Osteoarthritis and Your Pets by Kathy Gagliardi, Guest Blogger

Many of us have pets, and nearly all of them, at least at one point in their lives, will be affected by something that only a trained veterinarian can help with.  But vets can't do it all themselves: they need you and I, the servants caretakers of the pets to be able to recognize something is wrong in the first place.  I asked Dr. Kathy Gagliardi whether she would be interested in sending me an article that I could post on here, and she was kind enough to oblige!  Here's a little bit about Dr. Gagliardi:

Dr Kathy Gagliardi is a veterinarian that works in Louisville, Colorado at VCA Centennial Valley Animal Hospital with small animals and exotic pets such as snakes, lizards, bunnies, ferrets, rats, birds, etc.., She loves the variety of animals she gets to work with and the variety of people. Her favorite part of her job is the human animal bond and getting to help keep that strong. She graduated from CSU Vet School in 2010 and has traveled a lot since graduating. She has done a variety of work in rural areas like southeastern Colorado and remote places in Africa.

Today, Dr. Gagliardi is going to be telling us a little bit about osteoarthritis, and what you can do to help out your beloved master pet!  

Osteoarthritis is a painful disease that affects many people and affects many of our beloved animals. Knowing what to do and how to recognize this disease is very important because it is the most common cause of chronic pain in dogs and cats. In the United States it is estimated that one out of five adult dogs suffer from arthritis. The definition of osteoarthritis is: progressive disease of inflammation and deterioration of the soft tissue, cartilage and bone in one or more joints. It is a chronic disease (develops over months to years) leading to pain and decreased mobility. The disease worsens as cartilage in the animal’s joint breaks down and friction between the bones causes pain. Inflammation in the joint also can cause abnormal bony growths on the joints and thickening of the surrounding soft tissue.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

The first step in helping your pet is to recognize the signs of arthritis and tell your veterinarian. Ask yourself if you have noticed any of the following signs (be aware, the signs may not be present at all times): reluctance to climb stairs, difficulty jumping, stiffness after exercise, limping, difficulty rising, difficulty with positioning to eliminate, loss of appetite, and changes in behavior. Some animals are at greater risk for arthritis due to the following factors: being overweight, breed (a large or giant breed), previous joint injuries, and previously diagnosed elbow, knee, or hip dysplasia.

If you suspect your dog has arthritis, your veterinarian can do a physical exam on your pet to help determine the location. Also radiographs (X-rays) of the joints are often needed to confirm the diagnosis. Once a diagnosis has been reached, there are many different treatment options that can be offered. Treatment options include: pain medications, diet, exercise, joint supplements, physical therapy sessions, and acupuncture. Medications that are commonly used to treat osteoarthritis include: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), joint supplements (like chondroitin and glucosamine), and pain medication like Tramadol. The chondro-protective joint medications like chondroitin and glucosamine are similar to those used in people however often have different doses or formulas so it is important to discuss the best one for your pet with your veterinarian. Alternative medicine is another great option for pets with osteoarthritis the benefits of physical therapy and acupuncture have proven to be an effective treatment in animals as well as people. Also being overweight and not exercising can make osteoarthritis worse so many pets treatment plan will also include diet and strict/set exercise routine.

The wide range of treatment options can often make it overwhelming for a pet’s guardian to decide what is best for there pet. Therefore it is best to discuss the options in detail with your veterinarian to develop a treatment plan that is right for your pet. Your veterinarian will let you know which treatment modalities would best suit your pet.

VCA Centennial Valley Animal Hospital is a full service veterinary hospital in Louisville, Colorado. We are accredited by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA). We provide care for dogs, cats, birds, ferrets, rabbits, reptiles and exotics. Our Services include Preventive Care, Laser Surgery, Digital X-Ray, In House Pharmacy, Full Dental Care, In House Laboratory, Hospitalization, Acupuncture/Herbs, and Pain management.  Our Doctors and staff are compassionate, certified and friendly. www.cvah.com

I would like to thank Dr. Gagliardi for helping us out and letting us know all about osteoarthritis.  In the future, keep an eye out for a few more posts from Dr. Gagliardi!  Thanks again, and we look forward to hearing from you again soon!

Pictures of my Animals From My New Camera!

For Christmas I got a new camera, a Canon EOS Rebel! I have a ton of awesome pictures that I want to share, including pictures of my pets, some astrophotography, and more!  First, I am going to share some pictures of some of my various critters!  To see some higher quality versions of some of these pictures, check out my Flickr by clicking HERE!  First off, some shots of my beagle-basset dog, Daisy!

My mom with Daisy!

Next up are some pictures of my chubby kitty, Chimney!

Up next are some of my other pets, such as Juan Priestly the betta fish!  I have two, a delta tail and a veil tail, and I can't remember for certain which one is which.

In another tank I have two African dwarf frogs (Hymenochirus boettgeri), and this is the new one I got just a few days ago!  I named after the bright star Aldebaran in the Zodiac constellation of Taurus the Bull!

In the same tank, I also have a snail.  Petco (where the pets go) says that it is a gold Inca snail (Pomacea bridgesii).  However, that scientific name seems connected to a snail that is colloquially called the mystery snail, so I'm not entirely certain what this snail is.  So I suppose the name "mystery snail" truly does seem appropriate!  Anyways, I named him Liam, after Liam Payne in the fantastic band One Direction.  This is what I do to people I like, I name snails after them.  Maybe next time I will upload a picture of my other snail, Zayn Malik.

Second to last, here is a picture of Wolverine, my baby California kingsnake!

Finally, here is a picture of someone who is not my pet, and is actually a pet of some friends of mine, Isabel and Sam Lippincott!  This is their dog Louis, who was actually attacked by a coyote.  He is fine now, and is going to make a full recovery!

Not Enough Bacteria, Too Many Allergies

If you were to hear someone say "by making our world more sterile, we're actually making ourselves sicker," you might think they were full of it: initially, it sure doesn't sound like it makes any sense. Interestingly, however, it seems as if this may, in fact, be true: our attempts to make our world a cleaner place, we are slowly and steadily weakening our own immune systems!

It all started yesterday as I was working at the Morrison Natural History Museum, watering and destroying the angiosperms from the Jurassic Garden with "extreme prejudice," as angiosperms do not appear to have inhabited Colorado during the Jurassic Period. I started wondering why there was so much dead plant material around the base of the plants in the garden, and, for lack of a better conclusion, decided that it was probably because the bacteria that would normally digest these plants didn't actually live here. (I still don't know whether that is true or not). The topic of bacteria triggered my brain to start thinking about digestive bacteria: I was quite hungry, you see. It had been brought to my attention in the past that, even if humans were somehow able to miraculously clone a dinosaur, we almost certainly couldn't keep them alive. Each animal on the planet has its own, unique set of bacteria that helps it to digest its food. With the extinction of the dinosaurs, it is almost certain that the bacteria that constantly accompanied them in their digest tracts went extinct, as well.

This line of thought made me think about the passing of bacteria from the parents to their offspring. How is it done? I assumed that they weren't born with it, but I wasn't sure. I ended up thinking that perhaps, in animals that regurgitate food into the mouths of their young (like penguins), perhaps this was how the bacteria was passed. With perfect timing, out came Matt Mossbrucker, the director and curator at the Morrison Museum. I asked him whether it was, indeed, regurgitation that passed the bacteria on, and he said yes: partially. You know how many animals (such as your dog and cat at home) will eat poop? That's at least part of the reason: they're trying to get bacteria from the poop to help them digest their food!

After thinking about it for a few seconds, I realized that humans (most of us, anyways) neither regurgitate our food for our young 'uns, nor do we eat each others poop. So I asked Matt whether humans get this bacteria through breast milk: turns out, we don't. So how do we get the bacteria?

According to recent research, humans aren't getting enough bacteria to digest their food. Much of this research seems to indicate that perhaps this is the reason why so many humans have digestive issues, allergies, and the like. Matt also said that, just like I said in the introduction, "by making our world more sterile, we're actually making ourselves sicker." Still sound paradoxical? Well, ultimately, humans are trying so dang hard to sterilize their world with hand sanitizer, bleach, alcohol, and soap, that we aren't being exposed to as many pathogens. While in some cases this is a good thing, in other cases, our immune systems, just like the six-pack of someone who doesn't exercise, slowly weaken.  And, of course, a weak immune system is good for no one!

So is the moral of the story to stop washing your hands?  No, of course not.  It's to go out there and eat poop.  See you later, everyone!

Wolf, Jackal, Fox, and the Dingo (to the tune of "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go")

Song number nine in our "Animal Parodies" playlist!  Here, I present "Wolf, Jackal, Fox, and the Dingo," to the tune of "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" by Wham!  Below is the link to the song:

Here are the lyrics to the song:


Canidae x4

Hesperocyon at the start
Looked like a little fox, quite hard to tell apart
While other lineages begin to wane
The Canidae's numbers just continue to gain
Good hearing and smell, too,
And a strong bite
That's not to mention their great sense of sight
Big old brain up in their head
Some go solo but others live in packs instead

Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
The true foxes don't include the culpeo
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
On the coast and on the mountains high
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
Some move in packs while others like it solo
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
Gray, black, red, golden, and white

You put the gray wolf out of the way
Still got foxes and coyotes in the USA
Down the land bridge they all came
South America would never be the same
They've got the bush dog and the dhole
And Darwin's fox, who's black as charcoal
Then the maned wolf, who despite
It's name eats a lot of fruits and veggies during the night

Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
The true foxes don't include the culpeo
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
On the coast and on the mountains high
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
Some move in packs while others like it solo
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
Gray, black, red, golden, and white
Yeah, yeah, yeah, doggy
Canidae x2

Close in wild dog, prey's in sight
We're eating impala for sure tonight
More pack members means more mouths to be fed
But the benefits of teamwork, not enough can be said

Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
The true foxes don't include the culpeo
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
On the coast and on the mountains high
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
Some move in packs while others like it solo
Wolf, jackal, fox, and the dingo
Gray, black, red, golden, and white

Are you diggin' the songs?  Well, then check out our playlist below!

CLICK HERE TO BE DIRECTED TO A FUN-FILLED PLAYLIST OF AMAZING SONGS.

Red Foxes in Breckenridge!

For the past few years, every summer my family and I would go up to visit our good friends the Beckleys, who would stay for about a month in a rented house in Breckenridge, Colorado.  One of the times, I forget exactly which one, a red fox was hovering around the house, eager for us to feed it.  Apparently, the people in the neighborhood were feeding the fox, so it had become quite tame.  We made a lot of noise to make it go away (in the hopes that it would become afraid of people, as wild animals should be), but not before we got some pretty great pictures.  Check them out!

A picture of the red fox outside of the house.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

A picture of the red fox outside of the house.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

A picture of the red fox outside of the house.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

A picture of the red fox outside of the house.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

A picture of the red fox outside of the house.  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

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Top Ten Mammals That Look Like Something They Aren't (Part 2)

Here is Part 2 of this duo of posts.  For Part 1, click HERE.  What are these two posts about?  Well, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" look at some mammals that look a lot like something they aren't.  Sometimes, these two animals are fairly closely related: other times, they are quite far apart!  All of these examples will be results of a fascinating phenomenon known as "Convergent Evolution," which is where similar ecological and environmental factors cause two very different animals to evolve in a similar fashion.  So let's dive right in!  But first, this is the birthday post of Joseph Kleinkopf, happy birthday Joseph!

5.  Civets and genets - These two groups of animals are quite possibly some of the most unknown animals that are around today.  Members of the family Viverridae in the order Carnivora, if someone does in fact see one, they usually just assume that they are cats, dogs, or something else along those lines.  The family that the viverrids are most closely related to are, in fact, the cats, but they are also related to they hyenas and the mongooses.

4.  Maned Wolf - The maned wolf is neither a wolf, as its name implies, or a fox, as its outward appearance would indicate.  It is related to both, and is in the family Canidae (the dog family) just like wolves and foxes, but it is thought to be most closely related to the South American bush dog.  Interestingly, although small vertebrate prey is quite important to the maned wolf, it eats a great deal of fruits and vegetables, with the most frequently consumed fruit called the wolf apple.

A slightly fuzzy picture of a brown-morph black bear right outside of our tent-cabin in Yosemite!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

3.  Black Bear - When it comes to the names of the three bears that inhabit North America, they can be very misleading indeed.  ESPECIALLY the black bear, for the black bear, like many other animals throughout the world (including, of course, humans), has different color morphs.  The black bear is, of course, most frequently black.  However, some of the time, the black bear is actually brown, or cinnamon colored, which is not to be confused with the ACTUAL brown bear (or grizzly bear).  In Alaska and northwest Canada, there is the "glacier" color morph, a grey-blue phase.  But I think my favorite is the "Kermode" color phase, which is exclusive to the coast of British Columbia.  This bear is a creamy-white color, and looks a heck of a lot like the polar bear!  How very, very confusing!

2.  Thylacosmilus - Over the course of mammalian evolution, the marsupials have spat out a large number of look-alikes, or animals that evolved via convergent evolution to appear a great deal like other animals throughout the world.  One of the most amazing of all of these (by far, in my opinion) is Thylacosmilus, a marsupial carnivore from the Miocene and Pliocene Epochs of South America.  Thylacosmilus convergently evolved to resemble the saber-toothed cats of North America.  Unfortunately, following the creation of the Isthmus of Panama that connected North and South America around 2 MYA, the saber-toothed cats like Smilodon moved down the newly-formed land bridge to colonize South America during the Great American Interchange, outcompeting Thylacosmilus in the process.

1.  Raccoon Dog - The raccoon dog is a fantastic case of an animal that is now that it appears to be.  You take one look at it, and you decide conclusively that you are looking at a raccoon, no doubt about it.  Your second and third takes yield the same result.  However, the raccoon dog is not a raccoon, as both its name and appearance might indicate: its a canid, through and through!  Listed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN, the raccoon dog is native to eastern Asia, and is not very closely related to any extant species of dog.  Just a tip, if you are trying to make someone look foolish, showing them a picture of a raccoon dog and having them guess what animal it is is an excellent way to show off your animal-prowess.  Unless they know what it is, in which case you will be the more foolish.

Thanks for joining us tonight for our top ten list!  And remember, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in! 

Harry Potter Names: Remus Lupin

Remus Lupin is one of my favorite protagonists from the Harry Potter series.  Despite the fact that he is a werewolf, he nevertheless is an exemplary wizard and a fantastic teacher.  The origins of his name are also quite interesting!

The surname, Remus, originates from the myth of Rome's foundation.  One of two main characters in the story, Remus's brother Romulus is the other central character.  There are many different forms of the myth, but here is how most of them seem to go.  The mother of Remus and Romulus has the two young boys float down in the river to protect them from the Gods, in the hopes that someone else will raise them.  They end up being raised by a female wolf.  Later on, they are adopted by humans, and eventually build a large city.  Both brothers want to be king, however, so the pair quarrel, and Remus is killed.

So we have the wolf connection: Remus and Romulus were cared for by a wolf, and Remus Lupin is a werewolf.  Another connection is that, in the seventh book, Remus Lupin is a guest on Potterwatch, and goes by the code name "Romulus."  Some sources even cite that J. K. Rowling's intentions were to represent the conflict within Remus Lupin (between his human side and his werewolf side) by having the names of the two brothers both apply to Remus Lupin.

Next, we have the last name, "Lupin."  In Latin, the word "lupus" means "wolf:"  This is where the scientific name for the gray wolf comes from, Canis lupus, shared by the many sub-species of the gray wolf, including the arctic wolf, the Mexican red wolf, and the domestic dog.  So that apparently means that "lupin" translates to "wolf-like."

We have one more connection, courtesy of Aniruddh Prakash: the letters in the name "Remus Lupin" can be rearranged to the words "Primus lune," which means full moon.  Coincidence?  I think not!  Clearly, Rowling put a great deal of thought into this name!

Top Ten Favorite Dinosaurs by Zack Neher (Part 5)

At long last, here we go: the final installment in my top ten list of favorite dinosaurs.  

1. Therizinosaurus

Therizinosaurus is the namesake of the odd group of herbivorous Theropod dinosaurs known collectively as the Therizinosaurs.  These guys are related to the Oviraptors, Ornithomimosaurs, and the Alvarezsaurs, all of which are thought to have a largely plant-based diet.  This seems odd when you first think about it: plant-eating meat-eating dinosaurs?  But similar things occur today.  For example, the order Carnivora today includes many meat-eating animals such as cats and dogs, but also includes the bears, where plants and berries factor into their diet a great deal.  For some, like the panda, they eat almost entirely plants.  The Therizinosaurs have been likened to the recently extinct giant ground sloths in the fact that they seemed to have pot bellies in which to ferment their food, as well as enormous claws that probably helped a great deal in protection, as these guys were most certainly not the swiftest of runners.  Therizinosaurus is just so bizarre and wacky, which is what makes it my most favorite dinosaur!

Your Dog May Be Dumb, But It's Brain Has More Folds Than a Cat's

When it comes to the anatomy of the brain, the more folds it has, the better.  This is because the folds create more surface area on the brain, which in turn creates more area for neurons to be, which in turn allows for more storing of information.  A month or two ago in my Psychology class, we briefly touched upon the brains of other animals.  I particularly remember the brains of the domestic dog and the domestic cat.  Even though it often seems, especially in my house, that my cat is a whole lot smarter than my dog, a quick look at the brains of both pets indicates otherwise.  The cats brain is pretty smooth in comparison to the brain of the dog.  If you think about the major differences between these two carnivores, one obvious difference sticks out like a football player in a group of people going to see the Hobbit premiere this weekend who are fully decked out in Lord of the Rings gear and are all Hobbit-sized: dogs are social creatures, while cats have a much more limited social capacity.  This probably helps to explain why your cat will suddenly and randomly bite you after you have been so lovingly petting her in your lap while she is purring.  They just don't know how to handle that much attention!  They also don't have any built-in social protocol.  Think about a socially awkward child: the situation is similar, except for the child it is simply that they had a different upbringing and not usually a matter of brain size.  Or maybe cats are just insane.

Anyways, as you can see by comparing the brains of the cat (above) and the dog (below), the dog has many more folds in its brain.  This makes sense, because the social interaction component would need more brain area to successfully function.

REAL FAST:  BELOW IS A HUMAN BRAIN FOR COMPARISON.

So with this in mind, it would make sense that the brain of the lion would be larger than, say, the brain of the leopard, now, wouldn't it?  Since the lion is a social animal, you would definitely think that.  This doesn't seem to be the case, however.  I did a little digging and couldn't really come up with much, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say its because the lion has the pride to fall back upon, so they don't necessarily need to be smart ALL of the time.  Also, leopards are extremely acrobatic, and spend a lot of time in the trees.  I suspect that this might also affect things, but I guess I don't know!  When I attempted to research it, literally all I could find was a bunch of Internet people comparing operating systems (?) called "Lion" and "Snow Leopard." 

Next we are going to compare the brains of the wolf and the red fox.  As you can see below, here our "Social Interaction=Big Brain" hypothesis is sound.  Not only does the wolf have a lot more folds in its brain, you can also see that the canyons created by the folds themselves are much, much deeper, which creates more surface area. 

Finally, let us compare the brains of the polar bear and the black bear.  HOLY.  COW.  As you can quite clearly see in the pictures below, the polar bear has MUCH more surface area on its brain than the black bear.  Now if you think about it, the environment that the polar bear is forced to survive in is much harsher than that of the black bear.  IN OUR POST ABOUT THE POLAR BEAR, we featured a video IN WHICH THE POLAR BEARS ARE PLAYING WITH SPY CAMERAS.  As the narrator points out, the curiosity of the polar bears is their "best hope for the future."  In their ever-changing world of ice and snow, which is now unfortunately melting, this curiosity is often what helps them survive the long, lean summers after the melting of the pack-ice, as well as the long, dark and cold winters.  Hopefully this brain power will be enough to sustain their populations in the future!

Georg Wilhelm Steller

As of tomorrow, a man named Georg Wilhelm Steller passed away 266 years ago.  Steller, as we talked about a few weeks ago, discovered a few very interesting animals, and was the first non-native (at least that we know of) to set foot in Alaska, in 1741.  He was therefore the first European naturalist to discover, as well as describe, a number of animals in the area.

Many of the members of the crew of the boat that he was on were coming down with scurvy, and Steller attempted to cull the growing epidemic by feeding berries and leaves to the crew.  No one really heeded his advice, which was why, on the returning journey, they all became shipwrecked, as only 12 crew members were actually able to physically move.  During the voyage almost half of the crew had died due to scurvy, and many, including the captain, died following the shipwreck.  With very little food and water, the survivors created a camp, suffering frequent raids by the arctic fox, which only served to increase their peril.

Nevertheless, Steller, apparently the stoic type, continued to learn more about the natural world of Alaska.  He recorded a good deal of information in regards to the Steller's sea cow (a relative of the manatee), which, as a species, only survived about 25 years after Steller first discovered them.  Other animals that he discovered, described, or both include the Steller's eider (a type of duck), the spectacled cormorant (like the sea cow, now extinct), the sea otter, Steller's sea lion, and the northern fur seal.

In 1742, the survivors were eventually able to build a new boat from the salvage, and returned to Avacha Bay in Russia.  Steller continued to explore the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia for the next two years, but died in 1746 in transit to St. Petersburg.

One final thing that I find interesting about Steller has to do with the post-mortem publication of his journals.  They were published by the German zoologist and biologist Peter Simon Pallas who, you guessed it, is the namesake of the Pallas cat, or Pallas's cat, who was the first person to describe the animal in 1776.  These journals proved to be useful to other explorers of the same region such as Captain Cook.

An excellent picture that I took of the Pallas cat (if I do say so myself) from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

Chiniak on Dwellable

Eine Kleine Nachtfuchs: A Little Night Fox

So once again, Primos was successful in her endeavors last night, and we were rewarded with more than two minutes of fox footage!  I set the camera to the video setting, and it recorded the resident red fox enjoying some nibbles, a bit of bait that I had left out for it!  Don't worry, I'm not going to just start posting things at Primos every single day, but the novelty and excitement of it hasn't quite worn off yet, and hopefully it won't for awhile!  Anyways, here is the link to the video!  Enjoy!

Some Foxy Business

Meadowridge on Dwellable

A Skunky Surprise and the Mimicry of the Steller's Jay

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night on Primos we didn't get any stupid little kids trying to steal the camera, and we also unfortunately didn't get any foxes, but we did get not one, not three, but TWO visits from a skunk last night!  I have absolutely no idea if the skunks were the same, or whether they were two completely different skunks.  Another, but slightly less alternative, is that there was a whole band of the little, sometimes stinky creatures, and they were all taking turns on jumping into the camera every 13 or so seconds.  (The camera takes 5 pictures in about two or three seconds for every activation of the motion sensor, and then waits another ten seconds before it will again activate).  Again, this hypothesis is slightly less likely, but not impossible.  So enjoy these pictures of the skunk/two skunks/band of skunks!  I also nabbed a picture of the "Least Concern" Steller's jay, a very attractive type of jay (hey, what Jay isn't?) native to the coniferous forests in and west of the Rocky Mountains in North America.

The Steller's jay is quite an interesting little creature, for many different reasons, so let's take a little look-see, shall we?  Let's start off with what I believe to easily be the most interesting tidbit of Steller's jay facts: it will mimic hawks!  The Steller's jay is omnivorous, eating about two-thirds plants, and the other third meat.  So when other birds are at an area where the Steller's jay wishes to feed, it will imitate the cry of the red-tailed hawk, or the red-shouldered hawk.  This, of course, would startle the other animals and cause them to flee, leaving the area devoid of competition from most other animals.  According to my bird book, the blue jay also "imitates hawks expertly."  Another excellent example of avian mimicry! 

The Steller's jay is also the provincial bird of British Columbia, in Canada, and is named for the Georg Wilhelm Steller, the German naturalist who first discovered the bird in 1741.  I wonder whether anyone ever told him that he spelled "George" wrong....

Steller has had numerous animals named after him, including: the Steller's sea cow (an extinct relative of the manatee), the Steller's sea lion, the Steller's sea eagle, and the Steller's eider (which is a type of duck).  He did much of his work in Russia, but is also considered to be a "pioneer of Alaskan natural history."  What a bro!

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At Last: Success With Primos!

Today's birthday post goes out to Megan Pullen!  Happy birthday Megan!  If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in!

So the lock that I had ordered for my Primos Truth Cam finally arrived over the weekend, and on Sunday night I was finally able to set up the camera!  I made sure to use some of the fox urine in and around the area in the hopes of attracting red foxes.....and we got ourselves a hit!

For those of you wondering how in the heck I got fox urine, not to mention why, here is the skinny.  I started this thing called Foxbook.  Here is the description about what exactly it is, lifted from my "Foxbook" tab.  "Recently, my friend Masaki Kleinkopf and I started an experiment of sorts, to see whether foxes were in the area.  My mother had purchased fox urine to spray in her garden to keep garden pests such as squirrels from eating her vegetables.  I borrowed some and sprayed a bit on a wall near by to my use.  Underneath the spray site, I buried a plastic bin, and poured water into the dirt in the bin.  This turned the dirt into mud, and the plastic bin prevented the water from draining.  So now the bin remains muddy for days at a time, making it more likely for the fox visitors to leave footprints.  On the very first day, we got a hit, and three of the four days now we have gotten hits!  In perhaps my best pun yet, I created the term "Foxbook."  You see, it is like a social messaging site, where visitors can leave "Posts" on other peoples "Walls."  Haha."

So there is that.  We also got a skunky visitor, as well, along with a little child who tried to steal the camera from the tree.  Thank goodness for the lock!  Anyways, here are the pictures!  Enjoy them!

We have actually talked about foxes a great many times on this blog in the past.  Here are the posts in which we have done so:

• Channel Island Fox:  Shrinky Dink: The Channel Island Fox and the Island Effect
• Red Fox:  Guards of the Fairy Penguin
• Fennec Fox:  What Is It?  The Weekly Challenge #5 Answer
• Gray Fox:  The Fauna of South Carolina: Cetaceans, Foxes and Otters
• Red Fox:  The Fox's Animal Magnetism

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

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