zooillogix | June 11, 2008This Roe Deer was born in captivity at the research center of the Center of Natural Sciences just outside of Prato, Italy. With a single horn protruding from the center of its skull, Italian scientists believe that the animal either suffers from a unique genetic mutation or that it is a clear sign of the imminent second coming of Christ.
Special limited edition unicorn votives can be purchased at the Vatican this month only!
Single horned deer are rare, but not unheard of. However it is very unusual for the horn to be in the center of the head. Interestingly the unicorno's twin brother was…
zooillogix | June 9, 2008Time once again for some of Igor Siwanowicz's spectacular insect photography. We've brought you his mantis photos in the past (#1 , #2, and #3) so we decided to switch it up and take a look at some of his moths. Unfortunately Igor doesn't tell us which species we are looking at, but maybe some of our entomologically inclined readers will chime in.
more below the fold
This last one might be a butterfly, but that's a killer proboscis...
bleimanb | June 6, 2008New research published in the journal, Animal Behavior, has shed light on an extraordinary adaptation of unborn cuttlefish: the ability to visualize prey while they are still in their egg casings. Even more astonishing is the findings that embryonic cuttlefish who were exposed to crabs preferred crabs as their meal-of-choice after they hatched. This is the first known evidence of embryonic visual learning by any creature in the world.
Learning to kill...
Cuttlefish- a close relative of squids and octopuses -are known for...
...their ability to blend in seamlessly with their surroundings by…
zooillogix | June 5, 2008Many people collect baseball cards, stamps, coins, comic books, rocks, fossils or nutcrackers. I believe I have opened up a whole new field of nerd-dom with my zoo and aquarium shot glass collection. Given that it is the only zoo and aquarium shot glass collection I know of, I have also decided it is the world's largest.
In no particular order, I currently have shot glasses from the San Diego Zoo, Newport Aquarium, Cincinnati Zoo, Knoxville Zoo, Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies, Tennessee Aquarium, New York Aquarium, Smithsonian National Zoo, Bronx Zoo, New England Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium…
zooillogix | June 4, 2008A fascinating article in Livescience reveals the answer to a century-old zoological mystery: what do y-larvae grow up to become? Discovered in 1899, y-larvae are clearly young crustaceans but their adult stage could not be determined. While this in itself was perplexing, the newly discovered answer is even more startling: y-larvae metamorphosize into "simple, pulsing, slug-like masses of cells... far simpler than their larval stage." In a sense, the creatures revert backwards to forms more commonly seen further down the evolutionary ladder as they mature.
Watch the process
This awesome video…
zooillogix | June 4, 2008When Benny and I were little, we used to bait a large Havahart trap and leave it in the backyard overnight. We caught squirrels, possums and raccoons. Half the fun was the surprise of what might be inside when we woke up the next day. The game ended the morning we discovered we had caught a skunk... The Solar Insect Theater is kind of the same idea, just with less risk of skunk capture and extraction.
Basically it's a wooden bug box with a solar powered light that charges during the day and lures insects at night. The insects "can leave anytime they want" although most naturally choose to…
zooillogix | June 3, 2008In 2006 two eager shell collectors hauled in some small but strangely shaped mollusks in deep water off Key West, Florida. Like the good animal nerds they were, they brought their findings to a shell collectors convention in Mobile, Alabama where the Director of the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum on Sanibel Island, Jose H. Leal, took up the challenge of identifying the critters.
Two years later, Leal finally published his findings in the May 7th edition of Zootaxa, announcing that the heart-shaped bivalves were an entirely new genus. As explained to Florida's News-Press by Leal, "This…
bleimanb | June 2, 2008A study of rare African frogs has revealed a form of self-defense hitherto unbeknownst to the scientific world: claws of pure bone that burst through the frogs' skin. And it gets worse. When the frogs are threatened they need to first "actively break" their own bones in order to create these claws.
Don't make me angry...you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
David Blackburn of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology released his team's findings last week in Biology Letters on the Trichobatrachus robustus, and ten other related species of frog, most of which live in Cameroon.
The frogs'…
zooillogix | May 28, 2008As 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…
zooillogix | May 28, 2008
The commercial that inspired Ben and me to be English majors.
Thanks to Peter Angelastro for unearthing this gem.
bleimanb | May 27, 2008The Arizona State University's Institute for Species Exploration has released their much anticipated picks for the top ten best new species discovered in the last year. From a rhinosaurus beetle that looks like a Pixar character to a fruit bat the fills in some evolutionary holes, this list supposedly has it all.
O Magazine called hot pink centipedes the MUST HAVE accessory for the summer.
Taking a cue from the Brother's Bleiman, the ASU Top Ten List sometimes attempts to combine humor with science...By clicking on the link below, you will see that it fails.
Click here to view the top ten…
zooillogix | May 22, 2008Via a circuitous route, prompted by a friend of Zooillogix, Tweet Gainsborough-waring, I found myself looking at the picture below.
This otherworldly Australian earthworm, Terriswalkeris terraereginae, not only looks likes delicious candy, but the mucin it releases is luminescent, and it grows up to 2 meters long. I knew Zooillogix readers would want to know more about this fascinating critter but could find almost no information online. Luckily, Dr. Geoff Dyne, Assistant Director, Queensland Section, Australian Government Natural Research Management Team (and more importantly,…
bleimanb | May 15, 2008Stories are emerging all over China of how animals started behaving peculiarly days and hours before Monday's deadly earthquake. According to a story filed by the Associated Press, one Chinese province was overrun with toads days before it struck, and hours before the quake in a zoo 600 miles west of the earthquake's center, zebras began banging their heads against the door of their enclosure; elephants swung their trunks wildly and uncharacteristically in a nearby exhibit; lions were awake at during their normal napping times; and peacocks screeched out in unison as if warning their fellow…
zooillogix | May 12, 2008When our mother upped and moved to New Mexico a few years back, my brother and I were thrilled to be spending holidays in such a rugged, wild, and frankly, weird place. She lives only a couple of miles from the center of Albuquerque, but regular backyard visitors include coyotes, black bears and lynx. Needless to say, the family cat, Lulu, quickly became an "indoor cat." After a few months the coyotes became more bold, trotting along the walls of the property, and my grandmother, Maggie, quickly became an "indoor grandmother."
These pictures were taken by a motion activated camera in the…
bleimanb | May 8, 2008Yet another crazy cat person has made the news. This time, 47-year-old Michael Louis Vondueren of Sacramento who was discovered with 300 dead cats, stuffed in various freezers around his house.
A recent photo of Vondueren taken outside his Sacramento home
Andrew and I have been racking our brains...What is it about crazy people and their affinity for cats? Any psychiatrists in the audience? How about feliniologists?
We thought we'd ask you for your theories.
bleimanb | May 7, 2008This 6-month old pygmy right whale stranded itself on the beach in New Zealand. It is being dissected by a team of scientists as I write this! The whale has a similar head to true right whales, but scientists do not believe that they are closely related. In fact, they are not quite sure where these rare whales fit into the overall evolutionary tree. Hopefully this dissection will help them put some of the pieces in the puzzle.
You can watch along step by step, as these Museum of New Zealand researchers carve their way through this little guy on Te Papa's Blog.
bleimanb | May 6, 2008Across the U.K., ravens, once peaceful scavengers, have taken to attacking livestock in huge murderous storms. Scottish and Welsh farmers have recently reported flocks of ravens descending on lambs and literally pecking them to death. Kind of like the movie The Birds! just more sensationalized by the British media...
Beware! Poor metaphors and juvenile symbolism ahead!
Jimmy Mills, a farmer from the town of Stratherrick claims to have lost seven lambs in the last two weeks. In this article in the Daily Mail, he said "The lambs are born at...
...1pm and by four o'clock they've been taken to…
zooillogix | May 5, 2008Documentary on "new obscure insects" by Floris Kaayk. Was first shown at Paradise by the Laptop Light in 2005. While fascinating, a world infested with these guys would pretty much suck.
Thanks to Maria Haanpaa for forwarding along.