Category Archives: Mammals
EUROPE 1.8 MY AGO – BBC GETS IT WRONG?
November 2007 Giant hyenas, giraffes and sabretooth cats roamed around Southern Spain 1.8 MY ago. A great collection of fossils have been unearthed at Fonelas in Granada. BBC article. Scroll down the BBC page – what’s wrong with the picture of the sabretooth? … Continue reading
WHO IS THE CLOSEST RELATIVE OF THE PRIMATES?
November 2007 Short answer: the colugo. Which only begs the question – what is a colugo? Answer to that question – a flying lemur. Except (of course) it can’t fly (it glides) and it isn’t a lemur (there are two species, … Continue reading
MADAGASCAR MINE MENACES LEMURS
October 2007 Depressing story about mining in Madagascar, and its detrimental effects on the local lemur population. To learn more about lemurs, go to this “Quick Guide” in Current Biology.
Filed under Conservation, Mammals, Quick Guides
TO CULL OR NOT TO CULL?
October 2007 The government’s chief scientist has suggested that a cull of all badgers in the South East of England would be a good idea. Many conservationists think this is daft, and that the rate of bovine TB would plummet if farmers stopped … Continue reading
Filed under Diseases, Ecology (political), Mammals
OTTERS IN EDINBURGH
October 2007 Otters have been sighted in the middle of Edinburgh. No news on them romping about in the Medlock as yet, but you never know. (The Medlock is the river at the lowest point of Oxford Road, near the BBC. … Continue reading
Filed under Fish, Mammals, Manchester
AN ELEPHANT NEVER FORGETS…
October 2007 The smell of a hunter! New study, to appear in Current Biology, shows that elephants apparently remember the smell and look of clothes worn by Maasai hunters, but are not perturbed by the clothes of Kamba agriculturalists who pose no threat. … Continue reading
BUZZ OFF ELEPHANTS!
October 2007 If you live on the edge of or in an African National Park, elephants can be a major garden pest. A group from Oxford has discovered that you can drive them away with the sound of bees… DO NOT TRY … Continue reading
Filed under Conservation, Insects, Mammals, Videos
GREYS Vs REDS
October 2007 The latest weapon in the attempt to save the UK Red Squirrel: contraception.
Filed under Mammals
BATS NOT SQUIRRELS, HUMMING-BIRDS NOT SPARROWS
October 2007 This from Emily Burdfield-Steel (2nd Year). Anyone who’s put nuts out for birds knows that squirrels will often come and snarf the lot. In Tucson (Arizona), people feed their humming-birds, but the food gets eaten by bats… Some of them are … Continue reading
LAIKA THE SPACE-DOG
October 2007 Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, was launched 50 years ago this week. A few months later, the Russians sent the first animal into space (although there may have been some small arthropods in Sputnik). That animal was Laika the Space-Dog. … Continue reading
Filed under Mammals
