Polar Bear
Polar bears have a wealth of what we in the animal fact business like to call POWERFACTS. POWERFACTS are facts that surprise, wow, and maybe even shock. When people learn a POWERFACT—even people who know a lot of stuff about animals—they go “Whaaaa?!” Allow me to demonstrate.
Polar bears live in the Arctic, where they are top predators. They are the longest bear at around a cool 8 feet and, along with their brown bear ancestors, one of the biggest land carnivores. Their outer layer of fur appears white, but—POWERFACT—is actually made of clear, hollow air-filled tubes that reflect the light. Patches of fur of some polar bears in zoos have turned green in the past due to the presence of algae inside the hollow hairs. Also, POWERFACT: The skin underneath their fur is black.
Polar bears love to rest and eat. They are talented at making comfy beds for themselves and rest up to 20 hours each day. When they’re not napping, they are probably hunting seals. Seals are their favorite food and seal fat is ideally suited for their high-calorie needs. POWERFACT: Polar bears can sniff out a seal’s breathing hole in the ice from over a mile away.
Even though you might not think that big bear body was built to swim, polar bears are actually excellent swimmers with their giant partially-webbed front paws. They will swim and dive to sneak up on seals resting on floating bits of ice and to hunt narwhal, beluga whales, and fish.
Now, let’s talk about polar bear babies. It’s almost impossible to think of anything cuter than a baby polar bear sliding down a snowy hill (POWER OPINION). To make their babies, females mate with males in the spring and summer. POWERFACT: Scientists think that males can track down females by smelling their footprints in the snow. Although mating takes place in the spring, the embryo does not implant until the fall when the female is fattening up and ready for months in her den. POWERFACT: Pregnant females will go up to eight months without eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom in their dens. Females usually give birth to fraternal twins in December or January, which means that almost every bear is a Sagittarius, Capricorn, or Aquarius (ASTROLOGICAL POWERFACT). Baby bears are only about one tiny pound at birth (compared to 1,000-1,700 pounds as adults) and will stay and grow with mom for their first two to three years.
Now comes the hard part. There are only about 26,000 polar bears left in the wild. They are threatened largely by the rapid loss of sea ice that we’re experiencing due to climate change. Scientists are already seeing the effects, including decreasing population sizes and increasing food scarcity. As sea ice continues to decline, polar bears may have to increasingly rely on swimming to travel between their denning, hunting, and breeding areas. One female polar bear paddled as far as 426 miles without rest. She made the journey, but lost her cub and 22 percent of her body weight in the process, demonstrating the high energetic cost and risks associated with long-distance swimming in freezing waters. When the sea ice melts, it also forces bears to go ashore where they’re left to fast or eat garbage out of dumps. Do you want to live in a world where polar bears eat garbage out of dumps? Do you want to possibly live in a world without polar bears?
If you drew the polar bear, it’s telling you that, in the same way that the polar bear’s fur is actually clear and not really white at all, things are sometimes different than they appear. Does something sound too good to be true? Does a situation appear fine, but your gut is telling you otherwise? Pay attention to your intuition and balance trust with a healthy dose of skepticism. Are there questions you need to ask about a situation or person before you continue? Be careful to not judge a book by its cover. This goes for the opposite too—you may want to judge a person or situation before you know them, but get to know them before you write them off.
CONTRARY
The polar bear may be ruling the Arctic as a top predator, but there are also things out of its control—like climate change. If you chose the polar bear upside down, it is telling you to do what you can do to manage things that are under your control. Then, go slide down a snow bank with some buddies and let go of the things that you can’t control. What are some things you can let go of today? What is a baby step you can take to improve a situation that you can control? For instance, you actually can do something about climate change—like carpool or ride a bike, reuse stuff, grow your own vegetables, and buy local.
— A S
Monarch Butterfly
Monarch butterflies may be the closest thing we have to real magic in this world, scientifically speaking. (Unscientifically speaking, I’m pretty certain that basically everything is magic). Monarchs start out as caterpillars, then wrap themselves up in beautiful gold-flecked, seafoam-green pupa cases, turn their bodies into soup, and later emerge as gorgeous, poisonous bewinged creatures. You’d think that would be enough magic for one lifetime, but no—monarchs are just getting started.
Every fall in North America, large numbers of monarchs, each weighing less than a gram, travel up to 3,000 miles to their wintering grounds in the Transvolcanic Mountains in Mexico. They are the only insects known to make such a journey. The monarchs that make this trip are from the populations that lie east of the Rocky Mountains. Populations that lie west of the Rockies make a shorter trip to spend winter on the southern coast of California. When they reach their roosting trees in Mexico, these east-of-the-Rockies monarchs may cover an oyamel tree in such numbers (tens of thousands to be exact) that the tree looks to be made entirely of butterflies.
This fall migration is one part of an annual life cycle that takes the east-of-the-Rockies monarchs five generations to complete. The monarchs that migrate south to Mexico are considered the final generation of this cycle. Once the weather starts to warm up and the days get longer, these monarchs finish maturing and mate. They then head north, laying eggs that will become the first generation of the next cycle on milkweed plants in northern Mexico and the southern US. The second generation repeats a similar cycle, following the growth of milkweed and heading further north into the Upper Midwest and Canada.
The third and fourth generations are where things start to change. Monarchs in these generations that are born in late summer stay immature, sucking down nectar and roosting with other monarchs in trees to prepare for the journey south. These great and great-great-grandchildren of the butterflies that migrated north from Mexico will be the generation to return. Amazingly, these butterflies will follow the same migration paths that generations before them took, at times even returning to the same tree on which their ancestors spent the previous winter.
Monarchs are all kinds of magic, but there’s one magic trick we don’t want them doing—the disappearing act. Researchers and citizen scientists have been tagging and tracking monarchs in the US for decades. The populations east of the Rockies are threatened by loss of milkweed over breeding grounds and loss of wintering habitat through logging, the clearing of trees for agriculture, and natural disasters. Though monarchs themselves are not an endangered species, this fascinating migration pattern is in danger of disappearing.
If the monarch flew into your cards, it has a message about transformation. The butterfly embodies transformation with its complete metamorphosis (new mouthparts, who dis?). It isn’t afraid to digest itself to become what it’s meant to be. Sure it made itself into soup, but the body had a plan. It laid down some organized groups of cells called imaginal discs for each body part to serve as a blueprint for its adult body. Like the monarch, you too have the capacity to radically transform. We transform all the time without even trying. We can also transform intentionally to become the person we’re meant to be. What does that person look like and feel like? What do they do? How do they act? You have the blueprint inside of you to fully realize your potential. It may take a long time. It may not be a direct route. But you can start the journey and see where it takes you.
CONTRARY
If you picked the monarch upside down, it’s time to think about cycles and your life. We experience all kinds of cycles—daily ones, lunar ones, yearly ones, seasonal ones. Different points in cycles make for great moments to pause and check in with yourself. Maybe you also experience painful cycles related to emotions, relationships, or behaviors. Sometimes it’s harder to check in with ourselves when we’re in the middle of cycles we can’t see. Take time to consider what cycles are present in your life and where you are at within those cycles. Is there a cycle that you’ve fallen into that doesn’t serve you? Make steps to move along on that path. Or, maybe it is simply time to celebrate a solstice or watch the sun come up. Let’s appreciate how we can work with cycles and grow with them.
— A S
Barred Owl
The barred owl is a true North American classic. Their trademark hooty “Who cooks for you?” song can be heard in rural and sometimes urban woodlands of the eastern-central US, Pacific Northwest, and up into Canada. There’s also a subspecies of barred owl that lives in Mexico and may turn out to be a different species entirely as we learn more about it.
Spotting an owl is a satisfying moment. Even though they’re big, sturdy birds up to 20 inches long, their barred brown and white plumage render them almost invisible when they’re roosting amongst the trees. They are also almost completely silent flyers. Their large wings let them fly with little flapping, and fringe-like structures on the edges of their flight feathers dampen the sound of the wind hitting and moving across the feathers.
Their silent flight and other sensory adaptations make barred owls talented hunters. They’ll look and listen for rodents on the forest floor and then swoop down silently to snatch them up in their talons. Like other owls and predatory birds, barred owls can’t move their eyeballs (which aren’t technically eyeballs because they’re shaped like tubes). So to look around and judge the distance of prey, they rely on turning their head up to 270 degrees (more than twice what we can do safely) and bobbing their head to and fro. Why the head bob? We can judge the distance of something pretty well with our eyes, but owls can’t. They move their head around and use triangulation to figure out exactly how far an object is away from them.
While you might think this system of figuring out distances by sight is a little clunky (though definitely charming), their ears make up for it. Owl ears are located at different heights on each side of their head and point in different directions, enabling them to locate sound precisely without moving their heads. Their ability to locate by hearing is so good that they can catch a rodent hidden under a blanket of snow.
If you pulled the barred owl, it’s telling you to pay attention to see what unexpected delights you might encounter. I once played a barred owl recording while camping in the woods at night in complete darkness to show a friend what they sounded like. When I turned on my flashlight, I found that five barred owls had landed in the nearby trees without a sound. Pause to quietly look and listen. Balance the unexpected with the expected—plan for what you want, but also be open to surprises. An unexpected opportunity could be coming up. Be ready to swoop in when it arrives. Like an owl, this opportunity may sneak up on you—but when you turn your light on, there it is staring right back at you.
CONTRARY
If you chose the owl upside down, it has a lesson for you about the hidden potential that is present in moments of imbalance. With their asymmetrical ears and head bobbing, owls gather important information about the world from these off-balance ways. Balance in your life is wonderful, but can be unrealistic to achieve at times. What can we gain from being off-balance? What can we learn and how can we grow? If you’re feeling off balance, don’t kick yourself and think that you’re not doing it right and must immediately find the shortest path back to balance. Consider whether this moment of imbalance may be part of a larger transformation. Is it important to get back to where you were when you last felt balance? Or is there something new and valuable up ahead?
— A S
Cuttlefish
Holy smokes: cuttlefish. If you find animals even mildly interesting, I bet you’ve been amazed once or twice by a video of a cuttlefish hypnotizing its prey with a strobe-y full body light show, or manipulating its skin in three dimensions to blend in with a poke-y coral landscape. Cuttlefish are a type of cephalopod (octopus, squid, nautilus), which are famous for their ability to change the color, pattern, and texture of their skin to hide from predators, hunt for prey, and attract mates—while supposedly being colorblind.
To work their camouflaging magic, cuttlefish use their impressive visual system and a set of neurally-controlled organs in their skin to rapidly change their pattern, posture, and skin texture in as little as half a second. Chromatophores are sacs of pigment (typically red, yellow/orange, and brown/black) hooked up to bicycle spoke-like muscles that expand the color spot when they contract. Because chromatophores are controlled neurally, they can change the color of a cuttlefish’s skin within milliseconds. Cuttlefish also have reflective layers below the chromatophore layer, containing iridophore and leucophore cells. Together these layers interact to create a wide variety of visual effects. On top of that, cuttlefish can contract little groups of muscles, called papillae, to raise bumps on their skin to alter the skin’s texture. Cuttlefish use these tools to fool their predators, and can go from a cuttlefish to a lumpy ocean rock in only a couple of seconds.
Maybe the most amazing part of all this cuttlefish knowledge is what we don’t know after decades of cuttlefish camouflage research. A lot of it comes down to a very basic issue—we’re still learning how other animals see the world. We know how we see cuttlefish and how our cameras and computer screens see them, but we don’t know exactly how they see each other or even how a predator, like a seabird or shark, sees them. Do our theories about why animals look the way they do hold up when we find out how they see others of their species and how other animals see them?
If the cuttlefish revealed itself, it may be asking you: what is real? Everything we experience in the world, we experience through our limited senses. Is it reasonable to assume that we know how another human being, even one close to us, experiences the world? Sees the same piece of art or flower or bird as we see it? Hears music in the same way? Consider that what you take as fact may not be true for others. It may be time to approach a situation from a new perspective.
CONTRARY
If you’ve been struggling over a problem or decision in your life, making pro and con lists over and over in your head, the upside down cuttlefish is telling you that it may be time to trust your gut. Can you find stillness and space and listen to what your intuition is telling you? Consider the cuttlefish, who needs to hide from a predator by quickly matching its background to survive. Does it think, “Ooh, what about this color? Let’s try out a couple of patterns here...”? No. It does some insanely fast neural processing and becomes the rock—immediately. Let your gut be your guide. Become the rock.
— A S
Broad-winged Hawk
A hawk sighting is always a sign. The other day, I was driving home from work and thinking about moving to the country. Immediately after having that thought, a red-tailed hawk took off from the ground about 20 feet away and flew over my car. Well, I guess we’re going country! A hawk sighting always seals the deal, affirming whatever it is you’re thinking about at that moment—whether it’s a big life move or whether to have pizza for dinner. A lot of confident decisions are made in our household in winter, when the hawks are plentiful along Austin’s roadways.
While you may be used to seeing a single hawk perched on a highway lamppost or a few hawks riding a thermal (a column of rising warm air) high into the sky, some hawks gather in huge numbers to migrate. Broad-winged hawks are famous for this. They gather in kettles of up to thousands of individuals as they migrate from North to South America for the winter. Most every fall, we pay a visit to an unimpressive county park on the Texas coast to view the spectacle. If you hit it right, you can see clouds of thousands of hawks, spiraling like slow motion tornadoes.
If you chose the hawk card, it’s telling you to do whatever you were thinking about when you picked it. Well, maybe not—but it is there to help you get in touch with your instincts. Hawks are focused predators, zeroing in on their prey and going for it. Allow the hawk to help you zero in on your decisions and goals and go for them. This may mean taking a break from being busy or distracted all of the time and letting yourself dream, be bored, and explore. It may mean doing whatever it was you were thinking about when you picked it, if that feels right to you. Let the hawk and your intuition be your guides.
CONTRARY
If you picked the hawk upside down, it’s reminding you to connect with your community. Maybe you like to be alone or with your family and close pals. Sometimes, though, you need to embrace your larger community and kettle up. Check out places to volunteer, go to a neighborhood meeting, get in on an aerobics class or sports team at your local rec center—there are lots of ways to get out there and mingle. You’re a beautiful hawk on your own, but together with other hawks? You’re a force of nature.
— A S
Red Kangaroo
Kangaroos might be the swollest animals on Earth—or they at least have the swollest look.* By kangaroos, I’m really talking about the big ones in the Macropodidae, or “big feet,” family. Macropodidae includes your kangaroos, wallaroos, wallabies, quokkas, tree kangaroos, pademelons, and honey possums. The only thing really distinguishing kangaroos from the other macropods is that they’re the big ones.
Most kangaroos live in Australia where they hold some records in the marsupial world. The red kangaroo is the largest marsupial on Earth today, with males reaching almost 6 feet tall when standing. They are also the largest animals to use hopping as a means of locomotion. This may not seem like the swollest way to locomote, but kangaroos can hop up to a height of 10 feet and a length of almost 30 feet. Interestingly, they can’t walk backwards.
Red kangaroos aren’t born swoll. At birth, they’re about the size of a bumble bee. These helpless, hairless, blind babies crawl into the mother’s pouch where they suckle and hang out for up to 235 days. After that, they’ll dip back in for a snack once and awhile until they’re about a year old. Kangaroo moms can have both a newborn and an older joey suckling at the same time, even though they have different nutritional needs, by simultaneously producing different milk from each mammary gland.
If a kangaroo hopped into your spread, it may be telling you to stay invested in an idea or project even if it seems so big that you can’t imagine finishing, or so small and insignificant that it feels unimportant. Something tiny can turn into something grand given enough time and nourishment, and just because we may be blind to the big picture doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Keep on forging ahead, and you may be surprised by the results.
CONTRARY
Have you been holding yourself back from growth—whether personal, professional, or in a relationship? Staying in the safety of your comfort zone instead of letting yourself grow into all you could be? If you chose the kangaroo upside down, it may be time to push yourself outside of that safe, comfy pouch. You might begin this process by sharing your true self with trusted people in your life. With their support, you can grow as swoll as the swollest kangaroo.
— A S
Praying Mantis
Coming into this essay, I was prepared to lay down some regular, just fine facts about the praying mantis (they’re so many inches long, live in such and such a location, etc.) and then finish it off with the grand finale fact that females eat the heads off of their mates while copulating. Interesting? Yes. Upon closer inspection of the facts, however, it became clear that 1) while females sometimes eat males after copulating, particularly if they’re hungry, it’s not as prevalent a behavior as folks once thought, and 2) there are far weirder things afoot in the world of the praying mantis. Things that are pretty out of this world, if you catch my drift.
On that note, first thing’s first: I think we can agree that all 2,300+ species of mantis look exactly like aliens.
Second of all, while excavating the ancient Egyptian village of Deir el-Medina, researchers found a tiny clay coffin containing a praying mantis wrapped in linen. I don’t know much about the connection between aliens and ancient Egypt, but I do know that it’s a thing.
Third of all, mantises have some unique adaptations that make them shockingly impressive ambush hunters. They rely on camouflage to hide until the moment is right and then snatch up prey with their long, spiny raptorial forelimbs and lightning-fast reflexes. They can time their attacks perfectly by judging the distance of prey using their 3D vision. Not only are they the only invertebrates known to see in three dimensions, but they also have a unique way of doing so—nothing else exists like it on earth. Suspicious? I think so.
Lastly, mantises have some intense predator and prey scenarios that don’t quite add up. Animals that like to eat mantises include birds, fish, snakes, frogs, etc. Animals that mantises like to eat include birds, fish, snakes, frogs, etc. There are at least 147 known cases, spanning across all continents except for Antarctica, of mantises ambushing hummingbirds at flowering plants or hummingbird feeders and eating their brains. I’m sorry, what? Yes.
Alien faces. Sometimes mate decapitators. Bird brain eaters. Advanced hunters. Ancient Egyptian tomb dwellers. I’m just giving you the facts here. You decide what to make of them.
If you picked the praying mantis, it has a lesson for you about patience. As predominantly ambush predators, mantises wait and wait and wait and then pounce when the time is right. Waiting for just the right moment is key. Take the orchid mantis, which mimics an orchid so well that insects will approach it to try to get nectar and get eaten instead. This hunting strategy only works if the orchid mantis can hold its flower pose. Be the flower: wait until the moment is right to strike. That time may be now or it may be a year from now. Consider possible actions and outcomes before you act. What conditions need to be met before you act? How will you know when the moment is right? Patience will pay off.
CONTRARY
If you picked the mantis upside down, it’s reminding you to be careful. Something that seems all good may not be exactly as it seems. That orchid may actually be a mantis ready to eat you. This of course doesn’t mean that you should avoid things that seem good. It is simply a reminder to manage your expectations and not get trapped in blind optimism. Look at all sides of an issue and identify potential pitfalls before they catch you unawares.
— A S
Coelacanth
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was born in South Africa on February 24, 1907. She was—perhaps importantly—a Pisces. She was also very into learning about nature. While training to become a nurse, she heard about a job opening at the new East London Museum on the South African coast. Despite having no formal training, she went in for an interview and got the job based on her extensive knowledge as an amateur naturalist.
In 1938, several years into her museum job, she went down to the docks to investigate a strange fish that a fisherman had caught. This mystery fish, she said, was the most beautiful fish she had ever seen. She was pumped. She couldn’t fit the 5-foot fish in her fridge, so she asked the morgue if they could hang onto it. When they said no, she had it taxidermied. You can see a photo online of her smiling behind the ragged, taxidermied behemoth of a fish.
Marjorie immediately wrote to her amateur ichthyologist friend J. L. B. Smith for help identifying the mystery fish. To his surprise, he found that it was a coelacanth—an ancient fish that, up until that moment, was thought to have gone extinct around 70 million years ago. It took another 14 years for someone to find a second individual coelacanth and another 45 years after that for a biologist on his honeymoon to discover the second species in an Indonesian fish market. Both coelacanth species have the genus name Latimeria, in honor of Marjorie.
If the coelacanth swam into your cards, it may be signaling a transition in your life. Coelacanths are exciting to scientists not only because they were thought to have gone extinct millions of years ago, but also because they represent a moment in evolution when vertebrates were transitioning from water to land. Although lungfish are the closest living relative to the tetrapod ancestor that made the transition, as fellow lobe-finned fish, coelacanths hold important clues in their genome about how this transition could have occurred. Unlike bony fish, coelacanths have muscular lobed fins that move alternately like four-legged land critters and could potentially support body weight on land, which would be key for a tetrapod ancestor. In the water, they can move these fins 180 degrees to swim forwards, backwards, and even upside down.
Pay attention to the winds of change and what they may mean for your future. It may be a small shift or a major life change. Is the universe sending you messages that all end up pointing in a certain direction? Is uncertainty making you feel anxious and clouding your brain? Watch for signs and integrate messages from your brain and your gut to make a mindful transition to this next chapter.
CONTRARY
If the coelacanth came to you upside down, it is telling you to be open to the unbelievable. J. L. B. Smith wrote to Marjorie after reading her description and seeing her drawing of the specimen: “It is curious that in spite of all this evidence, my intellect says that such things can’t happen.” We humans are smart, but we have biases and rely on limited senses and tools to understand the vast universe. Science is one important tool that we use to understand our natural world, the value of medicines, and more. Exploring synchronicities and meaning in nature are also important ways of understanding the world and our role in it. As an evolutionary biology graduate student, I would get flak from some colleagues when I’d mention astrology. Pointing out that Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer is a Pisces, the fish sign, may not be science, but isn’t it fun? Being dogmatic in any direction can limit your perspective and make it harder to find truth and joy in the world. Practice trying to see the world in a different way. Experiment with loosening your grip on a tightly held belief. You may be surprised by what you find.
— A S
North American Beaver
Okay, so you’re a terrestrial mammal who’s slow and clunky on land, but you’re a decent swimmer. Land lubbering is tough with all of those predators that move faster than you do. What to do? I got it. How about you fell a bunch of trees using your teeth, drag them into a stream, line them up, and plug them with mud. Then let the water level rise into a nice deep, broad swimming hole, build a domed little home in the middle of the water that you can only access by swimming across your ample moat, and then just live like that! There you go—a simple, straightforward solution.
Beavers have been working their tails off for the last 10 million years. When and how beavers’ dam-building behavior evolved is still somewhat of a mystery. However it began, it’s an impressive feat. No other creature besides humans manipulates a landscape so thoroughly. A beaver dam in Wood Buffalo National Park in Northern Alberta, Canada is so large (twice as long as Hoover Dam) that it is visible from space.
By building dams, beavers not only create homes for themselves, but also create valuable wetlands that are habitat and water sources for loads of other animals. These wetlands have added benefits for humans and the rest of the world by slowing floodwaters and filtering pollutants. So take a moment to thank your local beaver.
Speaking of local beavers, sometimes you think you know a good amount of stuff about animals and then a fact hits you—like the fact that there are beavers living near me in Austin, Texas—and you feel like you never knew anything at all about animals. I always imagined beavers as majestic creatures inhabiting majestic forests in majestic states like Maine and Montana. But no. The American beaver lives pretty much all over Canada and the US (except for southern Florida and the desert southwest) and even dips down into Mexico. Beavers have even been found hanging out around the Round Rock, Texas Wal-Mart if you can believe it, and getting trapped and relocated for chewing down trees along retention ponds in the suburbs.
One of the benefits of not knowing that beavers live where I live is that now I have a new animal to go look for, and a mammal at that. What a gift! I want to hear them slap their broad scaly tail against the surface of the water to frighten me away. I want to see a mom carrying a baby in its mouth and walking upright. I want to see it use its double-clawed hind paws like a comb to groom its thick fur and smell its castoreum to see if it smells at all like fake strawberries. Suddenly knowing that I live where beavers live makes my world feel brand new.
If the beaver wandered into your cards, get ready—it’s time to get the job done. Often people talk about the engineering skills of the beaver, but from what I’ve read, they aren’t necessarily doing the most efficient, engineer-y job. And frankly, their dams sometimes look a little sloppy. Could they save time and energy by picking a different location to build? Probably. Do their dams end up doing the job just fine? Definitely. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just get started. The lesson for you here is this: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the great.
CONTRARY
If you pulled the beaver upside down, it’s letting you know that it may be time to surface after that ten-minute dive to take a breath. Sure you’ve got great lungs and a stellar liver and can hold your breath for a long time, but sometimes you need to allow yourself some deep unhurried breaths. Swim into your lodge. Spend some quality time with the muskrat squatting in there with you and just take ‘er easy. Breaks give us the mental space we need to come up with our best ideas and prepare us for the times we need to work hard.
— A S
Spotted Skunk
A surprising BBC nature video exists on YouTube in which some street youth are breakdancing and spray painting over an “LA Skunks” tag on a building. A spotted skunk emerges out of a shipping crate near a boombox. Then a guy gets into a handstand and starts to walk on his hands. The skunk does the same thing. It’s your classic breakdance-style battle. The interaction takes a turn somehow and the guy goes to spray the skunk in the face with spray paint, but ends up getting sprayed by the skunk instead. It’s a far cry from the dignity and tact of a David Attenborough BBC nature show, but I appreciate them staging this to make the point that a skunk’s handstand looks kind of like a breakdancing move and that its anal glands spray kind of like a can of spray paint.
There are four species of spotted skunks in the world. They cover different ranges that together span from just into southwestern Canada, across the US, and down through Costa Rica. They mostly live in forested areas where they sleep in dens by day and forage for little critters and fruits and such by night. They are pretty social and sometimes den up with other skunks if it’s not mating season. Spotted skunks happen to be the only member of the skunk family that can climb trees. (And by skunk family I mean Mephitidae, not the weasel family, Mustelidae, to which they used to belong.)
Spotted skunks are known for being active skunks—especially during mating season. If an animal disturbs or surprises a male skunk when he is in a state known as “mating madness,” that animal will likely be in for it. With the least provocation, skunks are ready to rear up in a handstand as a warning and projectile squirt a gnarly oil from two anal glands at the face of the offender from 5 to 13 feet away, depending on whether winds are in their favor. So if you see the most gorgeous skunk you’ve ever seen in your life in March or April, have yourself a quick look and then get out of there.
If the skunk slinked its way into your cards, it’s telling you about the power of attraction and repulsion. You may be thinking, “I don’t want to repulse anyone!” I’m going to argue that: maybe you do. We can’t please all of the people all of the time. Not everyone is going to like us. And some who do like us aren’t the type of people we want in our lives. Use your skunk power to repel those who don’t build you up and to attract those who do. You are the only one who gets to determine who you let in and who you keep out. Put that beautiful pelt and odorous oil to work for you.
CONTRARY
If the skunk card appeared upside down, the skunk image appeared right side up. The handstand, or upside down position for the skunk itself, is its power pose. Choosing the contrary position tells you that it may be time to stand your ground in a situation. Don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself and let your needs be known.
— A S
Deep Sea Anglerfish
Most of the 200-some species of anglerfish live in the deep, dark sea. You may have seen images of female deep sea anglerfish with their bioluminescent blobs dangling in front of their heads, luring hapless prey to their giant mouths. They look completely terrifying, but in some cases, like Photocorynus spiniceps, these fish are barely 2 inches long. Male deep sea anglerfish don’t look like the females—they lack the characteristic elongated dorsal fin and bioluminescent lure, and are much smaller. In fact, male spiniceps in particular are so small that they clock in as the smallest sexually mature adult vertebrate on record at 0.24 inches.*
Male spiniceps are known for their parasitic mating strategy. It’s a lonely world deep down in the ocean. The chances of finding females to mate with are pretty slim. When a male happens to track down a female, he bites her with his toothlike denticles, dissolves his own face and her skin tissue, and merges with her all the way down to the blood vessels. Her circulatory system becomes his, supplying nutrients that keep him alive. He loses fins and some organs, living only to supply sperm whenever she is fertile. This may seem like a pretty wild move, but latching on and never letting go makes more sense when you consider how rare it is to find a female anglerfish in the deep sea.
If the deep sea anglerfish entered into your cards, it is reminding you to recognize and give thanks for those best friends and soulmates in your life. In this vast universe, isn’t it incredible that we can find people to connect with and laugh with and cry with and be amazed about anglerfish facts with? If you feel like you’re adrift in the deep dark sea and are having a hard time finding those best friends and soulmates, it may be time to put yourself out there. Join a club or go to a cool community event or volunteer for a cause you feel strongly about. Get out there and into spaces where you want to be so you can find your people.
CONTRARY:
If spiniceps appeared upside down, it might be telling you to loosen your grip. Are you holding on too tight to a person, object, situation, or dream? Spiniceps may be telling you that you need to step away from an obsession that’s consuming you.
— A S
*This status is challenged by the teeny frog, Paedophryne amanuenis, whose males and females both clock in around 0.30 inches. Sounds obvious enough that the anglerfish is smaller at 0.24 inches—so what’s the contest you ask? It comes down to the fact that only the male anglerfish is smaller, not the female, and that the male is basically just a sac of sperm.
Fellow animal fact lovers, if you haven’t met barnacles yet, get ready. They will absolutely blow your mind. The barnacle may be one of the most underrated amazing animals. I guess I just hyped it, which is what everyone tells me not to do when you’re trying to impress someone, but so goes my weakness.
These crustaceans start their lives off as wee plankton floating in the water. When it’s time to settle down, they can cement themselves to everything from the pile of a scuzzy boat dock to the face of a majestic whale. They secrete a quick-setting cement that is better than any adhesive humans have invented. It can stick to anything, even under water. Barnacles settle in what we would consider to be an upside down position, with their feathery legs, or cirri, dangling free and waving plankton and other tiny food bits toward the mouthparts housed within their shells.
There are more than 1,200 species of barnacles out there, living their best lives on all sorts of ocean stuff. Coronula diadema, for instance, lives only on humpback whales. Whale barnacles are commensals, meaning that they benefit from the relationship and the whales generally go unharmed. A single humpback was host to 1,000 pounds of barnacles according to one record. For the whale, this is the weight equivalent of a human wearing clothes, which sounds normal, but still—impressive. Whale barnacles are so unique that if a particular whale is endangered, it can mean that its barnacle is also endangered.
Barnacles in the Sacculina genus have a unique lifestyle for which they get the cool descriptor: “Chemical Castrator of Crabs.” The females of this parasitic barnacle cement themselves to a weak spot on a host crab’s shell and inject their cells into the crab’s hemolymph (aka their version of blood). There they grow as roots throughout the crab’s body, protected from the crab’s immune system and sucking up the crab’s nutrients as they grow. When the host crab finally stops growing and molting, the parasitic barnacle turns its attention to growing a sac filled with its eggs on the crab’s abdomen where the crab’s own eggs would normally be, turning the host crab sterile in the process. If the host crab is a male, the Sacculina infection causes the host to grow a wider abdomen, making it appear more like a female and better able to support the parasite’s egg sac. One day a male Sacculina comes along and fertilizes the barnacle eggs, which the host crab, again acting like they’re its own, then carefully waves into the ocean with its claws to release the spawn. The empty sac then shrinks and withers and the remnants are finally eaten by the host crab.
Sacculina isn’t the only barnacle with impressive reproductive behavior. Most barnacles are hermaphrodites. They have the largest penises in relation to body size in the animal kingdom to get around the fact that they can’t walk or swim around to find mates. The penises of Atlantic acorn barnacles have accordion-like folds in their exoskeleton to allow them to expand up to eight times their body length. These barnacles show penis phenotypic plasticity, meaning that they grow different sized and shaped penises depending on environmental conditions. In a particularly wavy habitat, they’ll grow a thicker penis to hold their own against the waves. If conditions change, they can grow a slimmer penis next time. After each mating season, they shed their penis, leading to the possibility of a different penis every year.
If the barnacle has appeared in your cards, it is telling you that if you think you’re stuck, think again. You could be making strides without recognizing it. You may just be a humble barnacle, but you may also be stuck to the face of a whale on its way to Hawaii. If things are feeling forced, it could be time to go with the flow and trust in the journey.
CONTRARY
Okay, you may actually be stuck. If you chose the barnacle upside down, it may be telling you that it’s time to make a move. If you’re stuck in a funk or a rut, think about the things that help you get out of it. Going out in nature to use your senses and find some inspiration? Making a special treat for yourself? Making a cup of tea and reading something for fun even if you can’t imagine finding five extra minutes in the day? Or maybe there’s a bigger issue that’s got you stuck. Whatever it is, take some time to be with yourself and breathe and figure out your next move.
— A S
The wolverine—aka the glutton, the skunk bear, or the nasty cat—is a pretty hardscrabble beast. Wolverines live in arctic and subarctic areas in North America, Europe, and Asia where there are vast expanses of snow- and ice-covered wilderness. These feisty weasels are built for this tough landscape. Their stocky bodies sport huge paws with long claws that act simultaneously like snowshoes and crampons, allowing them to cover long distances across snowy mountains with their floppy gallop. They run all over the place, swim just fine, climb trees no problem, and do pretty much whatever else they need to do to TCB.
Gulo gulo means gluttonous glutton, named after the wolverine’s enthusiastic eating style—which you would probably adopt, too, if food were as hard to come by as it is during those long icy winters. Wolverines are wildly opportunistic, taking down live prey both smaller and much larger than themselves (like moose!) and scavenging every single bit of the deadest, frozenest animals (including teeth!).
Even though wolverines are only as big as medium-sized dogs, they won’t hesitate to fight a grizzly bear for access to food. They will fight for their meal and then spray it with their anal scent glands to deter other animals from eating it. Although they themselves don’t hibernate, they will dig into burrows and eat hibernating animals, no problem. They’re kind of the toughest.
If you picked this largest of all land-dwelling weasels, it’s teaching you the value of hard work and grit. While you’re complaining that you don’t want to finish your Brussels sprouts, the wolverine is all, “When I was a kid, we didn’t even have Brussels sprouts—we ate teeth and we liked it!” Recognize where you’ve become used to privilege, and need to put in some effort. It may be in advocating for others. It may be working on a concrete project. Whatever it is, channel the wolverine and get down to business.
CONTRARY
If the wolverine appeared to you upside down, it may be signaling that you need to slow down or let up. Identify where you may be pushing yourself or others too hard. Are you approaching burnout? Are you being tough on yourself or others, digging into their cozy dens to eat them when they’re just trying to take a snooze? Do you really need to eat teeth? Think about it.
— A S