mammals
grrlscientist | October 4, 2008tags: Hebridean Black-faced Sheep, Scotland, Image of the Day
Hebridean Black-faced Sheep near Arnol (Isle of Lewis, Scotland)
Image: Dave Rintoul, Summer 2008 [larger view].
edyong | October 4, 2008
Sniffing brings molecules in the air around us into our nose, where they are detected and manifested in our brains as smells. But try the same trick underwater and you would rapidly choke or drown. Nonetheless, smell is a tremendously important sense for most mammals and at least two species have found a way to safely sniff in water.
The star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata) is one of them and it has one of nature's most unusual noses. Its snout ends in a ring of 22 fleshy tentacles that are loaded with touch sensors. With this nasal star, the mole rapidly touches and assesses its world…
grrlscientist | October 3, 2008tags: Gray Seal, Halichoerus grypus, Wildlife of Scotland, Image of the Day
Image: Dave Rintoul, Summer 2008 [larger view].
Gray Seal, Halichoerus grypus, at the ferry dock in Uig (Isle of Skye, Scotland).
The translation of the scientific name for this species is "hook-nosed sea pig".
laelaps | October 1, 2008
An Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), photographed at the Bronx zoo.
laelaps | September 30, 2008
A California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx zoo.
laelaps | September 29, 2008
An Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Bronx zoo.
edyong | September 28, 2008
You are on a date and by all accounts, it's going well. Midway through dinner, you excuse yourself and head to the bathroom where, to your chagrin, the mirror reveals that you have a streak of sauce on the side of your face. Embarrassed, you wipe it away and rejoin your date.
It's a fairly innocuous scene but it requires an ability that only the most intelligent of animals possess - self-awareness. It's the understanding that you exist as an individual, separate from others. Having it is a vital step to understanding that others are similarly aware and have their own thoughts and…
laelaps | September 24, 2008
During his 1876 tour of the United States, the famed anatomist and popularizer of science Thomas Henry Huxley stopped to see the American paleontologist O.C. Marsh at Yale. Marsh provided his esteemed guest with access to his ever-growing stores in the Peabody Museum, showing Huxley toothed Cretaceous birds and an array of fossil horses that convinced Huxley that the horse was a creature that had evolved in the New World, not the Old. Indeed, Marsh had collected an impressive array of fossil horses, from tiny forms with many toes to the familiar one-toed Equus. Given the transitions that…
laelaps | September 16, 2008
An Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Philadelphia Zoo.
edyong | September 15, 2008We like to idolise fearlessness and we equate it to bravery but there is a fine line between that and stupidity. Immunity to the pangs of fear would leave someone unable to assess threats to themselves and to other people, which means that fear not only has consequences for an individual but for their entire social circle. Guillaume Martel and colleagues from Rutgers University demonstrated these far-reaching consequences by examining a special group of mice which had been genetically engineered to be fearless.
Martel's team focused their attention on the amygdalae, a pair of almond-shaped…
laelaps | September 15, 2008
An illustration of a Brontotherium mount on display at the AMNH. Notice the healed rib. From Osborn, H.F.; Wortman, J.L.; Peterson, O.A. (1895) "Perissodactyls of the Lower Miocene White River beds." Bulletin of the AMNH; Vol. 7 (12), pp. 343-375.
Brontotheres have long been among the most recognizable of ancient mammals, even appearing in recent films like the Ice Age series, yet scientifically they haven't received very much recent attention. While they were of great interest to pioneering paleontologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the last "great" work on them was…
laelaps | September 13, 2008It has been about a week since my wife and I caught one of the feral kittens in the yard (named Owen), and he has been showing quite a bit of progress. Our cat Charlotte absolutely loves him, and here she is giving him a bath;
We also managed to catch Owen's brother, another orange kitten we've named Cope, who is also starting to relax a little. We're going to try to catch the two female kittens that are still out there, but if we can't do it this week the window for us being able to catch them and socialize them is probably going to be closed.
laelaps | September 13, 2008
An Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
laelaps | September 12, 2008
A female okapi (Okapia johnstoni), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
There are few animals that I find as charming as the okapi (Okapia johnstoni). During the warmer months no trip to the Bronx zoo is complete until I stop by to see them. (Once the temperature drops they are taken off exhibit so they do not freeze.) While they may not always measure up to our standards of good manners, sometimes sticking their long purple tongues into their ears and noses, the okapi is one of the most beautiful animals I think I have ever seen.
Given that the nearest okapi is only a few miles away from me (as…