Laysan Albatross
I am notoriously not a fan of the wind. I think it is a generally unpleasant weather condition. After meeting the albatross, however, I’m considering changing my tune.
Albatross are seafaring birds that need wind, and lots of it. They have evolved a form so well adapted to the wind that they can fly thousands of miles without flapping their wings by using a technique called “dynamic soaring.” The giant wingspan of albatross, like the wandering albatross, means that liftoff can be comically challenging on a calm day, but that once airborne, they can ride the wind to travel close to 10,000 miles in one go and reach speeds of up to 50 mph, all while barely burning any energy.
There are 22 species of albatross in the world, all of which live at sea and spend a large part of their lives in the air. Stunningly beautiful, smoky-eyed Laysan albatross start their lives out on an island in the Pacific Ocean. After they are reared, they leave their island and spend up to five years out at sea. They then return to their natal island and shop around for a mate by doing adorable, bill-clacking, neck-waggling partner dances. Once they find a partner, pairs tend to stick together across breeding seasons. Albatross females don’t only form long-term partnerships with males. In populations with female-biased sex ratios, females have been known to pair with other females to do the hard work of raising young. Females may stay with their female partner for decades, well after the population’s sex ratio has evened out.
In the albatross’ 40 million years of being on Earth, the past century or so has been a tough one. Fifteen of the 22 species of albatross are threatened with extinction, and six are near threatened. One of the greatest current threats to albatross and other seabirds comes from the fishing industry’s style of longline fishing. The good news is that there are bird-safe fishing practices that, when implemented, have been shown to reduce albatross deaths by up to 99%. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go to get everyone to use these devices. Even when seafood is certified by the Marine Stewardship Council as sustainable, it doesn’t necessarily mean that those who caught it worked to minimize bycatch. With sea level rise expected to flood albatross nesting sites and mountains of plastic in the ocean threatening their health, it’s important we do everything we can to protect these incredible birds.
If an albatross appeared to you, congratulations! They are considered by sailors to be good luck. The albatross reminds us to maintain balance in our lives as much as possible. Albatross are dedicated partners and parents—working as a pair to raise young, but also spending much of the year doing their own thing and flying long distances with ease. Be like the albatross and balance work with ease, and caring for others with caring for yourself.
CONTRARY
In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” the mariner kills an albatross and (spoiler!) it does not go well for his crew. Our planet is experiencing significant changes, including the mass extinction of plants and animals due to the actions of humans—but we can help turn this ship around. If you pulled the albatross upside down, come up with five easy ways to help the Earth. Can you skip using single-use plastics? Start a compost pile? Swap clothes with friends instead of buying new? Plant a butterfly garden? With just a little effort, we can be a friend to the albatross and to ourselves.
— A S
Moose
Moose are formidable, long-legged, floppy-nosed beasts. They are enormous—the largest of all deer. Males of the Alaska moose—the largest subspecies of moose—can weigh up to around 1,500 pounds. (This is impressive as long as you don’t Google how much an elephant weighs.)
Given their physique—all gangly, hunchbacked, and slightly off, like those drawings of what the ancestors of today’s mammals may have looked like—you might not guess that moose exhibit real physical prowess. On land, they can sprint up to 35 mph and trot at 20 mph over longer distances. By the time a baby moose is five days old, it can already outrun a human. In water, they can swim up to 6 mph for several miles (the fastest human maxes out at about 5.25 mph over a far shorter distance). They can also kick in all directions including sideways, which comes in handy when fighting off predators like bears, grey wolves, and the occasional orca.
Moose range across the boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere. They’re in places like Siberia, Mongolia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Alaska, Canada, New Hampshire, and Colorado. In the winter, you can find them browsing on twigs (their name originates from Algonquian languages—words like mos and moswa—and is thought to mean “twig eater”), shrubs, tall grasses, mosses, and pinecones. In the summer, moose hit the water in search of tasty aquatic plants. With the help of fatty pads surrounding their nostrils that keep water from getting up their noses, moose can dive deep down and spend up to a minute at a time feeding underwater.
Moose typically spend their time alone. But in the fall, females and males come together to mate. In North America, taiga moose are less polygamous than the Alaskan tundra moose and form passing pair bonds. Alaskan tundra moose fully embrace the polygamous lifestyle, with males joining together to fight for dominance over groups of females called harems. Having the opportunity to mate is a big deal evolutionarily-speaking, so males put a lot of energy into their battle gear. Moose antlers are one of the fastest growing animal organs out there, reaching up to 6 feet across, and weighing up to 78 pounds. After mating season, moose shed their antlers and regrow them over the course of three to five months.
If the moose has wandered into your cards, it has a lesson for you about endurance. Moose may not look all that graceful, but they are steady and persistent runners anyway. A key to endurance is to maintain a positive outlook to help energize yourself so that you can do the hard work ahead. Take time to pause wherever you’re at on your path and practice gratitude for the strengths and gifts—external or internal—that you already have in your possession. This gratitude will help feed your positivity, and positivity will provide you with the energy to keep trotting along on your journey.
CONTRARY
If you chose the moose upside down, it’s letting you know that it’s time to take a break and take care of yourself. If you’re overdoing it, take time to rest and refuel. It’s not always about continually moving ahead in life. Say no to some commitments that may not be priorities right now. Maybe try a short meditation, or go camping for a night. Just make sure that you take care of yourself so that when you’re ready to rumble again, you can really go the distance.
— A S
Orca
Orcas are the largest of the dolphins and one of the most widely distributed mammals on earth, next to humans and probably Norwegian rats. Although they are currently considered one species, orcas are actually multiple ecotypes of orcas: resident, transient, and offshore. These ecotypes exhibit different feeding preferences and strategies, occupy different (but sometimes overlapping) habitats, and don’t interbreed.
Orcas are smart, social, cooperative critters that hang out in pods of a few to up to 35 individuals. Maybe the most impressive thing that orcas do with their pods is hunt. Whether it’s the endangered southern resident killer whale population herding salmon or transient killer whales punting seals high into the air, these apex predators are alarmingly good at what they do.
Orcas in Antarctica hunt seals that take refuge on floating ice chunks by first popping their giant heads above the water to peep where the seals are. Then, together with their pod, they’ll rush an ice chunk, creating a giant wave that tosses the seal into the ocean and eventually into their mouths. Seals on the shore are no safer than those on floating ice. Orcas are known to beach themselves to grab a seal and then waggle their big bodies back into the water.
Some populations of orcas also hunt sharks, including great white sharks. Scientists have found that great white sharks are terrified of orcas. If an orca passes through great white shark hunting grounds, the sharks will flee and not return for up to a year in some cases.
What’s to fear, you ask? These are mighty great white sharks! Let’s take a look at how, exactly, orcas hunt sharks. With the “karate chop” method, they’ll force a shark to the surface by swimming to create a strong underwater current. Once the shark is at the surface, the orcas will bring their tails high up out of the water and slam them down onto the shark. They can also flip the shark over, putting it in a paralyzed state called tonic immobility, which causes it to drown. When orcas kill great white sharks, they sometimes make a cut near their liver and suck the liver out as a calorie-rich snack. Bodies of sharks have been found washed up on shore with just their livers extracted.
If the orca swam its way to you, it’s reminding you to listen and pay mindful attention to your elders. Orcas are known for spending their entire lives with their moms. Females can live up to 90 years, but stop reproducing around 40. Orcas, along with four other species (humans, belugas, narwhals, and short-finned pilot whales), are the only animals known to go through menopause. That females stay alive long after they can reproduce signals the importance of moms in the success of their adult offspring and grandchildren. Take time to communicate with your elders and ancestors. Record their stories and ask questions. Talk to older folks in your community who are from different families and cultures and learn from them too. They have a lot to teach us.
CONTRARY
If the orca appeared to you upside down, it has a message for you about how different environments influence behavior. While wild orcas are fierce top predators, they are not known for attacking humans. In fact, it’s possible that they’ve never intentionally attacked a person. Captive orcas, on the other hand, have attacked and killed four people. Decades of being separated from family, confined to tanks, and subjected to stress and boredom has had disastrous effects on the lives and behavior of orcas and many other captive animals. Not surprisingly, we too are influenced by our environments. The environments we grow up in have long lasting effects on how we treat ourselves and others. Work to build compassion for yourself and for those you find most challenging in your life by considering environments. It’s likely that the people you find the most difficult didn’t get like that without going through some tough stuff they couldn’t control. If you are currently experiencing stressful circumstances, hang in there. Seek out a friend or other person you can talk to about it. Be gentle with yourself and others. It can be tough out there for an animal.
— A S
Common Dolphin
Let’s start at the beginning. About 50 million years ago. In Pakistan and who knows where else. Pakicetus, a large dog-sized predator, roamed the land near the ancient, shallow Tethys Sea. It had four regular-looking legs, a long head and tail, sparse fur, and toes that ended in tiny hooves instead of claws. It hunted for meat on land and caught fish from the shore. Meet what we currently think was the world’s first whale.
Now, fast forward 50 million years of evolution and we now have more than 80 species of dolphins, porpoises, and whales, which together are known as cetaceans. And they sure are an impressive group of critters. They include such hits as: blue whales (aka the largest animals ever to live on Earth as far as we know), narwhals (aka hard-to-believe-they’re-real sea unicorns), and dolphins (aka those chatty charmers of the sea).
As smart and charming critters ourselves, humans have long been fascinated by dolphins in particular. Not only do they enchant us as the beautiful, popular jocks that they are, but they also represent one of our best hopes for meaningful communication with another species.
So what makes dolphins such good candidates for interspecies communication? Unofficially, let’s just say who doesn’t want to be friends with the cool kids and hang out with them in delightful tropical locations? Officially, while the brains of cetaceans are very different from those of humans and other primates, they have evolved similar levels of complex cognition. Dolphins have a brain-to-body mass ratio similar to humans and a complex system of vocal and nonvocal communication. Imagine being able to truly communicate with another animal to understand what it’s like to be them. And imagine that that animal is a dolphin and that it can tell you what it’s like to echolocate and also give you relationship advice. It’s the dream.
If you chose the dolphin, it’s telling you to think about the importance of communication. The impressively complex emotional processing part of the dolphin brain likely evolved to navigate social interactions, of which dolphins have plenty. Being a dolphin means being part of a group—sometimes a big group. Common dolphins are known for gathering in superpods of up to thousands and working together to herd big schools of fish, while whistling and clicking and jumping their way across the ocean.
Are you communicating with your different communities effectively? Do you need to use more whistles or clicks or jumps or fin claps to get your message across and make sure you’re reaching everyone? Listen, get creative, and channel your inner dolphin brain to be the best pod communicator you can be.
CONTRARY
In the 1960s, NASA funded research to teach dolphins to speak English in the Bahamas as a way to gain insights into extraterrestrial communication. If you picked the dolphin upside down, it’s signaling that clear communication is urgent for some project or relationship in your life. Is something blocking your communication? Perhaps you need a translator? Or you need to try a new and different way of communicating? Find inspiration in one of humanity’s greatest communication efforts—the Golden Record. We shot a collection of photos and diagrams and music and sounds from Earth into space along with a sweet letter from Jimmy Carter so that we might share humanity’s story and befriend any aliens that might receive it. Find and read Jimmy’s letter on the internet, listen to the Golden Record if you can get your hands on a copy, and then go forth and communicate.
— A S
Black Vulture
Close your eyes and picture a black vulture. Mostly bare black skin on its head, strongly hooked witch’s nail-style tip on its beak, and all black feathers except for a white patch on the underside of each wing tip. Digging its head into a carcass whose toxic bacteria, like anthrax and cholera, would kill most animals if they ate it on a regular basis. Defecating on its own legs to perhaps stay cool or sanitize its legs after stepping in a carcass. Projectile vomiting its super acidic stomach contents that contain flesh-eating bacteria to scare off predators.
Impressed yet?
Black vultures may have a reputation for being gross, but they are incredibly important decomposers and graceful flyers with charming demeanors. They are social, family-oriented birds who roost and feed with relatives. Pairs are monogamous for many years and hang out together all year long. They dote on their babies, feeding them for eight months after they leave the nest.
In college, I interned at a wildlife rescue in the country for three months. It was here that I got to meet black vultures—baby vultures, to be specific, with black vulture faces but lots of goofy tan fuzzy feathers and clownin’ personalities. When I cleaned their cages, I’d let them walk around loose. They’d follow me like puppies, hissing and grunting, and pulling at my shoelaces with their beaks. So charming! If I were their mom, I would definitely let them hang around and feed them for eight months.
You’ll see black vultures from the southeastern US down to South America, circling above, riding columns of warm air called thermals high into the sky, where they can look down in search of carrion and turkey vultures. Turkey vultures are great at finding dead animals by smell, but black vultures are not. A group of black vultures will eavesdrop on turkey vultures and follow them to the meal. Although a turkey vulture will outcompete a single black vulture for access to carrion, black vultures find strength in numbers. As a crew, they dominate over turkey vultures at any given carcass.
If you’ve chosen the black vulture, it may be telling you that you play an important role just by being who you are. Black vultures are members of the Cathartidae family, which derives its name from the Greek word for “purifier.” You may not think that an animal that defecates on its legs deserves the name “purifier,” but vultures play an important role in cleaning up dead animals from our earth.
Maybe you don’t feel like the most important or graceful bird out there. But remember—black vultures are part of the condor family. They come from critter royalty. We all have a role to play whether we defecate on our own legs or not. Do what you’re good at and what is good for the world, and do it well. Even if it’s messy work that doesn’t get you much credit.
CONTRARY
Black vultures demonstrate the power of teamwork. We are stronger when we work together. Figuring out how to work together takes effort. If you picked the vulture upside down, it may be asking you to work on your communication skills to become a more effective team player. If you could use some help with communicating cooperatively and compassionately, especially in situations where there’s conflict, consider trying the Nonviolent Communication technique. It is based on some basic assumptions like all humans have the same needs, are compassionate, need each other, like to give, and can change. There’s a lot to this technique, but at its simplest, it involves four conversation steps you can use to handle conflict. It goes something like this:
Observation: State your observation of the situation. Stick to the facts without adding judgments about why you think it’s happening.
Feelings: How does it make you feel when that happens? What are the emotions?
Needs: What are your basic needs that are not being met when the situation that bothers you arises?
Request: Request that person to do something without demanding it. Be clear and specific. If the person says no, have compassion for that person for being in the position that they’re in and consider your next step.
Good luck out there!
— A S
Pigeon
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a pigeon from afar and rushed to grab my binoculars because I thought it was a falcon or other exciting mystery bird. Call me a bad birder, but pigeons almost always fool me into thinking that they are something more special than a pigeon. Well, I am here to prove to you—and myself—that no! You do not have to lower your binoculars, shrug your shoulders in disappointment, and say, “False alarm. Just a pigeon.” These animals are not JUST pigeons. They are PIGEONS!
THE CASE FOR PIGEONS (aka rock pigeons aka Columba livia, including domestic, homing, and carrier pigeons):
EXHIBIT A: Some folks say that you could blindfold and drive a pigeon hundreds of miles away from its home, and it could use Earth’s magnetic field and an internal compass based on the sun, smell, and probably an ultra-low frequency sound map to find its way home, no problem.
Exhibit B: The pigeon is one of only several species—including cognitive heavy-hitters like dolphins, primates, and elephants—that have been shown to recognize themselves in a mirror. They can also be trained to recognize whether a kid’s artwork is “good.”
Exhibit C: The carrier pigeon G.I. Joe and others like him saved thousands of human lives by serving as messengers during World Wars I and II. G.I. Joe received a medal for his service.
Exhibit D: The domestic pigeon helped Charles Darwin come up with the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin bred varieties of pigeons that look crazy and wonderful. Thinking about the differences between the wild rock pigeon and the pigeons he’d crafted over generations helped him solidify his theory. (Also, pigeons just plain delighted Darwin. He once wrote to a friend, “I will show you my pigeons! Which is the greatest treat, in my opinion, which can be offered to human beings.”)
Exhibit E: Pigeons can see almost all the way around their bodies (340 degrees), so it’s hard to sneak up on them. They can also process visual information a lot faster than we can. One of our human movies would look like a slideshow to a pigeon.
Exhibit F: The reason that I even have a chance of mistaking any bird for a falcon in downtown Austin, Texas is thanks to the pigeon. The fastest animal on planet earth—the peregrine falcon—hangs out on skyscrapers in cities like mine largely due to the presence of one of its favorite foods: the pigeon.
I rest my case.
If the pigeon has flown into your cards, consider that pigeons are really just doves by another name. Pigeons are famous for being industrious helpers and companions to humans and scrappy survivors in urban environments. Doves are famous for being beautiful, delicate, heavenly creatures that symbolize idealized love. The pigeon asks you to think about love in your life. It’s not always doves and rainbows. It’s also hard work and companionship. How can you be a better buddy to the ones you love? Is there someone in your life who needs your support? Figure out what makes that person or animal feel loved and work hard to show them. Then make sure that the ones you love are also doing the work to make you feel loved and supported right back.
CONTRARY
It’s awesome that you try your best to help others and that you are such a hard worker. We need people like you. But have you been flying yourself ragged, delivering others’ messages through dangerous territory only to feel tired and maybe even undervalued? Or do you feel like you’re close to running on empty? If the pigeon appeared to you upside down, it is reminding you to direct time and resources toward caring for yourself no matter how busy you are. How about five minutes of deep slow breaths? Or maybe you can walk outside and find any kind of animal or plant or fungus and watch it carefully for five minutes. Take small steps like these on a regular basis to help replenish you so that you can get out there and keep saving the world.
— A S
Great Bowerbird
We love animals. We love art. So naturally we feel great about a bowerbird. There are 20 species of bowerbirds that live in New Guinea and Australia. Male bowerbirds are famous for building decorative structures, called bowers, that serve no other purpose than to attract females. They decorate these installations with flowers, fruit, insect shells, garbage, rocks, bones—anything they find that they think will impress the females. Different species prefer different colored objects and some even paint their bowers using pigment they make by chewing up plants. Females choose between bowers and their creators, mate with their favorites, and go off to raise the babies on their own.
Great bowerbird males of northern Australia have attracted a lot of attention for their particular brand of bower. Males create a 3-foot-long alley with a wall of twigs on either side. They spend the majority of their time collecting and placing mostly white and grey objects like rocks and bones along the alley and on either side of it. They then decorate this pale surface, known as gesso, with a smattering of colorful objects.
When a female comes to investigate, she’ll enter the alley and see the gesso bordered by foot-high stick walls. The male will then prepare off stage for his performance—grabbing a colorful something in his bill, fanning his magenta crest—and make his entrance. He’ll peek into the alley, showing off his crest and his object to the female. In one video online, he seems to get distracted and starts to eat his object, but then refocuses, collects himself off stage, and gets back in there. He’ll continue to present himself to her until she’s either into it or heads off.
The great bowerbird’s mostly monochromatic style of gesso might not appear as impressive as the piles of brightly colored objects carefully curated by some other species of bowerbirds. The magic of the gesso lies in the fact that males meticulously place these pale objects so that the smallest are closest to the alley and the largest are furthest away. This creates an optical illusion, known as forced perspective, that makes the items appear more uniform in size from the viewpoint of the female. You may have heard of forced perspective from such things as Renaissance paintings or someone holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa in a photo. It’s basically the magic trick of the art world.
Researchers tested whether the forced perspective was intentional on the part of males by messing with the placement of the objects. Bowerbirds would then move their objects around to completely restore the illusion in the span of about two weeks.
Exactly how this art trick benefits the male is still unknown. Forced perspective may make the colored objects and the male himself appear larger to the female. On the other hand, females may judge a male’s ability to find or steal different-sized objects or his ability to pull off a convincing illusion.
If you came upon the bowerbird, it’s telling you to tap into your creativity. Set aside time to brainstorm, daydream, and let ideas and inspiration build. You might take time to see an art show, listen to a new record, read a novel, or visit an artist friend to talk to them about their work. It could be time to grab a pencil or instrument and create. Have some friends over and set up a still life and draw or write exquisite corpse-style stories and eat snacks. If you’re somebody who doesn’t think you’re creative, don’t worry—you are. Don’t be shy, give it a shot, and embrace this special part of yourself.
CONTRARY
There are three species of bowerbirds that don’t build bowers—catbirds in the Ailuroedus genus. They are all monogamous, compared to the other species of bowerbirds, which are polygynous (meaning males mate with multiple females). If you picked a bowerbird upside down, it is telling you that it’s okay to be different! Listen to yourself and do what feels right, even if it isn’t the popular move. Everyone has to walk their own path. Go with your instincts, not with the crowd.
— A S
Coatimundi
This is a true story that illustrates animal facts-related synchronicities in action. It features the white-nosed coatimundi aka coati aka Nasua narica aka pizote solo (as they call it in Costa Rica). The coati is a relative of the raccoon (family Procyonidae) that ranges from Arizona to Argentina. They have pointy, flexible snouts, white markings on their faces, and long, striped, non-grasping tails that account for more than half of their total 3.5 to 4-foot length.
When I was working as a novice nature guide in a cloud forest in Costa Rica, I got to know the pizote solo one lone coati at a time. As their name and my field observations seemed to suggest, they spend their days wandering around by themselves in search of omnivorous grub, mostly invertebrates and fruit.
One day, several months into my stay, I was reading up about the coati in The Mammals of Costa Rica field guide over breakfast. I read that the males hang out mostly alone, but that the females and young hang out in bands of up to 40 individuals. Group life can have lots of benefits like protection from predation and improved ability to compete for food resources, so it makes sense that they band together. But how had I spent several months strictly walking around looking for critters and had never seen a big band of coatis?
After breakfast, I went on a hike to look at some birds and heard rustling high up in a huge fig tree that stood in a small field nearby. The source of the movement was obscured by the tangle of epiphytes, lianas, and vines that blanketed the trunk.
Then I saw the first coati scramble to the edge of a branch, drop onto the ground on all fours, shake herself off, and run into some nearby vegetation. Another one dropped, then another, and another. At least 30 coatis spiraled down this tree headfirst (they can rotate their hind feet to accomplish this). First the adults and then the younger ones and finally the tiny babies all plopped down, gathered their wits about them, and scurried off.
After spending several months outside every day, hiking around and looking for wildlife, I had never seen a crew of coatis. But less than an hour after reading about these bands, I saw this. If you saw coatis rain from a tree or saw one in your cards, it is telling you to pay attention to synchronicities. Make a note when they happen. Is the world trying to tell you something? It could point you in a specific direction and offer you insight, or it could just be the universe letting you know that it knows that you know.
CONTRARY
If you picked the coati upside down, it’s a sign that your ability to notice synchronicities may be blocked. Are you consumed with worry, negative thoughts, or distractions? Do you look down at your phone instead of looking at the world around you? You have to pay attention to be able to receive messages and experience synchronicities. Practice being present on a walk or at the bus stop—listen to the sounds, look around you—and see what the world might be trying to share with you. I pretty much guarantee it’s more interesting than anything on your phone.
— A S
Kiwi
Kiwi are chicken-sized ratites (relatives of emus and ostriches) with barely-there eyes, furry-looking feathers, a charming body shape, and alarmingly sturdy legs. Most of them spend their days in New Zealand snoozing in burrows and their nights defending territories and probing the soil with their long beaks to smell for earthworms and other snacks. They hold quite a few superlatives, including smallest living ratite, only bird with nostrils near the end of its beak, and one of the largest egg-to-body size ratios of any bird around.
Kiwi lay enormous eggs relative to their size, equivalent to a 100 pound woman giving birth to a 20 pound baby. Parents, either the male or both parents depending on the species, incubate the eggs for up to three months. Babies pop out of the shells ready to roll with enough yolk in their bellies to at least partially sustain them for a couple of weeks. Most kiwi in the wild don’t make it to adulthood, but when they do they can live up to 50 years.
If you pulled the kiwi, maybe you should plan a trip to New Zealand! We hear it’s great. If a trip to New Zealand is not in your cards, then the kiwi may be signaling for you to invest in a long-term project or dream. Even if you won’t see the fruits of your labor any time soon, your work on the front end will pay off down the line. Maybe you’re not happy with your career, so you apply to go back to school. Maybe you want to be an amazing musician one day, so you start taking music lessons. Maybe you start building a nest egg for retirement—or for a dream trip to New Zealand.
CONTRARY
If you pulled the kiwi upside down, it may be time to take a leap ahead with a project or dream instead of waiting for conditions to be exactly right. Have you become a perfectionist about something when you need to move along to the next step? Do you feel nervous to actually take the plunge and make the next move? Consider that it might be time to move forward with something you’ve already been preparing for and to share it with the world.
— A S
Coral Snake
Coral snakes are beautiful, shy members of the venomous snake family Elapidae. Related to such heavy hitters as black mambas and king cobras, coral snakes lead a more low-profile existence than their cousins. Coral snakes are split into New World snakes (about 70 species spread out across the Americas) and Old World snakes (about 15 species across Asia). The United States is home to three species of coral snakes: the eastern coral snake (Micrurus fulvius), Texas coral snake (Micrurus tener), and Sonoran coral snake (Micruroides euryxanthus).
Unlike other venomous snakes in the US, which are in the family Viperidae (your rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, and copperheads), coral snakes have fixed fangs at the front of their mouths that secrete neurotoxic venom. Because their fangs don’t hinge like vipers, they need to be pretty small to fit in their tiny mouths. While their venom is highly toxic, coral snakes aren’t particularly dangerous to humans due to their typically nocturnal and shy nature and preference for fleeing to fighting when approached. To get bit, you’d have to be either messing with one or so unlucky as to step on one without wearing boots. If you were to get bit, the neurotoxin is slow to act, but would eventually target the respiratory and nervous systems, potentially leading to paralysis and death.
The good news is that coral snakes don’t want to bite you—they want to bite snakes and sometimes lizards, and if you’re an eastern coral snake, then sometimes frogs too. In fact, they so don’t want to bite you that sometimes when Sonoran coral snakes are approached, they do what’s called defensive farting, microfarting, or—if you want to be polite about it—cloacal popping. They’ll curl up, bury their heads in their coils, and lift the tip of their tails up. Then they’ll evert the inside of their cloaca (the hole that serves both reproductive and excretory functions) to produce a tiny fart sound. This may be a strategy to draw a potential predator’s attention away from the head and toward the tail, where a strike would do less damage. Folks aren’t 100% sure yet as to the real reason behind the microfarts, proving that there are still exciting frontiers left in this area of research!
If you chose the coral snake, it is signaling a transformation. Like a snake shedding its skin, you need to let go to grow. The concept of transformation is noble and magical, but the process can feel awkward, vulnerable, and scary. Dig into these feelings and give yourself room to explore them. You may want to rush through them—take the shortest, simplest path out of there and get back to some solid, familiar ground. We’ve all been there. Resist those urges, and work to tap into your inner strength and resolve to ground yourself on those shifting sands. You are capable of guiding yourself fully and bravely through your transformation.
CONTRARY
If you chose the snake upside down, it may be telling you to balance internal and external transformation. The snake is a traditional symbol of rebirth, healing, and fertility. It’s time to think not only about your personal transformation, but also about your role in transforming your community. You can work to restore ecosystems by planting native plants that in turn build soil and support a community of microbes, and then insects, birds, and beyond. You can work to transform systems and institutions that are unjust and don’t serve everyone in your community. There’s work to do, and you’re the one to do it. Pay attention to make sure you are balancing the important work of personal and extra-personal transformation.
— A S
Pangolin
Picture an anteater covered in overlapping diamond-shaped scales—kind of like an artichoke. Picture it walking around on its short hind legs as some of them do, with its heavily clawed front limbs held up in front of it like a little, hunched over T. Rex. It’s beautiful. It’s strange. It’s also the most trafficked animal on earth.
These uniquely scaled mammals look and act like anteaters, but are more closely related to the animals that try to eat them: cheetahs, lions, and hyenas. Residing in Asia and Africa, they spend their time either on the ground or in the trees, licking up ants and termites at night and chilling in burrows during the day.
Pangolins have some impressive adaptations, including long front claws for smashing termite mounds and long sticky tongues that can extend up to 16 inches out of their mouths (that’s longer than a typical pangolin’s body!). Pangolins have no teeth, but they have keratinous spines in their stomach and they often swallow stones that help crush food in their gut. When threatened, pangolins roll up in an almost unopenable ball—and they have a bonus ability to stink like a skunk.
Sadly, all eight species of pangolins are threatened with extinction due primarily to poaching. Conservationists are hard at work trying to protect this special critter by raising awareness and cracking down on the illegal animal trade.
If the pangolin appeared in your cards, it may be reminding you that your energy, time, and feelings are precious resources. Guard them. Do you need to say no to some requests for your time and energy? Next time you find it hard to say no to something you do not want to do, try the sandwich method. It has three parts:
The nice part: “I would love to go to your thing/help out with that/do that for you”
The but part: “…but I have plans to work on my own thing/stare at a wall/do a face mask”
The other nice part: “…so might I suggest this alternative option?/thanks for thinking of me/I hope that goes well for you.” Ta-da!
CONTRARY
The Tikki Hywood Trust in Zimbabwe has a program where caretakers are assigned a rescued pangolin, and spend 24 hours watching over it as it forages and lives its life. The pangolins and their humans appear to make very sweet friends. The species that is causing pangolins to disappear from the planet is the same species that is trying to save it. If you pulled the pangolin upside down, it may be telling you to work on acceptance and forgiveness. Do you find it hard to accept and forgive those around you for their weaknesses and mistakes? Do you find it hard to do the same for yourself? If you tend to dwell on your own shortcomings, practice saying to yourself: “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.” Humans are complicated critters and it takes a lot of strength and courage to be kind and compassionate to yourself and others—but you got this.
— A S
Orchid Bee
When it comes down to it, this is a story about an orchid and a bee helping themselves by helping each other.
Orchids have gamed the system when it comes to attracting pollinators. They are master chemists, evolving complex scent compounds that are irresistible to some insects, particularly bees and wasps. Some orchids use sexual deception, mimicking the scent and appearance of female bees or wasps to invite males to mate with them and pick up pollen in the process. Other orchids use a variety of scents from vanilla to mint to rotting meat to attract a particular group of pollinators known as the orchid bees.
Orchid bees are mostly metallic, jewel-toned bees that range from Mexico to Brazil. Male orchid bees have beefy-looking hind tibia where they store a special collection of scent compounds. The males fly around for weeks or months, visiting orchids, fungi, trees, and other scent sources to collect volatile compounds in their special leg compartments. Once they have their scents, they’ll gather at a display site on a tree trunk and fly about, wafting the mixture of scents around for the females. Females will then choose a male, presumably based on the scent mixture.
While the orchid bee partially depends on the orchid for its perfume, the orchid depends entirely on the orchid bee for its reproduction. In some cases, orchids have evolved pretty extreme ways to ensure pollination. Take the bucket orchid. When an orchid bee tries to reach the scent source on a bucket orchid, he falls into its trap—a bucket of sticky liquid with only one exit. As the bee crawls through the exit, the orchid squeezes him to hold him in place and deposits two big pollen sacks on his back. Then the orchid loosens its grip to let the bee go deliver its pollen to another orchid.
If the orchid bee flew into your cards, it has a message for you about teamwork. Orchids and orchid bees have coevolved to form mutualistic relationships that benefit both plant and pollinator. Orchids supply orchid bees with female-attracting scents and orchid bees pollinate the orchids. Could you use some help in your life? Don’t be afraid to ask for support. We are social and cooperative critters for a reason—it has paid off evolutionarily. Identify and give thanks for the positive, mutualistic relationships in your life, and brainstorm how you can nurture and grow them.
CONTRARY
While orchid bees and orchids have a mutualistic relationship, it is an asymmetrical mutualism. The bee may need the scent from a certain orchid to attract a female, but maybe it could attract a mate without that particular scent in its bouquet. The orchid’s survival, however, truly depends on the orchid bee’s cooperation. If orchid bees were to disappear, that orchid would lose its method of reproduction. This somewhat risky strategy reminds us about the potential danger of needing things outside of ourselves to be a certain way for us to feel complete and satisfied. Maybe you believe that once you have that new job or new toy or new house, then you’ll be complete and you can finally appreciate the moment. It may be hard to believe, but you— yes, you—are complete just the way you are. Be thankful for yourself, your body, your breath, and for getting to exist on a planet that creates amazing creatures like perfume-making orchid bees. For bonus points, name three things you love about yourself. <3
— A S
Suriname Toad
Spoiler alert: most people are pretty shocked when they learn how female Surinam toads make babies. My guess is that it has something to do with having seen movies like Alien where an alien busts out of John Hurt’s chest (oops, actual spoiler alert!). For female Surinam toads, it’s actually good news to have creatures bursting out from under their skin.
It starts off with an underwater mating somersault session, during which a male Surinam toad presses newly fertilized eggs onto the female’s back. She then grows an extra layer of skin over the eggs to protect them. Each egg gets its own little honeycomb-like compartment. The mama Surinam carries the little eggs around under her skin, all the way through the tadpole stage. When the toadlets are ready to roll, they push their way out from under her back skin and go their own way. It may sound weird to some of us, but it’s just another totally normal, totally crazy thing in our amazing animal kingdom.
If the Surinam toad hopped its way into your cards, it may be telling you that it’s time to grow some thicker skin and protect yourself. You’re sensitive and that’s wonderful—we need sensitive people in this world. But sometimes, sensitive people need a little extra self-protection. If you find yourself feeling hurt by friends or family in your life, take some time to assess relationships that may be toxic, and consider either stepping away or putting up some solid boundaries to protect yourself. You deserve relationships that make you feel supported and loved. You are deserving of love—even if you have a kind of gross extra layer of skin on your back to protect your babies.
CONTRARY
After giving birth, Surinam toad females shed their skin. If the Surinam toad appeared upside down, it may be telling you that your skin is too thick and perhaps you’ve been putting up too many walls. We humans sometimes harden after we get hurt as a way to protect ourselves. Hardness that stems from one situation can bleed into other situations and relationships. Our challenge is to set solid boundaries instead of building walls to protect ourselves while staying open to the world. If you’ve been icing out vulnerability or not letting people in, it may be time to open up to others and shed that extra layer of skin.
— A S