Archive for the ‘rare animal’ category

Panda Love?

December 22, 2009

– – Australia has acquired two giant pandas on loan from China, and the couple has been publicly encouraged to, err, be fruitful and multiply! Wang Wang (“Net Net”) and Funi (“Lucky Girl”) were encouraged by leaders at the Adelaide Zoo to “Look after yourselves, keep healthy and active, eat your greens and maybe, when the time is right, think about starting a family.”

Pandas are notoriously poor breeders, with females having only three days a year in which they can conceive. Artificial insemination has accordingly become a standard practice in breeding captive pandas, of which 120 are in Chinese breeding facilities and zoos and about another 20 in zoos outside China.  Only about 1,600 pandas exist in the wild.

We can, I suppose, be grateful that The Captain and Tennille never wrote a song called “Panda Love…”

Lizards In The Underpants…

December 10, 2009

– – I, for one, do not pack skinks in my underwear.  I’ll even resist the temptation to mine that remark for other comic possibilities, ’cause this is a semi-classy place…

A German tourist, however, was caught by airport security attempting to leave New Zealand with a total of 20 skinks and 24 geckos of various species hidden in a small box concealed amidst his underwear.- – One gecko was even rolled into a sock!  The Geico Gecko would be appalled…

Now the geckos had an estimated black market value of $35, 850; the value of the skinks was unknown.  The tourist admitted to taking the reptiles from the wild, and trading and transporting them without a permit…

Skinks have no pronounced neck, and sport relatively small legs, with several genera having no legs at all!  They usually have long, tapering tails that can be shed and regenerated.- -That’s a neat trick if you can pull it off…ROTFL!    😉

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(BTW, Happy International Animal Rights Day!–Bite the Power!!!)

Mighty Mite!

December 5, 2009

– – It’s about the size of a peanut, but its sting can kill you…the Irukandji jellyfish, that is.– Well, it seems that a 29-year-old Australian man was in the waters Thursday off northeast Queensland state, and as a precaution was wearing a full-length “stinger suit,” which protects everything but the hands, face, and feet.   Naturally, the jellyfish immediately stung him in the face! A relative of the widely-feared box jellyfish, the sting of the Irukandji can kill an adult within two minutes, is virtually impossible to see, and is tiny enough to pass through nets meant to keep jellyfish away from popular swimming spots.

There is no antivenom, and the sting can cause blood pressure to soar to 280 over 180, leading to heart failure.   Other symptoms of “Irukandji syndrome” include shooting pains in the muscles and chest, vomiting, restlessness, and anxiety.   Symptoms can last for more than a week.

The swimmer is in serious condition at a hospital intensive care unit…



Hold That Tiger!

October 31, 2009

Tiger— Tigers could become extinct in the wild in two decades unless conservation efforts are stepped up to halt the decline in their population, wildlife experts said on Wednesday…

…barely 3,500 tigers are estimated to be roaming in the wild in twelve Asian countries and Russia compared to about 100,000 a century ago, according to conservationists and other experts.

Tigers are being illegally killed for their body parts, with skins selling for up to $20,000 on the black market in countries like China.   The destruction of habitats and the depletion of their prey base also figures in the dwindling number of tigers.  Tiger habitat alone has declined by 40% in the past decade due to the destruction of forests…

…and by the way…Happy Halloween from Foxsylvania!

The Abominable Snowman on MonsterQuest!

October 26, 2009

Abominable– – MonsterQuest finally came up with their long-awaited episode on the Yeti on October 25th after previous ho-hum episodes on wild dogs and rats.- – Here at last is a cryptid worthy of consideration!  The Abominable Snowman differs from his North American Bigfoot cousin in being more aggressive and carnivorous; he’s nocturnal, and goes after both people and their livestock in the Himalayas.- – You gotta give the big guy credit for that!

Examined were hair and footprint evidence as well as images from cameras.  The most recent footprint from 2008 was actually regarded to be a hoofprint, kind of a drag-impression in the snow distorted by multiple freeze and thaw cycles.  Fifty-year old hair samples supposedly from the skullcap of a Yeti were also analyzed, and found to be from a deer-like creature.  Picture images from cameras set up at different locations were of the usual birds with perhaps an antlered beast or two thrown in.  Lastly, eyewitness accounts of the Yeti were chalked off as being misidentified bears!

There were some interesting sidebars; apparently, the Nazis had sent teams out in pursuit of the Yeti, and locals led the Nazis to a supposed lair where they shot…a bear! I also loved a scene where an investigative team came upon a slaughtered and partly-eaten goat, perhaps consumed by the Yeti; the lead investigator indulged himself in the treat, which had been lying out for five or six days, and found it to be like jerky…”rather tasty, actually,” he proclaimed.–Anyone else up for five-day old goat, partly eaten by who knows what?–Didn’t think so…

It’s well been pointed out that even known identified species are hard to track over wild terrain, so I’m really not surprised by the lack of Yeti evidence. –And why do we call him Abominable, together with “terrifying” and “ferocious?” – – Doesn’t the Yeti just need a good spin doctor?–Why not as in the Tundra cartoon, come up with an Amiable Snowman?

Vegetarian Spider Found!

October 13, 2009

vegetarian spider– – A rare vegetarian spider has been found in Central America!   Most spiders are strictly predators, living on insects and other animals.  Bagheera kiplingi is about the size of a person’s pinky nail, and is a jumping spider who lives on acacia shrubs.

There are about 40,000 or so spider species, but most of the big spider textbooks (I know we all read them) almost outright claimed that there were no herbivorous spiders.–Well, they’re wrong!

Now one can envision kids furtively sweeping veggies off their dinner plates to the dog or into the potted plant, and blaming their disappearance on a herbivorous spider…

Large Squid Found in Gulf of Mexico

September 24, 2009

ADDITION Giant Squid– – A 19-1/2 foot, 103 pound squid was netted by accident in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana in late July, with the photos just released.  Researchers were trawling 1,500 feet below the gulf’s surface to study dietary habits of sperm whales when the squid was brought to the surface, not surviving the rapid ascent through the changing depths.

The squid was described as being the size of an SUV, and is rare with the species not having been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico since 1954.   The preserved squid won’t wind up as calamari, but will be sent to the Smithsonian…

Monster Freshwater Fish!

September 11, 2009

catfish

— “Just when you thought that it was safe to swim in freshwater lakes and rivers..”

So warns another MonsterQuest episode, but I, for one, do not live in fear of monster catfish…they just don’t have, for me, the shock and awe factor.  It’s not that really big catfish don’t exist…a nine-footer was found, for example, in the Mekong Delta.  Catfish which can supposedly swallow small children whole are also said to exist in the Amazon River, where natives claim to routinely catch 50 pound catfish, with others said to be much bigger, say to around 600 pounds…that ought to feed a lot of people at Cracker Barrel or other places where catfish are served!

The episode also introduced us to “fish noodlers,” who catch catfish with their bare hands; you grab ’em by the lower lip, and it’s said to be like grabbing a wet noodle!  Remind me never to apply for such work…

Other big fish exist, like pikes, one of which is thought to have attacked a man in a lake in Minnesota.  Lake trout continue to grow throughout their life , and one of these was thought to have been as large as a 14-foot boat in a 1987 Arctic circle encounter.    Then there are alligator gar, which can weigh in at over 350 pounds.  An early 1900’s story exists of one of these slaying an alligator, and a 7-1/2 foot specimen was caught in 1910,

While no monster freshwater fish were caught by MonsterQuest on video, they are thought to be out there, but hard to find…haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

New Species in New Guinea

September 7, 2009

extinct vulcano— It’s getting increasingly hard to find anywhere in the world where the foot of man has not trod, and erected a Starbucks…but even in today’s world, explorers are still able to find a few undiscovered places and new species along with it!

One such place is Papua, New Guinea where scientists in a remote mountainous region (pictured) have discovered more than 50 new animal species that include spiders, tree frogs, and a striped gecko that appear to have never been described in scientific literature before.  One of the spiders is shiny and pale green, and there’s a bug-eyed bright green tree frog.  Frogs are often regarded as a great bioindicator of environmental health, with declines in frogs pointing to an affected or changing environment.

My favorite discovery, however, was described as being a giant but friendly vegetarian rat, who may turn out to be the largest in the world.   A tree-dwelling marsupial was found that looks like a bear, and also discovered  was a frog with fangs (should be perfect for the upcoming Halloween)!    kanga_new_guinea

Mega Jaws, “The Black Demon…”

September 4, 2009

megalodon— Hmm…you go looking for a megalodon, and find…a whale shark!  Somehow, the thrill is gone…

MonsterQuest went in search of a surviving megalodon shark in the Sea of Cortez in a recent offering, seeking also to better date a megalodon tooth specimen found by the HMS Challenger and estimated in 1959 to be about 10,000 years old.–Surprise!  The tooth was judged not to be datable by modern scientific methods…bummer!

Now since sharks lack bones, most of what we know about extinct species comes from their teeth, with paleontologists estimating ten feet of shark for every inch of tooth.  By such calculation, megalodon measured up to 50 feet long, weighed up to 50 tons, and was two to three times larger than today’s great white shark.  This bad boy lived during the Miocene and Pliocene Eras, 25 to 5 million years ago.–What did they eat?–anything they wanted to, but probably seals at the small end of the scale to giant squid, other sharks, and whales…truly an apex predator!

MonsterQuest felt that most of the sightings is the area were misidentifications of whale sharks, who are just filter feeders.  Some feel that MonsterQuest would have had better luck locating a megalodon in the Marianas Trench area…