Critter News

SEPTEMBER 14, 2009

Worldwide Primates Inc. was started by Mathew Block to import primates into the US for animal experimentation. Block pleaded guilty in February to felony conspiracy to violate the Lacey and Endangered Species Acts by conspiring to smuggle orangutans. According to this website , Worldwide Primates has received $2,411,795.00

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Primates 2002 2004 2005 100

10,000 Birds

APRIL 13, 2015

Ethiopia, a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa, has firmly established itself as one of Africa’s top birding destinations. Its great diversity of habitats hosts an incredible bird count of over 900 species, including Africa’s 2nd highest list of endemics and near-endemics (after South Africa). Yellow-billed Stork.

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Ethiopia Sudan Leopards Birds 255

10,000 Birds

JUNE 21, 2016

Great Tit Telomeres, Baby Talk, Brainy Birds. This morning, I have three interesting scientific findings related to bird for you. First, birds may age more quickly in urban environments. Third, which we already suspected, bird brains are adjusted to provide extra smartness in a way not seen in mammals. urban or rural).

Mammals 137

Mammals Zebras Birds Primates 137

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 16, 2012

A while back I asked the question, How much bird is there, anyway? which was a comparative look at apparent, visible, often in your face biomass we observe when we as diurnal primates look around us. I had noted that if you took a quick look around you’d think there were a lot of birds and very few mammals. Makes you think.

Cats 223

Cats Boston Ferrets Killing 223

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 18, 2016

Man, there are so many birds. Each range is a 12,000 foot fence separating the birds on the coast from the birds in the Amazon, with additional fences in between. Not just birds, but also plants (Colombia boast the most orchid species, too), insects, primates, reptiles. Nearly 1,900 of them.

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Colombia Primates Reptiles Experience 186

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 21, 2014

The socioecology of Monk Parakeets: Insights into parrot social complexity by Elizabeth Hobson, Michael Avery, and Timothy Wright, is a new paper in Auk , with this abstract: In many species, individuals benefit from social associations, but they must balance these benefits with the costs of competition for resources. This: Just like people.

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Parrots Research Dogs Groups 249

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 19, 2014

There is a fantastic paper just out in Science : “Sustained miniaturization and anatomoical innovation in the dinosaurian anceestors of birds” by Michael Lee, Andrea Cau, Darren Naishe and Gareth Dyke. But birds are dinosaurs. Birds have a number of features that distinguish them from, say, camels. As Lee Et.Al

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Camels Whales Whaling Apes 232

10,000 Birds

JUNE 11, 2013

Geladas are the sole survivors of a once abundant branch of primates that historically foraged across the grasslands of Africa, the Mediterranean and India. they are the most terrestrial primate after humans. Geladas spend the fist few hours of the morning grooming and socializing at the edge of their cliffs. Photo by Adam Riley.

Ethiopia 169

Ethiopia Primates Mammals Fur 169

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 21, 2012

My friends, knowing my interest in birds, were eager to show me. In European folklore particularly, birds (that is White Storks ) bringeth babies, and birds (specifically various types of eagles) taketh babies away. Everyone knows you bait eagles with babies in Alpine meadows, DUH.

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Eagles Psychology Primates Montana 142

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Ethiopia , a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa, has firmly established itself as one of Africa’s top birding destinations. Not much was known about Ethiopia’s birds and there was no decent fieldguide. Addis Ababa is a good a site as any for this bird.

Ethiopia 275

Ethiopia Eritrea Africa Mammals 275

10,000 Birds

APRIL 19, 2023

With a transit time of at least two hours from any of the accommodations typically used for birding, this relatively pristine area is awash with surprises. Back in 2014 we stumbled upon a juvenile Double-toothed Kite and that was the first and only time I have ever seen that species well.

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Trinidad Falcons Primates Monkeys 29

Critter News

DECEMBER 12, 2009

The Calgary Zoo is again under scrutiny as details emerged Friday about how a capybara, a species of giant South American rodent, died after becoming caught in a hydraulic door last weekend as it was being moved from one area to another. They were a part of the zoo’s breeding program for the rare birds.

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Zoos Animal Welfare Welfare Elephants 100

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2022

The one bird I did not see here, however, was the Bateleur Eagle … One highlight in the area is the Saddle-billed Stork , likely to be the tallest species in the stork family. This bird is represented in an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. Can’t say that it is a particularly obvious name from seeing the bird.

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Ostriches Parrots Birds Eggs 147

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

Even among our primate relatives, whoa are generally very smart, “Theory of Mind” is found in only a few species. Capuchin monkeys, macaques, Cotton Top Tamarins, Chimpanzees, and many other animals, including various birds, have been investigated and found to be unable to make inferences about HCAs.

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Abandon Abandoning Abandonment Research 268

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 26, 2021

And apart from local people, primate researchers sometimes spot it, but it is a species seen by fewer than ten living birders. This book is essentially about those birds that breed on the continent south of the Sahara, a topic few birders are familiar with.

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Congo Africa South Africa Madagascar 264

10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2018

– Birds are indeed dinosaurs, yet, are indubitably not. Knowledge is knowing that a bird is a dinosaur. There were probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of species of fish-with-feet, and one population gave rise to the so-called “tetrapods,” animals with skeletons, arms, and legs, including modern snakes and living gorillas.

Monkeys 180

Monkeys Gorillas Whales Whaling 180

10,000 Birds

JULY 18, 2019

Presuming that you want to bird Costa Rica, you would book a southbound flight (from N. Reachable by direct flights from Portugal, the island country of Sao Tome and Principe lying in the Gulf of Guinea, in the armpit of Africa, has about 140 bird species and 28 endemics – more endemics per square mile than anywhere else on Earth.

Costa Rica 203

Costa Rica Sri Lanka Rwanda Papua New Guinea 203

10,000 Birds

APRIL 9, 2013

A Long-tailed Sylph, one of the America’s many long tailed hummingbird species, photographed in Colombia by Adam Riley. A Great Argus in full call, this species’ tail consists of the longest feather in the bird world. Image by Cuan Rush/Rockjumper Birding Tours. Widowbirds.

Papua New Guinea 260

Papua New Guinea South Africa Africa Zimbabwe 260

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

The vast majority of the 10,000+ living species of birds are passerines, and the vast majority of those have a similar system of breeding: Mom and dad bird make a nest and share parental responsibilities roughly equally, if not identically. There are variations on that theme, of course. They looked at fairy-wrens and cuckoos.

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Breeders Breeding Birds Groups 246

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2011

I was looking out a car window the other day and noticed that of all the wildlife most of it was bird. A squirrel skittered by … a squirrel is not a bird. So the thought occurred to me that there is a lot of bird on the landscape, in terms of numbers of individuals as well as sheer biomass. Paul islands, studied by Darwin.

Mammals 205

Mammals Rodents Birds Reptiles 205

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2016

One of the key features of birds, and I use the term “key” literally, is vocalization. Primates are exceptional among the mammals, living amphibians (which represent only a small part of the original amphibian family tree) are pretty noisy too. Vocalization is central to bird behavior and evolution.

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Groups Collecting Primates Bats 179

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 25, 2011

A profound and deep understanding of birds is hard to complain about. Despite the vacant look in the eye of a Rock Pigeon , birds are not stupid…they cannot afford to be, or else they wouldn’t be here now. And the ultimate question, the one we may never know the answer to… what is a bird thinking ?

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Emotional Science Birds Mammals 248

10,000 Birds

AUGUST 18, 2011

Recently, the news came out that beloved Archaeopteryx is not really a bird ancestor. This has happened before, Archaeopteryx and the bird family tree have had an often tenuous relationship. The second kind of trait are those held in common by different bird and non-bird lineages because of common ancestry.

Mammals 267

Mammals Europe Groups Family 267

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 28, 2019

Slightly larger than Wales and about the size of the US state of Maryland, this country’s lure is its 703 bird species and three dozen Albertine Rift endemics among them. Ken Behrens is a tour guide for Tropical Birding, originally from Idaho, but now lives in Madagascar. This man is driven, but he gets the birds…”.

Rwanda 223

Rwanda Primates Wildlife Gorillas 223

10,000 Birds

APRIL 15, 2015

I must admit that I was astonished as I had never considered Ghana a potential birding destination, nor knew of any birders who had ever been there. My clients insisted that they wanted to go to Ghana as they had heard that the birding was great. We also knew we had discovered Africa’s next hot birding destination.

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Ghana Hunters Guinea Gambia 233

10,000 Birds

JULY 28, 2022

Hot summer days, often reaching 40C/104F, time to open another beer and dream of birding some cooler place, a place where deep shade of tall trees controls the heat… Perhaps the world’s second largest rainforest? Mammals include Western Lowland Gorilla, Forest Elephant and Forest Buffalo, and eleven diurnal primates.

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Central African Republic Congo Gabon Gorillas 317

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2023

Sepilok is one of the best places I ever spent time birding at – I did so for a week and could have easily spent more time there. So, in order to economize a bit, the Sepilok birds are described in three separate posts. Maybe the HBW should be administered by a university with a stronger interest in birds than Cornell.

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Woodpeckers Birds Eggs India 246

10,000 Birds

DECEMBER 7, 2019

Whatever it was, Corey was found at his keyboard 2 hours later, covered in blood and snot and sporting a cut lip, having announced that he and Mike would rescue the failing list by taking personal responsibility for adding 300 species. Kibale Forest NP–Primate Lodge. 28 Nov 2019. Musk Duck – Biziura lobata. 28 Nov 2019.

2019 166

2019 Farming Sparrows Charlotte 166

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

Darwin Day is February 12th, and for an early celebration I thought I’d take a look at a book that rethinks the way Darwin, and we, think about evolution—a very specific part of evolution, the way beautiful features and behavior have developed amongst birds and, by extension, amongst humans.

Ducks 103

Ducks Research Animal Stud 103

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 30, 2020

Birds, butterflies, flowers, reptiles – you name it, Gehan has covered it. Further chapters detail wildlife watching opportunities for primates, birds, reptiles, turtles, butterflies and dragonflies; a description of the parks and reserves by habitat type; and a wildlife watching calendar to help plan a trip.

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Sri Lanka Whales Whaling Leopards 256