tree shrew

Two Tree Shrews, One Cup.

bleimanb — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:30:28 +0000

Two Tree Shrews, One Cup.

New research is ROCKING the notoriously arrogant carnivorous plant scientific community: It appears that the largest carnivorous plant, the giant pitcher plant of Borneo (or the Nepenthes rajah for those in the know), has not evolved into its immense size in order to capture and eat small rodents, but to be a large toilet for furry tree shrews to deposit their nutrient rich feces in.

Don't nobody go in there for thirty-five...forty-five minutes!

Since their discovery in the early Eighteen...ahem...hmmm...(sorry, we're animal guys), the giant pitcher plants have been rumored to ingest not just bugs and worms as most carnivorous plants, but also small vertebrates. In the previously linked to article from bbc.com, however, Dr. Charles Clarke of Monash University in Selangor, Malaysia explains, "This species has always been famous for its ability to trap rodents, but I've been looking at the pitchers of this species on and off since 1987, and I've never seen a trapped rat inside." Yeah, what's up with that?

Dr. Clarke did notice all sorts of tree shrew feces in the bottom of the plants, leading him to reconsider the plant's evolution. As it turns out, the plants have large openings, but they also have concave lids which are covered with nectar-producing glands. The distance between the front lip of the pitcher and the glands happens to correspond directly with the average size of the local tree shrews. In other words, when the shrews come to eat the nectar, the plants reap the sweet rewards of being pooped into. You can follow his research more closely by googling "eating animal feces." Good luck with that!

Right now, my head is spinning with so many off color jokes on this subject that I may possibly have a nervous breakdown, but I'll just leave it at this. Somewhere, right now, an obsessive carnivorous plant geek is seriously questioning his entire existence.

Can I please tell you all what a wonderful resource NVDH is? He is like an entire research department for Zooillogix. My man!

bleimanb Thu, 03/11/2010 - 06:30

AMNH Subway Art #43

grrlscientist — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:59:51 +0000

AMNH Subway Art #43

tags: Scandentia, tree shrew, photography, subway art, AMNH, NYC, NYCLife

This might be a tree shrew (but which species?)
as portrayed in tiles on the walls of the NYC uptown 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.

grrlscientist Sat, 02/16/2008 - 13:59

Photo of the Day #26: Lesser Tree Shrew

laelaps — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:40:20 +0000

Photo of the Day #26: Lesser Tree Shrew

Today's photo is of a Lesser Tree Shrew (Tupaia minor), sitting still for a split second allowing me to get a somewhat blurry shot. I wasn't initially thinking of putting this one up today, but I thought it would be a topical choice given a new study in Scienceout this week that suggests Colugos (Family Cynocephalidae) may be more closely related to primates than Tree Shrews (Order Scandentia). Using partial genomic data from both groups (plus primates), the research team found that the colugos were more closely related to primates than the tree shrews, although we have yet to see if this relationship is supported by anatomical and paleontological data. Although I have not read the paper as yet (I do not have access to Science from home), the abstract hints at another interesting implication of the study; the researchers suggest that tree shrews arose 63 million years ago (after the Cretaceous mass extinction) but that the ancestors of modern primates and Colugos diverged during the Cretaceous about 86 million years ago (much older than the oldest known primate fossil). Again, I doubt this is the "last word" on the subject, (especially since the Colugo genome is not entirely sequenced and we haven't yet found the fossils to determine how accurate the estimated "ghost lineage" is) and I will be keeping my eyes open to see if there is support from the fossil record for this new arrangement. If you want to read a good overview of the research, be sure to check out Anne-Marie's summary.

laelaps Sat, 11/03/2007 - 04:40