About Animals / Wildlife

Animal ID Challenges

2009-11-06T21:53:17Z

You can test your animal identification skills in this series of little quizzes aimed at helping you to become familiar with a variety of animal species.

Animal ID Challenges originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 21:53:17.

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Animal ID Challenge - Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, or Chickadee

2009-11-02T12:52:39Z

Photo © Chas53 / iStockphoto.

In today's animal identification challenge, we have a little grey and white bird with a splash of orange on its flanks. This little bird is about 6.5 inches in length with a 9.75 inch wingspan. It is common in mature deciduous forests in the US, east of the Mississippi River. Its song is whistled "peter peter peter peter" and its call is a series of thin nasal notes, "ti ti ti sii sii zhree zhree zhree". The adult has a black forehead, pale cream feathers around the eye, and a blue-gray crest and upper body. It has a splash of rusty orange feathers on its flanks just beneath its wing. This species does not migrate, choosing instead to brave the cold throughout the winter months throughout its range.

Your task is to identify which of the following three birds this species is: nuthatch, tufted titmouse, or chickadee.

After you have cast your vote in this Animal ID Challenge, be sure to check your answer here.

Animal ID Challenge - Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, or Chickadee originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 12:52:39.

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For Paper Wasps, Being Unique Has its Benefits

2009-10-20T16:21:21Z

For paper wasps, it pays to have a unique face. That's what Michael Sheehan and Elizabeth Tibbetts of University of Michigan concluded in a recent paper published in the journal Evolution. Their research reveals that paper wasps (Polistes fuscatus) that have distinct facial markings become embroiled fewer aggressive conflicts than those that had facial markings that made them less easily distinguished from fellow wasps.

"It's good to be different, to wear a nametag advertising your identity," said Michael Sheehan.

In previous research, Elizabeth Tibbetts showed that paper wasps are able to recognize eqch others based on their distinct facial markings. Now, this latest research reveals just how a unique face can help an individual wasps by enabling it to avoid unnecessary confrontations with other wasps.

Tibbets and Sheehan set up experiments in which they modified the facial patterns of wasps and evaluated the aggressive behavior among individuals in the group. Each group had three wasps whose faces they modified to look similar as well as a fourth wasp whose facial markings were distinct from the other three. Tibbets and Sheehan observed that the wasps that were recognizable—those with the unique facial marking—experienced less aggression than those with less distinct markings. They reasoned that if an individual is reconginzed, repeated aggression is not ncessary as previous social interactions have already settled the question of social status.

Photo © Michael Sheehan / University of Michigan.

For Paper Wasps, Being Unique Has its Benefits originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 16:21:21.

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Fossil Mammal Reveals Clues About Mammalian Hearing

2009-10-12T20:46:47Z

Photo © Mark A. Klingler / Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

A team of paleontologists have discovered a fossil of a 123-million-year-old mammal that lived in what is now the Lianoning Province of northeastern China. The mammal, Maotherium asiaticus, was so well preserved that it has provided scientists with new insights into the evolution of the mammalian middle ear.

"What is most surprising, and thus scientifically interesting, is this animal's ear. Mammals have highly sensitive hearing, far better than the hearing capacity of all other vertebrates, and hearing is fundamental to the mammalian way of life. The mammalian ear evolution is important for understanding the origins of key mammalian adaptations." ~ Dr. Zhe-Xi Luo, from Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Mammals possess more acute hearing than other vertebrates, an adaptation that enabled early mammals to better evade predators in the dinosaur-dominated environment in which they first evolved. Mammalian hearing depends on three bones, the hammer (malleus), the anvil (incus), and the stirrup (stapes) as well as an eardrum (tympanic membrane). These structures were once part of the jaw bone in mammalian ancestors. In present day mammals, the bones are separate from the jaw. But in Maotherium asiaticus, there is still a connection between the middle ear bones and the jaw.

Fossil Mammal Reveals Clues About Mammalian Hearing originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 20:46:47.

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Photos: Wildlife of the Great Plains

2009-09-30T18:39:35Z

NPR has a fantastic collection of 15 images from a new book by photographer Michael Forsberg, Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild.

Photos: Wildlife of the Great Plains originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 18:39:35.

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On TV: National Parks Feature in Documentary by Ken Burns

2009-09-30T18:34:47Z

This week, PBS is showing a six-part documentary by Ken Burns, The National Parks: America's Best Idea. You can find out more about the series here and here. If you missed any of the episodes that have already aired (like I did) you can view them online here.

On TV: National Parks Feature in Documentary by Ken Burns originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 18:34:47.

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Photos: Whale Sharks

2009-09-29T18:30:09Z

This collection of images shows what divers photographed while participating the whale shark photo monitoring project.

Photos: Whale Sharks originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 18:30:09.

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Photo Monitoring Ningaloo's Whale Sharks

2009-09-22T06:23:35Z

Whale sharks are anything but camera shy. Between 1995 and 2006, scientists, tourists, divers, and tour guides snapped more than 5100 underwater photographs of these gentle giants at Ningaloo Marine Park, off the coast of Western Australia. The photographs weren't random portraits of fish. They were all captured as part of a long-term survey of the region's whale sharks.

While swimming astride the left side of a shark, photographers carefully aimed their viewfinders at the patch of skin behind the shark's gill slits, just above the pectoral fin. The goal: to record the pattern of white spots and streaks on the shark's flank. This pattern, unique to each shark and retained throughout its lifetime, is like a human fingerprint. It can be used to identify the shark if it's sighted again.

The study, led by marine scientist Brad Norman of ECOCEAN and Murdoch University, used photo recognition technology to analyze the images and establish a database of shark "photo IDs".

Become an Animals / Wildlife Facebook Fan!

2009-09-17T13:20:38Z

Animals / Wildlife is now on Facebook. If you have a Facebook profile, you can become a fan and stay up to date with the latest animals and wildlife articles and features.

Become an Animals / Wildlife Facebook Fan! originally appeared on About.com Animals / Wildlife on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 13:20:38.

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Scanning DNA Barcodes in Sea Turtles

2009-09-17T00:45:00Z

Little chunks of DNA can act as unique barcodes that enable scientists to identify an organism. This fact, which underpins a scientific technique known as DNA barcoding, is now helping conservationists who want to better understand sea turtles, a threatened group of marine reptiles. Since sea turtles are pelagic (they roam the open ocean and migrate vast distances), they are notoriously challenging study subjects. DNA barcoding of sea turtles offers clues about their diversity and in turn reveals the effects trends such as climate change, habitat destruction, and bycatching are having on them.

To establish a DNA barcode for an organism, scientists examine what is known as its "mitochondrial DNA" (referred to as "mtDNA" for short). The mtDNA of an organism is separate from the rest of its genetic material. It resides inside the mitochondria of an organism, a membrane-enclosed structure that exists in the cells of most animals.

The reason mtDNA works well as a barcode is that it mutates relatively quickly, evolutionarily speaking. This means that mtDNA often varies significantly between species while it remains quite uniform within a species. Essentially, species have evolved over a enough long enough period of time to have collected more variations in their mtDNA. In contrast, individuals of the same species haven't yet accumulated enough mtDNA mutations to differ significantly. So scientists can scan little chunks of mtDNA like barcodes to determine which individuals belong to the same species.

This DNA barcoding technique is now being applied to sea turtles. There are seven species of sea turtles that inhabit the world's oceans. Of those seven species, two are vulnerable, two are endangered, and three are critically endangered. To better protect both individual species and sea turtles as a group, conservationists are keen to gather as much information as possible about their genetic diversity.