Readers keep saving my tuchus by sending me wildlife photos when I have no backlog on my laptop. Today’s photos and comments come from reader Rick Wayne:
Inspired by the excellent velvet-antlered deer, I offer the following from our just-concluded American West vacation. Like the fisherman bemoaning the one that got away, I skipped the out-of-focus shot of the grizzly (shooting into the sun with a very persnickety manual-focus lens), not to mention the young moose which we whizzed past on the Interstate hours outside of any park.
But I can include these!This elk [Cervus canadensis] ambling along Yellowstone Lake was so close I could barely rack my zoom lens wide enough to capture him. He came even closer to the (two-rail, wide-open) fence, as grinning numbskulls turned their backs to have their friends shoot “selfies” with him! One twitch of the antlers and they’d have been toast. I heard a father explaining to his very young son: “Because that’s a wild animal, and you can’t predict what they’ll do. We’re staying over here.” There’s one kid who’s getting the straight skinny.
Absolutely no doubt who owns this road in Yellowstone [Bison bison]. Soon the rangers came by with their special bison-nudging vehicle bumpers and got the road cleared; we were in a rental and would never have dreamed of trying that!
There was a small herd of pronghorn antelope (at least I’m reasonably sure that’s what these were!) messing about next to the main park road at Bryce Canyon. They came within 30 meters or so of the stopped cars, but the folks who climbed out, shouting to each other as they walked into the field and (sigh) turned their backs for selfies eventually made them nervous enough to flee. Which they did with astounding alacrity, bounding by so fast and so close that even though I’d switched to video mode with my 500mm, there was no way to get them in frame.
Note that pronghorns (Antilocapra americana; not antelope, as their closest living relatives are giraffes and okapis) are the fastest land animal in North America, far faster than they need to be to outrun any current predators. It’s thought that their speed evolved to outrun ancient predators like the extinct American cheetah. Since that cat went extinct only about 12,000 years ago, the pronghorn’s speed has probably not hide time to erode away, which is certainly will if they last long enough.
I once almost got run down while walking up a Montana coulee by a pair of pronghorn. I’m glad they were nimble enough to miss me because upon seeing them quickly bounding toward me I sure wasn’t.
That is fascinating about the Pronghorn’s speed being an adaptation to a predator that no longer exists.
I wonder if there are other good examples of species that are ‘over engineered’ in relation to the challenges they face in their present-day environment. I presume there must be but can’t think of an obvious example. Any suggestions anyone?
This one perhaps, well, not a predator-prey relationship, but presumably symbiotic once upon a time
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/bee_orchid.png
Sigh…
Somewhere, sometime, I had come across a speculation that the locust tree thorns are an adaptation against browsing mammoths. I do not know how credible that might be.
The dodo tree has declined, and since it is native to Mauritius island, formerly occupied by Dodo birds, it has been speculated that it needs to have its seeds pass thru the gut of the Dodo to germinate. It turns out that this rather romantic story may be apocryphal, however.
I tend to forget that these things exists (such as the xqcd example), so I am re-amazed every time.
Another example of over-engineering is perhaps humans. Despite our bulk mass hasn’t decreased that much, our brains were at the largest tens of 1000s of years ago. (The statistics I know best says ~ 40 kyrs ago, but I have read claims that it was later as well.)
There is a book, though I haven’t read it so cannot vouch for it, that discusses similar things. Ghosts of Evolution by Connie Barlow. Perhaps some dear readers who may have read it can give a thumbs up or down, or perhaps suggest other titles? My two favorite local examples are from the plant world, Maclura pomifera (Osage orange, or headge apple tree) and the Gleditsia triacanthos (honey locust tree) that have adaptations for seed distribution (the “hedge apple”) and protection against herbivory (thorns) but their counterpart/foe is, alas, no longer.
I know that Wallace thought the human brain was over-engineered. G*d did it. Jerry covers this in Faith vs. Fact. Only 30 pages left…
“I know that Wallace thought the human brain was over-engineered”.
As in Alfred Russell not Jonathan 😉
Yes…I didn’t even see that coincidence. too funny.
Two of my biggest disappointments in people I admired were the spiritualistic obsessions of Arthur Conan Doyle and Wallace’s similar attachments, along with his refusal to apply his and Darwin’s theory to the human brain. Surprising, really, that these two intelligent fellows would have such glaring inconsistencies in their logic.
Great shot!! Love the pronghorn closeup with the baby.
When we were at Yellowstone there was a group of giggling Japanese teenage girls who also got waaaaay too close to the bison in the parking lot. According to the ranger, the bison can really haul ass and leap the split-rail fences with much more alacrity – and grace – than you’d imagine.
While hiking on a back trail in Yellowstone (could only take the crowds at Old Faithful for one iteration) we startled an elk who thankfully took off back into the woods. Yellowstone’s beautiful, but it sould be sooooo nice if they made all the RVs park in a lot near the entrance and then provide bus service like at Zion. As it was you just had to drive through in a kind of slow RV parade.
There have been a spate of bison attacks on tourists in Yellowstone this summer. Reading the accounts of how people come up close to them is a lesson in how stupid some people can be.
Bill Bryson, in his otherwise hilarious book about the Appalachian Trail, A Walk in hte Woods, recounts a horrifying story of a a parent who thought it was a good idea to have their child feed a black bear by covering the poor little kid’s hand in honey, to predictable and heartbreaking result.
People too damn stupid for their own good, and yet these twits still have higher paying jobs, bigger houses, and nicer cars than I ever will!
Now that is beyond dumb.
Yes, the wildlife in National Parks seems to “bring out the idiot” in a lot of people: in the 70s, while mountaineering in the Grand Tetons, I heard of a man who was mauled by a black bear- he was trying to get it into the driver’s seat of his car so he could take a picture of it next to his wife!
I have some sympathy for the Japanese girls, they have probably never encountered a wild animal before. There should be a special warning sign for Kiwis, the only dangerous animal here is Homo sapiens sapiens.
Great pictures and engaging stories. I lived in Flagstaff, AZ for several years, and we would see a lot of elk. I would not turn my back on one for a second; no sir. I was especially impressed by their sheer size.
I love the line of bison on the road! Interesting how different their faces and “hairstyles” appear to be.
I wouldn’t guess that bison would choose to walk along paved roads, just extrapolating from my experience with horses. Perhaps the cloven hooves or some sort of pads on the soles make it easier for bovids to gain footing on a paved surface.
I think they used to make ox shoes to give ox teams better traction on paved roads when pulling loads. But maybe bison just don’t care.
Joke: What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison? Answer: You can’t wash your face in a buffalo. (Now read the joke with an Australian accent.)
There’s another one like that: “What do NZers do between 5 and 7 that Aussies do between sheets?”
My brother in law, living in Oz, astounded his Aussie mates by announcing a party to celebrate his new “dick” (deck)
All these pics are great, but my fave is the bison owning the road. They’re such magnificent animals.
These are great photos, thanks.
My folks had a home in Cody Wyoming which is at the Eastern entrance to Yellowstone. It is probably my favorite National Park. I’ve been there a dozen times, and there is always something new to see and explore.
Someone was just gored by a Bison in Yellowstone iirc. Mark mentioned it above. That would surely suck.
I blush to admit that we were among the stupidzors too. On a hike, we encountered a single bison munching peacefully in a field. Trail was maybe 25′ from him. No good way around him, those woods are chock-full of thermal hazards (e.g. frangible crust over boiling mud), and we were almost to the end of a several-mile hike.
So we edged by him, one by one, making sure we kept talking so there’d be no possibility of surprise, and freezing whenever he stopped to look up at us. And keeping a hand on the bear spray.
In retrospect, hardly the smartest thing we’ve ever done. In aviation folks call it get-home-itis — we’re almost to the end of the hike, we’ll just get past him and we’ll be fine. Right? Right?
That sunglint in the bison’s eye in the road picture really makes the photograph, endows him with enviable ‘tude. A lucky accident, of course.
If folks would like to see other pix (more pronghorn, the Grizzly of Blur, more bison — the calves are pretty cute — or landscape shots) just lemme know and I’ll post the link if Jerry doesn’t object.
Thank you for these shots, Rick! That elk looks like a painting–what a perfect background to have captured him against!
Those buffs are splendid–huge heads, massive humps…we don’t have much of our once-impressive megafauna left, but thank goodness the buffalo remain.
I, for one, would like to see the rest of your pics.
Me too, thanks, Rick.
It’s been about 25 years since I visited Yellowstone. these pictures make we want to return.
me want to return
Heh. It’s been 10 days and they affect me exactly the same way. 🙂
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My husband has read about pronghorn, since they used to hang out in an area of the Eastern Sierra (California) where we go. They are amazingly fast, easily spooked, and don’t cope well with fences. Spook a deer near a fence, and it jumps over almost effortlessly and bounds away. Spook a pronghorn in the same location, and you have barbed-wire-sliced pronghorn. This has definitely contributed to their demise as the West has become cattle country with fences. Some ranchers are now leaving off the lower strand of wire on their fences so the pronghorn can go under them.
Well, here you go then.
Just the 27 artsy shots, on my artsy site:
http://rickwayne.zenfolio.com/westernparks2015
Feel free to crash around in the other galleries. I think I’ve turned off print ordering for all of them (and Jerry would rightly chide me if I were to try flogging prints on his blog), but if you see something you like, we can talk. 🙂
Those 27 and 27 more, including Grand Canyon selfies, the blurry shots of the Grizz and Mountain Bluebird, not to mention Sinclair the Dinosaur:
https://picasaweb.google.com/109538850134749389849/WayneWestwardTrek2015?authuser=0&feat=directlink