h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here's one more amazing living creature you're likely to have never heard about. Although it's discovery dates from the early nineteenth century, it's been very poorly studied, despite being utterly fascinating in every respect. I can't even find a single good image of it on the 'net.

The Volpatinga, (Conflitomys confundus) is a kind of rodent, inhabiting the Andes mountains of eastern Venezuela. It belongs to a very peculiar radiation of rodents that also gave rise to such species as capybaras, chinchillas, guinea pigs, and the hutias of the Carribean islands.

The first absolutely amazing thing about the Volpatinga is that it is the only extant rodent species to possess horns. The unrelated extinct rodent Ceratogaulus (also known as Epigaulus) also had horns - here is a photo of a skeleton of one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EpigaulusHatcheriMammal.jpg

What you see there are the 'horn cores'. If Epigaulus was anything like the Volpatinga, those horn cores would have been overlaid by a keratin sheath, like the horns of sheep, goats or cattle. In Epigaulus the horns might have extended to about eight to ten inches in total length. They must have made it quite awkward for these animals to dig and maneuver in their burrows, but it must have been a feature of 'sexual selection' ... the females 'digged' males with long horns! Heh heh and the females (who were hornless) also probably had to dig the burrows as well… and dig them extra-large in diameter to accommodate the males.. But sexual selection pushed ‘too far’ probably caused the extinction of the Epigaulus. The longer the horns got, the larger the ‘bore’ of the burrows had to be as well – and ultimately, they were large enough to easily admit foxes, badgers and other predatory mammals.

The Volpatinga apparently has evolved horns independently of Epigaulus … it lies on the ‘porcupine’ branch of rodent evolution rather than the ‘squirrel’ branch which is where Epigaulus was. This phenomenon – when unrelated species evolve the same kind of feature independently – is called ‘convergent evolution’. Aside from the convergence, the Volpatinga is even more spectactular than the Epigaulus must have been: it has branched horns very like that of the Pronghorn Antelope of North America. The cores are similar to those of Epigaulus, but more towards the rear of the skull. The horn sheaths overlying these cores typically measure fourteen to fifteen inches, but the record is one that was shot in 1935 that had horns of eighteen inches! (This is amazing considering the Volpatinga is, in body, about the size of a hare or large rabbit.) The skull is mounted in the Museo della Istoria Naturale in Caracas – I’ll see maybe I can find an image of it on the ‘net. The hard, horny sheaths are ‘shed’ yearly and regrown, similar to those of Pronghorn antelopes.

The Volpatinga, also being a digging rodent, has had to solve the problem of the horns getting in its way. Its ingenious solution is a ‘hinge’ at the base of the horns – the pedicels – that allow the horns to ‘fold’ backward and lie along the neck and back while it is digging.

An interesting feature of Volpatinga burrows is that they are dug into a mountainside in a ‘corkscrew’ formation. Before the discovery of living volpatingas, fossilized, spiraling burrows have been found, and have perplexed scientists. They were called ‘devil’s corkscrews’ – here is a picture of one from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Palaeocastor_fossor_burrow.jpg

These ‘corkscrews’ were actually not made by Volpatingas, but by ancient relatives of theirs – the above comes from a primitive beaver-like rodent called ‘Paleocastor’ (there’s even a fossilized skeleton of one in the picture).

It was only discovered in 1944 that Volpatinga burrows have a similar corkscrew design. In their case the burrows are made horizontally into a mountainside (they can extend over fifty feet in length!). It is believed the corkscrew shape helps keep the burrows dry during the torrential rains that often occur in the Summer. Rainwater splashing into the burrow is captured in the lower levels of the first one or two or three ‘turns’ of the corkscrew, leaving the deeper parts dry.

But let’s get back to those amazing horns! The Volpatinga, as I’ve said, is part of an explosive evolutionary radiation of rodents that happened in South and Central America. In the absence – for most of South American history – of antelopes, goats, sheep, cattle or deer, rodents have come to fill the ecological ‘niches’ that were filled by these in other countries. Many rodents became large grazers – Capybaras, for instance. In ages past some rodents became even bigger than Capybaras: Telicomys was the size of a bear, Phoberomys the size of an ox, and Josephoartigasia was as large as a hippo!

In the case of the Volpatinga, the ‘niche’ it came to occupy was that of mountain goats and sheep. (extinct Volpatingas were indeed as large as sheep ... the reduction in size of modern Volpatingas might be due to competitive pressure resulting from llamas and vicunas invading the same ecological niche.) The horns are used in ritual display similar to those of ibexes: two males, facing each other, ‘smash’ their horns together, trying to knock each other off balance, while a female critically observes from a distance. They get so intent on their fighting that they sometimes neglect their own safety ... nineteenth-century explorer Arnold Ramundsen once saw two males being carried off by a Lammergeier (a species of vulture-like eagle); so obsessive were they that, dangling from its claws, they were still going at each other.

The best amazing thing about the Volpatinga I saved for last. It is actually able to glide! Once again in an example of convergent evolution, it has evolved membranes stretching between its front and back legs that are very similar to those of the so-called ‘flying squirrels’. This is the *only* instance known to science, of gliding having evolved in a mountain-dwelling creature … *all* other gliding species, like flying squirrels, the scaly-tails of Africa, and the gliding phalangers of Australia, are tree-climbers. But if you think of it, it is actually strange that one doesn’t see *more* mountain climbing animals with gliding skills! In fact, wind blowing against mountainsides, make gliding much easier – witness for instance how eagles and vultures make use of the breeze, gliding effortlessly.

Volpatingas are certainly not gliders comparable to eagles or vultures, but have been seen to leap and glide across ravines more than three hundred metres in width. They have also been known to jump off tall peaks against the wind, gliding down the slopes and actually appearing to fly! Of course they are incapable of *actual* powered flight, but evolutionists should take note and seriously ponder if bats might not be descended from mountain-living gliding creatures like these, rather than arboreal insectivores. In the Volpatinga the gliding ability is of course immensely useful: when a mountain goat slips and falls a great distance, death is inevitable – but the Volpatinga can glide safely down, no matter what height it falls from.

One last interesting tidbit, a matter of speculation of many cryptozoologists, is that the alleged 'Jackalope' of North America, may be a cryptic species related to the Andean Volpatinga ... one that occurs in a limited region of the Southwestern USA and that has been glimpsed by locals, but of which science has not yet been able to obtain any satisfying specimen. But this is rather implausible. Volpatingas may have made it across the isthmus of Panama over the last three million years, but the problem is that they would have had to traverse very unfavourable habitat. So-called jackalopes ... often seen as stuffed specimens or mounted skulls ... have thus far proven to be chimeric fakes made from hares or rabbits combined with deer antlers and so, this creature is perhaps best considered mythical.

Willem, those of us who speak German are indeed familiar with the facinating history of what we call the Wolpertinger, in all its multifacted glory.

In fact, the Munich Jagdmuseum (hunting museum) features a spectacular collection of such creatures.

Your description of them is, however, most impressive and scholarly. I particularly enjoyed your survey of the fossil record.

You have a gift for descriptive prose. Your essay brought to mind that brilliant nature passage by Mark Twain, which has been inspiring readers for over a century. Forgive me if you already know it, but I'll link to it here in case anyone hasn't seen it:

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/000451.html

Hi there Dmitri, thanks for the comment, I should have guessed you know about Wolpertingers! Like the Mark Twain quote on the soaring esophagus! If I had known about that quote I might have worked it into the article in some way...

Now seeing as you got it and didn't give it away I think I'd like to wait a while longer and see if I can get a few more comments before I write a 'clarification'.

Heh-heh. Please do - I've been waiting to see what the English think about this wonderful information.

I got it--I just kept my big mouth shut so as not to ruin the joke

Hi Dmitri and Amy, I'll give it one more day!

OK I guess I won't get any more comments! It was, of course, an April Fool's Day joke. No such creature exists ... but there's no reason such a creature *couldn't* exist, seeing as there *were* horned rodents in the past and there are still gliding rodents about!

Now ... apart from the non-existence of the actual Volpatinga, how much additional BS can you spot in that article? There's quite a bit of it ...

I was working on a Wolpertinger entry...

We need one.

seconded! Get working, Mala!

OK, so was *anybody* at all taken in? And those of you who werent, did you at least find it funny or amusing? I rattled it off rather fast ... only the afternoon of April 1st did I make up my mind to do a hoax entry.

So now for the commentary!

I was of course thinking of the Bavarian Wolpertinger but changed it a bit and moved it to South America to make it more 'exotic'. The basics stayed the same: a rodent-like creature with antlers. While many Wolpertingers have wings, I wanted to make it a bit less unlikely so gave it a gliding membrane instead, like some other rodents, the 'flying' squirrels and the scaly-tails, have.

The name 'Volpatinga' also is reminiscent of 'voler', French for 'to fly', and 'cotinga', which is a kind of South American bird.

Now to separate fact from fiction!

- There is indeed an evolutionary radiation of highly unusual rodents in South and Central America, and the ones I mention - capybaras, chinchillas, guinea pigs and hutias - do indeed exist and do belong to that radiation.

- The Andes mountains are NOT in eastern Venezuela! They barely enter the northwest of that country but generally stretch all along the west coast of South America.

- The Ceratogaulus (a.k.a. Epigaulus), a species of horned rodent, did indeed exist and inhabited North America from about (info on this is not exact) seven to one million years ago. The horns on its head were, however much smaller than I say in the entry. It is pure BS that the 'horn cores' were covered in a large keratin sheath as in cattle or antelopes! At most, the horns may have had hardened skin over them, and they were only an inch or two in length, NOT eight or ten inches! Far from encumbering the Ceratogaulus in its burrow, the horns may actually have helped it dig. As far as I know both male and female Ceratogaulus had horns, and it had nothing to do with sexual selection. The idea that the horns got bigger and the burrows, too, until eventually the predators could get them, is total twaddle.

- The Ceratogaulus was indeed on the squirrel branch of the rodent family tree, and the Volpatinga - if it existed and was indeed related to those other South American rodents - would have been on the porcupine branch.

- The phenomenon of 'convergent evolution', where unrelated species develop similar features because of similar lifestyles, does indeed happen and is one of the most fruitful 'drivers' of evolutionary diversity of animals and plants. It is not yet completely understood.

- The Prongorn antelope is the only living ungulate that has *branching* keratin sheaths overlying horn cores. The sheaths are shed annually. No rodent ever had anything like it. In the past there was an amazing diversity of pronghorn species with different styles of horns.

- I hope you were amused by the idea of a Volpatinga having been hunted and made into an amazing trophy in the museum in Venezuela! But the museum doesn't exist (and neither does the trophy head), and in fact I made the name up and it's probably not even proper Spanish. I was of course thinking of mounted Jackalope heads as well as the fake stuffed 'Wolpertinger' trophies of Bavaria.

- The idea of the horns folding back on hinged pedicels is also pure BS ... no horned animal has or ever had anything like it. But what made me think of it as a 'solution' to a digging animal with horns, is the fact that baby giraffes have flexible horns that are bent backwards when they are in the womb, so as to not injure the mother while they're in there, or when they are born. After birth, the horns straighten up and later become hard.

- The 'devil's corkscrew' burrows are real. They were made by beaver-like rodents about whom you can read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_corkscrew

They had nothing to do with either Ceratogaulus or with Volpatingas. These burrows were on plains, not mountains. Of course it is quite hard to excavate deep burrows in mountainous terrain since the mountains are of hard rock and there are usually only shallow pockets of soil. But mountain-living rodents will find natural shelters in cracks between rocks.

- The idea of the corkscrew shape being to keep out water is utter malarkey. As for the 'real' corkscrew-burrow digging rodents, we really don't know why they dug their burrows like that.

- It is true that in South America many rodents of the evolutionary radiation I spoke of earlier, took over the lifestyles (ecological niches) of ungulates. The species I mention - Capybaras, and the Telicomys, Phoberomys and Josephoartigasia - are/were real indeed. They were pretty large, too, the Josephoartigasia perhaps exceeding a ton in weight ... almost the size of a hippo (hippos can exceed two tons).

- But no rodent ever developed a 'mountain goat' form. Mountain-living rodents are and have always been on the small side.

- The idea of llamas and vicunas competing with volpatingas resulting in the latter becoming smaller, would be plausible if volpatingas actually existed. But llamas and vicunas do not occur in Venezuela; they are restricted to the 'real' Andes range, mainly from Peru southward.

- Ibexes do exist and do smash each other with their horns, in dominance and sexual displays.

- The 'explorer' mentioned, Arnold Ramundsen's, is simply a warped version of polar explorer Roald Amundsen.

- I hoped you like the image of two Volpatingas fighting so determinedly that they were both caught by a Lammergeier and in fact kept on fighting even while being carried off! The BS: Lammergeiers DO NOT occur in South America. They are stricly old-world: Africa, Europe and Asia. Also they are not really hunters, but mainly scavengers. Also, they are not very strong and would probably not be able to carry a rabbit-sized creature, let alone two. When putting in this bit, I was thinking of a book mentioning marvelous occurences in Nature, and specifically a chapter on eagles or vultures supposedly catching and carrying large creatures, up to the size of a small dear - or a human child. It hasn't yet been proven that any eagle can carry an animal above about two kilograms in weight.

- The idea of Volpatingas having gliding membranes: it is true that the only mammals to have gliding membranes, are tree-climbing species: flying squirrels, scaly-tails, gliding phalangers of Australia and New Guinea, and the weird Colugo of Asia. But NO mountain-living mammal has gliding membranes. Why not? The uses for gliding membranes in a mountain-dweller are obvious. My examples ... gliding over a ravine, or using the gliding membrane to 'parachute' down after an accidental fall ... might seem to be quite plausible.

I think the problem is the *steps* by which a gliding membrane would evolve. It can't just appear out of the blue. It has to start very small and then become more pronounced due to giving a direct advantage to its 'owner' ... which in a forest, would be, progressively extending the length of leaps between trees. Mountain mammals don't spend all their time leaping around and so, the first steps towards evolving gliding membranes, would offer no advantage.

Even if a mountain living rodent developed a gliding membrane, it would not likely be capable of a three-hundred-metre glide over a ravine. That is over three times the distance any gliding mammal has ever been recorded as gliding. And as far as I know, no mammal with a gliding membrane has anything close to the soaring efficiency of an eagle or a vulture so as to glide down a slope using mountain winds for 'lift' and appearing to fly.

- The Jackalope of America is a well-known animal 'fake' indeed made from a hare or rabbit on which the horns of a pronghorn or deer are mounted. (And the real 'Wolpertinger' trophies are also composites, made from a large variety of animals but usually featuring a rabbit, squirrel or marmot, with horns or antlers, and sometimes wings and other bits, added.) In case anyone had been taken in up till there, the last paragraph might have offered a clue!

Now do one on Elwetritsche

They're similar, but bird-based and live in vineyards...

You pretty much had me until the horn bit--I do wonder if I would've been so credulous had it been anyone else, though. I remember reading through the horn bit and thinking, "Well, Willem does know a lot more than I do about animals..." and then reaching the hinged horns part

Willem, I didn't get round to reading it, in fact I still haven't, but I am positive I would have been completely taken in since you write so knowledgeably and I am a complete novice (and duffer) by comparison.

I will read, but I am struggling to keep up at the moment. The sun has been shining and the outdoors has been beckoning, not to mention the sun emphasising the dinginess indoors which requires a spring clean.

Well done, for finding humour at this difficult time.

Websailor

I hope no-one picks it up for W*k* in the mistaken belief it is all true

Websailor

This is a distinct possibility.