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zooillogix | July 27, 2007Zooillogix has been invited to join ScienceBlogs and we have decided to take them up on the offer. ScienceBlogs is a unique community of science related blogs that run the gamut from highly informed and technical to... errr.... us.
What this means for you the reader (e.g. the bored desk slave, bored 12 year old boy or renowned zoologist doing research on your next paper):
The Content Won't Change: You can expect the same fascinating stories and questionable attempts at humorTechnical Difficulties: There may be a short "outage" period of a day or two, during which time you will be forced to…
zooillogix | July 27, 2007Harvard professor Robert Wood unveiled his newest creation recently, a robotic fly that can be used as a spy, according to this posting on engadget.com. The fly weighs only .002 ounces and has a wingspan of 1.18 inches. Due to light weight carbon joints, the fly's wings beat 110 times per minute and the creature mimics the exact movements of a real fly. Funded, obvi, by the generous folks at the U.S. Defense Department, the little robo-pest has myriad possible uses like surveillance and monitoring the air for chemical agents. Wood plans to install a battery and a remote controlling device to…
zooillogix | April 20, 2007Chinese scientists have made a remote controlled pigeon. By planting micro electrodes in the pigeon's brain, the scientists can make the bird fly up, down, left or right."I'm looking for a boy named John Conner. Have you seen him?"
Chief scientist Su Xuecheng explains, ""The implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon's brain according to electronic signals sent by the scientists via computer, mirroring natural signals generated by the brain."
Whether or not the pigeon is going to defend the city of Detroit from a gang of criminal masterminds, who are headquartered in a toxic waste dump…
zooillogix | April 19, 2007Bear with us on this one...it might get a little complicated:
Wasps from the genus Copidosoma lay two eggs into a host egg (for example a moth or butterfly egg). One of these two eggs is male and one is female. The male and female larvae then begin multiplying--much like single celled organisms--into a thousand copies of themselves inside the egg. Thus the female "sisters" are more closely related to each other than they are to their brothers, and vice versa. The host egg, however, can only accommodate about half of the thousands of larvae now writhing around within it.Congratulations! It's…
zooillogix | April 18, 2007A small pod of narwhals, Monodon MonocerosFor centuries, humans have speculated on narwhals' bizarre horns, believing them to be everything from supernatural appendages to spear fishing weapons to tools for poking around on the ocean floor. In 2005 a team from Harvard and the National Institute of Standards and Technology put a horn under an electron microscope and discovered that it was actually covered in nerve endings, more than 10 million total, tunneling from the center of the horn to the outer surface. As it seems, the horn is a highly advanced, completely unique sense organ, probably…
zooillogix | April 17, 2007Researchers in Mexico have documented wild spider monkeys rubbing themselves with fragrant, chewed up leaves. Though the exact purpose of this behavior is yet to be proven, it appears as if the scents "may play a role int he context of social communication, possibly for signaling of social status or to increase sexual attractiveness," according to an article in the online journal, Primates.
My name's Marcel...Sagitarius.
Laura Hernandez-Salazar of Veracruz University in Mexico and colleagues witnessed "20 episodes of self-anointing, that is, the application of scent-bearing material onto the…
zooillogix | April 16, 2007Crab spider preparing for take off, Misumenoides formosipes
Humans have known for quite a while that some spiders engage in a kind of flying called "ballooning." To balloon, spiders release a parachute-like web into the air (with themselves attached) and allow the wind to pick them up and deposit them in greener pastures. What humans did not know until very recently, however, is that these spiders actually check the weather before taking flight.
Biologists and mathematicians with Rothamsted Research in England first calculated the ideal flying conditions for spiders, finding cloudy fall and…
zooillogix | April 13, 2007In February of this year Jill Pruetz, an anthropologist with Iowa State University, witnessed Kenyan chimpanzees break off branches from trees, sharpen them using their teeth, and then use these spears to hunt lesser bush babies, a kind of small primate. The bush babies sleep in the hollows of trees, and the chimps were repeatedly seen jabbing their spears into the hollows and pulling them back out with fresh bush baby babies impaled on the end.A chimpanzee, seen here, finishing up his degree in Information Technology from the University of Phoenix Online.
Pruetz recorded a video of the…
zooillogix | April 10, 2007You never touch me anymore. Is it because you think I'm fat? Damon diadema
Scientists have recently witnessed two species of arachnids that caress family members and seem to enjoy snuggling. Two kinds of whip spiders--dime-sized Phrynus marginemaculatus found in Florida and the larger Damon diadema which live in Tanzania and Kenya--spend their days in constant tactile touch with their relatives. In one experiment, siblings were put in a cage among many other unrelated whip spiders and within minutes had gathered back together in their family group. Mothers were routinely witnessed stroking…
zooillogix | April 4, 2007Apparently after a long night of drinking, Egyptian fruit bats wake up craving particular types of sugar. In a recent study, Francisco Sanchez from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) showed that the bats prefer foods high in the sugar molecule, fructose, after eating slightly fermented figs and dates. Fructose is known to reduce the toxicity of ethanol. After eating the alcoholic fruit, the bats even show visible signs of inebriation, such as bumping into objects and having a higher susceptibility to predators. As of yet, Sanchez has not witnessed a group of bats singing "Tiny…
zooillogix | April 3, 2007A four-legged duckling named Stumpy has beaten the odds and survived into adulthood. Born with two extra legs behind his normal pair at the Warrawee Duck Farm in Hampshire, England, Stumpy has appeared in countless television shows and photo shoots across the globe. When Nicky Janaway, his owner, saw Stumpy's extra legs for the first time, she was "gobsmacked." As for the future? "We're making a very big pen for him to make sure he is kept very safe..." says Mrs. Janaway, "...He seems a very happy duck." (credit to H. Hancock)
"And this bird you cannot chaaaaaaaannnngggee!"
VIDEO OF STUMPY…
zooillogix | April 3, 2007Dr Melody Clark of the British Antarctic Survey recently presented two bizarre adaptations that arthropods use to stave off cold temperatures. At the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Glasgow last week, Clark showed how the Onychiurus arcticus, an Artic arthropod, copes with the freezing winters. As the surrounding temperatures fall, the Onychiurus arcitus literally dries up, leaving what Clark describes as "a normal looking head, and a body which looks like a crumpled up crisp packet when it is fully dehydrated. But add a drop of water and it all goes back to normal!"…
zooillogix | March 13, 2007For the last 50 years, zoo animals around the world have been tricked into painting. In many cases, the "art" has fetched big bucks: up to $25,000 for Chimp and Orangutan work. It's time for a comprehensive art show to compare styles:
Maggie, Sea Lion, Pittsburgh Zoo
Congo, Chimpanzee, London (1950's)
"Make Me Fly" by Seng Wong, Indian Elephant, Bali, Indonesia
Nonja, Orangutan, Schoenbrunn Zoo, Vienna, Austria
Lomako, Bonobo, Milwaukee County Zoo, Milwaukee WI, USA
Anonymous Great Ape, Mefou Forest Reserve, Camaroon