Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Mar 29, 2016 23:25:21 GMT -5
This week it's.... nothing! Yes the absence of material because nobody actually submitted a fact to me. No submissions of facts mean no facts and no random fact post, I did warn you guys I needed them.
So, no post this week, it's all his fault and hers too!
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Post by haysoos on Mar 30, 2016 8:15:54 GMT -5
The earliest fossil of nothing is from the Micturion period, following the Second Cycle of the Valdrani. Unlike modern nothings, at the time nothings resembled large porcupines with prehensile quills, and stood nearly 70 feet tall.
Today, we know that the peak region of diversity within the nothing clade exists within the weekend plans for high school students, leading experts to speculate that this is actually what Shakespeare was referring to in "Much Ado About Nothing".
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Apr 1, 2016 0:11:16 GMT -5
Aha, April Fools! Yes, I did prepare some facts on the human after all but I'm pretty sure nobody cares now, figured it mistimed given it was three days too early (it's a long con, guys), and/or you just wanted some facts to give a like to. Anyway, this is @cub 's request so here we go. No pictures because you damn well know what a human looks like.
Humans, hairless ape monkeys of the planet, can be found literally anywhere and are considered invasive by almost 92% of species polled, 80% of which are endangered as a direct result of them. These guys are generally sedentary, sometimes not but are mostly interesting for their complete domination of all that surrounds them with little regard for others, "ape shall not kill ape" doesn't apply here. Humans as a group weigh roughly 130-230kg with heights between 1.3~2.0m and will live for upwards of 70 years. The human have an interesting defence mechanism (though rarely spotted) of rolling up hills. When threatened and at the base of the right sort of hill, not too loamy nor steep with no sedges or exposed rock and a good springy grass, it will proceed to ball up and roll quickly up the hill to escape, getting up to speeds of 70km/h. They will commonly consume upwards of 50 eggs in one sitting. As mentioned by haysoos , humans essentially de-evolved down from the rapacious 70 feet tall, bequilled superbeasts of the before times to the blundering fool it is today. Many scent themselves with heavy smells and musks in order to ostensibly attract mates though in studies has been found mostly to be found as a repellent for anyone within 150 metres. The human is the only animal to take animals and befriend them while eating others in an arbitrary cycle of not really knowing which they'll eat or befriend, sometimes doing both to different members of the same species. Laughter is actually not a sign of glee, but a human using their eyeballs to breathe. When they are not being watched, humans will eat their own pocket lint. Humans have a mating ritual called Gsduhfsj where they go to the highest bookcase and whistle until their call is met. Failure to mate usually results in stating it totally did happen to any other humans or cats, dependant on which they have more contact with. Random grab bag to finish... humans bathe by rolling around in a pile of sugar, they know no fear but pretend to be afraid of things so ghosts think they are cool, they need to do at least 2 somersaults a year to stay alive, 18% of human females share parts of mitochondrial DNA from the fairy armadillo, if a human dies in their dreams they reset to zero mentally and all humans are allergic to sheep. All. Not wool nor lanolin or even mutton, just sheep. |
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Post by haysoos on Apr 1, 2016 7:56:29 GMT -5
A recent compelling theory stipulates that humans are descended not from African hominoids, as all palaeontological and archaeological data suggests, but rather from Australian diprotodonts. This so-called "Marsupial Theory" suggests that humans are actually wombats that were shaved by a group of drunken koalas as part of an elaborate practical joke. Unable to take a joke, the shaved wombats fled Australia in shame, and started smashing rocks together - accidentally inventing fire, the wheel, hockey and rock & roll over the course of one really good party. A week later, they invented screwdrivers, golf carts and erasable ink, but since no one had invented screws, golf or paper yet, the inventions were shelved for a few millenia. Marsupial theory goes on to place Metatheria as the basal group of all tetrapods, with fish being the most evolved of all vertebrate groups, having evolved from coastal drop bears that kept falling in the water. The theory gained brief acceptance in the late 80's when haysoos and lizardman actually convinced their buddy oreo using a well timed opening of the Encyclopedia of Mammals right to the page on wombats, but has since waned due to understandable skepticism regarding its complete lack of evidence. |
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Post by Jean Luc de Lemur on Apr 1, 2016 10:05:35 GMT -5
Humans have a mating ritual called Gsduhfsj where they go to the highest bookcase and whistle until their call is met. Failure to mate usually results in stating it totally did happen to any other humans or cats, dependant on which they have more contact with. Note that the bookcase climb is only performed by a certain subspecies of human, the neeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrddddddd. |
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Apr 1, 2016 10:33:30 GMT -5
Aha, April Fools! Yes, I did prepare some facts on the human after all but I'm pretty sure nobody cares now, figured it mistimed given it was three days too early (it's a long con, guys), and/or you just wanted some facts to give a like to. Anyway, this is @cub 's request so here we go. No pictures because you damn well know what a human looks like.
Humans, hairless ape monkeys of the planet, can be found literally anywhere and are considered invasive by almost 92% of species polled, 80% of which are endangered as a direct result of them. These guys are generally sedentary, sometimes not but are mostly interesting for their complete domination of all that surrounds them with little regard for others, "ape shall not kill ape" doesn't apply here. Humans as a group weigh roughly 130-230kg with heights between 1.3~2.0m and will live for upwards of 70 years. The human have an interesting defence mechanism (though rarely spotted) of rolling up hills. When threatened and at the base of the right sort of hill, not too loamy nor steep with no sedges or exposed rock and a good springy grass, it will proceed to ball up and roll quickly up the hill to escape, getting up to speeds of 70km/h. They will commonly consume upwards of 50 eggs in one sitting. As mentioned by haysoos , humans essentially de-evolved down from the rapacious 70 feet tall, bequilled superbeasts of the before times to the blundering fool it is today. Many scent themselves with heavy smells and musks in order to ostensibly attract mates though in studies has been found mostly to be found as a repellent for anyone within 150 metres. The human is the only animal to take animals and befriend them while eating others in an arbitrary cycle of not really knowing which they'll eat or befriend, sometimes doing both to different members of the same species. Laughter is actually not a sign of glee, but a human using their eyeballs to breathe. When they are not being watched, humans will eat their own pocket lint. Humans have a mating ritual called Gsduhfsj where they go to the highest bookcase and whistle until their call is met. Failure to mate usually results in stating it totally did happen to any other humans or cats, dependant on which they have more contact with. Random grab bag to finish... humans bathe by rolling around in a pile of sugar, they know no fear but pretend to be afraid of things so ghosts think they are cool, they need to do at least 2 somersaults a year to stay alive, 18% of human females share parts of mitochondrial DNA from the fairy armadillo, if a human dies in their dreams they reset to zero mentally and all humans are allergic to sheep. All. Not wool nor lanolin or even mutton, just sheep. I believe this is the finest entry in the series to date :-) |
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Post by ganews on Apr 4, 2016 14:47:26 GMT -5
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Apr 6, 2016 1:01:07 GMT -5
After a wild April Fools bit which was warmly received (by moimoi at least, likes are far lower than usual for that entry) we're going back to regular animal facts, this week is upon the lemur and I take this moment to thank you all for keeping up with this nonsense train that pulls out every week. I'll be off from fact delivery until 4th May when it all starts again with African wild dogs. Until then, please enjoy these facts on lemurs!
Lemurs are a type of primate resident to the island of Madagascar. A wildly diverse group, the group Lemuroidea contains over 100 species and even has a few competing taxonomic classifications. For this we'll be looking specifically at the ring-tailed lemur found in the southwestern areas of Madagascar. Lemurs are so named because it was actually intended for slow lorises in India and referred to the ancient Roman Lemuria festival to exorcise malevolent ghosts, or lemures, from homes. That name got pinned on the lorises due to their nocturnal waking cycles and slow movement but later became connected with lemurs in general. Before they were known as lemurs (the ring-tailed type, not lorises), they were called "maucauco". Vital stats for the ringtailed lemur: is around 95-110cm long, most of that in tail, weighs 2.2kg on average and will generally live for someplace between 15-20 years. Socially, male lemurs form groups made up of 10-15 lemurs called troops, within a core group of troops will be a set of dominant females who are essentially leaders of said troops and as a whole is incredibly hierarchical and matriarchal. The diet of the lemurs is omnivorous but mainly consists of tamarinds, flowers, sap and bark. In lean times it can widen out to various insects and small animals, even going down to dirt, cobwebs and rotting wood. Much of how the lemurs communicate is via scent marking. Also included is of course sounds of which there are many and include purring, clicking, squeaking and yelps. Currently the ringtailed lemur is endangered, most of the threat comes from the humans mostly through habitat destruction (they spend a lot of time in trees), hunting for food or as pets. Thankfully, they're unique and appealing to kids so there's reserves and a lot of ability to see one at your local wildlife park. They're also the most common species of primates in captivity due to being reasonably easy to make reproduce and of course the whole "very appealing" aspect of their appearance.
To end this one out (and for this season) here are some pics! |
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Post by Lord Lucan on Apr 6, 2016 12:20:17 GMT -5
These are pretty neat! I think that pack of them eating would look like a tarantula from a distance which I'm not crazy about.
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Post by haysoos on Apr 6, 2016 13:35:15 GMT -5
This page is getting kinda twitchy in my browser. Not sure my computer can handle all these gifs on top of the the 10,000 tabs I have open.
The divergence dates of when lemurs split off from the other primates is an interesting conundrum. According to molecular data, the lemurs are different enough from the other primates, they should have split off about 65 million years ago - basically right at the end of the Cretaceous when the dinosaurs went extinct. Fossil evidence of other prosimians, such as lorises (the lemur's closest relative) suggest that the lemurs didn't split off until somewhere between 55 and 37 million years ago. Paleontologists take this as evidence that geneticists are idjits, and geneticists take it as evidence that paleontologists are poopy-heads.
All of this would be much easier to figure out if Madagascar actually had a decent fossil history - but unfortunately, tropical forests in particular are terrible places for fossil preservation. There are only a few tiny windows into the fossil history of Madagascar, and the earliest known true lemur fossils are from the Late Pleistocene only 26,000 years old.
True to proper megafauna fossil tradition, these Pleistocene lemurs include giant species. In fact, there are three main groups of giant lemurs known from those Late Pleistocene remains. There were the Palaeopropithecidae (sloth lemurs), Megaladapidae (koala lemurs), and the Archaeolemuridae (monkey lemurs). So far, all of the extinct species of lemur that have been described are larger than their living relatives.
There were eight species of sloth lemurs, ranging in size from 22 lbs up to the huge 350 lb Archaeoindrus. Their curved finger and toe bones suggest they hung upside down from branches (suspensory movement), and slowly browsed about for leaves, fruits and seeds.
Koala lemurs were between 100 and 187 lbs (about the size of a male orangutan, or most humans I guess), with long forelimbs and feet with powerful grasping ability and short tails.
Monkey lemurs are probably most similar to baboons. They were between 30 and 75 lbs, and rather more omnivorous than even most lemurs today.
Unlike most other megafauna in other parts of the world, the giant lemurs of Madagascar didn't go extinct at the end of the last Ice Age (Madagascar was glacier free even at the height of the ice ages). Many of the species lasted right up until about 500 years ago, and other Madagascar megafauna, such as hippos lasted until just 100 years ago.
There have been many hypotheses floated to explain the Madagascar megafaunal extinctions, including "Great Fire", "Great Drought", "Hypervirulent Disease" and others. Humans are definitely persons-of-interest, if not outright suspects, but unlike most other cases of megafaunal extinction humans arrived in Madagascar around 2000 years ago, and seem to have lived alongside the giant lemurs perfectly well for quite a long time.
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Apr 6, 2016 13:35:58 GMT -5
See, I found them much cuter than expected. They kind of remind me of Joe Pesci.
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Apr 6, 2016 13:42:12 GMT -5
I didn't know you were going to not find them cute, bunmoi.
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Post by Jean Luc de Lemur on Apr 6, 2016 13:59:57 GMT -5
For reference I am generally neutral on lemurs the animals—my name is just a Star Trek reference:
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Post by Ben Grimm on Apr 6, 2016 15:26:48 GMT -5
The proposed continent of Lemuria was invented as an attempt to explain the distribution of lemurs around the world, prior to the discovery of continental drift.
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Post by songstarliner on Apr 7, 2016 0:13:30 GMT -5
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Apr 7, 2016 0:20:19 GMT -5
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Post by Logoboros on Apr 7, 2016 9:11:16 GMT -5
 I I, too, am a lemur. Therefore I am cute. LOVE ME!  |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Apr 7, 2016 9:15:37 GMT -5
They're both aye-ayes which are lemurs so your math checks out. Like distant bat relations, aren't they? May mean they are bugs though depending who you ask.
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Post by Logoboros on Apr 7, 2016 9:21:10 GMT -5
They're both aye-ayes which are lemurs so your math checks out. Like distant bat relations, aren't they? May mean they are bugs though depending who you ask. Indeed. And to give due credit, I was introduced to the aye-aye by the first chapter of Douglas Adams' nonfiction book, Last Chance to See (about traveling around the world to see highly endangered animals). I recommend it to anyone who enjoys this thread and to anyone who likes their wildlife conservation leavened with a bit of humor. |
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Post by ganews on Apr 7, 2016 9:35:47 GMT -5
I, too, am a lemur. Therefore I am cute. LOVE ME! Hey, I went to the Duke Primate Center as a kid. It's pretty cool. I also bought a ring-tailed lemur plushie. |
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Post by haysoos on Apr 7, 2016 13:52:31 GMT -5
They're both aye-ayes which are lemurs so your math checks out. Like distant bat relations, aren't they? May mean they are bugs though depending who you ask. Interestingly, aye-ayes were at one time classified as rodents. Which probably makes more sense if you see their skull:  |
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Post by Sanziana on Apr 8, 2016 11:38:03 GMT -5
See, I found them much cuter than expected. They kind of remind me of Joe Pesci. For me, it's Steve Buscemi. |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Apr 8, 2016 11:56:19 GMT -5
See, I found them much cuter than expected. They kind of remind me of Joe Pesci. For me, it's Steve Buscemi. Eh, Steve Buscemi strikes me more of a tarsier. |
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Post by haysoos on Apr 8, 2016 14:06:25 GMT -5
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Post by ganews on Apr 8, 2016 15:43:04 GMT -5
The aye-aye definitely looks like Alice Cooper with a side order of Marty Feldman, but it's fairly unique looking even amongst the lemurs. To me, the ring-tailed lemur looks like Jeff Goldblum. But then, who doesn't? |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on May 1, 2016 10:36:54 GMT -5
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Post by Murray the Demonic Skull on May 2, 2016 4:34:31 GMT -5
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on May 11, 2016 2:16:54 GMT -5
Welcome to season three of Hippo's Wild World of Animal Facts, first up on the list is the African wild dog as requested by songstarliner ! If you'd like to join in for season four some 25 weeks from now in November, please make suggestions for what you'd like to see.
The African wild dog is found scattered all around the African continent with the largest populations within Botswana with five identified subspecies to their name. They are also known as African hunting dogs, African painted dogs due to their mottled coats or painted lycaon if you're fancy. These dogs are reasonably big compared with similar wild dog species, standing at around 70cm tall at the shoulder and weighing 20-25 kg. They also have the curious distinctive feature of their large rounded ears. The painted dog generally live on the savanna and drier arid areas through has been sighted in various different climates and heights, many being found high in the various mountains on the continent in pursuit of their prey. Socially they're a tight-knit group, staying in packs of around 4-8 adults with pups which are usually permanent. Diet-wise, it's all meat, all the time with gazelles, impalas, lechwe and various other ungulates making up the bulk of their food. They are very effectivepack hunters with 4 out of 5 hunts ending in a kill and will chase down their prey for upto an hour at speeds of 60kmph though will often end in less than two kilometres. Their main predators are lions who'll often kill entire packs of painted lycaon and have to compete with the spotted hyenas who'll track and try to steal their kills. Human depictions go far back with many people within the continent such as the Egyptians and groups in South Africa and other countries with various mythologies surrounding the wild dogs including one which suggests not to spear a dog as it'll dip its tail into the wound and flick blood at the hunters. As with many animals I seem to cover, they're classified as endangered and as of 2012 seem to have less than 7,000 members total with a lifespan of around five years. Generally, their short lifespans, high susceptibility to just having mass die-offs from disease and greater dispersal of their numbers and main populations means less chance to breed so for once, it's not humans. It's not all bad though, given the right scenarios their numbers could explode rather easily so all that's needed is the right place.
Here's your pics, remember to suggest new animals for me to write about! |
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Post by Lord Lucan on May 11, 2016 22:28:14 GMT -5
The triumphant return!
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on May 12, 2016 1:57:00 GMT -5
Yep, just need haysoos to come along and things should be okay. Think I should announce the return? People may have forgotten during the month and one week I wasn't doing this. |
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