Giant Seabird With Teeth

Fossil Skull of Giant Toothy Seabird Found

LIMA, Peru (Feb. 28) - The unusually intact fossilized skull of a giant, bony-toothed seabird that lived up to 10 million years ago was found on Peru's arid southern coast, researchers said Friday.

The fossil is the best-preserved cranium ever found of a pelagornithid, a family of large seabirds believed to have gone extinct some 3 million years ago, said Rodolfo Salas, head of vertebrate paleontology at Peru's National History Museum.

The museum said in a statement that the birds had wingspans of up to 20 feet and may have used the toothlike projections on their beaks to prey on slippery fish and squid. But studying members of the Pelagornithidae family has been difficult because their extremely thin bones — while helpful for keeping the avian giants aloft — tended not to survive as fossils.

"Its fossils are very strange, very rare and very hard to find," Salas told The Associated Press.

The cranium discovered in Peru is 16 inches long and is believed to be 8 million to 10 million years old, based on the age of the rock bed in which it was found.

"Rarely are any bones of these gigantic, marine birds found fossilized uncrushed, and to find an uncrushed skull of this size is very significant," said Ken Campbell, curator of vertebrate zoology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

Campbell, who examined photos of the find but was not involved in the dig, said he knows of "no specimen of comparable quality."

Dan Kepska, a paleontology researcher at North Carolina State University who also was not part of the project, agreed that the skull is the most complete ever reported.
He called the birds "one of the great enigmas of avian paleontology."

With fossils discovered in North America, North Africa and even Antarctica, Kepska said, the birds were ubiquitous only a few million years before humans evolved and scientists puzzle over why they died out. Some believe they are related to gannets and pelicans, while other say they are related to ducks.

Campbell said the Peru find "will undoubtedly be of great importance to our understanding of these gigantic birds, and it will help clarify the relationships of the other fossil pelagornithids found in the Pisco Formation."

The formation, a coastal rock bed south of the capital, Lima, is known for yielding fossils of whales, dolphins, turtles and other marine life dating as far back as 14 million years.

This is a really good find. The section of the paragraph above that is written in red, brings up a theory that was brought to my attention about a year or so ago about dragons. I was told by a knowing gentleman that YOU will not find dragon fossils because the bones were hollow(for flight)and would not stand the test of time as fossils. Is that a possibility? Could be.

"One Step Closer To Dragons",

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Shark Attack & Giant Shark - Australia/Hawaii

Shark Attacks Teen Off Popular Beach

SYDNEY, (March 1) - A shark badly injured a teenage boy while he was surfing with his father at a popular Sydney beach on Sunday, police said, the third shark attack in Australia's largest city in a month.

The 15-year-old boy and his father were in the water off Avalon on Sydney's popular northern beaches around dawn when he was attacked.

"Half an hour later the father heard a scream and turned to see his son thrashing about in the water. Fortunately the shark swam away and the boy was helped to shore by his father," police said in a statement.

The teenager was airlifted to hospital for treatment for leg injuries. Police said the bites "cut through to the bone" but the boy did not appear to have sustained any fractures.

Several beaches were closed after the attack. Water police and lifeguards were searching for the shark, while police hoped to identify its species by the shape of the bite marks.

Many shark species live in the waters off Sydney's popular beaches, but attacks on humans are still relatively rare.

However, there were two attacks on successive days last month, one on a navy diver in Sydney harbour and another on a surfer at the city's world-famous Bondi beach.

Fishermen say shark numbers are on the rise. Marine experts say environmental protection has created a cleaner environment which is attracting sharks closer to shore as they chase fish.

Many shark species, including the Great White, are protected in Australian waters.

Huge Shark Caught at Teahupoo

Last Thursday, two local brothers, Didier and Grard Parker, had been catching the Crown of Thorn starfish with fish nets, ridding the reef of the invasive species. As they pulled up one of their nets it became obvious there was something tangled in it bigger than a starfish, at first they thought it was a swordfish, but to their surprise it was a massive tiger shark. The shark had already drowned and was no threat.

In a weird way, it only makes sense that a shark this big would live in the surf at Teahupoo; raw power begetting raw power and all that. The waves at "Chopu" are nothing short of breathtaking. The Tahitian break isn't incredibly tall, but the surf there is thick, powerful and perfectly glassy. Honestly, even just watching it on TV without anyone surfing it is a wonder to behold, so it's no surprise that Billabong holds one of the WCT's marquee events there every year.

The 2009 Billabong Pro Teahupoo is scheduled to take place from May 9-20. Here's to hoping the surfers have the guts to hit the break after seeing what lurks below.

There is a way to avoid being fish food, "STAY OUT OF THE WATER"! It's their territory and home.

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American Crocodiles & Jaguars

Magnets May Halt Disruptive Crocodiles

Florida wildlife managers have launched an experiment to see if they can keep crocodiles from returning to residential neighborhoods by temporarily taping magnets to their heads to disrupt their "homing" ability.

Researchers at Mexico's Crocodile Museum in Chiapas reported in a biology newsletter they had some success with the method, using it to permanently relocate 20 of the reptiles since 2004.

"We said, 'Hey, we might as well give this a try," Lindsey Hord, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's crocodile response coordinator, said on Tuesday.

Crocodiles are notoriously territorial and when biologists move them from urban areas to new homes in the wild, they often go right back to the place where they were captured, traveling up to 10 miles a week to get there.

Scientists believe they rely in part on the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate, and that taping magnets to both sides of their heads disorients them.

"They're just taped on temporarily," Hord said. "We just put the magnets on when they're captured and since they don't know where we take them, they're lost. The hope would be that they stay where we take them to."

Hord and his co-workers have tried it on two crocodiles since launching the experiment in January, affixing "a common old laboratory magnet" to both sides of the animals' heads. One got run over by a car and died, but the other has yet to return, Hord said.

Once an endangered species, American crocodiles' numbers have rebounded to nearly 2,000 in coastal south Florida, their only habitat in the continental United States. That puts them in increasing contact with humans, especially in areas where backyards border on canals around Miami and the Florida Keys.

Crocodiles are still classified as a threatened species, so game managers are reluctant to move them to new areas where they might be killed battling other resident crocodiles for turf rights, Hord said. Unlike alligators, which are far more numerous, each crocodile is considered important to preserving the species, he said.

"These crocodiles are unique and valuable creatures and we feel like we have a responsibility to live with these animals as much as we can," he said.

Many frightened residents don't share that view, although crocodiles are shy creatures, Hord said. Wildlife managers will try to relocate any thought to pose a significant risk, mainly those that seem to have lost their fear of humans.

Most crocodiles in Florida are tagged as hatchlings so biologists can easily recognize them, Hord said.

Any that come back twice after being captured and moved are sent to zoos or otherwise placed in captivity, something biologists hope to avoid if the magnet experiment works.

"This one is by no means a really well-developed scientific study with a control group. It's just something we thought we would try," Hord said. "We do have to make some room to live with them."

This story gets my blessing because of the fact that these people seem to get it. They realize that we need to learn to live with these ancient creatures instead of trying to destroy them. I hope this program works out well for the crocs and the people.

Here is a link to another animal story that is really on pointRare Jaguars Spotted in North America this is one I want to follow. Jaguars are such magnificent cats.

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Survival, Dog Style! Could YOU?

Dog found after missing 6 months in Montana

HELENA, Mont. — A 7-year-old golden retriever named Buck, startled by a train whistle last summer and lost for six months in north-central Montana, is back home in Washington state thanks to the efforts of several Chester residents.

"I've never had a miracle happen to me, so I don't really know what to think," said Kim Halter of Bonney Lake.

Halter said she, her husband and two of their sons were on a family trip to Montana in August when they stopped at a rest stop along U.S. Highway 2 in the small town of Chester.

"The dog was normally never on a leash. Big mistake," Halter said Thursday. "But he was always next to my son. He never left his side, so we never really had a problem.

"We were under the trestle when the horn blew. When Buck heard the whistle, he took off like a shot. None of us even saw him."

Halter said Maxine Woods, who lives across the highway, was waving her arms and trying to tell them that their dog ran away.

"He just basically disappeared," Woods said Friday. "He was just going faster than any dog I've seen run."

Woods joined the search for the dog.

"She got in her car and then she started calling people and before you knew it everybody around there was looking for our dog," Halter said. After two days of unsuccessful searching, the Halters, brokenhearted, resumed their travels.

"We went to the library and the librarian in Chester made us posters and wouldn't charge us a dime for them," Halter said. The family put up posters in banks and post offices in the small towns around the area.

"That was about all we could do," she said.

After a few false sightings, the family didn't hear anything for six months.

As fall turned into winter, heavy snow fell in the Chester area and temperatures occasionally fell into the 20-below-zero range.

"Every time we'd hear about the weather we would just cringe," Halter said. "I would just cry even harder, thinking 'Where is my Buck?' And of course I couldn't let my son (17-year-old Jason) know. I never let him see me cry because he kept the faith and kept the hope.

"He would tell me all the time that Buck's coming home," she said of her son, who had had the dog since it was a puppy. "He actually thought he was going to walk home like in (the movie) 'Homeward Bound.' "

It was about 27 degrees below zero early on Jan. 25, the day Jason Wanken spotted a stray dog on his family farm just north of Chester.

"We spotted this dog out here on the farm, just on and off, going through the creek and whatnot," Wanken said. "We just never had a prime opportunity to go over and get him."

Later in the week, Wanken used a snowmobile to bring some food to the dog, which had taken up residence under a collapsed building.

Wanken's mother had remembered the name of the golden retriever that had gone missing last summer and told Wanken to see if the dog would answer to the name Buck.

"The next day, I took the boys out with me and I had a full bag of food with me and I just rattled that bag," he said. "I started to feed it and could actually pet it then."

Wanken and his wife were able to use food to lure the dog into a kennel.

They took the dog to Woods' house.

"I thought it couldn't be this dog, though, it's been too long," Wanken said.

Woods called Halter on Saturday, Jan. 31.

"She e-mailed me three pictures and when I was on the phone with her I received the pictures, and we both started crying and I said that was him," Halter said.

Confirmation that the dog had an underbite sent the Halters on a 750-mile trip. "We drove all night," she said, arriving in Chester Sunday afternoon.

"When we got to the Wankens, he ran right up to us and it was absolutely without a doubt him," Halter said. "It was a miracle. He looked at us, and we looked at him and we were all crying. It was beyond amazing."

No one seems to know where Buck had been between Aug. 13 and Jan. 25.

"From the time he left us until the time Jason Wanken found him, there is no clue where he's been or what he's done," Halter said. "Only he knows. I almost feel like taking him to a pet psychic to see if they could tell me. Only he knows his secret and he's keeping it to himself.

"I tell ya one thing, he hasn't stopped smiling since he got home and neither have we."

I posted this not only because it is a tear jerker feel good story, which we could all use, but, it is an incredible story of "survival" to the ultimate. In this day and age, with all the garbage happening to alot of us, this should be an inspiration in getting your act together and moving forward despite all odds.

Think about it. This amazing animal soul was hundreds of miles from home and anyone he knew. He had to deal with weather conditions almost unimaginable. He had no one feeding or providing for him. He probably had to deal with and defend himself against wolves, bears and mountain lions. Yet, this amazing creature kept on pushing forward until he could return to the life he knew. Not just 6 days or 6 weeks, but, 6 months he persevered. He did not sit around waiting for someone or something to make things right for him. He did what he needed to do for his survival. Why can't all humans be like this? Humans may be the "dominant" species on the planet today, however, "the animals are light years ahead of us and will be here long after we are not"!

Here is a link for another touching animal story Koala Rescued From Scorched Land

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Reptillicus Gigantis(Big Snake)

Click to enlarge Credit: Jason Bourque

Ancient Snake Was Longer Than a Bus

Never mind the 40-foot snake that menaced Jennifer Lopez in the 1997 movie "Anaconda." Not even Hollywood could match a new discovery from the ancient world. Fossils from northeastern Colombia reveal the biggest snake ever discovered: a behemoth that stretched 42 to 45 feet long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds.

"This thing weighs more than a bison and is longer than a city bus," enthused snake expert Jack Conrad of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was familiar with the find.

"It could easily eat something the size of a cow. A human would just be toast immediately."

"If it tried to enter my office to eat me, it would have a hard time squeezing through the door," reckoned paleontologist Jason Head of the University of Toronto Missisauga.

Actually, the beast probably munched on ancient relatives of crocodiles in its rainforest home some 58 million to 60 million years ago, he said.

Head is senior author of a report on the find in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

(The same issue carries another significant report from the distant past. Scientists said they'd found the oldest known evidence of animal life, remnants of steroids produced by sponges more than 635 million years ago in Oman.)

The discoverers of the snake named it Titanoboa cerrejonensis ("ty-TAN-o-BO-ah sare-ah-HONE-en-siss"). That means "titanic boa from Cerrejon," the region where it was found.

While related to modern boa constrictors, it behaved more like an anaconda and spent almost all its time in the water, Head said. It could slither on land as well as swim.

Conrad, who wasn't involved in the discovery, called the find "just unbelievable.... It mocks your preconceptions about how big a snake can get."

Titanoboa breaks the record for snake length by about 11 feet, surpassing a creature that lived about 40 million years ago in Egypt, Head said. Among living snake species, the record holder is an individual python measured at about 30 feet long, which is some 12 to 15 feet shorter than typical Titanoboas, said study co-author Jonathan Bloch.

The beast was revealed in early 2007 at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. Bones collected at a huge open-pit coal mine in Colombia were being unpacked, said Bloch, the museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology.

Graduate students unwrapping the fossils "realized they were looking at the bones of a snake.
Not only a snake, but a really big snake."

So they quickly consulted the skeleton of a 17-foot anaconda for comparison. A backbone from that creature is about the size of a silver dollar, Bloch said, while a backbone from Titanoboa is "the size of a large Florida grapefruit."

So far the scientists have found about 180 fossils of backbone and ribs that came from about two dozen individual snakes, and now they hope to go back to Colombia to find parts of the skull, Bloch said.

Titanoboa's size gives clues about its environment. A snake's size is related to how warm its environment is. The fossils suggest equatorial temperatures in its day were significantly warmer than they are now, during a time when the world as a whole was warmer. So equatorial temperatures apparently rose along with the global levels, in contrast to the competing hypothesis that they would not go up much, Head noted.

"It's a leap" to apply the conditions of the past to modern climate change, Head said. But given that, the finding still has "some potentially scary implications for what we're doing to the climate today," he said.

The finding suggest the equatorial regions will warm up along with the planet, he said.

"We won't have giant snakes, however, because we are removing most of their habitats by development and deforestation" in equatorial regions, he said.

See, this is what nightmares are made from. Please, can YOU imagine hiking, biking, camping or, any outdoor activity, and running up on this?! Oh well, we are getting another step closer to finding Godzilla. By the way, there were other new discoveries made recently. Click this link to check some of them out

10 New Amphibian Species Discovered

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Pink Lizard 5 Million Yrs Old, Where's Godzilla?

New Pink Lizard Found on Galapagos

QUITO, Ecuador (Jan. 7) - Hard to believe a giant, pink lizard could be overlooked for almost two centuries.

Charles Darwin missed it during his 1835 study of the Galapagos Islands that led to his theory of evolution. Park rangers ignored the pink and black-striped reptiles after accidentally happening upon them in 1986. Some thought the stripes were just stains.

But scientists now have documented a new species, the iguana "rosada," (pink in Spanish), which may be one of the archipelago's oldest, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Blood and genetic tests on 36 pink iguanas -- which average 3 to 5 feet in length -- show the lizards belong to a previously undiscovered species that appears to live exclusively around Isabela Island's Wolf Volcano, an area Darwin never explored.
Researchers from the University of Rome Tor Vergata and Galapagos National Park began to investigate in 2001 whether the lizards were a different species or an adaptation for environmental or food reasons of the Galapagos' two known land iguanas: the Conolophus subcristatus and Conolophus pallidus.

But the pink iguana, it turns out, is older and likely the predecessor of the two, said Cruz Marquez, a biologist who is part of the research team. It dates back more than 5 million years, researchers say.

The pink iguana has not yet been given a scientific name.

"To discover a large vertebrate that was unknown in an area where there has been a lot of research is very special," Marquez told The Associated Press by telephone from the park.

The pink iguana population size, eating and reproductive habits are still unknown, and no young animals have been discovered, according to a park statement. Further research will determine what resources are needed to guarantee the lizards' survival.

"We need to clarify if reproduction is impeded and for what reasons," lead researcher Gabriele Gentile told the AP, noting that feral cats in the area may be eating the iguana's eggs.

The Galapagos islands, an archipelago located about 620 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast, were protected as a UNESCO's Natural Heritage site in 1978. In 2007 UNESCO declared them at risk due to harm from invasive species, tourism and immigration.

The islands are known for their unique flora and fauna, including marine and land iguanas, blue-footed boobies and giant tortoises that live up to 150 years of age. The variety of finches on the islands inspired Darwin's theory of evolution.

Once again, we, humans that is, have discovered another new species. A large pink lizard. I know, if YOU don't read this story or see the picture, YOU are sitting there going, "yeah, right, a pink lizard"? Well, they found a "pink" lizard.

If they found a "pink lizard", YOU know it is just a matter of time before they find the "king". GODZILLA! Look, do YOU think some Japanese dude was sitting around drinking some bad sake and just came up with Godzilla? NOT! Somebody, during some period of time, saw this creature and passed it down through time. The same applies to "dragons". Keep looking. After all, "only 5% of the oceans on this planet have been explored. We still have 95% to give up the goodies"!

"Animalz, Pink Or Green, Rule,"

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Dog & Cat Talk

Akua Christmas Day '08

Many Say They Understand Their Pets

WASHINGTON (Dec. 17) - Stephen King of rural Texas says he has his dog's vocabulary figured out. Molly Thibodeau says her cats comprehend her so well that they get it when she simply points.

Sixty-seven percent of pet owners say they understand their animals' woofs, meows or other sounds, including 18 percent like King and Thibodeau who say they comprehend completely, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll released Wednesday. In a finding many parents of teenagers would no doubt envy, 62 percent of pet owners say that when they speak, their critter gets the message.

"I speak to her on limited subjects and she does the same with me," said King, 63, a retired chemist from Kempner, Texas, who says he understands his dog, Dagny's, repertoire of barks signaling anger, eagerness, contentment and other feelings. "Common sense works 98 percent of the time."

The high level of communication is but one way the poll highlights the bond between many owners and their pets. According to the survey, conducted by GfK, only one in seven owners say they have been forced to trim spending for their pets during the past year's recession. More than four in 10 — about as many as last year — are buying holiday gifts for their animals.

More women than men say they and their pets understand each other's verbal stabs at communication. Older and lower-income people are also likelier to cite high levels of comprehension between them and their animals.

Thibodeau, 20, of Fort Riley, Kan., said her two cats understand her so completely that if she wants to shoo them off furniture, "I point at them and they get right down."

On the flip side, men are twice as likely as women to say they and their pets are clueless about what each is saying to the other — a group that overall comprises fewer than one in 10 pet owners.

"It's kind of like, 'What are you doing?'" Edwin Oto, 47, of Moraga, Calif., says of his futile efforts to figure out what his dog, Shilo, wants when she keeps barking after he lets her into the house.
Three in 10 dog owners think their pet is baffled when they speak to it, compared with nearly half of cat owners who say the same about their animal.

When it comes to communicating in the other direction, cat owners do better. Twenty-five percent of them say they completely understand their cats' meows, compared with 16 percent of dog owners who claim to be totally fluent in barks.

But Jane Starring, 48, of Barrington, R.I., says she and her family are confounded by their 8-year-old cat, Flannel, who often chases people about the house meowing.

"We're not sure we're making much progress understanding him," said Starring. "I don't know what his point is."

William Miller, a professor of veterinary medicine and medical director of Cornell University's Companion Animal Hospital, says it's not unusual for many owners and pets to understand some of each other's speech. He said animals and people learn to communicate verbally by over time associating certain sounds with actions, such as a particular bark when a dog wishes to go outside or the soothing tone many people use when petting their cat.

"It's not like you'll sit down and have a U.N. conversation with them" spoken in different languages, Miller said.

With many households having more than one pet, 74 percent of all pet owners have a dog and 46 percent have a cat, according to the poll. Men and women were about equally likely to own either kind of animal.

Twelve percent of pet owners have fish, 7 percent have birds, and 2 percent or fewer have horses, rabbits, rodents, turtles, lizards or other pets.

Just 15 percent of all owners said they have scaled back spending for their pets in the past year, suggesting the recession is prompting many to save money other ways before squeezing their pet budget.

"They look to me for food and shelter just like my children do," said Charlotte Phillips, 40, of Abingdon, Va., a mother of two whose family is cutting its overall spending but not for its two dogs and five cats. "They can't fend for themselves."

Of the group that is cutting back, 27 percent say they have seriously considered giving up their pet. Seventy-one percent say they've thought about buying it fewer toys or clothes, while 60 percent cite switching to less costly pet food.

About half spending less for pets say they've thought about postponing routine veterinary visits and getting less grooming. About one in five have considered delaying care for an animal's serious health problems or cutting day care or walking services.

Even so, 43 percent of owners said they would buy holiday gifts for their pets, compared with 46 percent who said they had done so last year. Dogs would seem to have more to look forward to this season: 48 percent of dog owners but just 28 percent of cat owners say they will buy their pets gifts.

The AP-Petside.com poll was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media from Dec. 3-8 and involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,129 randomly chosen pet owners. The margin of sampling error in the poll is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

If YOU are really intune with your pet/animal family member, and, spend time with it as YOU would any other family member, it is quite easy to know and learn what each of YOU are saying to the other. I dont know everything our Siberian says, but, I know quite a bit. As does he. I don't know about YOU, but, if my dog trys to tell me something and I dont understand, "he will look at me as if to say, what are YOU, stupid"?

"Animals Always Will Rule",

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Polar, Smarter Than The Average, Bears

Polar Bears Find New Food Source

(Dec. 15 ) - Polar bears could survive extinction despite many starving to death in coming years, according to scientists and other observers who have discovered that some of the bears have found a new food source — goose and duck eggs.

The eggs could be coming in part from a rebounding goose population in the Hudson Bay area, feeding polar bears whose icy habitat in the Arctic is melting, one new study finds.

In recent years, much of the sea ice that polar bears use as a hunting platform for seal meals has melted, forcing some bears — particularly young males — farther north or onto land, where they are not as adept at hunting. When stuck on land for months, a polar bear typically is forced to survive on its own fat reserves.

The bears were listed earlier this year as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as populations have declined.

Meanwhile, snow geese are thriving near the western Hudson Bay, and researchers say there are in fact too many of them. Their eggs can be a good food source, researchers report in the online version of the journal Polar Biology. The geese nest on tundra that some bears have retreated to.

"Over 40 years, six subadult male bears were seen among snow goose nests, and four of them were sighted after the year 2000," says Robert Rockwell, an ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History and a biology professor at City University of New York's City College. "I've seen a subadult male eat eider duck eggs whole or press its nose against the shell, break it, and eat the contents."

Ice is melting, on average, 0.72 days earlier each year in the region studied. Snow geese are hatching eggs about 0.16 days sooner each year, according to Rockwell and his graduate student Linda Gormezano.

Current trends indicate that the arrival of polar bears will overlap the mean hatching period in 3.6 years, and egg consumption could become a routine, reliable option, the researcher concluded in a statement released today.

A polar bear, the largest land carnivore, would need to consume the eggs of 43 nests to replace the energy gained from the average day of hunting seals, but Rockwell and his colleagues figure that while many polar bears may starve in coming years, the resourceful animals just might survive extinction.

Polar bears survived a warm period about 125,000 years ago, when sea level was 12 to 18 feet (4 to 6 meters) higher than it is now and trees lived above the Arctic Circle, the scientists point out. "They've been through warming before," Rockwell said.

The polar bears' potential movement to a diet of more eggs brought to mind a quote by Ilkoo Angutikjuak, an Inuit who lives in the Canadian province of Nunavut, in the February 2008 issue of Natural History magazine, Rockwell said.

Angutikjuak said: "The animals will adapt, I've heard that because they depend on sea ice, polar bears will go extinct, but I don't believe it. They are very adaptable. As the sea ice changes, polar bears might get skinnier and some might die, but I don't think they will go extinct."

The research was funded by the Hudson Bay Project and the American Museum of Natural History.

As the high lighted paragraph above points out, "polar bears have been through this before, 125,000 years ago, AND, they are still here!" Just like I have been trying to tell everyone for the last little bit of time, "there is NO MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING going on! It is simply the planet going through it's periodic shift cycles. In other words, "been there done that and will do it again". The animals have that concept down. When will humanity figure it out? Right, "probably never".

Animalz Rule,

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Dogs - Fair & Smart

Study Shows Dogs Have Sense of Fairness

WASHINGTON (Dec. 8) – No fair! What parent hasn't heard that from a child who thinks another youngster got more of something. Well, it turns out dogs can react the same way. Ask them to do a trick and they'll give it a try. For a reward, sausage say, they'll happily keep at it. But if one dog gets no reward, and then sees another get sausage for doing the same trick, just try to get the first one to do it again.

Indeed, he may even turn away and refuse to look at you.

Dogs, like people and monkeys, seem to have a sense of fairness.

"Animals react to inequity," said Friederike Range of the University of Vienna, Austria, who lead a team of researchers testing animals at the school's Clever Dog Lab. "To avoid stress, we should try to avoid treating them differently."

Similar responses have been seen in monkeys.

Range said she wasn't surprised at the dogs reaction, since wolves are known to cooperate with one another and appear to be sensitive to each other. Modern dogs are descended from wolves.

Next, she said, will be experiments to test how dogs and wolves work together. "Among other questions, we will investigate how differences in emotions influence cooperative abilities," she said via e-mail.

In the reward experiments reported in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Range and colleagues experimented with dogs that understood the command "paw," to place their paw in the hand of a researcher. It's the same game as teaching a dog to "shake hands."

Those that refused at the start — and one border collie that insisted on trying to herd other dogs — were removed. That left 29 dogs to be tested in varying pairs.

The dogs sat side-by-side with an experimenter in front of them. In front of the experimenter was a divided food bowl with pieces of sausage on one side and brown bread on the other.

The dogs were asked to shake hands and each could see what reward the other received.

When one dog got a reward and the other didn't, the unrewarded animal stopped playing.

When both got a reward all was well.

One thing that did surprise the researchers was that — unlike primates — the dogs didn't seem to care whether the reward was sausage or bread.

Possibly, they suggested, the presence of a reward was so important it obscured any preference.

Other possibilities, they said, are that daily training with their owners overrides a preference, or that the social condition of working next to a partner increased their motivation regardless of which reward they got.

And the dogs never rejected the food, something that primates had done when they thought the reward was unfair.

The dogs, the researchers said, "were not willing to pay a cost by rejecting unfair offers."

Clive Wynne, an associate professor in the psychology department of the University of Florida, isn't so sure the experiment measures the animals reaction to fairness.

"What it means is individuals are responding negatively to being treated less well," he said in a telephone interview.

But the researchers didn't do a control test that had been done in monkey studies, Wynne said, in which a preferred reward was visible but not given to anyone.

In that case the monkeys went on strike because they could see the better reward but got something lesser.

In dogs, he noted, the quality of reward didn't seem to matter, so the test only worked when they got no reward at all, he said.

However, Wynne added, there is "no doubt in my mind that dogs are very, very sensitive to what people are doing and are very smart."

Amen to the "very smart"! And yes, dogs are very sensitive to what people are doing. Our Siberian is very sensitive and, very smart. I know that sometimes he probably thinks his humans are some of the most ignorant beings around. YOU can tell by the way he looks at YOU or responds.

Dogs Are The Best,

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Who Needs Drugs? Where The Females?

Yeah, I did it!

For a lot of animals, being in capitivity is a bigger buzzkill to the libido than a "Golden Girls" marathon. Not so for Demo the orangutan, who has been busy knocking up all three of his female companions at a U.K. zoo.

The 10-year-old primate has three babies on the way after mating with roommates Gambira, Mali and Chinta. Since the number of Bornean orangutans is down to just 50,000 worldwide, Demo is merely doing his part for his dwindling species, which is threatened by hunting, the pet trade and the destruction of its rainforest habitat.

Staff at Paignton Zoo in Devon say they are "amazed" by the three pregnancies and are anxiously awaiting the births. The second largest ape after the gorilla, Bornean orangutans like their alone time, with males and females usually come together only to mate. Hopefully that fact will keep Demo from getting too overloaded with his three new baby mamas.

Unfortunately, not every animal is so attractive ....

Hey, when you're hot you're hot! When YOU are, YOU don't need any scripts! lol

"Animals Rule, Humans Drool",

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