THE C IN CRITTERS

Tavishi

Most good things start with the letter C: capers, cheese, cyan, cornichons, crepes, chutney, and other edible things. On the other hand, some of the most terrifying things begin with the letter C: children, chalk, and carcasses.

cornichons have my SOUL

My favorite c word? Critters. (Capers is a close second, I love capers.) Some of the best critters, however, start with the letter c. First, the notable caspian seal, or Pusa caspica. The caspian seal is very closely related to the Baikal seal, and both share the same small stature and large eyes. The caspian seal is native to the Caspian sea, which is a fairly brackish body of water.

Caspian seals move around quite a bit by season. During cooler months, the fluffy fellows can be fond mostly in the northern regions. As temperatures warm and pups are born, seals migrate to the southern part of the Caspian sea and even venture into the deltas of the Volga river.

The capybara is yet another critter, and is the largest rodent in the world. Capybaras are, interestingly enough, unable to synthesize vitamin C, or ascorbic acid. Because of that, capybaras must be fed extra vitamin C supplements in captivity to not get scurvy. Additionally, the capybara has a scent gland on their snout called a morillo. The morillo is more pronounced in the sexually mature adult male. Depositing of scent occurs by rubbing the morillo on stuff.

I am particularly fond of baby capybaras!

The crow is one of the coolest corvids, which are easily some of the most intelligent birds. The corvids include jays, magpies, ravens, jackdaws, and other similar birds.

Most crows are all black, and some have iridescent feathers along their necks. The hooded crow remains an exception, with a mostly white body and a black head and wings.

The coelacanth is one of the few lobe-finned fish. Among the bony fish, most fish are ray-finned. Unlike the ray-finned fish, or Actinopterygii, the lobe-finned fish, or Sarcopterygii, have little flesh-y limb bud formations, or lobes where they have fins. Historically, this is because tetrapods evolved from the lobe-finned fish, and so you can consider coelacanth a little piece of the past. Until 1938, all coelacanth were thought to have gone extinct some 60 million years ago- you can imagine the shock when someone saw a real coelacanth.

Also, some animals tend to make a C with their body. For dogs, this happens when they are happy and can't tell if they want to wag their tail at you or get head pats. My dog, Taara, does this all the time. This photo isn't of her making a C with her body, but rather, just being a rein-dog.

she's pulling Santa's sled

However, quite the contrary, fish make a c with their body when they are scared, pointing their head instead in the direction of escape. This is called the C-start escape response, and is created by the Mauthner cells of the fish hindbrain.