Zooillogix

Pig in Boots

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:14:31 -0500

Via the awesome i&o blog, we bring you Cinders, a pig with mysphobia - a fear of dirt. The porker's owners, Debbie and Andrew Keeble, pig farmers and sausage makers in North Yorkshire England, had never seen anything like it. The tiny piglet would cower and shake in the grass at the edge of the mud pit while his siblings gallivanted about in the filth like proper British pigs. The family's five year old daughter suggested putting her Paddington Bear boots on the pig to overcome its fear and it seems to have worked.

Zooillogix was skeptical that one could actually diagnose a piglet with mysophobia, but the video we found says it is so with a British accent, thereby proving it is true.

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Fish "Cleaning Stations" Are Safe Havens from Predators

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 10:07:48 -0500

Researchers have witnessed how cleaner fish calm their subjects, often dangerous predators, by massaging them gently with their fins while they're cleaning them. A new study in the journal Behavior Ecology, however, is showing how this calming effect not only prevents the cleaner fish from becoming meals, but other prey fish in the general vicinity as well.

The organism dentists recommend most.

Redouan Bshary and his team at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland set up reefs in an aquarium with predators, prey and cleaners and other reefs with just predators and prey. The result was...

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Lewis the Rampaging Cat Cleared of All Charges

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 11:42:49 -0500

While Andrew and I tend to focus on bizarre animal news from the fringes of research and geography, every once in a while we like to do a fluff piece that is close to home...this next piece couldn't be fluffier or closer to home.

Between the years of 2003-2006, Lewis, a polydactyl, domestic longhair cat went on a terror spree in Fairfield, Connecticut (Andrew and my hometown); He was alleged to...

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Life in the Fast Lane

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:18:08 -0500

Researchers from Oklahoma State University have discovered the shortest living tetrapod (four limbed vertebrate) to date. The hard-livin' Labord's Chameleon spends 8-9 months incubating within the egg, only to hatch and die 4-5 months later. Published in the July issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the report states: "Remarkably, this chameleon spends more of its short annual life cycle inside the egg than outside of it. Our review of tetrapod longevity (>1,700 species) finds no others with such a short life span." Most tetrapods live between 2 and 10 years.

8 going on 80

This finding sheds may new light on the question of why some species of chameleon die so quickly when held in captivity at zoos. It turns out taunting and knocking on the glass by bratty, under-supervised, 10 year olds was not to blame.

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Filipino Tarsiers

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:16:15 -0500

Tarsiers are prosimian primates, sharing their primitive grouping with lemurs, bushbabies and the aye-aye. However, due to numerous similarities to ancestral monkeys, apes and humans, there is some disagreement as to whether tarsiers should be grouped with the other prosimians in the Suborder Strepsirrhini or with the monkeys and friends in the Suborder Haplorrhini. The tarsier finds all of this debate quite dull and prefers to spend its time eating insects and bird eggs.

These pictures were taken by our friend's father in the jungles of the central Philippines.

They look pissed.

Special thanks to Will O'Boyle Sr. for traveling to find these little guys and Jr. for forwarding along the pics.

Lunch time for Golem

Incidentally, I almost bought a tarsier t-shirt at a craft fair this weekend. Here are some other good ones.

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Weird Fish Tanks

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 13:42:36 -0500

A not at all exhaustive collection of cool bizarro aquariums.

Modular fish tank

Toilet tank. Kind of like fish purgatory.

The Fish-Bird Tank-Cage

many more below the fold...

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Unborn Crocs Chatter While Still in the Egg

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:16:18 -0500

In a new discovery published in the current issue of the science affairs journal Current Biology , new research reveals that unborn baby crocodiles begin communicating to each other and their mothers moments before they are born.

He can talk. He can talk. He can talk....I CAN SINNNNNNNG!!!

It is believed that the noises, described as "umph, umph, umph," help to syncronize the hatch and signal to the mother that it's time to start preparing for her brood's emergence in the big bad world.

Scientists Amelie Vergne and Nicolas Mathevon of the French Universite Jean Monnet discovered the chatter and decided to test its effect. They...

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When Giant Wombats Ruled the Earth...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:01:29 -0500

Scientists have solved a timeless question that has divided Andrew and myself, more than once leading us to come to blows...And as it turns out, only one species of giant wombat roamed the planet between 2 million and 10,000 years ago, despite evidence that they varied significantly in size. Boo hoo, Andrew. You lose again!

Majestic, weren't they?

A study by Gilbert Price in the last issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society , focused on tooth specimens of the giant wombats (the largest ever marsupials to reign on Earth). After comparing over...

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The Light Brown Controversy Moth

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:00:33 -0500

No one quite knows when the Light Brown Apple Moth arrived on the shores of California, but after DNA identification in 2007, it wasted no time pitting the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the populace of San Francisco against one another. Today the CDFA announced a new strategy for the eradication campaign: releasing bioengineered sterile moths to lure-in amorous males.

Ever tried to neuter a moth? Not easy...

Indigenous to Australia, the non-descript moth breeds prolifically with an average of three broods generations per year. However, much like Paul Hogan before it, the tiny moth has spread its wings and fanned out around the globe with its ridiculous little accent. Actually, it's more likely that the eggs or larvae stowed away in cargo, but whatever their star-vehicle, they have since been identified in New Zealand, New Caledonia, the British Isles, Hawaii and now the US mainland.

Upon identifying the invasive moth, the USDA declared war. Specifically, the California Department of Food and Agriculture began an aggressive...

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Century Plant

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:54:06 -0500

New Mexico is phenomenally weird and the Century Plant is a prime example. Thanks to S. Smith for taking this pic and sending it along, even if it ain't an animal.

From Wikipedia: The Century Plant or Maguey (Agave americana) is an agave originally from Mexico but cultivated worldwide.

It has a spreading rosette (about 4 m wide) of gray-green leaves up to 2 meters (6 ft.) long, each with a spiny margin and a heavy spike at the tip. Its common name derives from its habit of only occasionally flowering, but when it does, the spike with a cyme of big yellow flowers, may reach up to 8 meters (25 ft.) in height. The plant dies after flowering, but produces suckers or adventitious shoots from the base, which continue its growth.

More pics below the fold

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British Bracing for Invasion of Slugs

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:24:05 -0500

First Guy Fawkes, then the IRA, then Al Qaeda. Now England is facing a new threat from within...slugs. The mild, wet winter in England has created the perfect conditions for slug overpopulation and the destruction of British gardens. The Daily Mail (England's most trusted, oldest, and least sensational periodical) is doing its civic duty by calmly informing the population, GARDENERS WARNED SLUG EPIDEMIC THIS SUMMER WILL BE THE 'STUFF OF NIGHTMARES'.

Slug 1: You be ready and do exactly as I say. On my signal, ride
round behind our position and flank them.
Slug 2: We must not divide our forces.
Slug 1: Do it, and let the English see you do it.

British sluggologists are predicting that there could be as many as 200 slugs per cubic meter of soil in the British countryside. That's enough slugs to skeletalize a 170 pound man in under 20 minutes!

The English are facing the slug threat with their characteristic stiff upper lips. Some are even looking to utilize the slug surfeit with such "splendid" culinary inventions as slug Wellington, bangers and slug and slugshire pudding.

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Zoos to Use Blood Sucking Bugs as Syringes

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:48:25 -0500

A pilot program has been launched in England to take blood samples from animals in zoos not with plastic syringes but with live, bloodsucking insects known as a kissing bugs.

You may feel a slight pinch...

As many of our zoo keeper readers can tell you, taking blood samples from animals in zoos can be a very stressful and complicated undertaking, often involving sedating the captive creatures. Through the new program first reported by the BBC and being tested now at the London and Whipsnade zoos, the keepers are...

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Playful Polar Bear at Brookfield Zoo

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:48:14 -0500

Spent the day at the Brookfield Zoo and was lucky enough to catch a resident polar bear inventing games for himself and doubly lucky my fiancee brought a video cam.

Polar Bear Takes a Dive

Polar Bear Tossing Around His Toy

More below the fold

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Mystic Aquarium Shot Glass

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:54:43 -0500

The world's largest zoo and aquarium shot glass collection just got one glass bigger. Someone call the Guinness Book! Growing up in Connecticut, The Mystic Aquarium was basically Benny and my Disney World. Special thanks to Eric Heupel of the awesome invertebrate blog, The Other 95%, for the donation.

Also picked up the Brookfield Zoo this weekend, so that brings the tally to 23. The new list is below the fold. I know you are all fascinated...

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Lady, the Toad Sucking Cocker Spaniel

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:48:09 -0500

"Toad licking" has been well documented around the world with secretions from many species causing intense hallucinations. In this 2006 NPR podcast, they tell the story of a poor cocker spaniel who became addicted to toad. "We noticed Lady (the cocker) spending an awful lot of time down by the pond in our backyard. Late one night after I'd put the dogs out, Lady wouldn't come in. She finally staggered over to me from the cattails. She looked up at me, leaned her head over and opened her mouth like she was going to throw up, and out plopped this disgusting toad." Increasingly Lady would return from the backyard highly disoriented, "running into walls and barking at non-existent things."

Lady hits rock bottom

Interestingly while the family took steps to curb the toad abuse, they clearly did not feel it necessary to stop it altogether. In the winter Lady suffered a troubling withdrawal during which she refused to come back in from outside, hunting in vain for one last taste of toad. At one point the mother even tries to help Lady get her fix during an early morning bathroom trip so that she can go back to bed.

Ultimately, Lady builds up her tolerance to toad and/or gets used to the effects, and simply "lies in the driveway watching anthills." Good times.

Toad is a hell of a drug...

more below the fold

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