Polar Bears Hunt Belugas

Feeling a little uninspired today, I hope you don't mind a repost from March on an amazing topic that few people believe until they see the footage (the most popular source is David Attenborough's Planet Earth).

Polar bears live a feast and famine lifestyle. They are large animals (an adult males weighs 300-600kg) that live in the freezing tundra so they have huge metabolic needs. They normally prey on ringed seals but will eat almost anything they can catch, including walruses, birds, eggs and occasionally they supplement their diet with a big, juicy, beluga whale!

Beluga whales are distinctive for their pale skin and large melon shaped head. These animals can grow up to 5m (16ft) in length and live in large pods, mainly in the Arctic and Canadian Subarctic. Belugas live close to coastlines and in winter they occasionally become trapped in savsatts, small openings in ice packs. Belugas can find themselves the victims of shrinking savsatts, which they use to breath. Each animal will take a turn coming up for air and in the worst of winter, their movement is all that keeps the savsatt open.

Hence an opportunity that a wandering polar bear may chance by and certainly one he can’t resist. The bear will jump in the water, clubbing the trapped whale with his paw and gorging it with his claws. It may take several attempts but the bear usually succeeds in his catch and drags the whale’s carcass on to the ice for a feast. Other polar bears will share in the prize and any leftover kill will be happily devoured by scavenging arctic foxes and gulls.

If you find this post interesting I encourage you to also check out Darren Naish’s very cool post on Wolf-Hunting Eagles

More information can be found at Polar Bears International.

Complete Book of Life from Aardvarks to Zorilla

The Encyclopedia of Life project will detail 1.8 million known plant and animal species in the format of an online archive. Each species will have its own page with descriptions, photographs, videos, and maps, compiled by experts.

It is hoped that the $100m USD (£50m GBP) archive will be complete in 10 years and that in addition to an educational tool, the archive will have value for conservation efforts.

The project will begin by harvesting information from existing databases, such as FishBase, which contains details of 29,900 extant fish species. Data input will begin with animals, then plants, fungi and microbes last. It is not clear when fossil species will be added.

Encyclopedia of Life began development January 2006 and is reminiscent of other ventures such as the Tree of Life, Catalogue of Life and Consortium for the Barcode of Life. The last was launched in 2005 and is attempting to identify all species through unique genetic markers (called ‘barcodes’) found in the mitochondria of cells. This project has so far identified more than 27,000 species.

Proponents claim the Encyclopedia of Life will be much more through and flexible in regards to structure compared to its predecessors and will include dynamic features such as live searches. Fast internet technology has meant that such a large-scale endeavor has only recently become possible.

It is unknown how many species currently live on our planet but estimate range form a modest 2 million to 100 million.

Lonesome George isn’t alone anymore

Lonesome George, the giant Galapagos tortoise that has become a conservation icon may not be the last of his kind after all. George was thought to be the only survivor of a Geochelone abingdoni, a species of tortoise native to the Pinta isle.

But this week, Current Biology has reported a hybrid of the Pinta tortoise and another species discovered on Isabela isle. So the new tortoise, though not completely like George, is proof that hybrids are possible and the future of the George’s species doesn’t look as bleak anymore.

The new turtle is male so can not mate with George, who seems happy as a hermit. George has snubbed the many opportunities he has been given to mate with female tortoises of closely related species.

Researchers hope that a more thorough sampling of the 2,000 tortoises living on the island could reveal another of Georg’s species but are cautious as the project may be expensive and time-consuming.

It is thought that the collapse of the giant tortoise population on Pinta is due in large part to whaling activities in the Pacific during the 18th and 19th Centuries when sailors would take tortoises to store as food on their ships. They pefered the females, which were smaller and easier targets in lowland areas during the egg-laying season. By the middle of the 20th Century, only one giant tortoise was left on Pinta: George who is thought to have been born in the 1920s.

Why does a platypus lay eggs anyway?

Children are taught many ‘rules of thumb’ to help them identify animals, for example: mammals, are furry (or hairy), give birth to live young, make milk and take care of their children. So why does the furry platypus lay eggs? The discovery of this bizarre, egg-laying, duck-billed, web-footed mammal initially baffled naturalists, but now we understand them much better because we know much more about their special place in the tree of evolution.


All animals on Earth are related, even though these relationships aren’t always obvious. The reason these relationships are hard to figure out is that despite the diversity of animals we see, they represent a mere fraction of the life that has ever existed on this planet. In fact, one famous palaeontologist estimated that we know of less then 1% of the Earth’s diversity through time.

To understand the relationships between animals better, we have to look back in time, at the extinct ancestors of the animals alive today (animals living today are called ‘extant’).

This diagram (called a cladogram) shows how the five major groups of vertebrate animals are related:
-Fish gave rise to the first amphibians, which crawled on to land about 400 million years ago.
-Amphibians and reptiles share a common ancestor about 350 million years ago.
-Mammals and birds evolved from reptiles much later at different times during the Mesozoic Era.

Each of these major transitions was slow. It must be understood that a fish doesn’t become an amphibian overnight. There were many different species of animals that formed that transitory stages between these groups and possessed a unique set of characteristics, a sort of ‘mosaic’ between the two groups.

Now let’s look more closely at the evolution of mammals. Mammals evolved from mammal-like-reptiles, a very diverse groups of animals which are all (unfortunately) extinct. Through time three major groups of mammals evolved:
Prototherians - which lay eggs (eg. platypuses and echidnas)
Metatherians - which let young develop in pouches (marsupials such as kangaroos and koalas)
Eutherians – ‘modern mammals’ which give birth to well-developed offspring (this includes many familiar species such as rabbits, elephants, horses, and humans)

The platypus is a prototherian. This ancient group branched off of the mammal tree of life early on before the other two groups. There are many different prototherians in the fossil record but only platypuses and echidnas are still around. So the past there was a great diversity of egg-laying mammals, but sadly, all of those animals except for platypuses and echidnas) are now extinct.

If you are interested in this topic I recommend visiting Date A Clade, which has an excellent (and more comprehensive) cladogram with detailed information on when major groups of animals split away from each other.

Winner of Great Turtle Race Announced!

You may recall that a few weeks ago I posted about the Great Turtle Race, which tracks Leatherback Sea Turtles as they head back to their Galapagos feeding grounds. Spectators have been traveling their progress online and today the winner was announced: Billie. I hope the others do well, especially the slow starters, Sunda and Drexelina. Check out their journeys at http://www.greatturtlerace.com.

Monkeys in your pants and other hilarious antics of wildlife smugglers

Last week I wrote about smugglers who were caught trying to sneak butterflies and chameleons into Croatia. Following that article, a reader sent me an article on some hilarious antics of other criminals who got caught in the act of smuggling strange cargo:

In the United States, wildlife smuggling is the nation’s second-largest black market, (behind narcotics), worth $9 billion a year.
Some of the more interesting highlights seen at Los Angeles International Airport include:

In 2006 A Japanese man was arrested for smuggling Queen Alexandra’s birdwings, one of the largest butterflies in the world, worth $8,500 USD. And in the same year four people were accused of trafficking in the endangered dragon fish.

In 2002 A Palm Springs man attempted to hide two Asian leopard cats in a backpack. He was busted when his travelling companion was also caught. Authorities noticed a large birds of paradise flying out of his luggage. Further inspection revealed 50 rare orchid bulbs, birds stuffed into women’s stockings and two lesser slow lorises (pygmy monkeys) stuffed in his underwear! The poor animals were saved form an 18 hour journey from Asia in this man’s pants!

And most recently, a man has been charged with smuggling reptiles from South Asia in his prosthetic leg.

Some people bring in rare and exotic species as pets but others realize it is big business. Unfortunately, once an animal is taken from the wild, it cannot usually be returned to its place of origin, for fear of disease, and so is often placed in a local zoo, where its chances of long-term survival are reduced.

Shark Myths and Facts

Da-dum ... Da-dum ... Da-dum.. Da-dum.. Da-dum, Da-dum!

It has been 30 years now since the release of the blockbuster Jaws and these two notes still instill fear. Some would argue that great whites are not vengeful, man-eating killing machines but are in fact, intelligent, misunderstood ancient sea creatures. I would agree with this statement in that they do not target people and are intelligent animals, but their fundamental morphology has remained unchained for millions of years because they are perfectly adapted killing machines: keen senses, speed, agility and a mouth full of huge, serrated teeth backed by the most powerful jaws of the animal kingdom. Make no mistake, they are efficient and ferocious animals perfectly suited to their niche.

*The great white is about 6m (20ft) long and the largest predatory fish.

*It is actually grey on top with a white underbelly, camouflage for hunting. The colouration makes them difficult to see from above as they blend in with the rocks and the white belly makes them hard to see from below because they blend in with the sky.

*Sharks never run out of teeth. If they lose one another spins forward from rows and rows of backup teeth. A great white has hundreds of teeth in its jaws at any one time.

*Sharks prefer a high fat food source since fat stores more energy then muscle. Their favourite snack is a baby seal.

*Once a seal is caught, other sharks smell the blood in the water and show up for the meal. Great whites can smell one drop of blood in 100L of water. Since their prey has a lot of blood, nearby sharks are easily attracted to the kill and show up for a feeding frenzy.

*The meal is divided up based on interactions. The animal that splashes the most water gets the next bite. Despite eating together sharks do not hunt together.

*The great white can move through the water at 40 km/hour

*But though they are fierce predators, great whites don’t like the taste of humans; less then 6 people are killed by sharks every year.

The Great Turtle Race

Leatherback Sea Turtles are 100 million years old but their rapid decline indicates that their population may be extinct in as little as 10 yearts. In an effort to learn more about these rare animals and bring attention to the cause, scientists have outfitted 14 animals with satellite tags. The tags have provided researchers with valuable information and are now being used for a novel fundraising initiative.

On April 16th, the Great Turtle Race will begin as the leatherbacks head back to their Galapagos feeding grounds. Sponsor your favorite turtle and track its progress online. This great idea draws attention to the turtle’s plight, raises money and is lots of fun!

The event is being organized by Conservation International, the Costa Rican Ministry of Environment, the Leatherback Trust and the Tagging of Pacific Predators program. Proceeds will go to protect Cost Rica's Playa Grande who bring awareness to the challenges facing the survival of leatherback turtles.

No, seriously man, I’m ok to fly

Check out the very funny article on Laelap’s website on intoxicated animals: lemurs who seek out noxious millipedes, bees drunk off of sap and how fruit bats sober up from over-ripe fruit.

The Sumatran Striped Easter Bunny

Good news: one of the rarest species of rabbit in the world was seen again, but for only the third time in the last 35 years. Wildlife Conservation Society's Asia Program has released pictures of a Sumatran Striped Rabbit (Nesolagus netscheri), photographed by a camera trap in Bukit Barisan National Park.

The rabbit was last photographed in 2000, and before that the last sighting was by a scientist in 1972. It is threatened by habitat loss due to farming and is listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union. But the sightin has given new hope to conservationists

Happy Easter!

Bears Hunt Belugas

This is my third polar bear post in a month, after posting about polar bear/grizzly hybrids and the orphaned polar bear cub, Knut I hope you’re not getting tired of them, they are fascinating creatures.

Polar bears live a feast and famine lifestyle. They are large animals (an adult males weighs 300-600kg) that live in the freezing tundra so they have huge metabolic needs. They normally prey on ringed seals but will eat almost anything they can catch, including walruses, birds, eggs and occasionally they supplement their diet with a big, juicy, beluga whale!

Beluga whales are distinctive for their pale skin and large melon shaped head. These animals can grow up to 5m (16ft) in length and live in large pods, mainly in the Arctic and Canadian Subarctic. Belugas live close to coastlines and in winter they occasionally become trapped in savsatts, small openings in ice packs. Belugas can find themselves the victims of shrinking savsatts, which they use to breath. Each animal will take a turn coming up for air and in the worst of winter, their movement is all that keeps the savsatt open.

Hence an opportunity that a wandering polar bear may chance by and certainly one he can’t resist. The bear will jump in the water, clubbing the trapped whale with his paw and gorging it with his claws. It may take several attempts but the bear usually succeeds in his catch and drags the whale’s carcass on to the ice for a feast. Other polar bears will share in the prize and any leftover kill will be happily devoured by scavenging arctic foxes and gulls.

If you find this post interesting I encourage you to also check out Darren Naish’s very cool post on Wolf-Hunting Eagles!

More information can be found at Polar Bears International.

Hinterland Who's Who

If you grew up in Canada, you will remember television programming punctuated by the Hockey Night in Canada theme, stamp commercials ("A moment of our heritage") and of course the distinctive flute music and monotone narration of John Livingston, on Hinterland Who's Who.

Well I just found out HWW has been modernized and still around on tv and the internet. Check out the website at http://www.hww.ca. It is has a simple clean style, easy navigation and lots of great info about Canadian wildlife. And of course, if you leave your speakers on you can hear the distinctive musical refrain when you enter the site.

Finally, a hilarious HWW parody: