Defpuma - Untitled

Taking part in a predator study in the Mount Hood National Forest. Got some great pics including blurry picture of an endangered subspecies of Red Fox!

Buccleuch Avon, considered to be the ancestor of all modern Labrador Retrievers, 1890-95

Netflix’s new site is a giant “f*ck you” to Comcast and Time Warner

Netflix launched a site late Wednesday night called Fast.com, where — in one click — anyone browsing the internet can see how fast their internet speed is. Although it’s great for consumers, some internet providers might not be happy about the new website.

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Nola was born in the southern savanna woodlands of Sudan. In the mid-1970s she was captured to protect her from poachers, and in 1989 she moved to the San Diego Zoo. She shared her enclosure with buffalo, giraffes and gazelles, and enjoyed daily belly scratches. 

In 1990, a male rhinoceros named Angalifu joined Nola in San Diego, but she wasn’t interested in him. After hormone treatments, she mated with another male named Saut, but never became pregnant.

Saut died in 2004. Angalifu died last year. Nola was getting older, and suffering from a bacterial infection. Yesterday the zoo announced:

In the last 24 hours, Nola’s condition worsened and we made the difficult decision to euthanize her. We’re absolutely devastated by this loss, but resolved to fight even harder to #EndExtinction.

With the death of Nola this weekend, the northern white rhinoceros inches closer to true extinction. But it became extinct in the wild 2008, and the remaining rhinos have all been to old to breed for several of years. Still, there are plans to resurrect the subspecies using a preserved egg and sperm. The San Diego Zoo’s Institute has pledged $2 million to this difficult project. 

And there is reason to be hopeful. A cousin subspecies, the southern white rhino, has seen its population blossom from 20 to 20,000 in the last century thanks to the intervention of humans. 

Want to learn more? Check out this article by my friend (and housemate) Sarah Kaplan.

Image credits: Jeff Keaton, Make it Kenya, Ernst Schäfer, Colin P. Groves et al, TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images 

Two Unique Beetles in Arizona, Kentucky Go Extinct After Lengthy Delays in Protection

I am saddened by the announcement from U.S. Fish and Wildlife that confirms the extinction of Stephan’s riffle beetle (Heterelmis stephani) from Arizona, and the Tatum Cave beetle (Pseudanophthalmus parvus) from Kentucky. 

This will not be front page news. These are not charismatic species and they’re not widely known. This announcement will not generate widespread attention. I predict it may not be picked up by popular media at all - I learned the news from a tweet by Derek Hennen’s (@entoderek), and he’s an entomologist deeply interested in these topics.

Those reasons ^ are partly why I am upset, because I see the lack of attention as indication that people were never given a reason to care in the first place. I did not know of either species until learning, too late, that they are gone. 

But another reason I’m upset is because the dwindling numbers of each population did not happen overnight. According to the announcement, Stephan’s riffle beetle was identified as needing protection under the Endangered Species Act 32 years ago, in 1984. Tatum’s cave beetle was similarly recognized ten years later, in 1994. 

We’ve done a video on the Endangered Species Act, and with that episode we highlighted some of the challenges and roadblocks in place when it comes to receiving governmental protection. The ESA has done a lot of good… but it’s nowhere near perfect. Because of our inability to act nimbly and responsively, these species, and the ecosystems in which they played any number of roles, suffer. 

With announcements such as this - with the knowledge we’ve lost a little more, and are poorer in diversity - I wonder, what can I do? How can I help? What options do we give other people to help? I’ll never have a comprehensive answer, but I will keep generating small answers, sharing ideas and resources, and continue to promote lifelong learning and curiosity. Maybe along the way, we’ll catch the eye of someone interested in helping us fix some of these systems.

Meet a Mount: Peabody Museum Stegosaurus

Taxon: Stegosaurus ungulatus

Specimen Number: PMNH 1853 and PMNH 1858

Year Created: 1910

Stegosaurus was a strange looking animal, but with its long, tottering legs and minuscule head, the Peabody Museum of Natural History Stegosaurus ungulatus mount is stranger still. This mount, constructed by Hugh Gibb and W.S. Benton under the supervision of curator Richard Lull, owes its bizarre proportions to the fact that it is a chimeric combination of at least five differently-sized individuals. 

 O.C. Marsh named Stegosaurus ungulatus in 1877 based on fossils found at Como Bluff, Wyoming, and illustrated it with eight tail spikes. Although modern researchers have since rejected this reconstruction, the mount at Marsh’s home institution still sports the extra-spikey tail. In another way, however, this Stegosaurus mount was ahead of its time. Lull insisted that the tail was held aloft, rather than dragging on the ground, to better function as a defensive weapon.

Unpopular opinion: Allosaurus is way cooler than T. Rex.

Team Allosaurus 2k15