by Matthew Cobb
Not sure if Jerry’s European trip will allow him to post a Caturday Felid today, so here’s something I’ve just posted over at the Z-letter [apologies for double posting]. Not really about cats, and yet, a bit:
The European pine marten (Martes martes) is a mustelid – part of the weasel family – and about the size of a cat. There is also a North American relative (Martes americana). They mainly nocturnal and pretty hard to spot. Here’s a rather nice picture of a pine marten, from DJS photography (note its right ear, presumably nibbled in a fight):
On the last episode of Autumnwatch on the BBC last night, Chris Packham claimed that pine martens are very partial to a jam sandwich, and this does indeed seem to be the case (Mr Google has 272 hits with those two phrases – 273 now this page has been posted [= 274 with this copy of the page…]).
Although primarily carnivorous, they will also eat berries, honey and other sweet stuff. Hence the jam sandwiches. Cats, on the other hand, do not eat jam sandwiches or honey. And cats cannot taste sugar, for the simple reason that their genome does not possess the relevant T1R2 receptor which, together with the T1R3 receptor (which they do have), enables mammals to detect sugar.
So I predict that when the pine marten genome is eventually sequenced, we will find, nestled in its chromosomes, the T1R2 receptor…
Some cats, though, will still chocolate and white bread if given a chance.
I once had to wrest our pet ferret from the jaws of a marten (that one looked more squarish as I recall).
What a cute critter!
If anyone’s missing their felid fix, I finally figured out how to post a Youtube video of my Siamese cat playing fetch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VAPND4-2iA
Unfortunately I discovered that everybody and his brother also has a cat that plays fetch. Oh, well…
I predict that when the Martes martes (isn’t that Spanish for Tuesday tuesday?) genome is sequenced, the creationists will dutifully ignore the prediction. “Of course it has those genomes, dog put it there.”
Hmm. The European pine marten is the size of a small cat, really.
Speaking of felines… I once had a cat who was attracted to all kinds of sugary foods. I puzzled a little about it and then slapped my head and realized the obvious: the cake, chocolate, butter-and-jam sandwiches, etc. contained also fats, and that was what kitty was craving!
A ferret i once had was indeed very fond of sweet stuff.
Such cute creatures to look at, so ferocious in attack…
Pretty picture, i like. (^.^)