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With Winter soon coming to and end, we thought you might like to read a bit about peepers, those tiny harbingers of Spring whose voices fill the warming night air. Check out this article from National Geographic:

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/spring-peeper.html

pulled from Yahoo news and written by KRISHAN FRANCIS

Rare Sri Lankan primate gets 1st wide-eyed closeup

GALLE, Sri Lanka – A nocturnal, forest-dwelling primate with orb-like eyes and short limbs was photographed in central Sri Lanka late last year after being feared extinct, researchers said Monday.

A Horton Plains slender loris was caught on camera after lengthy surveys of the forest by researchers from the Zoological Society of London, the University of Colombo and the Open University of Sri Lanka.

Team leader Saman Gamage said the mammal was not sighted for more than 60 years until in 2002 a researcher reported spotting its eyes during a search – inspiring the effort to view it fully and photograph it to prove the primate existed.

“We are thrilled to have captured the first ever photographs and prove its continued existence,” said Craig Turner, a conservation biologist with the Zoological Society.

The primate’s population is thought to have begun dwindling in the mountain forest habitat after British colonial rulers from the 19th century cleared large tracts of forest for coffee and tea plantations, Gamage said.

Logging, agriculture and development made it hard for the lorises to find food, escape threats or meet mates.

Turner, a conservation biologist at the Zoological Society of London, said only one or two sightings occurred between 1937 and 2002. Despite repeated attempts to find it, there were no sightings between 2002 and 2009.

“People, including ourselves, had begun to think: ‘Yeah, maybe it has disappeared’,” he said.

Given its size and nocturnal habits, the eight-inch (20-centimer) beast was tough to find. But the giveaway was in its eerily large, night-vision eyes. Scientists combed the forest canopy with red-filtered flashlights – eventually catching sight of the loris.

“You get a very distinct red eyeshine reflecting from the loris,” Turner told The Associated Press. “That’s how we picked up on the initial presence of the species.”

Turner said scientists were then able to briefly capture the primate, taking measurements and genetic material before releasing it back into the wild. He said the critter’s orb-like peepers and gangly limbs made it an easy sell to the general population.

“It’s a very appealing species,” he said.

Gamage said more of the lorises are thought to live in small patches of forest in Sri Lanka’s hill country.

*Pulled from Yahoo news and written by RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI

Many endangered turtles dying on Texas Gulf Coast

HIGH ISLAND, Texas – Flies buzz everywhere and the stench is overwhelming as biologist Lyndsey Howell stops to analyze the remains of yet another endangered sea turtle washed up from the Gulf of Mexico. “It’s been on the beach for a while,” Howell says, flipping over the decomposing, dried-out shell.

More than 30 dead turtles have been found stranded on Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula south of Houston this month — an unusually high number that has puzzled researchers, in part because most are so decomposed that there are few clues left about why they died.

The number of strandings on these shores is double what scientists and volunteers normally see as the turtles begin nesting in April, says Howell, who patrols the beaches as part of her job with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Of the 35 turtles found, all but three were dead. Thirty-three were Kemp’s ridleys, an endangered species researchers have spent decades trying to rehabilitate.

Many of the turtles appear to have propeller wounds from boats or have become entangled in fishing nets or lines, Howell says. Others have parasites or are emaciated.

The increase in deaths comes as the turtles swim closer to shore to nest and shrimping season gets into full swing along the upper Texas coast, said Roger Zimmerman, lab director of the NOAA marine fishery laboratory in Galveston.

“Historically, they increase about this time of year. … This is a few more than we would normally expect,” Zimmerman said. “We are concerned and we’ll keep an eye on it.”

Researchers are also watching the massive oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. If the oil were to begin moving in the direction of the Texas Gulf — which isn’t predicted at the moment — many Kemp’s ridleys swimming in to nest would be right in its path. In 1979, after an oil spill off the coast of Mexico, Kemp’s ridleys were airlifted to cleaner waters.

Shrimping has long been blamed for sea turtle deaths. Shrimpers are required to install grid-like devices in their nets that are designed to allow turtles to escape. Shrimpers caught without the turtle excluder devices — or TEDs — may be fined thousands of dollars and have their catch seized by federal regulators.

Still, some are reluctant to invest $800 on the TEDs or are angry over the extra work they create aboard the shrimp boats, so they gamble they won’t be caught.

“When there is more shrimp, there are more turtle strandings,” Zimmerman said. “That correlation has been well-documented.”

Educating fishermen, the public and shrimpers about preserving Kemp’s ridleys is part of a new federal recovery plan expected to be approved in the coming months. The goal is to upgrade the Kemp’s ridleys from endangered to threatened within six years — but that depends on having 10,000 nesting females per season. Currently, there are about 6,000.

Nesting season begins in mid-April and lasts into July. Most Kemp’s ridleys nest on a beach in Mexico or at Padre Island in south Texas. But increasing numbers have been seeking out the shores of Galveston and Bolivar.

Howell and Zimmerman hope the deaths indicate the population has increased and even more turtles are heading toward the Texas Gulf Coast to nest.

But there’s no knowing for certain.

“This is a needle-in-a-haystack thing,” said Andre Landry, a marine biology professor at Texas A&M University in Galveston. “It’s a difficult situation, pinpointing a cause of death in an animal that may be compromised by decomposition.”

10 Ways to Go Green and Save Green

1) Save energy to save money.
–Set your thermostat a few degrees lower in the winter and a few degrees higher in the summer to save on heating and cooling costs.
–Install compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) when your older incandescent bulbs burn out.
–Unplug appliances when you’re not using them. Or, use a “smart” power strip that senses when appliances are off and cuts “phantom” or “vampire” energy use.
–Wash clothes in cold water whenever possible. As much as 85 percent of the energy used to machine-wash clothes goes to heating the water.
–Use a drying rack or clothesline to save the energy otherwise used during machine drying.

2) Save water to save money.
–Take shorter showers to reduce water use. This will lower your water and heating bills too.
–Install a low-flow showerhead. They don’t cost much, and the water and energy savings can quickly pay back your investment.
–Make sure you have a faucet aerator on each faucet. These inexpensive appliances conserve heat and water, while keeping water pressure high.
–Plant drought-tolerant native plants in your garden. Many plants need minimal watering. Find out which occur naturally in your area.

3) Less gas = more money (and better health!).
–Walk or bike to work. This saves on gas and parking costs while improving your cardiovascular health and reducing your risk of obesity.
–Consider telecommuting if you live far from your work. Or move closer. Even if this means paying more rent, it could save you money in the long term.
–Lobby your local government to increase spending on sidewalks and bike lanes. With little cost, these improvements can pay huge dividends in bettering your health and reducing traffic.

4) Eat smart.
–If you eat meat, add one meatless meal a week. Meat costs a lot at the store-and it’s even more expensive when you consider the related environmental and health costs.
–Buy locally raised, humane, and organic meat, eggs, and dairy whenever you can. Purchasing from local farmers keeps money in the local economy.
–Watch videos about why local food and sustainable seafood are so great.
–Whatever your diet, eat low on the food chain [pdf]. This is especially true for seafood.

5) Skip the bottled water.
–Use a water filter to purify tap water instead of buying bottled water. Not only is bottled water expensive, but it generates large amounts of container waste.
–Bring a reusable water bottle, preferably aluminum rather than plastic, with you when traveling or at work.
–Check out this short article for the latest on bottled water trends.

6) Think before you buy.
–Go online to find new or gently used secondhand products. Whether
you’ve just moved or are looking to redecorate, consider a service like craigslist or FreeSharing to track down furniture, appliances, and other items cheaply or for free.
–Check out garage sales, thrift stores, and consignment shops for clothing and other everyday items.
–When making purchases, make sure you know what’s “Good Stuff” and what isn’t.
–Watch a video about what happens when you buy things. Your purchases have a real impact, for better or worse.

7) Borrow instead of buying.
–Borrow from libraries instead of buying personal books and movies. This saves money, not to mention the ink and paper that goes into printing new books.
–Share power tools and other appliances. Get to know your neighbors while cutting down on the number of things cluttering your closet or garage.

8 ) Buy smart.
–Buy in bulk. Purchasing food from bulk bins can save money and packaging.
–Wear clothes that don’t need to be dry-cleaned. This saves money and cuts down on toxic chemical use.
–Invest in high-quality, long-lasting products. You might pay more now, but you’ll be happy when you don’t have to replace items as frequently (and this means less waste!).

9) Keep electronics out of the trash.
–Keep your cell phones, computers, and other electronics as long as possible.
–Donate or recycle them responsibly when the time comes. E-waste contains mercury and other toxics and is a growing environmental problem.
–Recycle your cell phone.
–Ask your local government to set up an electronics recycling and hazardous waste collection event.

10) Make your own cleaning supplies.
–The big secret: you can make very effective, non-toxic cleaning products whenever you need them. All you need are a few simple ingredients like baking soda, vinegar, lemon, and soap.
–Making your own cleaning products saves money, time, and packaging-not to mention your indoor air quality.

10 Amazing Things You Didn’t Know about Animals

10 – Crocodiles Swallow Stones for Swimming
The stomach of a crocodile is a rocky place to be, for more than one reason. To begin with, a croc’s digestive system encounters everything from turtles, fish and birds to giraffes, buffaloes, lions and even (when defending territory) other crocodiles. In addition to that bellyful-o’-ecosystem, rocks show up too. The reptiles swallow large stones that stay permanently in their bellies. It’s been suggested these are used for ballast in diving.

9 – Whale Milk Not On Low-Fat Diets
Nursing a newborn is no “small” feat for the whale, whose calf emerges, after 10 to 12 months in the womb, about a third the mother’s length (that’s a 30-foot baby for the Blue whale). The mother squirts milk into the newborn’s mouth using muscles around the mammary gland while the baby holds tight to a nipple (yes, whales have them). At nearly 50 percent fat, whale milk has around 10 times the fat content of human milk, which helps calves achieve some serious growth spurtseas much as 200 pounds per day.

8 – Birds Use Landmarks to Navigate Long Journeys
Can you imagine a road trip vacation without missed exits, stubborn drivers or map-folding disasters? Of course noteyou’re not a bird. Pigeons can fly thousands of miles to find the same roosting spot with no navigational difficulties. Some species of birds, like the Arctic tern, make a 25,000 mile round-trip journey every year. Many species use built-in ferromagnets to detect their orientation with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field. A November 2006 study published in Animal Behaviour suggests that pigeons also use familiar landmarks on the ground below to help find their way home.

7 – For Beavers, Days Get Longer in Winter
Beavers become near shut-ins during winter, living off of previously stored food or the deposits of fat in their distinctive tails. They conserve energy by avoiding the cold outdoors, opting instead to remain in dark lodgings inside their pile of wood and mud. As a result these rodents, which normally emerge at sunset and turn in at sunrise, have no light cues to entrain their sleep cycle. The beaver’s biological sense of time shifts, and she develops a “free running circadian rhythm” of 29-hour days

6 – Mole-Rats aren’t Blind
With their puny eyes and underground lifestyle, African mole-rats have long been considered the Mr. Magoos of rodents, detecting little light and, it has been suggested, using their eyes more for sensing changes in air currents than for actual vision. But findings of the past few years have shown that African mole-rats have a keen, if limited, sense of sight. And they don’t like what they see, according to a report in the November 2006 Animal Behaviour. Light may suggest that a predator has broken into a tunnel, which could explain why subterranean diggers developed sight in the first place.

5 – Baby Chicks and Brotherhood
It’s a mistake to think of evolution as producing selfish animals concerned only with their own survival. Altruism abounds in cases where a helping hand will encourage the survival of genetic material similar to one’s own. Baby chicks practice this “kin selection” by making a special chirp while feeding. This call announces the food find to nearby chicks, who are probably close relations and so share many of the chick’s genes. The key to natural selection isn’t survival of the fittest animal. It’s survival of the fittest genetic material, and so brotherly behavior that favors close relations will thrive.

4 – Many Fish Swap Sex Organs
With so many land creatures to wonder at, it’s easy to forget that some of the weirdest activities take place deep in the ocean. The strange practice of hermaphroditism is more common among species of fish than within any other group of vertebrates. Some fish change sex in response to hormonal cycle or environmental changes. Others simultaneously possess both male and female sex organs.

3 – Giraffes Compensate for Height with Unique Blood Flow
The stately giraffe, whose head sits some 16 feet up atop an unlikely pedestal, adapted his long neck to compete for foliage with other grazers. While the advantage of reach is obvious, some difficulties arise at such a height. The heart must pump twice as hard as a cow’s to get blood up to the brain, and a complex blood vessel system is needed to ensure that blood doesn’t rush to the head when bent over. Six feet below the heart, the skin of the legs must then be extremely tight to prevent blood from pooling at the hooves.

2 – Elephants Do Forget, but They’re Not Dumb
Elephants have the largest brainenearly 11 pounds on averageeof any mammal that ever walked the earth. Do they use that gray matter to the fullest? Intelligence is hard to quantify in humans or animals, but the encephalization quotient (EQ), a ratio of an animal’s observed brain size to the expected brain size given the animal’s mass, correlates well with an ability to navigate novel challenges and obstacles. The average elephant EQ is 1.88. (Humans range from 7.33 to 7.69, chimpanzees average 2.45, pigs 0.27.) Intelligence and memory are thought to go hand in hand, suggesting that elephant memories, while not infallible, are quite good.

1 – Parrot Talk More than Just Squawking
Parrot speech is commonly regarded as the brainless squawking of a feathered voice recorder. But studies over the past 30 years continually show that parrots engage in much more than mere mimicry. Our avian friends can solve certain linguistic processing tasks as deftly as 4-6 year-old children. Parrots appear to grasp concepts like “same” and “different”, “bigger” and “smaller”, “none” and numbers. Perhaps most interestingly, they can combine labels and phrases in novel ways. A January 2007 study in Language Sciences suggests using patterns of parrot speech learning to develop artificial speech skills in robots.

Kangaroo bacteria fight cancer
*article pulled from ‘Stories of Australian Science’

Australia’s iconic kangaroo may hold the secret for the war on cancer. Assoc. Prof. Ming Wei from the Griffith Institute of Health and Medical Research is using commensal bacteria found in kangaroos to develop anti-cancer agents that are expected to be effective in combating solid tumours, which account for up to 90 percent of cancers.

The bacteria’s spore, injected into blood, can seek out a tumour mass and release special enzymes which soften the tumour. Ming says conventional therapies were unable to penetrate solid tumour mass, thus having a low success rate. “In the labs, we train the bacteria, so they develop their innate ability to colonise tumours, digesting them, and stimulating the body’s natural immune system,” he says. “The bacteria don’t need oxygen to multiply and they grow much faster than the tumour.”

Ming says the bacteria were also present in humans and soil but when in kangaroos they contained more protein-digesting enzymes. The theory was tested on tumours in mice, with a 30 to 45 per cent success rate. Clinical trials are expected to start in two years, where this novel approach will be applied together with anti-inflammatory therapy for best results.

Blue whales singing in a lower key

Pulled from the LOS ANGELES TIMES by By Jill Leovy

Blue whales have changed their songs.

It’s the same old tune, but the pitch of the blues is mysteriously lower — especially off the coast of California where, local researchers say, the whales’ voices have dropped by more than half an octave since the 1960s.

No one knows why. But one conjecture is that more baritone whales indicate healthier populations: The whales may be less shrill because they’re less scarce and don’t have to pipe up to be heard by neighbors.

The discovery was accidental. Whale acoustics researcher Mark McDonald was trying to track blue whales’ movements using data from Navy submarine detectors. He had created a program to filter out the blues’ songs from a din of ocean noise captured by these instruments.

But he kept having to rewrite the code. Each year, it seemed, the whales sang at a lower pitch.

At first, the researchers thought it was a quirk. But after a couple of years of adjusting for lower frequencies, “we knew there was something strange going on,” said John Hildebrand, an oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and co-author of the study published recently in Endangered Species Research.

So the researchers scoured military data and seismograph readings for clues about what blue whales used to sound like.

A retired Navy scientist directed Hildebrand to a trove of tapes stored at Sea World. The delicate old reels were the size of dinner plates. It turned out they contained snippets of blue whale songs from 40 years ago.

The tapes eliminated all doubt: In the Beach Boys’ era, blue whales’ voices, while nowhere near falsetto, had been distinctly higher pitched.

With more work, the researchers were able show that blue whales worldwide are using deeper voices lately. Some have dropped their calls by only a few tones, but all showed a steady decline. “It was baffling,” Hildebrand said.

Blue whales are shrouded in mystery as it is. Sleek, mottled and silvery, they are rare and don’t reveal much. They don’t leap on the surface as much as humpback whales do. They might, if really flustered, slap their tails on the water. More often, they quietly sink, Hildebrand said.

Their song is barely audible to the human ear — a deep bass growl with very long wavelengths befitting very long whales.

The tone is so deep that if played in a small room, it’s hard to hear: The long-period sound waves extend beyond the walls. But play a recording very loudly, in a large auditorium, and “you feel it in your chest as much as you hear it,” McDonald said. “It’s awesome.”

The researchers pondered possible causes. Warmer temperatures? More acidic seas? Such factors affect the way sound moves through water, but not enough to explain the change, Hildebrand said.

The rumble of shipping traffic is thought to affect marine mammals. But the researchers argue that if whales were just trying to be heard above the fray, they would adopt higher, not lower, voices.

It’s also possible that the low voice is just a fad. Biologists talk about whale “culture,” and blue whales tend to be conformists. But researchers have said they doubt that a random, learned behavior could spread all over the globe.

So they put themselves in the whales’ shoes. McDonald surmised that whales would rather not sing in higher voices if they didn’t have to. They prefer deep and manly — “a lower, sexier frequency,” he said.

Among whales, he said, depth of voice may bespeak more desirable mates with larger bodies. It’s useful shorthand, since it’s hard to get a good look at one’s suitor if he is 80 feet long and swimming in murky water.

After the whales were hunted nearly to extinction, they may have been spread so thin that they could no longer find one another easily, prompting them to raise their pitch.

Efforts to restrict whaling beginning in the late ’60s helped populations rebound. With increased numbers, the whales may not have needed to shout and may have gradually returned to their deep tones.

“This hints that some of these great whales are recovering; it’s not all doom,” said co-author Sarah Mesnick, ecologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service.

If whale songs are related to population density, they might aid efforts to count blue whales, Hildebrand said. They once numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Today, their population is thought to be 10,000 or so.

Oceanographer Jay Barlow, program leader at NOAA fisheries, cautioned that changes in the whales’ pitch don’t track closely with population changes. California blues, for example, recovered most strongly in the ’70s and ’80s, and their numbers may not have grown much since, he said.

But Barlow had no alternate theory for the deeper songs, which he sometimes plays on his home stereo. The sound makes his floor shake and upsets his cats.

David Mellinger, a marine mammal bio-acoustician at Oregon State University, said that, whatever the reason, the finding “is astonishing.” It recalled to him the first time he heard a blue whale sing.

He was on a boat, using headphones, and one passed. “It was a defining moment in my life,” he said. “It made a visceral impression on me. Just this huge animal. I could hear the hugeness of it.”

Dog washed out to sea has lucky escape!

Pulled from yahoo news

WARSAW (Reuters) – A dog had a lucky escape when a Polish boat rescued him from an ice floe that had carried him more than 100 miles up a river and out onto the icy waters of the Baltic Sea.

“My crew saw… a shape moving on the water and we immediately decided to get closer to check if it was a dog or maybe a seal relaxing on the ice,” Jan Joachim, senior officer aboard the Baltica, told Reuters Television.

“As we got closer to the ice floe we saw that it was a dog struggling not to fall into the water.”

Ship engineer Adam Buczynski managed to scoop the dog off the floe onto an inflatable dinghy and wrapped him in a blanket.

“He didn’t even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes,” said Buczynski.

The dog was first seen on the ice floe some 100 km (70 miles) inland to the south on the Vistula river but firemen were unable to rescue him. When the Baltica crew found him, he had already drifted some 24 km (18 miles) out to sea.

“We were in the right place at the right time,” said Joachim, noting that they rescued him shortly before night fall.

The crew are now trying to locate the dog’s owner.

Poland is in the grip of bitterly cold weather, with night temperatures in some areas falling as low as -34 Celsius (-31 Fahrenheit).

DOG FACTS

Dogs are pack animals by nature and enjoy companionship.

A dog can hear sounds from 250 yards away.

Dogs are direct descendants of wolves.

The Basenji is the only barkless dog in the world.

There are 701 dog breeds.

HORSE FACTS

a stallion is a male horse
a mare is a female horse
a foal is a baby horse
a filly is a young female horse
a colt is a young male horse
a yearling is a foal after its first birthday
a sire is the word used for the father of a horse
a dam is the word used for the mother of a horse
a pony is not a baby horse. It is a fully grown small horse
a horse’s height is measured in hands. One hand = 4″

DOLPHIN FACTS

Unlike any other mammal, dolphin babies are born tail first.

A dolphin’s dorsal fin is as distinctive as a person’s face.

Some dolphin species can swim up to 25 miles an hour for long periods, more than three times faster than the best human swimmers.

Some dolphins can hold their breath for as long as 30 minutes, while others have to breathe every 20 seconds.

The largest member of the dolphin family is the Orca, which can grow to 30 feet long.

SEA TURTLE FACTS

There are 7 species of sea turtles:
Green
Loggerhead
Kemp’s Ridley
Olive Ridley
Hawksvill
Flatback
Leatherback

A sea turtle cannot retract its limbs, head or neck under its shell like a land turtle. The shell adaptations necessary for retractile limbs would impede rapid swimming.

Sea turtles can live up to 80 years.

During the first year after hatching, many species of sea turtles are rarely seen. This first year is known as the “lost year”.

Green sea turtles can stay under water for as long as five hours.

WHALE FACTS

There are 2 types of whales: baleen and toothed. “Toothed” whales include dolphins and porpoises.

There are 11 species of baleen whales:
Blue Whale
Gray Whale
Bowhead Whale
Fin Whale
Humpback Whale
Minke Whale
Narwhal Whale
Pilot Whale
Right Whale
Sperm Whale
Beluga Whale

Some whales have a lifespan similar to humans. The blue and the fin whales can reach up to 85 years old.

Blue whales are the largest creatures on earth and can be as long a 2 buses. They can produce sounds louder than a jet engine and communicate with other whales up to 1000 miles away.

GIRAFFE FACTS

For a long time people called the giraffe a “camel-leopard,” because they believed that it was a combination of a camel and a leopard.

Giraffes only sleep for a few minutes at a time, usually no more than 20 minutes.

A giraffe is able to clean its ears with its own tongue.

Giraffes can go without water longer than camels can.

Newborn giraffe calves begin their lives by falling 6 feet to the ground

TIGER FACTS

Most tigers have more than 100 stripes, and no two tigers have identical stripes.

A tiger’s roar can be heard up to a mile away.

Tigers walk on their toes.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

Tigers are largely solitary cats and are most active between dusk and dawn.

PENGUIN FACTS

There are no penguins at the North Pole.

All 17 varieties of the bird are found in nature only below the equator, primarily in the Antarctic.

Penguins in the Antarctic move quickly on the ice by tobogganing on their bellies.