Beasts and Brew

An epic show down to end all show downs. Or, not really but it might be interesting anyway? Like, what is actually the difference between frogs and toads?

To start things off on the ‘right’ track; there is no scientific distinction between frogs and toads. None. The end. I’m back from a seven month-long hiatus and I’m writing a three sentence long blog post just to share cute pictures of frogs/toads.

Just kidding.

Even though there is no ‘scientific’ distinction between the two, according to some way-smarter-than-me people… there are distinctions to be made none the less!

This (the above photo) is a frog! Frogs are amphibians, but spend most of their time in the water and are known for their jumping abilities, croaking, buggy eyes and slimy skin.  Frogs also have teeth, while toads do not. There are over 6,000 species of frogs all over the world.

This handsome lad is a toad. Toads are also amphibians but prefer to spend most of their time on land. Toads have dry bumpy skin, short legs, and they prefer to walk and hop rather than jump. The bumps covering the body of a toad are not warts, and a person cannot get warts from handling a toad. Toads do have a trick up their sleeves…..bumps….whatever, the large lumps or glands behind their eyes can secrete a burning milky toxin to deter predators.

To quote Christopher Raxworthy, Associate Curator of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History “all toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads.” A great quote, but doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as “four score and seven years ago..” but I digress. In the real world, the word ‘toad’ is used to describe any frog that has dry warty skin and stubby legs.

Both critters are amphibians (my favorite class of animals), the word amphibian comes from the Greek word that means “both lives”, that is because both of them start their lives in the water, and either permanently or at times, live the rest of it on land. Both toads and frogs are classified under the same order Anura, and under that order ‘frogs’ fall under the family Ranidae or ‘true frogs’, while toads are in the family Bufonidae. But they both started in the same place, they hatched from eggs laid in the water. Basically toads and frogs are first cousins of the animal kingdom.

Now that the boring stuff is out of the way…on to the fun facts!

• On opposite ends of the spectrum, the largest frog in the world is the Goliath Frog which is 13.5″ long and can weigh more than 6.6 lbs! But the smallest frog is the gold frog which is only .4 inches long and weighs about 7 ounces (the size of a dime!)
• When a frog or toad swallows its prey, it blinks. That is because blinking actually pushes the eyeballs down on top of the mouth, which helps them push food down their throats.
• A frog or toad sheds all of its skin once a week (much like a snake), and after it sheds, the frog or toad usually eats it!!
• One gram of toxin produced by the golden poison dart frog could kill 100,000 people. (One type of frog I might avoid trying to catch.)

I hope this provides all you weirdos with a great topic of conversation this holiday season, when you once again get stuck at the kids table with your weird Aunt Karen.

Where I get all my info:

The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology

http://www.livescience.com/50692-frog-facts.html

National Geographic

Any my brain, because I am obsessive.

Alright, a lot of things in nature are pretty badass…I get it. But listen, I spend a lot of my free time thinking about hyenas (are you really surprised?) and I honestly believe they are one of the most metal creatures on the face of the earth. They are adorable and disgusting all rolled into one, and that’s really my favorite mixture of things ever.

Hyenas, all four types of them, are much more closely related to cats than the dogs they resemble. They are members of the suborder Feliforma which is a classification for cat-like carnivores. With only four different species of hyena, it is the fifth smallest family in the classification Carnivora and one of the smallest in the class Mammalia (harken back to your high school biology class for all of this ‘orders’, ‘family’, and ‘suborders’ nonsense). Back in prehistoric times hyenas formed two distinct types, lightly built more ‘dog-like’ hyenas and big hefty ‘bone crushing’ hyenas. Yeah, that’s a real thing, bone crushing hyenas……how dope is that? Of the smaller dog-ish hyenas only one survived  into modern times, the aardwolf. While the three other hyenas (brown, spotted and striped….seriously the most uncreative names on the planet) fall into the badass bone crusher category.

But let’s get started with this little dude, the aardwolf, smallest of the hyenas and kinda the cutest.

The aardwolf weighs only 17-30 ish pounds and they are about 33-41 inches long (most of that being their tail). Aardwolves look a lot like striped hyenas, just tinier! They live in a bunch of different places, southern Zambia, Angola, Mozambique, northeastern Uganda, Somalia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt…..all in Africa for any of you who slacked off in geography class. These guys are mainly insectivores, meaning they eat bugs, mainly termites actually….lots and lots of termites, when a aardwolf goes out to dinner just one of them can eat 300,00 termites…..that’s in a single outing!

The aardwolf’s bigger look a like is the striped hyena…

Striped hyenas weigh 57-90 pounds, 39-45 inches long and about 26-30 inches tall from paw to shoulder. They have the biggest range of any of the hyenas, living in north/northeast Africa, the Middle East and Asia…as far away as southern Siberia! Striped hyenas are mainly scavengers but will hunt down defenseless animals, and if that doesn’t work for them, they will eat fruit. These cool looking dudes are also almost totally silent, while other hyenas communicate with sounds (laughter being one of them!) the striped hyena mainly communicates with body language and some random laughs and howls.

The brown hyena is up next…

Brown hyenas are the second biggest species of hyena, ranging from 51-63 inches long and weighing anywhere from 75-165 pounds. They look a bit different from other hyenas due to the long shaggy hair all over their bodies that can be as long as 12 inches, and probably requires weekly blow outs…just saying. Brown hyenas  have the most limited range and live only in southern Africa. These hell beasts mainly scavenge on left over prey from lions and other predators, or other dead animals, they will occasionally eat fruits and unlike the spotted hyenas, they do not hunt in groups.

Speaking of the baddest of the bad…..

Spotted hyenas, where do I even start….they, as the kids would say, are bad bitches. They are the largest species of hyena, 4-5.9 feet long, about 2.5 feet tall from paw to shoulder and weigh anywhere from 88-190 lbs, with the ladies being 10 percent heavier than the males. Spotted hyenas live south of the Sahara desert and they are the most numerous large predator in the Serengeti. Contrary to popular belief (coughdisneycough) spotted hyenas are not lazy scavengers, they can run up to 37 mph and the clan works together to take down big prey like zebras, wildebeest, antelope etc. Clans can  be as large as 80 members, and unlike most mammals, all females rank higher than the males in the clan, the females are larger and much more aggressive.

Speaking of the female hyenas……this is about to get a little graphic. Pregnant high-ranking female hyenas provide their developing babies with higher levels of androgen, a male sex hormone associated with aggression, than lower-ranking females. This can damage the alpha mothers ovaries though which makes it difficult to conceive, but this honestly isn’t even the hardest thing a pregnant female hyena has to go through, a female spotted hyena gives birth through a birth canal, pretty normal right? That birth canal is the clitoris, which is only an inch in diameter…..yup, imagine giving birth through a penis, that’s pretty much whats its like. A two pound cub is squeezed through a canal that is only 1″ in diameter and about 7″ long…..I honestly don’t even have anything funny to say at this point. Just ouch. Thanks to their mothers sacrifice baby hyenas from alpha mothers are born hyper-aggressive, giving them a better shot at survival. (Hyena moms better get a hell of a mother’s day present, that’s all I gotta say.)

 

Hyenas of all types have commonly been misunderstood, but they have always been a part of folklore and mythology. Usually viewed as scary and worthy of hatred, they are thought to influence people’s spirits, rob graves and steal livestock and children. Certain cultures also associate them with witchcraft and use their body parts in traditional African medicine. The Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania even leave their dead to be consumed by hyenas, instead of burying them.

So, add any one of these guys on to your list of ‘animals not to fuck with’.

This blog is called, “Beasts and Brew”….but aside from implying that I’m drinking and ranting about animals I’ve pretty much neglected talking about the brews. That is  gonna change today! We are going to discuss one of my go to beers and the animal associated with it.

Terrapin Beer Co., founded by John Cochran and Spike Buckowski, they brewed up their first beer back in April of 2002, a ‘Rye Pale Ale’ and have since gone on to win awards and make tons of different delicious and thirst quenching brews! They started out in the Southeast United States but their range is quickly expanding and more and more people are finding out about them. Terrapin Beer Co. currently has 7 year round beers, four seasonal session ales and a dozen or more special beers and projects that appear from time to time. My favorite beer from them, ‘Hopsecutioner’, is an IPA with a hoppy flavor that basically punches ya right in the face, in all the right ways.

I emailed the Terrapin Beer Co.’s PR specialist Leah Kuck and was super excited to receive an email back almost immediately, how cool is that? She happily answered my goofy question as to why their company is called Terrapin, the answer I got back was a little different from what I was expecting, I thought maybe a founder had some weird obsession with turtles (coming from someone with weird animal obsessions, this isnt a bad thing!) but no! Actually both founders are some pretty serious Deadheads (followers of the band The Grateful Dead,for any weirdo who didn’t know that)  and they got the name from the album Terrapin Station which also features turtles on the album…..pretty sweet yeah?

 

Even cooler yet is that the artists who draw and design all the turtles for Terrapin Beer Co. Richard Biffle and Chris Pinkerton are artists who have both worked with the Grateful Dead! Boom, I think my brain just exploded. At this point I’m geeking out ok? But it gets even cooler, each year at Philly Beer Week, Terrapin Beer Co. hosts turtle races…yup, that’s right….you can watch actual turtles race to a finish line all while sipping on a cold beer (when I die, I sincerely hope this is what heaven is like).  They also work with the Turtle Alliance on fundraisers, I’ll include a link to the Turtle Alliance at the bottom because that is one cool organization that deserves some more attention.

But what is a terrapin? As per usual, I like to start with the dictionary definition and work my way forward, according to the dictionary a terrapin is a “small edible turtle with lozenge-shaped markings on its shell, found in coastal marshes of the eastern US.” Ugh, that whole thing made me a little uncomfortable ‘edible?’ ‘lozenge-shaped?’….wtf? And pretty unhelpful, no surprise. Turns out it really depends on where you come from, people in Europe define terrapin a little differently than us in the US, and don’t even get me started on the Australians……just kidding….but really, it makes it ten times more confusing. The best way I can sum it up is, all terrapins are turtles, but not all turtles are terrapins……but in the US, you can kind of use the term turtle and terrapin interchangeably. You can even throw tortoises into the mix….what the hell is the difference? I’m going to do my best, and use lot of pictures to try to make this easier, and forgive me for any mistakes as sometimes it’s not so easily defined.

This photo is a tortoise. They are strictly land critters and have big flat, unwebbed feet. This big dude aint going swimming any time soon, he’d sink faster than you can say “tortoises arent aquatic, please don’t throw me into the ocean.”

This is a turtle. See the flippers? They live in the ocean and only really come out of the water to drag themselves up onto shore to lay eggs. Strictly aquatic.

And this, is a turtle/terrapin whatever the hell you call it based on where you live. See how they kind of have a combo of the two photos above? They have feet instead of flippers, but the feet are webbed. They spend equal amounts of time on land and in the water. Now some people define terrapins as living in brackish water only (brackish is a mixture of salt and fresh water, think rivers and swamps that meet up with the ocean). Terrapins also hibernate in burrows dug into the mud banks of rivers when the temperature dips below 50 degrees fahrenheit (I do the same, just not usually in a mud filled hole on the side of a river bank, but hey…to each their own.)

I hope this helped clear up a little confusion, or at the very least made you want to go out and try a beer from Terrapin Beer Co., trust me….after trying to figure out the difference between a turtle and a terrapin, I could use a stiff drink as well.

 

 

Many thanks goes out to:

Leah Kuck, social media and PR specialist at http://www.terrapinbeer.com

https://www.pbspettravel.co.uk/blog/difference-terrapins-turtles/

http://nmlc.org/2016/08/is-it-a-turtle-a-terrapin-or-a-tortoise/

 

And please take some time to check out the Turtle Survival Alliance, doing damn good work all across the world for turtles! (or terrapins…whatever, I’m still confused) But honestly, they are a huge proponent of turtle conservation, and our little shelled friends need all the help they can get! http://www.turtlesurvival.org/

 

Cheers!

Small disclaimer, I’m going to break this one into two parts, why? Because I have the attention span of a goldfish (put a pin in that thought, that could be yet another drunken animal rant) and I fear this was getting a little long-winded. 

As humans, we just innately like to hate things….don’t argue that, it’s a fact. And even though most of us love animals, we also really like to dislike a few of them too. We have good reasons behind a lot of our hatred, but some of it is a little ill placed. I’ll admit it, as a kid I loved all bugs, slimy, leggy, big, small. As an adult? I’m pretty selective about what bugs don’t freak me the hell out. But it’s not just creepy crawlies, a lot of people hate other animals for reasons that are often times misinformed. So, I’ve compiled a list/rant about some of the more hated animals.

                                                  So lets start that animal burn book!

Cockroaches-I mean this one is kinda a gimme. Obviously cockroaches are gross. Part of the reason they suck so bad is that they live right along side us, and invade our homes and work spaces, against our best efforts to keep them away, they find a way in. And they are pretty damn difficult to kill, they eat anything, can live for waaaaay too long without a head (I’m talking weeks!) and can even handle quiet a bit of radiation because their cells do not divide as quickly as humans.  It’s hard to pin point why we hate them so much, except that they are just…nasty. They skitter, they have hard bodies that crunch when you stomp on them, they are big and they invade your personal space. Cockroaches move erratically and seem to have little to no fear of people. But aside from being little creeps, what do they actually do that’s bad? There is a preconceived notion that they are filthy and carry disease, but unless they come into contact with something nasty (think sewers, dead bodies,rotting food etc.) they actually are very clean! They incessantly groom themselves much like cats, and scientific testing has found that germs and other contaminants do not actually stick to them that easily….so they are really only as dirty as whatever they are on, or in. And without them we would be kinda screwed. They play a major role in the decomposition process and they are the main predator of bollworm and armyworm which are super destructive pests that destroy many crops in the United States.

Rats-Ok, these dudes get a pretty bad rap, and they honestly deserve some of it.Many people assume rats are very disease prone, they get this blame because of the black death which was an outbreak of the bubonic plague back in the 1300’s (we really have a hard time letting go of stuff)…..which did kill around 75,000,000 people…(ok so maybe our grudge is warranted). But the plague was transmitted by fleas of warm-blooded animals, not rats specifically, just any warm blooded animal, rats just happen to be very common, so we blamed them. But rats aren’t always blameless scapegoats, they are destructive little bastards. They cause millions of dollars of property damage a year, 20% of the world’s food crop is damaged each and every year by rats! And just because I can’t resist a gross out fact, one rat can leave 25,000 droppings in one year. They are an integral prey animal though and many other animals rely on them for a foodsource, they also make really great pets! No joke! Rats are very intelligent and engaging animals for people to keep as companions, I’ve had probably close to ten pet rats through out my life and I’ve loved having them! But if a ‘wild’ rat every got into my house…ugh….I wouldnt be nearly as happy to see it.

Snakes-This one hits a little close to home…..I love snakes! So I’ve always been a little confused by people’s out right hatred of them. They are super cool! They are statistically less dangerous to us than cars and ovens, so why do we as a species generally detest them? One theory is that its evolution, humans and primates alike have a perceptual bias, meaning we recognize snakes faster than other objects. Which was helpful back in the day when snakes were an everyday threat to our ancestors lives. But doesn’t do us a whole lot of good in our daily lives now. Snakes are very important to the ecosystem, they reduce the incidence of lyme disease by eating rodents that harbor this disease, and we learned that rodents are super destructive towards crops, and they poop a lot, so…thanks snakes for taking care of some of them for us at least? And they are usually unlikely to bother you, snakes try to avoid humans as much as possible, if I had to pick a mouse or a snake as a room-mate Id probably take the snake!

Spiders- I’ll admit to this one, I don’t mind spiders….as long as they are a good healthy distance away. I will scream like a little bitch if one gets within touching distance of me though….spider fist bumps are not on my agenda of a good time. Why do most of us hate these little dudes? It really isn’t so much a fear of being bitten, it’s really more so in the way they move according to people much smarter than myself. They move very erratically, and let’s be honest….have way too many legs, psychology professor Jon May states that their angular legs, dark colors and the fact they are very unpredictable are all things we as a species are hard-wired to fear. But do they deserve all this negative press? Spiders kill pests, they love to munch on roaches, earwigs, mosquitoes, flies, moths and awesomely enough…other spiders! Eating pests is great, no only do we just not like a lot of the common snacks that spiders do, but those critters also tend to carry disease, so not having them around keeps us a lot safer!

 

Alright! Hopefully the next update will not take as long, we are going to look into the hatred behind bats, opposums, my nemesis the skunk, and coyotes! Feel free to drop me a line or any suggestions! Id appreciate it!

 

All the thanks to these sources:

Rachel Nuwer at http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140918-the-reality-about-roaches

http://www.bugsfeed.com/cockroach

http://www.cracked.com/article_17481_the-5-most-hated-creatures-planet-dont-deserve-it.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199203/why-you-hate-snakes

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2158452/The-shape-fear–spiders-scare-Humans-hardwired-fear-angular-legs-unpredictability.html