Animals Evolution Avoided: From Gannets to Squids

By Julian Worker

A humorous book about animals that ought to exist, but never quite made it due to circumstances beyond their control. In this book, you will find the Green Fox, the Straight Snake of Assam, and the Garlic Rat of Alabama. Read about the penguin that provides a back-scratching service to other penguins, the skua that only builds vertical nests, and the snake that hangs from trees pretending to be a vine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AG Books
• Release date: Aug 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781785385568

Julian Worker

“Little Known British Traditions” is my first book of humourous stories. One of my stories, Safari Sickness, has been recently published in an anthology called “Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana” by Travelers’ Tales. Other articles have recently appeared in the Expeditioner online e-zine, and in Americas the magazine of the Organization of American States. My travel stories have appeared in The Toronto Globe and Mail, The National Catholic Register, International Travel News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Southern Cross newspaper in South Africa. On the Internet my writing has appeared on the following websites: In the Know Traveller, Go World, Paperplates, Intravel, and GoNomad. I have also taken many photographs that have appeared in travel guides/articles by National Geographic, Thomas Cook, The Rough Guides, and The Guardian.

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UK.

The United Kingdom

Scargill’s Gannet

Scargill’s Gannet has been extinct for about three hundred years. Whereas the seabird called the gannet has numerous colonies around the British coast, the numbers of Scargill’s Gannets gradually dwindled away until none were left. Scientists discovered skeletons of this bird embedded in logs and branches - their beaks stuck fast in the wood. It’s assumed that a degenerative eye disorder caused the birds to become short-sighted over thousands of years. Their original diet was thought to consist entirely of moles. The gannet would spot a molehill forming in a field and dive into the middle of the newly dug earth to pluck the mole out of the ground before flying off. Over the centuries, as their eyesight deteriorated, Scargill’s gannets mistook holes in logs for molehills and were unable to extricate themselves from the wood.

An adult Scargill’s Gannet would be roughly two feet high with a sharp beak and light-brown plumage. It’s thought they built their nests in tall trees overlooking grasslands, allowing them to sit on their nests and look for their prey at the same time. Scientists speculate that this apparent lack of exercise might have led to the gannets suffering from various illnesses including the eye disease that caused their demise. They may have suffered from an early form of avian diabetes.

Scientists can only speculate why the gannet species should have two distinct branches, one hunting over the sea and the other over the land. The best explanation is that some gannets mistook windswept grass on the tops of cliffs as the frothing waters of the sea and started diving on the moles that were appearing there, mistaking them for furry fish.

The Leicestershire Waterboarding Duck

Evolution has been kind to the duck family. Ducks are viewed as benign creatures, who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. However, don’t be fooled by the ducks that have survived through to the modern day. A few centuries ago a particular branch of the duck family, called the waterboarding ducks, were found in parts of Leicestershire and Rutland where they terrorised the local wildfowl populations.

Ducks such as the teal and the mallard are called dabbling ducks, which means they tip up in shallow water, putting their beaks and heads under the water to look for things to eat. The waterboarding ducks were dabbling ducks of a different kind and behaved in two different ways. If another duck was already in the dabbling position, the waterboarding duck would ambush the dabbling duck and try and drown it by forcing its backside under the water. The dabbling duck would come to the surface, but would be disoriented and the waterboarding duck would then steal whatever food was in its beak.

The other tactic used by the waterboarding duck was to force other ducks to dabble by grabbing their throat and forcing their head under water. The duck would by nature try and feed and then once it had caught something, again the waterboarding duck would steal its food.

The behaviour of the waterboarding ducks alienated them from other waterfowl, who would always fly away, perhaps not surprisingly, when the waterboarding ducks came near. This behaviour led to many waterboarding ducks starving to death as they had lost their innate ability to find food for themselves.

The Green Fox

The Green Fox lived in the lowlands of Scotland before the last ice age where its green coat allowed it to hunt freely in the fields and grasslands of the region. This natural camouflage meant the fox was able to pick off its prey with ease and the numbers of green foxes proliferated to such an extent that many foxes had to move further and further away