Michigan Football: Do Wolverines Beat Bearcats?
By Peter Arango
When Michigan football takes the field against Cincinnati, you’ll see two intriguing mascots squaring off in the wolverine and bearcat.
I’m not saying that hearts are not pounding, blood not pumping, limbs not twitching in anticipation of the game against Cincinnati on Saturday. I’m pretty sure that Jim Harbaugh, routinely identified as one of the most relentlessly purposeful coaches in college football, may not even be the most intense coach in the Michigan coaching lineup, so I doubt there’s horseplay and hacky sack going on in the locker room.
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But, it must be noted, that we who love to dwell on every aspect of game prep have diced the Cincinnati program about as fine as we can, leaving us with only one remaining point of real controversy.
Who wins in a battle royale between a wolverine and a bearcat?
Ooooh! Bearcat! Sounds daunting. Part bear, part wildcat. The result of some crazed Dr. Moreau splicing the most terrifying bits of one creature to the most dangerous bits of another, perhaps, a franken-mascot, capable of mayhem on a grand scale.
No need to spend much time puffing up the wolverine; its reputation is secure. Here’s the standard description from Wikipedia:
“The wolverine (/ˈwʊlvəriːn/), Gulo gulo (Gulo is Latin for “glutton”), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, skunk bear, or quickhatch, is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a stocky and muscular carnivore, more closely resembling a small bear than other mustelids. The wolverine, a solitary animal, has a reputation for ferocity and strength out of proportion to its size, with the documented ability to kill prey many times larger than itself.”
Many, many times larger than itself. Can it eat a badger? Can it drink a Boilermaker?
Yes, it can.
The bearcat, on the other hand, has but one noteworthy characteristic: It smells like buttered popcorn.
Here’s how AOL News describes the bearcat, responding one guesses to the question, “Is the bearcat a real animal, or just a bad idea?”
“Meet the bearcat (also called the binturong), a small, shy, bushy-tailed mammal … that also happens to smell exactly like buttered popcorn. People who’ve spent time around these little critters have likely noticed their familiar odor, but a new study published last week nails down exactly why bearcats smell so much like they hang out in movie theater lobbies.”
It turns out that “the chemical compound that gives freshly made popcorn its mouthwatering smell is also the major aroma emitted by binturong pee,” according to a release from Duke University. “That’s right: The smell doesn’t come from the bearcat’s scent glands, as previously suspected; it comes from urine. Hot, buttered popcorn urine.”
It’s been-too-wrong to send this shy creature into combat as the bearcat in the wild spends its days sleeping in trees and its nights grooming itself in trees. The grooming, we are informed, consists of much licking and shaking. Lots of shaking.
As might be expected, the bearcat is a tasty treat for leopards and other predators, and when attacked assumes a mode of defensive we hope not to see in the pristine and hallowed Big House.
According to experts, “The species is normally quite shy, but aggressive when harassed. It is reported to initially urinate or defecate on a threat …”
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One more reason to pay attention to the sideline as Michigan meets Cincinnati Saturday afternoon.