The Godless Geek Blog: Animals

Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Ze Frank's- True Facts About The Tarsier

Posted by YouTube user: zefrank1

Yes, these are going to be a regular feature on the blog for just as long as he continues to make them. Which I hope is forever, because they are AMAZING.

-CAINE-

Monday, January 21, 2013

zeFranks, True Facts About The Seahorse

Posted by YouTube user: zefrank1

I have no idea when zeFrank Started doing these true facts videos. But they're amazing, and I hope he keeps doing them.

-CAINE-

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Preserved Megalapteryx (Moa bird) Foot

Preserved Megalapteryx foot, Natural History Museum

This image of a preserved Moa foot managed to make the rounds across the Internet last week, via a post on Reddit. Why it suddenly managed to make an appearance on the web, I'm not really sure, as Reddit post are often light on context. But, whatever the reason- it did. So, being a fan of prehistoric/extinct creatures, this seemed a descent enough excuse to write about one.

The appendage in the picture, which is currently held by the Museum of New Zealand, was found in a cave on Mount Owen in the 1980's. It belongs to Megalapteryx didinus (commonly known as the Upland Moa). one of a variety of extinct giant birds native to New Zealand, collectively known as Moa. You may already be familiar with at least the common name of this particular group of flightless birds -which went extinct around the year ~~15000~~ 1,500, primarily due to hunting and deforestation- because of their appearance in a recently published paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, which used a collection of moa bones in a study meant to help determine the half life of DNA. Then again, we might have completely different interpretations of what constitutes "entertaining reading". So, maybe you've never heard of them before.

Sir Richard Owen 1879 W/the largest Moa, D. novaezealand

Growing to about human height, and weighing in around an estimated 50-60 lbs, Megalapteyrx is actually one of the smallest varieties of these extinct birds. With the female members of the largest known variety of the species, Dinornis novaezealandiae or North Island Giant Moa (seen to the left) growing to be over 10 feet tall, and weighing in at 500 pounds or more.

Though all nine species of Moa are officially (meaning- scientifically) classified as extinct. Like many recently extinct species (such as the much more recently lost Tasmanian tiger(thylacine) there are those who claim a small population of moa may have managed to survive into the modern world, and now live hidden away somewhere in the remote wilderness.

The most recent of such claims, at least that I could find anyway, originated from a cryptozoologist in New Zealand, named Rex Gilroy. In 2008, Gilroy claimed to have discovered 35 separate ground prints in a remote area of northern New Zealand, which he believes belong to a colony of up to 15 little scrub moa, amomalopteryx didiformi (Bush Moa). And while his claims are at least more plausible than those of isolated populations of giant moas still roaming the New Zealand wilderness, neither Gilroy's -nor any other similar claims- have ever been verified.

-CAINE-

Source: Wikipedia: Moa - Megalapteryx didinus - Dinornis novaezealandiae - New Zealand.com (Gilroy's Tracks) - Reddit
Image Credit: Wikimedia commons

So I came up somewhat dry in my search for interesting moa videos. But, I did find this reading from, David Attenborough's Life Stories- Giant Birds. Which deals primarily with Madagascar's Elephant bird- particularly the size of it's eggs. But there's also a bit about the moa towards the end. Plus, it's David Attenborough, so- WIN.

Posted by YouTube user: Samael994

Saturday, June 16, 2012

The Japanese Giant Salamander

Posted by YouTube user: NationalGeographic

I suspect it will surprise virtually none of you to learn that I happen to have an affinity for snakes, reptiles, and amphibians. Yes, I know, weird heavy-metal-guy has a thing for snakes, how predictable. But it's true. If it's slimy, scaly, and creepy, I probably think it's cute, pretty, or fascinating. I also have a thing for bugs and rodents... Have I mentioned that I'm odd?

So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that apparently- GIANT SALAMANDERS ARE A THING! And I mean, actual GIANT salamanders. Cause, ya know, usually when ya hear the word giant, it just means as compared to regular sized, whatevers. But these things are HUGE! As in "Hey, look at me. I'm a 5 foot long, 80 lbs amphibian", huge. This may be one of my new favorite animals, ever.

-CAINE-

VIA: weirdthings.com

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Jedi Kittens Stirke Back

Posted by Youtube user: FinalCutKing

Normally, I maintain a very strict NO CAT VIDEO policy, but just this once, I have to make an exception. Please forgive my weakness.

-CAINE-

VIA: GGB on Tumblr

Monday, September 5, 2011

How to Make "Bullet Proof" Skin From Spider Silk

Image credit:Luc Viatour

Working in collaboration with researchers from the Forensic Genomics Consortium Netherlands, dutch artist Jalila Essaidi's managed to grow human skin cells infused with genetically engineered spider silk, that can stop a .22 calibre bullet when fired at reduced speeds.

Named 2.6g 329m/s, after the maximum weight and velocity of a .22 calibre Long Rifle bullet from which a Type 1 bulletproof vest is meant to protect you; the skin was created by first acquiring the protein which makes the spider silk itself -which is several times stronger than steel- from the milk of goats genetically modified to produce the protein in their milk. Once extracted, the protein was then woven into a lattice work of fibers, which was in turn sandwiched between two layers of otherwise normal human skin cells grown on top of the silk matrix.

As for the goats themselves -since I'm sure you're curious- they were created using a method developed by researcher Randy Lewis and his team from Utah State University, in which the gene responsible for producing the silk is extracted from the spiders which would naturally create the substance, and ultimately inserted into a goat's egg.

While Essaidi's final product was ultimately unable to reach the minimum standard for modern bullet proof vests by stopping a .22 cal riffle bullet shot at normal speed, and the notion that we might someday replace the keratin in our skin with this silk using the same methods as those used to create the modified goats, though entirely plausible, is at best, a distant dream. In the short term, Lewis asserts that the most exciting part about Jalila's experiment is that they were able to grow the skin cells on top of the fibers in the first place, and the potential applications for the skin today in skin grafts and other treatments.

-CAINE-

Source: techcocktail.com

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Rainbow Toad Found After 87 Years

Image Credit: Indraneil Das

View this post on tumblr

First described in 1920, and last seen by European explores in 1942, the Sambas stream toad or Bornean rainbow toad, was recently rediscovered and photographed for the first time by a team from the University Malaysia Sarawak, lead by herpetologist Indraneil Das.

3 of the tiny, toxic amphibians, ranging in size from one to two inches, were discovered during the expedition, an adult male and female, as well as a juvenile. Each was found living in a different mature tree, along the ridges of the Gunung Penrissen range of Western Sarawak, a boundary between Malaysia’s Sarawak State and Indonesia’s Kalimantan Barat Province, on the island of Borneo.

The Bornean Rainbow toad is the second species on Conservation International's “World’s Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs" list to have been rediscovered since the list was compiled in 2010.