bleimanb
Posts by this author
July 6, 2008
Researchers have witnessed how cleaner fish calm their subjects, often dangerous predators, by massaging them gently with their fins while they're cleaning them. A new study in the journal Behavior Ecology, however, is showing how this calming effect not only prevents the cleaner fish from becoming…
July 5, 2008
While Andrew and I tend to focus on bizarre animal news from the fringes of research and geography, every once in a while we like to do a fluff piece that is close to home...this next piece couldn't be fluffier or closer to home.
Between the years of 2003-2006, Lewis, a polydactyl, domestic…
June 26, 2008
In a new discovery published in the current issue of the science affairs journal Current Biology , new research reveals that unborn baby crocodiles begin communicating to each other and their mothers moments before they are born.
He can talk. He can talk. He can talk....I CAN SINNNNNNNG!!!
It is…
June 24, 2008
Scientists have solved a timeless question that has divided Andrew and myself, more than once leading us to come to blows...And as it turns out, only one species of giant wombat roamed the planet between 2 million and 10,000 years ago, despite evidence that they varied significantly in size. Boo…
June 18, 2008
First Guy Fawkes, then the IRA, then Al Qaeda. Now England is facing a new threat from within...slugs. The mild, wet winter in England has created the perfect conditions for slug overpopulation and the destruction of British gardens. The Daily Mail (England's most trusted, oldest, and least…
June 16, 2008
A pilot program has been launched in England to take blood samples from animals in zoos not with plastic syringes but with live, bloodsucking insects known as a kissing bugs.
You may feel a slight pinch...
As many of our zoo keeper readers can tell you, taking blood samples from animals in zoos…
June 11, 2008
A new study of barn swallows has shed fascinating light on the link between appearance and the levels of sexual hormones in their bodies. Scientists have long noted that male swallows with deeper red throats attract more females and have higher levels of testosterone. Conventional wisdom assumed…
June 6, 2008
New research published in the journal, Animal Behavior, has shed light on an extraordinary adaptation of unborn cuttlefish: the ability to visualize prey while they are still in their egg casings. Even more astonishing is the findings that embryonic cuttlefish who were exposed to crabs preferred…
June 2, 2008
A study of rare African frogs has revealed a form of self-defense hitherto unbeknownst to the scientific world: claws of pure bone that burst through the frogs' skin. And it gets worse. When the frogs are threatened they need to first "actively break" their own bones in order to create these claws…
May 27, 2008
The Arizona State University's Institute for Species Exploration has released their much anticipated picks for the top ten best new species discovered in the last year. From a rhinosaurus beetle that looks like a Pixar character to a fruit bat the fills in some evolutionary holes, this list…
May 15, 2008
Stories are emerging all over China of how animals started behaving peculiarly days and hours before Monday's deadly earthquake. According to a story filed by the Associated Press, one Chinese province was overrun with toads days before it struck, and hours before the quake in a zoo 600 miles west…
May 8, 2008
Yet another crazy cat person has made the news. This time, 47-year-old Michael Louis Vondueren of Sacramento who was discovered with 300 dead cats, stuffed in various freezers around his house.
A recent photo of Vondueren taken outside his Sacramento home
Andrew and I have been racking our brains…
May 7, 2008
This 6-month old pygmy right whale stranded itself on the beach in New Zealand. It is being dissected by a team of scientists as I write this! The whale has a similar head to true right whales, but scientists do not believe that they are closely related. In fact, they are not quite sure where…
May 6, 2008
Across the U.K., ravens, once peaceful scavengers, have taken to attacking livestock in huge murderous storms. Scottish and Welsh farmers have recently reported flocks of ravens descending on lambs and literally pecking them to death. Kind of like the movie The Birds! just more sensationalized by…
May 1, 2008
I met Chris Green on a boat in Lake Titicaca in September, 2007. Immediately we realized that we had something in common...Weird animals, well kinda. For starters, I just write about weird animals, and Chris actually works with them. Also because he lives on Tasmania, he doesn't really consider the…
April 29, 2008
A soon to be released book, The Thinkers Of The Jungle, by Gerd Schuster, Willie Smits and Jay Ullal, contains this first-ever image of an orangutan attempting to hunt fish with a spear. The picture was taken in Borneo on Kaja, an island where rescued apes are rehabilitated.
Only about 10 million…
April 28, 2008
UPDATE: Looks like the fount of wisdom that is The Time's Online lost a thing or two in the translation. Lucky for us, informed Zooillogix reader and sometimes D&D player, Dragon's Sorrow End, has set the record straight.
The government of Switzerland has passed the most comprehensive laws in…
April 22, 2008
It is common knowledge that Andrew and I have a thing for mantis shrimps. Simply put, they are sweet. Andrew even has a poster of a mantis shrimp on the ceiling in his bedroom.
New research in a recent issue of Current Biology indicates that these amazing creatures are even MORE incredible than we…
April 21, 2008
A friend of mine (I'll call him Duncan Lye to protect his identity) recently returned from a surf trip to Costa Rica with an amazing tale.
It all started when Duncan --a large man, known both for his voracious appetite and his unbending temperament-- awoke, early one morning, to find that he had…
April 10, 2008
Here is a transcript of our exclusive interview with Dr. Jane Goodall...enjoy.
Jane spoke with Zooillogix at a teacher's conference in New York City, where she had given a speech to educators about living in harmony with the Earth and ingraining youngsters with community service experience early…
April 9, 2008
Thanks to two readers, the infamous Mike Witherspoon and the illustrious Tanya Poon, we have been alerted to two mega-sweet articles in the New York Times.
The first from the Science Times yesterday tells the story of Cape Coral, Florida, a coastal town that was alarmed by a strange noise coming…
April 8, 2008
Deep in the heart of the jungles of Borneo a new frog has been found that is rocking the very foundations of frog biology the world over. Why? Because, for God's sake, it has no lungs. Instead, it gets all the oxygen it needs by absorbing it through its skin.
Can you do me a favor real quick and…
April 2, 2008
New research has revealed some stunning courtship rituals of octopuses including flirting, hand holding, lover guarding, and even stalking the Myspace pages of potential mates.
The studies were conducted by the University of California, Berkeley on Abdopus aculeatus a kind of octopus living in a…
April 1, 2008
We received an outpouring of comments on our post about the massive rabbits being raised in Britain. Thanks to our loyal reader HP, however, we were able to find some disturbing footage of gigantic rabbits actually feeding.
Another vid below the fold...
Night of the Lepus is widely considered to…
March 28, 2008
This week we've brought you a heartwarming tale of a couple who wove sweaters from the hair of their deceased hounds and the touching story of a giant squid who overcame incredible odds to achieve its dream of becoming plastinated and dangled above French people.
Well, thanks to one of our most…
March 28, 2008
Our close knitting buddy, Liesele, was kind enough to point this out. We thought we would be doing our readers who are in the market for a yak a disservice not to reprint it.
Craigslist Washington
"We have a nice Trim Yak Bull. He's four years old and has bred our 2 Yak cows twice. The calves he'…