Polar Bears Show Love to Dogs

Bringing together wild and domesticated animals often times ends with the domesticated one becoming too scared to even move, especially when we’re talking about domesticated dogs and a 200 pound wild polar bear.

However, this match-up didn’t really end as bad as most of us think it would. Surprisingly, the dogs and the polar bear went along quit well. They even played together in the snow.

The human owners of the dogs keep a working distance of around 70 feet way from the bears. So the bears understand to keep their distance, they use cracker shells to scare the bears off in case they come too close. As for the dogs, bears are actually very social and curious. Their social adaptability got them closer to the wolf dogs and they are generally very gentle when they play with them.

Old the biggest of the male dogs are allowed to go near to the bears. The humans keep the relationship between the bears very casual. If they notice that there seems to be a bad relationship between one of the dogs and the bears, they pull the dog out.

Polar bears are one of the biggest predators on land. They’re also known as “maritime” bears since they spend a lot of time going around ice, snow, and the open water of the Arctic Ocean, hunting seals which are their main prey. They hunt for food by staying near the edges of the ice and biting down on them with their powerful jaws. 

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Giant Insects - Golden Orb Weaving Spider

You’ve probably seen the crazy photos going viral on the net of giant spiders eating snakes that’s caught on their webs. A lot of people think these photos are edited, but there are actual species of spiders that can take on a snake for dinner. Sounds scary right? But don’t worry, there are only a few of them so don’t worry about that spider web in your garage.

One of these spider species would be the golden orb weaving spider, also called the golden orb weaver. These large spiders have silver/gray to deep plum colored bodies and black-brown legs with yellow bands. Males and females of these species have a huge difference in size. Males are usually small and brown to red-brown in color. Females can grow 4.8–5.1 cm or 1.5–2 in while males are commonly 2/3 smaller.

They’re usually found in warm regions all over the world and are very common in the American, Africa, Asia and Australia.  Some golden orb weavers, like the Nephila plumipes found in Sydney, have a knob-like presence found in front of their sternum. Others have heart shaped plates instead of the knob.

Golden orb weavers usually stay in dry, open woodlands or forest areas, shrublands near costal sand dunes and mangrove. They create a wheel-shaped orb web, which they position between shrubs and trees to trap food.

Cicadas, wood moths, locusts, beetles and flies are the most common diet for these spiders. However, the really big ones can take on birds and sometimes, even snakes. 

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How many visitors can a Koala bear?

Koalas can become stressed by noisy and up-close encounters with human visitors, a University of Melbourne study has determined.

The koala is a much-loved Australian icon and extremely popular with foreign tourists, but little work had been done to understand how they cope with human interaction.

Dr Jean-Loup Rault from the University's Animal Welfare Science Centre said researchers set out to answer this question.

“Our study showed that up-close and noisy encounters with human visitors resulted in koalas showing so called 'increased vigilance', which is a common response to stress."

"Stress is generally an energy-costly mechanism. This could be a problem as koalas survive on an extremely low energy diet — largely made up of Eucalyptus leaves — and minimize energy expenditure by sleeping 20 hours a day."

Researchers tested the effect of visitor numbers, visitor noise, and visitor proximity on koalas at the Koala Conservation Centre, which forms part of the Phillip Island Nature Parks network.

“This work also highlights the value and importance of behavioural observations as a monitoring tool to assess visitor-related stress in koalas” according to Zoo's Victoria's Sally Sherwen, a collaborator on the study.

The research raises questions about the classic trade off between visitor education and animal welfare.

“Some wildlife parks offer close encounters or even hands on experiences with koalas," said Dr Rault.

"Only now are we beginning to understand the impact of these visitor encounters on koalas’ behaviour and welfare."

'Number of nearby visitor and noise level affect vigilance in captive koalas' is published in the May edition of Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

Source: Here

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Dive Sightings – Seahorses

When diving, one of the most amazing things that you can find lurking around the coral reefs would be seahorses. These wonderful creatures look so fragile and mysterious that they attract so many marine biologists to study more about their life under water.

Here are a few interesting facts about these animals.

There are around 40 different kinds of seahorse species. They’re commonly seen in pairs where they swim together with tails linked. These animals, like crabs, have very little natural predators. The seahorse’s body is too boney to digest. They’re also masters in camouflage. They mimic the color of sea weeds and other underwater plants.

Seahorses swim upright. They propel themselves using a very small fin found on their back which can flutter 35 times in a second. They steer themselves around with smaller fins found below the back of their heads. When they’re not swimming, they stay close to the reef, anchored to corals and sea grasses. Their long snouts are used for feeding, sucking small crustaceans and plankton that drift near. However, seahorses are actually really bad swimmers due to their fragile body shape. They easily get too tiered and even perish of exhaustion during stormy weather.

Their eating habits are very strange. They don’t have teeth or stomachs. What it eats passes through its digestive system so quickly that they constantly need to keep eating tiny fish and plankton to stay alive. They eat about 3,000 brine shrimps per day, which is a lot considering their size.

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Turtle's chances soar with prosthetic fin modelled on wings of F-22 Raptor

A badly injured sea turtle's prospects are looking up, thanks to a new prosthetic fin designed by an Israeli team and modelled on the wings of a US fighter jet.

The green sea turtle, named "Hofesh", the Hebrew word for "freedom", was caught in a fishing net off Israel's Mediterranean coast in early 2009. With his two left flippers badly injured, rescuers had to amputate, leaving him with a pair of stumps that made it difficult to swim.

Yaniv Levy, director of Israel's Sea Turtle Rescue

Shlomi Gez, an industrial design student at Jerusalem's Hadassah College, read about the animal on the internet and wanted to help. He designed a prosthetic based on a fish's dorsal fin. The contraption provided some improvement, but Hofesh still had trouble breathing and rising to the surface.

Then, inspired by the design of Lockheed Martin's F-22 Raptor warplane, Gez designed a new prosthetic with two fins. The device, somewhat resembling the aircraft's wings, was strapped on to Hofesh's back on Thursday, allowing him to move easily around his tank.

"I discovered it worked better than one fin on the back," Gez explained. "With two fins, he keeps relatively balanced, even above the water."

Levy said that Hofesh will never be able to return to the wild.

But he shares a tank with a blind female turtle named Tsurit, and researchers are optimistic the pair will mate, potentially adding to the local population of the endangered green sea turtles.

He said it was difficult to say exactly how old the two turtles are, but they are estimated to be between 20 and 25, and approaching the age of sexual maturity.

"We have great plans for this guy," Levy said.

"They will never go back to the wild, but their offspring will be released the minute they hatch and go immediately into the sea and live normally in the wild," he added.

Source: Here

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Unique Farm Pets - Silkie Chicken

If you were to mix a poodle and a chicken together, you’d get a one of a kind chicken with fluffy feathers that resemble a people’s fur. These chickens are called Silkie Chicken or Chinese Silkie Chicken and have become popular farm pets over the years.

These chickens are said to have origins in Asia. However, despite their names, it’s unclear whether they started breeding them in Japan, China or even India. It’s believed that the explorer Marco Polo was the one who introduced these birds, among a number of other exports, to Europe.

One look and you’ll understand why these chickens are called Silkies. They have a unique look to their feathers which reassembles soft, silky hair. Unlike most fowls, Silkie's lack barbs on their feathers which otherwise would hold the tiny strands together. These individual strands are free of sticking to each other so they flow and move freely.

There are two kinds of Chinese Silkie, non-bearded and bearded. The Non-bearded ones have large, obvious wattles under their beaks while bearded Silkies have small wattles and full, fluffy puffs around their faces.

Both the non-bearded and bearded Silkies have feathery crest which resembles powder puffs and fleshy combs on the top of their heads. Male Silkies have larger combs compared to females. They also have five toes and dark flesh, which is another trait different from most fouls.

Other than their appearance, these chickens basically eat and act like all other chickens. Owners can feed them regular chicken pellets or even ground up corn. 

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Reef Signings - Blue Spotted Rays

If you’ve gone swimming in the deep blue ocean, you’d most likely see one of the most beautiful creatures in the deep swimming around the ocean floor.

The Taeniura lymma or blue spotted rays, also called blue spotted fantail rays, ribbontail stingray, and blue spotted stingrays, are one of the few colorful stingray species that are known for their large, blue spots seen around their fin and blue colored side-stripes found along their tails. They have an angular and rounded snout and their bodies are broadly rounded around the outer corners. Their short tail tapers at the end and is usually longer than their body’s length.

Like all stingrays, they have a stinging spine found on their tails, but this is located further from its tail base compared to most stingrays. Color varies from gray, grown, yellow, olive green and reddish brown. These stingrays can grow to around 70 cm.

These colorful creatures can be spotted in most coral reefs, with depths ranging up to 20 meters. They hardly ever stay under the sand and prefer to hover around the sea floor. They’re abundant in the Indo-West Pacific reefs, Red Sea, East Africa, Solomon Islands, Japan and even down to Australia.

Blue spotted rays move around in groups, migrating from one shallow, sandy area to another looking for their favorite meal. These stingrays live off crabs, shrimps, worms and mollusks which commonly hide under the sand. During low tide, they disperse and usually stay near ledges and caves until the tide comes back in. 

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24 New Wasp Species Mummify Their Prey

The parasitic Aleiodes wasps deposit their eggs inside a caterpillar, and when the babies hatch, they desiccate them from the inside—which is “pretty unusual” for wasps, said study co-author Scott Shaw, an entomologist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. (Also see “Nearly 200 New Species of Parasitic Wasps Discovered in Costa Rica.”)

Shaw and a group of students from the University of Wyoming identified the new wasp species during recent expeditions to northern Ecuador’s Yanayacu Biological Station.

For 16 of these 24 wasps, the team identified the caterpillar species upon which they prey, according to the study, published April 28 in the journal Zookeys

Mummy Dearest

Found worldwide, wasps in the genus Aleiodes are obligate parasites, meaning they rely on another species to complete their life cycle.

Once a female Aleiodes wasp finds a caterpillar host, she injects an egg into its body. At first, the caterpillar doesn’t even seem to notice. As the egg develops into a larva, however, it consumes the caterpillar from the inside out, making it shrink and become discolored. Further development inside the caterpillar hardens its surface and causes it to shrivel, creating the mummy-like appearance.

The larvae pupates inside the husk of its host, eventually cutting a hole in the back of the mummy, from which it emerges as an adult wasp.

The whole process takes several months from the initial injection of the egg to the final emergence of the adult.

Source: Here

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Desert Rain Frog: Dangerous Beast or Adorable Squeaky Toy?

Breviceps macrops is a frog that is native to the coast of Namibia and South Africa. The frog spends most of the day burrowed in the sand where it is cool and moist, but comes out to feed on insects and their larvae. Unfortunately, these little guys are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, due to continued habitat destruction from human activities like expanding roadways and diamond mines

Like many other ferocious African animals, the Desert Rain Frog lets out a fearsome roar when threatened. Wildlife photographer Dean Boshoff was brave enough to get close so that we could hear how the frog reacts when someone dares to enter the frog's territory.

Source: Here

Breviceps macrops is a frog that is native to the coast of Namibia and South Africa. The frog spends most of the day burrowed in the sand where it is cool and moist, but comes out to feed on insects and their larvae. Unfortunately, these little guys are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, due to continued habitat destruction from human activities like expanding roadways and diamond mines
Like many other ferocious African animals, the Desert Rain Frog lets out a fearsome roar when threatened. Wildlife photographer Dean Boshoff was brave enough to get close so that we could hear how the frog reacts when someone dares to enter the frog's territory.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/desert-rain-frog-dangerous-beast-or-adorable-squeaky-toy#yd4Bs8oZ8m2vosWL.99

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Two New Huge Dinosaurs Discovered

The discoveries of two new huge plant-eating dinosaurs were announced this week, according to reports in PLoS ONE and the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Both boost the number of known dinosaurs from Latin countries.

Photos: Dinosaur Claws Evolved from Basic to Badass

The first is Zby atlanticus, which lived 150 million years ago during the Upper Jurassic of what is now Portugal. Its remains were excavated in the town of Paimogo, north of Lourinhã, near a site where dinosaur eggs were also found.

This dinosaur grew to over 62 feet long. It also had wider teeth than most other sauropods.

The size makes sense when you consider that Portugal was also home to some of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs that ever existed. Girth and height must have given herbivorous Zby atlanticus a fighting chance against predators like Torvosaurus gurneyi, the largest carnivorous dino ever to stomp around what’s now Europe.

Rock star paleontologist Octavio Mateus from the New University of Lisbon helped to discover both of the Portuguese dinosaurs.

The new dino’s unique name, Zby atlanticus, comes from paleontologist Georges Zbyszewski, who hunted for dino remains for many years in Portugal. “Zby” honors him. The “atlanticus” part is due to the present locality of Paimogo, which has a scenic view of the Atlantic Ocean.

Video: Could a Fossilized Mosquito Resurrect Dinosaurs?

“We thought for a long time that it was a species that was known in Spain, the turiasaurus, but in fact the anatomical differences we began to notice were sufficient for us to reclassify it, not just as a new species but as a new genus for science”, Mateus told The Portugal News Online.

He explained that “various different crests on the bones of its limbs” helped to distinguish Zby atlanticus from other previously documented dinos.

The second new big dinosaur, now added to the record books, is Leinkupal laticauda. It was found in what’s now Argentina and has at least a couple of claims to fame.

New Dino Ranks As Europe’s Largest Ever Predator

It’s believed to be the first diplodocid from South America, according to Pablo Gallina and colleagues from the Universidad Maimónides and Museo E. Bachmann in Argentina.

Diplodocids are part of a group of sauropod dinosaurs known for their large bodies, as well as extremely long necks and tails.

The size of L. laticauda hasn’t been confirmed yet, but as a diplodocid, it has to be huge.

The other claim to fame is that L. laticauda was the most recent known diplodocid. It lived during the Early Cretaceous period.

Previously it was thought that this group of dinosaurs, which lived throughout the world from the Americas to Africa, died out at the end of the Jurassic. Now we know that wasn’t the case. Perhaps just a single population, represented by Leinkupal laticauda, lived on at least through part of the Early Cretaceous.

Source: Here

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