Here, we have two Asian elephants. I'm pretty sure those tusks were longer than I am tall.
This is a Hyacinth macaw hiding from me in the foliage of one of the park's aviaries. 
Switching kingdoms for the moment, I've long been a fan of strolling through the Wild Animal Park's conifer forest; it's pretty much a short nature hike (though an expensive one for non Zoo-members), and these impressive Mediterranean Cypress trees are by far my favorite sight:
Ever the botanical philistine, I'm always forgetting the names of trees, so I took a picture and now won't have to try to remember what type these are!
Incidentally, if anyone is looking for a Christmas tree to seriously impressive your relatives, I'd be happy to hook you up if the price is right (I kid, I kid!).
Speaking of cute, I also got a shot of this desert bighorn in full relaxation mode. While I'm usually not too partial to animals with cloven feet, this sheep captured my attention with its sleeping repose (Incidentally, I think I woke it up with my camera's flash. Sorry!). 
And with that, I'm going to continue my teasing ways and bring things to a close. Don't think for a second that I haven't noticed this post's lack of primate photos. Believe me, I will make up for this glaring deficiency with my next installment. Until then. . .
Next up is a western lowland gorilla basking in the warm morning sunlight--either that or pouting. I'm not sure which.
That's it for now. I'll be posting more over the next few days.
Young chimps can beat adult humans in a task involving remembering numbers, reveals a new study. It is the first time chimps – and young ones, at that – have outperformed humans at a cognitive task.
And the finding may add weight to a theory about the evolution of language in humans, say the researchers.
Three adult female chimps, their three 5-year-old offspring, and university student volunteers were tested on their ability to memorise the numbers 1 to 9 appearing at random locations on a touchscreen monitor.
The chimps had previously been taught the ascending order of the numbers. Using an ability akin to photographic memory, the young chimps were able to memorise the location of the numerals with better accuracy than humans performing the same task.
During the test, the numerals appeared on the screen for 650, 430 or 210 milliseconds, and were then replaced by blank white squares.
While the adult chimps were able to remember the location of the numbers in the correct order with the same or worse ability as the humans, the three adolescent chimps outperformed the humans.
The youngsters easily remembered the locations, even at the shortest duration, which does not leave enough time for the eye to move and scan the screen. This suggests that they use a kind of eidetic or photographic memory.
. . .
Take a look at this poignant and beautifully-shot National Geographic film about a recent spate of mountain gorilla killings in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park.
Washington, DC – The Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI) joins the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in announcing the creation of the new Sankuru Nature Reserve, a huge rainforest area harboring the endangered bonobo, a great ape most closely related to humans. Larger than the state of Massachusetts, the new reserve encompasses 11,803 square miles of tropical rainforest, extremely rich in biodiversity.
“This is a monumental step towards saving a significant portion of the world’s second largest rainforest, of critical importance to the survival not only of humankind’s closest great ape relative, the bonobo, but to all life on Earth given the increasing threat of climate change ,” said Sally Jewell Coxe, president and co-founder of the Bonobo Conservation Initiative.
The Sankuru region was hit very hard during the recent war in the Congo, which devastated the local people and claimed four million lives—more than any war since WWII. In addition to the critical environmental challenges presented by unsustainable hunting, the humanitarian crisis must also be addressed. “The people of Sankuru rely on the forest for every aspect of their livelihood. Helping them to develop economic alternatives to the bushmeat trade is one of the most urgent priorities,” Coxe said.
In danger of extinction, bonobos (Pan paniscus) were the last great ape to be discovered and are the least known great ape species. Found only in the DRC, bonobos inhabit the heart of the Congo Basin, Africa’s largest rainforest, which is threatened by the onslaught of industrial logging. Bonobos are distinguished by their peaceful, cooperative, matriarchal society, remarkable intelligence, and sexual nature. Other than humans, bonobos are the only primates known to have sex not only for procreation, but also for pleasure and conflict resolution—and with members of either sex. Unlike chimpanzees, bonobos do not murder or wage war on others of their own kind. They serve as a powerful flagship both for conservation and for peace.
In addition to the bonobo, the Sankuru Reserve contains the okapi (Okapia johnstoni), an exotic short necked forest giraffe also endemic to the DRC, but not previously found outside of their known range far to the northeast. Survey teams from the Congo’s Center for Research in Ecology and Forestry (CREF) sponsored by BCI made this exciting discovery. Sankuru also contains elephants, which have been hunted out in many other areas of the Congo forest, plus at least 10 other species of primates, including the rare owl faced monkey and blue monkey.
The wildlife is under intense pressure from organized hunting for the commercial bushmeat trade. The report from the Congolese Institute for Conservation of Nature (ICCN) on its recent expedition to the area states that “the ecocide must be stopped” and recommends immediate action to protect this invaluable ecosystem and watershed. The DRC Minister of the Environment, Didace Pembe Bokiaga, who officially declared the new reserve, said, “This increases the total area of protected land in the DRC to 10.47%, bringing us closer to our goal of 15%. We are proud that the Sankuru Reserve is being created in the framework of community participative conservation…and will be zoned to guarantee the rights of the local population.”
Andre Tosumba, director of BCI's Congolese NGO partner, ACOPRIK (Community Action for the Primates of Kasai), led the successful local effort to protect Sankuru. “When I saw the extent to which people were hunting bonobos, okapi, and elephants, we began to sensitize them to realize the value of these animals,” he said. “Once they came to understand, the people themselves decided to stop hunting these precious species and to create a reserve to protect their forest. BCI has helped ACOPRIK and the local people at every step of the way; we call on the international community to join our effort.”
Protecting Sankuru Reserve’s forest will contribute significantly to mitigating global warming. Approximately 20% of annual green house gas emissions come from deforestation and other land-use change. Keeping this rich tropical forest intact will make an important contribution to global efforts to reduce emissions while simultaneously conserving biodiversity. The Sankuru Reserve stores up to 660 million tons of carbon, which if released by deforestation would emit up to 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, comparable to emissions from 38,000,000 cars per year for 10 years.
“This is a huge victory for bonobo and rainforest conservation,” Coxe said. “However our work has just begun. Now we need investment to successfully manage the reserve. And, other areas need to be protected to ensure the long-term survival of the bonobo and the integrity of the Congo rainforest.” The Sankuru Reserve is the southern anchor for a constellation of linked, community-based reserves being developed by BCI in the Bonobo Peace Forest, a project supported by DRC President Joseph Kabila since its inception in 2002.
Hooray for overtime pay!Only about 750 mountain gorillas are left in the world: 350 in Uganda, 270 in Rwanda and a mere 150 here in Congo (formerly Zaire). They have been ravaged by poaching, habitat loss, disease and the violence of war. Many live in lawless regions, sharing territory with armed rebels from Uganda or the remnants of Hutu militias responsible for Rwanda's 1994 genocide of ethnic Tutsis. Today the biggest threat comes from the Congolese area of their range. Rebel groups opposed to Congo president Joseph Kabila control territory in the turbulent east. The most powerful group is led by an ethnic Tutsi named Laurent Nkunda, who commands thousands of well-armed rebels in the Virungas. Not far from here in January, troops from Nkunda's group killed and presumably ate two silverbacks. A female was shot in May, another male and four females were slain in July; their killers had not been identified as we went to press.
. . .
Two hours later, we reach our destination, the Bukima patrol post, a dilapidated weatherboard hut that is home to the rangers who accompany the gorilla trackers each day. Jean Marie Serundori, the post's chief ranger, has spent 17 years with the gorillas. "So many of our rangers have been killed by rebels and poachers in the park," he tells me as Newport translates. "Two months ago, hundreds of Nkunda's troops occupied this very spot and looted it, remaining until just two weeks ago. We fled at the time, and have only just returned. [The rebels] are still just a few miles from here." I ask him why he risks his life by returning. "The gorillas are our brothers," he responds. "I know them as well as my own family. If we don't check that they're safe every day, soldiers and poachers might harm them." Rangers sometimes name newborn gorillas after community leaders who have recently died.
. . .
As if on cue, Rugendo rolls onto his side for a mid-afternoon nap, sated by his bulky snack. He became the master of this group in 2001, when his father was killed by crossfire between the Congolese military and the Interahamwe. Rugendo's easy acceptance of our presence allows the rangers to keep watch over him and his family. But it also allows poachers and soldiers to get dangerously close.
I edge closer, impressed by his brawny arms, many times thicker than a weight lifter's, and salami-size fingers. His massive, furry-crested head holds enormous jaw muscles. While the big chief dozes, Noel and two other sons tussle in mock combat, a favorite gorilla pastime, tumbling, growling, slapping and tugging. The fur on Kongomani and Mukunda, 10- and 12-year-old males, is still black. Noel is especially aggressive, baring his teeth as he repeatedly bangs his fists on the ground and charges his brothers. He leaps on them, pulls at their fur, bites their arms and legs and whacks them on the head. They soon tire of Noel's antics. Now, each time he attacks, one of the brothers grabs him with an arm and tosses him back into the bushes. After a few such tosses, Noel turns to peer at the pale-skinned stranger. Up close his dark brown eyes shimmer.
Sadly, the beautiful details of its posterior were hidden in shadow:
According to this paper, there are around 30,000 known spider species in the world, but only about 200 of them are known to harm humans. In all likelihood, my new neighbor is not part of the dangerous bunch, but just to be safe, I would recommend against attempting to steal anything from my patio for the time being!
I woke this morning to find that the area that I live in, San Diego County, is ablaze. Stoked by strong, warm winds and dry air, fires are, quite literally, ravaging the countryside. Apparently everything started last night, but I spent much of yesterday following a conflagration of another sort--a major dramatic episode over the sacking of a popular member at a message board I frequent--and I guess I wasn't paying attention to much else.
And on that note of macabre humor, we come to the end of this post. I'm off now to see the movie 30 Days of Night. Mmmmm. . .vampires!
One. . .two. . .three, "Awwwwwwwww!"
*Please note: In an effort to reduce the need for repainting after heavy rainfalls, we have altered the color of our flamingoes from the traditional pink to a pleasant orange rust hue. We’re sure you’ll love the new look.
Bound hand and foot, disheveled orangutans caught raiding Borneo's oil palm crops silently await their fate as a small crowd of plantation workers gather to watch.Please, follow the link and read the whole thing.
Lacking only hand-cuffs and finger-printing to complete the atmosphere of a criminal bust, such "ape evictions" have become part of life for Asia's endangered red apes.
Thousands have strayed into the path of international commerce as Indonesia and Malaysia, their last remaining habitats, race to convert their forests to profitable palm crops.
Branded pests for venturing out from their diminishing forest habitats into plantations where they eat young palm shoots, orangutans could be extinct in the wild in ten years time, the United Nations said in March.
Darwinism is something of a misnomer. Darwinism has been with us ever since the serpent beguiled Eve. Darwin was inspired by his father the devil to write his books much like Jesus inspired Moses and Paul.
Nearly half (48 percent) of the public rejects the scientific theory of evolution; one-third (34 percent) of college graduates say they accept the Biblical account of creation as fact. Seventy-three percent of Evangelical Protestants say they believe that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years; 39 percent of non-Evangelical Protestants and 41 percent of Catholics agree with that view.Oy vey. This data really isn't all that surprising--many polls in the past have reported similar numbers--but I still find it highly discouraging that, even now, almost three out of four evangelicals could hold a view so inconsonant with all the available evidence.
March 6, 2007—A new population of bonobos, one of humankind's closest genetic relatives, has been discovered deep in a forest in Africa's Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Perhaps the largest known concentration of bonobos anywhere, the group may number as many as 3,000—a significant addition to a recent estimated total of 10,000.
Bonobos, or pygmy chimpanzees, live only in the Congo River Basin and are notable for using sex for greetings, reconciliations, and favors for food.
The apparently thriving new population may owe its success to its location—partly within a private ranch—and to the local Bateke people
"We consider them human, our ancestors," a Bateke man said. "We don't eat them, and we don't kill them."
Leaders of several conservative Christian groups have sent a letter urging the National Association of Evangelicals to force its policy director in Washington to stop speaking out on global warming.
The conservative leaders say they are not convinced that global warming is human-induced or that human intervention can prevent it. And they accuse the director, the Rev. Richard Cizik, the association’s vice president for government affairs, of diverting the evangelical movement from what they deem more important issues, like abortion and homosexuality.
The letter underlines a struggle between established conservative Christian leaders, whose priority has long been sexual morality, and challengers who are pushing to expand the evangelical movement’s agenda to include issues like climate change and human rights.
“We have observed,” the letter says, “that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time.”
Those issues, the signers say, are a need to campaign against abortion and same-sex marriage and to promote “the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children.”
The letter, dated Thursday, is signed by leaders like James C. Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family; Gary L. Bauer, once a Republican presidential candidate and now president of Coalitions for America; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; and Paul Weyrich, a longtime political strategist who is chairman of American Values.
Vivo los invertebrados!
Another birthday has come, and I'm only one short year away from a drastic reduction in my car insurance payments. Now that will be something to celebrate! For the moment, though, I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with taking a day off of work to make an extra visit to the Zoo.
In a revelation that destroys yet another cherished notion of human uniqueness, wild chimpanzees have been seen hunting bushbabies with spears. It is the first time an animal has been seen using a tool to hunt a vertebrate.
Many chimpanzees trim twigs to use for ant-dipping and termite-fishing. But a population of savannah chimps (Pan troglodytes verus) living in the Fongoli area of south-east Senegal have been seen making spears from strong sticks that they sharpen with their teeth. The average spear length is 63 centimetres (25 inches), says Jill Pruetz at Iowa State University in Ames, US, who observed the behaviour.
And the method of procuring food with these tools is not simply extractive, as it is when harvesting insects. It is far more aggressive. They use the spears to hunt one of the cutest primates in Africa: bushbabies (Galago senegalensis).
Bushbabies are nocturnal and curl up in hollows in trees during the day. If disturbed during their slumbers – if their nest cavity is broken open, for example – they rapidly scamper away. It appears that the chimps have learnt a grizzly method of slowing them down.
Chimps were observed thrusting their spears into hollow trunks and branches with enough force to injure anything inside the holes, Pruetz’s research team says. The chimps used a “power grip” and made multiple downward stabs – much the same way as a human might wield a dagger.
Ten different chimps in the population were observed to perform this behaviour in 22 bouts. In one case the researchers saw a chimp remove a dead bushbaby and eat it.
The Fongoli chimps inhabit a mosaic savannah – patches of grass and woodland – where there are no red colobus monkeys. The absence of these monkeys, which are the favoured prey of several other chimp populations, may explain the Fongoli chimps’ unique spear-hunting behaviour.
“Given the lack of opportunity, Fongoli chimps have come up with a way to get around the problem of how to get protein in their particular environment...using tools to hunt,” says Pruetz.
On 11 February 2007 hundreds of congregations from all portions of the country and a host of denominations will come together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. Now, on the 198th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders will bring this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic.Alas, it appears that no churches in my area are participating. I guess I'll just have to hold my own service at the Church of the Eternal Springs.
Bai Yun, a giant panda, snacks on a tasty stick of bamboo while her young daughter, Su Lin, watches .
A hippopotamus opens wide for a stream of water from a keeper (presumably used--in lieu of a of a 10-foot toothbrush--to clean its mouth).
Pictured here are two okapi. These interesting and beautiful mammals are very closely related to giraffes (although a superficial analysis could easily lead someone to think that they're a species of zebra).
A trio of meerkat guards stand ready to defend their home from any and all attackers.
I don't know what the zoo is doing with an armored truck. . .oh wait. . .sorry, that's not armored truck, it's a rhinoceros!
If I didn't think it would make me dangerously dizzy, I think I could sit and stare at a zebra for hours.
Another unanticipated hummingbird moment. These tiny creatures just seem to be flittering all about the zoo, finding nectar in its plentiful flora.
A pack of pachyderms! Interestingly, the San Diego Zoo has plans to completely overhaul the elephant exhibit, making it much more spacious and comfortable for the elephants, and more informative for visitors (Actually, what they're doing is more ambitious than that, but I won't go into the details here. Suffice to say, it's really exciting.).
I don't know much about this particular animal--other than that it's probably a species of African antelope--but I'm certainly impressed by its contortionist abilities!
Sleeping during the day? Is this koala lazy? Nope, just nocturnal.
. . .here's a picture of my orangutan friends, Satu and Karen, hanging out in their fantastic climbing apparatus.
