A baby elephant at Boras Zoo in Sweden chases birds, falls on his front and runs to his mom!
Play is an important part of many species’ childhood. It teaches them basic skills important for later survival like agility, hunting, and sparring while in the relative safety of friends or relatives. This baby elephant definitely got out of his comfort zone by reaching out to another species!
There’s a reason for that. “Synchronized estrus is thought to increase reproductive success in the pride,” says Mweetwa, a National Geographic emerging explorer and Big Cats Initiative grantee. Having cubs at the same time means that mother lions can rely on each other to nurse, babysit, and protect the youngsters.
This safety in numbers also allows more lions to survive to adulthood. Predation is a great threat to small, vulnerable babies in any species, but if all babies are born at the same time, there are only so many that predators can eat.
If young are born at different times throughout the year, predators could use them as a steady source of food.
Even so, many still die: More than half of all African lion cubs don’t make it past their first year. They’re at risk from predation, disease, abandonment, starvation, and being killed by an outside male.
When male lions strike out on their own, they will challenge another male for control of his harem. If the interloper succeeds, he’ll kill all the cubs, which brings the females into estrus, or heat, again. (See “Why Do Animals Sometimes Kill Their Babies?”)
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Though many other animals come into heat at the same time, fewer species go into heat when their young die. Instead, most go into heat seasonally, including most wild species of hooved mammals, which only give birth in the spring. Male deer testosterone peaks in fall, during the “rut,” when they will compete for and mate with females. Does are pregnant during the winter and give birth around May and June, when warmer weather helps fawns survive.
If lions had periods, lionesses within a pride might get them at roughly the same time. But lions don’t menstruate: The only mammals that menstruate overtly the way that humans do are some other primates and a few species of bats and rodents.
A persistent myth is that people living in close proximity—such as several women sharing a dorm in college—synchronize their estrus cycles, which is evidenced by having periods around the same time. This idea, which caught on due to research by psychologist Martha McClintock in 1971, has been discredited in several studies since.
Because women have slightly different menstrual cycles, there is a good chance that, if two women spend enough time together, they will eventually match cycles.
“It’s just a mathematical property of irregular rhythms, and rhythms of different lengths,” says Schank. He adds that it’s human nature to notice when things match, but not to notice when they don’t match.
Since menstruation also wastes nutrients and can attract predators, with all the other problems that lion cubs face it’s lucky that at least lionesses don’t have periods.
In honor of Gopher tortoise day (April 10th), here’s one of my favorite patients, Danny Devito the gopher tortoise! He was hit by a car and required long term care to repair the damage to his shell. This involves surgical correction of the shell fractures (hence the screws), along with supportive care and pain medication. This is him enjoying his daily outside time in the sun! After recovery in the hospital this animal was released into the wild near where he was found. Please always watch for tortoises and other reptiles when you’re out there on the road!
Wait for it… there it is- the WIGGLE! This wiggly bird is the cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis), and this video demonstrates a very cool behavior that’s usually called “neck-swaying”. This is a somewhat uncommon hunting behavior where the bird quickly weaves its head and neck side to side as it approaches a prey item. We’re not entirely sure what the purpose of this hunting method is, but it is suspected to help the bird more accurately assess the distance of their prey, though others believe it is used to distract or disorient prey before the bird strikes. In any case, several studies in foraging behavior of this species suggest that strikes preceded by head-swaying are actually less successful than normal strikes. Although this video ends too soon (my camera was not cooperating), I can say that this particular wiggle did end successfully, as this cattle egret snatched up a very big bug.
Animals have used the same technique to search for food that’s in short supply for at least 50 million years, a BBSRC-funded study suggests.
Creatures including penguins search for food using a mathematical pattern of movement called a Lévy walk. It might sound complex, but it is a random search strategy made up of small steps and a few larger steps. Although a Lévy walk is random, it’s the most efficient way to find food when it’s scarce.
Finding food in a timely fashion could be a matter of life or death. Choose the wrong direction and it could be curtains. But moving in a random search pattern is mathematically the best way to find isolated food.
Giant pandas, the international symbol of conservation, are one of the most loved species in the world.
A group of parasitic round worms are one of the main causes of mortality of giant pandas in the wild, and collectively infect more than 50 animal species worldwide.
Infection can damage the intestines and if the infection reaches the brain and eyes: will often result in death.
Dr Russ Morphew at Aberystwyth University, along with researchers at IBERS and Mr Iain Valentine RZSS Edinburgh Zoo look to identify how this deadly parasite responds to anti-parasitic drugs. More specifically, whether drug resistance is the cause of repeat infections in captive giant panda populations.
They hope that their findings will not only help to inform conservation strategies in captivity and across China’s giant panda reserves, but also that they could lead to improved control strategies to deal with infection in the future.
Taxonomy is fucked up. You start out at “This is how our animal friends are classified and how they’re related to each other :)” and then you dip one inch below the surface and you get “There’s definitely no such thing as a fish and there might be no such thing as a reptile”
I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but that wasn’t what I was expecting
i thought it was an otter, then i thought it was a shark, and let me say i was wrong both times
There’s literally no way to guess. There’s no way at all to guess
i showed this to my mom, my aunt, my grandma, and the minute the quarantine ends this is going to become my go to dinner party conversation starter
Sea serpent
Moose are pretty good swimmers and they swim enough for Orca Whales to pose a significant threat.
My favorite moose fact is the cryptid herd in New Zealand. We know they’re out there, but nobody has seen one in over half a century.
In New Zealand.
Hi I’m sorry. I usually don’t insist that people elaborate on their comments but-
What the everloving fuck are you talking about???
In 1910, a herd of 6 females and 4 males was released in Fiordland. The last confirmed sighting was in 1952, and it was considered marginal territory for them, so it was presumed they had died out.
Until some moose hair was found in 2002.
This lead to extensive searches and installation of automatic cameras - none of which have caught an actual moose, though bedding and rub sites have been found.
The current theory as I understand it is that they’re living off of rich seaweed beds in the area.
Hi, it’s The Zanzibar red colobus (Procolobus kirkii)also known as Kirk’s red colobus. It was called after “ Sir John Kirk, the British Resident of Zanzibar who first brought it to the attention of zoological science”, but it’s funny, Kirk has his own primate.
