Welcome to my blog.
All in Animals
In August 2017, a total solar eclipse dazzled and baffled animals across much of the country. Even the US president at the time lost his head (momentarily?), and stared directly at the sun without using ocular protection.
It took amateur photographer Nimi Sarikhani three days of searching for polar bears, but he finally happened upon the perfect shot: a young male bear catching a few zees atop a small iceberg, illuminated in northern Norway’s midnight sun.
When the temperature dropped to 18° F in Beaumont, Texas last week, a few alligators got caught in the big freeze, locked solid in the ice. They’ll be fine though, as long as their snouts stay above water.
On the coast of southern Tasmania, a 1,300-pound southern elephant seal has been plopping his prodigious girth on beaches, in driveways, on the road, and on front lawns. The 3-year-old, dubbed Neil the Seal by the locals, has a special fondness for traffic cones, which he plays with and gnaws on like a toddler with a pram toy.
When it comes to power naps, the chinstrap penguin is king. Researchers in Antarctica have determined that the species will doze off for four seconds per nap, up to 10,000 times a day. Their study appears in the journal Science.
A deep sea live video stream captured several minutes of the delightful “Dumbo” octopus, placidly swimming near the seafloor of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
A king penguin in Scotland’s Edinburgh Zoo reached a new career milestone this week as he was promoted to Major General in the King’s Guard of Norway. His new title is a mouthful: Major General Sir Nils Olav III, Baron of the Bouvet Islands.
Scientists in Peru discovered a new species of snake in the Andes Mountains, which they promptly named after a movie star whose most famous character happens to hate snakes: Tachymenoides harrisonfordi.
A rare two-headed snake took two years to recover from its self-induced injury, but he’s (they’re?) finally back in his exhibit at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas.
Researchers at Berkeley have been looking into the drinking habits of hummingbirds. Turns out the little birds get a lot of alcohol in their diets, but they tend to moderate their intake.
Hangzhou Zoo in eastern China felt the need to deny allegations, made on social media, that their Malayan sun bears are in fact humans wearing bear costumes.
The staff at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium were surprised to find a newborn baby in their gorilla troop, partly because they hadn’t realized the mother was pregnant, but mostly because they’d thought the mother was a male.
Orcas continue to attack yachts in the Mediterranean, sharks still menace bathers in Australia, and humpback whales are terrorizing fishermen off the Canadian coast. Now comes a new marauder, a sea otter who bullies surfers in Santa Cruz.
Most birds are monogamous(ish) and a few species even mate for life, but divorce is also common, and may even be on the rise. A German-Chinese research team analyzed data on 232 bird species to document the avian discontent.
A mayor in Mexico’s Oaxaca state has married a caiman – a toothly reptile and close cousin to alligators and crocodiles – in a traditional wedding. Victor Hugo Sosa got hitched to one “Alicia Adriana” in the town of San Pedro Huamelula, re-enacting an ancestral ritual believed to bring good fortune.
Perhaps you’ve seen a squirrel, spread-eagled and flat on the ground, motionless. He’s fine, he’s just “splooting,” that weird, limbs akimbo pose assumed by some mammals to beat the heat.
Scooter is a 7-year-old hairless Chinese Crested dog with some issues: a shock of unruly gray hair (the “crest”), a tongue that’s always hanging out his little maw, and a pair of hind legs facing the wrong way. Because of all that, Scooter has been crowned this year’s World’s Ugliest Dog. Congrats.
The Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota has announced that their red-wolf pair, brought together only last October, have whelped a litter – four boys and two girls.
Orcas – killer whales – are attacking small boats off the Iberian coast in Europe. There's been at least three apparently coordinated (!) attacks in recent weeks, and scientists believe the aggressive behavior is being taught to, or at least copied by, other pods.
Researchers studying chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park have discovered that, as with humans, the meanest chimps enjoy the most success in life. Primate specialists from the University Edinburgh and Duke observed 28 male chimpanzees in the park and found that the greediest, most irascible bullies among them were the most likely to rise in the ranks of social hierarchy
