mammals
laelaps | December 13, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | December 12, 2008
Petal, the female African elephant, photographed in September 2007.
In September, 2007, my wife and I made one of our semi-annual trips to the Philadelphia Zoo, mostly to see the little Amur tiger cubs. While there I photographed this elephant, Petal, fiddling with a chain in the shade of her all-too-small enclosure that she shared with several other elephants.
At one time, there had been plans for a $20 million project to create a new elephant habitat at the zoo (almost anything would have been an improvement over the dirt yard). In 2005, however, the zoo decided to build a new aviary and…
edyong | December 12, 2008Elephants always count as star attractions in any zoo or wildlife park lucky enough to have them. But while many visitors may thrill to see such majestic creatures in the flesh, some scientists have raised concerns about how well animals so sociable and intelligent would fare in even the best of zoo environments.
Now, a new study suggests that some of these concerns might be warranted. Ros Clubb from the RSPCA, together with colleagues from various universities and the Zoological Society of London, studied the health of zoo elephants with a census of mammoth proportions.
Concentrating on…
edyong | December 11, 2008Moving to a new area can be a daunting experience, especially if you don't know anyone. At first, you might cling to any friends who do live nearby but eventually, you meet new people and start to integrate. As it is with humans, so it is with elephants.
Noa Pinter-Wollman and colleagues from the University of California, Davis wanted to study how African elephants behave when they move to new environments. This happens quite naturally as elephants live in dynamic societies where small family groups continuously merge with, and separate from, each other. But they also face new territories…
laelaps | December 10, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
edyong | December 9, 2008If a colleague of yours was rewarded for their work while you received nothing for your (similarly sized) efforts, you would probably be quite peeved. Now it seems that man's best friend also shares our disdain for unfairness.
Humans are notorious for our dislike of injustice. It rankles us to see others being rewarded or penalised unfairly. We not only have the capacity to recognise when someone else is being rewarded beyond their efforts, but the inclination to punish them for it, often at personal expense. But other species behave in the same way - recent studies have found that capuchin…
laelaps | December 9, 2008
A young Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), photographed at the Central Park Zoo.
laelaps | December 6, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | December 5, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | December 3, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus) and trainer, photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
gregladen | December 2, 2008
Ceratotherium simum, or "White" Rhinoceros, a.k.a. Square-lipped Rhinoceros. Click the caption for a much larger image.
This is a young white, or square-lipped rhinoceros that was still traveling with its mom (not shown) at Pilanesberg, a mineral and game park in South Africa not far from the famous "Sun City" Casino northwest of Pretoria.
Notice the wide lip. It could easily be called the wide-lipped rhino to distinguish it form the other African species ("black" or "bush" rhinoceros). The mouth parts of this creature are actually designed to act as a lawn mower, as the animals spend…
edyong | November 29, 2008
As Charles Darwin learned several centuries ago, islands are havens for evolution. Newcomers to these isolated worlds find themselves unshackled from the predators that dogged them on the mainland. They celebrate their freedom by diversifying into a great variety of species. But predators still have ways of tracking them down, and following the footsteps of sailors is one of them. By killing adults and eating eggs, introduced predators such as rats, cats and stoats are responsible for nine in ten of the bird extinctions since 1600.
Now, conservation agencies are getting serious about…