Small Visitors

In addition to the funamushi William found this weekend, we have come across a few other creatures in the past month. Two of them I never, ever hope to have a run in with again.

In the beginning of May we spent a few days camping on Sensuijima, an island just off the coast of Fukuyama. During the day, we noticed a couple of tanuki hanging around the outdoor eating area begging for food. They looked incredibly diseased, scabby, and were even missing their tails. They were awake during the day, which is strange for tanuki, abnormally comfortable around humans, and seemed to be in pain. I thought it was incredibly cruel that the restaurant owners had not decided to take responsibility for these creatures and put them out of their misery.

As soon as night fell though, a whole army of healthy, bushy tailed tanuki emerged from the forest. Every where you shone your flashlight was a little raccoon dog that would stand stunned for a moment before scampering off into the trees.

About two weeks ago, I was sitting in the dark feeding the baby at about 4am. Suddenly I felt something crawl onto my back from the couch and inside my shirt. I was really groggy and so the first thought through my head was, "yuck! a cockroach just crawled into my shirt". Our house is pretty old, with lots of cracks and holes to the outside, so it wasn't too far fetched to think that a cockroach could find its way inside the house and down my shirt. I proceeded to smack at the "cockroach" as it tried to make its way from my back to my sleeve. At the time, crushing it against my shoulder under my shirt to kill it seemed like a good idea until my skin started burning. I quickly stripped off my shirt and flung it on the floor. The last thing I wanted to do at that moment was go through my shirt and search for whatever bug just bit me, so I went to bed and had a fitful sleep until the sun came up. By that time, my stomach felt kind of queasy and my arm and back felt very sensitive and painful.

Just in case you were wondering, this is what nightmares
are made of.

I searched through my shirt and didn't find the bug (it must have run back and hid in whatever hole it came from) but I found a number of curved orangey red legs that could only have come from a mukade, or giant centipede. These insects are huge, fast, and relatively poisonous. For an adult it is not such a big deal to be bitten, but the toxin can be pretty dangerous for young children. I am so happy that it was me and not Rosie or the boys that came across the centipede!

This is what my arm looked like a few hours later.
The actual bite is on the bottom near my armpit and all
 the little red dots are where its legs scratched me.

The bite itself didn't look too terrible, just red dots and scratches from where its legs scrabbled against my skin. It didn't actually hurt too badly when it bit me; kind of like a cinder landing on your skin for a few seconds. The real pain started about half an hour later radiating out from the bite down my back and arm. I was actually surprised at how little and innocuous the bite looked considering how much my muscles and joints ached. The aching feeling in my back and arm lasted about a day or two and I felt a bit dizzy and queasy for about 10 hours or so. Really, the worst part of it all was how itchy and puffy my skin became. Even the spots where its legs touched me got red and itchy and it took all I had not to touch for about two weeks until the swelling went down.

We also had our first encounter with a suzumebachi, or asian giant hornet. It came buzzing into the yard and died a few minutes later when Dustin smacked it with a broom. Like the giant centipedes, these are far larger than any hornet has a right to be and can be pretty dangerous if you are stung multiple times or if they sting a child. Once again, I counted my blessings that none of the children were around.

This is definitely not the one that flew into our garden. I wouldn't have been crazy enough
to let it walk around on my palm.

Just in case you think our house attracts only the worst sorts, we do have this lovely fellow who pops his head out from time to time. There are actually a lot of skinks that come and go in our garden, but this individual is easier to spot with his slightly shortened tail. He lives a large lavender bush at the front of the house and comes out to drink water droplets from the leaves and keep an eye on me whenever I am watering. Not all of our creature visits are bad!

Tanuki

Wherever you go in Japan, you are sure to see a tanuki, or raccoon dog. In the city you will find little (or not so little) statues at every turn and if you stay up late enough in the county you might even get to see the real thing (Nyctereutes procyonoides).

Even though this animal actually exists, the tanuki is also popular character in Japanese folklore and legends. He is a magical, shapeshifting, trickster but cheerful and lovable none the less. He also plays music by drumming on his giant belly. Stylized ceramic statues of tanuki can be found peeking out at you from gardens and doorways and are supposed to bring you good luck and prosperity.

A tanuki statue usually has eight lucky attributes which are shown in this picture:

I find it very funny that they decided to go with the word "blob" instead of "ginormously oversized scrotum".

I have heard tanuki translated directly into raccoon time and time again and I know a few people that think they are the same as the North American raccoon. So, on a purely ecological note, I just need to set the record straight: the tanuki is not a raccoon and neither is it very closely related to a raccoon. It is about as related to a raccoon as it is to a walrus. They are in the Canidae family and are closely related to foxes, wolves, jackals and other dog-like creatures. An interesting taxonomic side note about tanuki is that they belong to a basal group of the subgroup Caninae in which there are only two extant species. The other species is the bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) which lives in the African savannah. The rest of their basal buddies went extinct sometime before the end of the Pleistocene epoch.  

The fact that they look similar is an example of convergent evolution and a great opportunity for me to go on a tangent about ecological theory :)  Sometimes unrelated species develop similar traits completely independent of one another because they are living in a similar biome or occupy the same ecological niche. In the case of the raccoon and tanuki, they are both nocturnal animals that live in a forest environment. The black mask on their face reduces glare (like the black paint that football players use) and helps with their night vision. The striped coloration that they both exhibit helps them blend in with the long dark shadows that are cast from trees in a moonlit forest at night. Also, it has been speculated that the black markings on their faces help them to identify one another but I am not sure how much research has been done to support that theory.

If you will forgive me for my rant, here are some ridiculously cute tanuki puppies.