Welcome to my blog.
Let’s take a closer look at one of the parasites that live on our bodies. A species of microscopic mite (Demodex folliculorum) lives in the pores on our face, as well as in facial hair follicles, including the eyelashes. They are an invisible 0.3 millimeters long and are passed on to us at birth. They mate – right there on our faces – at night.
We’re celebrating the birthday of Pamela Anderson, animal rights activist among other credits, who was born on July 1, 1967. Vogue earlier this year dubbed Anderson “Hollywood’s Top Bombshell.” All good, but we love her for her inner beauty, radiating specifically from her love of animals.
Paleontologists have discovered the oldest known belly button. Using high-tech imaging to examine the remains of a bipedal horned dinosaur of the genus Psittacosaurus, the scientists noticed the thin trace of an umbilical scar in the 125-million-year-old fossilized skin.
Late last year, a team from the Conservancy of Southwest Florida captured and killed one of the thousands (or more) of the Burmese pythons plaguing the Everglades. This one, a female packed with 122 egg follicles, was a whopper: nearly 18 feet long and weighing 215 pounds.
Here’s something you don’t see every day: a chimpanzee digging a well. Digging for water has been observed in elephants, warthogs, wild horses, zebras … and now a primate – the East African chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii). The research appears in the journal Primates.
The chihuahua mix named Mr. Happy Face has issues. The little guy has tumors, neurological problems that make standing or walking a struggle, has to wear a diaper, and holds his head at an odd angle. In spite of these medical problems – or because of them – Mr. Happy Face is a winner: he just took the World’s Ugliest Dog honors in Petaluma, California.
There are species of frogs that are so small, they can’t jump. Well, they can, technically, but they probably shouldn’t: their graceless attempts at leaping always end in awkward belly-flops.
Sheila Nadler (Ida! to her closest friends) passed away on June 25 at the age of 82 having avoided salad her entire life. I knew the end was near when even a large bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups failed to rouse the usual smile of delight.
They called him wrinkled and jowly, and now they call him the best. Trumpet the bloodhound has won Best In show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, held for the second year in a row in Tarrytown, NY.
This is a picture of two friends: the beagle Daisy Mae and the diva Sheila Nadler in what she calls her “domicile” on West 72nd Street. I have been thinking of both a lot recently.
Cats love catnip. They eat it, roll in it, and clearly get a buzz from it. Most cats also love silver vine, a plant not closely related to catnip. Even big cats – like jaguars and tigers – will enjoy a good chew.
Last week fishers in Cambodia landed the world’s largest freshwater fish, a giant 13-foot stingray weighing 661 pounds. The fish the size of a baby grand piano was mercifully returned to its rightful place in the murky waters of the Mekong River.
Last week fishers in Cambodia landed the world’s largest freshwater fish, a giant 13-foot stingray weighing 661 pounds. The fish the size of a baby grand piano was mercifully returned to its rightful place in the murky waters of the Mekong River.
Life is hard for a turtle in Rhode Island these days. "We see a lot of mortality in turtles this time of year and sadly, it's all female turtles carrying the next generation and now sadly we have a poaching crisis,” Lou Perrotti, director of conservation programs at Roger Williams Park Zoo, told NBC affiliate WJAR.
First-time parents, Zola and Azaan, are pleased to announce the birth of a daughter, yet unnamed. The healthy girl is the first aardvark born in the San Diego Zoo in more than 35 years.
The rarest of birds is getting a new lease on life. The beautiful Spix's macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii), which was declared extinct in the wild in 2019, is being reintroduced to its natural habitat, the tropical dry forest in northeastern Brazil.
Happy the elephant has had her day in court, but that court decided she is still an animal and not a person with basic rights. She will continue living out her life in the Bronx Zoo. The New York State Court of Appeals decided in a 5-2 decision that the principle of habeas corpus — which prevents unlawful confinement for human persons – does not apply to Happy, a female elephant in her fifties.
For more than a century we thought the “fantastic giant tortoise” (Chelonoidis phantasticus) of the Galápagos was extinct, but a 50-year-old female of the species has been found. She’s been named “Fernanda,” after the Fernandina Island in the western Galápagos Archipelago where she was living.
A California court has determined that a bee is a fish, at least as far as the California Endangered Species Act is concerned. The question arose in 2018 when three advocacy groups – the Center for Food Safety, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the Defenders of Wildlife — petitioned to have four types of bumblebees listed as endangered under CESA.
We’ve known for a few years that the larvae of certain beetle species can eat plastic, giving hope to the idea that the world’s waste problem might have a (quasi) natural solution. Now researchers in Australia believe they have identified the garbage-eating gut bacteria that makes this gastronomic feat possible. Their research appears in Microbial Genomics.
