Why Do I Say Things

(Source: caturday)

zoo-logic:

Anyone who follows any other nature blogs will probably have already seen this, but it’s too cool not to comment on: seen here is the first adult white killer whale (Orcinus orca) to have ever been identified, nicknamed “Iceberg”. Spotted off the coast of eastern Russia, he seems to be leading a normal life with his pod despite his unusual colouring. His mature 2-metre-high dorsal fin indicates he is at least 16 years old . All other known observations of whales lacking pigmentation have been in young whales and probably led to early deaths, making Iceberg’s case a particularly fascinating one. Isn’t he incredible?

Ref: Black R., 2012. White killer whale adult spotted for first time in wild. BBC News [link] 

This is super cool!!! Killer whales are my favorite

zoo-logic:

For the majority of us, to have to work with blood-sucking leeches would be the stuff of nightmares. But it turns out they’re not all bad. Pioneering research in the rainforests of southeast Asia is making use of their taste for mammalian blood in order to monitor biodiversity without having to search for the animals themselves, which is often very difficult and expensive as well as potentially invasive. Scientists are now tracking which species are present in an area by collecting leeches and analysing the DNA within the meals that they have consumed. The leeches aren’t hard to find - in fact, they actively seek out the researchers themselves, on the hunt for their next meal - and so the method is cheap, efficient, and simple enough to require little training. The idea was initially tested by the University of Copenhagen using leeches fed with goat blood. Amazingly, the leeches were found to contain traces of goat DNA for over 4 months after eating. The project then moved on to analyse 25 leeches from an area of Vietnamese rainforest. The findings implicated the presence of a number of rare species, including the Annamite striped rabbit, which was discovered in the area in 1996 but has not been seen since. The simple leech analysis technique has succeeded where a very expensive 2000 nights of infrared camera trapping failed. As such, the method has exciting potential to improve our knowledge of where endangered species still occur.

Ref: University of Copenhagen, 2012. Leeches are DNA bloodhounds in the jungle. University of Copenhagen [link] 

Maddie #cat (Taken with instagram)

Please credit the artist! I fixed it for you.

(via gameofthrones)

(Source: natazilla)

So good #food (Taken with Instagram at Little Sheep Mongolian Hot Pot and Grill)

Maddie #cat (Taken with instagram)