In celebration of the fact that more than 100 people like the Daily Mammal on Facebook, I’ve been drawing mammals from the countries where those people live. Today’s is from Israel. This is Buxton’s jird, also known as the Negev jird, for it burrows in the sand of the Negev, a desert region in southern Israel. Some sources say that it’s the only mammal endemic to Israel, but the IUCN (which rates this jird as vulnerable on its endangerment scale) says that it’s also to be found not only in Israel but occupied Palestine and Egypt’s northern Sinai peninsula as well.

Jirds are rodents that are related to gerbils, and sometimes the two terms are used synonymously. They eat seeds, roots, fruit, vegetation, and insects. This one was described in 1922 by Oldfield Thomas and named in honor of Sir Edward North Buxton, a British hunter, politician, and conservationist who died the next year. Thomas, one of the most important mammalogists of his day, has many, many mammal species and a genus named for him, but we have met none of them yet here at the Daily Mammal. Threats to Buxton’s jird, I understand, include urbanization, agriculture, drought, and invasive species like an Australian acacia tree that, once introduced to Israel, began altering the ecosystem.

Today we continue appreciating the people who have liked the Daily Mammal on Facebook with a look at a mammal of Japan, where three of the Daily Mammal Facebook likers live. In 2011, my daughter Coco and I drew Japanese mammals, including some endemic to the country, and sold our drawings to benefit the American Red Cross and a Japanese animal shelter after the tsunami. You might like to look at those drawings and read more about Japan’s mammals in our posts, too.

The mammal we’re meeting today is the Japanese weasel, who was historically found only on three of Japan’s largest islands, but has now been introduced to pretty much all the others, as well as Sakhalin, an island just north of Japan that belongs to Russia, in an attempt at controlling rats. Unfortunately, the introduced weasels aren’t only preying on the unwanted rats, but also on other animals, like birds.

The Japanese weasel also likes to eat fish and frogs and mice and insects and reptiles and amphibians. In the winter, it hunts rodents through the tunnels they’ve dug under the snow, then rests in their nests to warm up after it eats them.

I’m continuing my appreciation of everyone who has liked the Daily Mammal on Facebook with a look at mammals from another of their countries. If you’re on Facebook, liking the Daily Mammal is a good way to keep up with when I’m actually drawing mammals since we all know it ain’t daily.

This time, we visit the Netherlands and get acquainted with three little voles. At the top is Microtus agrestis, the field vole or short-tailed vole, which is a very widespread little fellow whom the IUCN ranks as being of least concern. Good for you, M. agrestis! Besides the Netherlands, it lives throughout most of Europe, except Iceland, Ireland, and the southernmost part of the continent, and into Siberia and China. It eats grasses and other plants, and in the winter it gnaws on bark. As they move about, field voles mark their paths with urine, which helps them navigate and communicate with each other. Unfortunately but fascinatingly, birds of prey like kestrels, which can see ultraviolet light, use these urine trails to find the tasty little voles and snap them right up.

The middle vole above is Microtus arvalis, the common vole, which is also of least concern according to the IUCN. It’s also widespread, with a similar range through most of Europe, other than the southern part, Scandinavia, Iceland, and the British Isles. In the Netherlands, it lives in dikes, as well as the usual grassy places it favors throughout its range. It’s an important food source for many predators in Europe. It mostly eats grass, and it’s considered a pest in some agricultural areas.

At the bottom is Microtus oeconomus, also known as the tundra vole or root vole. This is the one that’s most relevant to our visit to the Netherlands. One subspecies of the root vole, M. o. arenicola, is found only in the Netherlands. It’s the only vertebrate endemic to the country, in fact. Also of least concern in terms of endangerment, Microtus oeconomus in general has the widest range of these three species, living not only in Europe and Asia but also in North America, where it can be found in Alaska and Canada. The population in the Netherlands is a relict one from the Ice Age. In biology, relict refers to a remnant of a species that was once more widespread but is now in an isolated area. If you look at this map of the vole’s range, you can see that the Netherlands population is in fact isolated from the main area where the vole lives, as are populations in Norway, Hungary, and Finland.

It’s been a while, mammals! But I’m back with more appreciation for the people from the now 17 countries who have liked the Daily Mammal on Facebook. Today’s mammal comes from a country that’s much in the news now: Ukraine, where citizens have been protesting, taking over government buildings, and becoming involved in violent clashes with security forces for more than two months now following their president’s move away from a path to joining the EU and move toward Russia, as well as the passage of a stringent anti-protest law. The prime minister and cabinet have resigned, much of the anti-protest law has been taken back, and the president has mysteriously checked himself into the hospital.

Meanwhile, the sandy mole rat continues his life along the lower banks of the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine, a part of the very divided country that tends to be linguistically, ethnically, and politically aligned with Russia. That’s the only place in the world the endangered sandy mole rat lives. It doesn’t have external openings for its eyes, but it does have small vestigial eyes under its skin. It digs with its big teeth, “the whole head acting as a bulldozer blade,” according to Walker’s Mammal’s of the World.

While some endangered species are threatened by deforestation, this one is threatened by its opposite, afforestation, which happens when forests grown where they weren’t before, in this case in the sands where the mole rat lives.

The species was featured on a Ukrainian two hryvni coin as part of a series of the flora and fauna of Ukraine. Another mammal I could have featured for Ukraine, if I hadn’t already drawn it, is the horse. Some experts think the horse was first domesticated in Ukraine, perhaps as many as 6,000 years ago.

Here is a lovely piece by the important Ukrainian (and Ukrainian nationalist) composer Mykola Lysenko, who died in 1912. It’s played by his granddaughter, Rada Lysenko.

In appreciation of the 143 people who like the Daily Mammal on Facebook, I’m drawing a mammal from each country that one of those people lives in. Today we visit the United Kingdom, where the European hedgehog recently won a poll, sponsored by BBC Wildlife magazine, seeking a species to be the national symbol of the UK, which doesn’t have an official flora or fauna emblem. The badger came in second—amid controversy surrounding a planned badger cull aimed at stopping the spread of bovine tuberculosis—and the mighty oak was third. According to hedgehog partisans, the spiny little mammal’s friendliness, humility, and helpfulness represent the British character. Contrarian wags point out the hedgehog’s prickliness, small size, and penchant for noisy sex.

The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle by Beatrix Potter (full text and illustrations)

British Hedgehog Preservation Society

Here, representing the country of Colombia, where someone who likes the Daily Mammal on Facebook lives, is a new mammal, the Caquetá titi monkey! And I don’t only mean it’s new to this site; it’s new to science, too, having been described only in 2008. This monkey lives only in one small part of one department of Colombia. Though we don’t know for sure, estimates of its range size are less than 100 square kilometers, which is an area smaller than San Francisco, California. In 1976, a biologist first mentioned this monkey, but that area of Colombia is the site of so much political violence that it took scientists decades to confirm its existence.

Sadly for the Caquetá titi monkey, it was discovered right into critical endangerment. There may be only some 250 of the monkeys. Their habitat is threatened by both cattle ranching and the illegal farming of marijuana, coca, and poppies, as well as the general poverty of the area, and the guerrilla activity there makes conservation efforts difficult.

Apparently, Caquetá titi monkeys mate for life, and pairs of them sit with their tails intertwined.

Conservation International’s press release about the monkey’s discovery“

Callicebus caquetensis: A New and Critically Endangered Titi Monkey from Southern Caquetá, Colombia” (PDF)

Today let’s continue visiting mammals that live near people who like the Daily Mammal on Facebook. This Canadian beaver represents, of course, Canada. It’s also (and probably more commonly) known as the North American beaver, but we’ll go with the Canadacentric name for our purposes here.

The Canadian beaver is the largest rodent in North America, weighing up to 70 pounds. It lives almost everywhere on the continent, from Canada to Mexico, except parts of Florida, the deserts of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, and the arctic tundra. For a while, the beaver population plummeted and beavers disappeared from much of the continent as the fur trade relentlessly devoured beaver pelts. Thanks to conservation efforts beginning in the 1920s the Canadian beaver has returned to abundance across its historic range. It’s also found in Finland, Russia, and Argentina, where it was introduced in the 20th century. In Argentina, the 25 mating pairs that were released in 1946 have become some 50,000 beavers today.

Here is a charming silent movie from 1928 featuring conservationists Archibald Belaney (who went by Grey Owl) and his wife Angele Egwuna romping with their tame beavers in Canada. Grey Owl’s passion for beaver conservation helped draw attention to the beavers’ dire situation.

(Beaver People by ONFB , National Film Board of Canada)

The beaver is one of Canada’s national symbols. It was on the first Canadian postage stamp, which is known as the three-penny beaver, and has been on the back of the Canadian nickel off and on since 1937 (both pictured above). Unfortunately, not every Canadian loves the beaver. In 2011, Nicole Eaton, a Canadian senator, proposed replacing the beaver—which she called a “dentally defective rat”—with the polar bear as the official Canadian animal.

Each adult beaver cuts down about 215 trees a year, on average. The dams and lodges they build have a marked effect on the environment. The ponds created when beavers dam a creek store precipitation and add fresh water to the ecosystem, enabling a greater diversity of plant and animal life. And beaver dams have been shown to break down pollutants, filtering the water as it passes through. For more information on how beavers change the environment, see “The beaver’s new brand: eco-saviour” from the Globe and Mail, “Leave it to Beavers” from the Atlantic, or “Beavers and the Environment” (PDF) from MartinezBeavers.org.

My daughter Coco, who is 14, drew a Canadian beaver, too, and here it is.