It’s that time of year when humans foist Halloween upon their pets by making them wear costumes – dogs dressed as pumpkins or hotdogs or even as cats, the final indignity.
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It’s that time of year when humans foist Halloween upon their pets by making them wear costumes – dogs dressed as pumpkins or hotdogs or even as cats, the final indignity.
Observing the natural world every day is a task that is always educational, often wondrous, and sometimes a little gross. Case in point, an article published this week in the Journal of Zoology: “A review of nose picking in primates with new evidence of its occurrence in Daubentonia madagascariensis.”
Joaquin Phoenix turns 48 on Friday (October 28), which means the Academy Award-winning actor has been an advocate for animal rights for a solid 45 years.
A female African lion named Zuri has raised eyebrows (and other bodily hair) at the Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center. For the past two years the 18-year-old has been growing a mane, just like a dude.
The African giant pouched rat, also called the Gambian pouched rat, is a large, nocturnal rodent with terrible eyesight. It is also intelligent and fairly easy to train – mostly to seek out landmines, but its skill set is expanding.
In March, a new species of fish was discovered off the coast of the Maldives. More specifically, a misidentified fish discovered in the 1990s has been properly identified as a new species.
When you hear birds sing, it’s always a good idea to stop and listen. New research published in Scientific Reports demonstrates that birdsong reduces both anxiety and irrational thoughts.
When the annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition rolls around, there’s always (at least) one image of a species we had never seen before. In this year’s competition – the 58th by the UK’s Natural History Museum – that animal is the houbara of the Canary Islands.
For the first time, Alaska has canceled its winter snow crab season in the Bering Sea because of a shocking decline in the crab population. There were an estimated eight billion snow crabs in 2018, a number that dropped off a cliff to a mere one billion last year.
The only real surprise in a new report on wildlife populations, compiled by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, is that climate change is not the main villain (yet). After analyzing years of data on thousands of wildlife populations across the world, the authors of “Living Planet Report 2022” find that animal populations declined by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018.
Dogue, which is French for “mastiff,” is the brainchild of Rahmi Massarweh and wife Alejandra. At this posh new restaurant in San Francisco’s cool Mission District you can watch your dog wolf down a three course meal for $75.
Fat Bear Week is over at Katmai National Park and the winner is … this big boy. Bear 747 took the honors!
Two animal-rights activists were acquitted this week of felony burglary and theft charges, five years after breaking into one of Smithfield Foods’ factory farms in Utah. After taking damning video footage of the farm’s horrendous conditions the pair departed with two piglets.
This week Live Science asks, “Is it safe to give cats milk?” The answer is unequivocal: nope. Kittens start their lives on mother’s milk but most lose the ability to digest lactose as they age. Milk has limited nutritive value, is fatty, and contains phosphates, which are especially hard on cats with kidney issues.
Pine Island, Florida, took a massive hit from Hurricane Ian. The overseers of the Malamu Manu Sanctuary, Will Peratino and partner Lauren Stepp, refused to abandon their island compound, choosing instead to save some 275 parrots (and two lemurs) from a horrible fate.
In Germany a wild boar piglet was separated from her peers, probably when the group (called a “sounder”) crossed a river. Fortunately the lone pig found some friends in a herd of cows, which have now adopted her as one of their one.
Bonobos, like humans and other great apes, spend a long time in childhood dependent on their parents. And like humans, when a baby brother or sister bonobo arrives on the scene, there can be friction.
As Florida continues assessing the damage wrought by Hurricane Ian, there’s one bit of good news: Ernest Hemingway’s Key West home has weathered the storm unscathed and, more importantly, so have the 59 cats that live there.
Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences says it is “combining the science of genetics [as they] endeavor to jumpstart nature’s ancestral heartbeat.” In other words, they want to resurrect the extinct wooly mammoth.
This week Sinogene Biotechnology of Beijing showed off its latest creation, a clone of a Canadian Arctic wolf born to a surrogate beagle mom. The cub, named Maya, was born (if that’s the right term) on June 10. The surrogate mom remains nameless. (Why?)
