Entries Tagged 'via' ↓

I’ve been reluctant to post because to continue, I have to expand the subject of the blog. Looking for species that are both ugly and/or adorable, I keep on finding species that are either one, the other, or neither, that I find to be very interesting. I’ve become interested in why certain animals are well known in America, and not others (I would be interested in what animals are well known in other regions as well, but having spent most of my life in the United States, I’m not familiar with it). I’ve also become interested in why we see some species as cute or beautiful or ugly. Why is the giraffe, for example, considered beautiful? I would think its proportions would seem grotesque, and its odd face and blue tongue wouldn’t appeal to too many, but somehow it just seems so perfect. I guess I will be using this blog to try to [clumsily] explore a bit more than the ugly/adorable thing is what I am saying, basically!

It seems to me there is a wealth of wonderful marsupials that I’m not terribly familiar with. To me, tree-kangaroo seems like a world-class animal. The bodies of tree-kangaroos differ a bit from their cousins who live on land, to the extant that tree-kangaroos are actually clumsy on land, but it isn’t too difficult to see the relation.

Most species of tree-kangaroos only live in New Guinea, and at what may seem like an unimpressive 45 pounds, the largest species of tree-kangaroos represent the largest native mammals on the island.

The species pictured, the Goodfellow’s tree kangaroo, is endangered, like several other species in the family. This, combined with their remote habitats, and arboreal nature (animals who live in trees often seem to be not as well understood, largely because they’re more difficult for us ground-loving humans to study) are probably why we don’t see them more often. But I like them.

Wikipedia page on tree-kangaroos.
Via Tim Williams’ Flickr photostream.

(I was going to do something relating to the Spore Creature Creator, as it was released as I was writing this, but when I downloaded it, I learned that my graphics card in combination with my operating system did not work. But if you create something uglorable, send it to me at kento [at] uglorable [dot] com . I want to keep this site about animals, and don’t want to clutter it too much with computer stuff because that’s not why most people come here, but I might add them to the collection of creatures I’ve got started at my new sideproject sporepng.com. Hopefully a solution for my tragically outdated (10 months old!) hardware will be available soon, and I will be able to make some too!)

AP Photo

A deer with a single horn has been spotted in Italy. Quote from an AP story:

Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of — but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn, experts said.

“Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case,” said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome’s zoo. He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal’s life.

(Why does Yahoo! News have an “Animals and Insects” sections?)

Yahoo! News story link.
Via BoingBoing!.

Via Nick Lawes’ Flickr photostream.

From the Flickr description page:

face to face with the echidna. Some might say they have a face only a mother could love, but I think they are kind of cute. They are one of three remaining species of egg-laying mammals (monotremes). Taken at the Taronga Zoo, Sydney, NSW, Australia

I’m not sure why anybody would say it’s a face only a mother could love. It’s definitely cute!

Via Alan Wolf’s Flickr photostream.

Via Gerry’s Flickr photostream.

Thanks Kimberly!

Via Malingering’s Flickr photostream.

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.

I got you a pheasant!

The satyr tragopan is a pheasant that lives in the eastern Himalayans. This brilliant plumage is a characteristic of males of the species. Like a number of other pheasants, the plumage of the females is a bit more modest. (I think the females are very pretty though! Brown is an under-appreciated color!)

Via Kuribo’s Flickr photostream.

The mara is another one of those animals that people really ought to be more aware of. A relative of the capybara, the mara is the fourth largest rodent in the world (after capybaras, beavers, and porcupines).

The mara is notable for their combination of communal nesting and monogamy, each relatively rare in mammals, and each rather extreme in the mara (the mara has been observed to nurse young not their own, a behavior called “allonursing,”).

I’ve seen the mara described as a cross between a rabbit and a capybara, or a deer and a capybara, but to me it looks most like a kangaroo and a capybara. (I should note that the capybara is its only close relation, the rabbit a distant second, followed by the deer, and although I think it looks like a kangaroo, out of all of those animals, it would be least closely related to the kangaroo.)

Via Kiyo’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.