So, I was learning about Trophic cascade and how reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone changed everything, down to the land and rivers.  And then I was sharing this knowledge with a co-worker when her mind turned to coyotes and then to their interbreeding with wolves.  And now I am learning something else.

The  Coywolf is a coyote-wolf hybrid.  They have been in the north eastern part of the country for near a hundred years and are sometimes lumped in with the group of Eastern Coyotes (DNA testing has shown that most Eastern Coyotes have Wolf genes).  This canid is one of the rare, successful, natural hybridizations, probably due to depleted wolf populations and lack of mates for wolves (Wikipedia entry).

I find it especially interesting that this hybridization combines the strongest behavioral characteristics as well:  a coyote’s comfort with populated areas and a wolf’s tendency to move in packs.  This is kind of creepy.  Especially since coywolves are bigger than coyotes.

As interesting as the coywolf is, my favorite canid is still the raccoon dog (pictured above).  Raccoon dogs, aka tanuki, have the most ancient canid DNA for a living species today, and they have a wealth of legend and story.

And since we’ve gone to Asia with the raccoon dog, it would be remiss of me to not mention Pallas’s Cat  (pictured).  This fuzzy, solitary, house cat sized felid, looks to me like someone mixed a cat and a monkey, specifically:  a tamarin.  They also remind me of my cat, Sparkles.

If canids and felids aren’t your thing, perhaps you are a bird person.  I know quite a few of those.  The Potoo bird is native to Africa, and looks like some trick of taxidermy, or as if it under went a treatment with Kai’s Goo.  Ya’ll remember that program, right?

In any case, muppets are real people too (images from a Google search and unfortunately without attribution anywhere I could find them posted).