An amazing and wonderful video that I came across a few years ago: Michael Fishbach, co-founder of The Great Whale Conservancy, his family and friends rescued a Humpback Whale from fishnets, and after being freed, the whale shows amazing appreciation to the rescuers.
Continue reading Humpback Whale Thanks to its Rescuers After Being Freed From Nets
Category Archives: Animals
Top 5 largest prehistoric cats
Like all prehistoric counterparts of today’s animals, the prehistoric cats were usually larger, heavier and more robust than today’s felines. Here are the top five largest prehistoric cats.
Continue reading Top 5 largest prehistoric cats
A giant prehistoric crocodile discovered in the Sahara: Machimosaurus rex
National Geographic grantee Federico Fanti and his research team have unearthed a sea-dwelling crocodylomorph (a teleosaurid) skeleton in southern Tunisia, in the Sahara desert: Machimosaurus rex. It is the world’s largest marine crocodyliform, and was previously unknown to science. Its length is estimated at more than 30 feet (9.14 meters). The giant was probably weighed three tons.
Continue reading A giant prehistoric crocodile discovered in the Sahara: Machimosaurus rex
The shark that glowing in the dark has been announced as a New Species: the “Ninja lanternshark”
In 2010, during an expedition of the Spanish research ship Miguel Oliver, the researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute discovered a new type of shark in the Pacific Ocean near Central America, off the coasts of Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica. The shark was glowing in the dark. Now it is officially a new kind of shark: its scientific name is Etmopterus benchleyi (it features a tribute to the famous 1974 novel “Jaws” author Peter Benchley), but since it is pure black, it is called “Ninja lanternshark”.
Continue reading The shark that glowing in the dark has been announced as a New Species: the “Ninja lanternshark”
Photographers and Wild Animals: Unexpected Encounters
The wild life photographers wait for endless hours to get the perfect shot, and sometimes they are surprised by the animals causing adorable pictures of their unexpected encounters.
Continue reading Photographers and Wild Animals: Unexpected Encounters
If Earth’s life time was the distance from Los Angeles to New York City
Our old planet, the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. In fact, the human mind can no longer make any sense of the large numbers like that. Numbers like 1, 2, 14, 20, 50 are all quantities that we encounter quite frequently in our daily lives. And out brain evolved to conceptualize numbers like that: our ancestors saw two lions; they hunted five deer in one hunting party, the population of their tribe was 20, etc… But when the numbers are getting big, i.e. 1,000; 10,000… the problem begins: these numbers become increasingly difficult to conceptualize. Now what happens when we try to conceptualize quantities like billions, like the Earth’s age? We can’t actually rationalize the immensity of such a big number. Because we haven’t a model of 4.54 billion that’s been compressed into something recognizable to the human mind.
Continue reading If Earth’s life time was the distance from Los Angeles to New York City
Hybrid Big Cats
Four of the five species of the big cats (the Panthera genus – lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar and snow leopard), the exception being the snow leopard can hybridize with each other to produce numerous hybrids. In fact, breeding of two different pantheras has been banned in many zoos and animal sanctuaries due to no conservation value of the hybrid, and the risk it poses on the mother that gives birth to it. For instance, the liger’s increased growth rate and enormous size can cause the tigress giving birth to have a difficult delivery, endangering both the mother and her liger cubs, which may be born prematurely or require a Caesarian. Common problems in cubs that survive are neurological disorders, obesity, genetic defects, and a shortened lifespan; though a few have reportedly made it to their twenties, many don’t survive past the age of seven. Moreover, male ligers have lowered testosterone levels and sperm counts, rendering them infertile while females, though capable of reproducing with either a lion or a tiger, often give birth to sickly cubs that don’t survive.
However, hybrids do occur by accident in captivity.
Continue reading Hybrid Big Cats
Your Life On Earth (presented by BBC)
A nice interactive webpage by the BBC – The British Broadcasting Corporation: how you and the world have changed since you were born? You’re simply entering your birth date, gender and height; selecting units (metric or imperial/US) and then watching how our planet (and you) has changed in your lifetime.
Continue reading Your Life On Earth (presented by BBC)
Dolphins “rode” the heads of whales in the coast of Hawaii
In two different locations in the coast of Hawaii, scientists have observed unusual interactions between bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales as dolphins “rode” the heads of whales: the whales lifted the dolphins up and out of the water, and then the dolphins slid back down. In the video published by the American Museum of Natural History, the two species seemed to cooperate in the activity, and neither displayed signs of aggression or distress. Whales and dolphins in Hawaiian waters often interact, but playful social activity such as this is extremely rare between species.
Continue reading Dolphins “rode” the heads of whales in the coast of Hawaii
Why Are Chimpanzees Stronger Than Humans?
Chimpanzees are our closest cousins, they share 99 percent of their genes with us. Sometimes, like us, they can show aggressiveness, and attacks on humans are recorded. The worst part of these attacks is, the chimpanzees are strong. Really strong.
Continue reading Why Are Chimpanzees Stronger Than Humans?
