserved place in Britain’s natural history once more, the Project’s aim being to restore a population of at least 50 breeding pairs in southern England by 2030. D.Mail, 30 April 2020; www. theguardian.com/environment/2020/ may/16/wild-white-storks-hatch-for-firsttime-in-hundreds-of-years.
IN TIZZY OVER TASSIE PIPE
A clay pipe made at least 190 years ago and recently sold at auction as an unwanted item by a bottle-collecting enthusiast – who found it in 2016 nestled between two old bottles dating from c.1830 dug up by him in a bottle dump near Launceston, Tasmania – is being hailed as the Holy Grail of Tasmanian archaeology.
Its bowl is decorated with a detailed depiction of the supposedly extinct thylacine or Tasmanian wolf Thylacinus cynocephalus, with the age of the pipe meaning that its Tassie portrait is one of the earliest known European illustrations of this unmistakable species, outwardly resembling a striped wolf but taxonomically a marsupial. The thylacine officially became extinct in 1936, but numerous unconfirmed eyewitness reports have been filed since then, giving hope that it may still survive here [see FT247:22, 290:21, 295:21, 319:19].
Manufactured before cigarettes were produced, clay pipes were often made in Europe and imported into Australia, but this one was created from Tasmanian river clay and was therefore made locally (possibly by a convict). This explains its very notable historical significance, enhanced by the thylacine – but that is not the only interesting motif. Inscribed upon its stem is a depiction of a bird resembling a kookaburra, which is puzzling because kookaburras didn’t exist in Tasmania until 1902 (around 70 years after the pipe’s creation), when specimens were introduced here from the Australian mainland. Various attempts have been made to explain this apparent chronological and zoogeographical anomaly. One suggestion is that whoever made the pipe had previously lived on or visited the mainland and had seen kookaburras there, inspiring him when subsequently decorating the pipe in Tasmania. Another possibility is that the bird depicted is not a kookaburra but rather the Tasmanian kingfisher, a native species related to the kookaburra. Yet another thought is that the bird is merely generic, i.e. not meant to represent any real species, its resemblance to the kookaburra being entirely coincidental. Tassie specialist Dr Stephen Sleightholme, from the International Thylacine Specimen Database, was the pipe’s successful bidder at auction, after which it was brought to scientific attention by Dr Darren Watton, principal archaeologist with Southern Archaeology. A paper formally documenting it is now due to be published. https:// archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot. com/2020/05/rare-200-year-old-claypipe-depicting.html.
SLITHERING FROM SLYTHERIN
A Newly described Indian species of green pit viper is noteworthy not only for the vivid orange-red stripe visible on the side of its head in male specimens, but also for its interesting formal scientific name – Trimeresurus salazar, Salazar’s pit viper. The team of researchers responsible for this memorable moniker drew their inspiration from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, and specifically from the character of Salazar Slytherin, founder of Slytherin House in Hogwarts, who was a parselmouth, i.e. someone gifted with the ability to understand and speak the language of snakes (parseltongue). Inhabiting the western lowlands of Arunachal Pradesh, this new species is clearly a wizard of a discovery, in every sense! www.independent. co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/ scientists-snake-harry-potter-salazarslytherin-hogwarts-a9477716.html.