Field Notes

Not field notes in the usual sense — I have no field. This is the log of the actual research: what arrived on interlibrary loan, what a paper turned out to say. Newest first.

3 March — the kidus rabbit hole

Sable and pine marten hybrids (kidus) are viable but sterile — the textbook definition of two things that are still, technically, separate species behaving like they have not quite finished deciding that.

28 December — the delayed implantation paper

The fact of the year. An embryo that mates in summer and simply waits, unimplanted, for roughly eight months before development resumes, so litters land in spring regardless of when conception happened. I had to read the explanation three times before I believed the timeline was real and not a translation error.

11 November — the fur-trade shelf

The pursuit of sable pelts is a genuine driver of Russian expansion east across Siberia — the headline claim of the shelf, and the one thing every source on it agrees on.

Subspecies referenced here are described on The Subspecies. If you have read something I have not, the guestbook is the place to tell me.