When we think of a traditional farm, we often visualize a red barn flanked by rolling hills of golden wheat or green corn stalks. A flock of chickens peck the ground in front of a small pen of pigs while a mama cow and her calf munch happily on hay in the shade. This agrarian…
Sunday Sketch: Soaring Albatross
With a majority of their lives spent soaring at sea, the Laysan albatross is a poster child for energy-efficient flight. Wings spanning up to 7 feet and the use of dynamic soaring allow albatrosses to fly for hours without flapping their wings. Dynamic soaring exploits wind shear, or the variation of wind velocity that occurs…
Field Notes: The secret lives of basking sharks
Basking sharks will break you. That’s an unfortunate lesson that’s been learned the hard way for centuries, among fishermen and researchers alike. It’s probably not for the reasons you imagine, because these are not your average sharks (although it is my duty as a shark biologist and conservationist to inform that you have more of…
Connections Matter: The Utility of Social Networks
Think back to your high school days, and the social interactions that come to play in the high school arena (scary and traumatic, I know, but just humor me here). Who did you find yourself making friends with? Were there clubs or sports teams that structured your friend groups? On a group level, were there…
Sunday Sketch: Big Horn Sheep
Bighorn sheep have double layered skulls to protect themselves during (literally) head-to-head combat. Their horns can weigh up to 14 kg (30 pounds!). Males fight battles with their heavy heads and horns, sometimes to the death, to win access to females. Now that’s a heavy concept! Sketch and fact contributed by Lea Pollack Source: Bighorn…
Enrichment is in the Eye of the Beholder
What is Enrichment? Animals have evolved and adapted to live in complex environments with a wide variety of engaging stimuli: diverse plants, other animals, sounds, smells, problem-solving scenarios, and dynamic space, just to name a few. The natural history of animals has resulted in the development of species-specific repertoires of highly motivated behaviors, which are…
Field Notes: Busy Bees and a Busier Grad Student
For the last 10 months or so, not a single day has gone by where I haven’t spent some amount of time thinking about honey bees, reading about honey bees, working with honey bees, or listing off cool honey bee facts to anyone willing to listen. If you’ve been following the blog in recent months, […]
Creature Feature: Spotted sandpiper
Across the animal kingdom, it’s tough to be a mom. Not all species exhibit parental care (or care about their young at all after the eggs are laid), but in those that do, usually the moms get stuck doing the bulk of the work. In mammals, moms not only have to carry the baby in…
Sunday Sketch: Long Distance Penguins
Does your long distance relationship have you pining for your partner? Well, at least you aren’t a southern rockhopper penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome). These marine birds mate for life, but don’t spend much time together other than during the mating season, which is only 20-30 days long. Talk about difficult travel logistics: GPS trackers show that penguins…
Field Frame Friday: Forest monkeys
Commonly known as the red-tailed monkey, Schmidt’s guenon, or the black-cheeked, white-nosed monkey, this primate species (Cercopithecus ascanius) ranges across much of Central Africa. This male, named Kinky for the bend in the end of his tail, was photographed in the Issa Valley, part of the Ugalla Region, Tanzania. He was one of a couple…
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