sloth

Today was the final day of the meeting. Dr. Joe Thompson (Franklin and Marshall College) spoke about oblique striated muscles, which get their name from the diagonal pattern formed by the location of the Z-lines. This type of muscle is common among cephalopods, nematodes, tunicates, molluscs, etc. Dr. John Whiteman (University of Wyoming) gave a fascinating talk about polar bears and whether hunting on the shore as compared to the sea ice helped the animals replenish stores after hibernation or fasting as well as how foraging patterns affected activity levels. Dr. Michael Butcher (…
David Macaulay is famous for his "how things work" books. How Machines Work: Zoo Break! is a new book that is really fun. So fun that it took me a long time to get it back from Amanda and Huxley so I could review it. The concept is simple. A story, a simple story, is constructed, that has nothing to do with machines. Except it has everything to do with machines. Two critters, Sloth and Sengi, are in a zoo and trying to escape. Their various escapades lead to situations that allow the exploration of all those interesting mechanical concepts, such as inclined planes, levers and fulcrums and…
"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." -Mark Twain I am unimpressed with speculations that have no basis in fact, but if you can show how your claims are factually grounded and arrived at, they're certainly worth a listen to. And if your facts, logic and extrapolations are sound, you might even, as Sarah Jarosz sings, Tell Me True. Of course, if they're a little suspect instead, you can either lead people astray, or alternatively, create some of the best humor and satire ever created. This weekend, I proudly introduce to you a series of nature videos by YouTube user…
A restoration of Megatherium from H.N. Hutchinson's Extinct Monsters. For over a century and a half dinosaurs have been the unofficial symbols and ambassadors of paleontology, but this was not always so. It was fossil mammals, not dinosaurs, which enthralled the public during the turn of the 19th century, and arguably the most famous was the enormous ground sloth Megatherium. It was more than just a natural curiosity. The bones of the "great beast" represented a world which flourished and disappeared in the not-so-distant past, but, as illustrated by Christine Argot in a review of its…
The skeleton of Megatherium, as figured in William Buckland's Geology and Mineralogy Considered With Reference to Natural Theology. There is something fantastically weird about giant ground sloths. Creatures from a not-too-distant past, close enough in time that their hair and hide is sometimes found in circumstances of exceptional preservation, these creatures have no living equivalent. Their arboreal cousins still live in the tropics of the western hemisphere, but they can hardly be considered proxies for the ground sloths of the Pleistocene. The most famous of these ancient beasts was…
The two-toed sloth is a walking hotel. The animal is so inactive that its fur acts as an ecosystem in its own right, hosting a wide variety of algae and insects. But the sloth has another surprise passenger hitching a ride inside its body, one that has stayed with it for up to 55 million years - a virus. In the Cretaceous period, the genes of the sloth's ancestor were infiltrated by a "foamy virus", one of a family that still infects humans, chimps and other mammals today. They are examples of retroviruses, which reproduce by converting an RNA genome into a DNA version and inserting that…
The natural world is rife with leftovers. Over the course of evolution, body parts that no longer benefit their owners eventually waste, away leaving behind shrivelled and useless anatomical remnants. The human tailbone is one such example. Others include the sightless eyes of cavefish that live in total darkness, the tiny spurs on boas and pythons that hint at the legs of their ancestors, and the withered wings of the Galapagos cormorant, an animal that dispensed with flight on an island bereft of land predators. Animal genomes contain similar remains. Just like organs, genes also waste…
As many of our readers know, Benny and I love sloths. Recently a Zooillogix reader, Jennifer Lapsker, traveled to Costa Rica for a sloth-filled vacation. During her adventure, she was kind enough to pick up a book from the Sloth Sanctuary entitled "THEY ARE NOT BEARS AND THEY ARE NOT LAZY!" While the title chastises you for your ignorant sloth prejudices, the publication is full of fun facts written in a less accusatory tone. As informed by the book, we bring you the first Zooillogix trivia game - 3 Toes, 2 Toes or Benny?! Question #1: Do sloths and Benny have 2 toes or 3 toes? Answer: All…
tags: sloth, subway art, AMNH, NYC, NYCLife This is a three-toed Bradypus species of sloth (but which one?) as portrayed in tiles on the stairway of the NYC subway stop (A-B-C) at 81st and Central Park West. (ISO, no zoom, no flash). Image: GrrlScientist 2008. [wallpaper size]. Read more about the AMNH tile artworks and see the AMNH tile artworks photographic archives -- with all the animals identified.
As you know, we rarely stray into the realms of cryptozoology. But when reports emerge of a monstrous, Amazonian sloth that shows no fear and has the power to hypnotize its victims, we just can't resist. As it turns out, legends of the creature called the mapinguary (pronounced ma-ping-wahr-EE) have existed for centuries. Hundreds of alleged eyewitnesses have independently come up with very similar descriptions of the mapinguary, including members of different Indian tribes who have never had contact with one another. Could there be some truth to the rumors? Eyewitnesses seem to agree on…
Ever consider purchasing a baby sloth? I know you have. I'm not sure where to get one (and I am sure it's illegal to have in the U.S.), but after seeing the classic Baby Sloth Video, I'm feeling obligated to obtain one. Swaddled in my love if you had any doubt left...