Blackfeet First Nation release 30 buffalo back into wild
I highly recommend clicking through as there is a video of them leaving their enclosure and running off into the plain.
As he watched the half-ton buffalo jump in the waist-high grass at Chief Mountain, Blackfeet Councilman Lauren Monroe Jr. said he thought of his ancestors.
"I thought of the demise they went through," he said. "If they were to understand that our language, our culture, our buffalo would come back one day … it was absolutely momentous as a Blackfeet to be on our land within our sovereignty and do this. We're the leaders. We're choosing our future as we see it."
On Monday, the Blackfeet Nation transferred 30 wild buffalo (iinnii in the Blackfoot language) to tribal lands near Chief Mountain, an area steeped in Blackfeet cultural significance in the northwest corner of the reservation bordering Glacier National Park. The buffalo were brought to the Blackfeet from Alberta in 2016 after testing negative for diseases. In the seven years since, the tribe has been growing the captive herd in preparation for the release.
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"A pair of rare cotton-top tamarin monkeys were just born at Walt Disney World"
Add rare cotton-top tamarins to the list of animals which look like a cartoon came to life.
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The trichromats are indeed better at finding brightly colored fruit, but the dichromats surpass them at finding insects disguised as leaves and sticks. Without a riot of colors to confuse or distract them, they’re better at detecting borders and shapes, and seeing through camouflage.
Fascinating stuff from An Immense World as I read last night. Both for the animal vision insights, but it also made me think about living in this era of big data and the similarities to where businesses with big data are trying to be better at seeing trends but sometimes they might miss the smaller events which make up these trends.
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Socializing shows life extension benefits for other mammals
Mammals only have one life to live, but the length of that life varies greatly. While some shrews shuffle off this mortal coil in less than 14 months, bowhead whales can swim in Arctic waters for more than two centuries. And longevity is not all about size. For example, 250-pound brown bears (with a maximum life span of 40 years) are outlived, on average, by Brandt’s bats (with maximum of 41 years), a species small enough to perch inside the palm of a human hand.
Instead one of the most important factors impacting a mammal’s life span may be the company it keeps. A team of researchers recently analyzed the longevities and lifestyles of nearly 1,000 species of mammals, ranging from aardvarks to zebras. In a study published on Tuesday in Nature Communications, the team discovered that group-living mammals such as ring-tailed lemurs and elephants generally outlive solitary species such as tigers and chipmunks.
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Dolphins have special blood vessels for transferring blood under pressure while swimming
Fascinating stuff.
Now researchers in Canada have a theory as to how cetaceans—dolphins, whales and porpoises—manage to protect their brain from these swimming-induced blood pressure pulses. As described in a new paper published in Science, it's all thanks to specialized networks of blood vessels known as "retia mirabilia."
Scientists have long known that many animals have retia mirabilia. Greek physician Galen described the structures in the second century C.E. and gave them their name, which translates to "wonderful nets." Indeed, retia mirabilia resemble complex stringy nets made up of thin veins and thick arteries. They can be found in a variety of mammals, birds and fish—but rarely humans.
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The whale in the Seine river has been euthanized
I followed this story hoping they would be able to coax it back out into the oceans but today's update is not that. Very sad. I find the large sea mammals some of the most amazing creatures in this world and knowing their relative intelligence, things like this pain me.
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Six new micro frogs found in Mexico
When fully grown the smallest is smaller than a human fingernail.
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