Seriously, I'm sort of a collector of scientific binomials—among my favorites are Gorilla gorilla and Bison bison—and Moloch horridus is about as cool as they get. Extra points for the etymological joke about the word "horrid" (which used to mean something closer to "horripilating," as you know, and seems to refer to the hundreds of thorny spikes sticking out from the moloch's hide).
The moloch is not related to the horned frog familiar to me from my Texas youth. Rather, the moloch lives in the Australian desert and is actually a lot spinier than the horny toad. Its spines are all keratin (not bone), and the texture of its skin gives the moloch the bizarre ability to wick water up from its feet to its face by capillary action. (Here's a link to a video that shows this miracle in action.)
What my drawing really doesn't capture is the weird jerky gait that the moloch uses, perhaps to confuse predators. For that, you have to refer to a different video or my preliminary doodles for this week.
"Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!"
Anyway, I have a couple of creatures in mind for next week, and I'm having trouble choosing between them. Do you have a preference? I have a poll for you; you'll have to click through to vote if you're reading this by RSS.
What critter should I draw for the letter N?
6 comments:
Goodness, what a bizarre & intimidating creature! And you're right, the gait is even crazier than the spiny scales. Animated gif time?
If I had time to make an animated GIF, Leah, I think I could probably come up with other ways to spend that time ...
But I am happy to introduce you to the moloch. (Moloch, Leah; Leah, Moloch.)
Watching the videos on ARKive actually made me want one of these guys as a pet. Then I realized that actually petting one would be out of the question. It'd be like petting a rosebush, or some sort of medieval torture device.
Bizarro.
That herky-jerky gait reminds me of nothing so much as a human infant revving up to get ready to crawl in the early days of four-limbed motility...
Did you watch the video (also on ARKive) of the baby molochs hatching and digging out? There's a moment when one of them, still halfway in its egg, waves a forelimb around just like a human baby would.
I hadn't watched it, but now I have, and I see what you mean. I'd also add that the sight of those thorny devils emerging from the sand must be one of the closest real-world analogues to the soldiers sown by Cadmus from the dragon's teeth!
What If: Cadmus Had Sown the Teeth of Human Soldiers.
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