This coming Saturday is International Vulture Awareness Day, and in honor of the event, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" look at the vultures! Before we dive right in, I must make an important distinction. Despite the fact that both the Cape Griffon vulture (native to Africa) and the turkey vulture (native to North America) are called vultures, they don't all belong to the same group! Despite the often startling similarities possessed by these two different avian families, these similarities are not the result of a common ancestor, but the result of convergent evolution! The Old World Vultures (native to Asia, Africa, and Europe) are in the same group of birds as the hawks and eagles do. Meanwhile, the New World Vultures (native to the Americas) are just kinda out there, not too closely related to the Old World Vultures, but still birds of prey. In order to keep this post from rapidly getting out of control (as has been known to happen to my blog posts), I have decided to break this Top Ten list into two parts. The first part focuses on five awesome Old World Vultures, while the second post lists the last five vultures on the Top Ten list, all five of whom are New World Vultures! Happy International Vulture Awareness Day, everybody!
10. We'll start off with the lammergeier! I remembered this one from a David Attenborough special that I saw several years ago! This particular Old World Vulture was featured in a brief segment of "The Living Planet," and it was smashing good fun! (That was a pun. Unless you display a higher than average familiarity with your Old World Vultures, you probably won't get it. But you will). The lammergeier enjoys a nice meal of animal bones, especially the marrow on the insides, but oftentimes these bones are simply too tough for the bird to crack. To successfully reach the innards, the lammergeier launches itself into the air, bone in hand, and flies upwards. Once it has reached a satisfying height, the lammergeier will release the bone and, if all goes well, the bone will crack open upon impact with the hard rock below! To see a video of this fantastic bird in action, make sure to click the link HERE!
2. The smallest of the Old World Vultures, the palm-nut vulture is definitely quite distinctive, and, at least to my eye, looks a lot like an eagle! (Not so much in the picture below, though, there it just looks like a bat!) The palm-nut vulture, unlike most birds of prey, regularly consumes vegetable matter, with the primary component of its diet being the fruit of the oil-palm! The palm-nut vulture does eat other foods as well, though, including crabs, fish, small mammals, reptiles, and birds. Unlike most other vultures, rarely will a palm-nut vulture be spotted at a large carcass.
3. The Egyptian vulture, much like the palm-nut vulture, also has a very varied diet. This particular vulture also has ties to the lammergeier in the ways it gets to its food! As is typical of vultures, the Egyptian will scavenge large carcasses, and this carrion is the primary component of its diet. Just like the palm-nut, the Egyptian vulture will also consume rotting vegetables and fruits and, even grosser, it will eat poop! (Although it may be gross, it is thought by many scientists today that part of the reason that so many people have allergies is because we don't eat poop! Well....kind of. Just read the post HERE.) The Egyptian vulture also loves to eat eggs, but to get at the soft interior, the bird employs the use of tools, throwing rocks at the eggs to break them open! To see a video of this, check out the YouTube link below! But honestly, you might want to mute the video, the guy's voice is SOOOO annoying....
4. Although this guy doesn't look quite as funky as some of the other vultures that we have already looked at, I really like the Cape griffon vulture (oftentimes simply called the Cape vulture, not to be confused with the griffon vulture) because I get to see them in the giraffe exhibit at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo most times we go down! I was unable to figure out what the scientific name of the Cape griffon vulture, Gyps coprotheres, means. I found that the genus name, Gyps, means "Condor" in Greek, and I am thinking that the species name, coprotheres, might have something to do with poop, given the fact that the Greek root "copros" means dung or excrement (i.e. coprolites are fossil poop). However, I couldn't find anything on the Internet that would either confirm or deny my assumptions, so instead of hearing about some fascinating aspect of the Cape griffon vulture's feces, you instead can view some pictures and a video that myself and Grace Albers took at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!
The video is indeed the link below, I didn't just accidentally upload two of the same picture!
5. Finally: number 5, the last Old World Vulture on our Top Ten list! Meet the white-headed vulture, aptly named due to the fact that it has a white head and it is a vulture. The white-headed vulture is an early riser, often the first vulture to arrive at a carcass. Because of this, it would have been funnier for me to put the white-headed vulture at the very top of this list, but I'm too lazy to change it so you will have to get by with me just telling you about how funny it is. Often considered to be an "aloof" vulture (meaning that it generally sticks to the outskirts of a group of feeding vultures), the white-headed vulture can be very aggressive, rushing into the midst of a large group of vultures to grab a scrap of food, and then rushing right back out!
This concludes the first half of our "Top Ten Vulture" posts. Check back soon for the second half, the New World Vultures half of the posts!
Today, in honor of the birthday of Charlie Bowers, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" approach to some pretty cool arboreal mammals. FYI, for those of you who don't know, arboreal means an animal that lives in the trees! So let's dive right in! For Part 2 of this duology, click HERE.
10. Squirrel - Although a fairly common animal and really not that exciting at first glance, the squirrel is actually quite the exciting animal! Incredibly acrobatic, the squirrel is superbly adapted for an arboreal lifestyle. Need more proof? Click the link right HERE to be amazed!
9. Koala - Other than the kangaroo, the koala is probably the most iconic Australian marsupial. Many myths abound in regards to the koala. For example, many people believe that the koala is constantly "adjusting its altitude," so to speak, due to something in the leaves of the eucalyptus trees that they consume. While it seems quite likely that the koala is constantly baked due to its lackadaisical attitude, it's not actually true: the koala just spends a great deal of its day asleep in order to digest the tough vegetation that composes its diet. As a matter of fact, the 20-22 hours a day the koala sleeps makes it the sleepiest mammal! (For more information about the koala and its digestion, click HERE).
8. Primates - Perhaps the order of mammals that is most superbly adapted to a life in the trees, the primates include everything from the aye-aye to the orangutan, from the tarsier to us humans! Thought to have started evolving in North America or Asia around 65 MYA or so, before even the dinosaurs died out, today there are over 200 extant species, with new ones still being discovered, like the lesula monkey that was discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2012 (pictured above).
7. Binturong - Often called the "Bear-cat," the binturong is the largest of the strange group of animals known as the civets. (For more about civets and their relatives, click HERE). Native to southeastern Asia, the binturong is omnivorous, but seems to consume fruit the most in its diet, and is particularly partial to figs. Although the binturong is labeled as "Critically Endangered" in China, the IUCN labels the species as a whole as merely "Vulnerable."
6. Sloth - When you hear the word "sloth," you might think of someone or something being lazy. There is a very good reason for that association: the sloth is quite sloth! As David Attenborough says in the excellent BBC production "Life of Mammals," "The sloth moves as if it's powered by the wrong sort of batteries." Sleeping around 20 hours a day, the sloth is the second sleepiest mammal, right after the koala. While it sleeps, the sloth hangs upside down from tree branches. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Actually, it really isn't: the sloth simply hooks its claws over the tree branch, and relaxes all of its muscles. If a human hunter shoots a sloth hanging from a tree, it will usually simply remain hanging from the tree branch, anchored by its claws! Then the hunter actually has to physically climb up into the tree to retrieve its prize!
Christmas is just around the corner, and I'm guessing that some of you are not quite done with your holiday shopping, so I thought I would compile a list of some of my favorite animal and nature related books for you! Check them out, I GUARANTEE you will like at least ONE of them! Also, these aren't necessarily in order from favorite to least favorite, especially more towards the bottom. Enjoy! 1. Raptor Red - This fantastic novel by esteemed paleontologist Dr. Robert T. Bakker is unique, as far as I know, when it comes to the combination of accurate scientific information and a story told from the first-person viewpoint of a Utahraptor. It might sound weird, to be sure, but don't judge it until you read it: this is one of the best books I have ever read! I have only heard one person ever say that she didn't like it, but then I discovered that she had not read past the first chapter....oh well, fun isn't for everyone, I suppose! 2. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction - This is another one of my most favorite books. Written by David Quammen, it explores islands from all over the world, as well as some from the past, too, and also discusses how island biogeography can be used today to help stop the extinction of mainland species. Fans of the well-known Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) will certainly enjoy this book and, in fact, Quammen references Diamond throughout the book, as well as many other eminent scientists. Quammen's quick but subtle wit helps to make this book a classic.
3. ZooBorns - Any book in this series will do. I swear, I can look at these books for days upon end without getting bored. These books are what inspired our very own "Zoo Babies" feature, and provide hours of entertainment, while being cute and informative at the same time. As a report from the Seattle Post Intelligence says, "ZooBorns pulls off the difficult task of being cute and interesting
for people of all ages while also being informative. Many books seek
this lofty goal but most fail." Couldn't have said it better myself, which is why I copied and pasted that sentence from the ZooBorns website. 4. Tasmanian Tiger - The Tragic Tale of How the World Lost Its Most Mysterious Predator - This excellent, albeit sad, chronicle of the downfall of the Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, is an absolute must-have for any nature fan out there. Written by David Owen who, along with David Pemberton, wrote the similar book entitled Tasmanian Devil: A Unique and Threatened Animal (a book which I also highly recommend), both books are excellent reads.
5. Dinosaur Odyssey - I believe that, on this blog, this book has been referenced more than any other and, in fact, I have built several posts around it, including our POST ABOUT ODDLY NAMED CREATURES, as well as our POST ABOUT WHAT REALLY KILLED THE DINOSAURS. Written by Dr. Scott D. Sampson (or "Dr. Scott" to Dinosaur Train fans: yes, he is an actual paleontologist!), this book chronicles all of the essentials for anyone interested in dinosaurs, including their origin, their extinction, what makes a dinosaur a dinosaur, and so much more. Definitely a top-pick!
6. Chasing Kangaroos - Written by kangaroo expert Tim Flannery, this book talks all about the authors adventures with kangaroos across Australia and New Guinea, and talks about the evolution of kangaroos as well. He delves into other aspects of Australia's history that have affected the kangaroos as well, including dingos, the arrival of humans, and the Ice Age, amongst other things. Be sure to read about the ever-fascinating carnivorous kangaroo, Propleopus, one of my all-time favorite animals!
7. Gorgon - Similar to Chasing Kangaroos in the style of writing, this book talks a great deal about the causes and effects of the great and mysterious Permian Extinction. Written by the esteemed paleontologist Peter D. Ward, this book talks about the vast and dangerous Karoo Desert in South Africa, and also talks about the political events that were going on at the time, such as Apartheid. An incredibly interesting, funny, but sometimes sad, book, Gorgon is an excellent read.
8. Penguins: Past and Present, Here and There - Written by the late and highly-esteemed mammalianpaleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, this book, though a bit dated, still seems to be one of the best extinct penguin books you can find.
9. The Dinosaur Heresies - Another book by Dr. Bakker, this book, like the penguin one above, is also a bit dated, but nevertheless highly informative. As we have talked about IN A PREVIOUS POST, Dr. Bakker and his mentor, John Ostrom, were highly instrumental in bringing about the so-called Dinosaur Rennaisance, an event that turned the long-standing idea of dinosaurs being slow, sluggish, and stupid on its head. This book primarily talks about the various aspects of this idea, and is really quite interesting!
10. Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-To-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages - Written by esteemed paleontologist Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, chock-full of excellent illustrations by the talented paleoartist Luis V. Rey, and equipped with "contributions by thirty-three of the world's leading paleontologists," this book is fantastic for people of all ages, and takes in the dinosaurs as a whole. Fantastic book!
11. Cheetah (Big Cat Diary) - If you aren't a fan of Big Cat Diary, well then GET ON THE TRAIN! AMAZING SHOW! THE SOAP OPERA OF THE SERENGETI! But seriously, though, this FANTASTIC (and yes, I am quoting Jonathan Scott when I say that) show comes with several companion books, of which the cheetah one is easily my favorite. Written by Mr. Scott and his wife, Angela Scott, this book has tons of amazing photographs and talks all about both cheetahs in general, as well as the specific cats on the show.
12. Life of Mammals- Written by one of my personal heroes, Sir David Attenborough, this book is a companion book to the popular TV show by the same name. The book has so many color photographs, and will introduce you hundreds of mammals from around the globe, many of which you probably have never heard of: I know I haven't heard of them all!
13. Alex and Me - Written by famous scientist Dr. Irene Pepperberg, this book chronicles her work with the famous African gray parrot named Alex: one of my most favorite books, this book is a fascinating glimpse into the minds of those supposedly mindless automatons.
14. Planet Dinosaur - Just like Life of Mammals, this book is also a companion book to the TV show of the same name. Many of the dinosaur-related topics that we have discussed on this blog I first learned from Planet Dinosaur, including the dwarf dinosaurs of Hațeg Island and the fact that Spinosaurus probably ate fish. But be warned: when they tell you that Sinornithosaurus had a poisonous bite, just remember that this has been proven almost completely wrong.
15. The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives - This book goes into the various big cats from around the world and across time, and talks about various aspects of their fascinating anatomy. Written by Mauricio Anton and Alan Turner.
16. Tideland Treasure- Written by Todd Ballantine, this book is a compilation of the years of newspaper spots that he did. Kind of hard to describe, but its almost like a comic. Just buy the book to find out about what I am talking about, as well as learn all about the east coast of the United States!
17. Forest Cats of North America - Written by Jerry Kobalenko (what a great last name!), this excellent book talks about the bobcat, Canadian lynx, and the mountian lion, and is quite entertaining: I got it at The Living Desert and read it all in one day, quite a good book! It's where I got the information regarding the Canadian lynx/snowshoe hare population fluctuations from, back in our post about Propleopus.
18. Life-Size Dinosaurs - Should be pretty self explanatory! Written by David Bergen.
So let me know if you live near me and are interested in borrowing any of these books! I have most of them and the ones that I don't currently have I will most likely be getting soon (boy that sounds ominous doesn't it). Let me know!
On Sunday, the 16th, my friend Masaki Kleinkopf and I visited the Denver Gem and Mineral Show at the Denver Merchandise Mart. It was a ton of fun! They had booths from all over the place, like the Morrison Natural History Museum and the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center, an excellent dinosaur museum up in Woodland Park near Colorado Springs! One of the most exciting things by far was when a pair of women came up to us, and asked if they could film us just going about our business. They were part of a group making a movie under the working title "Quarry." It's apparently going to be about American Paleontology, and it looks like Masaki and I may have made the part about why Americans love paleontology, and especially dinosaurs, so much!
MESSAGE FROM ZACK FROM THE FUTURE:
Hello, everyone. This is Zack Neher. I have travelled to this post
from the future. I wanted to give you a link to the Homebase for these
posts. I am like Rose Tyler, leaving clues in the form of Bad Wolf.
Except this is not quite like that at all really. Anyways. The Homebase for the series is HERE.
Creeper shot of the film crew following us, with a large iridescent ammonite in the foreground. Notice the distinct chambers. How magnificent.
We also saw Dr. Robert Bakker there. After I said hello, he waved me over and said "You're a smart kid. Can you tell me where the nostrils are on this thing?" The "thing" that he was referring to was a baby Eryops skeleton that he has been working on, a Permian amphibian that lived in the south eastern United States. Remains have been discovered in both Texas and New Mexico, and it was a contemporary of Dimetrodon, who most likely preyed upon it. Upon my examination, I promptly tried to prove his assessment of my intelligence wrong, as I pointed all over the skull in my attempts to locate the nostrils. Turns out, the nostrils were right where they should be. They were just confusing because in life, the animal would have been able to cover the nostrils with little flaps of bone, sealing off the nostrils from dirt and such while it was burrowing. Pretty interesting stuff!
Dr. Bakker's baby Eryops. The snout is facing the pen in the left of the image, and the two holes that you can see are the orbitals, or the eye sockets. The googly eyes are explained below.
Another picture from a few weeks ago. This was taken at the Morrison Museum when my friend Kristie Chua came up to visit. Dr. Bakker, when asked "Why the googly eyes?" replied "I put the googly eyes on because I like it."
We also saw a number of giant ammonites. Below are a few pictures of the better ones, probably the largest I have ever seen! The only other possible contender that I can think of was one that I saw at the Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country in (you guessed it!) Texas. That one was a huge, probably five or six feet wide, imprint of an ammonite, right outside the entrance to the museum. This was the same place that I have talked about before, in my Acrocanthosaurus on the Prowl post. Great place! I definitely recommend checking it out if you are ever in the Canyon Lake/San Antonio area of Texas!
The Heritage Museum ammonite. Perhaps my memory is a bit off. But I still remember it being incredibly, enormously large. Perhaps the picture makes it looks smaller? A mystery. I suppose I will have to check it next time we go back there now won't I.
The ammonites, in order of amazingness. Probably about a two, two and a half foot diameter.
Although its size was less impressive, perhaps only a foot or two wide at the most, it was most amazingly iridescent. There were a large number of them here, but somehow I succeeded in capturing zero great pictures. Go figure.
Same story as above. Not as impressive in size, but amazing in preservation quality. Check out those septum!
And Masaki with another big ass one! This one a bigger ass! Bigger ass one? Bigger one. A bigger one.
The third really cool thing that we saw there (that I am going to include in this post, at least) were these preserved lizards. These lizards are from the genus Draco, and are found exclusively in Indonesia. These lizards are remarkable as they can glide from tree to tree. Many paleontologists and biologists speculate that this is what the earliest Pterosaurs would have looked like. For those of you who don't know, Pterosaurs are the flying reptiles that were contemporaneous with the dinosaurs. Often confused with the dinosaurs themselves, the Pterosaurs were distinct in that they were truly flying reptiles, and not a distinct grouping. Calling Pterosaurs dinosaurs would be akin to calling a tiger salamander a mammal, on the sole observation that the tiger salamander is a contemporary of a squirrel. Not so.
Famous examples of Pterosaurs include (or "Pterosaurs That I Have Heard Of):
Anurognathus
Darwinopterus
Dimorphodon
Dsungaripterus
Eopteranodon
Eudimorphodon
Hatzegopteryx
Ornithocheirus
Peteinosaurus
Pteranodon
Pterodactylus
Pterodaustro
Quetzalcoatlus
Rhamphorhynchus
Sordes
Tapejara
Tropeognathus
You probably also know the Pterosaurs as the "Pterodactyls." Probably should have prefaced with that.
A skull of Darwinopterus from the show. This guy was at the booth for the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center, or RMDRC for short, an awesome museum up in Woodland Park.
The wing of a good sized Pterosaur. You can see at the bottom of the picture a white round thingy. That's the ammonite featured in the picture with Masaki, above. That should help give you an idea of the scale of the wing. Probably around ten feet or so. And get this; that whole thing is one enormously elongated pinky!
A fossil pterosaur from the show
Another fossil pterosaur from the show
Anyways, in the Imax production "Flying Monsters" with David Attenborough (FAVORITE. IMAX. EVER.), they talk about how many scientists speculate that these lizards of the genus Draco greatly resemble the earliest ancestors of the Pterosaurs. Initially gliding from tree to tree to snatch flying insects in the air, eventually these small lizards would have become capable of powered flight. Then, they would have grown larger and larger, until they became the biggest animals to ever take to the skies. Except for humans, but really. We don't really count.
Adélie penguins are quite interesting little fellows. One interesting aspect of the Adélie penguins that we are going to look at today is their trickiness and thievery.
Penguins are popular animals and, with the possible exception of the emperor penguin, the Adélie is probably the most famous. In his excellent book "Penguins: Past and Present, Here and There," mammalianpaleontologist and penguinologist George Gaylord Simpson says, "Pygoscelis adeliae has probably figured in more cartoons than any other creature except Homo sapiens." This, in my opinion, and I believe his, too, is due to the fact that they seem so very human. But looks aren't the only similarities that humans have with the Adélie; it appears that the Adélie penguin partakes in thievery, as well! But if you don't believe me, you don't have to take my word for it! Take the word of David Attenborough, in this clip from BBC's Frozen Planet, below!
The Adélie penguin is labeled "Near Threatened" by the IUCN, and lives throughout Antarctica. Their two closest relatives, and fellow members of the genus "Pygoscelis," are the "Least Concern" gentoo (P. papua) and the "Near Threatened" chinstrap (P. antarcticus) penguins, seen below.
Finally, I would like to apologize for my lack of posts in the last couple of weeks! What with school, the upcoming lecture, volunteering at the Morrison Museum, and watching every single episode of Psych (GREAT SHOW) in order, I have a lot going on, despite what my parents seem to think!
It was obviously not an easy feat for BBC to get all of the footage that they needed for their fantastic television series "Planet Earth," narrated by the equally fantastic David Attenborough. Clearly, some segments would be easier to film than others. One of the goals of "Planet Earth" was to get as much unique, never-before-filmed events and creatures, which would clearly make things a bit more difficult. Below are listed some of the scenes that had apparently never been seen before on television.
The oceanic whitetip shark.
A piranha feeding frenzy, being filmed while the cameraman was actually in the water.
Arctic wolf hunt filmed from a helicopter.
Starving lions attacking and killing an elephant in the dead of night.
Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico, U.S.
Amur leopard mother and cub in the Primorye region of Russia.
Bactrian camels in the Gobi desert in Mongolia eating snow to keep from getting dehydrated.
"The highest-ever aerial footage of Mount Everest and the Karakoram."
African wild dog hunt filmed from a helicopter.
And, finally, the subject of today's post:
10. A snow leopard hunting a markhor in Pakistan.
The snow leopards are another one of my favorite animals, but due to their elusive nature, they are very difficult to capture on film. Much more difficult than they are for poachers to capture them, anyhow. Hunting in large part for their fur has greatly reduced the wild population, forcing the IUCN to list them as "Endangered."
Due to their elusive nature, and their difficulty to film, the "Story of the Snow Leopard," if you will, proved to be a most excellent candidate for the "Planet Earth Diaries" (which I generally refer to on this blog as "The Making of Planet Earth." For the DVD release, a ten minute or so long "making of" feature was included, highlighting the difficulties of each shoot. Below is the list of the episodes of Planet Earth, and what their respective "Making Of" featurettes talk about.
The chart. The Shallow Seas episode, with the
Planet Earth Diaries about the great white shark hunts, is filmed by Big Car Diary co-host Simon King.
When it came to filming the snow leopard, the makers of "Planet Earth" first turned to veteran cameraman Doug Allan, the same man who filmed the polar bears. But after a few months of fruitless searching (in Nepal, I believe), all he had to show for his work were a few long distance shots, too far away to be of much use. There were plenty of signs of the snow leopard being around, however. One of my favorite things to hear from the entire "Planet Earth" series came from this predicament. The film crew would track the snow leopard by following its footprints in the snow, in the hopes of getting close enough to learn more, or to even film it. However, they would follow the tracks in a large circle, until they were seeing signs of human footprints too: their own. The snow leopards were following them!
"Planet Earth" then decided to film along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, but were not allowed to, as the search for Al-Qaeda was taking place there, and only news crews were allowed in. One year later, however, the "Planet Earth" crew were granted access, in December of 2004. Below is a link to part two of the "Planet Earth Diaries" about the snow leopard. The first part was unfortunately taken off of youtube, but anyways, here is the second part.
Below is another fascinating video of the snow leopard: the first ever snow leopard/markhor hunt recorded on film. SPOILER ALERT: and don't you worry you animal lovers out there; the video has a happy ending for the markhor, but not so for the snow leopard.
I almost forgot to tell you all about another very interesting video clip about the polar bear, from "The Making of Planet Earth." The clip below, narrated by David Attenborough, features the challenges that the main cameraman Doug Allan, aided by his field assistant Jason Roberts, came up against when it came to filming the polar bears in Norway. Not only is the video quite interesting, it gets amusing towards the end, as well!
Below is a picture of cameraman Doug Allan. In the picture below, he is staked out, attempting to film the snow leopard, one of my absolute favorite animals. This elusive cat proved quite difficult to film, and, hopefully, sometime in the next few weeks I can talk about the difficulties the crew of Planet Earth encountered when it came to filming the snow leopard in the wild.
Today's "Animal Spotlight" is the arboreal South American three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus). The three-toed sloth holds the record for the world's slowest mammal: in fact, it is so slow, that algae grows on its fur, giving it a greenish color. The algae helps to camouflage the slow animal in the treetops of its rainforest home. In the case that its camouflage fails it, then it will resort to taking a stab at its attacker with its incredibly large claws. Definitely not something that you want to take a hit from.
After perusing a few sources, I have come up with a list of the top 10 sleepiest animals, as you can see below. The numbers are all number of hours spent sleeping a day.
HERE is a link to an earlier post about the koala, and why it is so sleepy. The sloth apparently is so incredibly sleepy simply due to the fact that its leaves are so poor in nutrients, much like the predicament the koala finds itself in.
Two other sloth facts struck me as pretty interesting. The first one is the fact that, due to a few extra neck vertebrae, the sloth can turn its head 270 degrees, as you can see in the picture below.
The second interesting fact is that, despite the poor ability of the sloth to walk on the ground due to weak hind legs, they are actually surprisingly adept swimmers, as you can see in both of the videos below.
Finally, to learn a little bit more about the sloth, click on the link below. The video is a short clip narrated by David Attenborough, and is also quite amusing. Enjoy!
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is the world's largest extant, terrestrial carnivore, with males growing up to 1,500 pounds. Like many animals that spend a good amount of time in the water, their feet are partially webbed to aid in swimming. Although the fur of the polar bear is white, to help it blend into the ice and snow when it is hunting seals, its skin underneath is black, to aid in heat absorption.
In the picture above, it certainly looks like the polar bear is just enjoying itself, and having a good time. While both of these may be true, the polar bear is actually cleaning its fur, presumably after a kill, given the blood-stained snow off in the left of the picture. Below the picture is a link to a video clip from BBC's "Planet Earth," narrated by one of my personal heroes, David Attenborough. In the video, make sure to watch for the fur cleaning.
The polar bear, due to its immense size and lack of natural predators, fears nothing, humans included. This, coupled with a natural, and insatiable, curiosity, often brings bears and humans into contact. The video clip below is from another BBC show, called "Polar Bear: Spy on the Ice." I first saw this show when we were in South Carolina this summer, and found it really interesting! This clip is one of my favorite parts from it.
