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laurelnose · 4 years

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monster! parasites!

you know how a few days ago i said we weren’t going to talk about monster parasites? that was a fucking lie.

the basis of my monster parasite thoughts are: every organism comes with its own internal ecosystem that goes with them everywhere. it’s like having built-in friends! ergo, when monsters crossed over to the witcher dimension during the Conjunction of Spheres they must have brought many new and delightful parasites with them. you know what fiend manes are full of? MITES. you know what drowners got on their skin? COPEPODS. what can we do with this information? anything we want.

i promise there are no pictures below the cut. i have tried to put warnings on all my sources but click any of the links below at your own risk. warning for internal and external parasites of animals, monsters, humans, and witchers; parasites altering the behavior of their hosts; and probably general body horror. if you read the eating-liver-flukes post that’s probably a decent baseline for how revolting you will find this post.

also, super obvious bias towards aquatic parasites as referents. my degree is fisheries science not terrestrial ecology so that’s primarily what i’m drawing on even though nearly all of the witcher monsters are terrestrial. there is a TON i’m missing here bc of that bias! specifically i really wish i could talk about how parasites of invasive species often act as co-invaders with their hosts and monsters definitely count as invasive species and would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent but i don’t know enough about terrestrial ecosystems to speculate properly. (ETA: while i still think monsters would have majorly reshaped ecological interactions on the Continent, I don’t actually think they’re invasive species anymore!) hopefully you enjoy it anyways!

it is, hilariously, canon that parasites are used for alchemy. according to The Last Wish, the Temple of Melitele’s grotto grows a bunch of different “rare specimens—those which made up the ingredients of a witcher’s medicines and elixirs, magical philters and a sorcerer’s decoctions” and some of those specimens are, uh, “clusters of nematodes.” nematodes being parasitic roundworms. this is really funny because it’s so fucking weird. also everything else in this description is a plant or a fungus and nematodes are definitely animals? i choose to believe the world makes sense and nematodes aren’t plants in the witcherverse. therefore parasites are alchemical ingredients, it’s canon, give me more witchers digging through monster intestines in search of worms and put a nematode colony in the basement of corvo bianco please and thank you

this actually leads right into my personal favorite drowner headcanon (hello yes i’m tumblr user Socks Laurelnose and i am always thinking about drowners)—you know those bits where drowners kind of have red blotches in their skin? those are nematodes, actually, because i said so. the reference is Clavinema mariae, a nematode that infests English sole. the worms are basically harmless but they’re dark red and you can see them through the skin. it freaks people out and makes it hard to sell sole. (IMAGE WARNING: a picture of an infected flatfish. it looks mostly normal but there’s a dark red lesion near the fin.) said lesion is probably a coiled-up Clavinema. sole have so many of these, it’s not even funny (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING for worms visible underneath skin of flatfishes. relevant images pointing out exactly how many worms on page 5). “but the red parts of drowners could just be flushed from blood”—no. worms.

okay that was my main specific-parasite-for-specific-monster headcanon (except also succubi probably have a unique species of lice for their hairy legs. but that’s barely even a headcanon, basically all terrestrial vertebrates have a unique species of lice.) i wanted to start with it because i think that everyone should feel free to arbitrarily assign a totally benign but conceptually gross worm to their favorite monsters. why not, yanno? also it probably sets the tone for the rest of this post.

carrying on: “what monsters might have nematodes, besides drowners,” you may be wondering? probably all of them! all of them are full of nematodes. nematodes are fucking everywhere. allow me to share a deeply unsettling quote from nematologist Nathan Cobb:

“In short, if all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes, and oceans represented by a film of nematodes. The location of towns would be decipherable since, for every massing of human beings, there would be a corresponding massing of certain nematodes. Trees would still stand in ghostly rows representing our streets and highways. The location of the various plants and animals would still be decipherable, and, had we sufficient knowledge, in many cases even their species could be determined by an examination of their erstwhile nematode parasites.”

jesus christ! thanks nathan, I hate it. nematodes are usually both benign and microscopic, but we’re talking witchers, we want some parasites we can fuckin get our hands on. sperm whale placentas are sometimes infested with nematodes up to 28 feet long but only a centimeter in diameter (Wikipedia link, no images). like an incredibly awful spaghetti! we don’t really seem to know if this bothers the sperm whales. also, i unfortunately do not know enough about the size of whale organs to tell you how big the placenta is in relation to this worm. the point is: real big monster? REAL BIG NEMATODES.

moving on from nematodes—okay, you know, since i mentioned eating deer liver flukes at the start of this post, let’s just go there. real life flukes max out at about 3 inches long, but hypothetical monster flukes could be much bigger and equally edible if desired. (if you’re wondering what a liver fluke would taste like: the flukes feed on the liver and they have very few organs of their own, so they would taste basically just like liver, just also long and flat like a fruit roll-up. if you’re going there, a witcher should not eat any flatworm live. if they’re digging them out of cockatrice livers or whatnot they should kill them before munching or save to cook later. it would probably be safe to eat one live, but you know that cliche “their tongues battled for dominance”? handling a live flatworm is like a handling very strong and energetic tongue complete with slime, okay, it wouldn’t be nice.)

parasites often need more than one host to complete the life cycle—for instance, Leucochloridium paradoxum (VIDEO WARNING: you may have seen this, it’s the one that makes snail eyes pulsating & green) has a bird stage and a snail stage, and it makes the snails look and act really weird in order to attract the birds. parasites altering host behavior to attract the next host in the life cycle is pretty well-documented; for instance, there’s an eye fluke that can make fish swim near the surface where predators can eat them (New Scientist article link, images of a microscope slide & a normal-looking fish) and a tapeworm that does the same and makes the dark silver fish turn white (JSTOR article, no images). i posit that at least some monsters are accompanied by “ill omens” of animals looking or acting strangely because they become infected with a stage of one of the monster’s parasites—usually, the mechanism is that internal parasites lay eggs that are passed in feces & transmitted that way. witchers who are up on their parasite ecology might be able to identify what monster is hanging around by observing exactly what kind of freaky-looking animals or animal behavior is going on around the area!

(if geralt is involved you may desire to have him explain this totally non-supernatural mechanism for abrupt animal appearance or behavioral changes at excruciating length to the chagrin of all present. or maybe that’s just what i desire. it would be funny okay)

potentially even more hyperspecific application of dual-stage parasites: there’s a dinoflagellate parasite that, when it infects crabs, makes the meat chalky and bitter like aspirin (Smithsonian link, images of healthy crab and microscope slide). geralt hunts down dinner, digs in, and immediately sighs and grabs jaskier’s portion away from him to the poet’s complete bafflement before going to get his swords because judging by the flavor there’s definitely a shishiga nest in this forest.

like. parasites are one of THE most hyperspecific things in biology. the majority of them have very specific hosts and life cycles, many of them are completely unique to a species, if you think a fictional parasite is too specific to be plausible you’re probably wrong, make it even more specific. “the witcher monster lore is so hyperspecific lol” IT AIN’T TRULY HYPERSPECIFIC UNTIL YOU CAN IDENTIFY EACH MONSTER SPECIES BY ITS UNIQUE PARASITIC LOAD, OKAY.

and, with regards to behavior-affecting parasites, before anyone brings up Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps, as of 2008): yeah that sure is a thing! if you weren’t aware, just a couple of years ago we found out it actually is not a mind control fungus!! it bypasses the brain entirely and affects the muscles (Arstechnica article, Atlantic article—photos of fuzzy ants and electron microscope pictures of fungi). or as Ed Yong puts it, “The ant ends its life as a prisoner in its own body. Its brain is still in the driver's seat, but the fungus has the wheel.” which is. significantly worse than the brain thing. awesome!! i bet there would absolutely be similar fungal parasites of endrega and arachasae. real Ophiocordyceps still very much does not affect humans, but you know what, if plants can be cursed into becoming archespores and cultivated by mages i see no reason why mages could not also curse endrega fungus to affect humans, just saying

aaaand quickly back to hyperspecificity: monsters in different geographical areas having different abilities because of their symbionts. forktails in vicovaro acquire a bioluminescent symbiont in their diet that forktails in other parts of the continent can’t get, and they can create flashes of light? that’s sure gonna fuck a witcher on Cat up when he comes in the cave expecting a normal forktail. (geographic location affecting bioluminescence is a thing that actually happens in midshipman fish—Wikipedia link, no parasites.) geographically-dependent symbionts can also produce different toxins and such for their hosts! this isn’t exactly a parasitism thing per se (although parasites are also symbionts because ‘symbiosis’ refers to two organisms in close association not two organisms in positive association) but like. it’s cool okay ecology is so cool

writing fic and tired of all these same-old monsters-of-the-week? quick and easy way to spice up either the horror factor or just make the hunt stand out slightly: just add parasites!! i know i’ve read fics where monsters were described with distinguishing old wounds. you can do the same with parasites! i would fucking swoon over a detail like an ancient water hag’s eyes glowing in the dark, one of them marred by a dangling parasite—geralt notes the blind spot and presses his advantage. (Wikipedia link, no images: this one is referencing an aquatic copepod called Ommatokoita.) also, please put barnacles on skelliger drowners, i want it so badly. just—some percentage of monsters should be Extra Grody on the inside and/or the outside, that’s how nature works. spicing up a mundane hunt by making the monster a little extra gross for its species is Valid, is what I’m saying.

also, every single time frozen specimens with obvious fungal/ectoparasite infections come into the lab we absolutely always take extra close-up pictures of those suckers and make sure everyone else gets to see them. witchers bringing field sketches and notes of the weirdest shit they found on the path back for winter. lambert declares they’ll never know if this alleged fiend tumor was a fungus or mange because geralt sucks at drawing. eskel, the man who hauled a katakan corpse all the way up the mountain so he could dissect it, produces actual skin samples of his own encounters for examination, possibly in the middle of dinner. this elicits mixed reactions.

quick detour into preservation, since I went there—witchers are probably immune to parasites that infect humans by virtue of having pretty different biology to begin with, and probably immune to parasitic infections from other sources by virtue of superhumanly boosted immune systems and all the poison they put into their bodies on a regular basis. picking up a monster parasite would probably not be a big deal for witchers, either in that they have total immunity or that they would only be minimally and briefly affected, but the field of monster biology is likely such that they probably just don’t actually know what would happen to them in the majority of cases. this has potential as a source of battle stories and/or stories intended to freak out trainees, i think. therefore, out of caution, a witcher harvesting/preparing parts for alchemy might want to be sure to treat them first. personally i think all monster parts should be preserved immediately anyways to avoid attracting necrophages, and given that alchemical concoctions in witcherverse are alcohol-based, preservation in strong alcohol is probably the best way to maintain potency and kill basically everything. (cons: alcohol is SUPER heavy and jars are fragile. tissues or organs which are thicker than perhaps half an inch or an inch require additional preparation for the alcohol to penetrate properly. other preservation methods are more efficient for travel. depends on how soon your witcher intends to use or offload their stash.)

also, here’s an absolutely wild marine parasite that would make it worth a witcher’s while to make certain everything was dead! pearlfishes are long eel-like fishes that live inside the anus and respiratory organs (which are attached to the anus) of sea cucumbers, and they have pretty nasty teeth (PDF article link, IMAGE WARNING: dissected sea cucumbers literally stuffed to the gills with pearlfish). the highest number of pearlfish discovered in a single sea cucumber was sixteen (ResearchGate article, free PDF; no images). a different fact: we discovered tiger sharks eat each other in the womb because a researcher got bitten by a fetal tiger shark while he was dissecting the mother (NYT link, no images or parasites). what i’m saying is: parasites are often very small relative to the host and usually harmless to things rummaging around inside, but what if the monster’s parasites were also monstrous. give me a monster that has to be very dead or when you start rummaging around for alchemy ingredients the things in its intestines will lunge out and bite you.

what happens if a human becomes infected with a monster parasite? bad things, probably, i mentioned before that parasites in the wrong host, if they don’t just die, often super fuck things up internally (if you get tapeworms outside of the intestine where they’re supposed to be... it’s not good y’all. CDC link, no images). host-jumping for parasites is actually fairly rare since most of them are highly specialized for their hosts, but it does happen. humans are very not my strong suit so i’m not going to dwell on this but it is entirely possible that something like necrophage infestations or monster-contaminated water sources or just being a little too involved on a witcher’s monster hunt could produce strange parasitic diseases in humans. up to you how well-known and/or how clouded in superstition these effects might be! opportunities for hideous whump? gross body horror? messy and horrifying parasite-driven behavioral changes? terrifying and potentially prolonged uncertainty over what the issue actually is because of minimal information about parasites? the decision whether or not to dose with a witcher potion? excellent possibilities.

okay last one, just because i think it would be fun: myxosporeans and sirens. Myxos are a parasitic relative of jellyfish that produce whirling disease in baby salmon. whirling disease causes neurological and skeletal damage and has a pretty high mortality rate, but it also makes infected fish do this, well, whirling behavior and it’s honestly fascinating. (video link: a pretty normal-looking young trout spinning like a fuckin top). imagine a siren doing that in the sky. i just think myxos are neat!

tl;dr: extra grody hyperspecific biology of monsters!!!

#kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #fic reference #parasites cw #VERY parasites cw #body horror cw #i have a bunch of new followers who i think came for library content and to you i am so sorry #half the time i am yelling about libraries but the other half of the time i am yelling about the GROSSEST bio shit

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nicolabarth · 7 years

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Blood and Bones - Chapter 2

Pairing: Samifer

Summary: When people on the Winchester lands vanish, including Dean, Sam thinks the necromancer who’s living near by in a tower is to blame.

Warnings: Fantasy AU, Violence, Blood Magic (as in people cut themselves and others to get blood for spells), Knight!Sam, Necromancer!Lucifer, Blood Mage!Lucifer, Undead, Questionable morals, Truth Spells

Notes: Thanks to my beta readers @coplins, @trisscar368 and @lucibae-is-dancing-in-hell. The whole story was inspired by @brieflymaximumprincess

Read it on AO3

“Don’t you think the undead horse is a bit too much?” Sam’s own horse kept its distance, shying away from the creature thankfully made mostly of bone and a bit of dried skin. No rotting flesh.

The necromancer shrugged from where he was sitting in the saddle. They were riding into the woods, Sam and Lucifer, Sam in his chainmail now, sword by his side again.

“I don’t want to spend time caring for a living animal every day.”

That made sense in a way. Still, Sam could’ve done without the reminder of who he had sided with. He still wasn’t sure, if he wouldn’t regret this.

“What is it, Sammy?” Lucifer’s eyes were on him, leaving his undead horse to find its own way. “Second thoughts?”

“I’m not obliged to answer any more.” He couldn’t actually be angry about the truth spell, though. Sam had been the one who had broken into Lucifer’s tower and the truth spell had been a pretty gentle way to insure Lucifer’s safety. Still, Sam tried. After the kiss they shared, he felt like he had to put some distance between them again. It was sensible to join forces with the necromancer to get his brother back, of course. It was also a good idea to stay on friendly terms with him afterwards. For the good of their village. But the kiss had been more than just one step too far. As was the fascination Sam felt every time Lucifer talked about magic.

Lucifer shrugged. “Suit yourself. I liked you more when you were chatty, though.”

“You’re not supposed to like me. We have a common goal, that’s all.”

That earned him an amused look, tip of Lucifer’s tongue visible in the corner of his mouth for a moment – not that Sam was paying attention.

“Don’t get your hopes up too much. I’m sure grumpy, less chatty you will grow on me eventually.”

Never had a declaration of affection ever sounded so much like a promise of trouble to come.

It didn’t take them long to reach the waterfall that hid the dragon’s cave. “How do you want to do this?” Lucifer asked. “The hero way or the smart way?”

“I’m not going to stand in front of the cave and yell for the dragon to come out.”

Lucifer smiled. “See, that’s why I like you. So sneak in or draw it out?”

Sam pondered that question for a moment. To sneak in he’d have to lose his chainmail again, which meant potentially fighting a dragon without much protection. “Any ideas how to draw it out?”

“Yes. I’ll challenge it.”

“So you stand in front of the cave and yell for it to come out?” Sam asked grinning.

Lucifer threw him a bitchface. “Not quite.”

The plan was simple. Lucifer would be the distraction, while Sam would lie in ambush and wait for a good opportunity to attack. After all, he was the one who was supposed to kill the dragon. Lucifer summoned Meg again to send her off with Sam. “She can be of help,” was all he said.

Then he cut his palm, let a few drops of blood drip on the ground.

“What’s that for?” Sam asked.

“In case of an emergency. I think some other predators have lived here before. There are a lot of dead things in the ground, and I’ve just established a connection.” Lucifer’s smile made Sam shudder, but not in a completely unpleasant way. Damn him and his fascination with questionable people. “Now go.”

Sam was halfway to a good hiding place, when he realized that he’d just followed a command given by the necromancer. Damn! It was a sensible command, but still, he better not make a habit out of it.

Next to him, Meg moved in complete, eerie silence between the trees. No footsteps, no breathing. Of course no breathing, after all she was dead. Sam eyed her suspiciously. There was a slight red tint to her figure, and sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he could see her edges fray, but apart from that she looked like a normal human being. A tiny brunette girl in a way too revealing dress.

She grinned at him. “Like what you see?”

“He killed you,” Sam said, because that still bothered him.

“Yes. And then he went and gave me a new life. That’s how things are sometimes. Don’t get your undergarments in a twist about it, pretty boy.”

Sam huffed, not placated.

Meg laughed, a sound that wasn’t quite human. “If you were so appalled by it, you should’ve declined my company.”

“That wouldn’t have undone it. And if you can help, it would be stupid not to make use of that to save people who might still be alive.”

“So the fact that he killed me is useful to you now.”

Sam opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. “I guess …” he bit back angrily. Had he just lost a discussion about morals against an undead girl?

They found a good hiding place near the waterfall. While Sam crouched down behind a big boulder, spray from the waterfall settled on his face, his hair, his clothes. Slowly, he drew his sword.

Meg cupped her hands, and a small puddle of blood appeared between her fingers. “We’re ready, master,” she whispered.

Yes, she definitely was useful.

By the bank of the river Lucifer stepped out from between the trees just enough to be seen, but not far enough that he couldn’t duck back into the underbrush fast, if need be. He didn’t do anything, he just stood there, but suddenly he seemed taller, his shadow darker.

“What’s he doing?” Sam whispered.

“He just stopped hiding his aura,” Meg explained.

Oh. This definitely shouldn’t make Lucifer even more attractive.

It didn’t take long for a head to appear in the middle of the waterfall. It wasn’t quite as reptilian as Sam had expected it to be, though. It looked more bird-like, even if there were scales between the feathers. The sharp beak was approximately as long as Sam’s arm. The head was followed by a snake-like neck and a reptilian body. Leathery wings blocked the path of the waterfall for a moment, when they unfurled.

“Oops,” Meg said.

Sam was inclined to agree with her. “That’s not a dragon.”

“Well,” Meg said, “technically Basilisks are a subspecies of dragons.”

The Basilisk cocked its head to regard Lucifer. “Ah,” it said finally, more a hiss than a word. “Long time since I last saw a blood mage.”

“Long time since I last saw one of your kind, too,” Lucifer answered. “My name is Lucifer. You’re in my territory.”

“My apologies.” The Basilisk stepped further away from the waterfall and waded through the water towards Lucifer, still staying in the river though. Sam held his breath. As soon as it reached the riverbank, he’d strike. “I’m only here for the time my young need to learn how to fly. If you let me stay in your territory until then, I’ll repay you well.”

Lucifer smiled, apparently not even surprised that a huge, scary Basilisk prefered negotiations over fighting him. “Well, there’s one small problem.”

The Basilisk cocked it’s bird head again.

“You’re taking humans, and the villagers are bothering me now, because they think I’m responsible.”

For a very short moment Sam thought it was maybe possible to solve this via talking. The creature would agree not to take any more humans, it would give Dean and the other villagers back and they would allow it to raise its young, before it had to leave. Everybody would be happy. But then the Basilisk did something that was probably the closest you can get to a shrug, if you have wings instead of arms. “You seem powerful enough to deal with a few humans. What I can give you will be worth your trouble.”

No, that was not how this was supposed to go! Sam held his breath. He wasn’t sure how high the chances were that Lucifer was going to betray him.

“Is that so?” the necromancer asked. “What do you have to offer?”

Well, apparently they were high. Sam tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword, when he suddenly felt Meg’s hand on his arm. “Wait. Trust him.”

Sam gave an almost soundless laugh. “Why should I trust him?”

“For one,” Meg leaned closer, and Sam faintly smelled blood, “if he wanted trouble, he wouldn’t have offered to help you in the first place. And secondly, you don’t have any other choice, because I will rip you to shreds if you move now.”

For a moment, Sam looked at her, seizing her up. Judging by how effortlessly she had disarmed him in the dungeon, this was probably no empty threat. But she had to have a weakness. He went through everything Bobby had ever told him about magic. A lot of magic creatures didn’t like iron, did they? Though Lucifer’s magic had worked on the chains in the dungeon. There were also some symbols that worked as protection, and Sam wished he’d memorized them better.

While he was lost in thought, the conversation between Lucifer and the Basilisk went on. The creature offered magic spells and riches. Lucifer seemed intrigued.

“Meg,” Sam whispered. “Do you remember your parents? They’re still alive. If Lucifer sides with that creature, they’re in danger.”

Did he imagine it or was there a slight pause as if Meg were thinking?

“Let me kill that Basilisk, no matter what they agree on,” Sam urged. “That’s all I’m asking.”

“Trust him,” Meg insisted again. Her grip on Sam’s arm loosened a bit, though. Sam took it as a good sign.

While they were talking, the Basilisk slowly crept closer to Lucifer, further and further out of the water. The necromancer carefully avoided eye contact, but otherwise watched the creature closely. Finally, it sat in the shallow water close to where Lucifer was standing. Sam tensed, ready to strike.

“Give him a few more seconds,” Meg whispered. “Then I’ll let you go.”

Fine. Sam could do that.

The necromancer smiled again. “That sounds all well and good,” he said. “There’s still one tiny problem, though.”

“What is it now?” The Basilisk was getting impatient. It took another step, threatening now, until its beak was only inches from Lucifer’s face. Sam saw the necromancer lower his gaze to the ground to avoid eye contact. But now it was also in the perfect position for Sam to strike.

“Well, you see,” Lucifer explained. He unfurled the fingers of the hand he had cut before, and a few more drops of blood dripped to the ground. What was he doing? “The very handsome knight I came here with apparently thinks I’m fascinating.”

Alarmed, the Basilisk looked around. And that did it. Sam shrugged off Meg’s hand and stood up. She let him.

“And that’s kind of nice,” Lucifer went on. “So I actually don’t want to betray him.”

The next word was not spoken in any language Sam knew, but it carried power, Sam could feel that in the energy that suddenly permeated the air. He half expected to get hit by a spell, before the meaning of Lucifer’s words completely got through to him.

Then he saw the bones that erupted from the ground. They formed hands and claws and they grabbed the Basilisk’s legs and wings. The creature screeched and its beak bit down, shattering skeletal arms, but there were more coming from the ground every second.

“Sam!” Lucifer called. “Now! And don’t look it in the eyes, it can turn you to stone.”

Sam was already moving. He swung his sword, hacking at the snake-neck of the creature. His blade sliced through the scales, but then the back of a flailing wing hit him, sending him sprawling to the ground.

Before he could even catch his breath, the beak came down. He rolled to the side, but he could already tell he wouldn’t be fast enough to avoid it completely.

The impact never came, though. Instead something red streaked through his line of sight, then Meg was there. She collided with the head of the creature with force, making it reel to the side. The beak sank into the ground instead of Sam’s flesh, sending grass and dirt flying. Immediately, the boney hands grabbed it. Together with Meg they held the Basilisk’s head to the ground, stretching the already injured neck. Sam got to his feet again, bringing the sword down with all his might.

This time, his blade went all the way through. The Basilisk convulsed and collapsed on the riverbank.

For a moment, Sam just stood there, breathing heavily.

The sound of someone clapping made him look up after a while. Lucifer leaned against the trunk of a tree, smirking. “You make a very heroic figure wielding your sword like that, Sam Dragonslayer. A pity that the fact that I helped you probably ruins this as material for the bards.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sam said. He hadn’t tried to be heroic, he’d just tried to get his brother back. But if Lucifer wanted to mock him for this, he could give as good as he got. “Depends on how they spin it. Apparently I made a formerly evil necromancer see the good in life again.” Which raised an interesting question. Lucifer hadn’t actually chosen his side because he liked him, had he?

“It’s blood mage.” Lucifer took a few steps towards him. He stopped right in front of Sam, almost touching, twinkle in his blue eyes. “And there are limits to what I’d do just because a good looking guy bats his eyelashes at me.” He leaned in even closer, breath on Sam’s face. “But it just so happens that Basilisk venom is the rarest spell ingredient in the world, and it’s the most potent when taken straight from the venom gland.” He reached out, fingertips slightly brushing over Sam’s cheek, before his hand came to rest on Sam’s chest. His touch left a tingling sensation on Sam’s skin, a faint echo of what the kiss had felt like. “So nice of you helping me acquire it.” With that he pushed Sam away gently, brushed past him and hunched down next to the severed Basilisk head, pulling his dagger from its sheath.

It really shouldn’t feel so much like Sam had just been turned down; still, Sam’s face burned with heat. “So reassuring that the reason I’m still alive is that the Basilisk’s offer lacked appeal for you,” he said, his anger at least in parts directed against himself for reacting to Lucifer like he did.

“Well, that and the fact that I gave you my word to help you.” Lucifer didn’t look up from forcing the beast’s beak open with his blade. “But you won’t believe that anyway.”

“Don’t act like not trusting you is an unreasonable thing to do.”

Lucifer made a dismissive gesture with his dagger. “Don’t you have a missing brother to look for?”

He was right, of course. Sam wiped his sword on his pants and put it back into the sheath. Then he stepped towards the waterfall.

“Don’t forget that thing mentioned offspring,” Lucifer called after him. “Meg, go with him.”

“Yes, master.”

“Thanks,” Sam said. “But I think, I’ll manage.”

“You’re not the one your father will get mad at when you go missing, too.” Lucifer had one hand between the Basilisk’s jaws, picking at something with the dagger. “So please accept my offer of further assistance.”

The sudden formality made Sam blink in surprise. Still, he felt like he owed it the necromancer to answer a polite request with a polite reply. “Of course.” He stepped into the river near the waterfall. “Are you coming, Meg?”

The river wasn’t deep, but when Sam arrived at the other side of the waterfall he was drenched from head to toe. He wiped the water out of his eyes and drew his sword again. He knew this cave, had been here before with Dean. It was just a small tunnel at the beginning, but after a bend it opened into a cavern with a light well in the middle so you didn’t need a torch. Sam stepped carefully around the bend.

They were sitting in the middle of the cavern, right inside a pillar of sunlight. And they were gnawing on something that Sam, to his horror, recognized as human limbs.

Don’t let this be Dean.

He’d never forgive himself if he’d come to late to save his brother.

A few gestures was all he needed to communicate his plan of attack to Meg. Then Sam circled to one side around the Basilisk offspring, the undead girl taking the other. After that it was just a matter of a few well placed strikes. For Sam at least. Meg hadn’t been kidding about being able to rip things to shreds. She came over the Basilisks like a demon and left torn bodies in her wake.

When she was done, there was more than a slight tint of red to her figure. She looked Sam up and down, who had more than a little blood on his clothes, too, by now, and threw him a blood splattered grin. “You’re fun. For a knight.”

“People of questionable morals keep telling me that,” Sam said. “Maybe I should reconsider some of my life choices.” One glance at what was left of the poor human the Basilisks had been gnawing on showed him that it wasn’t Dean. He breathed a sigh of relief. At least that was something. He recognized the usual garb of a shepherd. So he had come too late to save at least one of the villagers.

Meg laughed. “You’re clinging to what you think is right too much. And we stuck to our word, didn’t we?” Then she pointed to a part of the cavern that was immersed in shadows. “I think you’re looking for this.”

Sam squinted into the darkness. There was a human figure there, but not moving. Carefully he stepped closer, sword gripped tight. There were bones lying around here, carefully gnawed clean. The other villagers? “Dean?”

The figure in the back was Dean. He was sitting with his back against the wall, but he didn’t look up, his eyes were staring right past his brother. Sam reached out to shake his shoulder – but touched nothing but stone. “No! Dean!”

“Basilisks do that.” That was Lucifer’s voice from the entrance of the cave. “Keeps their food fresh.”

Sam turned around. Somehow the necromancer had managed to stay dry while passing the waterfall, and now he stepped around the carcasses of the Basilisk offspring.

“Is this reversible?” Sam demanded.

“A Basilisk can reverse it,” Lucifer said.

“We don’t have a Basilisk. Can you reverse it?”

Lucifer idly turned the remains of the Basilisk’s dinner around with his foot, looking at the gnawed off face of the man. “Oh, so you do need my help again?”

Did he have to pick this moment for playing games? Sam gritted his teeth and gripped the hilt of his sword so hard it hurt. He forced himself to take a deep breath though. Snapping at Lucifer wouldn’t help his brother. “Can you bring my brother back?”

Lucifer hooked his thumbs under his belt. “Depends on how important morals actually are to you. That spell requires a life.”

For a moment, Sam stared at Lucifer, but the necromancer seemed completely serious for once. Sam chewed on his lower lip in thought. Finding someone who deserved to die anyway shouldn’t be that big of a problem, shouldn’t it?

As the silence stretched, so did a grin on Lucifer’s face. “You’re considering it, aren’t you?” He sauntered closer. “That easy to turn into a murderer, isn’t it?”

Sam closed his eyes against the mocking tone. “Please tell me it doesn’t have to be someone innocent.”

“Would you consider that, too?” Now Lucifer was right in front of him, Sam could feel his body heat, hear his even breaths.

He opened his eyes again to look into Lucifer’s blue ones. “Would I be innocent enough?”

The necromancer lifted an eyebrow. “Willing to die for you brother?”

Sam nodded. Dean had always been the good son. Dean was the one who would rule this piece of land one day. Sam on the other hand, Sam had been a bit odd all his life, a bit too bookish for a knight, a bit too fascinated by the likes of Brady – and now Lucifer. John Winchester needed Dean more than he needed Sam. Adam, Charlie, Jo and Ellen and their whole village needed Dean more than they needed Sam.

Lucifer sighed. “Very noble. Very … knightly …” He said the last word as if he thought Sam was a bit stupid, but he could think whatever he wanted, if he just did what Sam asked of him.

“Will it work or not?”

“It’ll be a waste, that’s what it’ll be!” Lucifer’s voice echoed from the walls of the cavern angrily. His anger died down fast, though, followed by another sigh. “Well, if you’re willing to self-sacrifice, there’s another way.”

“Which way?” Sam didn’t dare hope. This would be something impossible, wouldn’t it?

Lucifer scrutinized him for a moment, before he spoke again. “You’d have to give a few years of your life to power the spell.”

“Done.”

The necromancer rolled his eyes. “As I said, very knightly. I’ll also have to use half of the Basilisk venom I collected today. Which means you owe me, because I could’ve used that for something more worthwhile.”

And there it was. The catch. “What do I owe you?”

That made Lucifer’s smile come back. “Oh look, he hasn’t lost all his sense after all. I half expected you to go: ‘Whatever you want.’ That’d have proved … interesting.”

Sam huffed. “I love my brother, but I’m not stupid. What do I owe you?”

He didn’t get an answer right away. Instead, Lucifer studied him again, tapping his lower lip in thought while he did so. His eyes took in the blood on Sam’s clothes, the sword in his hand. “If your father ever decides to make a move against me, you’ll be on my side.”

Yes, definitely a big catch. “You want me to fight against my own family?”

“Well …” Lucifer waved his hand. “You make it sound so dramatic. You don’t have to fight, if you find another way to get him off my back.”

On second thought, it didn’t sound that bad. Dean would owe Lucifer his life by then. Most of the other Winchester knights might not listen to Sam, but they would definitely listen to Dean. Slowly, Sam wiped his sword on his still wet pants again and sheathed it. “This doesn’t apply in case you attack us first.”

“Fine,” Lucifer said.

“Are we done bartering over my brother’s life then, or is there anything else you want?”

The corners of Lucifer’s mouth twitched. “There is. I want you, mostly naked, in the middle of the ritual circle I’m about to draw.”

Sam blinked at the sudden turn this had taken, but if he was honest, nothing Lucifer did should surprise him anymore by now. After a moment he just lifted an eyebrow, silently asking if the necromancer was serious.

Said necromancer – well, blood mage actually – met his gaze with a face that said he definitely was. “Do you think I can just take a few years of your life with the snap of my fingers? You have to be a part of this spell. You’ll have to do exactly as I say, no matter what happens. And once it’s started, I have to finish it, so if you’re not sure about it, better back out now.” Lucifer looked Sam up and down again. “Oh, and it’ll hurt,” he added as if in an afterthought. “A lot.”

Of course there was another catch. But Sam could live with that one. He took a deep breath. “Fine.” Then: “Did you actually mean the naked part?”

Lucifer threw him a grin. “Yes. Especially all the iron has to go. You can keep your pants on, though.”

“What, you’re passing up a chance to get me out of my pants?” It was probably a bad idea to give Lucifer ideas, but ‘It’ll hurt. A lot.’ was still very present in Sam’s thoughts. He’d grasp for anything that’d take his mind off that fact. Slowly, he undid his sword belt and put the weapons aside.

Lucifer laughed. Mirth danced in his eyes, and Sam decided he liked that look. It died down after a moment, though. “I’ll give that another try later, if you don’t hate me too much by then.”

Well, that sounded promising.

Tagging: @spn-you-idjits @samwise-the-true-hero @i-bleed-salt@hooker-legs @consultingmooseintimeandspace @ravestablook@shebahda @savagearchangelforthewin2-0 @me-fangirl@hardcorefangirlgroupie@thisisnotsteva @wearemykingdom @coffee-queen448 @askatosch

#samifer #fantasy!au #lucifer #sam winchester #thearchangelnetwork #sam/lucifer

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ezatluba · 5 years

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The northwest corner of Newark Bay is the kind of place comedians have in mind when they mock New Jersey as a cesspool. The grim industrial coast the bay shares with the Passaic River is lined with the hulks of old chemical plants that treated their surroundings like a toilet. The most infamous of these facilities produced nearly a million gallons of Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant whose extensive use during the Vietnam War has caused generations of suffering. The Agent Orange plant discharged unholy amounts of carcinogenic dioxin—so much, in fact, that New Jersey's governor declared a state of emergency in June 1983. Though the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a $1.4 billion cleanup effort, the waters closest to Newark's Ironbound neighborhood remain highly contaminated; there are few worse spots in America to go for a swim.

And yet upper Newark Bay is not devoid of life. Beneath its dull green surface teems a population of Atlantic killifish, a silvery topminnow that's common along the Eastern Seaboard. These fish are virtually indistinguishable from most other members of their species, save for their peculiar ability to thrive in conditions that are lethal to their kin. When killifish plucked from less polluted environments are exposed to dioxin levels like those in the bay, they either fail to reproduce or their offspring die before hatching; their cousins from Newark, by contrast, swim and breed happily in the noxious soup.

Eight years ago, while he was an associate professor at Louisiana State University, an environmental toxicologist named Andrew Whitehead decided to find out what makes Newark's killifish so tough. He and his research group collected sample fish from an inlet near the city's airport and began to deconstruct their genomes, sifting through millions of lines of genetic code in search of tiny quirks that might explain the creatures' immunity to the ravages of dioxin.

In late 2014, two years after having moved to UC Davis, Whitehead zeroed in on the genes linked to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, a protein that regulates an array of cellular functions. When most adult killifish encounter dioxin, this receptor's signaling pathway revs to life in the hope of metabolizing the chemical invader. But try as it might, the protein can't break down the insidious substance. Instead of acting as a defense mechanism, the frustrated signaling pathway wreaks havoc during development—causing severe birth defects or death in embryos. “If you inappropriately activate this pathway when your organs are being developed, you're really hosed,” Whitehead says. But that ugly fate never befalls the Newark Bay killifish because their bodies are wise to dioxin's cunning; the genes that control their aryl hydrocarbon receptors, which have slightly different DNA sequences than those found in other killifish, lie dormant when confronted by the toxin.

As he explained in a landmark Science paper in 2016, Whitehead and his colleagues also discovered that Newark Bay's killifish are not alone in using this clever genetic tactic to survive in tainted water. He identified similarly resilient killifish in three other East Coast cities whose estuaries have been befouled by industry: New Bedford, Massachusetts; Bridgeport, Connecticut; and Portsmouth, Virginia. Since killifish never roam far from where they're born, these resistant populations must have developed the identical tweaks to their genomes without mixing with one another—or, put more plainly, the far-flung fish all evolved in remarkably similar ways in response to the same environmental pressures. This is compelling evidence in favor of the notion that evolution, that most sublime of nature's engines, is not some chaotic phenomenon but, rather, an orderly one whose outcomes we might be able to predict.

Whitehead's work on killifish is one of the signature triumphs of urban evolution, an emergent discipline devoted to figuring out why certain animals, plants, and microbes survive or even flourish no matter how much we transform their habitats. Humans rarely give much thought to the creatures that flit or crawl or skitter about our apartment blocks and strip malls, in part because we tend to dismiss them as either ordinary or less than fully wild. But we should instead marvel at how these organisms have managed to keep pace with our relentless drive to build and cluster in cities. Rather than wilt away as Homo sapiens have spread forth bearing concrete, bitumen, and steel, a select number of species have developed elegant adaptations to cope with the peculiarities of urban life: more rigid cellular membranes that may ward off heat, digestive systems that can absorb sugary garbage, altered limbs and torsos that enhance agility atop asphalt or in runoff-fattened streams.

The story that the pioneers of urban evolution are piecing together is tinged with darkness.

Whitehead and his colleagues, many of whom are at the dawn of their careers, are now beginning to pinpoint the subtle genetic changes that underlie these novel traits. Their sleuthing promises to solve a conundrum that has vexed biologists for 160 years, and in the process reveal how we might be able to manipulate evolution to make the world's cities—projected to be home to two-thirds of humanity by 2050—resilient enough to endure the catastrophes that are coming their way.

Weary as we are of despairing over the mass extinctions being caused by hyperdevelopment, it's tempting to take comfort in the ability of some animals to shrug off our brutalization of the planet. But the story that the pioneers of urban evolution are piecing together is tinged with darkness.

When Carlen started the doctoral program at Fordham in 2015, other students had already claimed some good animals for study—rats, salamanders, coyotes—but no one had yet staked a claim to a bird. She nabbed pigeons.

Charles Darwin's place in the scientific pantheon is deservedly secure, but he made his share of blunders. One of the gravest was maintaining that the effects of natural selection, the linchpin of evolution, could not be observed in a single human lifetime. “We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages,” he wrote in On the Origin of Species in 1859. “And then so imperfect is our view into long past geological ages, that we only see that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were.”

But soon after Darwin's death in 1882, the first wave of biologists to have grown up on his teachings took note of a curious occurrence in the realm of insects: During the second half of the 19th century, the predominant color of England's peppered moths had steadily shifted from mostly white to almost entirely black. One theory was that the bugs' wings were being tarnished by all the coal soot in the air, a result of the boom in heavy industry from London to Newcastle. But Darwin's disciples came to suspect that natural selection was at play. As England had become more urban, moths who possessed the rare mutation for black pigmentation appeared to enjoy a fitness advantage over their white peers.

It wasn't until the 1950s that Oxford University's Bernard Kettlewell conducted a legendary experiment that demonstrated why the black moths had evolved much faster than Darwin thought possible. Over a three-year period, Kettlewell tracked the fates of hundreds of marked moths that he released in two English forests, one by the pristine southwest coast, the other near the polluted metropolis of Birmingham. In the Birmingham woods—a stand-in for the industry-ravaged landscape of the Victorian era—black moths avoided predation by birds because they blended into the soot-stained trees; the white moths, by contrast, were easy to spot and thus became snacks for sparrows. The opposite occurred in the coastal woods: The black moths stood out when they alighted on the light-colored trees and were gobbled up.

Kettlewell's experiment on “industrial melanism” became a staple of high school biology textbooks because it succinctly illustrates how species can, when subjected to intense environmental pressures, evolve in a matter of years rather than over millennia. But the next few generations of evolutionary biologists were less attracted to hives of human commotion like Birmingham. Researchers raised on episodes of Wild Kingdom and the books of Jane Goodall gravitated toward fieldwork in remote places populated by animals they'd never otherwise encounter. Their mentors encouraged them to go abroad because they knew that faculty hiring committees were wowed by the exotic. The road to a tenure-track job ran through the jungles of the Amazon, not the parking lots of Houston or Columbus, Ohio.

For the first chunk of his career in evolutionary biology, Jason Munshi-South harbored all the standard romantic notions about which projects he should pursue. He studied the mating habits of tree shrews in Borneo and the demographics of elephants in Gabon, while earning his PhD from the University of Maryland and doing a postdoc at the Smithsonian. But in 2007, Munshi-South became an assistant professor at Baruch College in New York City, shortly after which his first child was born—two events that curtailed his globe-trotting. Restless, he looked for ways to scratch his fieldwork itch within range of the subway. His search for convenient subjects led him to study the white-footed mice that have colonized New York's parks.

Munshi-South and his assistants trapped scores of live mice and clipped off bits of their tails to get genetic material. Financial constraints and the state of technology at the time meant Munshi-South couldn't sequence the animals' entire genomes. Instead he used a shortcut called transcriptome analysis, which centers on the messenger RNA molecules that carry DNA's instructions for protein synthesis into cells. Since only the crucial bits of an organism's DNA get written into messenger RNA, researchers can work backward to infer, with impressive precision, the composition of the genes where it originated.

Munshi-South found there was scant gene flow between New York's various white-footed mouse populations—mice from the Bronx showed no signs of having recently mated with mice from Manhattan. Of greater note, however, were the sharp genetic differences between city mice and their country relatives: The city mice had conspicuous alterations in genes linked to metabolism, immune response, and detoxification. (“Linked,” of course, is a word that oversimplifies the relationship: Traits are usually the product of a complex stew of interactions among genes and with the environment.)

As he sorted through the possible reasons for these changes, which included the need to tolerate a certain type of poisonous fungus, Munshi-South came to realize that his side project was destined to become his life's work. He was now enamored with the idea that urban cauldrons of noise, heat, and filth are not only as authentically “natural” as any other habitat but also the perfect venues in which to observe evolution at its fastest and most inventive. A bearded and slightly cherubic man, Munshi-South speaks engagingly about his epiphany despite the notable softness of his voice. “For most organisms, cities are incredibly stressful,” he says. “So you'd expect that the evolutionary responses would have to be pretty strong for them to exist in that environment.”

Scores of evolutionary biologists are now investigating how city-dwelling creatures have adapted to life among buildings, traffic, and discarded Big Macs. These are some of the most intriguing urban evolution studies to have emerged in recent years.

Munshi-South next turned his attention to Rattus norvegicus, the brown rat, an especially reviled New York City inhabitant. Though the rodents have been darting around America since colonial times, Munshi-South was stunned by how little was known about the genetic reasons for their success. “There was a golden age of rat research in Baltimore in the '40s and '50s, out of Johns Hopkins, which was mostly done in the interest of public health,” he says. “They did things we wouldn't be allowed to do, like they'd go catch 50 rats from one place and dump them in another place and see what happened. And that would basically cause a rat war.” But no one in recent years had spent much time pondering whether rats might be evolving in sync with the cities where they abound.

Not long after moving to Fordham University in the Bronx in 2013, Munshi-South started setting traps in New York's dingiest nooks: subway platforms, storm drains, and the grease-slicked pavement outside pizza joints. (Unlike white-footed mice, brown rats tend to be too vicious to be collected alive.) In just a few years, the genetic tools at his disposal had become exponentially more advanced. It was now possible to sequence the whole genomes of individual rats for a reasonable price, and he could compare his results to a Rattus norvegicus reference genome that had been compiled as part of a federally funded project. Munshi-South and his collaborators found evidence that the genes controlling the olfactory sensors of New York's rats have been dramatically transformed by natural selection. The researchers believe the alterations in the genes' DNA sequences are linked to the rats' ability to navigate New York's subterranean passages, which are bathed in an ever-shifting barrage of smells.

The concept of rats evolving quickly enough to handle whatever humans throw their way has captivated the general public, and Munshi-South has become his field's preeminent evangelist—the scientist likeliest to pop up in a panel discussion to explain how cities are shaking up the genetics of wildlife with astonishing swiftness. But he's only the most visible member of a community of researchers, each focused on an animal usually thought of as mundane.

So when Munshi-South coauthored a 2017 Science review paper entitled “Evolution of Life in Urban Environments,” he was able to list more than 100 recent and ongoing projects involving a range of city-dwelling organisms: moths that shed their species' fatal attraction to artificial lights, finches able to communicate above the din of traffic, swans that possess a genetic variant that makes them less nervous around humans.

When I asked Munshi-South why urban evolution is suddenly hot, I expected him to cite the proliferation of accessible DNA-sequencing technologies—an obvious boon to smaller, more unconventional labs like his that struggle for funding. But his primary explanation was more of a downer: He sees a kind of resignation to a dark environmental future, especially among younger biologists who have no memory of more idealistic days and who see little point in examining any instances of evolution that aren't driven primarily by human activity. “I don't want to call it capitulation,” he says, “but it's kind of reconciling with our changed world.”

Jason Munshi-South, who has studied the adaptations of city rats and mice, has become the preeminent evangelist in the field of urban evolution.

On a pleasantly bright morning last February, Elizabeth Carlen took me to the northern Bronx to catch pigeons. A Californian who's now a doctoral candidate in Munshi-South's lab at Fordham, Carlen has spent the past four years studying the genetics of one of New York's most common birds. It is a line of research that requires her to trap hundreds of pigeons and collect samples of their blood.

Carlen and I camped out by a triangular patch of asphalt along West Kingsbridge Road, across the street from a check-cashing store and a carnicería. Whenever a flock of pigeons alighted to peck at the stale bread crumbs that elderly locals leave on the pavement, Carlen would fire her flashlight-shaped net gun at the throng. A few birds would inevitably become entangled in the nylon net, and Carlen would kneel down to untangle them one by one before drawing a vial's worth of blood from a vein between their toes. Once each needle prick had clotted, she would let the pigeon flap away toward the eaves of an abandoned red-brick armory.

On several occasions, the loud thwump of the net's deployment startled passersby. In one instance a bemused woman pushing a cart filled with groceries came over to ask—with more than a hint of suspicion—what on earth we were doing. Carlen had a disarming reply at the ready: “I'm a scientist and I'm trying to find out how New York pigeons are evolving.” She then invited her inquisitor to hold and release a pigeon who'd already provided a blood sample. An ecstatic grin spread across the woman's face as she cradled the docile bird in her hands; as Carlen would later note, people tend to feel a sort of primal joy when given the rare opportunity to handle wildlife.

As she drove us north on I-87 with a sizable amount of pigeon blood in her trunk, Carlen recounted the roots of her obsession with the oft-disparaged “rat with wings.” Her love for biology dates back to early childhood, when she was enthralled by the brittle stars and hermit crabs she saw in Baja California's tide pools during family camping trips. But she didn't have a clear sense of how to turn her passion into a lifelong career until April 2012, five years after she'd obtained her bachelor's degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It was then that she heard Jason Munshi-South discuss his research on the public radio show Science Friday. By the time the episode ended, Carlen had decided that urban evolution was her calling—a way to explore the ingenious ways in which nature refuses to be squelched by human dominance.

Carlen went back to school to pursue a master's in biology, with the express goal of gaining the technological chops necessary to join Munshi-South's lab. When she started the doctoral program at Fordham in 2015, she was required to pick a New York City animal as her specialty. Munshi-South's other students had already nabbed some good ones—the rats, the salamanders, the coyotes who lurk around the rim of Queens. But no one had yet staked a claim to a bird.

A bit of work has been done on the evolutionary adaptations of urban pigeons, but the field was mostly wide open for someone like Carlen. “Basic things, like what a pigeon's range is, how long they live—people probably assume we know all that already, but we don't,” said Carlen, now 35, who was wearing an I STAND WITH REFUGEES T-shirt beneath her coat, along with frayed black pants she doesn't mind getting blotched with droppings. She added that she's even had trouble finding preserved pigeons in the archives of natural history museums, complicating her efforts to compare today's birds to those of decades past.

After stopping in a casino parking lot to harvest blood from a few last pigeons, Carlen and I headed toward Fordham's biological research station, located on a bucolic former estate in the suburban town of Armonk. That is where Carlen sequences the DNA in the blood samples by a employing a technique called ddRAD, which uses a special enzyme to isolate the most revealing portions of an organism's genome. Carlen's priority at the moment is to sketch out how the myriad Columba liviapopulations found between Washington, DC, and Boston are related—essentially 23andMe for the Northeast Corridor's feral pigeons.

Her long-term goal, however, is to divine the birds' recent genetic adaptations. One mystery she's eager to solve is whether urban pigeons have lately evolved the means to process refined sugar without suffering health consequences—a trait that would explain their ability to subsist on diets rich in discarded cookies and doughnuts. (Carlen has already used off-the-shelf blood glucose monitors to determine that, against her expectations, New York pigeons who feast on sweets do not suffer from hyperglycemia.)

“If you can't pick up a dead raccoon for your best friend, what kind of friend are you?”

As we rounded an uphill curve near the field station's entrance, Carlen hit her Subaru's brakes and glanced back through the rear window at an enticing slab of roadkill. “Should I go back and get it for Kristin?” she asked. “I mean, if you can't pick up a dead raccoon for your best friend, what kind of friend are you?”

The friend she had in mind is Kristin Winchell, a 35-year-old postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis and one of urban evolution's foremost stars. She and Carlen, who first met at an academic conference five years ago, rarely see each other in person but text multiple times every day. Along with Lindsay Miles, who studies milkweed insects in Toronto, they also coedit Life in the City, the flagship blog of the urban evolution movement, which highlights discoveries being made by young researchers. And whenever Carlen comes across potentially useful roadkill, she scoops it up and freezes it for Winchell to eventually sequence. (The “trash panda” by the field station turned out to be too smooshed to be of value, so she left it.)

Kristin Winchell studies lizards that are native to Puerto Rico. “People didn't think animals could adapt on human time scales,” she says. “So people are excited that some animals are dealing with what we're doing to them.”

As a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Winchell chose to focus on Anolis cristatellus, a lizard species native to Puerto Rico. She collected lizards in both unspoiled forests and from the densely populated neighborhoods of San Juan, Arecibo, and Mayagüez. She quickly noticed that every city lizard had significantly longer limbs and larger toe pads than their forest-dwelling counterparts—morphological differences that, unlike the majority of urban adaptations, can be seen with the naked eye.

To test how these differences affect locomotion, Winchell built a series of straight, 1.5-meter racetracks. The tracks were made from common Puerto Rican building materials such as painted concrete and aluminum sheeting. She then unleashed the lizards on these surfaces, and the city natives beat the country bumpkins without fail. The morphological changes had clearly made the city lizards consistently faster sprinters—a crucial fitness edge in urban environments, where the reptiles are vulnerable to feral cats and heat while skittering across wide-open expanses.

The lizard races may have been clever, but they didn't prove that the city lizards had actually evolved. Before even running the races, Winchell developed a way to show that the changes had a genetic component and were therefore heritable. Adaptations can often be the result of plasticity—the capacity of individual animals to change in response to stimuli during their lifetimes, yet remain unaltered at the genetic level. (Think of bodybuilders who manage to develop improbable physiques by subjecting their muscles to stress; their offspring do not inherit that appearance.)

Some urban evolution researchers fear that, in their rush to trumpet exciting results, fellow scientists aren't differentiating between plasticity and natural selection. “To only look at traits but not do it experimentally doesn't give you the opportunity to understand whether that trait is genetically based,” says Max Lambert, a postdoc jointly at the University of Washington and UC Berkeley, who is studying how red-legged frogs are adapting to life in polluted stormwater ponds. “And overselling the field as being all urban evolution does a disservice to getting the public to understand what evolution is.”

Mindful of the distinction between evolution and plasticity, Winchell conducted what is known as a common garden experiment. She collected adult lizards from Puerto Rico, bred them in her Boston lab, and then took eggs from both city and county lizards and hatched them in an incubator. Once the babies hatched, she distributed them to isolated cages in which the conditions were identical: Each contained a single turtle vine and a wooden rod measuring three-quarters of an inch in diameter, for example, and each was bathed in 12 hours of UV light per day. After a year of raising the lizards on live crickets dusted with vitamins, Winchell examined their legs and toes. Her measurements and observations, which she published in a 2016 paper in the journal Evolution, confirmed that the urban lizards were true products of rapid evolution.

Winchell, who intends to investigate the evolution of squirrels and raccoons in St. Louis, Boston, and New York, understands that her work might provide a rare source of hope for those anguished by depressing environmental news. “People didn't think animals could adapt on human time scales,” she says. “So people are excited that some animals are dealing with what we're doing to them.” Those survivors, though relatively few in number, possess genes that have much to tell us about how to prepare for our hostile future.

In 2016 Andrew Whitehead coauthored a seminal paper on the rapid adaptation of killifish in Newark Bay.

As the severity of the climate crisis becomes more apparent with each record-breaking heat wave or melting slab of Arctic ice, humankind is coming to terms with the fact that much of the damage we've wrought is irreversible. That means making peace with the permanent disappearance of a fair portion of the animal kingdom: According to a May report from the United Nations, at least 1 million species are in imminent danger of extinction, including 40 percent of amphibians and a third of marine mammals. Even if all nations were to magically cooperate and take unprecedented steps to protect biodiversity, it would be too late for thousands of species.

Like so many of their scientific peers, urban evolution researchers are grappling with the question of how their work can help us make this new environmental reality a bit less grim. On the surface, at least, their inquiries can seem largely aimed at addressing theoretical matters—notably the issue of whether the evolution of complex organisms is a replicable phenomenon, like any ordinary chemical reaction. Cities provide an accidental global network of ad hoc laboratories to test this question: Office towers the world over are fabricated from the same glass panels and steel beams, night skies are illuminated by the same artificial lights, auditory landscapes thrum with the noise of the same cars, food waste comes from the same KFCs and Subways.

This urban sameness is allowing researchers to determine whether isolated populations of the same species develop similar adaptations when placed in parallel environments. “What cities offer us is this amazingly large-scale, worldwide experiment in evolution, where you've got thousands of life-forms that are experiencing the same factors,” says Marc Johnson, who heads an evolutionary ecology lab at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

Laypeople can be forgiven for not instinctively sharing that enthusiasm, however: At first glance, settling the decades-long debate over evolution's replicability doesn't appear likely to make our post-climate-change lives any less hellish.

But in the quest to satisfy their intellectual curiosity, urban evolution researchers are also revealing the fundamental genetic attributes that make some species adept at adjusting to urban life—intelligence that could give us the power to forecast evolution's winners and losers in a world that's increasingly hot and crammed with people. When he concluded that killifish in four US cities had developed the same form of toxin resistance, for example, Andrew Whitehead ascribed the species' evolutionary success to its high degree of genetic diversity—that is, the killifish genome naturally contains an abundance of genetic information that isn't usually expressed. So the key to desensitizing the aryl hydrocarbon receptor was probably already present inside killifish DNA, and natural selection simply brought it to the fore.

“When the environment changes very rapidly, and changes in a way that poses fitness challenges, then species that are going to be able to adaptively respond to that are ones that already have the necessary genetic diversity in hand,” Whitehead says. “The environment is changing right now. You can't wait for migrants. You can't wait for new mutations.”

Urban evolution researchers are grappling with the question of how their work can help make the reality of a ravaged environment less grim.

Perhaps the greatest asset any creature can have hidden in its genome, of course, is the capacity to withstand heat. With global temperatures set to rise by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the turn of the century, the species likeliest to survive will be those that develop traits to guard against the broil. Today's cities, which are typically 2 to 5 degrees warmer than their surroundings, offer a sneak preview of how evolution will reshape wildlife on a sweltering planet.

The humble acorn ant is among the city-loving harbingers of the genetic churn that lies ahead. Two researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Sarah Diamond and Ryan Martin, have found that acorn ants they collected in both Cleveland and Knoxville, Tennessee, are able to thrive and reproduce in much warmer conditions than those from rural habitats. They hypothesize that natural selection may have favored urban ants whose genes manufacture more robust heat-shock proteins. If they can sort out the genetic markers linked to that suddenly useful trait, we may be able to tell which other species have the potential to adapt when the mercury rises and which are in danger of roasting into extinction.

Diamond hopes that evolutionary prediction will lead to smarter conservation choices. “If we know which taxa are most vulnerable to urbanization,” she says, “then we can do something about it before biodiversity might be adversely impacted.” That could involve simple things, such as building strategically situated green spaces within cities. In extreme cases, though, our only option for preserving some species may be to uproot and transport entire populations to distant lands.

There is an intriguing flip side to the idea that urban evolution research can be used to rescue species that lack the capacity to flourish in megacities: If we can identify which animals are genetically primed to adapt well to living amid glass and steel, we might be able to use that knowledge to engineer a more hospitable world for ourselves. That's because certain species, once tweaked in clever ways, have the potential to help heal the environment.

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Climate Change

Take oysters, whose feeding process involves filtering harmful bacteria and contaminants out of up to 50 gallons of water per day. The gelatinous mollusks were once abundant in America's urban rivers and bays, but they were largely gobbled up by shellfish lovers decades ago. By the time anyone realized it might be environmentally wise to have massive oyster beds in places like New York, it was too late for the populations to be easily revived: Underwater landscapes had been ruined by decades of dredging and dumping, as well as saturated in anthropogenic pollutants that cause fatal oyster diseases.

One solution is to toughen up oysters by tinkering with their DNA. A blunt method of doing so would be to use Crispr, the gene-editing technology that promises to give us the power to add, delete, or scramble an animal's nucleotides at will. But such an approach remains in the realm of the hypothetical for now, and it's possible the traits we desire in our oysters—disease resistance and faster breeding cycles, for example—are too complex to be created through simple snips and splices.

Fortunately there's a more nuanced option at our immediate disposal, one that makes use of the genetic insight now being gathered by urban evolution researchers. If we can peer deep into genomes and identify the species most likely to develop the specific traits we crave, we can place those animals in environments where natural selection will do the dirty work of shaping them into long-term survivors.

“Like, we could select for oysters that are most effective at growing huge beds and filtering water and protecting us from storm surges,” Jason Munshi-South says. “We want to look for these urban-adapted genotypes and see if we can harness them to clean air and cool things down, provide some service.”

Certain urban design choices can help us nudge evolution in whatever directions we choose. It is in our best interest, for example, to encourage the proliferation of the frogs that have adapted to living in man-made ponds where both storm runoff and toxic chemicals collect. These amphibians prey on mosquitoes and other insects that can carry disease, a threat likely to increase as the world heats up. So it would be smart to establish connections between ponds where the pollution-resistant frogs are abundant and those they've yet to colonize—say, by digging narrow tunnels beneath roadways. Bats are also desirable in cities for their pest-control talents; can we encourage them to adapt to urban areas by favoring particular types of artificial light, or by making sure the sonic environment won't interfere with the way they hunt?

Granted, a certain amount of hubris is required to believe we'll soon master the wondrous mechanism that turned lone cells into whales and giraffes in a mere few billion years. But as evidenced by the terrible environmental bind we've gotten ourselves into, hubris is what Homo sapiens do best.

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docsamurai · 7 years

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Sleeping With the Enemy: Twilight

Today two years of plans come to fruition. Today I will die. Today I can only hope to take my enemies with me. Today is my wedding. In the worst case scenario I need to protect my family and friends so I won't be using real names, but you can call me Bella Swan. The story I'm about to tell you is hard to believe but if I fail I'll need others to take up the hunt, so please believe me when I tell you that monsters are real. When I'm done though, I'll be what the monsters fear.

Let's start at the beginning. It all started my Junior year at a new high school in Washington. My father had convinced my mother to let me live with him after she met a new husband. It seems like a lifetime ago. Back then the only thing I cared about were cute boys and good books. That all changed when I met Him. I'll call him "Edward Cullen" because frankly using his real name disgusts me. I'll admit that for a moment when I first saw Edward I found him attractive, but of course, that's exactly what makes him so dangerous. Edward came from what appeared to be a large adopted family. His "brothers and sisters" were all impossibly attractive and largely kept to themselves and at first they seemed to avoid me.

That all changed one day in the parking lot. Just as I began to notice Edward staring at me from across the lot an out of control car nearly careened into me. In the space of a breath he had crossed the lot and effortlessly stopped the car with one hand. Before anyone could see he was gone again. My heart racing and my head swimming from the adrenaline I thought he had saved me. I know better now. Frankly I wouldn't put it past him to have orchestrated the whole event.

Later that same night I awoke to find Edward standing in my room watching me sleep. At first my brain refused to believe it, that I was simply dreaming and when I looked again he was gone. It was the most unsettled I had ever been in my entire life. Which is saying quite a lot considering that earlier that same day I had almost died.

He told me that I must have imagined it. Looking back I realize that line was perfectly practiced. He knew just what to say to make sure I wouldn't forget it. To make sure that I wouldn't give up. How many times had he done this before? How many times had he piqued his victim's curiosity just enough to make them think they were uncovering some great secret? To make them think they were trapping him as opposed to the other way around?

It worked.

I sought help from an old childhood friend "Jacob" and learned of a local legend. The legend of the Pale Men, monsters in human form, feasting on the blood of the innocent. Jacob chuckled at the old stories and muttered "Vampires" rolling his eyes. I laughed with him but I knew what I saw. I started seeking out any information I could on these old legends and it was on a trip to a bookstore specializing in the occult that I had my next run in with Edward. I was leaving frustrated having hit yet another dead end when I was accosted in the parking lot by several thuggish men. Edward came swooping in out of nowhere, almost running over the men in his car and commanding me to get in. It was here that I realized he was behind everything. Looking back I wonder if he hadn't been so blatant about everything if his plan might have worked. A mysterious savior coming in at the last second twice in a row and both times being from an out of place danger in a parking lot. There was no reason for any car to be moving as fast as it did in a school parking lot the other day and now there were suddenly half a dozen "dangerous" men in a well lit area outside of an occult bookstore. Those poor souls were just pawns in his sick game.

As he drove me back to the sheriff's office where my father works, he went on and on about how he felt protective of me. Every word that came out of his mouth sickened me. If I'd had a gun I would have put it to his head right then and pulled the trigger. I know now that it wouldn't have worked but I was already infuriated with his smug, manipulative bullshit. Not having a weapon I decided to play along. We got to the office where I met “Carlisle”, the master and sire of the Cullen clan and found out about the murders. Carlisle is a Doctor, no doubt so he can get an easy supply of victims or simply fresh blood to sustain them between hunts. Mutilated bodies had been turning up around town and Carlisle had been called in to help identify the victims and to determine cause of death. It was being kept quiet as the small community would have been torn apart by the news. The closest the police could determine was that due to the sheer savagery of the attacks it must have been a wild animal. Carlisle and I locked eyes and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that him and his people were responsible for these attacks and that he was only letting the police find the bodies so that I would find out and know exactly what I was up against.

It was meant to terrorize me. A killer taunting their victim. The sick fuck must have been getting off on it. I knew that they could kill me any time they wanted and that the only reason they were keeping me alive was to be their entertainment. They thought I would be afraid. They thought I would resign myself to my fate. They thought they had lured another "dumb young girl" into their games.

They were wrong.

I became obsessed with finding an answer to one simple question: How do you kill something that doesn't live? Night after night I spent as much time as I could dare searching the internet for answers. I had to be careful though. Edward's little show the other night proved that they could come right into my room at any time, that they could watch my every move. I made sure that I only searched for general information about vampires and hoped that it would happen to contain the answers I sought. Most of it was conjecture and myth. Half crazed stories from survivors and lunatics. It was part desperation and part madness that led me to confront Edward, alone in a forest armed with only a hidden knife. "I know what you are!" "Say it." I could feel his breath on my neck. "Vampire." He taunted me from the treetops, showing off his speed and power he called himself the perfect killing machine. I told him that I wasn't afraid. I had every intention of shoving that knife in his neck and sawing his head clean off. I would probably die in the attempt but I wasn't going to let innocent lives be fed to these monsters. I wasn't going to be their amusement.

He surprised me though. He admitted that he was infatuated with me. Something about me made him crave me. I was expecting to die and now I was being told that he was in love. I still don't know what the Cullens were planning with me but I couldn't believe for a second that an immortal being that hunted humans for food and had lived for possibly hundreds of years would feel anything for a mortal. To this day I don't know what stayed my hand. Maybe I wasn't as ready to die as I thought? Maybe it was just morbid curiosity? I tell myself now that I was just waiting to see if I could kill all of the Cullens. I hope I don't live to regret that decision. It was then that he showed me his true form. Walking into the sunshine he shone like diamonds. A predator that was designed by some dark god to hunt humans, of course he would be beautiful. True evil is always seductive. The spell was broken almost immediately. "I'm a monster!" he pouted. It took every ounce of self control I had to not laugh in his face at his blatant manipulations. I decided then and there to play along. I would need to bide my time, wait for an opening and strike only when I was sure I could kill. "You're beautiful." I cooed.

The rest of the year was spent dutifully playing the role of lovestruck idiot. I overlooked the blatant invasions of privacy when Edward would sneak into my room. I feigned ignorance and let them tell me about their secret ways. Edward tried to romance me all year in some of the most cliche ways imaginable. Seriously I can't even count how many times we read poetry in a field of flowers. I just wish I could have told Jacob about this as I found it all hilarious. I practically choked on my own tongue trying not to laugh when they tried to tell me they were “Vegetarians” because they only ate animals. A part of my soul died that day when I realized that I was finding humor in the death of my fellow humans.

It was towards the end of the year that Carlisle must have remembered that he needed to tie up the loose end of the mutilated bodies that were found around town. I was told that there were vampires, James and Victoria, who were hunting me specifically and shortly thereafter I got a call from James who told me he had my mother. I walked willingly into the trap knowing that the Cullens would have to respond in force and I would finally get to see how they disposed of their own.

I was not disappointed.

It was brutal and I could not wait to do it myself. The only problem was that I would need superhuman strength to rip a vampire limb from limb as they had. Things finally clicked into place: I needed to become a vampire. If I had to sacrifice my soul and become a monster to kill the monsters then I would do it without hesitation. It was a dangerous game I was playing. I had to out think an entire clan of killing machines. I had to let them think I was harmless and to win them over. I could never let it slip that I was planning their destruction. I had to make them think that I truly loved Edward and that I couldn't see right through their plans. The hardest part was feeling the icy touch of Edward's corpse-like hands on me but the thought that kept me warm through everything was that one day I would be able to see the look in his eyes as he drew his last breath. I would take from them everything they ever took from an innocent and I would make sure that they paid in rivers of blood.

This was the end of my Junior year of high school and I knew that I would spend the rest of my life hunting the Cullens to the ends of the earth.

#twilight #fanfic

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tripstations · 5 years

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Malawi safaris – an overview

Malawi is a country that is visited for the remarkable variety of attractions it offers – beautiful beaches on Lake Malawi, genuine and friendly cultural interactions, stunning scenery and thrilling safaris. But, whilst travellers are now visiting and exploring Africa as a whole for more than just its animals, it is still true that safaris are the primary draw card for the continent. Thankfully for Malawi, it is the country’s wildlife and safari experiences that have seen the greatest advancements in recent years as it emerges as a rival to its better known neighbours as a safari gem. In this blog we aim to give an overview of taking a safari in Malawi.

Game viewing has long been a little different in Malawi from many other African countries. While the number of animal sightings has, for many years, been fewer than in the top parks on the continent, that situation is starting to change, and, in any event, visiting Malawi’s national parks and wildlife reserves is much more about the experience they offer than how full your tick list end up!

Landscape and wilderness are attractions alongside the animals, offering viewing and exploration at a more fundamental level and without the crowds of other visitors. No great convoys of minibuses queue to see the animals in contrived conditions in Malawi. Instead, small groups travel through the bush unsure of what lies behind the next patch of vegetation. And with a variety of ways to explore the parks (see below), no two safaris are alike.

The variety and beauty of Malawi’s diverse landscapes provide a perfect backdrop to game viewing. Laws protect the animals and also the environment, which remains as close to its natural state as possible. There are relatively few artificial waterholes and the parks are nothing like as ‘developed’ as some of their more illustrious neighbours. This means there are large areas of near wilderness unexplored by all but a few.

There is also the unique attraction of the Lake Malawi National Park – a protected area of Malawi’s beautiful inland sea where thousands of brightly coloured fish can be hand fed just below the surface of the crystal-clear waters. This was the world’s first freshwater national park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Viewing fish may not be a standard ‘African safari’, but it’s a fascinating one and certainly something different to try.

The 1920s saw the first gazetting of protected areas in Malawi, which has culminated in the nine national parks and wildlife reserves of today. The first true national park was Nyika, proclaimed as recently as 1965. The current statuses of all nine areas were settled by the beginning of the 1980s. Locations were not always chosen solely for their natural beauty or existing wildlife populations. For example, Kasungu was gazetted to evacuate people from where tsetse fly had caused a sleeping sickness epidemic! However, most of the national parks and wildlife reserves are strategically located as important rain catchment areas. This is particularly so for those on Malawi’s watershed western border. The maintenance of natural vegetation prevents the rainwater washing away too rapidly across cleared soils and causing further erosion.

Malawi’s protected areas are spread across the whole country: Nyika National Park and Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve are in north Malawi; Kasungu National Park and Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve are in central Malawi; whilst south Malawi has Liwonde and Lengwe National Parks, Majete and Mwabvi Wildlife Reserves, and the unique Lake Malawi National Park. Although originally the wildlife reserves had less protection, fewer management resources and more limited infrastructure for visitors than the national parks, that distinction is now much more blurred, particularly with the arrival of African Parks to Malawi. African Parks now manage Majete and Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserves and Liwonde National Park. The phenomenal input and resources they bring and the tremendous work they have already done on the infrastructures and animal populations has ensured that those 3 protected areas are now the country’s best – with an honourable mention also to Nyika for its truly unique offerings.

Malawi also has a number of forest reserves. These have limited wildlife protection but do provide welcome escapes in truly beautiful environments, and plenty of opportunity for walks in the wild.

Wildlife

For many decades, Malawi has been perceived as not having as many animals most of its neighbours. But, thankfully, with the arrival of African Parks and their re-introduction of a few thousand animals (now successfully multiplying!), that situation is fast changing.

Big cats used to be only very occasionally seen but both lion and cheetah have been re-introduced to Liwonde and Majete and are thriving in both locations. The thick bush of Nkohtakota makes sightings difficult, but lion are heard there, and there has even been a very recent sighting of one in Nyika. The leopard is found across almost the entire country. Its elusive lifestyle makes sighting difficult but up at Nyika there is a decent chance of spotting one of the large specimens that live in the forest nearby Chelinda Lodge. Of the smaller cats, civet is the most widespread though genet, serval and wild cat can also be seen.

Hyena are the most common of the other major predators and are present in all the protected land areas. Jackal also have populations in Malawi. Sightings of wild dog have been only very occasional in recent years – most likely animals that are just visiting Malawi from Zambia or Mozambique! But there are rumours of their re-introduction to Liwonde.

Although not always easy to spot, preferring to remain in the thick bush, there are healthy populations of black rhino now in Liwonde and Majete There are good elephant numbers in pretty much all the protected land areas except the low lying Lengwe and Mwabvi. Nkohotakota witnessed the largest elephant translocations in human history across 2016-2017 with over 500 individuals moved in to the reserve to set up an elephant sanctuary there. They came from Majete and Liwonde, both of whom had growing populations with more than enough to spare for Nkhotakota. Hippos are numerous in Malawi and are commonly seen the Shire River, which runs through Majete and Liwonde, where they number in the thousands. Crocodiles are also common in the Shire.

Buffalo are fairly common across the lower lying parks and reserves. Zebra are best seen in Nyika and Liwonde, with smaller numbers in some of the other reserves and giraffe have recently been re-introduced into Majete. Of the antelopes, bushbuck, grey duiker, kudu, grysbok, klipspringer and reedbuck are found in most of the protected areas. Roan and eland can also be seen, with particularly impressive breeding herds in Nyika. Liwonde is the most likely places to spot sable and waterbuck, with Majete now not far behind. Of the rarer species, the beautiful nyala can be seen in Majete and Lengwe. This is the furthest north of all nyala habitats in southern Africa.

Malawi has a fantastic variety of birds with around 650 recorded species spread across the different landscapes. They are primarily woodland or grassland varieties including Livingstone flycatcher, red-winged francolin and the endemic Lillian’s lovebird. However, the lake, rivers and dams also attract waterbirds such as hamerkop, fish eagle, kingfishers, egret and pelican. Raptors, like the African marsh harrier, black-breasted snake eagle and peregrine falcon, give further variety.

The majority of the estimated 1000 fish species in Lake Malawi are cichlids, mostly endemic to Malawi. The small brightly coloured mbuna are easily seen in the protected waters of Lake Malawi National Park.

For flower lovers, there is great diversity, including 400 orchid species. These are found at all altitudes around the country. There are also numerous everlasting flowers, proteas, aloes and gladioli plus reedbeds and waterlilies in the river lagoons. Nyika is known for its wildflowers and orchids.

Types of safari

Malawi offers a variety of ways to get up close and personal with its wildlife. Any safari is best taken in early morning or late afternoon when the greatest heat is avoided and the animals are most active.

Walking safaris are possible in all of the parks and reserves and potentially offer the most intense experience, giving a much greater sense of involvement than in a vehicle. Though most animals will sense people first, there is plenty of opportunity for close encounters. Even if large mammals aren’t encountered around every corner, there is a fascinating amount to see and interpret. It can also be possible to arrange to spend a few days walking and camping within a park or reserve.

Driving covers a much greater area than walking, increases the chances of sightings and is a necessity in the more open areas. Vehicles can draw the animals’ attention but, unless advancing towards them, will not scare them off. None of Malawi’s parks & reserves have tarmac roads and the tracks that do exists are better navigated by the drivers, guides and scouts from the lodges, who know the parks intimately.

Boat safaris can provide excellent viewing opportunities. As well as the crocodiles, hippos and riverine birds in or on the water, animals attracted to the river bank to drink are less wary of anything on the water. A sundowner cruise is a particular pleasure – the boat launches late in the day when the animals are active and the hippos are beginning to leave the water. After initial game viewing, the boat drifts and the occupants sip their personal tipple as the sun sets. Finally, a spotlight illuminates the night activity in the water and on the banks. In Liwonde and Majete, the Shire River is excellent for a boat safari, and the Bua River in Nkohtakota can be explored by canoe. In Lake Malawi National Park, there are plenty of boats that can take visitors out from Cape Maclear to view the fish.

For more sedate viewing, hides allow very close sightings of animals completely unaware of a human presence. Observing the comings and goings around a waterhole from a hidden, close-up vantage point, can be a very rich and rewarding experience.

Practicalities

Whilst a couple of the nine national parks and wildlife reserves can be time-consuming to reach from the Malawi’s international airports, none is inaccessible. All are accessed by a final short stretch of earth road. A number of them now also have airstrips. Whilst entry by aircraft remains rare (apart from at Nyika where it’s the better option), it is certainly possible and is increasingly being offered by private operators.

The Parks and reserves are open all year. Peak time for game viewing is August to October when vegetation is low and limited water forces animals to gather at the few remaining sources. This is also the best time for viewing the mbuna fish in Lake Malawi. The high heath and grasslands of Nyika Plateau, however, attract animals through the rains, having spent the dry season on the lower slopes.

Originally, basic, government run camps offered the only places to stay in Malawi’s Parks & Reserves. Granting of concessions to private operators began later than in many African countries and only by 1997 was the accommodation in (just) four of the nine parks and reserves in private hands. Standards have risen and properties have continued to upgrade to now include some truly sumptuous lodges, but in the last 20 years there has been limited growth in the actual number of lodges in the parks. Most still only have one or two places to stay within the entire park, so ensuring an inherent level of exclusivity for their visitors.

Kelly White is Director of the Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium. Malawi Travel Marketing Consortium aims to provide you with the best information to make Malawi your tourism destination.

If you would like to be a guest blogger on A Luxury Travel Blog in order to raise your profile, please contact us.

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