bleimanb | October 21, 2008Two black-footed ferret kits have been born at the Smithsonian National Zoo after their mothers were artificially inseminated by decade-old frozen sperm. The kits' fathers, deceased now for seven and eight years respectively, had provided sperm in 1997 and 1998 as a part of the Smithsonian's initiative to rescue the black-footed ferret from the doorstep of extinction.
Can I call you...dad?
Because prairie dog populations (black-footed ferrets' primary source of food) have been depleted by over 98% in the wild, so have the ferrets. In the 1990's they were presumed extinct until a population…
zooillogix | October 20, 2008Some times I find myself in random corners of the Interweb, pleasantly lost, and then I come face to face with the piglet squid!
Unaccustomed to Earth's atmosphere, the visitor quickly perished.
The following info is from a short press release provided by the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium when they found this little tyke.
Piglet Squid, Helicocranchia pfefferi
This funny looking squid is about the size of a small avocado and can be found most commonly in the deepwater (greater than 100 m or 320 ft) of virtually all oceans. Its habit of filling up with water and the funny location of its siphone…
zooillogix | October 17, 2008ThinkGeek has a phenomenal new product line just in time for the holidays: Plush Microbes!
There are a ton of them, but below are some of my favorites:
There are also a ton of owner submitted action shots, documenting the fun that can be had with your microbes!
Nature isn't cruel, just indifferent
Tomato scare!
Easter egg hunting is more fun with Salmonella!
Thanks once again to Javie
zooillogix | October 17, 2008If Zooillogix had a child, one might have assumed that it would be a hyperactive know-it-all with a weird sense of humor that just made other people uncomfortable. Who would have guessed that it would be a bouncing bundle of innocently adorable joy!!!
Please check out the newest Bleiman creation - ZooBorns - that just went live today!
Come see baby red pandas in abundance at ZooBorns!
bleimanb | October 15, 2008Embedded video from CNN Video
(If this doesn't work for you in Chrome, try IE or something)
zooillogix | October 15, 2008"Worm grunting" is a curious but popular practice for harvesting earthworms in Florida's Apalachicola National Forest. To summon earthworms to the surface, worm grunters drive a wooden stake into the soil and vibrate it. Panicked worms pour out of the ground and thousands can be gathered in just a few hours. Lifelong worm grunters (and there are families that have been professional worm grunters for multiple generations) have a variety of theories regarding the underlying mechanisms of their trade. However, Kenneth Catania, a researcher from Vanderbilt, has come up with an explanation to this…
zooillogix | October 15, 2008One of the Vancouver Aquarium's resident belugas, Qila, gave birth to a healthy calf back in June. Now four months old, the calf is beginning to play with her trainers and especially enjoys tongue rubs, which the aquarium staff say is kind of like a massage... for your tongue...
From the video info section: "Look closely for her frilly tongue. It helps forms a tight seal while she's nursing. Beluga calves don't suckle; instead, the mother squirts milk into her calf's mouth.
The calf will have a name by the end of October. Her name will be chosen from entries to the Aquarium's Name the Baby…
bleimanb | October 14, 2008These shots are stills from a new National Geographic Documentary airing this month called "Extraordinary Animals in the Womb".
You quiero dar puntandas una pierna...Chihuahau fetus
Peter Chinn the show's producer used a mixture of endoscopic cameras, ultrasound imaging and computer modeling to create the most accurate and detailed embryonic animal pics ever witnessed.
Kangaroo joey in poucho.
Embryonic Emporer penguin, one week after gestation...
More pics below the fold...
Alien
Almost-born kitten.
Paracitic wasp in a cocoon.
zooillogix | October 14, 2008They just don't write spine tinglers about killer pandas like they used to. Check out Heroic Comics #35, Facing Death in a Panda's Mouth, in its entirety below the fold.
Thank god they shot that panda. I thought they were goners! Via judgeabook.
bleimanb | October 10, 2008Researchers have been dispatched to the Great Kali river in India to study whether a form of giant catfish called goonches have taken to preying on humans. The Indians traditionally burn their dead in the river, which, according to local lore, has led in two ways to the fish attacking humans: #1 - because the fish have dined on a steady diet of corpses they have grown unusually large; #2 - eating dead humans has resulted in their developing a taste for flesh which may be leading them to see live humans as a viable source of food.
Biologist or redneck? You decide!
The first supposed incident…
zooillogix | October 10, 2008Dear Incredibly Wealthy Readers,
A week or so back we announced our participation in the Donors Choose challenge. Specifically, we are raising money for elementary school teachers in the Bronx to bring animals into the classroom and a teacher outside of DC build out his outdoor ecology program. These are worthy, and very affordable, causes. Just imagine it: a tarantula in a 1st grade classroom named after you!
If you have a minute and can spare some money for a small donation, it would be much appreciated. There is a banner ad type link if you scroll down on the left sidebar or you can click…
zooillogix | October 10, 2008The pseudo-anonomous British grafitti artist known only as Banksy unveiled an installation in Greenwich Village this week entitled The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill. Included are chicken nuggets that dip themselves in sauce, fish sticks that swim round an aquarium and smoked meats that slither around their tanks. Better knwon for his murals, the installation seems to be making some statement about consumerism, animal rights, and the sheer deliciousness of processed foods.
A sign in front of the shop reads "Open for Pet Supplies/Rare Breeds/Mechanically retrieved meat."
Cool pics and…
zooillogix | October 9, 2008A joint UK-Japanese team has discovered the new record holder for the world's deepest living fish. At 7.7km deep in the Japan Trench, the researchers managed to take some great video of Pseudoliparis amblystomopsis doing its thing. The clowns at Deep Sea News have already covered this and we suggest you check out their site for more info, but the video below shows these deepwater fish gathering for Sunday supper.
Thanks to Tessa K and others for demanding that we ripoff DSN. Our pleasure!
zooillogix | October 7, 2008Fun little stop-motion fungus vid this morning... which I can't get to run on here properly.
While I'm at it, I might as well add a video from a couple weeks back that appeared on Carl Zimmer's blog, The Loom. Entitled "Fungus Cannon," it demonstrates new research by Nicholas Money, a mycologist from Miami University, that fungus achieve the fastest known flight times in nature. These spores are launched at up to 55 miles an hour-which translates to an acceleration of 180,000 g. For more details check out Zimmer's post or the published research in PLoS One. The video is set to Anvil Chorus…
bleimanb | October 6, 2008Scientists in England working with an international conservation group have compiled a sample list which will be used much like the Dow Jones Industrial Average to track the overall status of endangered and threatened species in the world.
Andrew and I should never have sunk our life savings into Steller's sea cows!
You may have seen the news today that according to "Red List" released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 1 in 4 species of mammel is on the edge of extinction, due to habitat loss, overhunting, pollution and the effects of global warming. Every known…
zooillogix | October 3, 2008
Zooillogix has a lot of Belgian readers. This makes us uncomfortable. One such pale reader, Thomas Cordie, pointed us to some beautiful photos of right whales on National Geographic. Despite my temptation to just copy them all for you to enjoy, I'm posting one, and suggesting you take a look over there.
More NGC stuff below the fold:
A lion rides a horse in China for some reason.
Thanks goatrodeo.
zooillogix | October 3, 2008How we missed this the first time around I will never know, nor forgive our readers for. Enjoy!
Thanks to Mike McElwain for sending along. yitb
zooillogix | October 2, 2008Zooillogix is participating in DonorsChoose, a very cool annual fundraising effort to directly provide needy schools with the materials they need. There are literally thousands of projects to choose from and we selected some pretty modest ones that we hope our readers will choose to support.
#1 An enterprising elementary school teacher in the Bronx wants to buy supplies to keep all sorts of live critters in the classroom, including: hermit crabs, butterflies, worms, ladybugs, pill bugs, and praying mantises.
#2 Another Bronx elementary school teachers wants to get an incubator, fertilized…