![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanBy now you should be a big fan of the Giant Elephant Shrew. If not, please look at this video from the Yale Peabody museum which includes horribly adorable footage of one drinking water.
The same website has a good page of information about the species and its close relatives. They have a very small home range in Africa, which is threatened by development etc. North American zoos have had some success in keeping and breeding these weird and wonderful creatures.
While looking around on that site I found this amazing and hypnotic page animating the evolution of different arachnid groups. Most of the intermediate stages are guesses, but the idea is great. I'd love to see it done with other taxa.
And finally, another conservation issue that my zoo is actively involved in is our threatened population of Blanding's turtles. This video explains what the project involves, and shows what goes into conservation biology (mucking about in cold swamp water early in the spring). They finish by describing the invasive process of determining the turtles' sex, which is done by my boss at the zoo, and by a vet at the New England Aquarium. (Then my job is to take care of the turtles as they recover from the laparoscopy.)
The same website has a good page of information about the species and its close relatives. They have a very small home range in Africa, which is threatened by development etc. North American zoos have had some success in keeping and breeding these weird and wonderful creatures.
While looking around on that site I found this amazing and hypnotic page animating the evolution of different arachnid groups. Most of the intermediate stages are guesses, but the idea is great. I'd love to see it done with other taxa.
And finally, another conservation issue that my zoo is actively involved in is our threatened population of Blanding's turtles. This video explains what the project involves, and shows what goes into conservation biology (mucking about in cold swamp water early in the spring). They finish by describing the invasive process of determining the turtles' sex, which is done by my boss at the zoo, and by a vet at the New England Aquarium. (Then my job is to take care of the turtles as they recover from the laparoscopy.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 04:04 pm (UTC)Mighty Morphin' Mygalomorphs for the win!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-25 05:32 pm (UTC)