Loukanikos the awesome Greek riot dawg

Since 2008, Loukanikos has barked alongside protesters in Greece, where fears of a default have pressured the government to enact harsh austerity measures.

Loukanikos means "Sausage" in Greek. Story here.

Bottlenose murderers

Don't let the bottlenose dolphin fool you. Behind Tersiops' innocent snout there's a cold killer.



“They just seem so quiet and nice,” says a jellyfish, one of the dolphins' neighbors. But reports continue to accumulate of cetaceans killing their fellow seafarers.

Why? What motivates them? It doesn't appear to be competition for food. Though it may just be for fun, a recent finding points to a new explanation. Mark Cotter and colleagues at Okeanis observed bottlenose dolphins chasing, ramming, and drowning lone harbor porpoises in the Pacific.

Since 21 of 23 dolphins were male, they must obviously have been murdering with that age old motive: sexual frustration.

Of mice and moths

Yes, it's come to this: mice are being tested as explosive sniffers for airport security.

Israeli start-up BioExplorers "claims that trained mice can be better than full-body scanners and intrusive pat-downs at telling a bona fide passenger from a terrorist carrying explosives," says a recent article in New Scientist.

Mice apparently have a more acute sense of smell than dogs, and require less attention. They were conditioned to smell the traces of eight key explosives.

The same article reports that moths can be used as bomb detectors as well.

"Different chemicals produce distinct voltages on the antennae that the moths use to sense aromas, so the team wired up the moths to record these levels."

So, there you are, world, the absurd fixes you're willing to dream up in place of real solutions.

Nature's monsters

Of course there's no such thing as ugly animals, but there's an entertaining attempt to treat the oxymoron in the New York Times: "A Masterpiece of Nature? Yuck!"

It stars the star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata), a tunneler and part-time swimmer from the low, wet parts of eastern North America. It is the world's fastest forager. Pretty much its whole face comprises the eponymous "star-nose," a wheel of eleven pairs of supersensative "tendrils," radiating around a mouth that's hungry for insects, worms, and other small invertebrates.



"The star-nosed mole's brain processes the information [from its pink, fleshy tendrils] at a very high speed, which approaches the upper limit at which nervous systems are capable of functioning," says Neurophilosophy blog at ScienceBlogs. "Approximately half of the brain is devoted to processing sensory information from the nose."

It's true, C. cristata may have brains, but it is not a classical beauty. See the Times for more pictures - both a slide show and reader submissions.

Other supposedly ugly animals:

The blobfish (Psychrolutes marcidus), facing extinction;

Warthogs, "neither graceful nor beautiful..." (Phacochoerus africanus);

The manatee (Trichechus spp.), a bloated, mopey torpedo shunned by researchers;

And our own Sphynx cat, an inbred "gargoyle of human creation!"

Bedbugs take over

Bedbugs (Cimex lectularis) are gross, creepy, and they're multiplying, virtually usurping power in New York City and the entire state of Ohio. But, as a great article from the New York Times points out, they don't appear to spread disease, and there may be more to fear from the pesticides used against them.

According to the article, few researches focus on this particular parasite; "most study grants come from the pesticide industry and ask only one question: What kills it?"

Those researchers that do specialize in bedbugs are charmingly kooky: "The classic bedbug strain that all newly caught bugs are compared against is a colony originally from Fort Dix, N.J., that a researcher kept alive for 30 years by letting it feed on him."

Since 2006, the fight has cost over $250 million nationwide, a vexing battle since the blood-suckers resist most pesticides. Currently, hope is fixated on propoxur, which the EPA warns may be carcinogenic, banning it for indoor use in 2007. Ohio, with four winners in Terminix’s top 15 bedbug-infested cities, is leading 25 other states in petitioning for an emergency exemption.

It’s a toss-up between dangerous chemicals: "authorities around the country have blamed house fires on people misusing all sorts of highly flammable garden and lawn chemicals to fight bedbugs," says the AP.

Maybe our blood-eating buddies are here to stay. They’ve even found their way into national politics.

Cracked.com spreads some healthy animal paranoia

Have to admit, I'm a bit jealous of the animal coverage at Cracked.com, a magazine I stopped reading about 15 years ago. Their recent contribution to man's endless quest to understand his animalian brethren includes stories of a spiteful grizzly bear, a manipulative dolphin, crows taking over Japan, etc. etc. Plus they use funny curse words.

Jellies: Rulers of the sea??!!

Terrible, just terrible. "Jellyfish threaten to 'dominate' oceans."

New methods for controlling these awful things include exploding them with sound waves. Apparently the species currently increasing are not generally considered to be edible. Darn.

I've written more about these menaces elsewhere. I don't want to think about it anymore today.

Tool-using rookies; a squirrelous video; uproarious wordplay

Unlike their corvine cousins, rooks don't show off their tool-using ability in the wild, but that doesn't mean they're a simpler breed. Given appropriate conditions in the lab - and a "tasty morsel" like a waxworm to tempt them - rooks (Corvus frugilegus) can use various combinations of sticks and stones to dip their beaks in some treats. They can even modify a stick or a piece of wire to complete the task.

See the videos at BBC News.

"The interesting thing about the rooks is that they do not use tools in the wild," says the deliciously named Christopher Bird, the study's lead author.

"The upshot," says the Economist, "is that toolmaking, at least in crows, does not look like a specifically evolved ability but rather an extension of general intelligence. Perhaps wild rooks are not presented with a need to use tools, and so don’t bother."

Other non-primates - elephants, cetaceans, various birds and rodents - also use tools. There may be uncounted species among them like the rooks who just don't exhibit tool use in the wild, where it's unnecessary.

And here we have a delightful video of the lengths those rascally sciurids will go to for a treat or a candy bar - not so different, us and the animals, hmm?

Ten million years of tickling

Should we ban animal-tickling? Apparently not. AP reports that upon comparison, the sounds evoked by tickling three human babies and 21 orangutans, gorillas, chimps, and bonobos, all appeared to be the same thing: laughter. I would have protested, but since they didn’t scream, strike out, and feel unendurably queasy, I think we can let this one pass. (Judge for yourself – videos below.)

Most importantly, researchers say the similarities suggest a common evolutionary origin, possibly back further than 10 million years. Other research has even shown a form of laughter in rats, and work continues outside the primate domain.

To see if they would cry, researchers fed the baby simians some red wine and showed them "The Notebook" starring Ryan Gosling.

Vids:

Animal Views at Washington Post

Just go there immediately. Awesome pictures of elephants playing in snow (they look like they're laughing!), a baby hippopotamus (ADORABLE), a meerkat (meerkats are awesome), a cat in a Santa hat (NEVER out of season!)... Apparently the Post does this every week! Go go go!!

Fauna feed - various animal news, bad puns

They're back! Goopy stinging groups of gobs given the deceptively poetic name "blooms" are overrunning seas too numerous to name, and costing fishing and tourism industries hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few decades. Jellyfish are swarming all across the globe, a phenomenon I reported on a while ago ("Jellyfish plague punishes the humans"), but never thought was so out of hand, turning fisheries and beaches into "veritable jellytoriums" in the newly invented words of ScienceDaily.

These jellyfish jams can be deadly but usually just stick to disrupting industry, commerce, and infrastructure. "[S]uspicion is growing that population explosions of jellyfish are being generated by human activities," such as pollution and global warming.

In other freaky news, LiveScience reports that a species of Panamanian termite has the world's fastest bite, clocking in at 157 chomp and awe mph. "Because a termite soldier faces down enemies inside a narrow tunnel and has little room to parry and little time to waste, this death blow proves to be incredibly efficient, though it works only over short distances."

The New York Times runs an article about fear among conservatives that the 1972 Endangered Species Act might be used as a "'back door' means of regulating the emission of gases that accelerate climate change."



They've also got a "radical" editorial out calling for a moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing - if only they could show a bit more radicalism (or at least backbone) on topics like the decision to invade Iraq!

For some real radicalism, we turn to PETA, which is "so very excited" to bring us good animal rights news from Bernalillo County, New Mexico. After pressure from citizens, the county council voted on a bill that, among other things, requires better living conditions for farm animals, and bans the sale of cats and dogs in pet stores. (And just a few days ago I found out I have to hate zoos too!)

Lastly, I found an oldish article on the New York Times site about service dogs trained by inmates of the maximum security Bedford Hills women's prison. The majority of the dogs go to Iraq War veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. (Do not read this article if you don't want to cry, and certainly don't watch the accompanying video - I almost cried and I barely have canine emotions, let alone human ones!)

Beware of Dog (silently judging you)

Many will insist it's unfair to feed one dog and not the others looking on, even if it's your dog and your aunt has brought her smelly unruly doggy brood over for a visit. But however smelly they are, her dogs may in fact be indignant at your invidious gesture, at least judging from a study by the University of Vienna's Clever Dog Lab, out last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Here," says the abstract, "we investigated whether domestic dogs show sensitivity toward the inequity of rewards received for giving the paw [that's British for "Shake!"] to an experimenter on command in pairs of dogs." They showed that when one dog was rewarded for shaking, and the other wasn't, the neglected one would soon resist the command.


"Our results suggest that species other than primates show at least a primitive version of inequity aversion, which may be a precursor of a more sophisticated sensitivity to efforts and payoffs of joint interactions."

Detractor Clive Wynne, an associate professor in the psychology department of the University of Florida, told AP, "What it means is individuals are responding negatively to being treated less well."

They are, agrees evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, co-author of the forthcoming book Wild Justice, "but it also means they are picking up on what being treated less well means, and that's really important. The animals are aware of being treated less well." No sources care to explain how those two interpretations differ.

"Until recently, psychologists believed most animals lacked the 'sense of self' needed to experience so-called secondary emotions such as jealousy, embarrassment, empathy or guilt," says the Times (UK).

Indeed, studies like this may be closing the gap we tend to think separates us from animals. "In two areas, we're unique," says Bekoff. "We're the only species I know of that cooks food and [we have an] incredible propensity for evil."



Meet the clever dogs of the Clever Dog Lab.

In related news, Florida animal welfare officials are warning against giving pets for the holidays, as returning such unwanted "gifts" after they become attached can be detrimental to their health.

"Animals can go through the same emotions people do," says one official.

New Species: Your name here

Ain't found nothin since the last post. Probably something or other long extinct, some kind of bacteria, etc. But here's the really exciting news.

"Starting Monday," reports the Chicago Tribune, "Purdue University researchers will be auctioning off the naming rights to seven recently discovered types of bats hailing from Mexico, South America, Central America and Africa. And if the bats seem too 'last Christmas,' there's also a pair of yet-to-be-named Amazonian turtles up for grabs."

Indeed, "universities and ecological organizations across the country have begun to view the naming rights to new species of birds, bugs and mammals as a way to draw big bucks to fund their research."

Stephen Colbert already caught onto this I guess and made some good sarcastic self-conscious jokes about it. Feigning indignity at the naming of a trapdoor spider after Neil Young, he had the biologist fan who named it on the show for what I'm sure was a snippy chiding. He then proceeded to have a trapdoor spider named after him, no joke: Aptostichus stephencolberti.



John Bickham, Purdue professor who discovered the as yet unnamed bats, "said there are about 1.6 million known species of organisms, estimated to be only 10 percent of what exists on the Earth."

"'We're losing species every minute,' he said. 'People don't really understand the full impact of this. We're really talking about losing the organisms that may be necessary to sustain the foundation on which the Earth is built. And yet we don't even really understand them.'"

Elephants' lifespans drastically cut short by poaching

Absent from my post below ("Zoos News") was a perspective that incorporates conservation and poaching — a glaring omission.

Six suspects stand accused in the US of working with "a trans-Atlantic ring that routinely sneaked ivory, much of it elaborately carved, out of three African countries — Uganda, Ivory Coast and Cameroon — that prohibit such exports and then slipped it past customs agents at Kennedy Airport..." according to the New York Times.

"Poaching elephants for their ivory is still the primary factor in the decline of their populations in Africa, wildlife officials say."

And in National Geographic is an article on the dizzying losses of elephants to poaching in Chad, a "massacre," in the words of one observer, that could wipe out the population within three years. The army helps guards and employees protect elephants in Zakouma National Park, but clashes with poachers can prove fatal.

A serious examination of these majestic megafauna's quality of life in our zoos should of course inquire into their lives at home, and their prospects for conservation there. Questions arise like how to shift priorities in impoverished countries where ordinary people have few options but to poach or starve.

And how do we reverse environmental degradations like global warming so that our friend Knut the polar bear won't be sent home to find all his ice melted?

Zoos News

Lots of news out recently to more or less condemn zoos to animal cruelty's shit list, alongside slaughterhouses, vivisections, and puppy mills. Plenty of controversy, too, of course.

The big seller was out today, under headlines like "Free Dumbo! Zoos are bad for elephants" and "How zoos kill elephants." The New York Times balances it out with "Critical Report on Health of Zoo Elephants Debated," although its two sides are the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Findings from the study in question: "living in a zoo drastically shortens the lives of Asian and African elephants"; "bringing elephants into zoos profoundly impairs their viability." The numbers are hard to dispute, but the representative from AZA casts a smidgen of doubt on them.

There is also a warning out about weight problems affecting elephants' feet in British zoos.

More sadness as the economic downturn pressures the Berlin Zoo to try and send its polar bear superstar Knut packing:

"Like many zoos, the Berlin Zoo is caught in the economic downturn. Knut will need a mate but because of budget constraints, the Berlin Zoo cannot afford to expand his living enclosure. The place he has always called home will most likely have to sell him to another zoo." (I wrote here a little bit ago about the now official recession affecting puppies and kitties.)

There's a really compelling op-ed at the Guardian UK by Craig Redmond, the campaigns director for the Captive Animals' Protection Society. It puts Knut's story in the broader context of a "zoo industry" that "is happy to reap the benefits of money and publicity but not so keen to provide for the lifetime care of animals when they lose their appeal." Again, debatable. A look at the comments is pretty interesting. Redmond also weighs in today on the elephant lifespan study.

Other celebrity zoo critters:

"Colo, the first gorilla ever born in a zoological setting" – Columbia Zoo

New-born elephant baby, Samson, "plays with everything from sticks and leaves to big pumpkins and squash" – Maryland Zoo in Baltimore

Nipper, a dapper penguin from the Tennessee Aquarium, stars in his own commercials.

"Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in California has a White Bengal Tiger named Odin who dives for snacks of red meat...dazzles crowds," etc.

"At the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, Patrick the penguin paints. And, for a pretty penny, a piece can be commissioned."

- from ABC News