mammals
laelaps | January 19, 2009
A male Hamadryas baboon (Papio hamadryas), photographed at the North Carolina Zoo. Apparently I was a little too close for comfort and he made sure I saw how impressive his canines were.
laelaps | January 18, 2009
It took about 8 and 1/2 hours, but Tracey and I made it back to New Jersey safe & sound. I have a lot to share about my experience at the conference, but for now I figured I would just share one of my favorite photos from the NC Zoo. More tomorrow...
laelaps | January 18, 2009
A group of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), photographed in suburban New Jersey.
laelaps | January 17, 2009
A young white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), photographed in suburban New Jersey.
laelaps | January 16, 2009
I had not noticed it at the time I took this picture, but this juvenile white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) had a compound fracture on it's lower left hind limb. It had been limping a little, but I did not figure out why until I saw this image.
grrlscientist | January 16, 2009tags: zebroid, zorse, hebra, zebra-horse hybrid, streaming video
Here's some video of an individual zebroid (zebra-horse hybrid) that I wrote about in July 2007 [0:48]
here's more footage of this animal along with a companion [1:22];
And an old news report [1:14];
edyong | January 15, 2009From the carpenter choosing the right strength of drill, or the artist selecting the right weight of pencil, humans have a natural talent for picking the right tool for the job. Now, it seems that monkeys are similarly selective about their tools. In the first study of its kind, Elisabetta Visalberghi from the National Research Council, Italy, found that capuchin monkeys are able to pick stones with the right properties for nutcracking.
Capuchins often use stones to crack otherwise impenetrable nuts upon hard, flat surfaces, turning innocuous forest objects into their own hammers and anvils…
laelaps | January 14, 2009
Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | January 14, 2009
In considering the history of science, it is easy to think of scientific discovery and debate as distinct from the rest of culture. Academics picked away at fossils and squinted at the eyepieces of microscopes in isolation, and only in exceptional cases did science jump the cultural barrier to challenge cherished beliefs. This is nonsense, and even though arguments over scientific minutiae may have been restricted to journals and learned societies, there have been many times when scientific discoveries have stirred great public interest.
One way to get at the interaction between science…
laelaps | January 13, 2009
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
gregladen | January 11, 2009I have had a lot of students of whom I'm very proud because of their accomplishments both in research and generally. One of these students is Mark Foster, who is one of a very small number of undergraduates to engage in significant research at some of the key East African chimpanzee research sites. Unfortunately for me, I can't take a lot of credit for Mark's excellent research, because I played a much smaller role in working with him than did others, but I am still very happy with his successes.
I've got a peer reviewed paper by Mark that I'll be reviewing soon. In the mean time, have a…
laelaps | January 9, 2009
John Daniel the gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.
laelaps | January 6, 2009I knew it would happen someday; someone has found one of my photographs, captioned it, and posted it to icanhascheezburger.com. I stumbled across it while flipping through the "Upcoming" section.
see more crazy cat pics
I took that photo in August of 2006 at the Animal Kingdom Pet Store & Zoo (it's about as crummy as it sounds). For anyone interested in captioning more pictures, I think some of my recent sea lion pictures are good candidates (like this one, or this one). Just don't say you "dunno source."
laelaps | January 5, 2009
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | January 4, 2009
A cast of the skull of Australopithecus africanus, photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.