Below the fold is a description the nice communications lady at the CA Academy sent me…interesting stuff. By the way, if you haven’t been to the California Academy of Sciences you are missing out on one of the most state of the art museums in the world.

“At feeding time in the California Academy of Sciences’ vine snake exhibit, one blink and you might miss the action. These pencil-thin snakes hunt fish swimming in the water below, striking with lightning speed. We recently captured a feeding on film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1R6TIocCpY), and I thought you might be interested in sharing it with your blog readers. A piscivorous arboreal (fish-eating and tree-dwelling) snake is extremely rare, and the Academy was the first aquarium in the world to display this species, thanks to our ongoing research on the reptiles and amphibians of Myanmar. A contingent of Academy researchers just returned from Myanmar in November, and are gearing up to go again in April 2010- this time to the Tanintharyi Division. Here is some more background on that research and how we came to have this unique display:

Myanmar and its Southeast Asian neighbors have been designated as one of the world’s 34 biodiversity hotspots. As such, the country exerts an irresistible pull on Academy scientists. Over the course of 13 years and 24 expeditions to Myanmar (the most recent of which just returned in November 2009), researchers at the California Academy of Sciences have discovered and described 23 new species of reptiles & amphibians, with an additional 50 awaiting formal description. Along with data that aid conservation efforts, sometimes scientists come back with other surprises. During a 2000 expedition, the team collected a group of Burmese vine snakes (Ahaetulla fronticincta)–pencil-thin tree-dwelling snakes that mimic vines–and brought them back to the Academy’s Steinhart Aquarium with the goal of displaying them for the public.

So little was known about these snakes that when they first arrived, aquarium biologists were unsure what or how to feed them. As an experiment, they introduced guppies into the snakes’ holding tank. The snakes immediately took notice, slithering into position with gazes fixed on the water. When an unsuspecting guppy swam to within striking distance–bam! One of the snakes flung its head into the water and grabbed the prey in a single, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it motion. The biologists had figured out how to feed them. To date, the Academy is the only aquarium in the world to have this species on display. Visitors to the Academy can find the snakes in the Water Planet exhibit.

The Academy research team plans to return to the Tanintharyi Division of Myanmar in April 2010. As they continue to find and document species in this Southeast Asian country, Academy researchers are building a model of scientific discovery and conservation for biodiversity hotspots around the world. When they started in 1997, approximately 350 reptile and amphibian species were known in Myanmar. When all is done, they estimate that the final total will be close to 500–not bad for a country the size of Texas. By comparison, the entire continental United States has approximately 460 species of reptiles and amphibians.”

Don’t nobody go in there for thirty-five…forty-five minutes!

Since their discovery in the early Eighteen…ahem…hmmm…(sorry, we’re animal guys), the giant pitcher plants have been rumored to ingest not just bugs and worms as most carnivorous plants, but also small vertebrates. In the previously linked to article from bbc.com, however, Dr. Charles Clarke of Monash University in Selangor, Malaysia explains, “This species has always been famous for its ability to trap rodents, but I’ve been looking at the pitchers of this species on and off since 1987, and I’ve never seen a trapped rat inside.” Yeah, what’s up with that?

Dr. Clarke did notice all sorts of tree shrew feces in the bottom of the plants, leading him to reconsider the plant’s evolution. As it turns out, the plants have large openings, but they also have concave lids which are covered with nectar-producing glands. The distance between the front lip of the pitcher and the glands happens to correspond directly with the average size of the local tree shrews. In other words, when the shrews come to eat the nectar, the plants reap the sweet rewards of being pooped into. You can follow his research more closely by googling “eating animal feces.” Good luck with that!

Right now, my head is spinning with so many off color jokes on this subject that I may possibly have a nervous breakdown, but I’ll just leave it at this. Somewhere, right now, an obsessive carnivorous plant geek is seriously questioning his entire existence.

Can I please tell you all what a wonderful resource NVDH is? He is like an entire research department for Zooillogix. My man!

Great pic.

Thanks to NVDH for uncovering this one.

P.S. Isn’t it hilarious when you go to make a tag called “alcohol” for a piece on the blog, but that tag has already been created? Clearly we’ve covered this topic before.

Special thanks to Hydia Blobinson for forwarding this along!

First on my list: I have been looking for years for the best endangered species group to put my support behind. I think I’ve found it, WildAid. Do you know about them? If you live in Asia, then you have. If you live in the states, then maybe not. WildAid is, in my mind, the most badass endangered species preservation group in the world today. Started by wildlife investigators who were fed up with busting smuggling rings only to see the criminals walk free without prosecution, the group has evolved. Now not only do they work closely with governments to ensure bad guys are prosecuted for buying, selling, and moving endangered species animals and parts across borders, but they also have focused on quelling the demand for endangered species.

How, you ask? Only by securing over 180 million dollars of free media in Asia and enlisting some of Asia’s biggest celebrities to kindly remind their country-people that ingesting, say, ground up tiger penis is tantamount to killing a beautiful, endangered tiger yourself.

We have no idea what this billboard says, but obviously it is yielding results.

Wildaid is currently working hundreds of celebrities in the U.S., China, India, and other Asian countries. Jackie Chan is spearheading the tiger issue and Yao Ming (among others) is helping to stop the Chinese huge demand for shark fin soup. Here’s an English version of one of their…

…ads, airing nonstop in China as I write:

WildAid has such close ties with the Chinese government that they secured a thousand billboards in Beijing and Shanghai in high traffic areas for only $100 for three months. Right now you can donate $100 to WildAid and literally personally fund an anti-shark fin soup billboard with Yao Ming on it. Now that’s bang for your buck.

I have had the pleasure of collaborating with WildAid recently, as it is based in San Francisco. I suggest all of our readers who care about endangered animals to check out www.wildaid.org, and learn more (I highly recommend their Galapagos program for representing badassity). We will be featuring stories and interviews with WildAid’s founders in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned.

Big up to Ben Thorne for passing this along. And big up to his business, Sneaky’s BBQ, the best ribs and pulled pork in the Bay Area. Check them out at www.sneakysbbq.blogspot.com.

Random Fact #265: Due to the terms of his Federal plea bargain, Andrew is actually not allowed to watch this video!

Apparently, according to the paper recently published in PLoS ONE, about 70% of female short-nosed fruit bats engage in oral sex with their partners. Furthermore, “a positive relationship exists between the length of time that the female licked the male’s penis during copulation and the duration of copulation.” This may indicate that females who engage in fellatio may be, in fact, improving the likelihood of fertilization.

Just to recap the findings: All females, of any species, who engage in fellatio increase their genetic fitness. That will be all, thank you.

P.S. NVDH in da house.
P.P.S. We cannot WAIT to use Google Analytics to see what combination of words people entered into Google that led them to this post!

Um, excuse me. There isn’t any gelatin in this plant bud, is there?

Christopher Meehan of University of Arizona in Tucson studied the spiders (while at Villanova), also noting that they had to constantly keep a watchful eye out for the ant species that share the acacia habitat. The ants aggressively protect the plant from intruders in exchange for food and housing, and the spiders must hop from thorn to thorn to avoid them.

“It is utterly surreal,” Meehan said to National Geographic, “to see a spider use such effective hunting strategies to hunt a plant.”

It is also important to note that the spider does occasionally fall off the wagon and eat ant larvae.