zooillogix
Posts by this author
June 14, 2007
Hey there, ladies. I'm just a lonesome, evolutionary mishap who loves to party.
The Purple frog or Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis can be described as a "living fossil." These strange creatures split evolutionarily from other frogs nearly 150 million years ago giving them features unique to any…
June 11, 2007
It doesn't seem like nearly so many, but we have reached our first milestone: 100 posts. To celebrate, we decided to give you an inside look into how your fellow Zooillogix readers found our site. Some of you know us personally (we're sorry), some of you were spammed by us (like the entire…
June 11, 2007
Tuatara, Sphenodon punctatus
A robotic tuatara has been put to work in Stephens Island, New Zealand, helping researchers to better understand the mating habits of its biological brethren.
Tuataras are one of the oldest reptile species on Earth, dating back 200 million years. The researchers are…
June 8, 2007
In celebration of World Oceans Day, Mark Powell, Director of Fish Conservation-Ocean Conservancy, has painstakingly put together a list of many of the leading ocean bloggers, and Zooillogix made the cut!
Click here to check out Mark's awesome blog, Blogfishx, and read up on some of the bloggers…
June 8, 2007
Primitive primates indigenous to Southeast Asia, Slow Lorises are endangered and absurdly adorable. Most importantly, they just so happen to be this editor,Aeos favorite animal since early childhood. However, it wouldn,Aeot take a childhood obsession to be appalled at the horrors of the illegal…
June 7, 2007
Sweden has won the first ever European Bombina Song Contest, in what is surely Europe's most sparsely attended Idol spinoff. Indigenous to the lowlands of Northern Europe, the fire-bellied toad or Bombina bombina is an endangered species that has attracted a small but fanatically loyal fan club of…
June 6, 2007
Army-ants storm through the jungles of Panama a million strong devouring any and every living creature in their path. Some clever birds have found a way to capitalize on the mayhem: Stay close to the ants and eat the leaping, running, and scampering insects that attempt to escape.
Who would want to…
June 5, 2007
A species of endangered sea lion has suddenly acquired a taste for a rare penguin in New Zealand, causing heated debate amongst Kiwi conservationists and scientists. Sea lions breeding on the Otago Peninsula have taken to devouring yellow-eyed penguins. The good news is that male sea lions do not…
June 5, 2007
Two-tone lobsters are rare, only about 1 in 50 million share this mutation. They would be wise to increase the frequency of this variation however as it inevitably saves the little guy from the pot. Lobster shells have three primary pigment colors, red, yellow and blue. Occasionally lobsters…
June 4, 2007
Daceton armigerum, a highly visual, predatory ant.
Two dozen new species were identified on the plateaus of Eastern Suriname, according to scientists today. The creatures, which include 12 new kinds of dung beetle, were originally discovered during a 2005 expedition sponsored by Suriname Aluminum…
June 4, 2007
Rooks in Exeter, England have discovered a unique health benefit to cigarettes that may just be enough to save the embattled industry. Commuters observed the rooks at St. David's train station fumigating their feathers with cigarette smoke. Swooping down to snatch up lit cigarette butts, the rooks…
May 31, 2007
We know that a rash of recent posts has put us at risk of entering cuteoverload territory , but we couldn't resist these pictures of seven baby hedgehogs from two different families at the Prickly Ball Farm Hospital in Devon, England. The hospital copes with orphaned hedgehogs every year. This…
May 30, 2007
A mad scientist at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, has developed a new technique for finding unexploded land mines: bomb-sniffing bees! Professor Nikola Kezic spends his days training hives of honey bees--whose sense of smell is much more powerful than that of humans-- to detect and point out…
May 29, 2007
Wildlife officials from Southeast Asia met in Cisarua, Indonesia this week to discuss cross-border animal smuggling. Chief among their concerns was the rapid growth in pangolin trafficking. Scaled mammals with long, sticky, extendable tongues (up to 16"), Pangolins were once grouped with anteaters…
May 29, 2007
"Some people call me Maurice." Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae
A study from two Australian researchers from the University of Sydney shows that male humpbacks who sing while migrating have better luck with the ladies than those who don't.
Michael Noad and a group of colleagues tracked a…
May 29, 2007
In 2001, scientists at New Zealand biotechnology firm ViaLactia (that translates to Milk Road, right?), identified a cow with a genetic mutation that resulted in its producing skim milk. Since then, Milk Road has successfully bread a strain of cows from the original- Marge - that only produce skim…
May 25, 2007
Female pandas ovulate for only 3 days out of every year, making them one of the least evolutionarily "fit" animals we are aware of. If you were in God's factory trying to figure out where to invest, betting on the panda would be like deciding to build a Ferrari and not include a gas fill. Then it…
May 23, 2007
Kruger National Park in South Africa is a renowned location for observing some of Africa's most famous wildlife. Here we have all of that wildlife fighting one another, all at once. Basically this is Kruger's equivalent of a WWE event. Watch it through to the end or at least minute seven or so.
May 23, 2007
In another example of how much more progressive Europe is than the US, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Slimbridge, Gloucestershire (i.e. Brittania) has entrusted the care of an orphaned flamingo chick to gay parents. Carlos and Fernando, the only gays in the sanctuary, have been egg-nappers in…
May 23, 2007
Nuestra Tiberone de la Conception, Hammerhead shark, Sphyrna zygaena
A female hammerhead shark gave birth to a pup in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska in 2001 despite having no contact with a male shark. Thanks to new DNA profiling technology, scientists have been able to show conclusively that the…
May 22, 2007
A new book, "The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss" by Claire Nouvian, a French journalist and film director, reveals haunting images of some of the most bizarre creatures on the globe, ones that live in the deepest parts of the ocean. In many cases the creatures- some of which were…
May 22, 2007
This month marks Carl Linnaeus' 300th birthday and biology textbooks still look much the way he imagined they should. Linnaeus is the father of the ranking system of classifying the living world. You might remember kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, species from the back of your hand in 9th…
May 21, 2007
The Thylacine was the largest known carnivorous marsupial and lived in Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. Known as both the Tasmanian Tiger and Tasmanian Wolf, it is believed that thylacines were hunted to extinction in the 20th century. Although sightings are still reported, scientists are…
May 21, 2007
The Antarctic Benthic Deep-Sea Biodiversity Project (ANDEEP) has been working on an unprecedented project to document marine life near the bottom of the Antarctic Ocean. 80% of the isopods identified are entirely new species. Another species, foraminifera, single celled organisms with decorative…
May 17, 2007
Per Gizmodo's Jack Ventura, the Japanese government has spent $12,000,000 over the past two years developing "silver technology." For those of you, like every single person reading this, unfamiliar with this term, apparently it refers to robots designed to help lonely old people. The seal was on…
May 17, 2007
A team of Florida International University zoologists studying poison arrow frogs in South America have identified the source of the colorful critters' toxicity. Researchers have long known that the amphibians do not produce the toxic compounds, alkaloids, themselves, but were uncertain of their…
May 16, 2007
The results of a diabolical experiment are forcing scientists and philosophers to reevaluate their notions of free will.
Bj/drn Brembs from the Free University in Berlin began his experiment by postulating that if fruit flies are no more than biological robots simply reacting to their environments…
May 15, 2007
Good God Almighty....(From Sir David Attenborough's "Life in the Undergrowth")
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