Pinniped
laelaps | May 27, 2010A young California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
edyong | April 22, 2009
Seals and sea-lions gracefully careen through today's oceans with the help of legs that have become wide, flat flippers. But it was not always this way. Seals evolved from carnivorous ancestors that walked on land with sturdy legs; only later did these evolve into the flippers that the family is known for. Now, a beautifully new fossil called Puijila illustrates just what such early steps in seal evolution looked like. With four legs and a long tail, it must have resembled a large otter but it was, in fact, a walking seal.
Natalia Rybczynski unearthed the new animal at Devon Island, Canada…
cwilcox | April 16, 2009Cheetahs are unfortunate examples of how genetics can be devastating. After a population bottleneck 10,000 years ago source, cheetahs have become so closely related that it's said you can use skin grafts from any two individuals without rejection. To put that in perspective, your own immediate family is probably too genetically distinct to do that for you. But cheetahs look like they're in great shape compared to Hawaiian Monk Seals, new research from the University of Hawaii has found.
Hawaiian monk seals (Monachus schauinslandi) were known to the native Hawaiians as Ilio-holo-i-ka-uaua, or…
laelaps | October 28, 2007
This is Cali and Summer, two California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Both rescued from wild populations (Summer was abandoned by her mother and Cali's mother died soon after Cali was botn), the two were raised by human keepers and so require a lot of care. They still play with each other nearly constantly, however, this shot taken during a sort of "King of the Rock" game.