Mesoamerican Fauna and Flora

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Looking to make an "Oaxaca" skirmish map and realized we have no jaguars and parrots and other animals and plants indigenous to Central America.

Perhaps a new mod can be made so that gameplay and faction mods like Terra Magna and Delenda Est, Millennium AD (if they include Mayans, Aztecs, et al.), can make it a dependency. 

I'll make a list and you can add to it or criticize it.

Fauna

Jaguar

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Jaguar
• Can have a black variant at 1 out of 20. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Jaguar#/Colour_variation

Coyote

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Coyote#/Range

Turkey

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Turkey_(bird)
• Dometic, trainable at corral; capturable in the wild

Xoloitzcuintli (aka Hairless Dog)

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Mexican_Hairless_Dog

Paca

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Lowland_paca

Armadillo

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Armadillo

Macaw

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Macaw

Tapir

• https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Baird's_tapir

Edited August 27, 2018 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Guest]

Sorry for being offtopic, but this is somewhat related.

How likely it is that the fauna and flora from these mods be commited to vanilla? Not all obviously, just generic things like bamboos etc.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Guest

[Lion.Kanzen]

The Macaw of Central America is this. I tell before pacific have more arid kind of land.

 

 

Don't forget this deer is in the all regions of American continent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_

Spoiler

Some subspecies names, ordered alphabetically:^[5][6]

 

• O. v. acapulcensis – Acapulco white-tailed deer (southern Mexico)
• O. v. borealis – northern white-tailed deer (the largest and darkest of the white-tailed deer)
• O. v. carminis – Carmen Mountains white-tailed deer (Texas-Mexico border)
• O. v. clavium – Key deer or Florida Keys white-tailed deer (the smallest North American subspecies, found in the lower Florida Keys; an example of insular dwarfism)
• O. v. chiriquensis – Chiriqui white-tailed deer (Panama)
• O. v. couesi – Coues' white-tailed deer, Arizona white-tailed deer, or fantail deer
• O. v. dakotensis – Dakota white-tailed deer or northern plains white-tailed deer (most northerly distribution, rivals the northern white-tailed deer in size)
• O. v. hiltonensis – Hilton Head Island white-tailed deer
• O. v. idahoensis – white-tailed deer (western Canada, Idaho, eastern Washington)^[7]
• O. v. leucurus – Columbian white-tailed deer (Oregon and western coastal area)
• O. v. macrourus – Kansas white-tailed deer
• O. v. mcilhennyi – Avery Island white-tailed deer
• O. v. mexicanus – Mexican white-tailed deer (central Mexico)
• O. v. miquihuanensis – Miquihuan white-tailed deer (central Mexico)
• O. v. nelsoni – Chiapas white-tailed deer (southern Mexico and Guatemala)
• O. v. nigribarbis – Blackbeard Island white-tailed deer
• O. v. oaxacensis – Oaxaca white-tailed deer (southern Mexico)
• O. v. ochrourus – northwestern white-tailed deer or northern Rocky Mountains white-tailed deer
• O. v. osceola – Florida coastal white-tailed deer
• O. v. rothschildi – Coiba Island white-tailed deer
• O. v. seminolus – Florida white-tailed deer
• O. v. sinaloae – Sinaloa white-tailed deer (midwestern Mexico)
• O. v. taurinsulae – Bulls Island white-tailed deer (Bulls Island, South Carolina)
• O. v. texanus – Texas white-tailed deer
• O. v. thomasi – Mexican lowland white-tailed deer
• O. v. toltecus – rain forest white-tailed deer (southern Mexico)
• O. v. truei – Central American white-tailed deer (Costa Rica, Nicaragua and adjacent states)
• O. v. venatorius – Hunting Island white-tailed deer (Hunting Island, South Carolina)
• O. v. veraecrucis – northern Veracruz white-tailed deer
• O. v. virginianus – Virginia white-tailed deer or southern white-tailed deer
• O. v. yucatanensis – Yucatán white-tailed deer

This most important for Mayans.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resplendent_quetzal

[Lion.Kanzen]

This fits better for Oaxaca.

Oaxaca is less Jungle-kind.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

15 minutes ago, (-_-) said:

How likely it is that the fauna and flora from these mods be commited to vanilla? Not all obviously, just generic things like bamboos etc.

I can imagine eventually they could be included, like many of the civs/factions being worked on in the various mods. The bamboos from TM need work though.

[LordGood]

brush flora/cacti are easy to make quickly, how does the TM bamboo look?

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 minute ago, LordGood said:

brush flora/cacti are easy to make quickly, how does the TM bamboo look?

 

The bamboo could use better geometry and look less "reedy" imo. The bamboo in Age of Empires III looks a lot better. I'll see if I can get some screenshot.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 minutes ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Oaxaca is less Jungle-kind.

 

So, Oaxaca has a kind of mixed semi-arid highlands biome? Looks even slightly Mediterranean. 

[Lion.Kanzen]

The weather of Oaxaca is semi-dry

[Lion.Kanzen]

If you compare with Mayan territory to the west-Caribbean.

 

 

Is important know the factor of this variety,

The mountains 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Lion.Kanzen

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

@Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

Just now, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

@Lion.Kanzen

 less arid.

I think less Texas but isn't the Amazonia.

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Looks mostly in high ground.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

35 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:



Need this shrub/tree/cactus thing in the bottom right.

[LordGood]

thats a stenocerus with lots of branches lol

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

2 minutes ago, LordGood said:

thats a stenocerus with lots of branches lol

Awesome. Can use the same texture already in TM.  

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

Selva húmeda: tapir, salamanquesa, puerco espín tropical, nauyaca y cecilia oaxaqueña. Selva seca: musaraña, armadillo, mapache, urraca, calandria, colibrí y chachalaca. Bosque: ardilla voladora, lince, conejo, puma, murciélago, culebra, tlaconete, víbora de cascabel, búho, gavilán y venado cola blanca. En la costa: garza, águila, iguana y cocodrilo. Animales en peligro de extinción: jaguar, mono aullador, ocelote, tigrillo y tortuga caguama.

The official site of Government of that state(mexico are made by states like USA) .

They have Wet jungle: Tapirs. the others are very tiny animals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapir

In the Dry jungle they have: Armadillo 

Raccoon

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiscalus_mexicanus

Urraca (but not Eurasian) in my country is very common bird called Zanate.

---

I'm not sure if you want include Aspid kind.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothrops_asper

Spoiler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chachalaca

Lynx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncilla

Tigrillo (Little tigre) Oncilla in English.

 

 

Obviously  the Jaguar.(two variants)

Edited August 27, 2018 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

The sharp-shinned hawk (Gavilán  in Spanish)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp-shinned_hawk

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Any domesticated animals? 

[Lion.Kanzen]

https://soar.wichita.edu/bitstream/handle/10057/1824/LAJ 21_p42-54.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

http://tlmorganfield.com/food-mesoamerica-domesticated-food-animals/

Quote

The turkey is one of two large domesticated birds found in the Americas, and it’s domestication dates back to about 200 BCE. As a food animal, it’s importance is unparallelled; it is said that in the market in Tenochtitlan, over 18,000 birds were sold every five days. Turkeys were important in all sorts of rituals for the Maya, from medicine, to planting, to calling for rain. The turkey was an instant hit with Europeans, and soon took the place of peacock as a choice meat at feasts for the nobility back in Europe. The meat was roasted, baked, or boiled in soup, cooked into tamales or baked in casseroles. Turkeys were among the offerings sent to Cortes and his men by natives to test what kind of beings these strange pale-skinned men were; the stories go that slaves were sent as well, to see which ones the Spaniards would eat; if they ate the turkeys, they must be humans, but if they ate the slaves…then they must be fierce, bloodthirsty gods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscovy_

Quote

Known today as the “Barbary Duck” in recipes, the Muscovy is the second large domesticated bird of the Americas. Little is known of how they were kept and raised, and they seemed to have been consumed primarily in Central America. Interestingly, chickens were found in Peru prior to the Europeans’ arrival, and had been there long enough for them to become an important economic item to the Inca. It’s theorized that these New World chickens came from contact with the Polynesian Islands. As of yet there is no evidence of chickens in Central America though.

Quote

The Dog(Xoloitzcuintle)

In his letters to Charles V, Cortes called these hairless dogs “Quite tasty.”

Dogs weren’t kept as pets in Mesoamerica; instead, they were bred as a food source and raising such animals was a lucrative business. The dogs fattened for the dinner plate were a hairless variety related to the modern Xoloitzcuintle (not the Chihuahua), and after the Conquest, the breed nearly disappeared due to the Spanish pickling them in high quantities as food for their sailors. These dogs were thought to be particularly tasty because they were never fed meat, only a steady diet of maize mush or avacados.

I'm not fan of eat pets. lol. is similar to Egyptian cat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigona

I'm not sure if Zapotecs use bees.

Quote

Beekeeping was a very important trade among the Maya, though archeological evidence shows that even the ancient Toltecs practiced beekeeping, in logs they hung from the roofs of their houses. Indigenous species of stingless bees produced large quantities of honey not only for local use, but for export across Central America. The honey was used primarily as a sweetener of atolli, or was made by the Maya into the alcoholic ritual beverage Balché.

Next time, we’ll take a look at the wild game that rounded out the meat sources of the Mesoamerican diet.

 

[Guest]

Come to think of it, we dont have any kind of snakes in none of the mods nor vanilla. Could be interesting, especially if the area depicted is a jungle. Nothing says “jungle” like snakes.

[LordGood]

the area depicted is not jungle, but there are pockets of diamondback rattlesnakes in Oaxaca, i believe

[Lion.Kanzen]

Quote

What are domestic animals? The term is very vague especially if you’re talking about Meso-America. If you mean animals of burden, they had none, but there are other animals

What they had for food, ritual sacrifice & companions (if they were pets, they were never used as food.) dogs & turkeys.

The dogs that they had are the Chihuahuas (debated to be techichi) & Mexican Hairless (Xoloitzcuintli). There was people who breed them to have select qualities. It’s a debate whether the ones as pets were breeded differently than the ones that were eaten other than the ones that would be eaten were fatten.
 

Quote

In recent times, there are findings of dog/wolf/coyote hybrids in Teotihuacan.

Coydogs were deliberately bred in Pre-Columbian Mexico, where coyotes were held in high regard. In the city of Teotihuacan, it was common practice to crossbreed coyotes and Mexican gray wolves with dogs in order to breed resistant, loyal but temperamental, and good guardians.^[5]Northern Canada's Aboriginal populations were mating coyotes and wolves to their sled dogs in order to produce more resilient animals as late as the early 20th century.^[

Quote

Turkeys were first domesticated by the Maya. The turkeys that we eat today are descendants of the turkeys from the Aztecs. Turkeys back then were smaller than the turkeys of today.

For animals they were and continued to be used for other things like cochineal & stingless bees. Though they may not seem much or out of the ordinary when thinking of domestic animals. For example the stingless honey bees where in some Mayan families, they are heirlooms, were are passed down to one generation to another.

Cochineal were used by the Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec & Nahua. They became very popular in Europe since at the time was the first time Europeans have seen a red color so bright. During the colonial times, it became the second most valuable export (Silver being number 1). The British would use it to dye their red coats red. After Mexican independence, the dye became invaluable after alizarin crimson was discovered. It almost disappeared in the 20th century. Luckily, today, we eat this bug since it's in some red dyes in foods (it will be labeled as "cochineal extract", "carmine", "crimson lake", "natural red 4", "C.I. 75470", "E120", and at times "natural colouring") along with clothing that say that they use organic red dyes on their clothing.

Stingless bees were the only bees that were domesticated in the Americas. They were first domesticated by the Maya. Back in the ancient days, they were sacred. They provided honey. The honey was also a key ingredient in the alcoholic drink balche. Their wax was used for jewelry and ornaments in the lost-wax casting technique. Though they don’t sting, they still bite. The stingless bees are now endangered since they do not produce as much honey as the Africanized bees (hybrid of European/African bees) and a majority of those who are traditional bee keepers to the stingless bees, are mostly elderly and are dying.

Quote

The carmine dye was used in Central America in the 15th century for coloring fabrics and became an important export good during the colonial period. After synthetic pigments and dyes such as alizarin were invented in the late 19th century, natural-dye production gradually diminished. Health fears over artificial food additives, however, have renewed the popularity of cochineal dyes, and the increased demand has made cultivation of the insect profitable again,^[1] with Peru being the largest exporter. Some towns in the Mexican state of Oaxaca are still working in handmade textiles using this cochineal

Cochinilla in our Spanish almost known Puerquito de Tierra.

Quote

Speaking of dogs --there's an interesting debate about whether the Chihuahua or the Chihuahua family is either Asian in origin, or from the Americas.

I was searching, a few months ago, why the Chinese Crested dog looked very similar to the Xoloitzcuintli (Mexican Hairless). People have debated whether the dogs were brought from the Americas to China, during its' early civilization; however, others believe The Xolo's were domesticated here, brought by Spaniards or something --I don't recall correctly.
 

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

5 minutes ago, (-_-) said:

Come to think of it, we dont have any kind of snakes in none of the mods nor vanilla. Could be interesting, especially if the area depicted is a jungle. Nothing says “jungle” like snakes.

The Greek have Aspid.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipera_aspis

Spain have some arid terrain.

Spoiler

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Yucatan Peninsula biomes .

Quote

 

The Maya lowlands are where the Classic Maya civilization arose. An extensive area including almost some 250,000 square kilometers, the Maya lowlands are located in the northern part of Central America, in the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala and Belize below approximately 800 meters above sea level. There is little exposed surface water: what there is can be found in lakes in the Peten, swamps and cenotes, natural sinkholes created by the Chicxulub crater impact. But the area receives tropical rainfall in its rainy season (May—January), from 20 inches a year in the southern part to a whopping 147 inches in the northern Yucatan.

 

The area is characterized by shallow or waterlogged soils, and was once covered in dense tropical forests. The forests harbored a range of animals, including two kinds of deer, peccary, tapir, jaguar, and several species of monkeys.

 

The lowland Maya grew avocado, beans, chili peppers, squash, cacao and maize, and raised turkeys.

 

Sites in the Maya Lowlands

• Mexico: Dzibilchaltun, Mayapan, Uxmal, Tulum, Ek Balam, Labna, Calakmul, Palenque, Yaxchilan, Bonampak, Coba
• Belize: Altun Ha, Pulltrouser Swamp, Xunantunich, Lamanai
• Guatemala: El Mirador, Piedras Negras, Nakbe, Tikal, Ceibal

Uxmal

Palenque

Flora

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove

Quote

Ecologically, the northern Yucatan is an island, not a peninsula. On the east, north and west sides it is isolated by ocean, and in the south it is isolated from the rest of Mexico by greater rainfall and more luxurious forest than found in northern Yucatan.

http://www.backyardnature.net/yucatan/vegetatn.htm

Most important tree is ceiba, is very prominent and sacred for Mayans

Is important because you can found on all north of central America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiba

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiba_pentandra

Guanacaste or Ear of Elephant Tree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterolobium_cyclocarpum

 

No less important.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manilkara_zapota

Chaya. or Tree Spinach

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidoscolus_aconitifolius

Benuco de Agua

You can drink water from this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitis_tiliifolia

Fauna

Quote

Selva húmeda: faisán, loro, guacamaya, colibrí, zenzontle, cardenal, ruiseñor, tejón, martucha, zorrillo, pecarí, mapache, serpiente y nutria. En el manglar: flamingo, pato, golondrina y lagarto. En matorral: víbora de cascabel. En ambientes acuáticos: tortuga blanca, caguama, mero, rubia, caracol, pulpo, delfín, langosta, tiburón, pargo y huachinango. En los bosques: murciélagos zapotero y dos líneas, pájaro Toh, halcón, codorniz, chachalaca, boa ratonera, rana y sapo. Animales en peligro de extinción: armadillo, puerco espín, manatí, mono araña, saraguato negro, tortuga carey y oso hormiguero.

http://cuentame.inegi.org.mx/monografias/informacion/yuc/territorio/recursos_naturales.aspx?tema=me&e=31

Source is government of  Mexico page. not extended info. basic.

Ocellated Turkey

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocellated_turkey

Guara, Guacamaya Roja.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_macaw

American Flamingo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_flamingo

Coati

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasua

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-nosed_coati

This guy is very big, its called Zariguella o Guazalo 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opossum

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didelphimorphia

Spider monkey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_monkey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howler_monkey

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_dolphin

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_shark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawksbill_sea_turtle

Edited August 27, 2018 by Lion.Kanzen