Tag Archives | Animals

Visiting The International Museum Of Cryptozoology

By on August 31, 2012 in News 1

When I have children someday, our weekend afternoon trips will be to the other zoo. Atlas Obscura on your new favorite cultural institution, the Portland, Maine-based Cryptozoology Museum, which offers Bigfoot poop, among other attractions:

Loren Coleman started pursuing unusual, often inexplicable animals in 1960, and has since become one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of cryptozoology. The discipline, as defined by the master himself, “is the study of hidden or unknown animals. Zoological species that, to-date, remain unverified by science, such as Yetis, Bigfoot, Lake Monsters, and Sea Serpents, as well as hundreds of other yet-to-be-found animals (cryptids) worldwide. It also encompasses the study of animals of recent discovery, such as the coelacanth, okapi, megamouth shark, giant panda, and mountain gorilla.”

Coleman has amassed an unrivaled collection of specimens, replicas, and artifacts relating to famous and lesser-known cryptids, including the eight-and-a-half foot tall, 300-pound “Crookston Bigfoot,” a life-size coelacanth, P.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 1

Elephants Are Able To Sing Like Humans

By on August 6, 2012 in News 0

I see a future of interspecies jazz combos.  Via the Indian Express:

Elephants “sing” like humans but at a frequency so low we can’t hear them, scientists have claimed. Researchers have found that elephants use an ultrasound rumble, often too low for humans to hear, to keep the herd together and for males to find mates. It allows the animals to communicate over distances of up to six miles.

Experts had wondered whether, like a cat’s purr, elephant infrasound was generated by muscular ‘twitching’ movements of the vocal cords.

Instead, it turns out the elephant sounds are made purely by air being blown through the larynx, or voice box, as in the case of a human singer. The German team carried out laboratory tests on a larynx removed from an African elephant that had died naturally at a Berlin zoo.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 0

iPad Painting App For Cats Unveiled

By on July 29, 2012 in News 3

Most of the pet-oriented phone apps have been dismal as one would expect (chasing a virtual mouse bouncing across the screen, et cetera), but Paint for Cats should be cherished for allowing the expression of nonhuman creativity. Art of the future should not be restricted to humans. Metro UK writes:

A ball of string used to keep cats entertained – but it seems an iPad is more appealing to the our feline friends these days after a US company opted to develop some new tablet Apps specifically for them.

The app [Paint for Cats] makes a colourful paw imprint when a cat touches the screen. It was recently tested at an animal shelter where it received a positive response, with bigger cats such as lions and tigers even taking to it.

Creator TJ Fuller said: ‘I had seen so many YouTube videos of cats playing with iPads but of course they were playing games designed for humans… I would love to do a game for dogs but they generally don’t react to that sort of stimuli like cats do.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 3

Chimps Construct Ladder, Escape From German Zoo

By on July 13, 2012 in News 13

Watch your back, because the zoo animals we imprison are plotting against us and growing smarter by the day. Is it morally acceptable to hold in bondage creatures intelligent enough to craft tools and devise a path to freedom? Via Digital Journal:

Five chimps caused panic at a German zoo after they escaped using a ladder constructed out of tree branches. In a separate incident, police in Las Vegas shot and killed a chimp and tranquilized another after they escaped.

Continue Reading · 13

The Nazi Plan To Breed Lost Animal Species

By on July 7, 2012 in News 6

Jurassic Park fifty years prior? Cabinet Magazine on a strange form of zoology in Nazi Germany, centered around the cordoning off of untainted forests for the re-creation of pure, ancient breeds of ponies, boars, and a mystical striped oxen called the auroch:

In 1920, the brothers Lutz and Heinz Heck, directors of the Berlin and Munich zoos, respectively, began a two-decade breeding experiment. Working with domestic cattle sought out for their “primitive” characteristics, they attempted to recreate “in appearance and behavior” the living likeness of the animals’ extinct wild ancestor: the aurochs.

This conflation of biological and aesthetic destiny coincided with a strain of Nazi thought that sought to apply pseudo-Darwinian theories in support of a racialized conception of the state. In this mode, the zoologist Konrad Lorenz identified parallels between the changes he observed in animals as the result of their domestication and what he saw as the deleterious genetic effects of civilization.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 6

Male Spider Castrates Himself And Gets More Stamina

By on June 14, 2012 in News 18

Writes Ed Yong on Discovery News:

To become both a lover and a fighter, the male spider Nephilengys malabarensis snaps off his penis inside his partner while they have sex. He becomes better at fending off other males who try to mate with her, because his now-lightened body can fight for longer without tiring. And while he’s playing the guardian, his detached genitals can continue pumping sperm into the female. Through self-castration, he gets more stamina, and he gets more stamina.

I first wrote about the self-castrating spider a few months ago. Then, Daiqin Li from the National University of Singapore confirmed that the severed penis continues to pump sperm into the female. That allows the newly minted eunuch to fertilise her remotely, while also blocking the way to other males…

Continue Reading · 18

After 115 Years Together, Tortoise Couple Splits Up

By on June 14, 2012 in News 5

Via CTV News:

More than a century’s worth of matrimony wasn’t enough to keep them together.

After 115 years as an item, two tortoises at an Austrian zoo have decided to call it quits.

Trouble began recently when Bibi and Poldi started to pester one another in the cage they’ve shared at the Klagenfurt Austrian Zoo, where they’ve resided for 36 years.

The two hulking creatures grew up together and, until now, have been inseparable. But now, the star-crossed tortoises refuse to share a cage with one another. “We get the feeling they can’t stand the sight of each other anymore,” Zoo Director Helga Happ told Austrian Times.

Continue Reading · 5

Animal Poachers In India Can Be Shot on Sight

By on May 24, 2012 in News 7

PoachingReports Talia Ralph on Global Post:

Animal poachers in India can now be shot on sight, after lawmakers in the western state of Maharashtra passed legislation Wednesday to defend tigers, elephants, and other wildlife from attacks, the Times of India reported.

The state’s forest guards should not be “booked for human rights violations when they have taken action against poachers,” Maharashtra’s Forest Minister Patangrao Kadam said Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

There have been no cases of tiger poachers being shot or killed in Maharashtra, but guards have been charged in the past for shooting illegal loggers or fishermen, the state’s chief wildlife warden S.W.H. Naqvi told the AP.

The state also announced plans to put more rangers and jeeps on patrol in the forest, and will offer secret payments to those who tip off officials about poachers and animal smugglers, according to the AP.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 7

Now You Can Be Aquaman: “Dolphin Speaker” Produces Full Range of Dolphin Sounds

By on May 16, 2012 in News 5

DolphinI wonder if the military will discover any conscientiousness objectors using this technology with the dolphins they have been training. While it is public knowledge they are used to rescue naval swimmers and locate underwater mines, the speculation remains on how many are used kamikaze-style to attack ships. As Rebecca Boyle reports in Popular Science:

Communication with dolphins is getting better all the time — they’ve been using iPads, for one thing, and humans have been working on a type of Rosetta Stone-like two-way translation device. A new gadget could improve matters even further, by allowing humans to produce the full range of dolphin sounds. The acoustics researchers who developed it call it the Dolphin Speaker.

Plenty of work is being done with dolphin sounds, but they have mostly focused on dolphin vocalizations and their hearing anatomy. Dolphins can not only hear and produce clicks, whistles and burst pulses well outside of the range of human hearing, but they can vocalize at several different frequency ranges at once.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 5

Wild Elephants Mourn Death Of Human Savior

By on May 14, 2012 in News 23

African_ElephantsA touching story, courtesy of The Delight Makers:

Author and legendary conservationist Lawrence Anthony died March 7. His family tells of a solemn procession on March 10 that defies human explanation.

For 12 hours, two herds of wild South African elephants slowly made their way through the Zululand bush until they reached the house of late author Lawrence Anthony, the conservationist who saved their lives.The formerly violent, rogue elephants, destined to be shot a few years ago as pests, were rescued and rehabilitated by Anthony, who had grown up in the bush and was known as the “Elephant Whisperer.”

For two days the herds loitered at Anthony’s rural compound on the vast Thula Thula game reserve in the South African KwaZulu – to say good-bye to the man they loved. But how did they know he had died March 7? Known for his unique ability to calm traumatized elephants, Anthony had become a legend.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 23