Animal Adventures

Lobster

2007-10-10T03:28:00.000-07:00

To many, it may seem the lobster’s most natural habitat is on a large, oval plate between a cup of drawn butter and a lemon wedge.

In fact, only a few of the hundreds of types of lobster are caught commercially. But those few species are some of the most heavily harvested creatures in the sea, and generate a multi-billion-dollar industry with more than 200,000 tons (181,436 metric tons) of annual global catch.

The lobsters that most people know from their dinner plates are the American and European clawed lobsters Homarus americanus and Homarus gammarus. These are cold water species that live on either sides of the northern Atlantic Ocean. There are also tropical lobsters that are widely consumed, but these are generally clawless varieties called spiny and slipper lobsters.

Lobsters are ten-legged crustaceans closely related to shrimp and crabs. These benthic, or bottom-dwelling, creatures are found in all of the world’s oceans, as well as brackish environments and even freshwater. They have poor eyesight but highly developed senses of taste and smell. They feed primarily on fish and mollusks, but will consume algae and other plant life and even other lobsters.

Female lobsters carry their eggs under their abdomens for up to a year before releasing them as larvae into the water. The larvae go through several stages in the water column before settling on the bottom, where they spend the rest of their lives. They generally prefer to live in self-dug burrows, in rocky crevices, or hidden among sea grasses. Lobsters must shed their shells in order to grow, and some species can live to be 50 years old or more, growing continually throughout their lives.

Lobsters have not always been considered chic eats. In 17th and 18th century America, they were so abundant in the northeast that they were often used as fertilizer. Laws were even passed forbidding people to feed servants lobster more than twice a week. However, improvements in U.S. transportation infrastructure in the 19th and 20th century brought fresh lobster to distant urban areas and its reputation as a delicacy grew.

Populations of commercially important lobster species are thought to be declining, and overfishing, particularly of clawed lobsters in Europe, is taking a toll. Additionally, pollution is causing shell rot and other illnesses in normally disease-resistant species.

The secret life of moody cows

2007-09-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

ONCE they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a secret mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited over intellectual challenges, scientists have found.

Cows are also capable of feeling strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety — they worry about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness. The findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats, chickens and other livestock. They suggest that such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be rethought.

Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare at Bristol University, said even chickens may have to be treated as individuals with needs and problems.

“Remarkable cognitive abilities and cultural innovations have been revealed,” she said. “Our challenge is to teach others that every animal we intend to eat or use is a complex individual, and to adjust our farming culture accordingly.”

Nicol will be presenting her findings to a scientific conference to be held in London next month by Compassion in World Farming, the animal welfare lobby group.

John Webster, professor of animal husbandry at Bristol, has just published a book on the topic, Animal Welfare: Limping Towards Eden. “People have assumed that intelligence is linked to the ability to suffer and that because animals have smaller brains they suffer less than humans. That is a pathetic piece of logic,” he said.

Webster and his colleagues have documented how cows within a herd form smaller friendship groups of between two and four animals with whom they spend most of their time, often grooming and licking each other. They will also dislike other cows and can bear grudges for months or years.

Dairy cow herds can also be intensely sexual. Webster describes how the cows become excited when one of the herd comes into heat and start trying to mount her. “Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs,” he said.

Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, who is presenting other research at the conference, will describe how cows can also become excited by solving intellectual challenges.

In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. An electroencephalograph was used to measure their brainwaves.

“Their brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment,” said Broom.

The assumption that farm animals cannot suffer from conditions that would be considered intolerable for humans is partly based on the idea that they are less intelligent than people and have no “sense of self”.

Increasingly, however, research reveals this to be untrue. Keith Kendrick, professor of neurobiology at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, has found that even sheep are far more complex than realised and can remember 50 ovine faces — even in profile. They can recognise another sheep after a year apart.

Kendrick has also described how sheep can form strong affections for particular humans, becoming depressed by long separations and greeting them enthusiastically even after three years.

The Compassion in World Farming conference will be opened with a keynote speech by Jane Goodall, the primatologist who founded the study of animal sentience with her research into chimpanzees in the early 1960s.

Goodall overturned the then accepted belief that animals were simply automatons showing little individuality or emotions. It has taken many years, however, for scientists to accept that such ideas could be applied to a wide range of other animals. “Sentient animals have the capacity to experience pleasure and are motivated to seek it,” said Webster. “You only have to watch how cows and lambs both seek and enjoy pleasure when they lie with their heads raised to the sun on a perfect English summer’s day. Just like humans.”

Animal sexual behavior

2007-09-14T03:52:00.000-07:00

Animal sexual behavior takes many different forms, even within the same species. Researchers have observed monogamy, promiscuity, sex between species, sexual arousal from objects or places, sex apparently via duress or coercion, copulation with dead animals, homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual sexual behaviour, and situational sexual behaviour and a range of other practices among animals other than humans. Related studies have noted diversity in sexed bodies and gendered behaviour, such as intersex and transgender animals. The study of animal sexuality (and primate sexuality especially) is a rapidly developing field. It used to be believed that only humans and a handful of species performed sexual acts other than for procreation, and that animals' sexuality was instinctive and a simple response to the "right" stimulation (sight, scent). Current understanding is that many species believed monogamous have now been proven to be promiscuous or opportunistic in nature, a wide range of species appear both to masturbate and to use objects as tools to help them do so, in many species animals try to give and get sexual stimulation with others where procreation is not the aim, and homosexual behavior has now been observed among 1,500 species, and in 500 of those it is well documented.

Notes on specific species

Bonobos

The Bonobo, which has a matriarchal society, is a fully bisexual species — both males and females engage in sexual behaviour with the same and the opposite sex, with females being particularly noted for engaging in sexual behaviour with each other.^{[citation needed]}

Birds

Some black swans of Australia form sexually active male-male mated pairs and steal nests, or form temporary threesomes with females to obtain eggs, driving away the female after she lays the eggs. More of their cygnets survive to adulthood than those of different-sex pairs possibly due to their superior ability to defend large portions of land.

In early February 2004 the New York Times reported that a male pair of chinstrap penguins named Roy and Silo in the Central Park Zoo in New York City were partnered and had successfully hatched a female chick from an egg. Other penguins in New York have also been reported to be forming same-sex pairs.

Zoos in Japan and Germany have also documented male penguin couples. The couples have been shown to build nests together and use a stone to replace an egg in the nest. Researchers at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, found twenty such pairs at sixteen major aquariums and zoos in Japan. Bremerhaven Zoo in Germany attempted to break up the male couples by importing female penguins from Sweden and separating the male couples; they were unsuccessful. The zoo director stated the relationships were too strong between the couples.

Recently, a mated pair of swans in Boston were found to both be female. They too had attempted to raise eggs together.

Studies have shown that ten to fifteen percent of female western gulls in some populations in the wild prefer other females.

As many as 19% of Mallard pairs in a given population have been observed to consist of male-male homosexuals.

Lizards

Whip-tailed lizard females have the ability to reproduce through parthenogenesis and as such males are rare and sexual breeding non-standard. Females engage in sexual behavior to stimulate ovulation, with their behavior following their hormonal cycles; during low levels of estrogen, these (female) lizards engage in "masculine" sexual roles. Those animals with currently high estrogen levels assume "feminine" sexual roles.

Lizards that perform the courtship ritual have greater fecundity than those kept in isolation due to an increase in hormones triggered by the sexual behaviors. So, even though asexual whiptail lizards populations lack males, sexual stimuli still increase reproductive success.

From an evolutionary standpoint these females are passing their full genetic code to all of their offspring rather than the 50% of genes that would be passed in sexual reproduction. Certain species of gecko also reproduce by parthenogenesis.

Sheep

An October 2003, study by Dr. Charles E. Roselli et al. (Oregon Health & Science University) states that homosexuality in male sheep (found in eight percent of rams) is associated with a region in the rams' brains which the authors call the "ovine Sexually Dimorphic Nucleus" (oSDN) which is two times smaller than the corresponding region in other male sheep.

However, some view this study to be flawed in that the determination of homosexuality within the sheep, (sample population of twenty-seven for the study), was to have animals who were unable to mount female ewes placed in a cage with two stanchioned males and two unstanchioned females (that is, the males could not move or struggle while the females could). Given the aggressive nature of the sheep copulation, the uneven treatment of males and females, many see this as simply evidence that the sheep in question were unable to be aggressive enough to mount females. Some say that the results were situational sexuality, unlike the bonds seen in human homosexuality. However the physical brain anatomy of the rams that preferred males were different.

The scientists found that, "The oSDN in rams that preferred females was significantly larger and contained more neurons than in male-oriented rams and ewes. In addition, the oSDN of the female-oriented rams expressed higher levels of aromatase, a substance that converts testosterone to estradiol so that the androgen hormone can facilitate typical male sexual behaviors. Aromatase expression was no different between male-oriented rams and ewes."

"The dense cluster of neurons that comprise the oSDN express cytochrome P450 aromatase. Aromatase mRNA levels in the oSDN were significantly greater in female-oriented rams than in ewes, whereas male-oriented rams exhibited intermediate levels of expression." These results suggest that "...naturally occurring variations in sexual partner preferences may be related to differences in brain anatomy and its capacity for estrogen synthesis." Read the abstract of the study. As noted previously, given the potential unagressiveness of the male population in question, the differing aromatase levels may also have been evidence of aggression levels, not sexuality. The results of this study have not been confirmed by others.

Spotted Hyena

The female Spotted Hyena has a unique urinary-genital system, closely resembling the penis of the male, called a pseudopenis. The family structure is matriarchal and dominance relationships with strong sexual elements are routinely observed between related females.

They are notable for using visible sexual arousal as a sign of submission and not dominance, in males as well as females (females have a sizable erectile clitoris), to the extent that biologist Robert Sapolsky speculates that in order to facilitate this, their sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems may be partially reversed in respect to their reproductive organs.

Bottlenose Dolphins

Bottlenose Dolphin males have been observed working in pairs to follow and/or restrict the movement of a female for weeks at a time, waiting for her to become sexually receptive. The same pairs have also been observed engaging in intense sexual play with each other.

Janet Mann, a professor of biology and psychology at Georgetown University, argues that the common same-sex behavior among male dolphin calves is about bond formation and benefits the species evolutionarily. They cite studies that have shown the dolphins later in life are bisexual and the male bonds forged from homosexuality work for protection as well as locating females to reproduce with.

Seahorses

Seahorses, long upheld as monogamous and mating for life, are identified as "promiscuous, flightly, and more than a little bit gay" according to research published in 2007.

Scientists at 15 aquariums studied 90 seahorses of 3 species. Of 3168 sexual encounters, 37% were same sex acts. Flirting was common (up to 25 potential partners a day of both genders); only one species (the British Spiny Seahorse) included faithful representatives, and for these 5 of 17 were faithful, 12 were not. Bisexuality was widespread and considered "both a great surprise and a shock", with big bellied seahorses of both genders not showing partner preference. 1986 contacts were male-female, 836 were female-female and 346 were male-male.

Lions

Male lions often lead their social groups jointly with one or more of their brothers. To ensure loyalty, the male co-leaders will "strengthen the bonds by often having sex with each other."

Rock Pigeon

2007-09-12T03:22:00.000-07:00

The Rock Pigeon (Columba livia) is a member of the bird family Columbidae, doves and pigeons. The bird is also known by the names of feral pigeon or domestic pigeon. In common usage, this bird is often simply referred to as the "pigeon". The species was commonly known as Rock Dove until 2004, when the British Ornithologists' Union and the American Ornithologists' Union changed the official English name of the bird in their regions to Rock Pigeon. The Rock Pigeon is 32–37 cm long with a 64–72 cm wingspan. The white lower back of the pure Rock Pigeon is its best identification character, but the two black bars on its pale grey wings are also distinctive. The tail is margined with white. It is strong and quick on the wing, dashing out from sea caves, flying low over the water, its lighter grey rump showing well from above.

The head and neck of the mature bird are a darker blue-grey than the back and wings; the lower back is white. The green and lilac or purple patch on the side of the neck is larger than that of the Stock Dove, and the tail is more distinctly banded. Young birds show little lustre and are duller. Eye colour of the pigeon is generally an orange colour but a few pigeons may have white-grey eyes. The eyelids are orange in colour and are encapsulated in a grey-white eye ring. The feet are red to pink.

When circing overhead, the white underwing of the bird becomes conspicuous. In its flight, behaviour, and voice, which is more of a dovecot coo than the phrase of the Wood Pigeon, it is a typical pigeon. Although it is a relatively strong flier, it also glides frequently, holding its wings in a very pronounced V shape as it does. Though fields are visited for grain and green food, it is nowhere so plentiful as to be a pest.

The bowing courtship, when the metallic lustre of the neck is fully displayed, often takes place on ledges where Guillemots and Razorbills sit.

A small prehistoric subspecies of the Rock Dove that lived during the last ice age in France has been described as Columba livia minuta.

The nest is usually on a ledge in a cave; it is a slight structure of grass, heather, or seaweed. Like most pigeons it lays two white eggs. The eggs are incubated by both parents for about 18 days.

The nestling has pale yellow down and a flesh-coloured bill with a dark band. It is tended and fed on "crop milk" like other doves. The fledging period is 30 days.

Ant

2007-09-11T03:32:00.000-07:00

Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related families of wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. They are a diverse group of more than 12,000 species, with a higher diversity in the tropics. They are known for their highly organized colonies and nests, which sometimes consist of millions of individuals. Individuals are divided into sub-fertile, and more commonly sterile, females ("workers"), fertile males ("drones"), and fertile females ("queens"). Colonies can occupy and use a wide area of land to support themselves. Ant colonies are sometimes described as superorganisms because the colony appears to operate as a unified entity. Ants have colonized almost every landmass on Earth. The only places lacking indigenous ant species are Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, parts of Polynesia, the Hawaiian Islands, and other remote or inhospitable islands. When all their individual contributions are added up, they may constitute up to 15 to 25% of the total terrestrial animal biomass. Termites, sometimes called white ants, are not closely related to ants, although they have similar social structures. Velvet ants, although resembling large ants, are wingless female wasps.

Ants are distinguished from other insects by the following traits: elbowed antennae; the presence of a metapleural gland; a strongly constricted second abdominal segment forming a distinct node-like petiole, a narrow waist between their mesosoma (thorax plus the first abdominal segment, which is fused to it) and gaster (abdomen less the abdominal segments in the petiole). The petiole can be formed by one or two nodes (only the second, or the second and third abdominal segments can form it). Ants have a wingless worker caste.

Ant bodies, like those of other insects, have an exoskeleton, meaning their bodies are externally covered in a protective casing, as opposed to the internal skeletal framework of humans and other vertebrates. Ants do not have lungs. Oxygen passes through tiny valves, the spiracles, in their exoskeleton — the same holes through which carbon dioxide leaves their body. Nor do they have a heart^[vague]; a colorless blood, the hemolymph, runs from their head to rear and back again along a long tube. Their nervous system is much like a human spinal cord in that it is a continuous cord, the ventral nerve cord, from head to rear with branches into each extremity.

The three main divisions of the ant body are the head, mesosoma and metasoma or gaster.

The head of an ant has many important parts. Ant eyes include the compound eyes, similar to fly eyes: numerous tiny lenses attached together which enables them to see movement very well. They also have three small ocelli on the top of the head, which detect light and dark. Most ants have poor to mediocre eyesight; some are blind altogether. A few have exceptional vision though, such as Australia's bulldog ant. Also attached to the head of an ant are two antennae ("feelers"). The antennae are special organs that help ants detect chemicals, including those used in communication, as well as a sense of touch. Ants release pheromones to communicate with each other and the antennae pick up these chemical signals. The head also has two strong jaws, the mandibles, which are used to carry food, manipulate objects, construct nests, and for defense. In some species there is also a small pocket inside the mouth to hold food for passing to others.

The thorax of the ant is where all six legs are attached. At the end of each leg is a hooked claw that helps ants climb and hang onto things. Most queens and male ants have wings, which they drop after the nuptial flight. The wing scars are then visible, a distinguishing feature of queens. Wingless queens (ergatoids) and males can also occur. The metasoma (the "abdomen") of the ant houses many of the important internal organs, including the reproductive organs. Many species of ants have stingers used for subduing pre and defending their nests.

The life of an ant starts with an egg. If the egg is fertilized, the ant will be female (diploid); if not, it will be male (haploid). Ants are holometabolous, and develop by complete metamorphosis, passing through larval and pupal stages (with the pupae being exarate) before they become adults. The larval stage is particularly helpless — for instance it lacks legs entirely – and cannot care for itself. The difference between queens and workers (which are both female), and between different castes of workers when they exist, is determined by the feeding in the larval stage. Food is given to the larvae by a process called trophallaxis in which an ant regurgitates food previously held in its crop for communal storage. This is also how adults distribute food amongst themselves. Larvae and pupae need to be kept at fairly constant temperatures to ensure proper development, and so are often moved around the various brood chambers within the colony.

A new worker spends the first few days of its adult life caring for the queen and young. After that it graduates to digging and other nest work, and then to foraging and defense of the nest. These changes are fairly abrupt and define what are called temporal castes. One theory of why this occurs is because foraging has a high death rate, so ants only participate in it when they are older and closer to death anyway. In a few ants there are also physical castes — workers come in a spectrum of sizes, called minor, median, and major workers, the latter beginning foraging sooner. Often the larger ants will have disproportionately larger heads, and correspondingly stronger mandibles. Such individuals are sometimes called "soldier" ants because their stronger mandibles make them more effective in fighting other creatures, although they are still in fact worker ants and their "duties" typically do not vary greatly from the minor or median workers. In a few species the median workers have disappeared, creating a sharp divide and clear physical difference between the minors and majors.

Most of the common ant species breed in the same way. Only the queen and breeding females have the ability to mate. Contrary to popular belief, some ant nests have multiple queens. The male ants, called drones, along with the breeding females emerge from pupation with wings (although some species, like army ants, do not produce winged queens), and do nothing throughout their life except eat and mate. At this time, all breeding ants, excluding the queen, are carried outside where other colonies of similar species are doing the same. Then, all the winged breeding ants take flight. Mating occurs in flight and the males die shortly afterward. The females that survive land and seek a suitable place to begin a colony. There, they break off their own wings and begin to lay eggs, which they care for. Sperm obtained during their nuptial flight is stored and used to fertilize all future eggs produced. The first workers to hatch are weak and smaller than later workers, but they begin to serve the colony immediately. They enlarge the nest, forage for food and care for the other eggs. This is how most new colonies start. A few species that have multiple queens can start a new colony as a queen from the old nest takes a number of workers to a new site and founds a colony there. Ant colonies can be long-lived. The queens themselves can live for up to 30 years, while workers live from 1 to 3 years. Males, however, are more transitory, surviving only a few weeks. Ants survive the winter by going into a state of dormancy or inactivity. The forms of inactivity are varied and some temperate species have larvae that go into diapause while in others the adults alone pass the winter in a state of reduced activity. This does not happen in the tropics

Butterfly

2007-09-09T02:19:00.000-07:00

Butterflies are beautiful, flying insects with large scaly wings. Like all insects, they have six jointed legs, 3 body parts, a pair of antennae, compound eyes, and an exoskeleton. The three body parts are the head, thorax (the chest), and abdomen (the tail end). The butterfly's body is covered by tiny sensory hairs. The four wings and the six legs of the butterfly are attached to the thorax. The thorax contains the muscles that make the legs and wings move.

FLYING
Butterflies are very good fliers. They have two pairs of large wings covered with colorful, iridescent scales in overlapping rows. Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are the only insects that have scaly wings. The wings are attached to the butterfly's thorax (mid-section). Veins support the delicate wings and nourish them with blood.

Butterflies can only fly if their body temperature is above 86 degrees. Butterflies sun themselves to warm up in cool weather. As butterflies age, the color of the wings fades and the wings become ragged.

The speed varies among butterfly species (the poisonous varieties are slower than non-poisonous varieties). The fastest butterflies (some skippers) can fly at about 30 mile per hour or faster. Slow flying butterflies fly about 5 mph.

LIFE-CYCLE OF A BUTTERFLY
Butterflies and moths undergo complete metamorphosis in which they go through four different life stages.

Egg - A butterfly starts its life as an egg, often laid on a leaf.

Larva - The larva (caterpillar) hatches from an egg and eats leaves or flowers almost constantly. The caterpillar molts (loses its old skin) many times as it grows. The caterpillar will increase up to several thousand times in size before pupating.

Pupa - It turns into a pupa (chrysalis); this is a resting stage.

Adult - A beautiful, flying adult emerges. This adult will continue the cycle.

Caterpillars spend most of their time eating leaves using strong mandibles (jaws). A caterpillar's first meal, however, is its own eggshell. A few caterpillars are meat-eaters; the larva of the carnivorous Harvester butterfly eats woolly aphids.
Butterflies and moths can only sip liquid food using a tube-like proboscis, which is a long, flexible "tongue." This proboscis uncoils to sip food, and coils up again into a spiral when not in use. Most butterflies live on nectar from flowers. Some butterflies sip the liquid from rotting fruits and a rare few prefer rotting animal flesh or animal fluids (the Harvester butterfly pierces the bodies of woolly aphids with its sharp proboscis and drinks the body fluids).

HABITAT
Butterflies are found all over the world and in all types of environments: hot and cold, dry and moist, at sea level and high in the mountains. Most butterfly species, however, are found in tropical areas, especially tropical rainforests.

Many butterflies migrate in order to avoid adverse environmental conditions (like cold weather). Butterfly migration is not well understood. Most migrate relatively short distances (like the Painted Lady, the Red Admiral, and the Common Buckeye), but a few (like some Monarchs) migrate thousands of miles.

CLASSIFICATION
Butterflies and moth belong to the order Lepidoptera. Lepidos is Greek for "scales" and ptera means "wing". These scaled wings are different from the wings of any other insects. Lepidoptera is a very large group; there are more types of butterflies and moths than there are of any other type of insects except beetles. It is estimated that there are about 150,000 different species of butterflies and moths (there may be many more). There are about 28,000 butterfly species worldwide, the rest are moths.

BUTTERFLY FOSSILS
Butterfly fossils are rare. The earliest butterfly fossils are from the early Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago. Their development is closely linked to the evolution of flowering plants (angiosperms) since both adult butterflies and caterpillars feed on flowering plants, and the adults are important pollinators of many flowering plants. Flowering plants also evolved during the Cretaceous period.

Penguins

2007-09-09T02:03:00.000-07:00

Penguins are one of the oldest kinds of birds. It is believed that penguins have been around for 50 million years. The first penguin fossil was discovered in New Zealand about 1849 and is now kept at the British Museum of Natural History. Since that time the fossils of many, now extinct, species have been discovered. Most of the extinct species were about the same size as the species living today. However two species were enormous, standing over 5 feet tall and weighing as much as 300 lbs.

Penguin fossils were discovered in Australia about 1888, but they were not reconized as being from penguins until 1957. Fossils were found in South America about 1891 and on Seymour Island, Antarctica in 1903 . All of the penguin fossils found in South America have been found in the southern part of Argentina and they all come from the same age (about 35 million years ago). Penguin fossils were not found in South Africa until 1970.

Below is a table (data from "Penguins: Past and Present, Here and There" by George Gaylord Simpson, 1976) showing the ages & locations of known fossil penguins.

Geological Ages	Approximate Years		Location
Recent & Pleistocene		0-- 2,000,000	Scattered finds of recent species
Pliocene	Late	2,000,000-- 3,500,000	South Island, New Zealand; Cape Province, South Africa
Pliocene	Early	3,500,000-- 5,500,000
Miocene	Late	5,500,000--12,000,000	Victoria, Australia
	Middle	12,000,000--18,000,000
	Early	18,000,000--25,000,000	Patagonia (Chubut and Santa Cruz), Argentina; Cape Town, South Africa
Oligocene	Late	25,000,000--30,000,000	South Island, New Zealand; South Australia
	Middle	30,000,000--33,000,000	North and South Islands, New Zealand
	Early	33,000,000--37,000,000	North and South Islands, New Zealand
Eocene	Late	37,000,000--45,000,000	South Australia; South Island, New Zealand; Seymour Island, Antarctica
	Middle	45,000,000--50,000,000	No known penguins earlier than late Eocene.
	Early	50,000,000--55,000,000
Paleocene		55,000,000--65,000,000
Cretaceous		65,000,000-135,000,00

The name "penguin" was originally given to a bird that is now called the Great Auk (pictured at left). It was a large flightless bird with black and white markings. It was native to the North Atlantic ocean. (The great Auk has been extinct since 1844). When adventurers started exploring the southern oceans, they discovered more birds that resembled the northern "penguin" and called them penguins too. (As we still do today.)

Although it is not documented, it is believed that Portuguese sailors discovered the South African Blackfooted penguin as early as the 1480's. Ferdinand Magellan is credited with the first documented discovery of penguins, around 1500. The Megellanic penguin is named after him (actually, one book said the penguin is named after the Straits of Magellan, where they are found, not after the explorer).

Spider

2007-09-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

Spiders are predatory invertebrate animals that have two body segments, eight legs, no chewing mouth parts and no wings. They are classified in the order Araneae, one of several orders within the larger class of arachnids, a group which also contains scorpions, whip scorpions, mites, ticks, and opiliones (harvestmen). The study of spiders is known as arachnology.

All spiders produce silk, a thin, strong protein strand extruded by the spider from spinnerets most commonly found on the end of the abdomen. Many species use it to trap insects in webs, although there are also many species that hunt freely. Silk can be used to aid in climbing, form smooth walls for burrows, build egg sacs, wrap prey, and temporarily hold sperm, among other applications.

All spiders except those in the families Uloboridae and Holarchaeidae, and in the suborder Mesothelae (together about 350 species) can inject venom to protect themselves or to kill and liquefy prey. Only about 200 species, however, have bites that can pose health problems to humans. Many larger species' bites may be quite painful, but will not produce lasting health concerns.

Spiders are found all over the world, from the tropics to the Arctic, living underwater in silken domes they supply with air, and on the tops of mountains. In 1973 Skylab 3 took two spiders into space to test their web-spinning capability in free-fall.

Polar Bear

2007-09-09T01:31:00.000-07:00

Only recently in evolutionary time have bears adapted to life on arctic seas, but these great creatures have mastered the water and ice environment superbly. Over time they evolved a luxuriant white coat and layer of blubber for camouflage and warmth. Oversize feet serve as paddles for extensive swimming and spread their weight, helping this largest of modern carnivores (excepting Orcas) to traverse ice too thin to support a person.

During the Ice Age, seals adapted to life in icy northern seas. Their need to breathe and reproduce at the surface put a rich year-around food resource within reach of a population of brown bears that began to live more and more out on the ice. Natural selection favored those bears best able to catch seals, and they became more thoroughly carnivorous than other bears. By 100,000 years ago they had evolved into something like the polar bear of today. Although polar and brown bears now look and act rather differently, their genetic closeness is demonstrated by matings in zoos that produce fertile offspring.

Polar bears' range is circumpolar. A few have been spotted close to the pole, but heavy perennial ice there provides poor seal hunting, so most are found further south where the ice is thinner and less continuous.

Formerly it was believed that polar bears migrated freely all across the Arctic, but modern research suggests that there are actually a number of more or less distinct populations. Russian and American are investigating the possibility that Beringian bears comprise a single group which during winter is distributed from Wrangel Island south along the Asian coast and in the central Bering Sea as far as St. Mathew Island. In summer, those wintering in the Bering Sea return to the north with the retreat of pack ice. Beringian bears seldom mingle with another population found in the Beaufort Sea east of Pt. Barrow, Alaska.

In 1981 the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group agreed that the world population was between 20,000 and 40,000. As of 1988 the most accepted estimate for the Alaska populations was 3,000-5,000.

The "Arctic Ring of Life" is the name given by Soviet biologist Savva Uspenski to the system of polynyas, or lakes of open water in pack ice, that persist through the winter. Wind, upwellings and currents along some shores or downwind from islands bring nutrients to the surface here, and keep the sea ice from coalescing. The coastal shear zone between shore- fast ice and the moving pack is also rich for similar reasons. These areas are vital to marine mammals and migrating birds, and to polar bears, which often hunt in such places.

Ringed seals are the bears' principal prey. They also hunt bearded seals and occasionally the more dangerous walrus. Normally solitary hunters, they have an impressive range of strategies, learn quickly, and show immense patience, power and speed. It has been calculated that their caloric needs require one ringed seal every six and a half days. Arctic foxes live on the sea ice in winter by scavenging polar bear kills.

Since their prey is available year-round, polar bears do not hibernate like brown bears, except pregnant females, who spend about five months in dens to give birth to their cubs. The female must greatly increase her weight, mostly in fat, to carry off a successful pregnancy and denning. The cubs, usually two, are born in December or January, weighing only 0.5 to 0.9 kilograms (one to one and a half pounds). By the time the family breaks out of the den in March or April the cubs weigh 10-15 kilograms (25-30 pounds). Cubs generally remain with their mother for two and a half years. Females are therefore able to bear young only every three years. This low rate of reproduction is balanced by a long life and low rates of natural mortality.

Moving in autumn from drifting ice to suitable denning sites requires a remarkable and little understood navigational ability. An important denning area for the Beringia population is on Wrangel Island. Denning also occurs on the northeastern coast of Alaska, although a majority of the Beaufort population dens on sea ice.

About 4,000 years ago the ancestors of present day Eskimos moved into an ecological niche not yet occupied by people: hunting marine mammals of the northern seas. Once they learned this life-style they spread quickly along Arctic coasts. They had discovered much the same niche as the polar bear and may even have learned from bears, for their seal hunting methods are strikingly similar.

Polar bears have a preeminent place in Eskimo cultural and spiritual life. The spiritual guardians of shamans were usually polar bears, and it was believed that the spirits of people and bears sometimes interchanged. Killing a bear was a major event, requiring ceremonial propitiation of its spirit. Sometimes it was the bear who killed the person, for the predator-prey relationship went both ways.

There are 8 species of bears around the world:

BEAR SPECIES	LATIN NAME	DISTRIBUTION
Polar bear	Ursus maritimus	Arctic circumpolar
Sun bear	Ursus malayanus	Previously the entire southeast Asia, but today mostly in Indonesia and Malaysia, are now believed to be extinct in India and possibly Bangladesh.
Sloth bear	Ursus ursinus	Found in forests and grasslands in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.
Brown bear	Ursus arctos	North America and Eurasia, including Japan and former Soviet territories. The North-American brown bear is also called "Grizzly".
Black bear	Ursus americanus	North America
Spectacled bear	Tremarctos ornatus	South America, mostly within national parks in the Andes region, from Venezuela and Colombia southwards through Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.
Asiatic black bear	Ursus thibetanus	Currently distributed in two large areas, one in southeast Asia, extending from Malaysia thriough the Himalayas as far as Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. The other group is found along the western Asian coast including Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East.
Giant Panda	Ailuropoda melanoleuca	The species is now restricted to six isolated mountain ranges in western China: Qinling in Shaanxi Province, Minshan in Gansu and Sichuan Provinces, and Qionglai, Xiangling and Liangshan in Sichuan Province.

Mountain Lion

2007-09-09T01:27:00.000-07:00

The Wisconsin mountain lion is currently considered extirpated in Wisconsin (Jackson 1961; Cory 1912). The last recorded individual was killed in 1908 in Douglas County (Cory 1912). Adult mountain lions are large unspotted cats (Fig. 1) (Jackson 1961); in Latin, the species name of the mountain lion, concolor, means single color (Pierce and Bleich 2003). Juvenile mountain lions have black spots (Fig.4) on buff-colored fur for the first 18 months of life (Jackson 1961). Adult mountain lions have a relatively small round head that sits atop a long, tawny, cinnamon buff-colored torso (Jackson 1961) which is contrasted by a white belly (Pierce and Bleich 2003). Reddish, yellowish and grayish tinges are the most common variations in pelage color. The middle of the back is darker than the rest of the body. Other than the black markings at the base of the whiskers (Fig. 2 and 3), tip of the tail, and the dorsal surface of the ears there are no obvious contrasting markings on the coat of an adult mountain lion. The claws which are retractable function to grasp and hold prey, rather than to aid in forward locomotion (Pierce and Bleich 2003). Adult Mountain lions exhibit sexual dimorphism; males tend to be larger in size than females (Pierce and Bleich 2003). Adult Mountain lions average 5-9 ft (1.6-2.7 m). This includes the tail which is 28-35 in (70-90 cm) in length (Jackson 1961). Jackson (1961) reported that adult mountain lion weights were variable and could range from 80 lbs (36 kg) to 210 lbs (95 kg). An average male weighs about 160 lbs (73 kg) where as an average female weighs about 135 lbs (61 kg). A more recent study (Whitaker 1998) estimated male weights ranging from 121-145 lbs (55-65 kg) and female weights ranging from 77-99 lbs (35-45 kg). Compared to canids, the rostrum of mountain lions is short and occipital orbits are large (Pierce and Bleich 2003). The shortened rostrum allows for a more powerful bite but reduces olfactory sense; however the larger occipital orbit increases their vision, the sense which they rely on the most.

A history of the evolution of the modern day crocodile.

2007-09-09T01:26:00.000-07:00

Early and extinct forms of crocodiles are called Crocodilia. They descended from psuedosuchians who walked on their hind legs, and lived during the late Triassic period. The skull of the crocodile still resembles in many ways those of the primitive archosaurs. Their bodies, however, developed the external appearance of the phytosaurs because of their aquatic lifestyle. The crocodile is the only archosaur that survived the still unknown factors that wiped out most of the reptile class at the end of the Mesozoic period. Though modern crocodiles walk on 4 legs, their two legged ancestry is revealed by their hind legs which are longer than the front legs, making them slant forward when they stand. The crocodilian skull still carries a basically archosaurean shape. It has a rather long, pointed skull, especially in the fish eating species of crocodiles.

The biggest, most prominent change in the crocodile since its early days is to the palate. The palate is the flat bony part at the roof of the mouth. In phytosaurs, the nostril holes in the palate are located under the outer nostrils, which were shifted to the far back of their snout. However in crocodiles, the nostrils are located at the front of the snout. This caused a problem in keeping the breathing passages from filling with water. Millions of years of evolution solved this problem. A second palate was formed, channeling the air above the mouth and into the throat passageway, where it can be opened and closed by a special flap or valve of skin. Crocodiles are actually classified on the basis of how far back their secondary palate extends, ranging from those who have no secondary palate to those with a fully formed palate separating the air they breathe from the water in their mouths.

The first crocodilians were called Protosuchians, living during the late Triassic to early Jurassic times. The difference between these and modern crocodiles is in the legs. The Protosuchians had very strong overdeveloped legs, which were set at right angles to the body. These allowed the animal to carry itself higher off the ground and probably gave them much more speed than their modern day counterparts. These legs also lead scientists to believe that these reptiles mostly lived on land. Beginning in the Jurassic period, the crocodilians quickly filled the gap of the extinct phytosaurs, becoming large and fully aquatic reptiles. The Mesosuchians were the next evolution of the protosuchians and lived during the Jurassic period and beyond. These reptiles had not yet developed a secondary palate, but were much more adapted to aquatic life than its predecessor. They had strong armor plating, made from a series of paired large bones on their back with smaller plates on its undersides. They spread throughout the land and lived in fresh water, though some adapted for sea life. These were called Geosaurs. Geosaurs lost their bony armor, their legs modified into paddles and their tail tips turned down, similar to the ichthyosaurs. Our modern crocodile appeared during the Cretaceous period, living side by side with the Mesosuchiansun until they were displaced in the early Tertiary times.

Though the crocodile is less widespread than it was back then- probably due to the subtropical climate of the world back then- there are still 23 living species of crocodile living mostly in the southern hemisphere, a living throwback to the age of the dinosaurs. il.essortment

Lion Vs Hyena

2007-09-08T02:14:00.000-07:00

Endangered Animal Video

2007-09-07T03:49:00.000-07:00

A Baby Panda is Born !!!

2007-09-06T06:39:00.000-07:00

No whale trade: CITES keeps ban in place

2007-09-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like we're smack bang in the middle of conference season. Some delegates from the IWC in Anchorage barely had time to pack their Alaskan souvenirs before they were on planes again, jetting off to the Hague for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species conference (CITES). Damn - even conservation creates a carbon footprint...

So, less than a week since I wrote a blog called "Commercial whaling ban reinforced at IWC in Anchorage", parties to CITES have sucessfully rejected an effort by whaling nations to undermine a related ban on the international trade in whale products. read more

You can watch a whale a thousand times, but you can only kill it once

2007-09-06T06:24:00.000-07:00

Well, the whale blog is coming to a hiatus - not a permanent end, just a hiatus. It's been a crazy few months, with the expedition to the Southern Ocean, the launch of whales.greenpeace.org by our team in Argentina, and finally, the International Whaling Commission meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. There'll be plenty more happening later this year on the issues of whales - stay tuned to www.greenpeace.org for developments.

Last weekend, after the IWC craziness had ebbed away, and the frustration of listening to national delegates talking the most shocking rubbish (don't worry, most of those delegates were on the pro-whaling side), I hit the road to Homer, on the Kenai Peninsula. With me were Maarten, our Dutch cameraman video maestro (you may remember his dulcet tones from shows like "Ocean Defenders TV" and other video clips) and Junichi, the Greenpeace Japan whales campaigner.

Homer's an interesting place - especially as half the town is built on what is essentially a sandbar, and contains a bar called the Salty Dawg ("A drinking town with a fishing problem" reads a sign inside). The Esperanza will be making an appearance in Homer in the near future, but we headed out with a boat from Rainbow Tours (no connection to the Rainbow Warrior that we know of) to see some whales. read more

Animals That Are Better Than You.

2007-09-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

Python Vs Crocodile. Python is the Winner

2007-09-06T03:53:00.001-07:00

The Giant Crocodile of Burundi (Gustave)

2007-09-06T03:50:00.000-07:00

Sitemap

2007-09-06T03:46:00.000-07:00

Animals Sitemap (Worth Watching)

Homosexuality in Animals

2007-09-06T03:37:00.001-07:00

The Sultan's Elephant

2007-09-06T03:30:00.000-07:00

White Tigers- The Cruelty Behind the Magic

2007-09-05T04:06:00.001-07:00

London Zoo

2007-09-05T04:05:00.001-07:00

The cute Knut

2007-09-05T03:59:00.000-07:00

Polar Bear Knut

2007-09-05T03:56:00.000-07:00

Berlin Zoo Baby Animals

2007-09-05T03:54:00.000-07:00

Stallion kills newborn Foal

2007-09-05T03:52:00.000-07:00

Japan2006 white whale frightening people

2007-09-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

Tiger vs Lion fight

2007-09-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

Animal Planet - Growing up Cheetah

2007-09-04T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Ten Deadliest Snakes

2007-09-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Snake swallowed a Hippo

2007-09-04T07:28:00.001-07:00

Lion vs Tiger (Animal face-off)

2007-09-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

Dog goes crazy watching animal planet

2007-09-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

Zebra vs Crocodile. Zebra Destroys the Crocodile.

2007-09-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

Man vs lions

2007-09-04T06:17:00.002-07:00

Buffalo vs entire lion pride

2007-09-04T06:17:00.001-07:00

Battle at Kruger

2007-09-04T06:14:00.000-07:00