mammals
laelaps | March 13, 2008
The American bison (Bison bison) was almost entirely lost by the beginning of the 20th century, but a number of conservation projects sprang up during this time to try and restore bison populations. The individual animal photographed above calls the Bronx Zoo home, and the institution has a history of bison conservation; in 1905 the American Bison Society was founded at the zoo (with Theodore Roosevelt as honorary president), and by 1907 15 bison were on their way west.
Despite the efforts of conservation groups, though, the number of bison presently roaming North America is just a shadow of…
laelaps | March 12, 2008According to a news report released by CNN, a dolphin named "Moko" led a mother and calf pair of pygmy sperm whales back to sea after they had repeatedly stranded themselves on a sandbar near Mahia Beach off New Zealand. The story hails the dolphin as a hero, and while such anecdotes might be heart-warming there's no way to tell from the report just what happened. It could be that Moko came in to investigate, swam out back to sea, and the whales followed (bypassing the route that had previously led them to be stranded).
Perhaps Moko did try to communicate something, but whether any signals…
laelaps | March 11, 2008
An itchy Malayan tapir.
As was the case with many other animals I learned about when I was younger, I believed that there was only one kind of animal called a tapir. Most popular books aimed at children don't spend much (if any) time on taxonomy or diversity, so there was no need for the authors of such books to explain that presently there exist four species of tapir in the tropical regions of the world; Baird's tapir (Tapirus bairdii), the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque), and the Brazilian tapir (Tapirus terrestris) in South & Central America and the Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus…
grrlscientist | March 10, 2008tags: white orca, white killer whale, Orcinus orca, zoology, cetaceans, NOAA
A rare white killer whale, Orcinus orca, better known as an Orca,
photographed by researchers off the coast of Alaska on 23 February.
Image: Holly Fearnbach (NMML, NMFS permit 782-1719) [wallpaper size].
Seattle researchers were working off the coast of Alaska when they saw something amazing; a 25-30 foot long male "killer whale", Orcinus orca, that is white instead of being black-and-white, the characteristic color scheme for this species. This white whale, which was identified as a male due to its very tall…
laelaps | March 10, 2008
When I think of kangaroos, the image of large macropods bounding across the Australian outback most readily comes to mind. Oddly enough, though, some kangaroos became adapted to life in the trees and belong to the genus Dendrolagus. Previously I thought there was only one species of tree kangaroo, but apparently there are many, although some of the distinctions between species and subspecies are still contested.
grrlscientist | March 9, 2008tags: pygmy hippopotamus, pygmy hippo, Hexaprotodon liberensis, zoology, endangered species, conservation
A rare pygmy hippopotamus, Hexaprotodon liberensis,
was thought to be extinct up until recently, after this image was
captured at night by a photo trap set up by researchers in a Liberian rainforest.
A team of zoologists set up a series of camera traps in a west African rainforest to determine whether the rare pygmy hippopotamus, Hexaprotodon liberensis, still survives, despite wars, habitat degradation and poaching in the area. After a three-day wait, they were pleasantly surprised…
laelaps | March 9, 2008Against my better judgment, I went out to catch a matinée showing of 10,000 BC yesterday, and the only good thing that came of the outing was that I found a $20 bill in the parking lot. The movie is one of the stinkiest pieces of movie cheese I've encountered. At least Dragon Wars was so bad it was funny; 10,000 BC was trite and boring.
There was one mistake present throughout much of the film that continually made me chuckle though. The super-sized mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) in the film were twice incited to charge, and rather than run like modern elephants do, they galloped like…
laelaps | March 8, 2008
The small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinerea) is the smallest otter species presently known. They derive their name from their relatively short claws that do no extend past the fleshy pads on their feet, which actually allows them an increased amount of dexterity when handling their food.
laelaps | March 7, 2008
As promised, here's a photo to make up for the somewhat blurry picture from this morning, only this time I decided to use another shot from the polar bear sequence.
laelaps | March 7, 2008
I forgot to upload another of the better-quality pictures from my trip to the Bronx Zoo last weekend, but here is one slightly out-of-focus shot of a pair of African wild dogs, Lycaon pictus (I somehow managed to get the tree behind them in focus, but not the dogs...). I'll have something better up later today when I can get back to my computer, but this will have to do for now.
laelaps | March 5, 2008
In the above photograph a female Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) named Taurus displays a flehmen response; she was sniffing the scat of another tiger in the enclosure and repeatedly made this face. As silly as it looks, this type of grimace helps pheromones and other natural chemicals come in contact with the vomeronasal (or Jacobson's) organ, and it allows animals like tigers to ascertain whether another animal is in estrus, what their physical condition is, how long ago they passed by, etc.
Unfortunately I was unable to get a good shot of the display; the little branch in front of the…
laelaps | March 4, 2008The New York Times has two new articles out today, one involving dinosaurs in Argentina and another about the social life of the spotted hyena. The article about the southern hemisphere dinosaurs is another reminder of the controversy between private collectors, academics, and the public, and the hyena article is a must-read piece about social intelligence by Carl Zimmer. (This piece is even more relevant given that the Berkley hyena research program is in definite danger of being dismantled.) Each of the articles is also accompanied by a slide show.
There is one mistake in the dinosaur…
laelaps | March 4, 2008
The Bronx Zoo snow leopards (Panthera uncia) have typically been awake during my visits, but the female pictured above was acting like one of my domestic cats on catnip. Unfortunately I wasn't prepared for what she was going to do so she came out as a bit of a blur, but it was impressive to see a big cat jump around the enclosure with such agility and speed. The big paws and long tail of these cats help them keep their footing and balance, and as anyone who saw the snow leopard sequence on Planet Earth knows their skills are even more impressive in their natural, craggy habitat.
laelaps | March 3, 2008
The evolution of giraffes has been on my mind quite frequently as of late, although it's been difficult tracking down information about the evolution of the group (it was once much more diverse than it is today, a trend also illustrated by elephants and horses). Along the way, though, I've turned up a few interesting papers involving the ever-vexing question of how the long neck of the giraffe evolved, the first being a letter to Nature by Chapman Pincher published in 1949. Criticizing Darwin's hypothesis that giraffes evolved long necks to reach higher levels of vegetation during droughts,…
laelaps | March 3, 2008
I could hardly believe my eyes this past Saturday; a male black-crested gibbon (Hylobates concolor) swung down from the miniature forest of its enclosure and started to groom the back and sides of a Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus). The tapir stood still while the gibbon picked over its hide for a few minutes, only to leave and do it again (at one point appearing as if it were riding the tapir). I'm sure this was to the tapir's relief to some small extent as it had been rubbing against a branch in the enclosure and appeared quite itchy (that it had some skin problem was definitely evident),…
laelaps | March 2, 2008
During most of my visits to the Bronx Zoo, the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is usually sleeping or too hot to move around much, but yesterday she was in a much more playful mood. While they certainly are powerful predators, polar bears can be quite playful, and during the winter adult males sometimes play with dogs in the wild. Very little seems to be known about why polar bears and dogs get along during this time of the year, but for whatever reason there is little tension in what otherwise might be an antagonistic confrontation.