nibbles
zooillogix | December 17, 2007Much like Pier 1 Imports is the place to make great unexpected holiday gift discoveries this season, Indonesia is the #1 source for mildly inventive new mammal species. In the Foja Mountains rainforest of eastern Papua province, a joint Indonesian and American research team recently stumbled across some new critters. More correctly, in the case of at least one, it stumbled across them. "The giant rat is about five times the size of a typical city rat," said Kristofer Helgen, a scientist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. "With no fear of humans, it apparently came into the…
zooillogix | April 25, 2007Are you talking to me? I said....Are you talking to me? Northern elephant seal, Mirounga angustirostris
Sometime in late March, "Nibbles" --a 2,500 lb. elephant seal living on the Sonoma Coast in Northern California-- snapped. In the ensuing month, the adolescent seal has bitten a surfer and a pet pit bull, attacked a kayaker and killed a number of harbor seals (12 according to a park ranger), apparently crushing the skulls of the females and disemboweling the males. Officials have gone public with a warning, speaking out to the press and posting signs all around the mouth of the Russian…