zooillogix
Posts by this author
July 24, 2008
WTF! National Geographic via the inimitable Ugly Overload:
July 24, 2008
After becoming entangled in a fishing net off the coast of Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefrecture in Japan, a wounded and exhausted young dolphin was taken to Umitamago Aquarium, also known as Oita Marine Palace Aquarium. The dolphin did not have the energy to keep itself afloat and after a couple of days…
July 23, 2008
After some torrential rain in Pinellas County, Fla, residents were treated to some friendly neighborhood walking catfish. Once again, this was sent to us by Kevin Zelnio who runs an online Viagra store or some such. Interestingly, the link he sent us was from a recent local news broadcast, but a…
July 21, 2008
I rarely divulge details of my personal life on Zooillogix because, frankly, I am quite a catch and I didn't want female readers leaving their husbands. On July 12th however, I (Andrew - the older and wiser one who still has both hands) got married. I tell you this because something horrible…
July 21, 2008
In a sure sign that Kruger National Park in South Africa is angling to be the World Wrestling Federation of game reserves, yet another unlikely and brutal animal match-up has been caught on film. In this series of photos, a leopard ambushes a crocodile. A protracted struggle ensues but it's pretty…
July 21, 2008
Two doozies in a row brought to you today by our good friend Kevin Zelnio of Deep Sea News and The Other 95%. The first is this awesomeness:
Amazing video of a giant freshwater stingray caught in Thailand and covered as part of National Geographic's Megafishes Project. This specimen measured 14ft…
July 7, 2008
StickyBot is a robot designed by researchers at Stanford Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab as part of the Robots in Scansorial Environments project (RiSE). The robotic gecko tests their hypotheses about the "requirements for mobility on vertical surfaces using dry adhesion. The main point…
July 6, 2008
Via the awesome i&o blog, we bring you Cinders, a pig with mysphobia - a fear of dirt. The porker's owners, Debbie and Andrew Keeble, pig farmers and sausage makers in North Yorkshire England, had never seen anything like it. The tiny piglet would cower and shake in the grass at the edge of…
July 2, 2008
Researchers from Oklahoma State University have discovered the shortest living tetrapod (four limbed vertebrate) to date. The hard-livin' Labord's Chameleon spends 8-9 months incubating within the egg, only to hatch and die 4-5 months later. Published in the July issue of the Proceedings of the…
June 30, 2008
Tarsiers are prosimian primates, sharing their primitive grouping with lemurs, bushbabies and the aye-aye. However, due to numerous similarities to ancestral monkeys, apes and humans, there is some disagreement as to whether tarsiers should be grouped with the other prosimians in the Suborder…
June 27, 2008
A not at all exhaustive collection of cool bizarro aquariums.
Modular fish tank
Toilet tank. Kind of like fish purgatory.
The Fish-Bird Tank-Cage
many more below the fold...
Sink tank
The sophisticated ichthyologist's sitting room
A concept piece by a Japanese architectural firm
More of the…
June 23, 2008
No one quite knows when the Light Brown Apple Moth arrived on the shores of California, but after DNA identification in 2007, it wasted no time pitting the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the populace of San Francisco against one another. Today the CDFA announced a new strategy…
June 19, 2008
New Mexico is phenomenally weird and the Century Plant is a prime example. Thanks to S. Smith for taking this pic and sending it along, even if it ain't an animal.
From Wikipedia: The Century Plant or Maguey (Agave americana) is an agave originally from Mexico but cultivated worldwide.
It has a…
June 15, 2008
Spent the day at the Brookfield Zoo and was lucky enough to catch a resident polar bear inventing games for himself and doubly lucky my fiancee brought a video cam.
Polar Bear Takes a Dive
Polar Bear Tossing Around His Toy
More below the fold
Polar Bear Balances Toy on Nose and Paw
June 15, 2008
The world's largest zoo and aquarium shot glass collection just got one glass bigger. Someone call the Guinness Book! Growing up in Connecticut, The Mystic Aquarium was basically Benny and my Disney World. Special thanks to Eric Heupel of the awesome invertebrate blog, The Other 95%, for the…
June 13, 2008
"Toad licking" has been well documented around the world with secretions from many species causing intense hallucinations. In this 2006 NPR podcast, they tell the story of a poor cocker spaniel who became addicted to toad. "We noticed Lady (the cocker) spending an awful lot of time down by the pond…
June 11, 2008
This calf was born yesterday to Qila, who herself was born at the Vancouver Aquarium 12 years ago.
Special thanks to Vancouver Aquarium employee Keey Prior for bringing this to our attention.
June 11, 2008
This Roe Deer was born in captivity at the research center of the Center of Natural Sciences just outside of Prato, Italy. With a single horn protruding from the center of its skull, Italian scientists believe that the animal either suffers from a unique genetic mutation or that it is a clear sign…
June 9, 2008
Time once again for some of Igor Siwanowicz's spectacular insect photography. We've brought you his mantis photos in the past (#1 , #2, and #3) so we decided to switch it up and take a look at some of his moths. Unfortunately Igor doesn't tell us which species we are looking at, but maybe some of…
June 5, 2008
Many people collect baseball cards, stamps, coins, comic books, rocks, fossils or nutcrackers. I believe I have opened up a whole new field of nerd-dom with my zoo and aquarium shot glass collection. Given that it is the only zoo and aquarium shot glass collection I know of, I have also decided it…
June 4, 2008
A fascinating article in Livescience reveals the answer to a century-old zoological mystery: what do y-larvae grow up to become? Discovered in 1899, y-larvae are clearly young crustaceans but their adult stage could not be determined. While this in itself was perplexing, the newly discovered answer…
June 4, 2008
When Benny and I were little, we used to bait a large Havahart trap and leave it in the backyard overnight. We caught squirrels, possums and raccoons. Half the fun was the surprise of what might be inside when we woke up the next day. The game ended the morning we discovered we had caught a skunk…
June 3, 2008
In 2006 two eager shell collectors hauled in some small but strangely shaped mollusks in deep water off Key West, Florida. Like the good animal nerds they were, they brought their findings to a shell collectors convention in Mobile, Alabama where the Director of the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum on…
May 28, 2008
As many of our readers know, Benny and I love sloths. Recently a Zooillogix reader, Jennifer Lapsker, traveled to Costa Rica for a sloth-filled vacation. During her adventure, she was kind enough to pick up a book from the Sloth Sanctuary entitled "THEY ARE NOT BEARS AND THEY ARE NOT LAZY!" While…
May 28, 2008
The commercial that inspired Ben and me to be English majors.
Thanks to Peter Angelastro for unearthing this gem.
May 22, 2008
Via a circuitous route, prompted by a friend of Zooillogix, Tweet Gainsborough-waring, I found myself looking at the picture below.
This otherworldly Australian earthworm, Terriswalkeris terraereginae, not only looks likes delicious candy, but the mucin it releases is luminescent, and it grows up…
May 12, 2008
When our mother upped and moved to New Mexico a few years back, my brother and I were thrilled to be spending holidays in such a rugged, wild, and frankly, weird place. She lives only a couple of miles from the center of Albuquerque, but regular backyard visitors include coyotes, black bears and…
May 5, 2008
Documentary on "new obscure insects" by Floris Kaayk. Was first shown at Paradise by the Laptop Light in 2005. While fascinating, a world infested with these guys would pretty much suck.
Thanks to Maria Haanpaa for forwarding along.
May 1, 2008
As reported in the May 2008 Journal of Ethology, researchers in the sub-antarctic Indian Ocean on Marion Island, recently observed some fascinating and disturbing behavior. A young adult Antarctic fur seal was witnessed forcing itself upon an adult king penguin for upwards of 45 minutes. While…