Photography
grrlscientist | December 2, 2007tags: eastern gray squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, mammals, Image of the Day
Eastern Gray Squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, in Central Park, NYC.
Image: Bob Levy, author of Club George. [wallpaper size].
The photographer writes; I watched this Gray Squirrel dig out an acorn and proceed to gnaw away at it. There was nothing particularly unusual about that. Only after I downloaded the image did I notice the mud all over its meal. The animal made no observable effort to clean the acorn and I imagine that a considerable portion of it must have been ingested. Judging by how enthusiastically the…
laelaps | November 18, 2007
Usually when I get back from trips to the AMNH I unleash all the best photographs I took during the day in one post. This time, however, I think I'm going to parcel them out one by one in the Picture of the Day slot so they each get due consideration. This shot, however, is one of my favorites; the skull of an Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) in the Hall of Primates. It was disturbing to look at the skeletons and stuffed mounts of animals so like us put on display, the lemurs looking unnaturally fierce with cartoonish snarls and the great apes being merely shadows of the living animals they once…
laelaps | November 12, 2007
What's this? A photo of a creature that isn't a large charismatic mammal? Although my affinity for carnivores and artiodactyls is difficult to miss, I have taken many photographs that I'm quite pleased with of other sorts of animals, although I don't often post them because I'm not entirely sure what they are. The above photograph is one such case; at the Tiger Mountain exhibit at the Bronx Zoo, the Amur Tigers are provided with a large pool up against the viewing pane filled with fish. (From what I understand the tigers don't eat the fish, and so the fish have things pretty easy overall.)…
laelaps | November 5, 2007For all of you who enjoy the various photographs I post here every day, I've now opened a CafePress store featuring some prints, mugs, and calendars emblazoned with some of the best photographs I've taken in 2007. There are shots of various creatures, big and small, from the Bronx, Philadelphia, and National Zoos, although I hope to soon have a "Best of 2006" calendar with some earlier (but no less impressive) shots. If you'd like to take a look, click here.
laelaps | November 1, 2007
This past July my wife and I left at 2 AM on day to reach the southernmost point in New Jersey by sunrise, and after a long 3 hour drive this was the sight we were greeted with. It's not the best photo I've ever taken, but I like it all the same, and it reminds me of the cover of my copy of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac.
laelaps | October 30, 2007
Most of the wildlife photographs I feature here were taken at zoos, but every once in a while I get a chance to photograph some indigenous creatures, White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) being the only relatively large mammal in the area. In fact, New Jersey has an overabundance of the deer, and it's strange to drive late at night and not see at least one along the side of the road (or even trying to cross it). While there were always deer here, they owe much of their population growth in the last 200 years to human development of land, especially the clearing of forests for lawns or…
laelaps | October 29, 2007Female Snow Leopard twins born last year at the Bronx Zoo.When I initially started posting pictures on my blog, I didn't know if anyone would have anything to say about my pictures. I frequent zoos, museums, and aquariums, usually shooting between 200 and 600 shots per trip, the handful of good shots making their way onto the internet. I've been certainly pleasantly surprised, therefore, to see all the positive remarks made about my pictures, especially since I don't really have any idea what I'm doing. Still, many of you have asked how I have been able to get the kind of shots I've posted…
bleimanb | October 25, 2007The annual Shell Wildlife Photography contest is winding to a close, and the winners have been chosen. The award-winning shots will go on display at the Natural History Museum of London October 27th and then embark on a world-wide tour.
Wild stoats are well known to have a love of whole grains...
You can see some of the shots here in this article from the Telegraph.
Make sure you click on the link in the article to actually see the pics.
laelaps | October 25, 2007
While I love to visit the zoo on warm summer days, I usually don't come home with many good pictures, and the reason why can be summed up in one word: Strollers. Anyone who's visited a museum, zoo, or other such institution with me knows that the never-ending sea of strollers is pretty high on my list of pet peeves, and on at least one occasion the shuffling mob gave me a migraine and sent me off home. There is an easy way to avoid this, however; visit in the wintertime. The above photo is of Zeff, a 14-year-old female Amur Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), taken right around 10 AM on a cold…
laelaps | October 23, 2007
Yesterday's photographic subject, the cougar (Puma concolor), has plenty of common names by which it is known by (some of which are better than others), and the White Nosed Coati (Nasua narica) is another mammal that is known by many other monikers. Pizote, Antoon, and Harrington all sound more like the names of places rather than a long-nosed member of the Family Procyonidae (which also includes raccoons, the Kinkajou, and Olingos), but that is precisely what they are. One should also be mindful that there is at least one other species of coati, distinct from the Pizote, being known as the…
laelaps | October 22, 2007
Cougars (Puma concolor), while currently ranging from Canada to the Andes Mountains in South America, still inhabit only part of their former range. Before European colonization, the big cats ranged from coast-to-coast in the U.S., the eastern populations being wiped out with the exception of a small population in Florida. Some have suggested that the cats may eventually make a comeback and reclaim their previous ranges, potential sightings popping up every now and again in Pennsylvania and other states, but by and large if you want to see a cougar and live on the east coast of the U.S. you…
laelaps | October 21, 2007
Yesterday's photo of Tai Shan received so many positive responses I thought I would put another one up. Getting these shots could be a little difficult at times, however, (warning: bad pun ahead) as it was definitely pandemonium around the enclosure when the young bear came out. His parents Mei Xiang and Tian Tian certainly didn't get as much attention, but they also were not as active or curious as their offspring. If you want to look in on the pandas yourself the National Zoo has a Panda Cam that will allow you to do so.
laelaps | October 20, 2007
As I mentioned in the description of yesterday's "Photo of the Day," when I visited the National Zoo I wanted to make sure I got there especially early, and this Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) cub is part of the reason. Any exhibit that holds a giant panda, especially a baby one, is going to get swamped by visitors so I wanted to make sure I had a chance to get some decent shots (although I didn't know that the pandas would not be let out until 10 AM so I had a bit of waiting to do). This particular individual is a 2 year old male named Tai Shan, the offspring of Mei Xiang (the mother…
laelaps | October 19, 2007
Although I've been able to capture some good Red Panda (Ailurus fulgens) pictures when the animals have been bright-eyed and busy-tailed (then again, aren't they always bushy-tailed?), I love this shot because I was able to make a "boring" sleeping subject seem more interesting. It was taken at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. this past spring at about 6 AM and the two red pandas sleeping in the trees did not move the entire day.
If you want to know more about these fascinating (and endangered) mammals, Jeremy at The Voltage Gate ran a multi-part series about them earlier this year; Part…
laelaps | October 17, 2007
This is Zeff, one of the Amur (or Siberian) Tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) at the Bronx Zoo. She may look rather fierce in the above photo, but actually it's not so much a picture of a snarl but a yawn. The picture below directly preceded the one above, although somehow it isn't quite as impressive as the shot taken a split second after it;
laelaps | October 16, 2007
Some of you may have noticed some changes to the front page of Sb and some new photos in the category sections, and I'm proud to say that one of my photos made the cut for this week under the Life Science section. Hence, I've decided to post the "full" version of the photo here. In case anyone's unfamiliar with the animal, it's an Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus, although not everyone could merely enjoy the aesthetics of the striking display of the male bird. Writing to Asa Gray, Charles Darwin once related;
...I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I…
laelaps | October 13, 2007
You might not normally think of them as artodactyls, but suids (i.e. pigs and their relatives) are another major family grouping within the order. Pictured above is one representative from Africa, the Red River Hog (Potamochoerus porcus), which lives in large groups of between 4 and 20 or so as Leopards (Panthera pardus) sometimes crave bacon. Commonly, it's often called the "Bush Pig" but shouldn't be confused with the actual Bushpig, Potamochoerus larvatus, another social swine from Africa.
laelaps | October 11, 2007
Given that the last two "pictures of the day" were of artiodactyls, I figured I'd keep going with the theme for the rest of the week. Today I've picked out a pair of shots of the Mhorr Gazelle (Gazella dama mhorr), taken last January at the Philadelphia Zoo. As you can guess from the scientific name I just mentioned, the Mhorr is a subspecies of Dama Gazelle (Gazella dama) which previously inhabited parts of the Sahara near Morocco in northern Africa. Today, however, the Mhorr is extinct in the wild and the Dama is critically endangered.
laelaps | October 10, 2007
The photo I posted yesterday of a male Gerenuk (Litocranius walleri) has prompted some discussion about other long-necked artiodactyls, especially the living representatives of the family Giraffidae. Although the family once contained more members (like the oddly-ornamented Sivatherium), only the Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) and the Okapi (Okapia johnstoni) are extant. Pictured above is a female Okapi at the Bronx Zoo, the distinction between the sexes being easily distinguished as the female lacks the skin-covered protrusions made of ossified cartilage known as "ossicones" that are…
laelaps | October 9, 2007
Even though the Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) most readily comes to mind when I think of a long-necked mammal, there are many other living artiodactyls that have long necks for their body size, one of my favorites being the Gerenuk, Litocranius walleri. Gerenuks are most commonly seen in East Africa and often stand up on their hind legs while browsing to make the most of the available food resources, allowing them a bit more reach than many of their antelope relatives. The picture above is of a male, taken in the summer of 2006 at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park, as horns are only…