zooillogix | June 15, 2007Ever wonder where sea creatures have been or where they're headed? Thanks to marvelous modern technology and an ambitious team of prestigious scientific organizations, now you can watch in almost real-time! Since 2002, Tagging of Pacific Pelagic (TOPPS) research project has tagged over 2,000 animals with tiny microprocessors and sophisticated remote sensing systems to track exactly where, when and how deep they're traveling through the ocean.
Movements of twelve tagged salmon sharks over the last 60 days.
The results are fantastic maps showing up-to-the-minute movements of mako sharks…
zooillogix | June 14, 2007Next up Giraffe Dog, Zebra Dog, and Genera Hypercolor Dog!
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zooillogix | June 14, 2007Hey there, ladies. I'm just a lonesome, evolutionary mishap who loves to party.
The Purple frog or Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis can be described as a "living fossil." These strange creatures split evolutionarily from other frogs nearly 150 million years ago giving them features unique to any amphibian, so unique in fact that they have been put in their own taxonomic family. Purple frogs were officially discovered by scientists in 2003 in the hilly jungles of Western India. Making them particularly difficult to locate is their propensity for burrowing deep in the jungle floor and only…
zooillogix | June 11, 2007It doesn't seem like nearly so many, but we have reached our first milestone: 100 posts. To celebrate, we decided to give you an inside look into how your fellow Zooillogix readers found our site. Some of you know us personally (we're sorry), some of you were spammed by us (like the entire Cambridge Zoology Department) and many of you were part of the 140,000 visitor tsunami that visited our Jogging Flower post. However, many of you arrived via good old Google keyword searches. Here are some of our favorite actual searches that, for better and often worse, apparently brought visitors to our…
zooillogix | June 11, 2007Tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus
A robotic tuatara has been put to work in Stephens Island, New Zealand, helping researchers to better understand the mating habits of its biological brethren.
Tuataras are one of the oldest reptile species on Earth, dating back 200 million years. The researchers are hoping that the data obtained by using "Robo-Ollie" will help them in relocating the reptiles when necessary and in captive breeding programs.
Robo-Ollie was built by Weta Workshops, a company that designed many robotic creatures for the Lord of the Rings movies. Though the robot is not rigged to move…
zooillogix | June 8, 2007
In celebration of World Oceans Day, Mark Powell, Director of Fish Conservation-Ocean Conservancy, has painstakingly put together a list of many of the leading ocean bloggers, and Zooillogix made the cut!
Click here to check out Mark's awesome blog, Blogfishx, and read up on some of the bloggers united together to protect and report on the ocean and all of its creatures.
Mark deserves serious props for all the work he's put in. Hopefully bringing all these ocean-oriented bloggers together can yield some good for the critters in the sea. Great work, Mark!
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zooillogix | June 8, 2007Primitive primates indigenous to Southeast Asia, Slow Lorises are endangered and absurdly adorable. Most importantly, they just so happen to be this editor,Aeos favorite animal since early childhood. However, it wouldn,Aeot take a childhood obsession to be appalled at the horrors of the illegal loris trade.
Prized for their cuddliness, slow lorises are sold in Japan as impulse-buy pets like puppies. But the process of getting them to Japan is fraught with misery for the animals. Baby lorises are the most valuable, but unable to care for themselves. They cannot defecate without assistance from…
zooillogix | June 7, 2007Sweden has won the first ever European Bombina Song Contest, in what is surely Europe's most sparsely attended Idol spinoff. Indigenous to the lowlands of Northern Europe, the fire-bellied toad or Bombina bombina is an endangered species that has attracted a small but fanatically loyal fan club of zoologists and ecologists. To bring attention to their conservation efforts, the German organization Stiftung Naturshutz, roughly translated as 'Give Us Money for Nature,' organized a bombina song contest. The heated contest between Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Latvia was fraught with centuries old…
zooillogix | June 6, 2007Army-ants storm through the jungles of Panama a million strong devouring any and every living creature in their path. Some clever birds have found a way to capitalize on the mayhem: Stay close to the ants and eat the leaping, running, and scampering insects that attempt to escape.
Who would want to escape from this love fest?
Antbirds and ovenbirds, the main ant-following species, have different strategies for using the ants to their advantages. Some birds only follow the ants within their own territories, but stop when they reach the borders. Others dabble in ant following, hitting them up…
zooillogix | June 5, 2007A species of endangered sea lion has suddenly acquired a taste for a rare penguin in New Zealand, causing heated debate amongst Kiwi conservationists and scientists. Sea lions breeding on the Otago Peninsula have taken to devouring yellow-eyed penguins. The good news is that male sea lions do not seem to have a pallet for the birds. The bad news is that female sea lions may eat up to thirty yellow-eyed penguins per year a piece.
Scientists from the New Zealand Department of Conservation are trying to set up a breeding ground for the sea lions on the Otago Peninsula. Succeeding means having…
zooillogix | June 5, 2007Two-tone lobsters are rare, only about 1 in 50 million share this mutation. They would be wise to increase the frequency of this variation however as it inevitably saves the little guy from the pot. Lobster shells have three primary pigment colors, red, yellow and blue. Occasionally lobsters lack one or more of these colors and because the two sides of a lobster shell develop independently, startling two-tone specimens are possible. Their less fortunate plain-Jane family members turn red in the pot because the heat frees the red pigment molecules, uncoiling them from the dark protein…
zooillogix | June 4, 2007Daceton armigerum, a highly visual, predatory ant.
Two dozen new species were identified on the plateaus of Eastern Suriname, according to scientists today. The creatures, which include 12 new kinds of dung beetle, were originally discovered during a 2005 expedition sponsored by Suriname Aluminum Company LLC and BHP Billiton Maatschappij Suriname.Purple-festooned, Atepolus toad
Amazonian snail-eating snake
A dwarf catfish in the Guyanancistrus genus, nicknamed "Big Mouth" by its discoverers
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zooillogix | June 4, 2007Rooks in Exeter, England have discovered a unique health benefit to cigarettes that may just be enough to save the embattled industry. Commuters observed the rooks at St. David's train station fumigating their feathers with cigarette smoke. Swooping down to snatch up lit cigarette butts, the rooks would eventually drop the butt and tent their wings over it. It is believed that the birds did this to coax mites and other parasites out of their feathers. Jeff Jones, a passenger waiting on the platform described the behavior (with a charming British accent we're sure), "They were generally…
zooillogix | May 31, 2007We know that a rash of recent posts has put us at risk of entering cuteoverload territory , but we couldn't resist these pictures of seven baby hedgehogs from two different families at the Prickly Ball Farm Hospital in Devon, England. The hospital copes with orphaned hedgehogs every year. This year, however, because of a particularly mild winter, hedgehog mothers have been giving birth about a month early, and thus the hospital has had to gear up sooner to deal with the little buggers.See video of the adorable tiny hedgehogs here
The babies will be weaned to regular food and then released…
zooillogix | May 30, 2007A mad scientist at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, has developed a new technique for finding unexploded land mines: bomb-sniffing bees! Professor Nikola Kezic spends his days training hives of honey bees--whose sense of smell is much more powerful than that of humans-- to detect and point out explosives buried in the ground. By combining sources of food with chemical explosives in a confined environment, Kezic conditions the bees to associate the smell of explosives with delicious sustenance. Once released into the wild, the bees make a bee-line (seriously this is too easy) for the land…
zooillogix | May 29, 2007Wildlife officials from Southeast Asia met in Cisarua, Indonesia this week to discuss cross-border animal smuggling. Chief among their concerns was the rapid growth in pangolin trafficking. Scaled mammals with long, sticky, extendable tongues (up to 16"), Pangolins were once grouped with anteaters but recent DNA testing has shown that they are most likely a distinct group. Unfortunately for the pangolin, the Chinese prize their meat as a delicacy and believe their scales have medicinal properties, including reducing swelling, improving blood circulation and helping breast feeding women…
zooillogix | May 29, 2007"Some people call me Maurice." Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae
A study from two Australian researchers from the University of Sydney shows that male humpbacks who sing while migrating have better luck with the ladies than those who don't.
Michael Noad and a group of colleagues tracked a population of humpbacks while it migrated to its Antarctic breeding grounds.
Noad found that male humpbacks who sing while migrating averaged only 2.5 km/hour as opposed to non-singing males who averaged 4 km/hour. Noad and his team are speculating that by slowing down and singing the males allow…
zooillogix | May 29, 2007In 2001, scientists at New Zealand biotechnology firm ViaLactia (that translates to Milk Road, right?), identified a cow with a genetic mutation that resulted in its producing skim milk. Since then, Milk Road has successfully bread a strain of cows from the original- Marge - that only produce skim milk. Marge and her offspring produce milk that is very low in saturated fats but high in healthier polyunsaturates and monounsaturated fats. This type of milk is apparently ideal for technological marvels like more-spreadable butter. Currently, dairy company's specializing in skim milk must…