In the wild, Andrew feeds on fish, sponges, small crustaceans, nematode worms and protozoans.
Benny's diet is very specialized, consisting mainly of the interior of Ramy nuts, nectar from the Traveller's Palm tree, some fungi and insect grubs. He is also known to raid coconut plantations, and has been seen eating lychees and mangoes, which are also plantation crops.
Now accepting donations in exchange for recognition and fame on Zooillogix!
Currently Featured: Mystic Aquarium generously donated by Eric Heupel of The Other 95%
The List:
Adventure Aquarium
Bronx Zoo
Brookfield Zoo
Cincinnati Zoo
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo
Florida Aquarium
Georgia Aquarium
Knoxville Zoo
Lincoln Park Zoo
Maritime Center in Norwalk, CT
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Mystic Aquarium
New England Aquarium
New York Aquarium
Newport Aquarium
Philadelphia Zoo
Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies
San Diego Zoo
Sea World San Diego
Shedd Aquarium
Smithsonian National Zoo
South Carolina Aquarium
Tennessee Aquarium Feed me Seymour!
Oh good God. We are reprinting this article in its entirety from the Orange News because it is just too good. Check it!
Curious locals flocked to the home of owner Feng Changlin after news of the piglet spread in Fengzhang village, Xiping township.
"It's hideous. No one will be willing to buy it, and it scares the family to even look at it!" Feng told Oriental Today.
He says the piglet looks just like a monkey, with two thin lips, a small nose and two big eyes. Its rear legs are also much longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk.
Feng's wife said the monkey-faced piglet was one of five newborns of a sow which the family had raised for nine years.
"My God, it was so scary. I didn't known what it was. I was really frightened," she said.
"But our son likes to play with it, and he stopped us from getting rid of it. He even feeds it milk."
Neighbours have suggested the couple keep the piglet to see how it looks as it matures.
Outside of Zooillogix, I serve as the moderator for a zookeeper listserv. 75% of my job seems to be approving or disapproving of classified ads for sugar gliders... I no longer find them cute. Not at all. But the other 25% comprises Q&A between zoo folks about dizzy tapirs, unenriched African porcupines, promiscuous honey badgers and the like.
Recently though I received an email informing me that our listserv's use of the compound word "zookeeper" in our name, as opposed to "zoo keeper," "gave us away as novices." Now I am a novice. In fact, I've never kept a zoo in my life, so "novice" would be putting it generously. But I'll be damned if someone I never met can call me something I actually am without actually knowing me!
Perhaps more importantly, the founder and moderator of the listserv is a lifelong zoo person. In honor of National Zoo Keeper Week (note the spelling), I decided to research the subject and share the results.
A noble profession... something tells me I should have just asked these guys.
So which is it? I know you are all on the edge of your seats. Both are in the dictionary with the same definition, so it would appear they are both correct... But that wasn't enough. I needed to know which was preferred. In the zookeeper camp a quick Google News search turned up 377 hits versus only 46 for zoo keeper. Clearly the media prefer the compound. However, the American Association of Zoo Keepers obviously chose the two word approach for their name. I decided to go right to the horse's mouth and ask the AAZK for their thoughts.
Here is their mostly definitive response as written up by one of their board members:
When you are talking about the actual occupation, it is zookeeper (like bookkeeper). But when you are referring to all the other people/occupations that are involved in keeping a zoo running, like curators, volunteers, etc., it is two words. I believe this is why AAZK is two words, because it is not only for actual zookeepers, but is open to everyone involved in 'keeping a zoo running'. Someone explained this to me many years ago, and I have always thought it made sense, and have always followed it when writing.
That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.
So it appears there is room for both zookeepers and zoo keepers in this world. Fascinating stuff (to me and probably like 9 other readers). If you have your own opinion on this, feel free to weigh in!
After becoming entangled in a fishing net off the coast of Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefrecture in Japan, a wounded and exhausted young dolphin was taken to Umitamago Aquarium, also known as Oita Marine Palace Aquarium. The dolphin did not have the energy to keep itself afloat and after a couple of days of holding the dolphin to make sure it didn't sink, the aquarium staff were also worn out. This is when aquarium vets got the clever idea of fashioning a dolphin lifejacket shown below.
This is where the story gets less cute. According to this Reuters article, the aquarium intends to keep their newest arrival and conduct research on her in collaboration with the Institute of Cetacean Research. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the ICR, this is the organization that was established to get around the whaling moratorium under the auspices of "research." After 18 years of killing whales the organization has published only 43 papers, a staggeringly low number for a government funded organization, and much of the research has been totally bizarre. One of the better known useless experiments involved injecting dead minke sperm into cow and pig eggs to see if anything would happen. Sounds like something my friend Raja and I would have done in 2nd grade, had we had better access to whale sperm and cow eggs.
Hopefully the Japanese public will keep a close eye on their new captive lest the Joseph Mengele wannabes at the ICR experiment on combining the dolphin with cucumber, avocado and wasabi.
You can read more about the first "cute" half of the story here. Thanks to Liz Carter for bringing this to our attention.
After some torrential rain in Pinellas County, Fla, residents were treated to some friendly neighborhood walking catfish. Once again, this was sent to us by Kevin Zelnio who runs an online Viagra store or some such. Interestingly, the link he sent us was from a recent local news broadcast, but a little bit of sleuthing showed that they were just running old CNN footage from YouTube which they tried to pass off as their own. Scoundrels! Reminds me of what we do here everyday...
Discovery.com recently reported two instances of animals manipulating sound to master their environments.
Cuckoos are known for tricking birds into rearing their chicks: They lay their eggs in another species' nest and, once hatched, the baby cuckoos push out the eggs and/or chicks of the host birds. While it's also known that the baby cuckoos can mimic the cries of the host birds' chicks, scientists were surprised to find that one Australian species, the Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo, takes this a step further.
These cuckoo chicks know the calls without ever having heard the other species' chicks' cries, AND they can modify their calls from one species to another if their initial attempts are not working. Naomi Langmore of...
I rarely divulge details of my personal life on Zooillogix because, frankly, I am quite a catch and I didn't want female readers leaving their husbands. On July 12th however, I (Andrew - the older and wiser one who still has both hands) got married. I tell you this because something horrible happened shortly before the wedding that directly informs this story: my then fiancee forced me to get a pedicure.
For years she has begged me to clickity-clack the raptor claws I call toes down to "Nail Bar" but I staunchly refused, as any self-respecting pretend-zoologist must. She was quite persistent however, and in a foolish moment of short-sightedness, I told her that she could do "whatever she wanted to me" before the wedding. She is a patient, cunning woman.
So on July 10th, I accepted my fate. The experience was many things. Foremost among them: embarrassing, emasculating, expensive, boring, time-consuming, and somewhat painful. My servant (pedicurist?) spoke little English, so I decided to tell her the entire plot to Ender's Game to see if I could remember it all and to which she dutifully nodded.
Getting pecked apart by tiny fish is all the rage in Istanbul.
This is all a very long way of bringing this awesomeness to your attention. A nail salon in Virginia has employed tiny fish, Garra rufa, to aid in the exfoliation process of pedicures. Also known as doctor fish, Garra rufa have long been used in Turkey where their tolerance for hot water and love of delicious dead skin have made them a hit with the ladies and hairy Turkish men. The fish have no teeth and only eat dead skin, so their is no risk of falling asleep at the spa and waking up to find your feet skelatalized.
The enterprising salon is believed to be the only one in the country to currently offer the treatment, which costs $35 for 15 minutes and $50 for 30 minutes. Customers seem to love it. In this AP article, women alternately describe the treatment as "feeling as if your foot is asleep," "a little ticklish" and "that first night-swimming scene in Jaws." With absolutely no medical research to back it up, the salon owner also claims the fish to be helpful in ameliorating the symptoms of psoriasis.
Relaxing... insofar as nightmares happen when you are asleep.
If my wife is reading this, I will return to Nail Bar as soon as they purchase 1,000 Gurra rufa. Thanks once again to Pat King for bringing this to our attention.
"Unlike most slugs, the Ghost Slug is carnivorous, killing earthworms at night with powerful, blade-like teeth, sucking them in like spaghetti. It is also unusual in having no eyes (it is probably blind) and is almost completely white. It spends most of its time underground, squeezing its flexible body into cracks or tunnels to get at earthworms, which it detects by smell or taste."
Yup, you read that last part right. After the story of the slug infestation wreaking havoc on the UK's gardens this year, things are getting worse for the Brits. Scientists recently discovered a new species of slug on the Welsh countryside, one that has a taste for flesh!
Some ghost slugs can grow up to five feet long!****
In a sure sign that Kruger National Park in South Africa is angling to be the World Wrestling Federation of game reserves, yet another unlikely and brutal animal match-up has been caught on film. In this series of photos, a leopard ambushes a crocodile. A protracted struggle ensues but it's pretty clear who ultimately comes out on top. While crocodiles have been witnessed attacking leopards in the past, this is the first known encounter that began the other way around. Cut and pasted just for you from the pages of The Telegraph, check this out:
If I like what I see, I'll receive 5 more issues (6 in all) for just $14.95. That's 50% off the cover price! If I'm not completely satisfied, I'll simply write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing. The free issue is mine to keep.
