The Vaquita Porpoise: Extinct in A Few Months, Unless You Help.

 


© Conservation International Mexico / Northwest Program

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT5PJ12gGLA
(Watch this video. My computer won't upload it.)

"We need your help. Clearwater Marine Aquarium is embarking on a global conservation effort to save the vaquita porpoise from extinction. Found in Mexico’s Gulf of California, the vaquita is the most endangered marine mammal in the world, with less than 100 remaining.
Vaquita are frequently caught unintentionally by local fishermen using giant fishing nets called “gillnets”, where the vaquitas become entangled and die. Nearly one in every five vaquita fall victim to these gillnets.
The Mexican government is currently in discussions with local fishermen to enact a two year ban on the use of these nets. Many fishermen want to help and the Mexican government will compensate the fishermen for their lost earnings during this time. This two year ban will be the first step in helping the vaquita begin to re-populate and save it from extinction.
Join Winter, Hope and the team at Clearwater Marine Aquarium to save the vaquita and enact this two year program. With your help, we can save an entire species that could potentially face extinction in the next few years. It’s Winter’s Hope that the vaquita will survive and remain in our oceans forever.
You can help! Sign here to save the vaquita and be part of the change."

This is from the Clearwater Aquarium website, www.seewinter.com. Please click the link or go to the website to help make a change! I'm going to! (If it's okay with Mom, anyways.)
Both the banner, video, and all of the information before this last paragraph belongs to that website. The picture of the porpose in the net belongs to the Conservation International Mexico / Northwest Program

Meet Rhinorex: A new species of dinosaur recently discovered!

Roughly 75 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous, Rhinorex condrupus lived out its days eating plants in what is now Utah. This species was a hadrosaur, a family commonly regarded as duck-billed dinosaurs that generally had ornamental crests on top of their heads. While Rhinorex didn’t have the decorative crest, it did have a defining facial feature: an extremely large, hook-shaped nose. The research was led by Terry Gates of North Carolina State University, and the results were published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.


Photo credit: Julius Csotonyi, http://csotonyi.com

Learn more about the amazing new dino here.

The pparagraph above is also from the IFL Science page.

Top Ten Things You Didn't Know About A Bird Called The Bobolink!

1. Bobolink is pronounced baa-baa-link, like baa baa black sheep!

2. They have a beautiful song.

3. No other bird looks like a male bobolink…

4. Not even the female!

5. Bobolinks measure 15-21 cm in length…

6. and weigh about the same as 8 quarters.

7. Its scientific name is oryzivorus, meaning “rice eating”.

8. Unlike many other birds, bobolinks build their nest on the ground.

9. They fly about 20,000 km to get to their wintering grounds and back.

10. That’s like flying half way around the world! 

 

Map by Correll Lab of Ornithology

Range data by NatureServe

 

Male Bobolink

Photo Credit: Larry Kirtley

Female Bobolink

Photo Credit: Flickr User HarmonyonPlanetEarth  

 To see more about the Bobolink, click on this link. You can also find more pictures and the original article here.

A Baby's Cry Trancends Species

 
Photo credit: (Clockwise from upper left) Jill Allyn Stafford, Mike Styer, Clay Junell, Steve Harris. All images Creative Commons via flickr

I may not be a mom, but I still find this pretty amazing: (More can be found in the article below)
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/baby-s-cry-transcends-species
 
 If a mother is out shopping and hears a young child crying out “Mommy!” she will turn around. This will happen almost every single time, even if she knows her children are at home or off at college. This ability to recognize and respond to the distress call of someone else’s offspring isn’t just limited to humans. After noticing that most mammalian babies sound fairly similar when crying, Susan Lingle of the University of Winnipeg performed a study and found that wild deer in Canada will respond to the cries of several mammalian species. The results were published in The American Naturalist.

(Above is a paragraph from IFL Science.)

In need of an Awww! moment? Me too.

Okay, so with school, Cross Country, and horseback riding I haven't had too many spare minutes to update this blog. Buuut, I found something sweet that made my day!

More than 300 baby sea turtles off the coast of Florida, thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard Southeast. Aren't they adorable!? Yeah, I pretty much let out a girly squeal when I saw the turtles. And I don't do girly squeals.
 



Photo credit goes to the USCG Southeast's Twitter page: https://twitter.com/USCGSoutheast

Is It Okay To Pee In The Ocean?

According to this article, it's apparently okay to let yourself take a quick leak in the ocean. I still don't like doing it, but if you really gotta go, this video says it's alright. I think it's one of the weirder posts I've written... But still cool. What do you think of the posts I write? 

 

 Photo credit: Michael Matti, "Ocean Sunset in San Diego by Michael Matti" Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

Wolf V.S. Dog

Photo credit: Tambako The Jaguar via Flickr

I love wolves dearly, (My second favorite animal - right behind the horse.) and I thought this was super cool. Okay, so dogs are thought to be domesticated wolves, right? The first dog owners, living tens of thousands of years ago, favored their helpful, cooperative nature. Now, a duo of comparative psychologists studying interactions of lab-raised dogs and wolf packs reveal something rather unexpected: Wolves cooperate, dogs submit, science reports.

Read the full article here!