Tan Eggs

Greetings fellow internet friends! I'm DaMonsterKnees, and the very generous Otter has invited me here to take part in the building of this great community, for which I am very grateful. I have been on this site since the *eddit API fiasco, and I can say with certainty, I couldn't be happier. Lemmy is a great many things, but perhaps most relevant to this post, is that it only gets better the more you take part in it. That's why I'm here. I'll be doing my best to contribute to the conversation and this community. I want to share and learn and spread joy thanks to these sweet creatures. With this in mind, I welcome you all to enjoy and find only positivity here. Thanks again, and I look forward to getting to know all of you. And, Happy Halloween!

They resemble rabbits due to convergent evolution

Viscacha or vizcacha (UK: /vɪˈskætʃə/, US: /vɪˈskɑːtʃə/) are rodents of two genera (Lagidium and Lagostomus) in the family Chinchillidae. They are native to South America and convergently resemble rabbits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscacha

Name:

The name Dassie Rat is derived from the Afrikaans word for a hyrax; “dassie”, and is a rather apt name as Rock Hyrax co-habit the same rocky outcrops that the Dassie Rats enjoy, and superficially, a Dassie Rat resembles a young hyrax, that is until its long fluffy tail is spotted! The Dassie Rat’s alternative name is the Noki.

Fun Facts:

Dassie Rats are well known for their ability to wedge themselves into extremely narrow crevasses from which they are almost impossible to extract. They have evolved narrow, flattened skulls and very flexible ribs to master this talent. Female Dassie Rats even have teats on the sides of their torso, rather than underneath, so that their young can nurse in the very confined and narrow spaces in which they den.

Sources:

• https://www.rockjumperbirding.com/the-dassie-rat-an-unique-rodent-by-adam-riley/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassie_rat

You can also enjoy this picture of a Hyrax, which I originally got from Wikimedia Commons for this post since it was listed as a "South African Dassie", before investigating further since it did not look optimized for narrow spaces...

the page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:South_African_Dassie.jpg

The data comes from Cascades Pika Watch, a program of the Oregon Zoo that began in 2018 after the Eagle Creek Fire destroyed much of the pika’s habitat.

Every summer, volunteers now go out into the field to watch and listen for pikas at specific locations. They then upload their data online for biologists to better track the population.

Pikas typically live on mountains at elevations above 6,000 feet throughout the western United States. But the new data observed a low-elevation population living in the Gorge, just a half-hour drive from Portland.

According to the zoo, last year’s volunteers spotted pikas at two-thirds of the surveyed sites. But this year, the number was even higher. They added 150 volunteers who submitted 558 surveys from 84 locations throughout the Gorge this year.

“Each season, we’re getting closer to the pre-fire population numbers,” said Dr. Johanna Varner, with the Cascades Pika Watch program. “This is great news for everyone monitoring the Gorge pika population.”