Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Pop-Sci Monthly Article On The "Coati-Mondi" - Written 141 Years Ago in 1872!

This is just awesome.

Popular Science Monthly featured an article titled "THE COATI-MONDI AND ITS COUSINS" that was written by Rev. S. LOCKWOOD, PhD and published in the December 1827 edition of the periodical. It even features a couple of sketches of the "coati-mondi" (one is posted above).

Being someone who's extremely interested in moments where the coati has turned up in history, this article absolutely fascinates me.

I'm not going to lie, it's an extremely wordy, adjective-filled article with the language of the day. Most people will just skim through it. For those familiar with the coati and its behaviors? Don't skim it. You'll miss some of the coolest stuff that will make you smile because you'll just nod your head that 141 years ago someone was dealing with an animal that's behavior has not a changed a bit.

Lockwood talks about the "Jack" getting into everything, describes the variations of the squeaky language that the coati "speaks", describes its love for eggs, talks about the perfuming of its tail, annoying other animals on the ship....and that's another thing...

This all takes place on a ship!

It's just a very cool moment in time when people were beginning to really document the world around them and exploration was in its modern infancy.

Take the time to read through it and really feel the time period and the environment in which it was written and you'll come away smiling that yet, once again, the coati nosed its way into another part of history.

Read the entire article here

Recent Study on Skulls - Coati Included

A recent study concerning the size of the frontal cortex in relation to proclivity to social activity in animals was carried out. About the coati:
"In her latest study, Sakai examined the digitally recreated brains of three species in the Procyonid family – the raccoon, the coatimundi and the kinkajou – and found the coatimundi had the largest frontal cortex. The frontal cortex is thought to regulate social interaction, and the coatimundi is by far the most social of the three animals, often living in bands of 20 or more."
The other three animals included in the study were hyenas, lions and raccoons. Read the rest of the very brief article

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Wonders of the Animal Kingdom - Or how to eat everything in the animal kingdom according to a kids' sticker book.

I've been wanting to get back to this blog for a while. I have a lot of new things to post but would rather feed them out gradually over time than posting them all at once and then having another lull in posting to this blog.

Just a couple of days ago i was killing some time in an antique store in south-ish Florida and came across an old animal book titled "Wonder of the Animal Kingdom" (sorry...didn't look at all the who published/illustrated info).

The book was like a sticker book where you would collect dozens of different kinds of animal stickers and put them in the book in a space for the sticker next to the corresponding animal.

Of course I had to thumb through it to see if there was any mention of a coati.

There was.

Awesome.

Then I read the little blurb describing the coatimundi next to the sticker and my face went blank at the last sentence..."Its snout it large and its meat has an excellent flavor."

Wait...whaaat? "...its meat has an excellent flavor"?

Then I read the blurb above it about "119. The Hog" which stated in the last sentence about that particular animal that "All meat from this domestic animal should be thoroughly cooked before it is eaten."

After a couple more pages of similarly weird descriptions of animals I put the book back in its place under a bunch of other books that no one will probably ever buy and walked off.

Here are the cover of the book and the sticker and blurb about the coati.

Thanks for continuing to read the blog despite the massive gap in posts and I look forward to sharing more awesome things about my absolute favorite animal...the coatimundi.