mammals
grrlscientist | April 7, 2007I am sure I am the last person on Planet Earth to see this streaming video, but just in case I am not, I thought I'd share it with you. This is a pair of otters, one of which survived the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, that live at the Vancouver Aquarium. They are floating around their tank, asleep and holding paws. Why would they hold paws like this? Is it so a mated pair can remain together on rough seas? Or maybe you have another idea -- well, besides giving the watching public something to oooo and aaaa over!
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tags: sea otters, Vancouver Aquarium, hand-holding
jlynch | April 5, 2007
The BBC is reporting that the Sumatran striped rabbit (Nesolagus netscheri), probably the rarest lagomorph, has been seen again, this time by a camera trap. It is only the third sighting since 1972.
jlynch | April 1, 2007
Vasan, a baby Malaysan Tapir (Tapirus indicus) at Edinburgh Zoo.
(AP Photo/Andrew Milligan,PA)
jlynch | April 1, 2007
Haeckel's Primitive Snouter
Archirrhinos haeckelii
For more on the Rhinogradentia, see Darren Naish's recent posts.
jlynch | March 30, 2007
Sea otters "holding hands" at the Vancouver Aquarium. This is especially for PZ as I know he deep down really likes mammals and that whole cephalopod thing is just a front. ( Via Boing Boing.)
grrlscientist | March 29, 2007
Andrewsarchus was the largest carnivorous land mammal that ever lived.
It lived about 32-60 million years ago. (Image: BBC Walking With Beasts)
Contrary to popular belief, a new study shows that the rise of mammals was not connected to the extinction of dinosaurs that occurred 65 million years ago. The evidence challenging this connection comes from the most complete family tree ever compiled for mammals. This supertree, comprised of genetic and fossil data reveals the relationships between mammals such as primates, rodents and hoofed mammals, including when they evolved into separate…
jlynch | March 28, 2007I don't have time to comment at the moment (perhaps over the weekend), but this looks interesting:
The big dinosaur extinction of 65 million years ago didn't produce a flurry of new species in the ancestry of modern mammals after all, says a huge study that challenges a long-standing theory.
Scientists who constructed a massive evolutionary family tree for mammals found no sign of such a burst of new species at that time among the ancestors of present-day animals...
Instead, they showed an initial burst between 100 million about 85 million years ago, with another between about 55 million and…
jlynch | March 25, 2007The Guardian is reporting that the Orang Utan "could be virtually extinct within five years after it was discovered that the animal's rainforest habitat is being destroyed even more rapidly than had been predicted."
The UN's environment programme report, 'The Last Stand of the Orang Utan: State of Emergency', says natural rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia are being cleared so rapidly that up to 98 per cent may be destroyed by 2022, and the lowland forest strongholds of orang utans much sooner, unless urgent action is taken. This is a full decade earlier than the previous report estimated…
grrlscientist | March 23, 2007A fossil hunter recently discovered the biggest whale fossil ever found in Italy. It was found in the vineyards of Castello Banfi, one of the country's finest vineyards located in the northern grape-growing area of Tuscany. The five million-year-old fossil skeleton is 10 meters (33 feet) in length and appears to be complete.
"A group of palaeontologists were digging in January in the Castello Banfi vineyards and found a whale's vertebra," said a spokesperson for Winenews, a wine promotion agency.
This was not the first such find for this area: an ancient dolphin's skeleton was found several…
grrlscientist | March 18, 2007
Adult Peromyscus eremicus, one of the animals that Matt studies.
The photo was taken near Palm Desert, California in 2006. Aside from being cute, these are interesting because they are one of the few monogamous mammals.
Image: Matthew D. MacManes
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…
grrlscientist | March 17, 2007Over the course of the previous 20 years, Scottish Soay sheep have been studied on the island of Hirta in the Outer Hebrides. This study revealed that weather patterns were driving changes in body shape and population size. Harsh winters led to larger sheep, which brought about changes in population size, but these effects were not seen in milder winters.
"Until now, it has proven really quite difficult to show how ecology and evolutionary change are linked, but we have developed a way to tie them together," said Tim Coulson, an author of the Science paper and a scientist at Imperial College…
jlynch | March 15, 2007
This beauty is a Bornean clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi ), a new species native to Borneo and Sumatra.
For many years the clouded leopard was traditionally regarded as a monotypic genus with four subspecies. But recent molecular genetic analyses (mtDNA, nuclear DNA sequences, microsatellite variation, and cytogenetic differences) have revealed that there is however a strong case for reclassification and the defining of two distinct species of clouded leopard - Neofelis nebulosa (mainland Asia) and Neofelis diardi (Indonesian archipelago). This case for two clouded leopard species based…
grrlscientist | March 7, 2007
The mountain gazelle, Gazella gazella, is considered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) to be facing a high risk of extinction. Seventeen mountain gazelle were recently released into the wild.
For the first time in ten years, captive-bred mountain gazelles have been successfully released into the wild. Conservationists released 17 of the creatures into the Ibex reserve in Saudi Arabia.
The mountain gazelle, Gazella gazella, is at a high risk of extinction because of factors such as habitat loss and hunting. Some of the gazelles have now been tagged with radio collars so scientists can…
grrlscientist | February 22, 2007Tolkein is a six-year-old howler monkey who lives at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park near Hythe in the UK. When she was just a juvenile, she developed cataracts in both eyes and became totally blind, so she was completely dependant on her keepers for her needs. There was little hope that she would ever see her own hand -- let alone her own baby.
However, eighteen months ago, the staff decided to try a cateract operation in an effort to restore her sight. The procedure was a success and after a period of recuperation she was introduced to Clyde, a male who had recently arrived from Singapore…
grrlscientist | February 22, 2007Did you know that North America had its own species of zebra? Or that there was a wolf-like carnivorous mammal -- with hooves? And there once was a horned rodent whose corkscrew-shaped burrows are still visible today? If this sort of thing interests you then you will enjoy Donald Prothero's book, After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 2006).
With the exception of birds, dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago when a giant bolide crashed into the earth just off the Yucatan peninsula. This extinction left thousands of niches open for other…
grrlscientist | February 21, 2007
Siberian, or Amur, tiger, Panthera tigris altaica.
The photographer writes; Zeff, a 13 year-old female Amur tiger kept at Tiger Mountain [at the Bronx Zoo]. She may look like she's snarling, but this was actually the end of a yawn.
Image: Brian Switek.
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…
grrlscientist | February 20, 2007
Snow leopard, Panthera uncia.
The photographer writes; [This is] one [of] two young female snow leopards (twins) born a few months ago at the [Bronx] zoo. At the moment they're still being kept with their mother.
Image: Brian Switek.
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…