bleimanb | August 5, 2008Australian snubfin dolphins. They don't look so ugly to us, but then again, Andrew and I are hideous to behold ourselves.
zooillogix | August 5, 2008Wildlife Conservation Society researchers in the remote northern jungles of the Republic of Congo have made a startling discovery: approximately 125,000 western lowland gorillas - more than twice the previous worldwide estimate. Coined "the Green Abyss" by scientists and explorers eager to do some coining in a world running increasingly short on coinable areas, these remote forests are extremely swampy, making tent sites nearly impossible to find. Apparently the lack of KOA campgrounds accounts for the previous lack of research in the area and oversight of the vast majority of the population…
bleimanb | August 4, 2008A husband and wife scientist team in England has devised a titillating means of identifying oncoming illnesses in patients by using a bioluminescent mollusk called a piddock. Dr. Jan Knight and Dr. Robert Knight have already started using their method on the English Olympic sailing team to help monitor their health before the impending games.
Here's what piddocks look like, glowing and in someone's hand.
The process works like this: Piddocks let off a blue-green glow when a protein they contain called Pholasin comes into contact with free radical chemicals. Free radicals are also produced…
zooillogix | August 4, 2008Penn State University biologist Blair Hedges seems to have found his niche: identifying the world's tiniest reptiles and amphibians. Having already found world record holders for the smallest lizard and frog, Hedge's has announced the discovery of the world's smallest snake, Leptotyphlops carlae, which grows to only four inches long. Commonly known as the Barbados Thread Snake, the little guy is about .2 inches shorter than the previous record holder, which is native to Martinique.
Hedges believes this wimpy reptile may be the minimum size for a snake. The snake is blind and lays a single,…
zooillogix | July 31, 2008Benny and his buddy Andy (no relation) are going camping this weekend. Benny sent this adorable video postcard to Andy to get him jazzed up about the festivities! See below the fold...
zooillogix | July 31, 2008An older video that just made its way onto YouTube of the critters that make their homes around hydrothermal vents.
bleimanb | July 29, 2008The pentailed treeshrew has recently been identified by scientists as the "biggest drunk" in the animal kingdom. Frank Wiens of the Department of Animal Physiology at the University of Bayreuth in Germany smelled the distinct odor of booze in the Segari Melintang Forest Reserve in Western Malaysia. He and his team identified the bertam palm's flowers as producing a nectar that ferments into alcohol. They then decided to set up cameras to document the creatures who visited the palm. At night, slow lorises and pentailed treeshrews spent the most time consuming the palm's liquid, with the…
bleimanb | July 28, 2008A new exhibit at New York's Museum of Sex seeks to expose the hidden sex lives of animals, and some of its themes may be shocking to prudes. As the exhibit shows (graphically), animals engage in diverse, unconventional acts of sex, and sex plays a much larger role in many animal societies than serving merely as a means of reproduction.
But Andrew, you told me that baby pandas came from marshmallow trees!
I'm going to put the rest of this post (And steamy pics. Steamy, that is, if monkey sex is your thing) below the fold, so as not to upset our readers who peruse Zooillogix as a family.
Here'…
bleimanb | July 28, 2008
Apologies for overloading cute on you all. These baby lemurs were recently born at Folly Farm Zoo in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
zooillogix | July 28, 2008This is old but Oysters Garter reminded me of it and I still think it's pretty cool. Also, I love lobsters (see below below).
The Biomimetic Underwater Robot Program based out of Northeastern University seeks to develop "neurotechnology based on the neurophysiology and behavior of animal models." This particular lobster robot is meant to sniff out underwater mines or some such, but I suspect that's just what the researchers told DARPA to get a big check to build a badass robotic lobster.
Perhaps of equal interest are these pics of my wedding cake (for reals):
UPDATE: My lobster cake was…
zooillogix | July 25, 2008Oh good God. We are reprinting this article in its entirety from the Orange News because it is just too good. Check it!
Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township.
"It's hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!" Feng told Oriental Today.
He says the piglet looks just like a monkey, with two thin lips, a small nose and two big eyes. Its rear legs are also much longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk.
Feng's wife said the monkey-faced piglet…
zooillogix | July 24, 2008Outside of Zooillogix, I serve as the moderator for a zookeeper listserv. 75% of my job seems to be approving or disapproving of classified ads for sugar gliders... I no longer find them cute. Not at all. But the other 25% comprises Q&A between zoo folks about dizzy tapirs, unenriched African porcupines, promiscuous honey badgers and the like.
Recently though I received an email informing me that our listserv's use of the compound word "zookeeper" in our name, as opposed to "zoo keeper," "gave us away as novices." Now I am a novice. In fact, I've never kept a zoo in my life, so "novice"…
zooillogix | July 24, 2008After becoming entangled in a fishing net off the coast of Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefrecture in Japan, a wounded and exhausted young dolphin was taken to Umitamago Aquarium, also known as Oita Marine Palace Aquarium. The dolphin did not have the energy to keep itself afloat and after a couple of days of holding the dolphin to make sure it didn't sink, the aquarium staff were also worn out. This is when aquarium vets got the clever idea of fashioning a dolphin lifejacket shown below.
This is where the story gets less cute. According to this Reuters article, the aquarium intends to keep their…
zooillogix | July 23, 2008After some torrential rain in Pinellas County, Fla, residents were treated to some friendly neighborhood walking catfish. Once again, this was sent to us by Kevin Zelnio who runs an online Viagra store or some such. Interestingly, the link he sent us was from a recent local news broadcast, but a little bit of sleuthing showed that they were just running old CNN footage from YouTube which they tried to pass off as their own. Scoundrels! Reminds me of what we do here everyday...
bleimanb | July 22, 2008Discovery.com recently reported two instances of animals manipulating sound to master their environments.
Cuckoos are known for tricking birds into rearing their chicks: They lay their eggs in another species' nest and, once hatched, the baby cuckoos push out the eggs and/or chicks of the host birds. While it's also known that the baby cuckoos can mimic the cries of the host birds' chicks, scientists were surprised to find that one Australian species, the Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo, takes this a step further.
Tengo pince hambre! Je suis baiser affamé! Sono scopare affamato! Excuse me, can…
zooillogix | July 21, 2008I rarely divulge details of my personal life on Zooillogix because, frankly, I am quite a catch and I didn't want female readers leaving their husbands. On July 12th however, I (Andrew - the older and wiser one who still has both hands) got married. I tell you this because something horrible happened shortly before the wedding that directly informs this story: my then fiancee forced me to get a pedicure.
For years she has begged me to clickity-clack the raptor claws I call toes down to "Nail Bar" but I staunchly refused, as any self-respecting pretend-zoologist must. She was quite persistent…
bleimanb | July 21, 2008What is the Ghost Slug?
by the Museum of Wales
"Unlike most slugs, the Ghost Slug is carnivorous, killing earthworms at night with powerful, blade-like teeth, sucking them in like spaghetti. It is also unusual in having no eyes (it is probably blind) and is almost completely white. It spends most of its time underground, squeezing its flexible body into cracks or tunnels to get at earthworms, which it detects by smell or taste."
Yup, you read that last part right. After the story of the slug infestation wreaking havoc on the UK's gardens this year, things are getting worse for the Brits.…
zooillogix | July 21, 2008In a sure sign that Kruger National Park in South Africa is angling to be the World Wrestling Federation of game reserves, yet another unlikely and brutal animal match-up has been caught on film. In this series of photos, a leopard ambushes a crocodile. A protracted struggle ensues but it's pretty clear who ultimately comes out on top. While crocodiles have been witnessed attacking leopards in the past, this is the first known encounter that began the other way around. Cut and pasted just for you from the pages of The Telegraph, check this out:
more below the fold
This encounter is…
zooillogix | July 21, 2008Two doozies in a row brought to you today by our good friend Kevin Zelnio of Deep Sea News and The Other 95%. The first is this awesomeness:
Amazing video of a giant freshwater stingray caught in Thailand and covered as part of National Geographic's Megafishes Project. This specimen measured 14ft long but fisherman in Thailand and Cambodia claim they can grow many times larger. Little is known about these freshwater giants but if the fishermen are to be believed (and why would a fishermen ever exaggerate a fish's size?!), these stingrays, also known as whip rays, could be the world's largest…