These cute, rotund little buggers are called Dassies (or the rock hyrax), and I saw a ton of them on a hike. Their story is one of the illustrations of how genomic sequencing has transformed taxonomy and cladistics. Youd be excused to think that they are just adorable, guinea-pig-like rodents. But youd be oh-so-wrong. The closest living relative to the rock hyrax is, in fact, the African elephant. Wtf right?! Phylogenetics, go home! Youre drunk! Indeed for many years this particular clade stumped biologists, but to paraphrase Shakira, the DNA dont lie. Dassies live in rocky enclaves, and despite the impression of sluggishness, I was pretty surprised at how agile they were on the sheer rocky faces. Their ribs are collapsible to allow their body the flexibility to squeeze into the tiniest of crevices. Dassies, just like elephants, have toenails, excellent hearing, sensitive pads on their feet, good memory, and higher brain functions compared to other similar mammals. Unfortunately for me, they also have a pretty impressive pair of incisors that never stop growing, analogous to the elephants tusks. I say unfortunately, because I got bit, again. I might be a real-life animal troll, or something. Video to be uploaded, soon. :(
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:00:06 +0000
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