#Papadum the Goat and His Model Genome (Gallery)< p>Currently living on a farm In virginia Papadum was selected recently by the U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) to represent one of more than twenty distinct goat populations from the United states Africa and other
areas across the world.</</p><p>Researchers are collecting and sharing DNA and performance measures for the animals in an effort to identify unique genes with the goal of connecting performance traits with DNA from various breeds.
when the archaeologists discovered a broken hippo hip. In ancient Egypt hippos were considered nuisances as the animals ate crops at night.
The young troops go out and they harpoon them and spear them he told the Toronto audience.
and bound hippo is harpooned to death. This ritual could have taken place at Giza at a public place such as the harbor the hippo meat (apparently quite tasty) being consumed afterwards by the troops in the galleries.
These troops didn't always get the best food. The hippo meat would have been a nice respite from their everyday diet.
The bones the archaeologists found in the galleries indicate they consumed lots of goat and sheep as well as oily bony catfish said Richard Redding chief research officer at Ancient Egypt Research Associates in another symposium presentation.
which is found in the guts of ruminants and is used to make hard cheeses such as cheddar.
#Pandas'Latest Threat: Horses? The 1600 pandas left living in the wild face a new threat:
Horses. Seeking a safe investment farmers in China's Sichuan Province have been increasingly buying up horses
and allowing them to graze in the protected panda habitat of Wolong National Nature Reserve new research finds.
These horses clean out the bamboo groves that pandas rely on for food. It didn't take particular panda expertise to know that something was amiss
when we'd come upon horse-affected bamboo patches Vanessa Hull a doctoral student at the Center for Systems Integration
and Sustainability at Michigan State university said in a statement. They were in the middle of nowhere and it looked like someone had been in there with a lawn mower.
Threatened pandas Giant pandas are finicky about both food and habitat. They require a secluded forested range
and eat bamboo almost exclusively. Photos: A Newborn Giant panda Logging has threatened long panda habitat and conservationists have focused on limiting forest cutting to save the black-and-white bear.
But Hull and her colleagues noticed increasingly that bamboo was vanishing from protected areas. The researchers talked to local farmers
and found that they'd heard from farmers in other areas that horses were to mix livestock metaphors veritable cash-cows.
Horses are banned from grazing in cattle areas so farmers would set them free in the Wolong preserve
and round them up to sell when they needed quick cash. Between 1998 and 2008 the number of horses in Wolong rose from 25 to 350.
Overlapping needs These 350 horses live in perhaps 30 herds. Hull and her colleagues approached four herds
and fitted one horse in each with a GPS collar. They found that the horses'range overlaps with the pandas
and that both animals are drawn to the same sunny slopes and bamboo patches. But while a single horse and a single panda eat about the same amount of bamboo each 20 horses descending on a patch at once cleans out the buffet leaving little for solitary pandas that come later.
Livestock affect most of the world's biodiversity hotspots Jianguo Jack Liu a human-environment scientist at Michigan State said in a statement.
They make up 20 percent of all of the Earth's land mammals and therefore monopolize key resources needed to maintain the Earth's fragile ecosystems.
The findings published in the Journal for Nature Conservation this week have made a difference however.
When Liu Hull and their colleagues presented the results to Wolong Nature Reserve officials they banned horses from the reserve.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+.+Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Original article on Live Science c
#Polar bear Caught on Camera with Eerie Musk ox Horn (Photo) In the blue light of the Russian Arctic scientists captured a rare photo of a polar bear approaching a musk ox carcass Thursday (March 27.
Located 300 miles (483 kilometers) north of the Arctic circle Wrangel Island boasts the highest biodiversity in the Arctic including the biggest population of Pacific walruses and the greatest density of polar bear dens.
While most woolly mammoths died out in Siberia about 10000 years ago dwarf mammoths survived in Wrangel Island until 3700 years ago.
Several factors including predation by grizzly bears hunting access to winter habitats winters with freezing rain
In a new study scientists transplanted hearts from genetically engineered pigs into baboons whose immune systems had been suppressed to prevent them from rejecting the transplants.
The researchers implanted hearts from these pigs into the abdomens of baboons without replacing the monkeys'original hearts but still connecting the pig hearts to the baboons'circulatory system.
The transplanted hearts survived in the baboons for more than 500 days with the baboons taking immunosuppressive drugs the researchers reported.
The next step will be to perform transplants that replace the baboons'hearts with the genetically engineered pig hearts.
if they show that the process works in baboons Mohiuddin said. Besides the heart other tissues could also potentially be transplanted from animals to humans including the liver kidneys pancreas
This included diverse small animals such as hares fish turtles hedgehogs and partridges as well as larger prey such as deer boars horse goats sheep extinct wild
oxen known as aurochs and the onager also known as the Asian wild ass. However by 8200 B c. the meat in the diet shifted overwhelmingly to sheep and goats.
#Monkeys: Facts, Types & Pictures Monkeys live all over the world and come in various shapes sizes and colors.
As one of our closest relatives these mammals are very intelligent and have opposable thumbs allowing them to use tools and play games.
There are more than 260 different types of monkeys. They are separated into two major categories: New world and Old world.
The New world monkeys live in The americas while Old world monkeys live in Asia and Africa. One difference between the two categories is that Old world monkeys don't have prehensile tails;
New world monkeys do. Old world monkeys have special pouches in their cheek where they can store food. Old world monkeys have rump pads
but New world monkeys do not. Also Old world monkeys'nostrils are curved small and and set close together; most New world monkeys have round nostrils set far apart.
Monkeys are varied as in shape and size as humans. The world's smallest monkey is the pygmy marmoset according to the University of Wisconsin.
It weights only around 4 ounces (113 grams) and is only around 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) tall.
The world's largest monkey is the mandrill. It weights around 77 pounds (35 kilograms)
and is around 3 feet (1 meter) tall. Many people think that monkeys just eat bananas
but that isn't true. Monkeys are omnivores. This means that they eat meat and plant-based foods.
Most monkeys eat nuts fruits seeds and flowers. Some monkeys also eat meat in the form of bird's eggs small lizards insects and spiders.
Most monkeys live in trees but there are some that live in savannas or mountain areas. Monkey tribes stay on the move to find food so one location isn't home for very long.
Monkeys are very social creatures. Groups of monkeys are called missions tribes troops or cartloads. A troop will work together to take care of the young monkeys in the group.
They also like to play cuddle and protect each other. The strongest and largest of the male monkeys is the leader of the troop.
In monkey genus groups that practice polygyny the leader will mate with multiple females. The gestation periods for monkeys vary depending on the genus. For example the gestation for a rhesus monkey is 164 days Baboons have a similar gestation period of around 187 days.
Chimps on the other hand have a much longer gestation period of around 237 days according to the San jose State university.
Once born baby monkeys are cared primarily for by their mother. If the monkeys are monogamous the baby monkey may be cared for by both parents.
Many times a young monkey will ride on its mother's back or hang from her neck.
The baby is considered an adult between four and five years old. The taxonomy of a monkey depends on
what type of money it is. The higher categories are the same for all monkeys:
After order the classifications become specific to the type of monkey. Here are some example classifications for two types of monkeys.
Pygmy marmoset Howler monkey While many monkey species are not in danger there are some that are very close to extinction.
For example there are only 150 Tonkin Snub-nosed monkeys in existence. Another monkey on the list is the Tana River Red Colobus.
There are fewer than 1000 of these monkeys left in the world. Both are listed on the 25 Most Endangered Primates list published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group.
The Hainan Black-Crested Gibbon is considered one of the most critically endangered species. There are only 20 of these monkeys left in the world.
If there is a lack of food female monkeys will stop mating until there are better circumstances for getting pregnant.
Even when conditions are right a mother will only give birth once every two years. Proboscis monkeys only eat unripe fruit.
This is because the sugars in ripe fruit ferment. The fermentation causes bloating in the stomach that can kill them.
According to NASA the first living creature in space was named a rhesus monkey Albert I. His launch took place in White sands New mexico on June 11 1948.
The bright blue and red colors on a mandrill's face get brighter when they are excited.
They also have pouches in their cheeks where they store food for snacks. When a troop of howler monkeys yell they can be heard for up to three miles.
Grinning or pulling the lip is a sign of aggression in monkeys along with yawning head bobbing
and jerking the head and shoulders forward. Monkeys express affection and make peace with others by grooming each other.
South american Titi monkeys are rare among primates because they mate for life. They show affection by grooming each other intertwining their tails holding hands cuddling and lip smacking.
Capuchins are skilled tool users. They can smash nuts with rocks insert branches into crevices to capture food and use large branches to club snakes.
They are used often in lab experiments because of their intelligence. A spider monkey is named after its long tail and lengthy spidery limbs.
These monkeys can quickly walk on two legs across a tree branch. Old world monkeys and humans share a common ancestor.
Scientists say the evolutionary split may have occurred between 20 and 30 million years ago. Nina Sen contributed to this article e
#The Navajo Nation s Shifting Sands of Climate Change The Front lines of Climate Change: Global warming is by definition global
but the impacts of climate change touch everyone on a local level. How each community responds depends on its unique mix of people and geography.
This story is part of a Climate Central series that looks at how communities are facing the challenges ahead.
FARMINGTON N m. Cindy Dixon was unloading bales of hay into a metal shed on a blustery afternoon in Mid-march
when the landscape around her Navajo Reservation homestead was as brown and bleak as the open-pit coal mine a few miles to the west and well within earshot.
Normally Dixon s sheep would subsist on the flora of the sandy desert floor but this winter was
so dry that there was no forage for them to eat.##oesince it s all dry
and bare and deserted no vegetation I have to constantly buy hay and grain to keep the sheep fed#Dixon said looking at the land around her trailer.
This is a bad bad area for livestock.##Dixon s northwest New mexico homestead has neither electricity nor running water.
She and her sheep breathe the coal dust blowing in the warm dry air across the desiccated late-winter landscape where the brush of the desert floor appeared as lifeless as the dirt underfoot.
Navajo people raising livestock in one of the poorest regions of the U s. during the Southwest s 20-year drought have to shell out more and more money to keep their traditions of living close to the land alive.#
#oei have to keep buying hay grain and salt blocks#Dixon said. It s gotten really expensive each year.
It gets me in a financial bind. Sometimes I don t have much left for our own grocery.
Dixon s plight is isolated hardly to her homestead. Drought touches every place in the Southwest.
It touches the big cities of Los angeles Phoenix and Albuquerque. It threatens agriculture in California s Central Valley.
Two horses. That s our kids future.##He said he has been writing to both the Navajo
They describe winters where the snow was#chest high on horses. The snowfall snows a significant decline over the 20th century
And yet a large black market for ivory still thrives fueling elephant poaching in Africa. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has estimated that some 96 elephants are killed each day on average mostly for their ivory.
As Hong kong is a major transit point for ivory headed to China conservation groups lauded the decision.
The African Wildlife Foundation's CEO Patrick Bergin also said that by incinerating its stockpile Hong kong will raise awareness that owning ivory has a dark side one that is connected to wholesale elephant slaughter civil unrest terrorism and a complex supply
Land mammals: In order to be kosher land animals must have cloven hooves and chew their cud.
while that of camels rabbits and pigs is not. Sea animals: Kosher sea dwellers must be equipped with fins and scales.
For instance a 2003 study revealed a female mouse's diet can alter the color of her offspring's coat by permanently modifying DNA methylation.
#Catching Hyenas on Camera (Op-Ed) This article was published originally at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices:
I spent a few years in South africa searching for the elusive brown hyaena. The aim of the study was to assess the differences in the distribution and abundance of brown hyaena between protected and unprotected farmland areas in South africa.
The driving force behind the project designed by researchers at Nottingham Trent University was unprecedented the rate of declining global biodiversity caused by an increasing human population.
One species that is implicated in human wildlife conflict is the brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea. Brown hyaenas are classified as Near Threatened#with an estimated 2500 free ranging animals remaining in South africa.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature suggests that brown hyaenas are under threat from human persecution
and habitat loss and that a greater understanding of its distribution and abundance is needed throughout its geographic range.
The brown hyaena is a solitary and nocturnal carnivore that lives in clans and forages alone often over large distances.
However farmers perceived the brown hyaena to be a livestock killer. This misconception has lead to the indiscriminate and unjustified persecution of the species. The scavenging brown hyaenas provide an ecosystem service by cleaning up the carcasses as they eat everything including the skin and bones.
These factors mean that of all South africa s large carnivores it has the ecological attributes to allow co-existence with humans within the unprotected farmlands.
These two reserves contain the Big five#African lion African elephant Cape buffalo African leopard and White or Black rhinoceros and are viewed as a safe haven for brown hyaena.
Surrounding these two protected areas is unprotected farmland where a mixture of game livestock and agricultural farming take place
and where brown hyaena are persecuted. To gather information on the abundance of brown hyaena I turned to camera traps.
Wildlife surveys have been enhanced greatly by the development of camera traps. A key factor is the capture confirmation
In order to maximise the capture rate I needed to understand my target species. For example the brown hyaena use roads as territorial boundaries
of which 10000 were made up of carnivores ranging from the large ones such as lion leopard spotted hyaena brown hyaena wild dog to the medium-sized such as honey badger jackal civet serval caracal
and the small ones such as African wild cat bat eared fox aardwolf common genet slender and banded mongoose.
Using remote camera traps the study found that the relative abundance of brown hyaena was four times lower in farmland areas than in the protected areas.
Low levels of brown hyaena abundance means that conservation efforts should be focused in the unprotected farmland areas
so that not only brown hyaenas but all carnivores survive and thrive in the long-term Next read this:
the ups and downs of getting grumpy bears to have sex Louisa Richmond-Coggan does not work for consult to own shares in
How Koalas Do it With a diet based on eucalyptus leaves that are very fibrous and low in nutrition
and calories koalas live a pretty lazy life spending between 18 and 22 hours a day asleep.
or do koalas maintain an exciting sex life? Found throughout the eucalypt woodlands of Australia koalas are quite solitary animals.
Each individual sets up a home range which can span a few acres to hundreds of acres.
Though these home ranges can overlap a bit the marsupials rarely run into each other. If two territorial males do encounter one another things can get ugly
The fights that the males have are pretty ferocious up in the trees said Bill Ellis a koala researcher with the University of Queensland in Australia.
The bellows researchers have found are produced by a structure in the animal's larynx provide information about the size of the koala
But when Ellis and his colleagues looked at the paternity of newborn joeys in the wild they found that size wasn't everything turns out the female koalas mate with a different male each year.
Like kangaroos and most other marsupials male koalas have headed a double penis and females have two vaginas (a third birthing vagina later forms to bring the new joey into the world
#Pumas, Panthers & Cougars: Facts About America's Big cats The puma is the big cat of The americas.
At one time it ranged from the Yukon in Canada to the Strait of magellan at the tip of South america.
Because these cats were found in so many places local tribes or explorers had their own name for the large felines including cougar mountain lion Florida panther and catamount.
In fact there are more than 80 names for the puma more names than any other animal according to the book Cougar:
The American Lion by Kevin Hansen. It is important to note though that pumas are not bobcats lynxes jaguars cheetahs or leopards.
Typically pumas can be identified by a tan or slightly yellow coat round face long tail and erect ears.
Adult males grow to 6 to 8 feet (1. 8 to 2. 4 meters) long and females average 5 to 7 feet (1. 5 to 2. 1 meters).
Males typically weigh 110 to 180 lbs. 50 to 82 kilograms) and the female 80 to 130 lbs.
A puma's tail is almost as long as its head and body combined. Habitat & habits Pumas can adapt to a wide variety of climates and habitats.
They are found throughout Central and South america. In North america however hunting has reduced their range to isolated areas in Mexico western U s. wilderness areas southern Florida and southwestern Canada according to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.
Unlike other cats pumas do not live in packs. They live by themselves in large territories which they mark using urine or feces.
Pumas are solitary creatures for good reason. They need hunting room to find enough food to live.
Only a few pumas can live in a 30-square-mile (78 square kilometers) radius. Pumas are crepuscular creatures.
Diet Pumas hunt using stealth and strength. To kill their prey usually deer elk or moose the puma sneaks up behind the other animal and then chomps down on the prey's neck with its powerful jaws.
To make the kill last longer it hides its prey from other animals and eat bits of the carcass for several days.
A puma typically kills a deer every 10 to 14 days according to the Mountain lion Foundation.
Pumas can drag prey several times their weight and given the opportunity will hunt domestic animals such as sheep pigs horses and other livestock.
They will also eat small animals such as porcupines coyotes rabbits armadillos capybaras squirrels and raccoons.
Some pumas hunt more than others. Patagonian pumas kill around 50 percent more prey than their North american counterparts according to cougar biologist Mark Elbroch.
Offspring After mating the female will carry her young for a gestation period of 84 to 106 days according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Then she will give birth to a litter of one to six cubs. These cubs are covered typically with spots that can help them blend in with their surroundings.
A female will have a litter once every two years. Classification/taxonomy According to the Integrated Taxonomic Information system ITIS) the taxonomy of pumas is:
Conservation status Pumas once ranged from the Pacific to the Atlantic but they were eliminated from eastern North america within 200 years of colonization according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
During the 20th century large numbers of pumas were killed in the Midwest and Eastern United states by farmers and ranchers who didn't like the puma stealing their livestock.
As a result pumas almost became extinct in those areas. The puma population is not increasing
and more are being killed now than ever before because of habitat destruction trophy hunting poaching poisoning
and being struck by vehicles on roadways (road kill) according to the Mountain lion Foundation. Pumas are listed as Least Concern for extinction
because they are so widespread according to the IUCN. However they are considered to be declining
and the Florida panther is considered endangered and in Brazil pumas are considered Near Threatened. The U s. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the Florida panther the Costa rican puma and the Eastern puma as endangered.
Pumas are protected a species in many areas with hunting prohibited in many South american nations. In the United states hunting is legal in many Western states.
California however banned hunting in a referendum in 1990. Hunting regulations are in place in Canada Mexico and Peru.
Other facts Pumas are extremely athletic. They can run up to 50 mph (80 kph) and jump as high as 15 feet (4. 6 meters.
Pumas don t roar. They use whistles screams squeaks and purrs to communicate. To signal to males that she's ready to mate a female will rub against trees to leave her scent
or will yowl loudly so that the local males can hear her call. Though pumas are problems for ranchers
or farmers they have a very important role in the environment. They keep populations of animals lower down on the food chain in check.
Without them for example those same farmers may have their crops overrun by hungry rabbits. Other resource i
#Alaska's'Hidden'Forests Captured in Unprecedented Detail (Photo) In the middle of Alaska a great expanse of forested land bigger than California has remained quite mysterious until recently.
and are sticky such as fruit snacks and fruit rollups gummy bears and even raisins. These foods stick in between the child s back teeth
two bottom front teeth two top front teeth lateral incisors first/front molars canines and second/back molars.
and Chinese researchers concluded Nesbit's most recent Op-Ed was Will Grizzly-Polar bear Hybrid Wake People Up to Changing Climate?.
Imagine a pet simulator in which a virtual dog or cat reacts to the player's expressions:
is happy when that player is happy sad when the player is sad upset when the player is angry.
Of these more than 330 were killed unintentionally including wolves foxes skunks opossums raccoons bobcats and black bears.
These devices often capture non-target animals including rare and threatened species such as wolverines lynx and grizzly bears.
and more than 850 in neck snares including mountain lions river otters pronghorn antelope deer badgers beavers turtles turkeys ravens ducks geese great blue herons and even a golden eagle.
Even though I was experienced an professional trapper my trap victims included non-target species such as bald eagles and golden eagles a variety of hawks and other birds rabbits sage grouse pet dogs deer
While studying the impacts of wolf snares on moose Alaska biologist Craig Gardner reported in the journal Alces:
Wolf snares can be even less selective than snares set for smaller furbearers because cable diameter and loop circumference are larger set height is higher
and the size and strength of a wolf require that minimum breaking forces must be high...
Based on my 15 years of experience releasing nearly 40 moose from snares and discussions with other Alaskan biologists
I concluded that most moose restrained in wolf snares die either at the capture site or from frozen limbs or nose subsequent to release.
In 2012 more than 3000 coyotes were killed this way in my home state of Montana alone.
And scientists such as Robert Crabtree with the Yellowstone Ecological Research center have found evidence that predators like coyotes respond to lethal persecution by producing more pups
(because most depredating coyotes are adults trying to feed pups). Perhaps most egregiously Wildlife Services is funded largely by taxpayer dollars
and snaring of wolves in the northern Rockies. It's why we've pushed for federal legislation prohibiting the use of poisons to kill wildlife.
The author's most recent op-ed was Montana Landowners May Soon Shoot Trap More Wolves.
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