THE RINGED TAIL TALE

The Ring-tailed Lemur of Madagascar.

At our recent event, Exotic Species Night, visitors of all ages had the opportunity to see, touch, smell, and experience the museum's strangest, most exotic natural history artifacts. One booth in particular received a great deal of attention -- the "Odd Objects and Curious Artifacts" table. This table was a hands-on, touch-everything station with a collection of mystery "stuff" ranging from Mastodon teeth and whale earbones to Pencil Urchin spines and giant Tusk Snails. One object was particularly intriguing to some of our younger visitors -- a long, bushy, black-and-white striped tail. Nearly everyone correctly identified the original owner of the tail as none other than the Madagascan Ring-tailed Lemur. But one particularly inquisitive 4th-grader wasn't convinced.

"But couldn't it also be a raccoon's tail?" she asked. "Raccoons have striped tails too! How do you know it's  not a raccoon tail?" After reassuring her that I personally had seen the lemur before it became tail-less (which truthfully was not all that reassuring), I explained that raccoons typically have shorter, rounder, more bushy tails than Ring-tailed Lemurs. "Cacomistles and coatis on the other hand," I continued, "have tails that are quite similar in length and shape to a lemur's. They would be very hard to identify if I didn't know where they were from!"

And then came the big question.

"Why do they all look the same?"

The Ringtail, or Ring-tailed Cat, can be found
in the Southwestern United States. It has a
relative farther south known as the Cacomistle.
Both are not actually cats, but are more
closely related to raccoons and coatis.

Many species of coati, a Central and South American
relative of raccoons, also have ringed tails.

Raccoons are the best local representative with the ringed-
tail color pattern.

Without even knowing what a coati or cacomistle was, this curious ten-year-old girl knew that something interesting was going on here. In fact, this question has intrigued mammalogists and evolutionary biologists for nearly two centuries and we're still not entirely sure why so many animal tails have converged on this color pattern. Coatis, cacomistles, raccoons and Ring-tailed Lemurs aren't the only ones. This "ringed tail" business is far more widely distributed than you'd imagine. Excluding the bears (Ursidae) and the seals (Pinnipedia), more than half of the families in the order Carnivora have ringed tails. That includes things like the Red Panda, raccoons, cacomistles, coatis, and ring-tailed cats (not actually a cat), as well as civets, linsangs, genets, and most true cats like Tigers, Leopards and Cheetahs. Recent paleontological evidence suggests that even some dinosaurs had black-and-white striped tails!

Cheetahs have partially ringed tails used mostly for camouflage.

Clouded Leopards also have ringed tails.

The Tiger's ringed tail is probably used for camouflage too.

Sinosauropteryx was a the first dinosaur to show distinct color patterns
 in its fossil remains. Paleontologists believe that it had a ringed tail just
like many modern day mammals.

The Spotted Genet and many other
members of its family have ringed tails
which they use for communication.

In spite of this relatively high rate of ringed-tailed-ness in Carnivorans, evolutionary biologists believe that the first Carnivores probably had uniform tails. The fancy tail patternings most likely evolved later in arboreal, nocturnal species as a means to visually communicate with other animals at night (the contrasting bands are easy to see in darkness). But why only in arboreal species? How could a striped tail make you a better tree-climber? Well, it doesn't, but having a long tail does. Animals that live in the trees use their long tails for balance and support as they move along branches. These long tails are rather conspicuous -- sometimes they make up more than half of the animal's body-length -- the perfect place to put up a billboard! A long bushy tail is essentially a blank canvas on which an animal can place valuable visual cues and signs for other individuals. For most Carnivorans, these visual cues take the form of ringed tails.

There are, of course, some exceptions and odd balls. The Cheetah for example, has a partially striped tail despite it's very terrestrial lifestyle. As do Tigers. In some of these cases, terrestrial species have evolved a spotted or striped coat for camouflage, and these stripes/spots simply continue down the length of the tail. But according to the evolutionary biologists, most ringed tails evolved entirely independently from patterns on the rest of the body -- meaning ringed tails used for camouflage are the exception to the rule.

As for the ringed tail of the Ring-tailed Lemur (a Primate, not a Carnivore), the same rules probably apply. A long tail for arboreal locomotion is a great place to put some valuable visual cues regardless of whether you are nocturnal or not. We know that lemurs are very social, so it makes sense that they would utilize their tail to communicate. And Ring-tailed Lemurs do in fact use their beautiful tails for unique displays such as scent displays and aggressive interactions between rival individuals.

So, long story short, black-and-white striped tails are an excellent example of convergent evolution among relatively unrelated animal groups (raccoons to lemurs to dinosaurs) and are used for communication, especially in arboreal and/or nocturnal species. If you'd like more information regarding color patterns in the Carnivora order, check out Alessia Ortolani's scientific paper from 1998 titled "Spots, stripes, tail tips, and dark eyes: Predicting the function of carnivore color patterns using the comparative method." PDF here.

Stay curious!
-Robert Niese
Education and Outreach Coordinator

mammal watching can be fun

Many of us are birdwatchers (or birders, is there a difference?), but not so many are mammal watchers (mammalers?). But mammal watching can be fun too. There are only about half as many species of mammals as there are of birds, so there aren't as many to watch, but—of great significance—the vast majority are brown, so they don't attract the attention of those who love to see the varied colors presented by birds. Many birds are conspicuously, even rainbowly, colored. So the mammals have one strike against them (of course, we're one of them, surely a strike for them).

Perhaps of even greater significance is the fact that most mammals are nocturnal, and most of us do our nature study during the day, when we can see what's going on. Mammalogists know that if they want to have a lot of encounters with mammals, they go out at night. And they have to resort to a whole array of technology, from flashlights to mist nets (for bats) to sunken cans (shrews and mice fall in them) to live traps (especially for rodents).

Nevertheless, there are mammals that can be seen during the day. This includes all marine mammals, most ungulates (hoofed mammals), and some rabbits and rodents (especially squirrels). A trip to a big national park, where they are protected, may tally a surprising number of mammal species.

We found a few of these mammals, totaling seven species, on an early October trip to the Washington coast. Among them was a small herd of Elk consisting of a finely antlered male and two cows and their half-grown calves. Elk seem to be increasing in the Pacific Northwest, both the Roosevelt Elk subspecies on the coast and the Rocky Mountain Elk of the Cascades and East. There are small herds of Elk all over the southwest corner of the state, often visible in late afternoon as they come out of the forest to graze on herbaceous vegetation in prairies and second growth.

Of marine mammals, we saw quite a few Harbor Seals and California Sea Lions at the mouth of the Columbia River and the mouth of Grays Harbor. One big male sea lion was sleeping on a floating dock in the harbor at Westport, quite unconcerned with fishermen, crabbers, and tourists walking past about 20 feet away. As we watched, it had a good scratch, much like you'll see your pet dog or cat doing. From a population low some years ago, California Sea Lions have become more and more common, and the people who work in the harbor at Westport have become concerned as more and more of the big (and dangerous) mammals pre-empt parts of the docks.

Of rodents we saw numerous Douglas Squirrels, the common native squirrel in western Washington forests. Of lagomorphs (the rabbit order), we were enthralled by a baby Snowshoe Hare that grazed on weeds at the edge of the road in Leadbetter Point State Park. Unlike many of its species, this little gem sat there and fed calmly as we approached closer and closer with our cameras. It's a great feeling to get to photograph any wild mammal at leisure!

It's always special to see carnivores, and we saw two of the more common species of Washington. We watched a Coyote come out of the bushes at Leadbetter Point, trot over to the shore of the salt marsh, and lie down right at the water's edge. It was engaged in grooming rather than hunting, although it seemed to us that it was looking intently at a nearby foraging Great Blue Heron.

Finally, there is a nice viewing platform on the rocks in Westport where you can look out over the harbor with a scope and take in the bustling avian activity. Local people put out food and water for a crowd of feral cats there, and I wonder if they know they are feeding native carnivores as well. A Raccoon came out of the rocks as we watched and meticulously cleaned up a pile of cat chow, then finished with a drink from the water bowl and ambled back into the rocks. Not a bad day for furry encounters.

Dennis Paulson