Baby Rhino Refuses to Sleep Alone After Witnessing His Mother’s Gruesome Death




Often we fail to realize that animals have emotions too, and suffer from a sense of loss when a family member dies.
A baby rhino was found 'crying inconsolably' next to his dead mother, who was brutally killed by poachers in South Africa.

According to The Independent:

Quote:Gertjie was rescued from the wild on 7 May by staff at the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre (HESC) in South Africa after he was found next to his mother’s body."It was a devastating sight, as the tiny animal would not leave her side, and was crying inconsolably for her.”Gertjie, or ‘Little G’ as staff have nicknamed him, spent his first night at the center with a human minder and a sheep called Skaap, who acts as the surrogate mother to the animals there.

The good news is, the little rhino is responding to the care and regaining his strength. Now, almost 4 months old, he will remain at the center till he is about 18 months old, after which he will be reintroduced into the wild.The team are appealing for donations to ensure enough fat-free milk for the baby rhino. 
Please donate here.

Population of Ganges River Dolphin has declined from 6000 in 1982 to less than 1800 due to construction of dams and water pollution caused by pesticides, fertilisers, and industrial effluents. A massive drive has been launched to clean Ganga.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes...-gangetica

 

Rhesus Macaques are cannibalism ? This question Arises When An Indian Photographer Saw This



Image Courtesy: Indianaturewatch, Photographer: Lele Gaurav

According to him:

Quote:Throughout a safari at Pench a week ago, I saw something i thought uncommon. In a group war between adversary rhesus macaque aggregates the triumphant gathering appeared to have held a harmed macaque hostage. On first look without binoculars we thought the macaques are ripping apart the dead macaque. Do they rip apart ? At the same time on more intensive look we perceived that the macaque wasn't dead. It appeared to be superbly depleted or bluffing dead. At whatever point it used to get up and make a run the alpha male and his cronies would seize him and begin gnawing. This happened for around 10-15 mins for around 200 meters. A few macaques appeared to be outright curious in the harmed fellow though others appeared to be exceptionally rough. Indeed a few langurs around were intrigued and keeping a watch on macaques. What was behind this apparently merciless conduct ? The macaques weren't expecting to murder or consume the harmed individual simply appeared to continue harming him. He must have succumbed to his damages in a matter of seconds

This is interesting...

http://www.dvice.com/2014-3-14/woolly-ma...scientists

But is it morally right? or even a good idea?
 

 

Do post pics of freakishly large animal specimens.
 

What about the small copyright text below each image (*This image is copyright of its original author)? Should It be removed ? Or it should be there?
Personally I am not liking it anymore. But it is also important you to show image copyright. I seriously need some suggestion from members? I am thinking to put this at bottom of every thread only once ? What is your suggestion ?

Here is another wonderful article.

Date: July 11, 2012 

Source: Bristol University 

Summary: Modern cats diverged in skull shape from their sabre-toothed ancestors early in their evolutionary history and then followed separate evolutionary trajectories, according to new research.

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Fossil skull and lower jaws of a sabre-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis, from the La Brea tar pits of California, USA.
Credit: Image by Simon Powell, School of Earth Sciences

Short Description

The study also found that the separation between modern domestic cats and big cats such as lions and tigers is also deeply rooted.

Dr Manabu Sakamoto and Dr Marcello Ruta in the School of Earth Sciences studied the skull shape of extinct sabre-toothed cats, modern (conical-toothed) cats and prehistoric 'basal' cats (ancestors of modern cats). This is the first time these three different types of cats have been analysed together in a single dataset.

The researchers quantified skull shape by taking various measurements, adjusting these measurements for size differences, then investigating the distribution of cat skulls in shape-space. By estimating ancestral positions through shape-space and time, they investigated patterns of skull shape evolution across the cat family tree.

They found an early and conspicuous divergence between the conical-toothed cats and sabre-toothed cats, with all sabre-toothed cats being more closely related to each other than they were to modern conical-toothed cats.

There was also a marked separation between modern small-medium cats (that is, the domestic cat and its close relatives, the cheetah, puma, ocelot, serval and lynx) and modern big cats (such as the lion, tiger, leopard and jaguar), with a divergence in skull shape early in their evolutionary history. This means that small-medium cats and large cats followed different evolutionary trajectories with respect to skull shape.

Dr Sakamoto said: "Our study is the first to determine the interrelationships between modern conical-toothed cats, sabre-toothed cats, and some basal cats.

"It also highlights how simple measurements can be used not only to investigate shape-space distribution, but also to successfully discriminate and identify different cat species -- this could be useful for museums who may have as yet unidentified cat specimens in their collections.

"Lastly, our results show that differences in cat skull shape have deeply rooted evolutionary histories, first between the sabre-toothed and conical-toothed cats, and then between small-medium and large cats."

Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Bristol University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Manabu Sakamoto, Marcello Ruta. Convergence and Divergence in the Evolution of Cat Skulls: Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Morphological Diversity. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (7): e39752 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039752
   

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Original Source:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711141010.htm

 

 

Hello friends,
I found an article on internet from reliable source that shows tigers have bigger brains, relative to their body size, than lions, leopards or jaguars.

Date:September 13, 2009 
Sourceniversity of Oxford 
Summary:A wide-ranging study of big cat skulls has shown that tigers have bigger brains, relative to their body size, than lions, leopards or jaguars.

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Comparison between greatest length of skull and cranial volume amongst leopard (left on the lower line), jaguar (centre on the lower line), lion (right on the lower line), and tiger (on the upper line).
Credit: Image courtesy of University of Oxford

Short Details
The team investigated the relationship between the skull size – the longest length between the front and back parts of the skull – of a large sample of tigers, lions, leopards and jaguars and the volume inside the cats’ respective craniums. The researchers report their findings in this month’s Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.

'What we had not expected is that the tiger has clearly much bigger relative brain size than do the other three species, which all have similar relative brain sizes,’ said Dr Nobby Yamaguchi of Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), an author of the report with WildCRU Director Professor David Macdonald.

‘When we compare the two biggest species, on average the lion has a bigger skull than the tiger based on the greatest length of the skull. However, the tiger has bigger cranial volume than the lion. It is truly amazing that tiny female Balinese tiger skulls have cranial volumes as large as those of huge male southern African lion skulls.’

It has sometimes been assumed that social species, such as lions, should have larger brains than solitary species, such as tigers, because of the need to handle a more complex social life within groups or prides. However, despite a few studies suggesting a relationship between big brains and sociality in mammals, evidence for the link is far from clear.

Dr Nobby Yamaguchi said: ‘Our results strongly suggest that there is no detectable positive relationship between relative brain size and sociality amongst these four big cat species, which shared a common ancestor around 3.7 million years ago.’The team also looked at the popular idea that tigers are ‘bigger’ than lions (which could mean that the tiger’s relatively bigger brain size simply reflects its bigger body). However, careful re-evaluation of original field data and relatively well-documented hunting records does not support this idea.

So the team concluded that the tigers have a relatively bigger brain (around 16 per cent larger) than lions, given their very similar average body sizes.

Professor Macdonald said: ‘Two general lessons emerge from our findings: first, how much remains to be discovered about even these most familiar of big cats, and second how important museum collections can be as a source of unexpected insights.’

The next step for the researchers is to try to answer whether such a difference can be explained by intrageneric variation or merely by chance. If not by chance, then it raises the question why the tiger evolved a relatively bigger brain (or why other species evolved smaller brains) after the tiger’s ancestor split from the common ancestor to the other three species.

The answers to both these questions may lie in analysing comparative brain anatomy amongst these species (for instance, which parts of the tiger’s brain are bigger than the lion’s) and similar data from extinct relatives of these big cats as well as smaller living relatives such as the snow leopard and clouded leopard.

Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by University of Oxford. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Yamaguchi et al. 'Brain size of the lion (Panthera leo) and the tiger (P. tigris): implications for intrageneric phylogeny, intraspecific differences and the effects of captivity. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009; 98 (1): 85 DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2009.01249.x
   

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Original Source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...145030.htm

 

This first video shows much of the available footage of thylacines.  Sad...

This one is about efforts to clone a thylacine.