Many of us hear the word drone and cringe; we picture the military using drones to drop bombs and other negative things. But recently drones are become cheaper and cheaper as the technology becomes commonplace, so what better path for the drone to take than to aide in conservation!
odd animal profile: crested black macaque
I fall more and more in love with Indonesia at every turn. I am by no means an expert on it, (not yet anyway) just someone who dreams of living the rest of their life in the jungles of Borneo. It seems every time I fall in love with a new species they are close neighbors of the orangutans, whether it be the beautiful hornbills (O.A.P. to come), or even the ever-curious black crested macaque.
Want to be a citizen scientist?
Gregg Treinish is described by National Geographic as an adventurer and conservationist. Avid hiker and explorer turned biologist, Treinish began to work doing field research. After wandering the globe studying many species, from sturgeon to lynx, he founded Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation. If you dream of being an avid conservationist but don’t have the wallet, this is a great way to get involved.
spontaneous classification
A new study suggests that orangutans (and one young gorilla) may be more capable of identifying types of animals than we had previously given them credit for. In the 1700’s Carolus Linneaus gave two names to each species, organizing species for the first time. He classified them in a hierarchical system, starting broad with kingdom, phylum, class, then getting more specific with family, genus, and finally the most specific, species. It took humans an embarrassingly long time to become so organized and look more critically at the animals we share our planet with.
cheetahs on a truck
I’m an avid follower of National Geographic, and although I love their magazine, I am often disappointed with the frequency of animal related news posts on their website. However, their photography does not disappoint, and I think this is one of my favorites.
life in the field: Borneo
Maybe you’ve read some past blog posts, or been following my journey, or maybe you just read the tagline at the top of my website, but I’m sure you’ve figured out that while I might be in Dallas, my heart lives in Indonesia. I will soon be pursuing a graduate degree at Oxford Brookes University to get my masters in Primate Conservation, which I will be talking about in my next ‘my journey’ post. But while perusing the Facebook page of my future school I came across this lovely blog titled “The Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project” which talks about the animals of Borneo and life of a field researcher.
morbillivirus hits dolphin population hard
There are many natural ways that the population of a species is controlled; natural disasters, wars, and disease outbreak. The human population has had minor disease outbreaks in the last few decades, but nothing on the scale of the bubonic plague in the mid 1300’s. The human population is long overdue for another plague, which is a sad truth. There unfortunately is a disease outbreak in another species that has had a lot of press recently.
my first ‘real’ job
As my study abroad plans to spend a semester in Costa Rica fell through I had to begin looking for an apartment back in Dallas. I was not thrilled because, as much as SMU has done for me, for a while it wasn’t my favorite place. I probably shouldn’t have chosen a school known for business and not at all for science, but at the time I was desperate to get away from Florida for a little while. But my plans of transferring were not looking bright and I was hoping to find a ray of sunshine to make my stay in Dallas more appealing. Enter, the Dallas Zoo.
odd animal profile: maned wolf
Down in South America lives the maned wolf, and like the last OAP, it’s name is a little deceiving. The maned wolf is related to wolves, but only very distantly, it is actually much more closely related to the fox, even then it is the only animal in its genus. The maned wolf is an odd animal because of its odd appearance of a fox on stilts, and its unique temperament.
olinguito
Hiding deep in the Andean Cloud Forests of Columbia and Ecuador was the little, brown, arboreal animal that avoided detection until very recently. The olinguito is the first carnivore discovered in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years. For quite some time it was mislabeled in zoo’s and museums as an olingo, which looks fairly similar but tends to be about double the weight, but with a similar body structure. People simply believed it was just a small olingo.
Endangered Living 