mammals
laelaps | November 12, 2008
A red river hog (Potamochoerus porcus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
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gregladen | November 10, 2008 Cute baby lion kittens. When they grow up, they will want to eat you. I'll never forget the first wild lion I ever saw. It was a pitch black night, on the savanna in the Western Rift Valley. I had climbed on top of the hood of the Land Rover, engine off, but headlights on. My plan was to search the horizon for lights indicating the presence of the research camp I was trying to find. Once I was on the hood, I was about to tell my colleague, still in the vehicle, to cut the headlights so I could see better. That's when she walked into view.
She was a fully adult lioness. Eventually…
laelaps | November 10, 2008
A California sea lion pup (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | November 9, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | November 7, 2008
Geladas (Theropithecus gelada, females in the foreground, male in the background), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
grrlscientist | November 5, 2008tags: politics, Nellie gets the news, image of the day
Nellie Gets The News.
Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George, 2008 [larger view].
The photographer writes: Central Park Raccoons do not have the luxury of cable news or NPR. It was my honor to be the one to break the news to Nellie.
laelaps | November 5, 2008
From "The Larger North American Mammals," published in the November 1916 issue of National Geographic.
edyong | November 4, 2008You are the alpha male, the top dog, the grand kahuna. A young upstart is trying to muscle his way onto your turf and compete for your women. Your solution - click your knees loudly at him. It seems like a strange strategy. For humans, a clicking knee would hardly be a sign of strength but it's all part of the bizarre communications of the world's largest antelope - the eland.
Elands bulls have a strict pecking order that determines their access to females in the herd. On the few occasions when they fight, they hardly ever use their dangerous horns and hooves, preferring instead to prove…
laelaps | November 3, 2008
California sea lions (Zalophus californianus, male in the foreground and females in the backgriound), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | November 1, 2008
A juvenile Western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | October 31, 2008
This past February I wrote about a new giant sengi (or elephant shrew) described in the Journal of Zoology. When attempts to capture live animals failed, researchers used camera traps to get a better look at these previously undescribed creatures. A new paper in the Journal of Mammalogy has announced the discovery of another (although smaller) species of elephant shrew, but it wasn't so easy to spot.
The new species of sengi (bottom, EPI), compared with Elephantulus edwardii (EED), and E. rupestris (ERU). From Smit et al., 2008.
In the Western and Northern Cape Provinces of South Africa,…