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Post by Lord Lucan on Sept 14, 2016 10:57:44 GMT -5
*slowly walks in....sheepishly glances at Hippo.....* I'm...just going to leave this here.....*runs away* It's really impossible to feel sympathy for cobras, isn't it? I mean, the honey badger's behaviour is deplorable and yet I'm still on its side versus the cobra, which was probably just minding its own business. |
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Post by 🔪 silly buns on Sept 14, 2016 11:10:37 GMT -5
*slowly walks in....sheepishly glances at Hippo.....* I'm...just going to leave this here.....*runs away* It's really impossible to feel sympathy for cobras, isn't it? I mean, the honey badger's behaviour is deplorable and yet I'm still on its side versus the cobra, which was probably just minding its own business. I feel a little bad for the cobra, but I respect the honey badgers sassy behavior. |
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Post by Lord Lucan on Sept 14, 2016 13:42:53 GMT -5
You know what my favourite part of that video is? When he's like, '. . . and, you know, their skin is loose, allowing them to move about freely . . .'. Like that was his fleeting, half-hearted effort to cover some essential facts without editorializing.
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Post by haysoos on Sept 14, 2016 14:47:11 GMT -5
'Their lifespans are pretty short being fierce fighters and around 8 years in the wild is common though this jumps up to 25 years in captivity.' The reasons are obvious, but that's still a remarkable extension. I'd be interested to learn exactly what kills them--these creatures seem to possess Tick-levels of nigh-indestructibility! Lions and leopards will eat them, having little access to Youtube and thus not knowing their reputation. They usually only get old or injured honey badgers though. Tackling a healthy adult just isn't worth the potential mauling. There are a few predators that are equal or greater than the honey badger in their ability to not care, and together they are probably the primary source of most honey badger violent death. One is the spotted hyena. No matter how tough you think you are, a pack of critters that can literally chew up buffalo bones and give birth through their clitoris is tougher. Another is honey badgers. Male honey badgers in particular are ridiculously territorial, and unless mating is involved, simply do not tolerate other honey badgers. Sometimes even if mating is involved. Then of course there's people. Honey badgers have hyuuuuge home ranges. Not quite as far ranging as wolverines, but pretty darned close. Human development and wandering honey badgers rarely mix well. People also kill them deliberately. They are often blamed for attacking livestock (which is probably not often true), and for pillaging commercial beehives (which is probably definitely true). They are also hunted for their body parts, which are common ingredients in various folk remedies, superstitions, and magic potions. |
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Sept 19, 2016 10:26:21 GMT -5
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Post by Powerthirteen on Sept 19, 2016 10:54:56 GMT -5
I'd be interested to learn exactly what kills them--these creatures seem to possess Tick-levels of nigh-indestructibility! Lions and leopards will eat them, having little access to Youtube and thus not knowing their reputation. That's the funniest thing I've read in a while. |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Sept 21, 2016 1:05:50 GMT -5
We did it, made it to the end of season three! After this, there'll be a break in animal facts before season four starts but if you need more Hippo writings there's always my Bob's Burgers reviews which come out weekly starting this Sunday. To close out season three, we'll end with the blue-footed booby and stop giggling in the back, I have a dry eraser and I don't miss!
Blue-footed boobys are a species of bird found in the tropical belt on the Pacific side of the Americas. These odd birds are so named because of their general clumsiness on land and the booby part derives from the Spanish word "bobo" meaning foolish. The most distinctive aspect of the blue-footed booby is their blue feet and beaks which are from pigments from their all fish diet. Generally, their feet colouration helps potential mates assess how healthy the booby who they're attached to is. Less feeding means less blue feet. The birds are a mid-size bird with sizes of up to 90cm and a wingspan of 1m with a weight of 1.5kg with the female being the larger of the two genders. They generally live up to 18 years in captivity with wild ages not thought to be too different. The blue-foots' hunting ability is to basically divebomb at a school of fish, usually sardines or anchovies, from heights of between 10-30m with some even going upwards of that going as deep as 25m underwater. They're not endangered though they are in decline due to issues with breeding and food scarcity, they do have a really odd mating ritual so find that if you can.
The laziest of writing for the bluest of feetses, now here's some pics. |
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Post by haysoos on Sept 21, 2016 11:49:53 GMT -5
Boobies and gannets are quite closely related. So closely that some researchers have suggested that they be included in the same genus. However there are some very obvious skeletal differences (gannets have a smooth bit on the maxilla, and a prominent spine on the pelvis, plus some differences in the sternum), and these differences can be seen in fossils going back to the Miocene some 15 million years ago. So they've been separate lineages for longer than humans have been separated from gorillas and chimps.
Blue-footed boobies are found along the Pacific coast of North & South America - from California to Peru, with about 50% of the population nesting in the Galapagos Islands.
There's another species of booby, the Nazca booby that is limited almost entirely to the Galapagos archipelago.
Other boobies are a bit more widespread though. The masked booby is found throughout the tropical zone of all three major oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian), with the red-footed and brown boobies being almost as widespread.
The earliest fossil booby is from the early Oligocene of France (about 30 mya), and there are additional French boobies known from later in the Oligocene.
I wish I could say that there used to be some sort of giant form of booby that lived in the Pleistocene. Because I like huge boobies. Sadly, as far as I know, there are no such fossils.
There is however, a family of extinct flightless birds known as the Plotopteridae that appear to be closely related to the boobies. Some of these are huge - about the size of a modern emperor penguin. The femur of one from Japan, Copepteryx titan is huge. It was probably well over 2 m tall, and the largest swimming bird ever known. Both the giant flightless boobies of the North Pacific and the giant penguins of the southern hemisphere went extinct about 23 million years ago, which is right around the same time as the dolphin family really started to diversify. It's possible these are related.
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Post by Lord Lucan on Sept 28, 2016 22:26:03 GMT -5
Wednesday's just don't feel the same without a new animal!
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Oct 17, 2016 9:22:33 GMT -5
Little something to tide you over during these animal fact-starved times.  |
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Post by Logoboros on Oct 17, 2016 14:19:02 GMT -5
Hmm. So I'm basically an orangutan who lives the schedule of an elephant. That might explain why I've felt so lousy most of this fall...
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Oct 26, 2016 18:56:39 GMT -5
I found this video about otters, for those of you who need some cute (esp. cute otters):
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on May 9, 2017 21:40:57 GMT -5
kiwi says "hi"  |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on May 10, 2017 0:03:29 GMT -5
hi kiwi
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Mar 16, 2019 4:46:36 GMT -5
Get your notebooks out again, season four of Hippo's Wild World of Animals begins next Wednesday! We'll be starting off with puffins and going from there with domestic cats, blue sea slugs and rollers to begin with, it'll be fun!
If you have any requests, as usual I'm open to them.
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moimoi
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Post by moimoi on Mar 16, 2019 14:13:46 GMT -5
 AHEM! [shuffles impatiently] |
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Post by songstarliner on Mar 16, 2019 14:43:14 GMT -5
Get your notebooks out again, season four of Hippo's Wild World of Animals begins next Wednesday! We'll be starting off with puffins and going from there with domestic cats, blue sea slugs and rollers to begin with, it'll be fun! If you have any requests, as usual I'm open to them. Best news I've heard all year. |
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Mar 16, 2019 17:11:36 GMT -5
AHEM! [shuffles impatiently] Don’t worry, kiwis have been accounted for. |
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Post by Lord Lucan on Mar 18, 2019 1:43:37 GMT -5
I’m racking my brain for a worthy candidate.
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Mar 20, 2019 3:03:19 GMT -5
Welcome to season four! Let's start off with the fluffy little puffin as requested an eternity ago by moimoi .
Puffins are within a group of birds known as auks with three separate subspecies, the Atlantic puffins being the most common. They're well-known for their colourful beaks which are only colourful during breeding seasons and are otherwise a much duller shade and shape. Atlantic puffins, as the name implies, mostly reside in the northerly parts of the Atlantic with much of their breeding grounds on the costal fringes of Greenland, Canada, Iceland, the British Isles and Norway. Outside of breeding periods they spend their time out at sea rarely making landfall. They are mid-size birds, weighing around 400-600g with a height of around 30cm and wingspans of 50-70cm and little to no sexual dimorphism, lifespans are estimated to be around a venerable 40 years. Their calls are very odd, sometimes purring, other times growling but mainly happen to be a quiet bird. The puffin itself has been gradually become more and more threatened with their conservation status currently sitting at Vulnerable. Their numbers are still large at 13 million+ but rapidly declining in some places, most of the threats stem from human activity such as pollution, climate change and hunting though they have helped identify pollutants through bioaccumulation. They mostly live on either sand eels or herring dependant on where their breeding grounds are, predation for the puffin come from other airborne animals such as skua and the great black-backed gull and occasionally from seals. Very low potential for pethood.
Pics! |
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Post by Ben Grimm on Mar 20, 2019 8:38:15 GMT -5
Among puffins' many accomplishments: without them, we wouldn't have Porgs, which were created because they were so ubiquitous on the island they shot Luke's scenes in The Last Jedi that they couldsn't keep them out of frame.
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Post by Lord Lucan on Mar 20, 2019 19:40:49 GMT -5
Such pretty and genial-looking birds. Lundehunds are very seemingly amiable too, but they really ought to accept puffins as chums and not retrieve felled ones.  |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Mar 20, 2019 19:50:19 GMT -5
Puts down herring sandwich
I am seen
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Post by Lord Lucan on Mar 25, 2019 8:30:33 GMT -5
How about doucs and sea turtles.
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Mar 26, 2019 6:57:23 GMT -5
How about doucs and sea turtles. I think both are doable. Cats are still somehow coming but I really don't know what to say about cats. |
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Post by Hippo on Mar 27, 2019 2:56:50 GMT -5
In a small change to the schedule, cats are being bounced to next week with this week being the place for very small molluscs, the blue sea slug as requested by 🔪 silly buns !
The blue sea slug has many a name such as blue dragon, sea swallow and blue angel and professionally as blue glaucus but the main unifying thing is that it's blue. Also, it's incredibly small at only 3cm. As a pretty pretty slug, it doesn't need to look like a slug because it is beyond such things and can be stunningly fabulous. Be careful though as it has quite the sting due to their diet mostly consisting of Portuguese man o' war jellyfish. They can be found drifting around the waters of Peru and India.
There is so so little information on this little creature but look upon it, look how pretty it is! |
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Post by Lord Lucan on Mar 27, 2019 18:17:02 GMT -5
How interesting that their nematocyst defenses are absorbed from the jellyfish they eat.
Microscopic video of them firing:
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Hippo
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Post by Hippo on Apr 3, 2019 7:15:51 GMT -5
This cat exists as an apology for the lack of info on cats. I say "lack" but mean "deep deep pit", so deep in fact that I don't know what is useful or informative or is already common knowledge. So, sad cat, in a bowl. Apologies. haysoos may fill in if he has some nice prehistory info. |
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Post by haysoos on May 3, 2019 11:36:16 GMT -5
Man, I have been waiting months for a period quiet enough that I can pretend to be working when I'm really on TI. Looks like today is finally the day I can shirk some work and get down to something really important. Unfortunately I don't know a huge amount about puffin palaeontology. They go back to at least the Pliocene, about 5 million years ago in both the Atlantic and Pacific. I do know their closest relative is the rhinoceros auklet ( Cerorhinca monocerata).  In fact, rhinoceros auklets are so close to puffins that many researchers suggest calling them rhinoceros puffins. They're definitely closer to puffins than they are to other auklets. Sadly I know even less about nudibranch fossil history. Lacking any kind of hard body parts, they don't really leave much in the way of fossils. The closest relatives to the nudibranchs, the pleurobranchoideans (sea owls) have some types with remnants of shells, and these have been found in Miocene-aged deposits (about 22 million years old). But that doesn't necessarily mean that's when the two groups split. Somewhere else on the forum here, I mentioned that no one really know why nudibranchs often have such dazzling colours. Sea slugs have really shitty vision, so they can't really see each other. Bright colours are often a warning that a critter is toxic or distasteful, but when that occurs in most other groups there are many species that take on the same colouring in order to send the same signal to many more predators - and that doesn't happen in nudibranchs either. Bright warning colours only work if the predator sees them, so many brightly coloured species make a spectacle of themselves, practically daring predators to eat them. But most nudibranchs (even brightly coloured ones) remain cryptic and nocturnal. And the colours that these sea slugs typically pick often include hues that do not penetrate water very well - making those colours practically invisible unless you're right on top of them, or happen to be carrying diving lights (which most aquatic predators lack). So no one really has a good answer as to why these nudibranchs look so fabulous. Cats I do know quite a bit about their palaeontology. In fact I was once contemplating doing a Master's on the convergent evolution of saber-teeth in at least two branches of cat, plus South American marsupials and extinct creodonts. Sadly, I do actually have to get back to doing some actual work now - so hopefully it will be less than several months that I get another chance to post a substantial message again. Arrivederci, frogs! |
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