Weird Wildlife Factoid Game

I dug this up from a project I did a few years ago, but wildlife factoids never go out of style. So go ahead and test your wildlife savvy with this wacky wildlife trivia. Some you probably know without breaking a sweat, but others might take you by surprise. (Answers are upside down in the green border at the bottom. You can click on the quiz to view it bigger.)

First Photo of Fishing Cat with Baby in Wild

 

Fishing cat with kitten in the wild of Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park. (Photo/Namfon Cutter, Fishing Cat Research and Conservation Project)

 

 

The Secret Lives of Fishing Cats

 

Our resident fishing cat biologist friend, Namfon Cutter, was kind enough to give us permission to share her first-ever photo of a mama fishing cat with kitten in the wild. This is a rarely witnessed event!

With CAT in WATER, we are hoping to add to these efforts by incorporating new high-res camera-traps into the project that will bring you even more intimate views of these amazing critters.

Please enjoy this sweet moment in the life of a rare wild creature courtesy of Namfon and the Fishing Cat Research and Conservation Project.

With all the support so far, we are just $124 away from our start-up goal. Thank you to everyone who has pledged. This photo is the epitome of what you are helping to protect when you do so.

We’ll keep fund raising throughout this project, as the camera-trapping is a whole other canister of film. (I know, we like the old school lingo around here.) If you’d like to help support CAT in WATER, click HERE to learn more.

 

Wildlife Candid Camera at Smithsonian

 

Smithsonian Wild

Want to spy on wild animals?

 

Check out this new website launched by Smithsonian that brings together more than 200,000 camera-trap images from seven of their research projects. The online library reveals the otherwise secret lives of rarely seen species, such as the clouded leopard, Amazon red squirrel and the Chinese Takin. Bet you never heard of that one, huh? Well, now you can see a picture of it and while away the minutes as fast as you can say Tremminck’s tragopan. Yes, that’s a real animal, though it looks about as funny as it sounds. Smithsonian Wild

CAT in WATER Kickstarter Launch!

Support the Kickstarter project to document them in the wild  here.

The fishing cat is up and running! We have 90 days to raise the first round of funds for the CAT in WATER expedition. Check out our Kickstarter project and watch the short video. You can also learn about all the paybacks in store for our supporters. Who wouldn’t want a care package from Thailand and the knowledge they are helping a gorgeous, wild animal in need?

Climate change leaves wolverines on slippery slope

istockphoto.com

Wolverines, those vociferous, marathon-climbing, fearless relatives of the sea otter may soon face a foe that no amount of bravery can outlast — climate change.

Climate model results from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, show wolverine habitat in the Lower 48 warming significantly from climate change during the second half of the century. The pending warmer climes threaten snow cover that is vital to the wolverine’s survival.

“It’s highly uncertain whether wolverines will continue to survive in the lower 48, given the changes that are likely to take place there,” said NCAR scientist Synte Peacock in a press release, and the lead author of a paper, which appears in Environmental Research Letters.

Wolverine Den (Photo/Wikimedia Commons,Ernst Vikne)

Wolverines dig snow dens for their kits 8 to 10 feet deep, and are specially adapted to run and hunt across the snow. Snow pack also helps preserve carrion that the wolverines rely on for sustenance throughout the winter. While about 15,000 wolverines are estimated to live across Canada and Alaska, only a few dozen are thought to still live in Montana, Wyoming and Washington State, according to the press release.

If the plight of the wolverine is not the kind of thing that gets your hair on end, there’s still reason to care. The study also found that a side effect of the loss of snow melt means big impacts for people as well. The projected lack of snow could reduce the amount of water in Idaho, western Montana and western Wyoming by as much as three or four-fold by the end of the century. Get those water-saving shower heads now.

The study is not meant to bring only doom and gloom. Researcher say this kind of analysis could help us think preventative. “This study is an example of how targeted climate predictions can produce new insights that could help us reduce the impact of future climate change on delicate ecosystems,” said Sarah Ruth, program director for the NSF’s Directorate for Geosciences in a press release.

Wolverine (Photo/U.S. National Park Service)

A critter of unique character — to really understand what makes the wolverine such a remarkable creature, check out Douglas Chadwick’s book, The Wolverine Way. Even if you’re not a wildlife lover, this is an adventurous read that will leave you in awe of what a creature will do to survive.

NCAR Study available here.

Water flea: small critter, big genome

Daphnia pulex (water flea) with a brood of genetically identical future offspring. (Photo/Paul D.N. Hebert, University of Guelph)

In an interesting science factoid of the week, researchers at the University of Guelph have just found the animal with the most genes.

Ringing in at a whopping 31,000 genes, the winner is a near-microscopic crustacean called daphnia, or water flea. In case you’re wondering, humans tally a mere 23,000, about 8,000 less than this little aquatic critter.

“Daphnia‘s high gene number is largely because its genes are multiplying, by creating copies at a higher rate than other species,” said project leader and CGB genomics director John Colbourne in a press release. “We estimate a rate that is three times greater than those of other invertebrates and 30 percent greater than that of humans.”

So let that be a lesson. Just because you’re little, doesn’t mean you can’t be big at something.

Potentially new species of lemur found in Madagascar

Close-up of a potentially new species of fork-marked lemur discovered in Madagascar. © Conservation International/ photo by Russell A. Mittermeier

Take a squirrel-sized body, and combine it with big feet, a long tongue, and black-forked markings on the face, and you have the oddly adorable countenance of a species of lemur just discovered in Madagascar.

“This is yet another remarkable discovery from the island of Madagascar…one of the most extraordinary places in our planet” said Conservation International President Russ Mittermeier in a press release, who was the first to spot the animal. Researchers believe the species to be new to science.

Finding this cutie-pie sounds like something plucked from the chase scenes of Indiana Jones. Mittermeier and his colleagues ran through dense forest at night, following the calls of the lemur as it leapt rapidly from treetop to treetop. Catching the lemur in the beam of a flashlight, researchers were able to safely tranquilize it for closer examination.

Close-up of a potentially new species of fork-marked lemur discovered in Madagascar, October 3, 2010. © Conservation International/ photo by Russell A. Mittermeier

Limited geographic range and life in a severely human-impacted environment likely means this species – of the genus phaner – is already endangered or critically endangered, said Mittermeier.

Researchers are now working on establishing the lemur’s genetic uniqueness and learning about its life history and behavior. So far, besides getting a good grip on the lemur’s looks, researchers know that this critter’s diet consists mostly of tree gum and flower nectar, they utter loud, high-pitched calls at night and practice a head-bobbing motion that is unique to this species.

Lemurs are only found in Madagascar, a country that’s lost about 90 percent of its forests and other vegetation.

“Protection of Madagascar’s remaining natural forests should be considered one of the world’s highest conservation priorities,” said Mittermeier in the press release. “These forests are home to an incredible array of species that are a true global heritage.”

Gangster Birds of the Kalahari Desert

A drongo in the Kalahari. (Photo/Andy Radford, University of Bristol)

Drongos, African Kalahari Desert birds with a penchant for thievery, are taking a turn towards the avian equivalent of organized crime, a new study finds.

The victims in this case, pied babblers, have long contended with the risk of drongos popping in to make off with the babblers’ hard-earned insect prey. Now it seems a set of behaviors have evolved that are taking this interaction from a purely parasitic relationship to one of more mutual benefit. Researchers found that the drongos form protection squads for foraging babblers, keeping an eye out for trouble and strong-arming danger when it arrives.

“Like any good gangster,” says Andrew Radford, a scientist with the University of Bristol who led the research team, “as well as lying and stealing, the drongos also provide protection by mobbing aerial predators and giving true alarm calls on some occasions.”

That means pied babblers can spend less time watching for predators and more time looking for prey. The relationship is not without its caveats. Drongos still aim to take advantage of babblers, crying wolf to scare the babblers and grab the insects. The babblers likely put up with it, the researchers say, because the benefit of not having to worry about predators outweighs the cost of the drongos’ antics.

The research, which is a collaboration with the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Cape Town, is published online in the current issue of Evolution.

Andy Radford (University of Bristol) and a pied babbler in the Kalahari. (Photo/Matthew Bell, University of Cambridge)

A pied babbler in the Kalahari. (Photo/Andy Radford, University of Bristol)

Red squirrels are people too. They adopt

Red squirrel taking an adopted baby from nest. (Photo/Ryan W. Taylor)

In another life, I must’ve been a dog. Whenever I’m out walking and see a squirrel, I have an almost uncontrollable urge to see how close I can get to it before the scrappy rodent scrabbles up a tree. Inevitably, a staring contest ensues, which the squirrel usually ends up winning.

My suppressed animal urges aside, I do notice something kind of educational about squirrels. They tend to be alone. When they’re not, they are usually chasing each other like crazed maniacs in a not too friendly manner without regard to life or other happenings.

That’s why it might come as a surprise that they practice a typically human behavior – they adopt. And they adopt outside their social group. A new study by researchers at the University of Alberta determined that red squirrels will take in abandoned or otherwise parent-less young and raise them as their own, a seemingly altruistic act. The behavior turns out not to be as charitable as it sounds – the squirrels do get a survival perk. But the discovery is nonetheless an unusual one in the animal kingdom, with its own squirrely flare to boot.

Jamieson Gorrell, a Ph.D. student in evolutionary biology at the University of Alberta and lead of the study, was observing a population of Yukon red squirrels and noticed a lone female had taken a baby from an abandoned nest to raise as her own. When Gorrell sifted through 20 years of red squirrel research from the area, he found four other instances of the same behavior. Not only that, but in each account, the baby adopted was a relative.

Gorrell found that despite their antisocial tendencies, red squirrels are still able to recognize, and decide to care for, relatives. Right now the predominant notion is that the chitter-chatter squirrels screech out to mark territory or ward off others contains vocal clues about relativity. So an encroaching squirrel could hear the calls of another adult, and recognize kinship. If that other mother disappears, the encroaching squirrel may recognize the kinship of the abandoned nest and take action.

In addition to the novelty factor of the behavior, the study authors also state that this finding proves a long-standing evolutionary theory true. It is a concept known as Hamilton’s Rule, which suggests that despite “the law of the jungle and survival of the fittest,” animals can be altruistic.

Though for red squirrels, it’s a tempered altruism. The red squirrel is still helping out a member of its bloodline, and will only help one baby out of a litter. Adopting more than one is “out of the question,” according to the study, as the strain of adding more than one baby to a single mother’s already full house would outweigh any benefits.

You can read more about the study in the online journal Nature Communications, or visit this link http://www.redsquirrel.ca/KRSP/Media.html to get more info, cute pics, and free copy of the study.

Surfing crocodiles take to the high seas

A 4.8 m male estuarine crocodile ready for release with satellite transmitter. This crocodile traveled over 590 km by sea. (Courtesy/University of Queensland)

Next time you’re out sailing the high seas and think you’ve spotted a crocodile hanging ten, no need to get your eyes checked just yet. Turns out crocs do surf ocean currents, albeit sans boards and all the crazy wipeouts.

The behavior tracked by researchers out of Queensland, Australia, helps explain why the reptiles are so widespread, yet genetically similar.

Estuarine crocodiles which typically live in saltwater habitats like rivers and mangroves occupy a range covering about 10,000 km2 stretching from East India to Fiji and southern China to northern Australia, said the study. Geographic isolation tends to support the evolution of different species. But despite living in places separated by thousands of miles of open ocean, a crocodile living in Fiji is likely the same kind of croc living in Australia.

“The estuarine crocodile occurs as island populations throughout the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and because they are the only species of salt-water living crocodile to exist across this vast area, regular mixing between the island populations probably occurs,” said Hamish Campbell with the University of Queensland, and study lead in a press release.

But until now, scientists weren’t sure how. Stories have floated in over the years of ocean-bound crocodiles, even though the toothy predators are no Mark Spitz when it comes to swimming. Campbell and his colleagues from Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and Australia Zoo set out to monitor the mobile capacity of crocs. They used acoustic and satellite tracking to follow the movements of 27 adult crocodiles over the course of a year. The crocodiles revealed an astonishing range of movement, regularly traveling 50 kilometers or more from their stomping grounds to the mouth of the river and out into the sea.

Croc’s, it seems, like to “go with the flow,” according to the researchers. Tides and currents dictate the timing and extent of a crocodile’s swim, with crocs typically beginning a swim within an hour of a changing tide, following the movement of the water, and returning to shore when water is no longer headed in the desired direction. Similar behavior applies to swims in the open ocean, where crocs ride the currents.

One croc, a roughly 15-foot- long male, traveled more than 400 kilometers in 20 days from the east coast of Cape York Peninsula through the Torres Straits to the west coast of Cape York, according to the study. At one point, the croc stopped on the shore of the Torres Straits and stayed there for four days waiting for more ideal currents.

Campbell explains that this type of behavior, “not only helps to explains how estuarine crocodiles move between oceanic islands, but also contributes to the theory that crocodilians have crossed major marine barriers during their evolutionary past.”

The full paper is available in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Animal Ecology.