Animals Library: April 2014

Tarantula Hawks – A Tarantula’s Worst Nightmare

Tarantulas are considered to be one of the most famous exotic pets people take care of. With their large, hairy and sometimes thorny bodies, these spiders aren’t exactly nice looking. What makes them scarier is the fact that they actually eat animals that are bigger than them like mice, lizards and even small birds. However, what’s even scarier is the creature that hunts for these massive spiders. Common predators for tarantulas are tarantula hawks. These are a kind of wasps which are great to have around the garden since they give a great deal of help with pollination and they’re typically n

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Frogs Survive Subzero Temperatures by Living as Ice Cubes

No matter how rough a winter you think you had, it was nothing compared to what a wood frog survives every year. Some of these little amphibians are still waiting for spring, when they’ll thaw out and turn from frog-shaped blocks of ice back into animals. Recently, scientists took a close look at wood frogs living deep in the Alaskan woods and learned that they’re even more impressive than we’d imagined.Wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) are known for their skill—more like a superpower, really, in the animal world—of freezing solid for the winter. Forget migrating to warmer climes or hibernat

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Caribous and Reindeers, How are they Different

Although there are a lot of similarities between caribous and reindeers, and at times people would even mistake them as the same animal, the differences between them are enough to classify them as two different subspecies. Caribous and Reindeers share a similar genus, Rangifer. They are also under the same species name, tarandus. One of the major differences between these animals is domestication. Reindeers are semidomesticated Rangifer subspecies while caribous are considered as wild in Alaska and nearby areas. CaribouBoth the female and male caribous and reindeers grow antlers, which

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Stolen Chihuahuas Worth £32,000

Certain dog breeds are known to be the pets of A-list people like movie stars and rich business tycoons. These dogs even get better service at a hotel compared to people. In turn, they become targets for dognappers, knowing that their owners will do absolutely anything to get them back.Recently, five prized Chihuahuas, including a Crufts dog show champion, were stolen after dognappers broke into a Bridlington, East Yorkshire home. The five dogs are said to be worth a cool £32,000. There is now a nationwide dog hunt to find these precious pups, who were all microchipped with tags. The pri

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Dental scientist probes mysteries of narwhal's 'unicorn' tooth

Boston—Dr. Martin Nweeia and research colleagues cite new evidence of how "the most extraordinary tooth in nature" interprets its icy Arctic environment for the narwhal, the near mythological whale with the spiraling tusk that is a tooth 6 to 9 feet long.But what use, that tooth of unicorn measure?Dr. Nweeia views his explorations on the nature of teeth as relevant to the practice of dentistry. "The unusual properties of the tusk's microanatomy and expression give us a new perspective of teeth," he said of his narwhal tooth anatomy study published by the journal The Anatomical Record and firs

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Study confirms monkeys can do math

Scientists have long suspected that monkeys are capable of mental arithmetics and a new study is helping them prove it. A research team led by neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone trained three rhesus macaques to identify symbols representing the numbers zero to 25. They then taught the test subjects how to perform addition. To eliminate the possibility of rote learning, the team had the monkeys learn an entirely different set of symbols representing the numbers zero to 25. The monkeys were able to reapply their previous knowledge to the new set and continue performing basic mathematics.The im

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Dogs (and Cats) Can Love

I’m not a dog person. I prefer cats. Cats make you work to have a relationship with them, and I like that. But I have adopted several dogs, caving in to pressure from my kids. The first was Teddy, a rottweiler-chow mix whose bushy hair was cut into a lion mane. Kids loved him, and he grew on me, too. Teddy was probably ten years when we adopted him. Five years later he had multiple organs failing and it was time to put him to sleep.When I arrived at the vet, he said I could drop him off. I was aghast. No. I needed to stay with Teddy. As the vet prepped the syringe to put him to sleep, I start

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Archaeological, genetic evidence expands views of domestication

Many of our ideas about domestication derive from Charles Darwin, whose ideas in turn were strongly influenced by British animal-breeding practices during the 19th century, a period when landowners vigorously pursued systematic livestock improvement.It is from Darwin that we inherit the ideas that domestication involved isolation of captive animals from wild species and total human control over breeding and animal care.But animal management in this industrial setting has been applied too broadly in time and space, said Fiona Marshall, PhD, professor of anthropology at Washington University in

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Hungry Snake Picked The Wrong Dinner

Researchers on Golem Grad Island, Macedonia, stumbled upon a rather intriguing and wholly disgusting find whilst looking for snakes - a dead young viper with the head of a huge centipede protruding through its body. What a way to go! The report has been briefly described in the journal Ecologica Montenegrina.Nose-horned vipers (Vipera ammodytes) are venomous snakes found in southern Europe, the Balkans and certain parts of the Middle East. They can grow up to 95 centimeters and possess a characteristic “horn” on the snout, hence the name. They’re also considered to be the most dangerous

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Scientists discover the animal kingdom’s first ‘female penis’

Scientists have discovered four species of Brazilian insects in which the females possess a penis and the males possess a vagina. This announcement, made today in the journal Current Biology, represents the first documented instance of a "female penis" in the animal kingdom.Contrary to popular belief, the presence or absence of certain sex organs isn't the determining factor when deciding which animal of a species is female and which is male. In fact, biologists don't use sex chromosomes either. They actually rely on the size of an animal's gametes — sperm in males and oocytes in females. As

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These 22 Photos Will Make You Fall In Love With Foxes

Owing to its beautiful coat and bushy tail, which can be fiery red, steely gray or snow-white, the fox has held a special place in our hearts since time immemorial as a beautiful and mysterious woodland creature. These 22 pictures will make you fall in love with the fox all over again.The common red woodland fox that most of us know certainly is beautiful, but this cunning creature has managed to adapt to diverse climates throughout the world – the fennec fox of the Sahara desert and kit fox in the southwest U.S. both sport larger ears that help them stay cool in the desert, while th

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Breakthrough DNA study could slow big cat extinction

New research comparing genes from living lions with ancient lion remains could help scientists boost dwindling populations.A team of scientists has for the first time compared the genetic signatures from living and extinct lions to identify five distinct geographical groups within the lion species.Their findings were reported in the BMC Evolutionary Biology journal last week.Lion groupsThe research team, led by the University of Durham and including Museum zoologists Prof Ian Barnes and Richard Sabin, has identified the five groups of lions as North African/Asian, West African, Central Africa

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VIDEO: Meet Ocean Ramsey, The ‘Shark Whisperer’ (Who Also Happens to Be Smokin’ Hot)

Now we’ve seen some pretty ballsy interactions with top predators, but this one has got to take the cake.Ocean Ramsey is an avid ocean conservationist who’s swimming with sharks to raise awareness and change attitudes about these vilified sea-faring creatures.She’s also smokin’ hot, which obviously isn’t the most important thing here, but still, damn. Source: Here

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Hero Parrot Rescues Woman During Assault In London Park

Police are crediting a woman’s pet parrot for staving off an attacker in a London park late last week.According to the Times-Series, Wunsy, an African Grey parrot, had just finished taking a “walk” with his owner, flying alongside her in Sunningfield Park in the suburb of Henden, when an unidentified man approached and pushed her to the ground. But before the assault could escalate into something much worse, the brave bird came to her rescue by flapping his wings and squawking at the assailant -- enough to send him running.“This was a random attack on a woman walking out of a park,” says Poli

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Majestic New Cat Species Discovered In Nepal

Researchers studying snow leopard populations high in the Himalayas have announced the accidental discovery of a cat previously unknown to Nepal -- a majestic little cat that's at home in the highest mountain range on Earth.The small feline, about the same size as a domestic house cat, was caught on film by various camera traps between 13,000 and 15,000 feet above sea level. On 11 occasions between 2012 and 2013, the cat was spotted prowling the rocky mountainside at night in search of food.“The automatic cameras installed for the monitoring of snow leopards tracked a new species of cat which

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Animals need your time

Today marks the beginning of National Volunteer Week. I know that much of the great stuff that happens at this and any other shelter in the country is primarily because of the great volunteers who work to make a difference.Volunteering at the shelter can be very rewarding. You’ll never find a more grateful and admiring friend than an animal you just spent time with and comforted. Just lending a hand to make their lives a little more enjoyable and spreading the word about them can help them find a forever home.Often, people come in during their lunch hour or after work to walk the dogs along t

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Searing heat compounds woes of animals

Other than inconveniencing people, the searing heat has started to get to animals and birds as well. Quite often animals are left to fend for themselves during summer and they further find it difficult to look for food and water in the urban habitat. The soaring mercury levels in the city have also restricted the movement of stray dogs and cattle, which are seldom seen on the streets. Besides, the heat wave is also taking a toll on the birds, which are the worst affected in summer as they have to scout far and wide for food and water. Lack of dense foliage around the animal e

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Extinct Marsupial Preyed On Animals Bigger Than Itself

The biggest known carnivorous marsupial of the modern era – the Tasmanian tiger – or thylacine – went extinct in the early 20th century.Now, researchers have found that a distant, ancient relative of the thylacine was able to hunt down prey larger than itself, according to a new study in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.Based solely on a recovered 16- to 11.5-million-year-old skull, the study team was able to create a virtual three-dimensional model of the fox-sized carnivore called Nimbacinus dicksoni and compared that model to models of other large living marsupial carnivores, including the

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Animals forever

The Wildlife Taxidermy Centre, which started operations from a garage at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park in 2009, has been instrumental in doing the taxidermy of more than 100 animals, birds and reptiles. Now forest departments and private institutions from across the country are approaching the centre to preserve wild animals after their death for scientific and educational purposesStuffed animals adorning the walls of villains were common in Hindi movies in the 1960s and 1970s. Though they are no longer seen in today’s films, but the Wildlife Taxidermy Centre (WTC) at the Sanjay Gandhi Nati

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The remarkable self-organization of ants

Give a colony of garden ants a week and a pile of dirt, and they'll transform it into an underground edifice about the height of a skyscraper in an ant-scaled city. Without a blueprint or a leader, thousands of insects moving specks of dirt create a complex, spongelike structure with parallel levels connected by a network of tunnels. Some ant species even build living structures out of their bodies: army ants and fire ants in Central and South America assemble themselves into bridges that smooth their path on foraging expeditions, and certain types of fire ants cluster into makeshift rafts to

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Ancient shrimp-like animals had 'modern' hearts and blood vessels

An international team of researchers from the University of Arizona, China and the United Kingdom has discovered the earliest known cardiovascular system, and the first to clearly show a sophisticated system complete with heart and blood vessels, in fossilized remains of an extinct marine creature that lived over half a billion years ago. The finding sheds new light on the evolution of body organization in the animal kingdom and shows that even the earliest creatures had internal organizational systems that strongly resemble those found in their modern descendants."This is the first pre

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Two 15-Foot Oarfish Surface Off Mexican Coast, Elusive ‘Sea Serpents’ Caught On Camera [VIDEO]

Vacations are about experiencing and seeing new things – and then gloating about them to friends and co-workers back home. A group of travelers who recently took a trip to Mexico’s Sea of Cortés will have plenty of material for water-cooler parleys after this adventure. While kayaking, they came across two 15-foot oarfish, which belong to an elusive species of deep sea fish that has inspired countless tales of brushes with sea serpents and is rarely spotted alive.Unlike the stuff of legend, the recent sighting of the giant oarfish was totally legit. One wise vacationer got some of the oarfish

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Why are fruit flies so hard to hit? UW research has an answer

Once they sense danger, fruit flies can pitch their bodies like a fighter jet during flight, rolling almost upside down in order to shift momentum and speed to avoid a oncoming threat, new research shows.“We discovered that fruit flies alter course in less than one one-hundredth of a second, 50 times faster than we blink our eyes, which is faster than we ever imagined.” Michael Dickinson, UW professor of biology and co-author of the paper about these findings, said in a news release.In his lab, Dickinson and other researchers have found that evasive maneuvers performed by fruit flies, also kn

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Freeman voices concerns about endangered lemurs in documentary

In ‘Island of Lemurs: Madagascar’, Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman tells the story of the oldest surviving primates, the lemurs.Shot with IMAX 3D cameras, the film follows conservationist Dr. Patricia Wright as she studies Madagascar’s lemur population and attempts to protect the endangered primates from deforestation.“We have an extraordinary animal called the Indri. That’s the largest of all the lemurs that are alive today and it is an incredible singer-like, operatic,” says lemur expert Dr. Patricia Wright.“The Sifakas are what we would call the Dancing Lemurs. They’re the ones that… t

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Dog Sells at Nearly $2 million

We’ve all heard about dog breeds known as pets for the rich and famous. We see movie stars and business tycoons with their little toy dogs in designer doggy bags. However, the idea of an elite breed has been around for a long time.In China, the Tibetan mastiff has always been considered as a status symbol for the wealthy. These dogs have been used to guard homes and temples for hundreds of years, and the Chinese have managed take good care of this dog’s heritage.Recently in a "luxury pet" fair held in Zhejiang’s eastern province, one of these Tibetan mastiff puppies were sold for nearly $2 mi

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That goat may be a whole lot smarter than it looks

"That's the common public impression, that goats and most other farm animals are not very intelligent," says Elodie Briefer, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Zurich.In a recent study, she and her colleagues found that behind that dazed look is a pretty smart brain, too.It turns out that goats haven't really been studied for their cognitive skills, at least not in the same way that chimps have."By working with them, we realized that they are actually very curious animals," Briefer says. "Most people who own goats, they know that they can open locks and escape from any

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New Baby Gorilla in San Diego Zoo

The closest way for us to see exotic animal from another corner of the world without leaving our city or town is to visit the zoo. Zoos are great places to take kids and to have them experience a small glimpse of the wild. Animals in the zoo are also well taken care of and are given enclosures that mimic their natural habitat. Some animals are even born in the zoo after adapting to their environment.Recently, one of the biggest zoos in North America, the San Diego Zoo, welcomed a new baby gorilla to their family. This is the 17th gorilla delivered in the zoo, and was via a Caesarian sec

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Anemones are Half Plant, Half Animal

If you’ve been watching shows that talk about how the human race started, like Cosmos or shows about genetics, you’d know that there are certain pieces and traits in our DNA that are similar to plants. Although animals and plants are two very different organisms, there are species that could bridge the gap between them. The “missing link” as what most would call it.Recent genetic studies have discovered that sea anemones, like the ones that certain types of fish live in and eat, are part animal and part plant. The phylum Cnidaria, which contains around 10,000 kinds of animals found mostly in

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World's largest nests are socialist bird collectives

NO, IT'S not a giant haystack - it's an example of one of the largest structures constructed by birds.Sociable weavers (Philetairus socius) build huge communal nests - multistorey apartment complexes - from sticks and grass. The structures last for decades, sometimes over 100 years. Multiple families live together and even help raise each other's young; you could call them socialist weavers, though that might bring to mind a collective of 19th-century Lancashire textile workers.The birds - anything up to 100 pairs per nest - live in the harsh Kalahari desert in southern Africa. The thick that

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Moth that Looks Like A Poodle Baffles The Internet

Pictures of a mysterious creature that looks like a cross between a moth and poodle recently went viral on the Web, with some people turning these pictures into memes, only increasing their popularity. The creature is called a Venezuelan poodle moth, and because of how peculiar it looks, plenty of questions revolve around whether it’s real or not.Fortunately, the poodle moths are 100 percent real, and are possibly a new species of moth identified a few years ago. In 2009, Kyrgyzstan-based biologist Dr. Arthur Anker discovered the moths in Venezuela’s Gran Sabanaarea. The species seems to be r

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The Worst Places To Get Stung By A Bee: Nostril, Lip, Penis

It started when a honeybee flew up Michael Smith’s shorts and stung him in the testicles.Smith is a graduate student at Cornell University, who studies the behaviour and evolution of honeybees. In this line of work, stings are a common and inevitable hazard. “If you’re wearing shorts and doing bee work, a bee can get up there easily,” he says. “But I was really surprised that it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”That got him thinking: Where’s the worst place on the body to get stung?Everyone who works with stinging insects has their own answers, but Smith couldn’t find any hard data.

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Animals Library

Tarantula Hawks – A Tarantula’s Worst Nightmare

Frogs Survive Subzero Temperatures by Living as Ice Cubes

Caribous and Reindeers, How are they Different

Stolen Chihuahuas Worth £32,000

Dental scientist probes mysteries of narwhal's 'unicorn' tooth

Study confirms monkeys can do math

Dogs (and Cats) Can Love

Archaeological, genetic evidence expands views of domestication

Hungry Snake Picked The Wrong Dinner

Scientists discover the animal kingdom’s first ‘female penis’

These 22 Photos Will Make You Fall In Love With Foxes

Breakthrough DNA study could slow big cat extinction

VIDEO: Meet Ocean Ramsey, The ‘Shark Whisperer’ (Who Also Happens to Be Smokin’ Hot)

Hero Parrot Rescues Woman During Assault In London Park

Majestic New Cat Species Discovered In Nepal

Animals need your time

Searing heat compounds woes of animals

Extinct Marsupial Preyed On Animals Bigger Than Itself

Animals forever

The remarkable self-organization of ants

Ancient shrimp-like animals had 'modern' hearts and blood vessels

Two 15-Foot Oarfish Surface Off Mexican Coast, Elusive ‘Sea Serpents’ Caught On Camera [VIDEO]

Why are fruit flies so hard to hit? UW research has an answer

Freeman voices concerns about endangered lemurs in documentary

Dog Sells at Nearly $2 million

That goat may be a whole lot smarter than it looks

New Baby Gorilla in San Diego Zoo

Anemones are Half Plant, Half Animal

World's largest nests are socialist bird collectives

Moth that Looks Like A Poodle Baffles The Internet

The Worst Places To Get Stung By A Bee: Nostril, Lip, Penis

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