mammals
jlynch | July 4, 2007
This little cutie (click for bigger version) is the first Maclaud’s horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus maclaudi) ever photographed and the first seen in the wild in 40 years. The species was rediscovered in the highland forests of Guinea and is one of the approximately seventy species of horseshoe bat within the genus Rhinolophus.
Of course, nothing comes close to Centurio senex in batty beauty.
Picture source: National Geographic
jlynch | June 18, 2007
This image released by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing shows front views of a new fossil panda skull, Ailuropoda microta, from Jinyin Cave, Guangxi, China, left, and a living giant panda skull, Ailuropoda melanoleuca, right. The first skull of the earliest known ancestor of the giant panda has been discovered in China, researchers report. Discovery of the skull, estimated to be at least 2 million years old, is reported by Russell L. Ciochon in the Tuesday June 19, 2007 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (AP Photo/ Institute…
jlynch | June 13, 2007
Sea otter (Enhydra lutris) mother and eleven day old cub at the Sunshine International Aquarium in Tokyo. This one is specially for my daughter who loved the otters holding hands and is coming home tonight after two weeks in Ireland. (And it turns out to be post #1000 since I moved to Scienceblogs.)
Photo: Associated Press.
grrlscientist | May 30, 2007tags: cheetahs, evolution
Researchers studied 47 litters of cheetah cubs over nine years. Nearly half contained cubs from multiple fathers.
Image: Sarah Durant [larger]
DNA technology has revealed that female cheetahs, Acinonyx jubatus, often produce litters that are comprised of cubs sired by multiple fathers. This research, recently published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, studied cheetahs found on that part of the Seregeti in the African nation, Tanzania.
"If the cubs are genetically more variable it may allow them to adapt and evolve to different circumstances," Dada…
jlynch | May 26, 2007
It's funny how much smaller the "Monster Pig" looks in this photo (source).
And for what it's worth, here's one of the "positive comments" the boy hunter got:
Don't pay attention to those west coast sissys, they live out there because homosexuality is fround upon in the USA
Your dad is teaching you how to survive in a world that's scareing most parents. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day
Teach a man to fish, and he has to take care of all the hippie wanna be seudo animal lovers who don't know squat aboutthe animals they eat, because they are to concerned with pushing same sex marriage…
grrlscientist | May 26, 2007tags: albino moose
Like a spectre floating out of the woods, a rare albino moose was spotted recently by Kurt Nikkinen in northern Norway, approximately 30 kilometers east of Karasjok in Finnmark County. Nikkinen was on his way home after a fishing trip when he saw the animal. He had a video camera in his car and managed to film the moose from his car as it ran along the road. At one point, he was only about 20 meters from the moose.
"It was a great experience to see and film it. It is not the kind of thing you experience more than once in a lifetime," Nikkinen said.
There had been rumors…
jlynch | May 25, 2007
In this photo released by Melynne Stone, Jamison Stone, 11, poses with a wild pig he killed near Delta, Ala., May 3, 2007. Stone's father says the hog weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. If claims of the animal's size are true, it would be larger than ``Hogzilla,'' the huge hog killed in Georgia in 2004. (AP Photo/Melynne Stone)
Apparently, we're supposed to believe that the eleven year old "shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it…
grrlscientist | May 19, 2007tags: Trypanosoma evansi, parasite, wasting disease, Tabanus, Australia, conservation
A PhD student from James Cook University in Australia hopes her research will help protect Australian wildlife from an exotic wasting disease that could devastate kangaroos and other endemic marsupials.
Kirsty Van Hennekeler has spent four years studying Surra, the disease caused by a parasite that lives in mammalian blood. This parasite, Trypanosoma evansi, causes fever, weakness, and lethargy in its victims and can lead to weight loss, anaemia and even death of infected animals. It is thought this parasite…
grrlscientist | May 16, 2007tags: ferret, black-footed ferret, endangered species
Today, I received an email from Jenna Bowles, who is the head of distribution for The Futures Channel. They produce "micro-documentaries" that feature industries and professions that are both innovative and inspiring. One of their newly launched videos focuses on the endangered black-footed ferret recovery program. Basically, 25 years ago, a dog discovered one lone black-footed ferret in a hole -- the last one known to exist in the wild. Since then, the recovery effort has become one of the most successful conservation programs conducted…
grrlscientist | May 7, 2007
Conservationists have welcomed the Russian government's decision to strengthen laws protecting the Amur leopard, Panthera pardus orientalis, the world's most endangered big cat, from extinction. Fines for poaching will be increased to 100 times the nation's annual minimum wage.
[much larger image]
Image: BBC News.
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by…
grrlscientist | May 3, 2007tags: sloths, humor, streaming video
This is a streaming video that shows you a little bit about those forgotten mammals, sloths. These animals are native to Central and South America. They belong to the families Megalonychidae and Bradypodidae, in the taxonomic order Pilosa. They are omnivores, eating insects, small lizards and carrion whan they can find it, but their diet mainly consists of buds, tender shoots, and especially leaves. Because they subsist primarily on leaves, which have little nutritive value and are difficult to digest, sloths have multichambered stomachs filled with…
grrlscientist | May 2, 2007
Newly described species, Goodman's mouse lemur, Microcebus lehilahytsara.
is is a new species of Lemur that they've identified in Madagascar. They named it after Steve Goodman. The scientists say; Lehilahytsara means "good man" in Malagasy. The German primatologists chose this name to honor Steve Goodman, scientist with The Field Museum in Chicago and WWF in Madagascar. "Goodman's field research in all remote parts of Madagascar has contributed enormously to our knowledge about the diversity of Madagascar's unique and threatened fauna and flora," Kappeler says.
"It is truly an honor to have…
grrlscientist | April 22, 2007tags: Amur leopard, Manchurian leopard, Far East Leopard, conservation, big cats
Amur, or Manchurian, Leopard, Panthera pardus orientalis.
Image: National Geographic.
According to a new census by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Russian Academy of Science, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, it is estimated that only 25 to 34 wild Amur leopards remain alive -- at least 66 fewer than are needed to ensure survival. Also known as the Far Eastern or Manchurian leopard, the Amur leopard has been victimized by habitat fragmentation and hunting, conservationists said recently.
"We've known…
grrlscientist | April 17, 2007
These are from a 1988 trip to the Grand Canyon, taken by my father Charles. They rafted down the river -- mind you, they were 66 at the time!
Image source: Charles, the father of a regular reader.
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by millions of unique species. We are a part of this world whether we like it or not: we have a choice to either preserve these…
grrlscientist | April 12, 2007A group of 20 endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits, Brachylagus idahoensis (pictured), were reintroduced to the wilds of Washington state last month but only four of the rabbits are still alive. The native rabbits, which are small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand, were released at the Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area, said David Hays, pygmy rabbit coordinator for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Hays said two males were removed earlier this month and will be returned at the end of April. The other 14 rabbits are believed to have fallen victim to predators, mainly coyotes, but…
grrlscientist | April 9, 2007
A sea otter watches as a tour boat from Seward slowly passes by on Resurrection Bay, Alaska.
Image: Marc Lester/Anchorage Daily News.
The weather has triggered a sad situation on the Alaskan peninsula. An extra-cold winter has forced sea otters to leave the sea at Resurrection Bay and go onto the frozen tundra near Port Heiden in search of food. Some of the starving animals have crawled or belly-slid several miles inland. Others have been attacked by wolves, by dogs near houses, killed by villagers for their hides, or have died on sea ice where eagles and foxes eat their bodies.
No one…
jlynch | April 8, 2007
Cheeta turns 75 today, continuing his run as the oldest living non-human primate and making him a shoo-in as your Monday Mammal. You can donate to the CHEETA sanctuary (which also cares for other ex-movie primates) here.
grrlscientist | April 7, 2007Since tomorrow is Easter, I think a story about rabbits is appropriate: I'll bet that none of you knew that there are striped rabbits in the world, and I'll bet that none of you have heard of the Sumatran striped rabbit, Nesolagus netscheri (pictured right). This is because the Sumatran striped rabbit is one of the rarest species of rabbit in the world. It has only been seen three times in the last 35 years.
The Sumatran Striped Rabbit -- also known as the Sumatra Short-eared Rabbit or Sumatran Rabbit -- is found only in forest in the Barisan Mountains in western Sumatra, Indonesia. It is…