mammalidentifier

[mammalidentifier]

Bilby or greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis). Bilbies are small, omnivorous burrowing marsupials with an appearance similar to placental lagomorphs. Due to that and the fact that rabbits are invasive species in Australia, ever since the early 90s Australian candy manufacturers have sold chocolate bilbies as an alternative to chocolate bunnies, with a percentage of their sales usually being donated to wildlife conservation groups.

Some fun facts about bilbies are that their pouches face backwards so that dirt doesn’t get into it when they dig holes and that they have no need to drink water: they get all their hydration from the food they eat!

its dangerous to go alone. here, take these bilbies

[mammalidentifier]

Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis). Believe it or not, their closest relatives are elephants and manatees!

[mammalidentifier]

Long-eared jerboa (Euchoreutes naso)

got his ass

[mammalidentifier]

Common wombat (Vombatus ursinus)

[mammalidentifier]

Also known as the common degu, a species of rodent that’s only found in the wild in Chile and is closely related to chinchillas and guinea pigs. In fact, they look like a pretty solid middle ground between these two animals, especially when you look at their wild phenotypes:

Pictured: From top to bottom, Brazilian guinea pig (Cavia aperea), common degu (Octodon degus) and long-tailed chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera).

Degus were originally kept in captivity for scientific research purposes, not unlike rats and mice, but since the early 2000s they’ve been commercialized as pets as well. Despite not actually being able to spawn blueberries, degus do have a little superpower of their own: compared to other small domestic rodents, they’re pretty long-lived animals! While the average fancy rat, which they’re about the same size as, only lives for 2 to 3 years, the average degu’s lifespan is 5 to 8 years, with some individuals making it past the 10 year mark!

They’re also very talkative creatures and can make around 15 different sounds and calls. It’s not unusual for them to chat both amongst themselves and towards humans:

this is my blueberry rat i squeeze it once every day and get 20-29 blueberrys and i sell them to unsuspecting passerby. one day i will turn it itno jam

[mammalidentifier]

Siberian chipmunk (Eutamias sibiricus).

While, as with most wild animals, chipmunks shouldn’t be kept as pets unless it’s a rescue situations where they can’t be rehabilitated and released for one reason or another, going by what I know about rodent body language, this little guy is in no distress at all and seems to be having lots of fun playing pretend whack-a-mole with the person in the video.

[mammalidentifier]

Blueberry rat (Octodon degus)

this is my blueberry rat i squeeze it once every day and get 20-29 blueberrys and i sell them to unsuspecting passerby. one day i will turn it itno jam

[mammalidentifier]

I wasn’t sure if I should identify the extinct ones, since the former isn’t a mammal and the latter might not be one (sometimes we don’t know for sure SURE where a fossil falls in the evolutionary tree) but I decided I’ll do it anyway because they’re mammal-adjacent enough and also because they’re very lovely beasts:

Lisowicia, an extinct non-mammalian synapsid. They belonged to the same clade of animals that includes all modern living mammals, but weren’t directly related to them and

Adalatherium, a recently discovered extinct badger-like animal who was either an ancient mammal or a mammaliaform, which were animals closely related to mammals but not quite mammals themselves. Either way, they share a common ancestor with all modern living mammals.

The adalatherium reconstruction is from the (VERY cool) paleontology documentary Prehistoric Planet and the segment about them is available for watching on YouTube!

A seldom-discussed synapsid evolutionary trend is becoming a potato

[mammalidentifier]

It’s a versatile shape! Lots of muscle for running, climbing or burrowing neatly packed in a small storage space.

Not counting the reconstructions of the extinct animals, clockwise we have:

Hottentot golden mole (Amblysomus hottentotus)

Common wombat (Vombatus ursinus)

Brazilian guinea pig (Cavia aperea)

Rock hyrax (Procavia capensis)

A seldom-discussed synapsid evolutionary trend is becoming a potato

[mammalidentifier]

You might come across claims that one can train horses that aren’t of or have any descent from gaited breeds how to do amble sometimes. That, as one might expect, is not true and, even if something similar might be achieved, it’s definitely uncomfortable for the animal. Better leave it to the professionals!

[mammalidentifier]

Domestic horse (Equus ferus caballus), more specifically of the Paso Fino breed.

Paso Fino horses, whose name translates to “smooth step”, are a breed that displays what’s known as an ambling gait, an intermediate walking pace between a walk and a gallop, commonly replacing trotting. While it might look unusual, the ability to amble is something certain horses are just born with: it has been traced to a mutation in a single gene that has been selectively bred for by humans since antiquity. Some gaited breeds seem to be more prone to certain health conditions than other non-gaited breeds, but these conditions are far from unique to gaited animals and don’t seem to be caused by ambling in itself.

Gaited horses were highly prized in medieval Europe due to the fact that riding them is particularly comfortable, especially during long stretches of time and while traveling on uneven terrain. As travel by carriage became more popular, though, they fell out of fashion. In the present day, most gaited horse breeds come from the Americas, being the descendants of gaited horses brought along by the Spanish in the 16th century, although a few gaited breeds can still be found in Europe and Asia.

Some examples of horses who display ambling gaits are (clockwise) the American Saddlebred, the Mangalarga Marchador, the Icelandic Horse and the Mongolian Horse.

[mammalidentifier]

Even thought they’re not native to the southeastern coast of Brazil, city marmosets are actually very welcome urban fauna! Historically, the coastlines of countries are the most heavily populated regions and the most affected by human settlement, so their presence in parks and other small pockets of greenery in big cities actually make up for the loss of local small primates due to urbanization and restore how the original ecosystem looked like all those centuries ago a little bit. Marmosets love to eat bird eggs too, which is helpful when it comes to controlling bird populations, especially the invasive European house sparrows and feral domestic pigeons, both abundant in cities.

When they leave the cities and make their way towards the native forests, however, that’s a problem: coastal Brazil is a rainforest biome, known as the Atlantic Forest and it’s home to two of its own, very elusive species of marmoset belonging to the genus Callithrix, the buffy-tufted marmoset (Callithrix aurita) and the buffy-headed marmoset (Callithrix flaviceps):

Photos by @neprimateconsrv and @gustavo_soareslima on Instagram

Yes, they look like they’re wearing evil clown makeup. They’re fantastic little creatures, I love them so much.

Both buffy-tufted and buffy-headed marmosets are endangered, mainly due to habitat loss, and something that’s not really helping much with raising their numbers is the fact that all members of the Callithrix genus seem to be particularly chill about hybridizing with each other. Furthermore, since the common and black-tufted marmosets outnumber the buffy ones by a good amount, this could mean they could just breed enough with each other for the particular characteristics that make them separate species to be permanently lost after a certain number of generations.

But primatologists have already caught onto the potential for such a thing to happen and measures are being taken to preserve both species by different conservationist groups and organizations. For example, the Centro de Conservação dos Saguis-da-Serra (Buffy Marmoset Conservation Center) not only runs a breeding program for buffy marmosets in captivity, but also a catch and release one where hybrids and introduced individuals who have formed family units with buffy marmosets are trapped, neutered and released back to their families!

I’ll admit it, though: These hybrids can be VERY striking creatures, especially the black-tufted marmoset x buffy-tufted marmoset ones. They’re like someone tried to make a Pallas cat or a bear out of a monkey:

Source: Ações para conservação do Callithrix aurita em São José dos Campos/SP (sjcꓸspꓸgovꓸbr)

A fun fact about urban marmosets is that, due to a presence of both common (Callithrix jacchus) and black tufted marmosets (Callithrix penicillata) in cities and both species belonging to the genus Callithrix, it’s not uncommon to see naturally occurring* hybrids between the two!

Pictures by taguatu_guassu and sebastianlescano on iNaturalist

They usually look more closely like common marmosets (below, on the left) but with darker darker tufts of hair on their ears like black-tufted marmosets (below, on the right)!

[mammalidentifier]

I put an asterisk after “naturally occurring” because, while the hybridization between common and black-tufted marmosets IS a natural phenomenon, as in, nobody is purposely breeding them and it’s just the consequence of similar species naturally meeting, it wouldn’t have occurred all that often if it wasn’t for human intervention. Historically, the ranges of the common marmoset and the black-tufted marmoset were both much smaller and didn’t really overlap, with the former being native to the Brazilian Northeast and the latter being native to the Brazilian Central-West + a bit of the Southeast.

However, since global regulations on keeping wild animals as pets wouldn’t really be put in place until the late 1960s / early 1970s and monkeys have always been considered particularly personable animals, by the 1920s there were already established populations of tufted marmosets in the coastal states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, descending from animals kept in captivity who either escaped or were thoughtlessly released into the wild. That’s where you can observe the two species hybridizing with each other.

A fun fact about urban marmosets is that, due to a presence of both common (Callithrix jacchus) and black tufted marmosets (Callithrix penicillata) in cities and both species belonging to the genus Callithrix, it’s not uncommon to see naturally occurring* hybrids between the two!

Pictures by taguatu_guassu and sebastianlescano on iNaturalist

They usually look more closely like common marmosets (below, on the left) but with darker darker tufts of hair on their ears like black-tufted marmosets (below, on the right)!

[mammalidentifier]

A fun fact about urban marmosets is that, due to a presence of both common (Callithrix jacchus) and black tufted marmosets (Callithrix penicillata) in cities and both species belonging to the genus Callithrix, it’s not uncommon to see naturally occurring* hybrids between the two!

Pictures by taguatu_guassu and sebastianlescano on iNaturalist

They usually look more closely like common marmosets (left) but with darker darker tufts of hair on their ears like black-tufted marmosets (right)!

[mammalidentifier]

That’s a black-tufted marmoset (Callithrix penicillata)! Also I completely understand OP because I too get annoyed by the “Brazil = jungle” stereotype but I, too, see marmosets fairly often despite living in a big city, heh. Coincidentally, i just saw one run past me on a telephone line!

There’s an explanation for their presence in urban environments, though: marmosets in cities often occupy the same niche urban squirrels do in North America and Europe: they’re small, agile tree-climbing omnivores (with a preference towards plant matter) who take advantage of manmade structures and food sources. And by small, I mean small. Here’s a picture of a close cousin of theirs, a common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) next to a person. This little guy is a fully grown adult!

People online often think all Brazilians live in a jungle with wild animais and I take offense with that except when I, living in a big city, get to see a monkey

[mammalidentifier]

I mean. There’s Vriska but I don’t know enough about Homestuck to know if the trolls are actually mammals or not. All I know is that there’s one guy who has been raised by crabs or something along these lines and a dog girl. That’s about it.

[mammalidentifier]

The ones in the original post and in the 18th reply are modern humans (Homo sapiens) and zvaigzdelasas’ icon is a domestic dog (Canis familiaris) of the Chow Chow breed. All the other images shown in this post seem to not be of mammals.