Thevaquita is Mexico’s only endemic marine mammal. The name vaquita is Spanish for “little cow”, and other names for the species include cochito (Spanish for “little pig”), desert porpoise, vaquita porpoise, Gulf of California harbor porpoise, Gulf of California porpoise, and gulf porpoise.
Thevaquita is the world’s smallest cetacean, growing only about 141 centimetres in length. They are also the most endangered cetacean on the planet, with some marine biologists believing there are as few as 12 individuals left alive.
TheSeri, or Comcaac, people of the Sonora coast have had a long and important relationship with the leatherback. Considered to be one of their five creator deities, the capture and release of a leatherback is cause for ceremony and celebrations. In recent years, however, the nation has noticed the drastic decline of the leatherback population and decided to take action. The new conservation movement, called Grupo Tortuguero Comaac, consists of both elders and youths and uses both modern technology and tradition knowledge to monitor turtle populations and research their foraging habits. Five person teams consisting of an elder, two younger team members, and two trainees make monitoring expeditions into the Canal de Infiernillo, the center of Seri territory and a site of extreme importance for migrating juvenile turtles. This has proven an effective means of both monitoring local turtle populations and passing traditional knowledge on to the younger generations.
Theleatherback turtle has no teeth. Instead, its throat is lined with backwards-pointing spines designed to snag prey and prevent it from escaping once the turtle bites down.
During the breeding season, a female leatherback turtle will return to a sandy beach in the same region where she was born. At night, when the chances of predation are lowest, she will haul herself up onto the sand, dig a pit, and lay her eggs. She may lay up to nine clutches of over one hundred eggs, with nine days passing in between the laying of each clutch.
Nesting season is the only time adult leatherbacks will be found on the land, and the animals will consist only of females. Once a male leatherback has entered the sea, he will never leave it.
A juvenile Hawaiian monk seal was found with a spotted eel in its nose at French Frigate Shoals in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands this past summer. And it wasn’t the first time it happened.
Though NOAA has been monitoring the monk seal population in the northern islands of Hawaii for almost 40 years, this eel-in-the-nose problem has been observed a handful of times, but only since 2016.
The NOAA has proposed two hypotheses: first, that eels launch themselves defensively at the seals while they are foraging for food, shoving their mouths and noses into the crevices of coral reefs and under rocks.
Another theory the agency suggests is that a seal may swallow an eel whole and then regurgitate it through its nose.
The conservation agency reassured concerned viewers that the eel was successfully removed, saying that the procedure required light restraint of the seal and a slow, steady pull on the eel, taking around 30 seconds in total. “In all cases the eel was successfully removed and the seals were fine. The eels, however, did not make it,” the agency said. Text Source
Help us reach 25,000 signatures for Laxmi. Once we hit that number we will do a major press-release showing that there is a groundswell of people who demand justice for her. Laxmi died from starvation and from severe beatings. Charges need to be filed against her abusers. Public awareness and pressure will help. https://e-activist.com/page/19919/petition/1 Thank you!
Feeding time for Nhlanhla, Olivia, Khulula and Balu, with Stompie (who has already been weaned off milk) right at the end trying to steal Balu’s milk. Although Stompie’s exact date of birth is unknown to us, we celebrate his birthday on the 10th of March each year. This means Stompie is turning two years old this Friday!
So proud to support these souls!!
To help us keep them safe please donate @ fightforrhinos.com
In 2013, after a trip to Samburu, Nakuru, Amboseli and Masaai Mara, the one disturbing theme was “There used to be rhinos here.” Aside from an occasional siting on the Mara, rhinos had vanished, wiped from what used to be their home.
In contrast Ol Pejeta was maintaining a safe haven for both white and black rhinos within the sanctuary.
More graciously known as the Chilean pine, the story behind the monkey puzzle begins at Pencarrow Gardens, Cornwall. Around 50 years after the tree was introduced to Britain by the botanist Archibald Menzies in 1975, a man named Charles Austin commented after seeing a specimen at Pencarrow that “It would puzzle a monkey to climb that.” He really should have picked another animal, because the name’s here to stay despite the fact that Chile has no monkeys!
Ruthless hunters of Kabini, Indian Wild Dogs Dholes having a Sunday feast from behind the lens of #wildographer @awildlens ・・・ Defo #worthafollow * #Wildography #wildlifeofindia #wildlifephotography #awildlens #indianwildlifeofficial #wildkarnataka #wildlifeindia https://www.instagram.com/p/B5QWQWag00A/?igshid=lc7shyr8kffy
These snails are only a couple of millimeters in size and live on the ground in the mountains on the island of O’ahu. They lay a single egg that hatches into an even tinier baby. Sadly, they are critically endangered and are on the verge of extinction, like many other species of Hawaiian land snails.
The Hawaiian name for this snail is pūpū kuahiwi which translates to “mountain shell.”
O’ahu Tree Snail/Pūpū kani oe (Achatinella sowerbyana)
Snails in the genus Achatinella are commonly called the O’ahu tree snails because they are found only on the Hawaiian island of O’ahu. Sadly, like all other O’ahu tree snails, Sowerby’s O’ahu tree snail is at risk of going extinct. It lives in forests in the Ko’olau Mountains and faces many threats, from habitat loss, to predation from rosy wolfsnails, Jackson’s chameleons, and rats, to diminishing genetic diversity. Native Hawaiians believed that the tree snails had the ability to sing and that their songs were very special and significant.
The Hawaiian name for this snail is pūpū kani oe which translates to “shell that sounds with a long whistle”, or “singing shell.”
While many other species of colorful Hawaiian snails live in trees, the small sanguine litter snail instead chooses to live on the ground, specifically in leaf litter. Because its shell is extremely colorful, it camouflages itself with debris (some of which is its own poop). The camouflage may have originally developed as protection against birds at a time when there were more native Hawaiian birds around to hunt it, but many of those birds are now extinct or have declined in numbers. Like the birds before it, this little snail is also marching towards extinction and is currently considered to be critically endangered.
The Hawaiian name for this snail is pūpū kani oe which translates to “shell that sounds with a long whistle”, or “singing shell.”
Okay, this one isn’t a snail, but every now and then I stumble across a creature that isn’t a snail but still deserves an illustration.
The ʻiʻiwi (pronounced ee-EE-vee) is an endangered species of bird native to Hawaii. It is also known as the scarlet honeycreeper and it uses its long curved beak to drink nectar from flowers. It is threatened by climate change and habitat loss.
I had a LOT of fun with this prairie chicken. I sketched him out, watercolored him, and tried something new for the lines. Instead of the lines like I normally would, I scanned him in and did them digitally. I think it turned out pretty well.
I love prairie chickens! It makes me sad that they’re endangered :(
This is a painting I did for the Dallas Zoo’s “Zoo to Do” art auction event in 2019 to help raise money for the zoo. The theme was Tigers. With 2022 being the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar, I thought I would finally post these
I was REAL proud of this one, though I do wonder where it wound up?.. (Hopefully not in the home of a transphobe ️⚧️)
Comment how much you think it sold for - closest answer gets a million points and a bunch of tiger emojis
