mammals
edyong | April 8, 2009Many men think of little else besides sex and meat, but male chimpanzees will sometimes exchange one for the other. Chimps are mostly vegetarian but they will occasionally supplement their diet by hunting other animals, especially monkeys. Males do most of the hunting, but they don't eat their spoils alone - often, they will share the fresh meat with females, even those who are unrelated to them. Some scientists have suggested that this apparently selfless act is a trade - the males are giving up their nutritious catch in exchange for sex.
Cristina Gomes and Christophe Boesch from the Max…
laelaps | April 6, 2009
A giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), photographed at the National Zoo.
edyong | April 5, 2009
For humans, our culture is a massive part of our identity, from the way we dress, speak and cook, to the social norms that govern how we interact with our peers. Our culture stems from our ability to pick up new behaviours through imitation, and we are so innately good at this that we often take it for granted.
We now know that chimpanzees have a similar ability, and like us, different groups have their own distinct cultures and traditions.
Now, Andrew Whiten from the University of St Andrews has published the first evidence that groups of chimpanzees can pick up new traditions from each…
edyong | April 3, 2009
Say the word 'statistician' and most people might think of an intelligent but reclusive person, probably working in a darkened room and almost certainly wearing glasses. But a new study shows that a monkey in front of a monitor can make a reasonably good statistician too.
Tianming Yang and Michael Shadlen from the University of Washington found that rhesus macaques can perform simple statistical calculations, and even watched their neurons doing it. Psychologists often train animals to learn simple tasks, where the right choice earns them a reward and the wrong one leaves them empty-…
grrlscientist | April 3, 2009tags: captive dolphins, SeaWorld Orlando, bubble ring, animal behavior, streaming video
This streaming video shows the dolphins at SeaWorld Orlando's Dolphin Cove as they artfully create and play with underwater bubble rings and hear what SeaWorlds trainers, educators and guests have to say about this fun and fascinating behavior [3:25]
laelaps | April 3, 2009
Rokan, a male Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae), photographed at the National Zoo.
grrlscientist | April 2, 2009tags: woolly false vampire bat, Chrotopterus auritus, wrinkled-faced bat, Centurio senex, animal behavior, streaming video
This streaming video shows the hunting behavior of one species of bat, the woolly false vampire bat, Chrotopterus auritus, as it hunts down another species of bat, a frugivorous wrinkled-faced bat, Centurio senex, then kills and eats it. For some odd reason, this video reminds me of Wall Street [1:23]
laelaps | April 2, 2009
A scimitar oryx (Oryx dammah), photographed at the National Zoo. This species may be extinct in the wild.
laelaps | April 1, 2009
A model of the skull of Megaladapis From A Guide to the Fossil Mammals and Birds in the Department of Geology and Palaeontology in the British Museum (Natural History).
At a meeting of the Royal Society in 1893 the English geologist Henry Woodward read a communication from his Swiss colleague Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major on a new, recently extinct genus of giant lemur from Madagascar. He called it Megaladapis, and it was a lemur with a skull as large a modern gorilla's. Particularly interesting were the thick rims of bone around its eyes which appeared to be oriented slightly upwards.…
laelaps | March 31, 2009
A cast of the lower jaw of Dryopithecus available through Ward's Natural Science Establishment.
For most of anthropology's history tools had been thought to be the exclusive hallmark of humanity. That only our species could use and manufacture tools was a sign of our superiority, be it the result of evolution or divine fiat, at least until it was discovered that apes could make tools, too. Though anecdotal accounts of tool use by primates had existed for centuries it was Jane Goodall's research at Gombe in Tanzania that truly shattered the "Man the Tool-Maker" image. When told of her…
laelaps | March 30, 2009
The "reincarnated" Cohoes Mastodon. You can see him today at the Cohoes Public Library. (From Natural History)
For decades we have been hearing of the designs of some ambitious scientists to bring the woolly mammoth back to life. I first heard of such plans in the 1980's when I was a young child but they continue to pop up every now and again. Perhaps we could make a mammoth-like creature through the selective breeding of living elephants or a little developmental engineering, but I doubt that a true Mammuthus primigenius will ever exist again. They are long gone.
It may be that what makes…
laelaps | March 30, 2009
Rokan, a male Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) really wants to go inside. Photographed at the National Zoo.