Let’s talk about the plight of 2 Ko`olau endemic taxa who were both on the very brink of extinction but are now on a tenuous path toward recovery. It’s a tale of destruction and despair but also of compassion and hope. This is the story of Achatinella fuscobasis and Cyanea grimesiana ssp. grimesiana.
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I just got back from a trip to Japan a few days ago and I was pleasantly surprised by the Kobe Animal Kingdom. It deserves a longer post on it’s own but for now I really wanted to highlight one of that taxa that I saw in their collection: the Northern Luzon Giant Cloud Rat (Phoeomys pallidus).
Some of my earliest posts on this blog were of animals I saw during a previous trip to the Philippines. It’s nice to be able to highlight another member of that faunal assemblage.
While the geological history of the formation of the Philippine archipelago is complex, it seems by the Miocene the landmass that became the island of Luzon had formed. Murid rodents, which include the common rats of dumpsters worldwide, made their way to that emergent landmass. This lineage may have arrived in the Philippines roughly 10 mya. Once on that landmass, they evolved into forms not seen elsewhere.
This species is rather large, the individuals here are about the size of a cottontail rabbit. They also seem much slower and deliberate with their movements unlike what we think of rats normally. There are 2 species of Phoeomys cloud rat. The Southern Luzon cloud rat (P. cumingi) is slightly smaller and typically sporting a dark brown pelage. This northern species, has much lighter patches of fur. I’ve seen images of some individuals that look almost like giant pandas with their coat pattern.
All in all it was a real treat to be in the presence of this neat member of the Philippine fauna.
Areas of frequent washouts are prime habitat for weedy, ruderal species. These areas of persistent disturbance are highly susceptible to colonization by non-native species here in Hawai`i. Most stream and canals here in the state are filled with some of the toughest invasive plants to deal with. And yet surrounding this random storm drain in urban Honolulu is `Ae`ae (Bacopa monnieri). `Ae`ae is a hardy indigenous species of marshy areas. To see it taking advantage of a novel micro-habitat is quite a pleasing sight.
How can a tiny seedling bring me so much joy? Last week, I was clearing around the base of several large olapa trees when I came across this little guy. Almost a decade ago, I did a post on identifying native seedlings. While it was me showing the differences with different species, they were also fruits that we collected that I was propagating for outplanting at our restoration site.
This photo of an olapa seedling (Cheirodendron trigynum) was part of small batch that I was able to get going from a mature tree that we collected back in 2013. Olapa has been particularly difficult for us to grow as I had only gotten it to germinate in 2013 and 2022.
For all the difficulty we’ve had with germination, once it’s in the ground it has been the second fastest growing tree after koa. This seedling is now a 25 foot tall tree that has been blooming and fruiting for the past few years.
And viable fruit too. Coming across naturally regenerating olapa seedlings under the mature olapa trees we planted almost a decade ago is incredibly fulfilling. It’s particularly neat that through this blog I was able to document that. Knowing that the actions I took 10 years ago, have literally been this fruitful gives me confidence on the future of that native forests on Pu`u `Ohi`a. Let’s see what native plants I’ll be posting in 2034!
For as much as Hawai`i is known for rainforests and waterfalls, freshwater streams seem surprisingly depauperate compared to continental ecosystems. They like many other native Hawaiian habitats are imperilled, making this encounter with a fairly healthy stream with native fish a real treat.
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Many species of grackles (Qusicalus spp) have adapted fairly well to the human landscape. I came across them in large numbers in and around San Antonio a few years back. Here on my trip to Puerto Rico it was no different. Greater Antillean grackles (Q. niger) were quite common at roadside stops.
They are common enough that I doubt the average person gives them a second thought. Or if anything, considers them a nuisance. What I find interesting is they kind of allow one to have a glimpse of Hawai`i of long ago. For it seems one of the extinct Hawaiian honeycreepers evolved into something akin to a grackle like bird.
The bird family Icteridae which grackles are part of, share a trait called “gaping”. Certain skeletal processes are hypertrophied allowing these birds to open their bills with some force. These adaptations in the bill morphology are thought to aid in a feeding strategy where the birds can probe into a substrate and pry it open with their bills to aid in finding food.
One lineage of honeycreeper (Aidemedia spp) seems to have also evolve a bill to allow gaping. These birds are thought to have at least evolved a feeding strategy fairly similar to icterids like the grackles pictured above.
And unfortunately because they are extinct we don’t know what else if anything is similar to a grackle. Hawaiian Aidemedia seems to have gone extinct before Europeans were able to document them so we really can’t say if grackles would be a good analogue for them or not. Certainly there are some similarities. It’s a shame though, if they were similar to modern grackles would they have adapted to the modern world just as readily if they survived?
So while I was appreciated being able to observe Puerto Rican avifauna up close, I couldn’t help but think of another island chain in another ocean and the birds that were once around. When I look at these non-descript photos of the side of the road with a common bird, I can’t help but think of a similar scene at the North Shore shrimp trucks on O’ahu, dream of a alternate future and smile.
While we’ve been lucky to have an intimate knowledge with olonā, there is so much more to this plant that I’m not familiar with, especially culturally. I’ve been lucky to be part of a project to bring more attention to this plant and the people that value it. To find out more information and to support us here’s a link
First of please check out Gabriel Ugueto’s artwork. He is an amazing paleoartist that brings to life many obscure taxa one hardly finds quality images of. You can check out his twitter here and his facebook page here
I made a comment on this recent piece he did of two late Pleistocene giant ground sloth taxa that made me pause. People when considering extinct animals typically related it back to something they may already be familiar with. Sabertooth as some sort of large cat, Mammoths are some type of elephant, even an odd-ball like the giraffid Sivatherium can be thought of as some sort of moose-like creature.
For me, I really struggle with imagining the largest of the ground sloths as living breathing animals. For one, their closest living relatives (tree sloths) inhabit such different niches it’s hard to extrapolate behavior from them. No current ecosystem has animals quite like giant ground sloths. Gorillas? Pandas? Perhaps, but even then Megatherium was approaching the size of elephants. Just imaging elephant size pandas or gorillas is strange enough, let alone these extinct beasts.
Were these solitary creatures? Were they social? How were their metabolic rates versus tree sloths? It really breaks my brain to think of a living giant ground sloth.
And yet, for as mysterious as they may be to me, ground sloths died out so recently that for all intents and purposes, they are modern taxa. Many landscapes have living plant taxa that are were shaped by the selective pressures giant ground sloths wrought. These strange animals are geologically and in many ways ecologically speaking are our contemporaries.
Again, like my post on 1884 and deep time conservation, my intimacy with the past informs and shapes my current desires with conservation. I’m lucky to live in a place with taxonomic weirdos. Birds with multi-tools for a beak, arborescent lobelias, damselflies that lay their eggs on land. If these native Hawaiian taxa went extinct, some of them are so novel that it could be difficult to reimagine them as living breathing things. Those brain breaking sloths might be gone, but I will do what I can to make sure these strange Hawaiian plants and animals don’t suffer the same fate. Where one doesn’t have to imagine what they might have been like, one can just visit them and bask in their presence.
Studia Mirabilium 