mammals
laelaps | March 13, 2009An adult woolly mammoth and offspring, brought to you by the National Film Board of Canada (1979);
I love stop-motion animation, but I have to say the style of this short made me wonder if Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer or the Heat Miser were suddenly going to show up...
laelaps | March 13, 2009
Why did the turkey vulture cross the road? [Warning: The answer isn't pretty]
To get to the deer carcass on the other side, of course.
laelaps | March 11, 2009It has been a week since ABC's Nightline ran footage obtained by the Humane Society of primates being abused at the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana. Even though the ethics of animal research has been big news on the blogs in the past week, with a poorly-argued article in last week's Huffington Post (Janet, DrugMonkey, Orac) and the recent attack on a UCLA scientist who uses primates in his studies (Janet, Evil Monkey, Nick), I am puzzled as to why there has been virtually no discussion of the footage taken at the New Iberia labs. For those of who you missed it, here is the Nightline…
laelaps | March 10, 2009
Sasha, the Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | March 9, 2009
From Life.
Starting on May 1, 1901 the great Pan-American Exposition delighted visitors for six months in Buffalo, New York. Organized to "promote commercial and social interests among the States and countries of the Western Hemisphere" the show displayed the modern wonders of art, science, and technology. Among the varied exhibits was Esau the chimpanzee.*
*[The infamous "Cardiff Giant" was also on display.]
Featured in the exhibit "The Evolution of Man", Esau was among the first performing apes in America. Others, like the first incarnation of Consul, had come before in Europe, but Esau…
edyong | March 9, 2009
In 1997, Swedish inspectors found several stockpiles of missiles hidden in a local zoo. Apparently, the arsenal had been gathered together for the express purpose of being used against civilians. And who was the mastermind behind this collection? A 19-year-old chimpanzee called Santino.
Santino was born in a German zoo in 1978 and transferred to Furuvik Zoo at the age of 5. To this day, he lives in the zoo's chimpanzee island - a large outdoor enclosure surrounded by a moat. Throughout his residence, he was mostly docile towards the eager visitors, but all of that changed in 1997 when he…
laelaps | March 7, 2009
This morning I decided to make the most of the unusually warm weather by heading to the Bronx Zoo. I will post some of the photos I took during the coming days and weeks, but I couldn't wait to share this shot of a snow leopard.
laelaps | March 6, 2009
The Warren mastodon as originally mounted in the Warren Museum of Natural History. Note the size of the tusks. From The Story of Nineteenth-Century Science.
It is rarely crowded in the "Hall of Advanced Mammals" at the American Museum of Natural History. People stroll through on their way to see the dinosaurs and may stop to admire a fossil or two like the striking mount of Amphicyon, but the mammals just cannot compete with the star power of the archosaurs. This is a shame, for not only does the hall hold a weird and wonderful array of extinct creatures, but many people do not realize…
grrlscientist | March 6, 2009tags: Eurasian Red Squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris exalbidusi, cute overload, Helsinki, Finland, image of the day
Eurasian Red Squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris exalbidus.
Photographed on Bob O'Hara's balcony outside his apartment.
Image: Bob O'Hara, 5 March 2009 (visit the link to see the rest of the story!) [larger view].
laelaps | March 5, 2009
"Caught in an asphalt lake." From the November 1919 issue of The World's Work.
As much as I love visiting the American Museum of Natural History in its current incarnation I sometimes wish I could have seen the institution in earlier eras. It has undergone its own evolution and while plenty of classic and remarkable specimens remain on display there are many that have been removed, put in storage, or lost.
One such exhibit was the "asphalt lake" habitat group meant to portray the famous La Brea tar pits. I have no idea what became of it, but when on display it showed a Smilodon and a dire…
laelaps | March 5, 2009
I'm a little bit late on this one but I wanted to say "Welcome!" to the latest member of the Sb collective All of My Faults Are Stress Related. It's good to have another geo-blog around the place.
The first edition of ART Evolved has been posted. The inaugural edition features a slew of wonderful ceratopsian images, and I can hardly wait until the next edition (featuring synapsids).
During the Saturday night dinner at Science Online '09 I had the chance to chat with Karen James and Glendon Mellow and together we came up with an idea to raise some support for the Beagle Project. (…
laelaps | March 5, 2009
A pair of ring-tailed mongoose (Galidia elegans), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.