The Nature of the Beast (according to Susan McCarthy)

When You Come Between a Woman and Her Rock

I was shocked to hear that one of the two alligators at the Academy of Sciences had bitten the other alligator so badly that he would lose a toe.

Actually, I wasn't shocked. No one was shocked. Alligators are bitey. And it even looks as if Claude, the wounded party, will get to keep the toe. But I did want to know the details. Fortunately the San Francisco Chronicle sent justly-famous science editor David Perlman to get the full story.

The California Academy of Sciences (in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco) which includes the Steinhart Aquarium, has a fancy new building. An alligator pond on the ground floor houses Bonnie and Claude. Bonnie is a standard American alligator, blackish, toothy, and seven feet long (Alligator mississippiensis). She's what biologists call the “wild type.” Claude, however, is an albino, one of those genetically variant animals zoos love to exhibit. They're from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, which supplies albino and wild type gators to the trade.

An albino alligator is the reptile version of a white tiger. Although the recent news that the iguanas of the Galápagos include a previously unrecognized species, the “pink iguana” (no final scientific name yet), makes me think that zoos will soon clamor for the glamor of pink. Pink lizards might be a bigger draw than white gators. 

In the pond where Bonnie and Claude live,  there is a delightful heated rock. They love to bask on it, and there should be room for two. But the other day Bonnie was relaxing there when Claude swam up. Trying to get on the rock, he bumped Bonnie. She bit him on what the aquarium curator, no doubt seeking to provide accessible knowledge to the public, calls the “right pinkie toe.” He didn't want to dazzle us with intimidating talk of a "distal phalanx," I guess. But we, the gator-data-consuming public, don't need to be talked down to, and we demand more precise information. Which right pinkie toe? The bite was on a front foot, a forefoot. That makes it a foretoe. Right pinkie foretoe. Already we know more. Wait, he's a water creature, let's use nautical terminology. Starboard pinkie foretoe!

At the aquarium they hauled Claude out with a crane, and wheeled him down to the basement for X-rays, antibiotics, and a three-week stay in medical custody. He is a star, who will receive the highest level of care. No doubt they will give him the standard medical forms to fill out. This should give him a chance to decide whether to list Bonnie as the individual to be notified in case of an emergency.

Albino animals often have impairments in vision. They're white because they lack the pigment melanin in their skin. They also lack pigment in their eyes, and as a result they have bad eyesight. Claude is said to be nearly blind. This explains a lot. He could not see Bonnie, and could not see that she was giving him A Look. (I feel sure of this.) Poor blind fool missed that warning sign and his starboard pinkie foretoe paid the price.

Let's Lurk Behind these Ecotourists

It's hard work being high on the food chain, and predators are always looking for labor-saving ways to catch prey. In national parks in Kenya, the lions have not only gotten blasé about trucks full of ecotourists, they've started to use them as cover. They'll sneak around behind a vehicle and then rush out to lunge at a wildebeest. Imagine you're the wildebeest – one minute you're making sure they get your good profile, and the next minute you're running for your life. 

 

In the Canadian Pacific, biologist Alexandra Morton was observing killer whales She was disconcerted by the way one of them, Kwatsi, kept surfacing directly behind her boat. “No matter how I tried to alter my course, his 5-foot fin stayed right behind my engine. After a while I realized what he was doing: Kwatsi was using my boat and its engine noise as a moving hunting blind.” Great minds think alike. “These humans mean me no harm. They are friendly! Friends help friends catch dinner.”

I performed a similar function once, without actually being a human shield. Driving across Florida, I pulled over to eat lunch at a picnic table, and tossed crumbs from my sandwich to minnow-sized fish in the waterway next to the road. The tiny fish were thrilled with the crumbs and mobbed them enthusiastically. As I gazed at them I heard a small clomp! and then another clomp! Two minuscule alligators had cruised up, disguised as minuscule floating logs, and were snapping up the fish I had lured to their doom. Oh yeah, they call this road Alligator Alley.

To be fair, I should have thrown the fish an alligator purse. They could have nibbled on it after it decayed a bit. But I didn't have an alligator purse. That's how it is. You try to pack everything, and you pack all this stuff you never use, and then the one thing you don't pack, you wish you had. It's hard to be a responsible ecotourist.