Mara

An unknown rodent and a famous lioness

Today’s New York Times Spelling Bee letters:

A, I, L, O, R, T, and center M (all words must include M).

Merriam-Webster says…

Silly little dictionary! Don’t you know mara can’t possibly be a word if the New York Times says it ain’t?

For further fascinating facts, check out the Spelling Bee Master.

What’s your favorite dord* from today’s puzzle?

My Two Cents

Being that it’s Sunday, let’s relax and talk about two cute animals. Well, one cute animal and one ferocious animal that’s very cute when it’s a kitten. I mean, a cub.

Neither of which look like the illustration in the photo of today’s column. Clearly this John Doyle had never seen a lion nor a mouse, as he gave them creepypasta-like features. (In reality, he was lampooning Daniel O’Connell, an Irish political leader, and John Russell, twice prime minister of the UK.)

The illustration depicts a scene from Aesop’s fable The Lion and the Mouse, in which a lion discovers that crushing but not killing weaker creatures like a mouse might serve an ulterior purpose. Hmmm, looks like Aesop foresaw the rise of laissez-faire capitalism millenniums before it happened.

Anyway, here’s a much cuter illustration of the story:

Not cute enough? Well, at the end of the article, I’ll have a little reward for you. But promise you’ll scroll down slowly.

Mara the rodent

Maras are the fourth largest rodents on the planet, surpassed only by (1) capybaras, (2) beavers, and (3) porcupines. Yes! Everyone — including me — always forgets that porcupines are simply badass mice on steroids that are armed with quills.

Maras are usually found roaming the steppes of Argentina, the thorny forests of Paraguay, or the grasslands of Bolivia. There are two species, the Patagonian and the Chacoan mara, with the former being taller and more popular. (I guess that doesn’t just happen with U.S. presidential candidates.)

Maras have stocky bodies, three sharp-clawed digits on the hind feet, and four digits of the fore feet. They have been described as resembling jackrabbits. But rabbits and hares are not rodents. Yes, we keep forgetting that, too.

Personally, I think the Patagonian mara looks like a shrunken kangaroo, while the Chacoan mara seems like the kid Bambi and Thumper might have had if they’d hooked up. (Hey, it’s an animated film and I say those two could have certainly figured out a way to have kids.)

What’s interesting about maras is that they are monogamous and mate for life. That sounds wonderfully romantic until you learn that during courtship the males pee on the females and then mark the ground around them with poop. I guess they never heard of something as simple as dinner and a movie.

The females do get to lead after that, though, with the males following around wherever their partners choose to go. Sort of like what you see at malls all across the United States during the holiday season.

Mara couples live in communities called crèches, in which adults take turns supervising the youngsters of the entire group. Females may also nurse the young of other another mara.

Finally, to offset all this overwhelming cuteness, here’s another fact: the anal glands of the mara are located between the anus and the base of the tail. I’m letting you know this so you can easily distinguish them from guinea pigs, whose anal glands are in front of the anus.

And if there’s any take-away from this article, that key piece of information should be it.

Mara the lioness

Mara the lioness was an actress. She was well-known for her portrayal of a famous mara.

Just kidding. And, checking to see if you were paying attention.

Of course she portrayed another lioness. What else was she gonna do? Lions in Hollywood don’t get too many meaty roles (bad pun intended).

A bit of background. In 1956, a couple named George and Joy Adamson, who lived in Kenya, adopted a female lion cub they named Elsa. George was a safari hunter turned conservationist who shot Elsa’s mother when she charged him. She was defending Elsa and her sisters, a fact George only realized after killing their mother.

Distraught, he and his wife, an artist and author, raised Elsa and her sisters Big One and Lustica. These two were eventually sent to a zoo, leaving Elsa to be raised by her human parents. Joy Adamson was determined to teach her lioness how to fend for herself in the wild so she could be released again. Joy succeeded, earning herself, her husband, and Elsa international fame. The lioness occasionally returned to check on her human parents, even bringing her cubs to meet them one time.

Fame begets best-seller books and hit movies, and that’s what happened. Born Free was published in 1960, and the movie by the same name came out in 1966, winning two Oscars and a Golden Globe, one each for the theme song named… wait for it… “Born Free”. What a creative and original title!

Anyway, when the casting couch… I mean, casting crew, were looking for a lioness to play Elsa, they stumbled upon Mara, who had been abandoned as a cub in Kenya and raised by Irena Grindlay and her husband. They immediately cast her as Elsa. Mara. They cast Mara, not Irena. Stay with me here…

Although Mara was a full-grown badass lioness, she was described as “placid and easily directed” by the entire movie team. She was sweet, obedient, relaxed, and didn’t mind doing take after take for an entire day. In short, a Hollywood director’s dream. Unlike, say, a certain actor known for flipping out on the set.

You tell me. Who might be more of a pleasure to work with?

In a bad case of the “metas”, a movie called The Lions are Free was then made about the lions who acted in Born Free. No word on whether a film about the actors of The Lions are Free was later made, and if after that a movie about the film about the actors of The Lions are Free was made, and if… you get the idea.

Unlike Elsa, Mara was not released into the wild, instead being relocated to Whipsnade Park in England. It was there that she lived for many years and did not contract babeosis, unlike Elsa, who died from it in the wild.

Other Maras

Mara is also a proper noun. Here are a few examples:

▹ The Mara people refers to a native ethnic group in northeastern India and in Myanmar.

▹ Mara is the name of several characters in the fictional worlds of Dr. Who, Star Wars, She-Ra, and The Shield; Mara of the Celts was a character created by writer and illustrator Justine Mara Andersen.

▹ Mara is the name of the Hindu goddess of death and also the name of a Buddhist demon. Also, Scandinavian, Slavic, and Latvian folklore have beings called Mara.

▹ Mara is the owner of a fabulous Cajun restaurant on Long Island; if you are ever in the area, check it out. They fly their produce fresh from the Louisiana Gulf. I highly recommend the char-grilled oysters.

▹ In Spanish, marabunta is slang for “riffraff” or “tumultuous crowd” in some Central American countries. It’s possible that term might have been shortened to mara when used in reference to gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha that (contrary to popular belief) originated in the U.S. and then spread to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Although we’ve discussed many Maras with a capital M today, there is still a legitimate and very cute mara with a lowercase m that could definitely have been included in today’s Spelling Bee .

But the editors of the puzzle decided that mara is a dord.*

And here, as promised, is your reward. Terrytoons’ 1943 The Lion and the Mouse, featuring an appearance by Super Mouse, an early version of the famous Might Mouse cartoon character.

Please check out my previous entry on another dord*:

*What the heck is a dord, you ask? Here’s the answer: