Snowy Palms: An Omen of Death

Recently, parts of Southern California experienced some surprisingly cold weather, as falling snow graced the tops of the palm trees around Christmas time.  A White Christmas is nothing terribly surprising for folks like myself, born and raised in Colorado, but for California natives it was definitely more of a surprise.  People had pulled over on the side of the highway for an opportunity to play in the snow, throwing snowballs and taking selfies all over the place.

Wind turbines in the foreground, and snow capped mountains in the background in the middle of the desert just outside of Palm Desert in California.

A family stopped along Interstate-15 in Temecula, California to play in the snow, a scene that could easily have been lifted out of Colorado, if not for the trees adorned with green leaves, and especially the palm tree in the background.

A snow selfie on the side of the Interstate-15 in Temecula, California.

Although the winter freeze was very exciting for many of the residents, for the native residents of Southern California's deserts, the freeze would be much less welcome.  Over millions of years, the animals that call these seemingly barren slopes home have evolved to cope with extreme environmental stress typical of those experienced in the desert.  Aridity and extreme heat of course play major roles in any desert ecosystem, and many of the adaptations of desert animals are in response to these climatic factors.

The bobcat (Lynx rufus), one of the residents of the Southern California deserts.  This particular individual was at The Living Desert in Palm Desert.

A captive desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) at The Living Desert.  This subspecies is native to the southern United States and Mexico.

A western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox), also native to the southern United States and northern Mexico.

A wild greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) that I chased through a Target parking lot.  

A wild California ground squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi) that we saw foraging around at The Living Desert.

A hummingbird, possibly an Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna).  Hummingbirds in Colorado will fly south for the winter, in order to avoid harsh weather like that seen in Southern California last week,

Of course, environmental conditions that fall well outside the norm are arguably equally important for animals native to a specific biome or region.  Even if a population of animals thrives in the harsh, arid landscape of Southern California, if all it takes is a single night of snow to wipe out the population, unusual weather (such as that seen in the area last week) can be extremely troublesome.  Extreme weather can also help control populations, and can be what keeps other animals from colonizing an area.  For example, if a population of desert rodent attempts to colonize the mountains around Palm Desert, but is unable to cope with the occasional snow storm, then that type of rodent would be much less likely to survive and thrive there.

Part of the mountains west of La Quinta and Rancho Mirage, prior to the snowstorm.

The same mountains, following the snowstorm.

Works Cited:

Hummingbirds found in California, USA. (n.d.). Retrieved January 4, 2015, from http://beautyofbirds.com/hummingbirdscalifornia.html

Rancho Mirage on Dwellable

Anoxic Conditions From Everest to Europa: Swamps, Fossils, Naked Mole Rats, and the Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life

Above elevations of 6500 meters (21,300 feet), most climbers tend to start using supplemental oxygen.  At altitudes higher than this, oxygen is spread so thin that humans can have a very tough time breathing.  Even people who come from sea level to my hometown of Boulder, Colorado at an elevation of 1,655 meters (5,430 feet) often get altitude sickness, and there's still a whole lot of altitude to go before you even get to Everest Base Camp.  Most birds don't fly as high as the summit of Mt. Everest, because most birds have no reason to fly that high.  However, for the bar-headed goose, the Himalayas form an unfortunate, but not impassable, barrier between their winter feeding grounds in India and their Tibetan nesting grounds.  These geese have been reported flying over some of the highest Himalayan peaks, and they're not the only ones that fly this high.  On November 29th, 1973, a Rüppell's griffon, a type of Old World vulture, collided with an airplane at an altitude of 11280 meters (37,000 feet).  By comparison, oxygen cylinders are recommended for sailplane pilots flying over 3660 meters (12,000 feet)!

Here we have a beautiful (and extraordinarily neat) size comparison and altitude chart of a number of things covered in the post, including the altitude of Denver, the summit of Mt. Everest, the upper extent of the range of the snow leopard, and the height at which the Rüppells griffon got sucked into the jet engine.  I've also thrown in some other helpful and fun things for comparison as well.

Part of what helps birds survive at altitudes that could kill a human is a series of air sacs that allow air to flow in one direction through the body of the bird.  In humans, the air we breath in and out travels back and forth along the same tubes.  In birds, as well as some of their close dinosaurian cousins, these air sacs would have have allowed the air to flow more efficiently through their bodies.  While this is simply one of many adaptations that can help birds fly at incredibly high altitudes, other animals have evolved other adaptations to assist in high altitude living.  Scientists have determined that changes in the genes EGLN1 and EPAS1 are linked with animals living in oxygen impoverished environments, such as the snow leopard, humans native to Tibet, and naked mole rats.  Naked mole rats live in underground colonies of 20-300 individuals, and are one of two species of mammal that can be classified as "eusocial," meaning that their colonies display a caste system (similar to the social structure seen in ant and termite colonies).  These underground colonies are poorly ventilated, which means that as the mole rats inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, CO2 concentrations can increase to levels that would be unsafe for humans.  Fortunately, naked mole rats are well adapted to breathing very little oxygen, and their brains seem incapable of registering pain upon contact with acids, which is thought to help them in these CO2 rich confines.  They also demonstrate similar changes in the aforementioned genes as snow leopards and the Tibetan people, indicating another adaptation to these low oxygen (or hypoxic) conditions.

A group of naked mole rats all huddled together at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Look at all of that eusociality!

Although hypoxic conditions can bode ill for human climbers and gregarious colonial rodents, low oxygen conditions can be great for paleontologists.  When oxygen levels drop to nearly zero, anoxic conditions prevail, and bacterial decomposition of organic material is greatly reduced.  This can be a major factor when it comes to soft-tissue preservation, such as feathers and skin.  A FEW WEEKS AGO, we talked about several famous fossil sites called Lagerstätten (a German term meaning "mother lode"), that are set apart from other fossil deposits due to the quality and/or quantity of the fossils discovered there.  One of the most famous examples is the Cambrian-aged Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada.  Abrupt burial of the 500 million year old organisms, coupled with the anoxic conditions that prevailed at the bottom of this body of water, ensured that these soft-bodied organisms would be preserved in exquisite detail.

A drawing of Opabinia, one of the many creatures that inhabited the Cambrian aged Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada.  Photo Credit: Sam Lippincott

Why do swamps often have that rotten egg smell?  Believe it or not, the answer is closely related to what we've already been talking about!  Under hypoxic or anoxic conditions, bacteria that use oxygen (O2) sometimes have to make do with sulfur (S).  If you look at a periodic table, you can see that sulfur (element #16) is directly below oxygen (element #8).  In the periodic table, each group (or column) of elements has very similar chemical properties, which means each element will react in a similar fashion.*  For the bacteria that can't get enough oxygen, they will sometimes turn to its close cousin sulfur instead.  Below is the chemical formula for cellular respiration, which is what these bacteria do, as well as some of the cells in humans.  On the left, we have the inputs: glucose (C6H12O6), and oxygen (O2).  When we breath in air, we are bringing oxygen into our lungs, and we can get glucose from the foods we eat.  On the right of the arrow, we have the outputs: water (H20), carbon dioxide (CO2), and energy.  Remember how we talked about the CO2 concentrations in naked mole rat burrows?  CO2 is one of the products of respiration, and one that can be harmful in large doses.  Energy is another product of respiration, which is the fuel that cells need to do their job.  In places where there is less oxygen input (such as at the top of Mt. Everest or in a naked mole rat burrow), the cells don't get as much energy output, and they can't do their job as well.

Now, instead of having oxygen as one of the inputs of cellular respiration, let's try sticking oxygen's close cousin, sulfur, into the equation to see what will happen.  As you can see below, the glucose on the left of the equation remains unaffected, as does the carbon dioxide output on the right of the equation.  But instead of having water (H2O) as another one of the outputs, we now see a molecule with the formula H2S.  Instead of forming water (hydrogen oxide), we have now formed a closely related molecule, hydrogen sulfide.  In swamps, large amounts of organic material leads to lots of bacteria and bacterial decomposition, which in turn can lead to lots of the oxygen being used up in the water.  That's when these bacteria start using sulfur to make their energy, producing hydrogen sulfide, with that characteristic rotten egg smell.  Even with this sulfur replacement, sometimes the bacteria just can't keep up with the amount of vegetation that is deposited in the swamp, and the organic material builds up.  If the rate at which the vegetation accumulates exceeds the rate which the bacteria can decompose the vegetation, then you have coal formation potential sometime in the future.

Let's take this one step further.  In normal respiration, where oxygen is one of the inputs and water (H2O) is one of the outputs, carbon dioxide (CO2) is another one of the outputs.  If animals and bacteria keep using up oxygen and turning it into carbon dioxide, why haven't we run out of oxygen?  Will we run out one day?  Fortunately, for the time being, plants have got our back, by undergoing a process called photosynthesis.  Photosynthesis is almost the exact opposite of respiration: carbon dioxide and water are the inputs, and glucose and oxygen are the outputs.  However, unlike respiration, light is one of the inputs of photosynthesis.  In the 1700s, a man named Joseph Priestly did experiments in which he sealed a mouse in a jar, and waited to see what happened.  The mouse, as you could probably predict, suffocated and died.  It used up its oxygen to create energy (as well as carbon dioxide), and eventually ran out of oxygen.  (This is why it's important not to put animals into completely sealed jars with no airflow, as they will suffocate.)  However, if he put a plant into the same jar as the mouse, the mouse didn't suffocate.  We now know that is because, as the mouse used up the oxygen, creating carbon dioxide, the plant would use the carbon dioxide, ultimately creating more oxygen.

As you probably know, plants need light to survive, and as we mentioned before, that's because light is one of the inputs of photosynthesis.  No light, no photosynthesis.  No photosynthesis, your plant dies.  For many years, scientists assumed that all life on Earth was directly dependent on the Sun for its energy.  That is, until 1977, when scientists discovered entire communities of biological organisms living thousands of meters beneath the surface of the ocean, too far from any sunlight to undergo photosynthesis.  So what was going on?  How were these communities able to survive without access to the sunlight?

Hydrothermal vents are essentially underwater hot springs that form along tectonic boundaries thousands of meters beneath the surface of the ocean.  These underwater vents spew different compounds containing sulfur into the surrounding water, just like aboveground geysers do, too.  (If you have ever been to Yellowstone National Park, then you might even remember the rotten egg smell.)  Some bacteria that surround these vents are actually able to use these sulfur-containing compounds to create the energy needed to undergo a process similar to photosynthesis, called chemosynthesis (consult the equation below).  Chemosynthesis is very similar to photosynthesis, with a few key differences, the biggest difference being the sulfur reactions vs. sunlight as one of the inputs.  You can also see that, instead of having water (H2O) as an input like in photosynthesis, chemosynthesis instead uses hydrogen sulfide (H2S) as an input.  Then, instead of producing oxygen, the chemosynthetic organisms produce water and sulfur.  You can compare it to the oxygen-poor respiration equation that we talked about with the swamps, and see that it is similar to that equation as well, simply flipped around.

But that's not all.  Scientists have taken this idea a step (or rather, one giant leap) further.  The search for life on other planets thus far has yielded nothing, but that doesn't mean it's not there.  It is now realized that some of the factors that were once thought to limit the development of life, such as sunlight, might not be as crucial as we once thought, and the hydrothermal vent communities have been crucial in the maturation of these ideas.  Some scientists suspect that life could exist on Mars by using chemosynthesis, but a new candidate has been receiving an increasing amount of attention: one of Jupiter's moons, Europa.  Icier than the planet Hoth, Europa is now thought to have an ocean of liquid water up to 160 km (100 miles) deep surrounding the solid, rocky mantle, following the discovery of a magnetic field surrounding the moon, similar to the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth.

What keeps the liquid ocean of Europa from freezing solid?  Jupiter is pretty far from the Sun, and even Mars, which is much closer to both the Sun and the Earth than Jupiter is, has had its water frozen for millennia.  It's thought that the gravity exerted by the enormous mass of Jupiter continually pushes and pulls, or tidal stresses, on its moons, which keep the planets from becoming tectonically inactive, like Mars.  Io, another of Jupiter's moons slightly larger than our Moon, is the most geologically active body in our Solar System.  The tidal stresses from Jupiter exerted on Io apparently make Io's ground itself buckle up and down, similar to the tides we experience here on Earth, except that instead of water moving up and down 18 meters (60 feet), its solid ground moving up and down up to 100 meters (330 feet!)  It's these same tidal stresses that make Io so geologically and volcanically active that help keep Europa from freezing solid.  It has been hypothesized that the tidal flexing might also create hydrothermal vents on the bottom of Europa's oceans, and it shouldn't take too much thinking to realize what that might mean: the potential for extraterrestrial life!

*For example, we humans, as well as all known lifeforms, are carbon-based.  In science fiction, such as Star Trek and Transformers, you will often hear about "silicon-based lifeforms."  Why silicon, as opposed to any other element?  If you look at the periodic table, silicon is in the same group as carbon, and situated right beneath it, and therefore has very similar chemical properties as carbon.



Works Cited:

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!

Eye Black: What Works for Football Players Works for the Cheetah

I remember when I was younger I would always wonder why baseball and football players wore black paint under their eyes.  My dad told me that the "eye black" was to help to reduce the glare that their eyes received from the sun.  Although some people seem to disagree whether or not this is effective for human sports players, it seems that several animals have evolved a similar pattern on their face!  But before we dive in, a very special thanks to Anne Price for her help with this post!

I imagine that there are a number of stories told by native peoples of Africa that explain the tear marks of the cheetah, which you can see in the picture above.  The one that I have heard before (which you can read by clicking HERE) tells of the cheetah being told by lions that she was not a cat, and instead was a dog.  The cheetah then went to talk with the wild dogs.  But the wild dogs also kicked the cheetah out, saying that she was a cat and not a dog.  The cheetah, sad with the fact that she did not seem to belong to either group, cried so much that the tear marks were burned into her face.

Some scientists believe that these black marks, which they called "malar stripes" or "malar marks," actually evolved to help the cheetah see in sunny conditions, by reducing glare and keeping the sun out of its eyes.  This would have been the original "eye black," a phenomenon whose roots extend back much further than the origins of baseball or football.  I was surprised when I was researching this natural eye black, as I thought it was a commonly cited fact that cheetahs had this eye black to reduce glare.  However, many of the sources just mentioned the malar stripes, and didn't actually address their function.  

In the book "Big Cat Diary: Cheetah," Jonathan and Angela Scott propose an alternative hypothesis.  Though they do mention the anti-glare hypothesis, the Scotts suspect that a more likely alternative is that the tear-marks serve to "accentuate facial expressions," which they say would be an "important consideration in social interactions with other cheetahs."  The tear marks, "along with the growls and hisses that are an important part of a cheetah's defensive repertoire," might "deter competitors from approaching."  While this is well and good for the cheetah, and is likely at least part of the reason why the cheetah has the malar stripes, I have a difficult time believing that this is the only reason why some animals evolved the stripes.  We will get to my reasoning in a second.

What I find really interesting about these stripes is that they are unique to the cheetah in the cat world.  The cheetah, as is mentioned in the African story above, is a very unique cat, different in many ways from others felines.  One way in which the cheetah is different is that it hunts primarily during the day, and is much less a nocturnal animal than most cats.  If you look at the eye of your house cat, look for two things.  The first is the size of the eye.  Though the cat is quite small compared to you, Mr. Whiskers has eyes that are only a bit smaller than yours!  Second, look at the pupils.  Unlike the pupils of humans that stay circular regardless of the level of dilation or constriction, cat pupils constrict to tiny diamond slits, but dilate to large circles.  This is because most cats are active at night and during the day, and in order to protect their eyes in a variety of light conditions, they have evolved very mobile pupils.  

My cat Chimney.  Notice her slit pupils.  And the One Direction pillow in the background.  Photo Credit: Dani Neher

The cheetah does not have diamond pupils, and instead has round pupils.  This stems from the fact that cheetahs are primarily diurnal, and usually hunt during the day.  According to the Scotts, "just like birds of prey," cheetahs have a "patch of highly light-sensitive cells on the retina known as the fovea."  These cells provide the cheetah with the "most precise visual perception," and enables them to "spot prey from as far away as 5 km (3 miles)."  I find this comparison to birds of prey interesting, as both the cheetah and the prairie falcon, another animal with malar stripes, would have the need to be able to spot prey from a great distance, and in sunny conditions.  This large North American falcon has very similar streaks of brown feathers beneath its eye, which flow down the face.  According to "The Prairie Falcon" by Stanley Anderson and John Squires, the "black mustachial stripes near the eyes...may further reduce glare."

This idea is supported by other bird of prey experts, such as Anne Price, the Curator of Raptors at the Raptor Education Foundation in Colorado.  Eager to learn more about the similar stripes on the face of the prairie falcon, I emailed Anne, and here's what she had to say:

It’s meant to reduce glare by having the sun strike or be concentrated in the area beneath the eye, leaving the area above in proper contrast.  The black lines under the eyes of cheetahs, most falcons (gyrfalcons and merlins being notable exceptions) and even flickers have malar stripes, though in flickers they serve as signals for courtship, not for better visibility of prey species!

Other falcons that have the malar stripe include the American kestrel....

....and the peregrine falcon.

Not all falcons have the malar stripe, however.  As Anne mentioned above, gyrfalcons and merlins are notable falcons that don't have the malar stripe, but here is another one: the African pygmy falcon, the smallest of the African raptors!  This is a picture that I took of one at the Denver Zoo.

Furthermore, the black streak under the eye is also seen on the face of many species that the cheetah preys upon.  According to the cheetah section in "Wild Cats of the World" by Mel and Fiona Sunquist, 91% of cheetah kills in the Serengeti are Thomson's gazelle.  In Kruger National Park, 68% of kills were the impala, and in other areas such as Botswana, springbok are an important part of the diet as well.  73.9% of the kills made by cheetahs in Nairobi National Park were Thomson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, and impala.  As you can see in the pictures below, all of these antelope have that black streak under their eyes, though it is less pronounced in the Grant's gazelle and impala than it is in the Thomson's gazelle.  One of the biggest reasons for markings on an animal that don't aid in camouflage or sexual selection (i.e. differences between male and female that are used to attract a mate) is to help with species differentiation, so that they don't waste valuable time and resources attempting to breed with each other.  But since all of these antelope have the black tear marks, as well as both genders of the species, that's probably not the role that the tear marks were playing.*

A Cuvier's gazelle at the San Diego Zoo, which also has very similar malar stripes.

A Speke's gazelle at the San Diego Zoo, yet another gazelle that has the same sort of malar stripes.

It is these antelope that make me wonder whether the cheetah evolved the malar stripe to "accentuate facial expressions," as proposed by the Scotts.  In my experience, antelope such as the Thomson's gazelle don't really go around making faces at each other, at least nowhere near as much as cats do.  The fact that both the predator and prey in this scenario possess the same adaptation makes me wonder whether coevolution has occurred.

Coevolution is a biological phenomenon in which the evolution of one animal influences the evolution of another.  A classic example would be flowers and the insects that pollinate them.  Flowers need their pollen to be carried to other flowers in order for reproduction to occur.  Oftentimes, these flowers employ the use of bees and other insects to do the job for them.  But to make it worth their while, the flowers supply the insects with a delicious meal of nectar.  When the insects land to suck up the nectar, they also pick up some pollen.  Then, when they fly off to another flower to indulge in some more nectar, they unknowingly deposit some of the pollen, and simultaneously pick up some more!

I find it possible that coevolution has occurred in regards to the cheetah and its prey.  Imagine if a certain lineage of cheetah evolved that had the black tear marks beneath their eyes, while the rest of their cheetah brethren did not have this black streak.  If the black streak did help them see their prey a little better by reducing glare, then perhaps these cheetahs were more successful hunters, and produced more offspring because of it.  Suddenly, the gazelles and impala are faced with a formidable foe that can suddenly see farther than they used to be able to.  In order to compensate, it's possible that the antelope who also had black streaks under their eyes were able to see farther as well, and spot the approach of a predator from a greater distance.  Strangely enough, I haven't been able to find anything anywhere suggesting that coevolution might have occurred here, so who knows!  I'm just throwing this out there, I'm not saying that's definitely what happened, but it's a prospect which I find intriguing and thought worth sharing with all of you.

*To read more about species differentiation and the role it plays in the success of biological organisms and species diversity, click HERE to learn more about the effects of logging on a type of fish called cichlids.

Works Cited:



An interview with Anne Price.

Anderson, Stanley H., and John R. Squires. The Prairie Falcon. University of Texas Press, 1997. (accessed December 16, 2013).

"General Information About the Cheetah." Cheetah Conservation Fund. http://www.cheetah.org/?nd=general_info (accessed December 16, 2013).

"How The Cheetah Got Its Tears." Cheetah Conservation Fund. http://www.cheetah.org/?nd=story_cheetah_tears (accessed December 16, 2013).

Stokes, Donald, and Lillian Stokes. The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010. (accessed January 23, 2014).

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!