Sea Otters Holding Hands

Video of sea otters holdings paws:

Elephant Ultrasound

CNN has an interesting video of zookeepers at the Pittsburgh Zoo using ultrasound to monitor the pregnancies of elephants.

Video of a happy Tapir receiving a massage

Somebody recently captured this entertaining little video of a Tapir being given a massage by a zookeeper at the LA Zoo.

Tapirs are large browsing mammals, roughly pig-like in shape, with short, prehensile snouts. They inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. All four species of tapir are classified as endangered or vulnerable. Their closest relatives are the other odd-toed ungulates, horses and rhinoceroses.

Long-Whiskered Owlet

An extremely rare species of tiny owl has been seen in the wild for the first time, according to the American Bird Conservancy. The long-whiskered owlet, one of the world's smallest owls, was first discovered in 1976. It was spotted in the wild in February by researchers monitoring a private conservation area in Peru's northern jungle.

The owl is so distinct that it has been named in its own genus, "Xenoglaux," meaning "strange owl," due to the long wispy feathers around its reddish-orange eyes. The owl inhabits the dense undergrowth of highland forests in a remote region of Peru. Its population is estimated to be less than 1,000 birds and possibly as few as 250.

Update:
Here is an additional article about the owls from National Geographic, with larger pictures.

Giant Snowflakes

Since at least the 19th century, people have periodically claimed to see giant snowflakes falling from the sky — big ones the size of saucers and plates or even larger, their edges turned up, their heaviness making them descend faster than small flakes.

But the evidence of their existence was always sketchy. Now, theorists, weather historians and field observers are concluding that most of the reports are true and that unusually large snowflakes two to six inches wide and perhaps wider fall regularly around the globe.

Guinness World Records lists the largest snowflakes as having fallen during a storm in January 1887 at Fort Keogh, in Montana. A rancher nearby, the book says, called them “larger than milk pans” and measured one at 15 inches wide. But no corroborating evidence supports the claim.

Snow crystals, despite their legendary diversity, come in a relatively small number of general shapes, including prisms, columns, stars, cups, plates, bullets and needles. Technically, the big crystals are known as dendrites, from the Greek word for tree, because their arms are quite elaborate, like branches thick with leaves or flower stems rich in petals. Dendrites are the largest snow crystals.

Scientists have found that dendrites have a tendency to join together faster than their simpler relatives. Their complicated arms, it appears, more easily form bonds.

Treethanol

Trees have been used as a source of fuel for thousands of years. According to The Economist magazine ($$), there is now a new high-tech twist on this fuel source. The idea is to make ethanol, a biofuel that usually comes from corn or sugar cane, from trees instead. Unlike oil, ethanol is renewable: to make more of it, you grow more crops. And blending ethanol into ordinary gasoline, or burning it directly in special “flex-fuel” engines, reduces greenhouse-gas emissions.

Why use trees as a feedstock for ethanol? Because “treethanol” has the potential to be much more energy efficient. The ratio of the energy yielded by a given amount of ethanol to the energy needed to produce it is called the “energy balance”. The energy balance for ethanol made from corn is about 1.3; in other words, the ethanol yields 30% more energy than was needed to produce it. For ethanol made from sugar cane in Brazil, the energy balance is 8.3.

But for ethanol made from trees, grasses and other types of biomass which contain a lot of cellulose, the energy balance can be as high as 16, at least in theory. In practice the problem is that producing such “cellulosic” ethanol is much more difficult and expensive than producing it from other crops. But the science, technology and economics of treethanol are changing fast. Researchers are racing to develop ways to chip, ferment, distill and refine wood quickly and cheaply.

Interest in cellulosic ethanol is growing as the drawbacks of making ethanol from corn and sugar become apparent. Both are important food crops, and as ethanol production is stepped up around the world, greater demand is driving up the prices of everything from animal feed to cola and biscuits. The price of a bushel of corn rose by 70% between September 2006 and January 2007 to reach its highest level in a decade. Mexico's president, Felipe Calderón, even capped the price of corn tortillas in January as America's fast-growing ethanol industry caused prices to rocket. There are clear signs of a backlash against ethanol made from food crops. Supply is struggling to keep up, and as more governments introduce schemes to promote biofuels and cut greenhouse-gas emissions, the tension between food and fuel will only intensify.

New Species of Clouded Leopards Found

As reported by the BBC, scientists have concluded that Clouded leopards found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo represent a new species (see other reports here and here).

Until now it had been thought they belonged to the species that is found on mainland southeast Asia. Scientists now believe the two species diverged more than one million years ago, and have evolved separately since. Clouded leopards are the biggest predators on Borneo, and can grow as large as small panthers.

Picture: The mainland clouded leopard (left) has been separated from its island cousin (right) for about 1.4 million years, research suggests:



The separation of the species was discovered through genetic research results. DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species. Supporting evidence came from examination of fur patterns. Leopards from Borneo and Sumatra have small "clouds" with many distinct spots within them, grey and dark fur, and twin stripes along their backs. Their mainland cousins have large cloud markings on their skin with fewer, often faint, spots within the cloud markings, and are lighter and more tawny in color. The WWF estimates there are between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards on Borneo, with a further 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra.

How Cowbirds Run Protection Rackets

The Economist magazine recently published an article (subscriber only) on some interesting findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concerning Cowbirds (pictured right).

Cowbirds, like Cuckoos, are brood parasites. This means that they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and leave those other birds to raise their young for them. But there is a difference between cowbirds and cuckoos. A cuckoo chick usually pushes the original chicks out, so that it can monopolize the food brought by its adoptive parents. Cowbirds, however, seem to tolerate their nestmates.

Scientists thought this was odd, and decided to look into the matter. What they found is that the host bird's real chicks are pawns in a protection racket of a sort the Mafia would be proud to have invented. The victims of the racket are prothonotary warblers (pictured right). These birds do not reject cowbird eggs even though they look quite different from their own. That in itself is intriguing, for cuckoos, again in contrast to cowbirds, lay eggs that mimic those of their hosts.

The scientists proceeded to conduct a multi-year study to determine what was going on between the warblers and the cowbirds. The first phase was observational, where for six years they watched 472 nests in which warblers had laid their eggs. Almost half of these were parasitized by cowbirds. Then the real experiment began. In the following seasons, the scientists removed cowbird eggs from some of the parasitized nests. At the same time, they reduced the diameter of the entrances to some of the nest boxes, in order to deny admission to cowbirds (which are larger than warblers).

Warblers whose nests were thus protected did well, raising an average of four chicks to maturity in the absence of a cowbird parasite. Nests from which cowbird eggs had been removed, but which lacked protection, did badly. In fact, more than half of them were attacked! The eggs were pecked open and the nests themselves torn to pieces. Nests that were attacked yielded, on average, one chick, whereas those with a cowbird egg in them yielded three warbler chicks. Paying "protection money" in the form of food for the cowbird chick thus looks like a good deal from the warbler's point of view, and explains why cowbirds do not need to disguise their eggs to look like those of warblers!

The cowbirds' tricks did not stop at this protection racket, either. A fifth of the warbler nests that had never had cowbird eggs in them also got destroyed. The scientists call this strategic behavior "farming." If warblers lose their eggs, they will often produce more. If a cowbird female fails to lay in a warbler nest in time for her egg to hatch with those of the host, she can reset the clock in her favor by killing the first group of eggs. Even the Mafia never thought of that one!

An example of brood parasitism is shown in this picture of a common cuckoo being raised by a reed warbler:

Potential New Species in Antarctica

Scientists have found orange sea stars, fan-finned ice fish and herds of roving sea cucumbers are among the exotic creatures found off the Antarctic coast in an area formerly covered by ice. This is the first time explorers have been able to catalog wildlife where two big ice shelves used to extend for some 3,900 square miles over the Weddell Sea. At least 5,000 years old, the ice shelves collapsed in two stages over the last dozen years. One crumbled 12 years ago and the other followed in 2002. Looking down 2,800 feet into the icy water -- a comparatively shallow depth -- they found fauna usually associated with seabeds about three times that deep, in places where the creatures must adapt to scarcity to survive.

There were blue ice fish, with dorsal fins like ribbed fans and blood that lacks red cells, an adaptation that makes the blood more fluid and easier to pump through the animal's body, conserving energy at low temperatures. Long-limbed sea stars, some with more than the usual five appendages, mingled with the ice fish, and groups of sea cucumbers were observed moving together, all in one direction.

The explorers also found thick settlements of fast-growing animals called sea squirts, which look like gelatinous bags, which apparently started colonizing the area only after the ice shelves collapsed.

Among the hundreds of specimens collected, the scientists identified 15 possible new species of shrimp-like amphipods, and four possible new species of cnidarians, organisms related to coral, jellyfish and sea anemones, the scientists said in a statement.

Below are some pictures from the expedition:

The Antarctic ice fish has no red blood pigments or red blood cells. This adaptation to the frigid environment allows it to use less energy to pump blood through its body:



This sea star is unusual because of its 12 spindly arms, instead of the normal five:



This giant amphipod crustacean is one of several potentially new species found by the expedition. Further testing will be conducted to determine whether the creature is actually a new species. This amphipod is 10 centimeters long, larger than similar species in more temperate waters:



This potentially new species of Epimeria is 25 millimeters long. It was found near Elephant Island off the Antarctic Peninsula:



Deep-sea cucumbers make their way along on the relatively shallow sea floor, about 2,800 feet below the surface. The creatures are normally found at depths around 6,500 feet:



A male pycnogonid (sea spider) carries its eggs. The eight-legged creature is a marine distant relative of spiders:



Antarctic barnacles were found at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula:

Tiger and Orangutan babies bond

A pair of month-old Sumatran tiger twins have become inseparable playmates with a set of young orangutans, an unthinkable match in their natural jungle habitat in Indonesia's tropical rainforests. After being abandoned by their mothers shortly after birth, the four play fight, nipping and teasing each other, and cuddling up for a shared nap when they are worn out. The four have lived side-by-side for a month without a single act of hostility. The exceptional friendship will likely be short-lived because as the animals grow up their natural survival instincts will kick in. Tigers start eating meat when they are three months old.