Entries Tagged 'laurasiatherians' ↓

I plan to change web hosts today, if anything weird happens, that is probably why! If all goes well, there won’t be a thing to notice but faster page loads!

Edit: I’m sorry for all the trouble this has caused! I have decided to move back. I guess this was another learning experience???

I really like subterranean animals, but there are so few good pictures! I was surprised to find out that these moles were alive after the photographer found them while gardening. They look so vulnerable!

(I’m getting better at predicting what taxa an animal may belong to, but for the first time in a while, I still had to look up the superorder of a mammal, I wasn’t sure if moles were Euachontoglires, the superorder that includes rodents and primates and their allies, or Laurasiatherians, which is composed of, among other things, bats, carnivorans (cats, dogs, walruses, etc), pangolins, and ungulates), or if they were a member of a completely different superorder. It turns out they are a member of Laurasiatheria, in the order Soricomorpha (which also include shrews and the rare solenodon), which seems to mean they’re more closely related to whales, bears, and bats than any mouse. WELL, NOW I KNOW THAT.)

Via Tracy Lee Carroll’s Flickr photostream.

The title the photographer gave this tapir was “sing a song.” If it is making a sound, I wish I could hear it! I love tapirs but have no idea what they sound like. I think it looks more like the tapir is just taking a breath after a refreshing drink though.

Via Suneko’s Flickr photostream.

I featured a picture by Tambako before in a post that also happened to have a picture of a baby hippo with its mother. I had not realized that they too had taken a picture like this.

Like these wonderful hippos, I must sleep!

Via Tambako’s Flickr photostream.

The red river hog is such a lovely creature, I’m surprised I had not known of it before! I wonder what the benefits for sleeping in such a formation is.

Via Ron Dunnington’s Flickr photostream.

There was a very large political rally in my hometown of Portland, Oregon yesterday, and I wanted to see what the crowd was like. I wasn’t looking for anything to post here, but I really like this picture!

Via Ryan Harvey’s Flickr photostream.

(I’m all for political discourse and activism, but please don’t make any political comments, a comment made on an animal blog is not going change anybody’s mind.)

Via Frank Wouters’ Flickr photostream.

Via the Wikimedia Commons

Grace, in a recent comment on the blog, pointed me to an MSN article featuring 10 species from the EDGE (Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered) of Existence conservation program. (As I am American, I can’t get myself to write “programme.”) It is a very neat program that aims at preserving species that are the most endangered and the most distinct from other species, both physically and behaviorally.

As I did not want to spoil on anything on MSN’s list, I chose to show pictures of a species I really like that was not featured in the article, the saiga antelope.

Link to the MSN article.
Link to the EDGE of Existence program’s homepage.
Link to EDGE of Existence profile of the saiga antelope.

The photographer notes:

This large “Hippo Pool” was totally covered with this green vegatation through which hippo’s would pop up to breath.

It made getting a good shot of them very difficult and with them “blowing” almost impossible.

Via Picture Taker 2′s Flickr Photostream!

It’s World Tapir Day!

Treat your tapir right and give it the appreciation he or she deserves.

Ahhhhhh.

(TapirDay.org)

The animals people are scared of the most are sometimes so cute!

Via Rob Parkin’s Flickr Photostream!