Modern wolverines (Gulo gulo) have a Holarctic distribution, meaning they range just south of the Arctic circle in both North America and Eurasia. Until the 18th century, wolverines occurred as far southeast in North America as northern Ohio, but by the early 1800’s European settlers deliberately wiped out as much game as they could to starve the Indians, and wolverines were included in this extirpation. A few years ago, scientists discovered a face bone with 2 teeth attached of an extinct species of wolverine (G. sudorus) at the Gray Fossil Site in east Tennessee. This is one of the best early Pliocene sites in North America. This specimen was estimated to have lived between 4.9 million years ago to 4.5 million years ago. At this time the region of east Tennessee had a subtropical-warm temperate climate, and this species of wolverine lived alongside alligators, tapirs, rhinos, and horses. This climate was quite dissimilar to the climate of regions inhabited by wolverines today. Modern wolverines prefer climates with short summers and long snowy winters. They are adapted to hunting large deer, elk, and moose that are hampered by deep snowdrifts. Their padded paws help them travel on top of deep snows when these ungulates are floundering in them. They also can drive off many larger predators from their kills.
Map showing the distribution of wolverines during the present day, Pleistocene, and Pliocene. 1 specimen dating to the early Pleistocene was found at a site in the southern California mountains. G. sudorus was surely adapted to living in warmer climates than the modern species can endure.Image from the below reference.
This is the only known fossil specimen of G. sudorus. It is a face bone with 2 teeth attached. Image from the below reference.
The specimen is very rare…it’s the only known fossil of this species in North America. The only other specimen of a Pliocene-aged wolverine was found at the Udunga site in Russia and was assigned the scientific name Gulo minor. The American specimen shares anatomical characteristics with wolverines and fishers (Pekania pennanti). Fishers are the closest living relatives of wolverines. Wolverines are also related to pine martens (Martes sp.) and tayras (Eira barbara)–a large tropical weasel. It seems likely this Pliocene species of wolverine was very similar to a tayra in appearance. Genetic studies suggest wolverines diverged from most of the rest of the weasel family 11-12 million years ago. They diverged from fishers and martens over 5 million years ago.
The Pliocene species of wolverine that lived in parts of southeastern North America was likely similar to a tropical species of weasel known as a tayra. This one is preying on an iguana. Photo by Daniel Lopez.
Scientists gave the new species of wolverine the scientific name sudorus, meaning sweaty because it lived in warm climates. However, it likely had a short coat like a tayra. Wolverines adapted to cooler climates during the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene about 2.5 million years ago when Ice Ages began occurring.
Reference:
J. Samules; K. Bredehoeft, S. Wallace
“A New Species of Gulo from the early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site (Eastern Tennessee): Rethinking the Evolution of Wolverines”
A million years ago, our evolutionary ancestors (Homo erectus) were hunting, scavenging, and gathering to keep their bellies full. They shared their environment with many dangerous large predators. Some scientists hypothesize early humans obtained some portion of their caloric intake from scavenging large mammals killed by saber-toothed tigers and other big cats. Two species of saber-toothed cats roamed across Eurasia then including Megantereon whitei and Homotherium latidens. Panthera gombaszoegensis (formerly thought to be a species of jaguar but now thought to be more closely related to tigers) also provided meat for scavengers. These species likely ate the organs and softer parts of the carcass and left a considerable part of the coarser flesh and bones behind. Scientists believe scavenging from big cats helped H. erectus expand out of Africa and into Eurasia. They likely competed with the giant hyena (Pachycrocuta brevirostis) for this valuable source of food. A new study used computer simulations to determine the optimal size of a human group that could drive off a giant hyena. The scientists used 6 simulations, and each simulation was repeated 70 times. The data fed into the simulations included different numbers of people, large predator density, weight of the prey, intervals between kills, caloric return, and energy consumption. Scientists didn’t factor in canids, such as species related to African hunting dogs and early wolves, because packs of those species usually consumed the entire carcass.
Chart from the below study showing some of the data fed into the computer simulations.(Rodriguez 2023).
Mauricio Anton’s illustration of Homo erectus competing with Megantereon for food.
The giant hyena. Scientists don’t know whether it was a solitary or group animal. It had a smaller brain than spotted hyenas, a species that eventually replaced giant hyenas.
It’s not known for sure if the giant hyena was solitary or lived in packs, but they did have smaller brains than extant, modern, spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta). There is some archaeological evidence of humans competing with giant hyenas for an elephant carcass at the Fuente Nueve-3 site in southeastern Spain. Humans did break the bones for marrow, and there are cut marks on the bones, but there are also gnaw marks from hyenas on the elephant bones. A group of humans making noise and throwing projectiles could hypothetically chase away a large predator. Modern chimpanzees occasionally use sticks and stones to take prey away from leopards.
The authors of the below referenced study estimated it would have taken at least 5 humans to drive off a giant hyena. The optimal size of a group of humans to drive away a hyena was 13. A larger group of humans than this wouldn’t be able to get enough meat to make the effort worthwhile. Two simulations showed giant hyenas outcompeted humans when ecosystem productivity was low. Early humans required rich environments with large populations of apex predators to thrive.
Table showing the results of the below referenced study’s computer simulations. (Rodriguez 2023)
Giant hyenas became extinct following the extinction of Megantereon. I suspect humans drove Megantereon to extinction in Africa and Eurasia. Sometime during human evolution, we evolved the teamwork necessary to take on saber-tooths directly. Homotherium latidens became rare in Eurasia during the late Pleistocene, but saber-toothed cats survived in the Americas until humans started arriving there in significant numbers.
Note: This study is highly speculative. I always think studies that use extensive amounts of statistics are not much different than wild guessing. Statistics can be manipulated to show anything.
References:
Palmqvist, P. et. al.
“Deja vu: On the use of Meat Resources by Sabretoothed Cats, Hominins, and Hyenas in the early Pleistocene Site of Fuente Nuevo-3 (Gaudix-Baza Depression, SE Spain)”
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 15 2023
Eastern cottonwood trees rapidly grow to an enormous size. They reach heights of over 100 feet tall with diameters over 9 feet thick. The U.S. national champion in Beatrice, Nebraska is 89 feet tall and has a canopy 108 feet wide. The largest cottonwood in the world was planted in New Zealand circa 1870 where it is not native, and it is 138 feet tall and has a canopy 34 meters wide. Normally, cottonwoods live for 70-100 years, but they can live for 400 years. The Balmville Tree in New York was 316 years old before it was felled.
Photo of the largest known cottonwood tree in North America.
This is the largest known cottonwood tree in Georgia.
A grove of cottonwood trees in Arkansas.
Leaves and seeds of cottonwood.
Cottonwood trees depend upon flooding rivers for their existence. Floods wash away competing vegetation, leaving bare soil where cottonwood seeds can germinate. They are a shade intolerant species as well, and repeated floods thin the surrounding vegetation. This dependency explains why cottonwoods are so common on western river bottomlands. They have less competition alongside rivers that snake through prairies. Wind carries cottonwood seeds and pollen great distances, and they readily colonize bottomlands following scouring floods. Cottonwood trees are also commonly found in the east, but they particularly thrived during Ice Ages when grasslands prevailed over woodlands. There isn’t much fossil evidence of cottonwood trees dating to the Pleistocene, and their pollen barely shows up on pollen graphs, but fossil cottonwood leaves have been found in the Rita Blanca site in Texas alongside leaves from oak and willow. Cottonwoods are in the same family as willows, another tree that prefers wetlands. The Rita Blanca site in Texas was formerly a lake during the early Pleistocene.
Big tooth aspen (P. grandidenta), a related species, occurs north of the Last Glacial Maximum boundary. This species colonized New England within the last 10,000 years. It must have occurred further south during Ice Ages. It co-occurs in some parts of its range with the closely related quaking aspen (P. tremuloides), but they don’t hybridize in the wild because they flower at different times. Plant breeders have managed to hybridize them in cultivation.
Cottonwood trees are grown commercially for paper pulp. Their rapid rate of growth is an economic benefit. The wood is also used to make boxes.
Keith Richards is more interesting than a tree. I have a blog article about a species of tree ready, and I will probably publish it next week, but I have been reading Keith Richards autobiography lately, and his life holds more fascination for me than a tree. I enjoy reading biographies of rock stars because they experienced unfettered lives when they were youthful and had all the money, women, and drugs they desired. Keith Richards has been the guitar player for the Rolling Stones for about as long as I have been alive. (They are going on yet another farewell tour this summer, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are 80 years old.) The Rolling Stones are one of the greatest rock bands of all time with a deep catalogue. My favorite Rolling Stones songs include “Can’t you hear me knocking?” “I know (it’s only rock’n’roll but I like it),” “Brown Sugar,” “Gimme Shelter,” and “Shattered.”
“Can’t you hear me knocking?” is my favorite Rolling Stones song. I have listened to this song quite a few times while I am drunk.
Keith Richards grew up in a working-class household in England at a time when the English economy was struggling to recover from World War II. He had a low opinion of the educational system in England at the time he went to school. I’ve also read biographies of Ozzy Osbourne and Bernie Taupin, and they share his assessment. Keith learned to play guitar in his teens and was soon covering Chuck Berry songs. Chuck Berry along with Muddy Waters and Chicago blues artists were his biggest influences. He didn’t live far away from Mick Jagger who was able to get blues albums from Chess Records directly–hard to get items in England at the time. The two of them formed the Rolling Stones and started writing songs together. When the Rolling Stones first toured England they opened for the Everly Brothers, but by the time the tour ended the Everly Brothers were opening for them. This was before the Stones even had any hits and were merely covering Chicago blues songs.
Keith Richards is an exceptionally innovative guitar player with a unique sound. He changed the strings around on his guitar to give him the sound he was seeking. It sounded so good, Ike Turner of Ike and Tina Turner forced Keith at gunpoint to show him how he was playing his guitar. Keith created the famous hit, “Satisfaction,” in his sleep. He says he woke up one morning and played back a cassette. He heard the riff for “Satisfaction,” then 10 minutes of snoring. He also learned he liked the way his acoustic guitar sounded distorted when he played it back on cassette. Songs such as “Jumping Jack Flash” sound like they use electric guitar, but actually Keith was using distorted acoustic guitar. Oddly enough, “Start me up” was originally a reggae song. For years the group couldn’t get it to sound right until they played it as a straight up rock song. It became one of their most popular songs that they usually use to begin their concerts.
On the Stones first tour of the U.S., they played in some southern cities including Nashville and Memphis. Keith recounts how the white side of town would be completely closed by 10:00 pm, so the group would cross the railroad tracks where most of the black side of town was still jumping with juke joints playing music and serving booze all night. He’d wake up in the morning in bed with his face in some black woman’s enormous cleavage, while her mother served them breakfast in bed.
Photos of Keith Richards when he was young and old. Considering his unhealthy habits, it is surprising he is still alive and performing strenuous rock concerts at the age of 80.
The entire band took a great variety of drugs. Keith met a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who was a fan of the band. He was a shady businessman and owner of drug stores where doctors on the take agreed to send people for recreational drug prescriptions. He supplied Keith with pharmaceutical grade cocaine, a much purer form than could be found on the street. However, it was heroin that got Keith into the most trouble. He was a junkie throughout the 1970’s and early 1980’s. When he was on heroin he would stay up for many days, working on his music. His record for being awake was 9 days straight when he suddenly collapsed, stumbled down some stairs, and finally fell asleep. He was busted for drug possession in several countries including England, France, and Canada. Canadian authorities tried to nail him for distribution (a minimum 10-year prison sentence), but the judge sentenced him to give a free concert to blind people. He finally got the monkey off his back in the early 1980’s.
A more remarkable story involves Keith’s bandmate, Bobby Keys–the saxophone player. On the way home from a tour of Asia the band had to stop at customs in Honolulu. Bobby forgot he had hidden a heroin syringe in his saxophone. The customs agent turned the saxophone upside down to look at the serial number, and the syringe fell out and landed needle side down, like a dart in a dart board, on the customs agent’s desk. They arrested Bobby, but the rest of the band had already left for the continental U.S. The only number Bobby had to call was Mr. Dole, owner of Dole Pineapple who gave him his business card when he caught Bobby fooling around with his daughter in his mansion. Mr. Dole had enough influence to get the charges dropped.
The band members left England to avoid paying an 85% tax rate. They became non-resident citizens to prevent the government from confiscating so much of their wealth.
Keith enjoyed countless groupies, but he had 3 important lovers in his life. His first great love was Anita Pallenberg, actress and former girlfriend of fellow bandmate, Brian Jones. Keith basically stole her from Brian, but that relationship had been falling apart for some time. Keith and Anita had a lot of fun together, and the relationship produced 3 children. She also was addicted to heroin. Their relationship couldn’t survive their mutual addiction. Keith moved on to Lil Wergelis who helped him get over his addiction to heroin. Keith has nothing but good things to say about Lil, but he admits he “dumped” her for Pattie Hensen, a Vogue cover girl model. He is still married to her some 40 years later. At the time he met her Mick Jagger was also dating a supermodel, and in my opinion Keith might have wanted to keep up with Mick.
Keith and Mick are the heart of the Rolling Stones. There was some resentment between them in the late 1980’s when Mick attempted to kindle a solo career but mostly played Rolling Stones songs on his tours. Keith played guitar on tour with a reggae group, then formed his own band known as the X-pensive Winos. Keith and Mick reunited and have played together on many mega-tours since.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is entirely about religious antisemitism. Arab Muslims oppressed Jews in the Middle East for 1400 years, and Arab Muslims cannot tolerate Israel because it is a Jewish state that has political control over some Muslims. This is the sole reason why so many Arab governments, still to this day, refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Many Muslims who live in the rest of the world feel the same way about Western governments but are outnumbered in places like the U.S. and Western Europe by the “infidels,” and they know they have to tolerate it. But Muslims in the Middle East greatly outnumber the Jews, and they feel outraged because there is a tiny slice of land where Muslims can’t dominate Jews.
Jews have had a continuous presence in what today is Israel for at least 5000 years. Over time, many Jews left seeking better economic opportunities around the world because Israel (known as Judea and Samaria in ancient times) was a poor nation often being overrun and conquered by larger kingdoms. The Romans ethnically cleansed Judea when they conquered it during the first century AD. The Romans enslaved tens of thousands of Jews and dispersed them throughout the Roman Empire. Romans gave the province of Judea the name Syria Palestinia–a completely made-up name–to erase the existence of a Jewish state. There is no such country as Palestine, and there never has been, and therefore there is no such thing as a Palestinian. The name has always been applied to a colony of a conquering power. Arab Muslims defeated the Romans during the 7th century and forced most of the inhabitants to convert to Islam. Jews and Christians were treated as second class citizens. Eventually, this region became part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, and they ruled for centuries, until the British Empire defeated the Ottomans (now known as Turks) during World War I and took control of the province that the Romans called Palestine.
For centuries Muslims oppressed Jews in the Middle East, though some rulers were more friendly toward the Jews than others. But Jews living in the region were considered second class citizens, and they didn’t have the same rights as Muslims. It was Muslims who first forced Jews to wear yellow stars, a practice imitated by Nazis during the Holocaust. Periodically, Arab Muslims massacred Jews in deadly pogroms that were just as brutal as the pogroms in Russia and Poland. The Koran is astonishingly antisemitic. The Koran refers to Jews as “apes and swine.” The Koran accuses Jews of being treacherous and says they are a disgrace. Jews are cursed for their refusal to believe in Islam, and the Koran advocates the killing of Jews, if they believe they are the chosen people. The Koran specifically warns Muslims not to ally themselves with Jews and Christians. The religion of Islam is clearly hostile to the existence of Jews, let alone a Jewish state.
During the 19th century European Jews founded the Zionist movement, so that Jews could have their own nation where they wouldn’t be persecuted. They dreamed of returning to the land of their forefathers. At the time the Ottoman Empire controlled that land, and they often passed laws that outlawed Jews from buying land in Palestine. However, after the British took control of the land following World War I, Jews began legally buying land from local Arabs and absentee Turkish landlords. They also purchased public land controlled by the British government. Jews established many settlements, and many Arabs abandoned land and moved to the city to escape Bedouin tribesman who they feared. Nevertheless, Arab gangs, many from far outside the area, massacred quite a few Jewish settlements. During World War II the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was an ally of Adolf Hitler, and many Arabs wanted to join the Nazis in their goal of annihilating the Jews.
Here is a list of Jewish settlements that were wiped out by Arabs prior to the establishment of Israel. The world didn’t have a problem with these massacres. It didn’t become a problem until Jews started fighting back. Whenever a Jew defends himself, the world considers it a war crime.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was an ally of Adolf Hitler. Nazi officials who escaped trial at Nuremburg helped administer the fascist governments of all the Arab countries that tried to wipe Israel off of the map. Arab Muslims are still allied with neo-Nazis.
There is still an alliance between Arab Muslims and neo-Nazis. They share a hatred of Jews. Here are some neo-Nazis waving a “Palestinian” flag.
Ignorant antisemites wrongly accuse Israel of being a colonial state. This is simply false. Jews legally bought land and were legally granted rights to land when it was controlled by the British, and the U.N. officially recognized the creation of Israel in 1948. The entire Arab Muslim world attacked Israel as soon as this happened. Arabs abandoned additional land in Israel, some hoping to return after Israel was defeated, while other Arabs were forcibly removed during the war when Israel was fighting for survival. This is how Israel gained even more territory. Israel won the war. Wars have consequences. It was a war Arabs started, and Israel justifiably asserted control of land in a war of self-defense.
Map showing progressive Israeli gains in territory over the years. Arabs could have had all the land colored in red, if they would have chosen to live in peace with the Jews. Instead, they went to war. They lost. Moreover, following the war, Egypt seized the Gaza Strip, and Jordan seized the West Bank. There were no demands to have an independent state of Palestine between 1949-1967 when those territories were controlled by Muslims. This proves the Arab-Israeli conflict is entirely about religious antisemitism.
During the war of 1948 Egypt took control of the Gaza strip and Jordan took control over the West Bank. When Jordan and Egypt had control of these territories (1948-1967) there was no demand for an independent Palestinian state. The so-called Palestinians accepted Jordanian and Egyptian rule. This proves the conflict is entirely about religion. During 1967 in another war of self-defense Israel defeated the Arabs again and took control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. (Israel was forced to launch a preemptive attack because Nasser, the dictator of Egypt, mobilized a large army on Israel’s border and announced he was going to blockade Israeli ports.) Suddenly, Arabs demanded the creation of a Palestinian nation because it was intolerable for Muslims to live under Jewish political control. Jordan and Egypt reject the Arabs who live in those territories, so they won’t have to take care of their own people. In 1984 Jordan officially renounced the citizenship of all the Arabs who live in the West Bank, thus abdicating the responsibility of taking care of their own people.
There are numerous ignorant young people who accuse Israel of apartheid and genocide. Arab citizens living in Israel are allowed to vote, and there are Arabs serving in the Israeli government and even in the Israeli Army. There are not many real democratic elections in the Arab world, and there are very few Jews in any Arab countries because they were forcibly removed following the creation of the Israeli state. Israel has built defensive walls separating themselves from some Arabs. Israelis shouldn’t be expected to have to live next to Jew-killing terrorists who have launched countless terrorist attacks against them. Israel is not committing genocide. Genocide is the deliberate extermination of another group of people. Some Arabs in the Gaza Strip are being killed because they elected terrorists as their leaders, and the terrorists are using them as human shields in their war of aggression against Israel. They are despicable monsters who use hospitals and children’s playgrounds as their military headquarters and rocket-launching sites. There seems to be plenty of Jew-hating simpletons in the world who refuse to grasp this logical fact. Hamas definitely does hope to commit genocide against Jews. Their charter calls for the destruction of Israel. Schools and parents in Gaza and the West Bank indoctrinate their children into hating Jews from the day they are born. Some of these schools are run by the U.N. The U.N. is an antisemitic organization.
A children’s puzzle used in Palestinian schools to indoctrinate their children into attacking Jews.They also teach math problems that encourage the murder of Jews.
Some people lament the loss of innocent life in Gaza. Israel is not responsible for this. Hamas is responsible for these deaths because they use their own people as human shields. Maybe Gazans shouldn’t have elected terrorists to be their leaders. Maybe they shouldn’t indoctrinate their children with blind hatred for Jews. The women and children who live there are not so innocent. Women and children followed Hamas into Israel on October 7th and participated in the looting, rapes, mutilations, murders, and kidnappings. They celebrated the murderous attacks. Yeah, that doesn’t sound innocent to me.
Student protests against Israel in the U.S. are antisemitic hate rallies and should not be tolerated. They chant pro-genocidal slogans against Jews, and they regurgitate pro-terrorist slogans. Some even wave Hamas and Hezbollah flags. They harass and bully Jewish students and at Columbia University, they won’t allow Jewish students to enter the library. Their demand that the universities divest from Israel is obviously antisemitic. Why are they singling out the Jewish state? Why don’t they demand the divestment of university funds from China where real human rights violations are occurring? Students participating in these protests should be expelled and blacklisted for life. I’d deport them to Gaza, if I had the power to do so. The gay protestors would be executed because that is what Hamas does to homosexuals.
From the River to the Sea is a genocidal chant calling for the extermination of millions of Jews.Comically, many protestors don’t know which river and which sea. They are just ignorant.
Pro Palestinian protestors are telling Jews to go back to Poland. I have a lot of dead relatives in Polandwho were killed by the Nazis.
Here’s a pro-Palestinian demonstrator urging a terrorist attack against Jewish counter protestors. Note how she covers her face. Pro-Palestinian protestors are cowards who are afraid to reveal their true identities.
Unfair criticism of Israel from extreme leftists in the Democratic Party is predictable antisemitism. But it’s disappointing to hear mainstream Democrats also unfairly criticize Israel for defending themselves against terrorism. (I am a mainstream Democrat. I think the Republican Party should be outlawed because Republicans no longer believe in Democracy.) Mainstream Democrats are afraid they have to appease antisemitic Arabs, or they will lose to Trump in the Presidential election because there is a significant Arab population in Michigan–a critical battleground state. I especially hate Tim Kaine of Virginia. He falsely accuses Israel of indiscriminate bombing and of preventing food aid from going into the Gaza Strip. There is more food rolling into Gaza now than before the war started. Kaine recently co-sponsored a resolution condemning antisemitism. He thinks this gives him cover to kiss antisemitic Arab ass by unfairly criticizing Israel. He disgusts me. Republicans are even more disgusting. Over 100 Republican congressmen voted against a bill sending aid to Israel because they felt they had to kiss undemocratic fascist ass and didn’t want to send aid to Ukraine.
Tim Kaine and Barack (the bastard) Obama. I hate these antisemites. Kaine unfairly criticizes Israel to appease antisemitic Arab ass. Following the October 7th attacks, Obama equated the Jewish victims of terrorism with the Arab terrorists.
GeorgiaBeforePeople 