Meet Pyg!

Meet Pyg, the Triceratops hatchling! Pyg is the blog's new mascot, and will be using her unique blend of entertainment and education to help teach people about her long-lost world. Make sure to follow her on her exploits! I'll be using Pyg to help make our subject matter a little more fun, because, lets face it: dinosaurs are boring. Wow, I'm totally joking, no they're not, they rock! I'm actually with Grace Albers up in Dinosaur National Monument in Utah right now, so you'll probably be seeing some pictures from that trip pretty soon! However, tomorrow we will be talking about the recent Discovery/Megalodon controversy, so make sure to tune in then!

Adventures at the Park!

Today I went walking with Grace and her black lab puppy Kenosha!  We saw lots of cool things, and here are some pictures of some of them!

We also saw this ADORABLE and GIGANTIC dog sitting on her owners lap!!

First off, we saw some more damsel fly nymphs!  A few weeks ago when I was walking Kenosha, I saw one in a little ditch, and brought it home with me as a pet!  Here are some pictures of it then!

I talked to a local aquatic insect expert who came to talk to our Outdoor Ed class about fishing and aquatic insects named Wallace Westfeldt, and he told me that they were blue damsel nymphs!  Here are some more pictures of the blue damsel nymphs that we saw today!

And here is a picture of what these nymphs will grow in to!  They look a lot like the closely related dragonflys, but they aren't quite!

A dead crayfish in the same pond!

We also saw this hawk or falcon, I'm not quite sure which, land right in front of us on a fence!  [MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE:  Hello, this is Zack Neher speaking to you from 12/21/2014.  As you will one day learn from Anne Price, the Curator of Raptors at the Raptor Education Foundation in Colorado, this is an adult female Cooper's hawk.  Thank you for your patience.]

Here's a few pictures of a blue jay!

We also saw this random bird that was flitting around in groups of about thirty or so!  Neither Grace or I knew what kind of bird it was, so we took a picture and sent it to my dad, but without even looking at the picture he knew that it was a nighthawk when I called him just by telling him that it looked kind of like a swallow and that it was in a large group eating insects in the air!  

Here's a close up picture of a nighthawk!

Finally, here is a picture of another cute dog that we saw!

Big @$$ Eyes

I recently acquired a laptop for my graduation gift, and have been enjoying the crazy pictures that you can take on the Photo Booth!  I think my favorite way to mess with the pictures is by making our eyes ENORMOUS!  Incidentally, some of my favorite animals are those with gigantic eyes, and after coming to this realization, I sensed a post in the making!  Today, we're just going to take a look at a few of my favorites, but you can be sure that we'll be taking a look at other big-eyed creatures in the future!

The spookfish is an absolutely terrifying fish.  Do I need to say anything more?  I suppose I'll say a little more.  The spookfish is the only vertebrate animal known to ever have evolved mirrors instead of lenses in its eyes.  OK, that's enough, it's really starting to creep me out now.  Time we moved on.

Next we have another oceanic animal: the giant squid!  The record for the largest eyes in the animal kingdom is held by this animal, at around 10 inches in diameter: the size of a dinner plate!  WHAT THE HECK!  These animals live at extreme depths and, and where other animals would fail to see spectacularly, the giant squid is able to live and see quite comfortably!

The only extinct animal that I have included in this post, Opthalmosaurus was literally named after its enormous eyes: its name means "eye lizard" in Greek!  Although it looks a heck of a lot like a dolphin, Opthalmosaurus was a type of marine reptile called an ichthyosaur that swam the oceans during the Jurassic Period.  A bony ring called the scleral ring in the eye of the animal helped to keep the eye from collapsing under the intense pressure of the ocean!

Let's move out of the ocean now, and into the trees: meet the tarsier!  The tarsier is a terrifying little primate that is native to southeast Asia and HOLY CRAP.  I JUST LOOKED UP A PICTURE OF THE SIZE OF THE TARSIERS EYES AND LOOK.  AT THAT PICTURE.  BELOW.

OH MY GOD.  THAT IS INSANE.  AND NOW CHECK OUT HOW BIG ITS SKULL IS.

That is really, terribly creepy.  My goodness.  I....I don't even know what to say.  Let's move on now.

Another arboreal primate, the aye-aye is one of my favorite animals of all time!  Native to Madagascar, this lemur is nocturnal (of course, given the eyes), and as you can see in the picture below, definitely doesn't like having its picture taken with the flash!

Flying above the ocean and the trees are the birds, and the creepiest birds with the biggest eyes are the owls.  The owls and the tarsier both share something in common: their eyes are so big in comparison to their head that their eyes are unable to move in their sockets!  That's why both of these animals have such an enormous range of motion in their neck: to look to either side, they have to move their entire head around!

The First Zoo

Where and when was the first zoo?  Of course, depending on your definition of the word "zoo," different people might have different answers to this question.  The oldest known zoological collection has been excavated at Hierakanopolis in Egypt, dating to around 3500 B.C.  So far, the remains of numerous animals have been uncovered there.  According to one source, 112 different animals have been found, including elephants, wildcats, hippos, cows, hartebeest, baboons, dogs, and an Aurochs, the subject of an Animal Spotlight awhile back!  (Click HERE to check it out!)  Since my source is a few years out of date, it is entirely possible that more discoveries have been made there since then!  Despite all of this, most scientists don't believe this is the first "zoo," at least not by modern definitions, a place where anyone can come and look at these animals.  It is thought that the site at Hierakanopolis is more of a private collection kind of thing.

Most people seem to agree that the first public zoo was created by Queen Hatshepsut, a zoo that people today would define as a zoo.  Not a lot of data (at least not that I can find) exists to tell us what sort of animals Hatshepsut kept in her zoo.  Some of the animals that we do know were imported include rhinos, cattle, giraffes, leopards, monkeys, and hounds.  Presumably, some of the other animals that we mentioned before made it into the zoo, as well.

What other animals could have made it into the zoo?  A lot of this is speculation on my part, but based on the animals of the surrounding area, here are some animals that I think likely made it into these zoos:

• Dromedary camels
• Jackals
• Hyenas
• Crocodiles
• Cheetahs
• Lions
• Jungle cats

There are many reports of other important Ancient Egyptians possessing captive lions, and it seems like captive lions would be a pretty impressive display of one's power.  I find it very likely that both cheetahs and jungle cats were members of the zoos, as well, as cheetahs (generally fairly docile around humans, especially compared to other large African cats like lions and leopards) have been domesticated a number of times throughout history.  These domestic cheetahs were used by many people, including Akbar the Great of India (who was thought to have around 9,000 cheetahs: not to be confused with Admiral Ackbar), for hunting, both for sport and for sustenance.  Jungle cats, too are reported to have been domesticated by the Ancient Egyptians in order to hunt water birds.  Mummified remains of the jungle cat are sometimes found in ancient tombs, put there by the burial people.  (I don't actually know if they have a special name or something).  

This was the birthday post of Grace Albers! Happy birthday, Grace! If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animals, and I will do my best to get a post in! And if you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!

Luxor on Dwellable

17 Truths Episode 1: The Cheetah

If you haven't seen the "True Facts" video series, then you are missing out.  Assuming, of course, that you have a good but slightly inappropriate and sarcastic sense of humor, and are not young enough that your parents will become angry with me if they find out where you found out about them.  That is why I am not providing a link to them here.  Anyways, I find them absolutely hysterical, and was quite eager to try my own hand at one!  One of my favorite animals is the cheetah (which is pretty obvious for people who are regular readers of my blog), a sentiment which is shared by people all across the world.  There are many interesting things about the cheetah, and many questions that people have about this fantastic and acrobatic feline.  So I thought that, for the first True Facts-esque video, I could make it about the cheetah!  It didn't hurt that I had a bunch of pictures of it, as well as a video!  However, I did use a few photos from some friends of mine, so I am going to give photo credit to Grace Albers and Shira Wood-Isenberg!  I would also like to give Joseph M. Roessler credit for the fantastic music that I used in the video!  It was both composed and performed by him!  HERE is a link to the song (called Dream Waltz), HERE is a link to some more of his music, and HERE is a link to his SoundCloud!  Enjoy!  And, of course, we have to have a link to the video!

And here we have some of the pictures featured in the video!  Enjoy!

This is the birthday post of Govind Kudva!  Happy birthday, Govind!  If you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!  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!

Introducing....the Primos Truth Cam; The Ostriches of Longmont, Colorado; And Engagement Congratulations!

The most recent addition to my proverbial arsenal is the Primos Truth Cam!  (For those of you who are wondering, my arsenal includes my camera, Denali; my backpack, Rocky; my First Aid kit, Reginauld; and my rock hammer.  You don't name your rock hammer.)  Equipped with both video and photo capabilities for both day and night, I have set it up in a place where I know there to be red foxes!  I can't promise anything of course, but I have sprinkled an alluring amount of fox urine near the cam, so, with any luck, tonight we will be successful in our endeavors!  I will let ya'll know what happens tomorrow!

Speaking of names, I would be much obliged if you all could help me think of a fantastic name for my camera!  THANKS.

Another pretty exciting event occurred yesterday!  During our first period Anthropology class (a hoot and a half, fyi), I was talking to my group members about the time that my father and I were driving down Broadway, in between Boulder and Superior.  Off to the right was a lot of farmland, and, at one point, I was almost positive that I had seen kangaroos!  I told my dad to turn back, and, once we got home (which was pretty much the very first place that we could turn around), we turned around, and we were back within five minutes.  I couldn't remember exactly where I had thought that I had seen them, but (unsurprisingly) there were no kangaroos.  To this day, every time we drive by that area, both my dad and I turn to look.  To this day, we have not seen the phantom kangaroos.

Anyways, I was telling my Anthro friends about this event, and one of them, a friend of mine named Grace Albers, said that she had seen ostriches in Longmont, not twenty minutes from my house!  Incredibly excited, I told another friend of mine, Claire Chen, about it, and we headed over there during the next class period.  (Don't you worry, I wasn't ditching, but our school has Wednesday and Thursday block, where we only have half of our classes, but they are each twice as long.)  AND GUESS WHAT WE SAW.

OSTRICHES.

OSTRICHES

THAT'S RIGHT.

THAT'S RIGHT. 

 OSTRICHES.

OSTRICHES

WHAT THE HECK.  Apparently there is an animal hospital thing, and at the place they have two ostriches!  Crazy, huh!

An OSTRICH  preening!

And finally, I would like to congratulate my cousin, Alexa Neher, on getting engaged to her boyfriend Christopher Koreerat!  Congratulations, you two!