Wildlife Media Thread

[Marcus]

Mexican Zoo Showcases Bengal Tiger Cubs



www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070710.html

Five Bengal tigers, four of them white males, have debuted at a zoo in western Mexico.

The litter, which was born in April and went on display Wednesday, was the result of a natural breeding program, Guadalajara Zoo director Francisco Rodriguez said.

It was the sixth litter of white tigers born at the zoo, which is known for having produced the cat that attacked Las Vegas entertainer Roy Horn of the Siegfried and Roy act.

The tigers' father, Nino, has sired every litter born at the zoo.

[niamh]

marcus said:

Giant Panda Twins Born in China



www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070709.html

A panda gave birth to twins in southwest China, surprising researchers who were only expecting a single cub.

The first born was male and sex of the second born was unknown because the mother would not let it out of her grip after the Thursday birth, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The mother and her babies are all well," Zhang Zhihe, director of the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center in Sichuan Province, was quoted as saying.

Female pandas normally become sexually mature between 4 and 5 years old. They can get pregnant once a year and usually give birth to one or two cubs at a time.

More than 20 pandas were born in captivity in China last year, the report said.

The panda is one of the world's rarest animals, with about 1,590 living in the wild in China, mostly in Sichuan and the western province of Shaanxi. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.

omg thats soooo great to hear that

[Marcus]

Penguins Chronicle Climate Change


www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070723.html

Scientists have figured out a new way to measure climate change's effect on the Antarctic ice shelf by studying the region's penguins.

Adélie penguins are the smallest and most widely distributed penguins in Antarctica. They nest in ice-free areas along the coast and mark the edge of the sea with their remains—bone, tissue, feathers, feces and eggshells—almost perfectly preserved.

By dating the remains, Steven D. Emslie of the University of North Carolina Wilmington has charted the ancient penguin colonies' population shifts over the last 45,000 years. This record was combined with climate change data to create a new and reliable method of dating ice movement.

The study, published in the January 2007 edition of Geology and announced today, describes how Emslie measured the advance and retreat of the Ross Ice Shelf and determined that the ice shelf advanced northward in the Ross Sea until about 13,000 years ago, when it began retreating at the end of the last.

The Antarctic ice sheet plays a critical role in global climate control by reflecting sunlight into space and helping to cool Earth's air and oceans.

[Marcus]

Old Chimp Dies at the age of 75


www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070720.html

SYDNEY, Australia (AP)—One of the world's oldest chimps, Fifi, has died in Australia, zoo officials said Friday. Fifi was the matriarch of the 18 chimpanzees at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, and celebrated her 60th birthday in May with sugar-free cupcakes and coconuts among four generations of her family.

But Fifi, who suffered arthritis and had taken to sipping from a cup of chamomile tea each morning in her later years, stayed in bed Thursday morning, raising suspicions among the keepers that she was unwell, the zoo said in a statement.

Keepers provided her with fresh bedding and her favorite foods, while other chimps in the group visited her throughout the day, the zoo said. She died peacefully in the afternoon.

Keepers have been saddened by the peaceful passing of their oldest and much loved Chimpanzee, Fifi," the zoo said.

The zoo said an investigation would be held to determine a cause of death.

Chimps, who share 98 percent of humans' DNA and are our closest living relatives in nature, have an average life expectancy of about 45 years, but can live longer in captivity because of the health care and good diet they get.

Cheeta, the star of a dozen "Tarzan" movies in the 1930s and 1940s, is listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's oldest chimp. He turned 75 in April.

[Marcus]

Rodents Feel the Heat


www.livescience.com/imageoftheday/siod_070424.html

Climate change could deprive rodents, such as lemmings, of the snow they need to build their homes, while locking their food up in ice. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) will study how the tiny rodents will fare in the face of global warming.

Lemmings are small mouse-like animals that reside in the tundra where they rely on sufficient snow depth to insulate them from the frigid winter temperatures. They munch on the region’s sparse sedges and dwarf shrubs. However, current warming in the tundra has led to freezing rain and episodes of thawing and freezing, which can coat their grassy food in ice.

“We need to know how climate change will affect a variety of resident and migratory predators that rely in large part on these small arctic rodents,” said WCS Canada researcher Don Reid. “The ability of lemmings to adapt to these changes will have a significant impact on the entire food web, so we need to understand more about lemming ecology within the context of climate change.”

Predators that specialize on eating lemmings, such as snowy owls and arctic foxes, may suffer if lemming numbers dip. Other predators may benefit. Some research has revealed that red foxes have usurped considerable areas from arctic foxes in recent decades. Plus, warmer temperatures may have increased populations of the red foxes’ prey, including ground squirrels and birds.

[Wolf]

whoa.. that panda is almost as ugly as my mice when theyre first born.. but wow how kool..