Nutria-palooza!

This November, Brooklyn fashion designers and musicians are teaming up for Nutria-palooza!, a nutria-themed fashion show set to music. The show will feature clothing and jewelry made using the invasive rodent known as Nutria or "coypu" (Myocastor coypus), and at least one band will participate by wearing what they're calling "nutria-gangster" outfits.

Feed And Bane

The Gresham Outlook is reporting that nutria populations in the state of Oregon are surviving in part due to the kindness of strangers. In at least one particular pond, featured in the article, a dozen of the invasive rodents (Myocastor coypus) can be seen rushing to the shore whenever people walk by, expecting to get fed. Officials in the city of Gresham are hoping to curb this bad habit by placing signs warning folks not to feed the nutria. The city, faced with an ongoing nutria incursion, has determined that it is unable to bear the cost of trapping nutria to get rid of them, but is willing to point residents in the direction of trappers for hire that can do the job.

Fun With Entrez

Let the sequencing battle begin!!!!

• Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria): 50 nucleotide sequences, 26 protein sequences
• Zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha): 386 nucleotide sequences, 63 protein sequences
• Nutria (Myocastor coypus): 81 nucleotide sequences, 39 protein sequences
• Emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis): 25 nucleotide sequences, 11 protein sequences
• Brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis): 32 nucleotide sequences, 5 protein sequences
• Northern snakehead (Channa argus): 52 nucleotide sequences, 46 protein sequences
• Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis): 238 nucleotide sequences, 89 protein sequences
• Frog Chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis): 439 nucleotide sequences, 3 protein sequences

Decision goes to: Zebra mussel, with a combined 449 sequences. Go Team Zebra Mussel!!!

Nutria-System

From the Baltimore Sun comes news of an ambitious project to rid the Chesapeake of the invasive semi-aquatic rodent known as the nutria (Myocastor coypus). State and federal officials, buoyed by the successful eradication of nutria within Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, are slowly but surely hunting and trapping the nutria of Maryland's marshlands out of existence. Biologists are predicting the job could be done but for the monitoring within the next seven years. With a cost of about a million dollars a year, I'm sure government officials are happy to hear that there is an end in sight.

The further adventures of Mr. Coypu...

...during which Mr. Coypu turns out to be not a coypu, but a true Mr.

(Unfortunately this fact was not enough for an Oregon meth-head/"hunter" from going all Dick Cheney on the guy and shooting him in the face.)

According to this report from The News Review, the incident occurred last week at the Smith River in Reedsport, Oregon. The shooter claims he mistook the man, who was snorkeling around the river checking out the fish, for a nutria (Myocastor coypus), never mind that he was not supposed to be carrying a gun...or the meth...or the pot. Luckily, said snorkeler is going to recover.

More details are available in the AP version of the story. Nutria (coypus) are South American rodents that have been living in Oregon since the 1930s following a failed attempt at establishing a market for their fur.

The Return of Grunge?

Interesting article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer about the appearance of nutria (Myocastor coypus) in Seattle, Washington. Washington was just one of many states where the South American rodents were introduced as part of the fur trade, back in the mid-1900s. Now they have suddenly started popping up around Lake Washington and in other wetland habitats around Seattle, an no one is quite sure why.

The SPI report includes a handy sizing chart, comparing nutria to beaver and rats, and also a link to the Nutria of Union Bay project, an effort by University of Washington students to collect and analyze data using sightings from citizen scientists. Also, don't miss the link at the bottom of the page to the reader comments - some of them are a hoot!

Made in Japan

Last month Japan came out with the country's first official list of invasive species. Problem (for me anyway) was that although there were some English-language articles about the list, there were no sources that actually included the list itself. Thanks to the magic of email and the ugliness of HTML-rendered Excel, I now bring you the official list of invasive species in Japan:

Mammalia:	Mammals:
Macaca cyclopis	Formosan rock macaque
Macaca fascicularis	long-tailed macaque
Macaca mulatta	rhesus monkey
Procyon lotor	Northern raccoon
Procyon cancrivorus	crab-eating raccoon
Herpestes javanicus	Indian mongoose
Callosciurus erythraeus	Pallas squirrel
Sciurus carolinensis	Eastern grey squirrel
Myocastor coypus	nutria
Trichosurus vulpecula	brushtail possum
Muntiacus reevesi	Muntjac deer
Aves:	Birds:
Garrulax canorus	hwamei
Garrulax perspicillatus	masked laughingthrush
Garrulax sannio	white-browed laughingthrush
Leiothrix lutea	red-billed leiothrix
Reptilia:	Reptiles:
Chelydra serpentina	snapping turtle
Anolis carolinensis	green anole
Anolis sagrei	brown anole
Boiga irregularis	brown tree snake
Elaphe taeniura friesi	Taiwan beauty snake
Protobothrops mucrosquamatus	Taiwan habu snake
Amphibia:	Amphibians:
Bufo marinus	cane toad
Pisces:	Fish:
Micropterus dolomieu	smallmouth bass
Lepomis macrochirus	bluegill
Ictalurus punctatus	channel catfish
Insecta:	Insects:
Solenopsis invicta	red imported fire ant
Solenopsis geminata	fire ant
Linepithema humile	Argentine ant
Invertebrata:	Arachnids:
Latrodectus hasseltii	redback spider
Latrodectus geometricus	brown widow spider
Latrodectus tredecimguttatus	black widow spider
Latrodectus mactans	black widow spider
Loxosceles - 2 species	recluse/violin spiders
Dipluridae - 2 genera	giant spiders
Buthidae - all species	scorpions
Tracheophyta:	Aquatic plants:
Alternanthera philoxeroides	alligator weed
Hydrocotyle ranunculoides	floating pennywort
Gymnocoronis spilanthoides	Senegal tea

(Thanks to T. Yoshioka for being so kind as to provide me with the list of scientific names.)

Rodent Revelry

For a tongue-in-cheek perspective on the prominence of the nutria (Myocastor coypus) in Louisiana, you can now view streaming video of a report from Comedy Central's The Daily Show. To view the video, which requires Real Player, go here and click on the photo above "Unendangered Species." While the report follows the typical Daily Show format of insulting the interviewees, they still manage to get some interesting points across. Be prepared to laugh, and if you're easily offended, don't click! Perhaps Comedy Central is on some kind of nutria kick; I recently read that one of their other shows, Insomniac, featured a segment with host Dave Attell on a nutria-hunting trip with the New Orleans police. You can read his diary entry about it by going here and placing your mouse over the photo of Dave with a gun (5th one in).