The word taxonomy
is derived from two Greek root words. “Taxis”
means “arrangement” and the word “nomis” means “method.” Thus taxonomy is the arrangement of
biological organisms in groups or subgroups based on similar characteristics.
For example, hawks are in a family of birds called Buteonidae. All hawks from the massive martial eagle of
the African savanna to the diminutive tiny hawk found in South American rain
forest have many of the same characteristics.
Prominent among them among them is the presence of a hooked beak used
for tearing the flesh from their prey, and elongated, super sharp toes (called
talons) used to capture and hold its prey while killing it. Those two characteristics separate hawks and
eagles from, say, herons or cranes or sandpipers so biologists have arranged
all hawks and eagles and placed them in the same biological arrangement called
a family.
At the broadest level there are categories of biological
arrangement from the broadest to the most narrow:
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
The principles of taxonomy are not restricted to
birds. One of the most useful and
informative classes I ever took in college was Plant Taxonomy. In it I learned how to tell one family of
plants from another and how to differentiate similar looking species in each
plant family. It was accomplished by
comparing flowers and flower parts and leaves and stems. The same process can be used for fish or
snakes or any other living organism.
Most organisms on earth have names by which they are
commonly known such as Dickinson’s falcon or white-eyed vireo or pink
lady-slipper. Common names are helpful
in knowing one species from another.
However what happens if someone in Europe decides to name a species of
loon the great northern diver while in North America someone calls the same
species common loon. Taxonomists have
eliminated the potential confusion by giving every organism a scientific name
which is made up of the genus and the species names in the larger hierarchy
mentioned before. Thus, the great
northern diver is Gavia immer just as
the common loon is Gavia immer. No matter where an organism is on earth, its
common name doesn’t really matter if it has the same scientific name.
The mammal family Bovidae is a group of large mammals
that includes American bison, African buffalo, water buffalo, antelopes,
gazelles, sheep, goats, musk ox and domestic cattle. At least taxonomically all the bovines could
be considered to be “cows.” Once at the
end of a staff meeting in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Grand
Island, Nebraska, Bob McCue our Field Supervisor, asked if anyone had any more
questions before he wrapped up the meeting. Having been perplexed by a
nonsensical issue for some time I asked this group of biologists, “a cow is a
female what?” After all, Bob had asked
if anyone had any questions.
Kenny Dinan replied saying “A cow is a female bull.”
“It is,” I asked in return. “Does that mean that a bull is a male cow?”
Put that way the classification of a cow being a female male didn’t make much
sense.
A debate ensued with someone else saying that a cow was a
female cattle. Cattle is a collective
word for a group of cows or bulls. For
instance, the trucks used to transport them to market are not called cow trucks
or bull trucks they are called cattle trucks.
The spirited debate continued for than twenty
minutes. It was a fine display of wisely
using taxpayer funds to cover our salaries.
The debate finally ended when Tim Fannin, the only PhD in the office
said authoritatively that “A cow is a female bovine just like a bull is a male
bovine.” That was enough to convince me.
Not long after leaving Punda Maria camp in northern
Kruger National Park a group of four African buffalo sauntered across the road
in front of me. As I pulled up beside
them for a closer view I could not help noticing their very bovine-like odor
reminiscent of domestic bovines on northern Wisconsin farm land. The thick plate that makes up the central
portion of an African buffalo’s massive horns is called the boss. I remember walking in the early morning light
among the pastures on my grandfather’s farm when he and I were gathering up the
cattle to herd them to the barn for their morning milking. As we walked through those fields my
grandfather would call out “come boss” as a way of getting the cattle to follow
us to the barn. Regularly several of the
cows would walk up and place their wet dripping noses in my hand almost begging
to have their face scratched.
The scientific name of domesticated bovines is Bos domesticus or domestic bovine. I am certain that my grandfather, a northern
Wisconsin farmer with a third grade education did not know the scientific name
of his cattle. However he called them
“boss” which sounded like their genus name and like that part of an African
buffalo’s horns.
Herds of twenty to two hundred African buffalo dotted the
savanna as I moved south through Kruger.
Occasionally they were seen lying down under trees to escape the
scorching sun, but mostly these herds were on the move, chewing dried grasses
and scarifying the earth with their hooves.
And as they did they gave off an odor just like my grandfather’s cows
did ages ago in northern Wisconsin.
One herd crossing the road in front of me was made up of
about two hundred individuals. Included
in the herd was one utterly massive male who was likely the dominant honcho of
this herd. This bull was at least five
feet tall and probably weighed 1,500 pounds.
His muscles had muscles on their muscles. His back was adorned with a small flock of
yellow-billed oxpeckers each working frantically to eat ticks and lice from the
bull’s skin. As I watched in awe of this
massive creature it snorted once and then took several steps toward me.
Once while conducting a breeding bird census on a patch
of native prairie in central Montana I crested a small hill and encountered a
herd of Hereford cattle grazing the prairie grasses at the base of the
hill. As I watched them I saw a large
bull begin to stare me down as he stepped away from the herd. He snorted once and then snot and slobber
poured from his nose and mouth as his face foamed like a rabid dog. This bovine bull then scraped the earth with
its right front foot and broke into a trot across the prairie directly at
me. I turned and ran toward a nearby
fence with the bull in hot pursuit. Reaching
it with the bull closing in I put my left hand on the top of a wooden fence
post and vaulted over the barbed wire fence to the relative safety of the other
side. The bull charged up to the fence
and then luckily stopped its charge.
With his face still foaming he snorted again, turned, and walked
away. I thought of that Montana Hereford
bull as this South African buffalo started to size me up.
Curious about me the male slowly walked toward me as I
cowered in my car. On several occasions
I considered starting the car and escaping.
Even though I was supposedly safe inside the car I had seen pictures and
heard stories of African buffalo and rhinoceros charging and attacking vehicles
in Kruger National Park. I didn’t want
to be a statistic however at the same time I also didn’t want to lose out on
learning about this buffalo.
I became more and more nervous the closer the bull
advanced. Occasionally he would stop his
movement, sniff and test the air, look back, and then stand and stare at me. After maybe fifteen minutes of moving a few
feet and stopping and then moving again he was less than five feet from my
car. He simply continued his slow and
deliberate move toward me. By now I had
rolled up the window on the driver’s side.
Considering the mass of the animal there was no way I was protected by a
thin film of glass. The bull took two
more steps toward me and placed its nose on the window next to my face.
On entering Kruger National Park all visitors are given a
list of rules that must be adhered to for their own safety. Paramount among them is that under no
circumstances is anyone allowed out of their vehicle except in the gated and
fenced rest camps and at a few other select areas throughout the park. Additionally nobody is allowed to have any
part of their body protruding from the car.
Earlier that morning I saw a blatant violation of this rule. A group of six young adults decided to hang
from the side of a large van as it approached a group of elephants by the side
of the road. Luckily for them the
elephants were not provoked but it would have been nobody’s fault but their own
had there been an incident. I considered
those rules as 1,500 pounds of pure bovine muscle sniffed the glass just inches
from my face.
Satisfied with his olfactory explorations the buffalo
removed his nose from my window and took a few steps back. He then turned and trotted back to his
herd. As he did I wondered about the
meaning of the encounter. Had he been
enraged he could have easily trampled the car with me in it. At a minimum the tip of one or both of his
massive horns could have crashed through my window and likely gored me. However
none of that happened. Instead and for
whatever reason I believe he was just curious about me and sought to check me
out. Being color blind there was no way he was attracted to the color of my car
or to the drab olive green of my shirt.
I certainly didn’t smell like anything that could have been dangerous to
him (like a lion or leopard) because I had showered just a few hours earlier
and had on clean clothes. However this
massive bull was overly curious and wanted to stare down this thing in a car
that was staring him down.
Known as the “black death” and the “widow maker,” African
buffalo are suspected of goring and killing up to two hundred people in Africa
each year. Hunters, some of them willing
to pay up to $10,000 for the chance to shoot an African buffalo, consider this
species to be very dangerous because wounded buffalo are known to ambush and
attack those that hunt them. Turnabout I guess is fair play.
However on a blindingly clear and sunny day in the thorn
veld of South Africa a massive male, the size of an Angus bull, decided he
wanted to check me out. And as he did
all I saw was one of my grandfather’s Guernsey cows nuzzling me with her wet
sloppy nose as I walked her back to the barn.
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