Swordwhale Walking: illustration, webcomic, stories, photojourneys, videos
  • launch here
  • art & stories
    • black horses
    • Sea Ponies of Chincoteague
    • Just Animals
    • playing with water
    • Tradigital illustration
    • environmental education >
      • Christmas Magic Mural 2020
      • animal alphabet and counting murals
      • Assateague ponies
      • the salamander room
      • more touch room ocean
      • more: touch room forest
      • wetland
      • wetland art
      • greenleaf
      • reptile week murals: Nixon Park
    • just animals: photography
    • Tales of the E.L.F. >
      • That Darn Elf, a musing or two
      • cast and crew
      • I dreamed of black horses
      • fanfiction: If Wishes Were Elves...
      • Skyfire
      • Leyover and Bardic Circle
      • Following Raven
      • The Merrow's Cap >
        • Merrows Cap credits
      • Manannan's Horses
      • Fins
      • fandom >
        • Radagast's Rabbit Ride
        • the Lone Ranger >
          • LOLs and Trolls
          • but wait, there's Moore, and Silverheels
          • Hi Yo Silver
        • black panthers and night furies
        • tales of Middle Earth >
          • Mirthwood
          • Loth-LOL-ien >
            • Im-LOL-dris
            • Smirkwood
            • well, that coulda' been worse
        • Sherlocked
        • catz and doges on fandom
        • Faithful Sidekicks
    • murals
    • scribblings
    • coloring pages
  • mermaid tales
    • Gramma Swordwhale's Mermaid Blog >
      • how to mermaid
      • merfolk on the Chesapeake
      • my life as a mermaid
    • privateers and pumpkins and ponies oh my!
    • stupid gravity (the adventures of a mermaid on Eastern Neck Is.) >
      • stupid gravity credits
    • stupid gravity: the search for sea glass >
      • stupid gravity: the search for sea glass: credits
    • Stupid Gravity: Misty Cloudy Windy Stormy Augh! >
      • Misty Stormy credits
    • Stupid Gravity: the search for mermaids
    • mermaids, Moana and Maui, beached on Christmas Eve
    • horseshoe crabs forever
    • stupid gravity: hot hot hot >
      • hot hot hot credits
  • Chincoteague
    • back to the islands 2021 >
      • Ponies 2021
    • identify that pony
    • chincoteague pony art
    • Fall Roundup Oct 2019
    • Chincoteague 2019
    • pookas pumpkins and swamp ponies
    • Chincoteague Carousel
    • Chincoteague November 2018
    • the 3rd Sea Voyage of Makenuk's Fin
    • wild horses and kayaks 2017
    • wild ponies in camp
    • North Beach
    • on island time
    • saltwater cowboys
    • Chincoteague
    • Christmas by the Sea
    • island ponies
    • Ace and Unci revolt
    • beached
    • running water in between
    • Assateague Light
    • the Haunted Lagoon
  • crafty stuff
    • photo your toys >
      • how to photograph Breyers in the wild
      • Lokigator and Throg's Epic Adventure
      • Sam and Bucky's Excellent Adventure
      • Mando and Grogu
      • paint and wet snow pants
      • Legolas and Hwin, snow
      • derps (or how not to photograph Breyers and others)
      • Wonder Horse repaint
      • wild Breyers >
        • printable prints and downloads
        • water horses
        • beach Breyers
        • Lotus Legolas and Arod
        • teeny tiny Breyers
        • backyard Breyers and Schleichs
        • vintage breyers
        • Hartland Horses
        • Black Horses
      • educational display
      • Schleich and Safari Faeries
      • North beached
      • more model horses
      • beach party
      • advenatureData
      • Finding Hank
      • Otterlock and Hedgejawn >
        • Hounded in Baskerville
      • how to photograph your dragon
    • Rich Toy hobby horse rehab
    • ModPodge rules
    • paint pours
    • flour salt clay
    • chalk paint
    • rock it: paint rocks and use or lose them
    • faerie gardens >
      • more faerie gardens
      • faerie festival at Spoutwood Farm
    • sea this tutu (and make)
    • I found Dory
    • knit me a mermaid, or chicken, or Hei Hei
    • sea treasures
    • sea glass
    • sea horses
    • rehabbing horse epic fail >
      • do you wanna build a snow pony?
      • do you wanna build a sand pony?
      • Barbie horse gets a makeover
    • mermaid saddles
    • Yule Laugh, Yule Cry... >
      • a Brandywine Christmas
    • Uncle Bob's Toys >
      • Uncle Bob's Toys 2016
      • more: Uncle Bob's Crafts
      • the Adventures of Mortimer
  • adventures
    • Go Play Outside
    • Nature Deficit Disorder
    • I heart Nature
    • autumn light
    • cats
    • mushing 101 >
      • dogs on wheels >
        • Autumn Run on Wheels
      • dogsled
      • dogsledding: running on snow! >
        • Groundhog Day
      • kids and dawgs: first sled run
      • Klondike Derby
      • Sled Dogs and Pirate Ships
      • Christmas Day Run: Rail Trail
      • Horses and Huskies: when predator and prey share the trail
      • Schipperke doo dah >
        • Runnin' with the Big Dogs
        • Hobbit Husky
      • women who run with the wolves
      • Play Time
      • wubba wubba
      • New Year's Dog Day
      • Team Swordwhale
    • trains, sleddogs, and horses oh my!
    • butterscotch and sprinkles
    • horses >
      • horse reference for art
      • ponies small but mighty
      • First Horse: Saraf
      • the Wild Black Mare
      • between thunder and lightning
      • Goliath, Nevada Mustang
      • Yataalii
    • Planet Water >
      • Planet fish tank
      • planet toadpool
      • Planet Pond
      • Planet Stream
      • Planet River
      • Planet Marsh
      • Planet Ocean
      • Planet Water Bird >
        • Planet Water Bird: gulls
      • Planet turtle
      • Planet water snake
      • planet amphibian
    • kayak! >
      • blue boat home
      • kayaking 101
      • kayaking Assateague and Chincoteague
      • how to train your dragonfly
      • Chasing Raven
      • the Susquehanna River >
        • the Rock Garden >
          • return to the Rock Garden
        • Conewago Dreamin'
        • the Conejehola Flats
        • Thunderbird Island (petroglyphs on the Susquehanna)
        • to the White Lady and Beyond
      • Calvert Cliffs fossils
      • Sassafras River Lotus Paddle >
        • Return to the Sassafras
        • sassafras river 2015
        • sassafras paddle 20160814
        • Sassafras River 2017
        • Sassafras river 2018
      • Eastern Neck Island >
        • winter marsh, winter beach
        • Eastern Neck Island: under the supermoon
        • more Eastern Neck Island
      • Pinchot Park
      • Lake Marburg >
        • where are the manatees?
        • ...and the dolphins???
        • macros and SAVs
        • Lake Marburg 2018
        • how to be a kayaking Gramma
    • beached
    • dive in! (SCUBA) >
      • Gourd of the Rings
    • mid Atlantic seashells
    • longship company >
      • December sail
      • Sae Hrafn at Oakley
    • pirates and privateers >
      • Sailing 101
      • Schooner Sultana 1768
      • Capt John Smith Shallop
      • Pride of Baltimore II
      • Kalmar Nyckel
      • downrigging 2010 >
        • Chestertown autumn
        • Downrigging Weekend 2014
        • Downrigging 2015
        • Downrigging 2016
        • Downrigging 2017
        • downrigging 2018: pink tardis
        • Downrigging 2019
      • privateer weekend
    • horseshoe crabs and red knots >
      • horseshoe crab spawn 2021
      • slaughter beach
      • horseshoe crabs and semipalmated sandpipers 2019
    • surfboards and watchtowers: Cape Henlopen >
      • beached
      • Watching Whales >
        • Watching Whales...again
    • Seadogs: Newfoundland water trials
    • wind hounds
    • wild things! >
      • baltimore aquarium
      • there's a hummer in the garage...ceiling ...
      • critter cam
      • sky walking
      • leaf-fall
    • The Adventures of the Good Ship Fearaf
    • the incredibly dead blog page
  • art class
    • framing 101
    • watercolor: how to
    • sip n paints
    • acrylic painting 101
    • wildlife art class
    • Santa, You're Doomed
    • (drawing) horses 101 >
      • horse color 101
      • gaits
      • ponies in motion
      • tack
      • Draw: a horse
    • dogs and wolves
    • go ahead, draw a pirate ship
    • anthropomorphism (cartoon animals and stuff)
    • the Little Kids Page of Big Ideas
    • mural: how to >
      • Gabriel's Whale
      • stuff you need
      • drawing (mural)
      • drawing mural 2
      • painting
      • mural jungle
      • mural bat cave
      • mural cats
      • mural ocean
      • mural arctic
      • mural leaf smacking
      • watershed mural
    • crayons and colored pencils
    • palettes
  • wait wait! let me get the camera!
  • who perpetrated all this???
    • swordbroad

Holy Cow!

9/17/2012

2 Comments

 
 A conversation with a young friend I work with spawned this... 

She had gone to the York Fair and seen some farm animals. Her childhood in
the Phillipines included a grandpa who had a small ... what we'd call a farmette
or gentleman's farm or truckpatch: pigs, chickens, garden. 

"What kind of cows did you see", I asked.

The ensuing discussion pointed out how much most of us don't know about our
burgers and ice cream and where it comes from. I have a passing knowledge of
some of the cattle breeds, generally color-coded: if it's black, it's an Angus,
if it's white it's a Charlais, if it's black and white it's a Holstein. If it
looks like Disney invented it for a Bambi movie it's a Jersey... Bambi with the
attitude of the Terminator.

I asked if she had cows back in her childhood home. Sure, of course. Water
buffalo? What? A quick google search on the phone turned up pictures of
kalabaw.

"The carabao ( Filipino: kalabaw;  Malay: kerbau) or Bubalus bubalis
carabanesis
is a subspecies of the domesticated water  buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) found in the Philippines, Guam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and various parts of Southeast Asia. Carabaos are ssociated with farmers, being the farm animal of  choice for pulling both a plow and the cart used to haul produce to the market."  (Wiki)

Which led me to wondering how they are related to cattle and buffalo/American  bison.


The Cow:

Family: Bovidae Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Bos Species: B. primigenius Subspecies: B. p. taurus, B.
p. indicus

 
The Water Buffalo:
Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Bubalus Species: B. bubalis Subspecies: B. b. carabanesis

The Bison: 
Family: Bovidae Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Bison Species †B.
antiquus
, B.  bison, B.  bonasus,†B.  latifrons,†B. occidentalis,†B.  priscus

The Cape Buffalo
  (of Africa, which  looks like a water buffalo) is a whole 'nother beast: it is not closely related  to the domesticated water buffalo, and it is not the ancestor of modern cattle.
Domesticated Water Buffalo are quiet, gentle beasts... Cape Buffalo are one of  the most dangerous beasts in Africa, you're better off meeting a lion on the  trail than a buffalo. Cape Buffalo will ambush and attack pursuers. Of course,  their main predators are humans, lions and crocs. They have to be
tough.

The Yak: Family: Bovidae Genus: Bos Species: B. grunniens  
 
Family:  Bovidae Subfamily: Bovinae Genus: Syncerus, Species: S. caffer...
subspecies:
S. c. caffer,  S. c. nanus, S. c. brachyceros, S. c. aequinoctialis, S. c.
mathewsi


Clearly all the same beasts (bovinae) up until the "genus" part. 

When I looked up cattle species (not breeds), the idea of Cow got more  complicated...

What Wiki says: 

Cattle were originally identified as three separate  species:
Bos taurus , the European or "taurine" cattle (including similar types from Africa and  Asia); Bos indicus, the zebu; and the extinct Bos primigenius,  the aurochs. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine  cattle. Recently these three have increasingly been grouped as one species,  with Bos primigenius taurus, Bos primigenius indicus and Bos primigenius  primigenius as the subspecies.

Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other
closely related species. 
Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and  zebu (such as the 
sanga  cattle, Bos taurus africanus) but also between one or both of the se and  some other members of the genus Bos – yaks (the dzo or yattle, banteng, and gaur. Hybrids such as the beefalo breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of  bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos as well. The hybrid origin of some types may not be obvious – for example,  genetic testing of the Dwarf Lulu breed, the only taurine-type cattle in Nepal, found them to be a mix  of taurine cattle, zebu, and yak. However, cattle cannot successfully be  hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water  buffalo or African buffalo. The aurochs  originally ranged throughout Europe,  North  Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times its range became restricted to  Europe, and the last known individual died in Masovia, Poland, in about 1627. Breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar  appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle,  creating the Heck cattle breed. The yak  may have diverged from cattle at any point between one and five million years  ago, and there is some suggestion that it may be more closely related to  bison than to the other members of its designated genus. Apparent close  fossil relatives of the yak, such as Bos baikalensis, have been found in eastern  Russia, suggesting a possible route by which yak-like ancestors of the modern
American bison could have entered the Americas.  

Cornfuseled yet??? 

"During the population bottleneck, the number of bison remaining alive in
North America declined to as low as 541. During that period, a handful of
ranchers gathered remnants of the existing herds to save the species from
extinction. These ranchers bred some of the bison with cattle in an effort to
produce "cattleo". Accidental crossings were also known to occur. Generally,
male domestic bulls were crossed with buffalo cows, producing offspring of which
only the females were fertile. The crossbred animals did not demonstrate any
form of hybrid vigor, so the practice was abandoned. The proportion of cattle
DNA that has been measured in introgressed individuals and herds today is
typically quite low, ranging from 0.56 to 1.8%. In the United States, many
ranchers are now utilizing DNA testing to cull the residual cattle genetics from
their herds. The U.S. National Bison Association has adopted a code of ethics
which prohibits its members from deliberately crossbreeding bison with any other
species."

 America nearly killed off the bison (part of it was an attempt to subdue to
Native tribes who depended on it, part was greedy hunting). Out of those
slightly more than 500 individuals came our present thundering herds. Not a lot
of DNA to work with there. I was surprised to see the cow DNA lurking in there,
that second generation animals were fertile, (unlike mules) and that ranchers
have tried to eliminate the cow DNA now.

There it is, the tangled DNA web of Cow.  I leave you with oen more Wiki
contemplation... of the word COW...

 Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals. 
It was borrowed from  Old  French catel,  itself from Latin caput,  head, and originally meant movable personal  property,  especially livestock of any kind, as opposed to  real property (the land, which also included wild or small free-roaming animals  such as chickens — they were sold as part of the land). The word is closely
related to "
chattel" (a unit of personal property) and "capital"  in  the economic sense. The term replaced earlier Old  English feoh "cattle, property" (cf. German: Vieh, Gothic: faihu). The word cow came via  Anglo-Saxon cū (plural cȳ), from  Common Indo-European gʷōus  (genitive gʷowes) = "a bovine animal", compare Persian Gâv, Sanskrit go, Welsh buwch. The genitive plural of "cū" is cȳna", which gave the now  archaic English plural, and Scots plural, of "kine".


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

2 Comments
Guess who?
9/17/2012 09:29:30 am

By coincidence, and on the general theme of farms, I'm again browsing some works by Joel Salatin, which I again commend to you.

Reply
Pauline
9/24/2012 02:21:50 pm

Loved reading this Teanna! Glad our convos at work inspired such a meaty (no pun intended lol) and educational blog entry! Loving your blog by the way! See ya at work tomorrow, where a new conversation awaits!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    about: Teanna

    This is the first blog I perpetrated, then I found tumblr and facebook and twitter and wordpress. So, if you want to "follow" my derailed train of thought, check my wordpress blog: https://swordwhale.wordpress.com/

    Archives

    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011
    October 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    December 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009

    Categories

    All
    All
    Environment
    Environmental Issues
    History
    Kids Gone Wild
    Longship
    Movies
    Mythology
    Orca
    Pride Of Baltimore 2
    Schooner Sultana
    Sea Horse Island
    Solomons Island
    Storytelling
    The Bay
    The Lake
    The River
    The Sea
    Vikings
    Wildlife
    Zen Of Kayaking
    Zen Of Tall Ships

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.