Earth Almanac: March/April 2008

Cool Cat

In the southwest quarter of the country male ringtail cats are rubbing urine into the ground and onto raised objects. While such scent-post marking is standard behavior throughout the year, it now becomes a method of attracting prospective mates as well as deterring competing males. Ringtail cats are not felines but slender, diminutive cousins of the raccoon. Like raccoons they are largely nocturnal, and they’re even more arboreal, leaping nimbly among branches, instantly reversing direction, even performing cartwheels. This agility is derived from sharp, semi-retractile claws, a long, heavy tail that aids in balance, and hind feet that rotate 180 degrees. Ringtails are meticulous groomers. After eating or sleeping they’ll sit catlike on their haunches, cleaning their fur with tongue and forepaws. Capture a ringtail, and it will scream loudly and douse you with vile-smelling musk from its anal glands. Such rocky introductions notwithstanding, ringtails are easily tamed—a fact not lost on early miners and other settlers, who kept them to control mice.

Greek Bloodbath

Throughout most of the East and Midwest, except the extreme north, one of our earliest spring wildflowers is brightening the mudtime woods. It originated from the blood of Adonis, newly killed by Ares, god of war, and sprinkled over the earth by a grieving Aphrodite—at least according to Greek mythology. The rue anemone’s alternate name, “wind flower,” may derive from the fact that its spindly stalk sometimes makes it dance in the wind or from the ancient notion that the winds of March bring April flowers. Rue anemones are usually about nine inches high, and their spectacular white, pink, or, rarely, lavender flowers have 6 to 10 petal-like “sepals” arranged in clusters just above whorls of small leaves. The plant contains no nectar, relying instead on the rich colors of its blossoms to attract pollinating insects, mostly flies. Look for rue anemones in open forests and on hillsides. Now, in the yet-leafless woods, they are soaking up sunlight. Soon they’ll enter dormancy, protected from the intense rays of late spring and summer by the green hardwood canopy.