Why Are Dogs So Friendly?
Dogs are more sociable than their wild cousins, the wolves.
They pay more attention to humans and following our directions and commands more effectively.
Von Holdt, a evolutionary biologist, provided the clue that hyperdogs like Marla carry variants of two genes called GTF2I and GTF2IRD1.
If these genes get deleted, Williams syndrome, which is characterized by elfin facial features, cognitive difficulties, and a tendency to love everyone.
Overall, understanding our best friends is basically how domestic dogs are more respondent to us humans.
Website: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/dogs-breeds-pets-wolves-evolution/
The Eastern quoll nearly gets extinct
The Eastern quoll, an adorable little spotted Australian Marsupial, went extinct 50 years ago in the mainland of Australia.
Quolls certainly have a signature look, a face of a mouse, ears of a lemur, a cat-like body and white polka dots on their thick fur.
Quolls are nocturnal and are not picky eaters; they eat insects or carrion, and will hunt rats, rabbits, birds, and lizards—even animals larger than themselves.
For the first time in five decades, the eastern quoll has been introduced back into the wild.
Forty quolls were moved from Tasmania to the Booderee National Park to ensure a increase in this population.
Website: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/animals-Australia-quolls-marsupials-extinct-reproduction/
Yellowstone Park helps animals migrate across the American West
Yellowstone park made a new movement to help the animals migrate by removing some of the barriers humans have thrown up over recent decades.
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which spans roughly 18 million acres in and around Yellowstone National Park, has thousands of elk, pronghorn antelope, and mule deer that must migrate across Yellowstone’s rugged landscape in order to reproduce and avoid starvation.
The migration makes the Pronghorn antelope jump over a creak, even though they don’t usually jump; the Elk migrate over an 11,000 foot mountain pass in the Absaroka Mountains on their way towards Yellowstone National Park in the late spring time; and make animals swim across fast-moving rivers.
Other that, many problems other than the migration itself happened; a Pronghorn got its leg caught in a barbed-wire fence.
Because of that, the fence, and many others, have since been removed or retrofitted thanks to a nascent movement to preserve migratory corridors.
Website: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/wyoming-yellowstone-pronghorn-migration-news/
Are bears now okay to be hunted?
In the Yellowstone park, the grizzly bears get baited into a cage and wake up with a lip tattoo, an ear tag, and a GPS radio collar attached to them.
Two states say that since the population of grizzly bears increased by a lot, that means three Western states are free to hold highly regulated hunting seasons for the bear.
There are some critics who disagree saying that there is much more bears now than when they were over hunted but that doesn’t mean they can get hunted now for sport.
Protesters such as Jane Goodall, plan to buy up grizzly hunt tickets.
Dan Bjornlie, a large carnivore biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. “But hunting, as long as it’s maintained within the mortality thresholds, is not a threat.”; however, Bonnie Rice, senior representative of the Sierra Club in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies Region, says “It’s the second-slowest reproducing mammal in North America... It’s a species that can’t take that kind of driving down of the population.”
From these two sides, what do you think about this debate?
Website: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/07/can-grizzly-bears-survive-hunting-animals/
Legal international trade for lion skeletons
Although the poaching of lions is illegal, South Africa has made the export of skeletons from captive facilities where lions are bred and raised legal.
Lions are already an endangered species so the demand for lion body parts such as, teeth, bones, and claws do not help them.
There are multiple reports on the horrible conditions made by the businesses that sell lion parts.
The businesses also allow customers to pay for the opportunity to kill the lions in which calling it “canned hunting”.
About 8,000 lions live in lion farms and only about 1,300 and 1,700 adult lions remain in the wild.
These terrible businesses shouldn’t be able to continue to sell lion parts because even if lion poaching is illegal, this is basically also killing off the lions into extinction.
Website: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/07/lion-bone-export-south-africa-wildlife-trafficking-news/
Illegal Tiger Trade
Undercover investigators with the Wildlife Justice Commission visited a tiger farm where people were illegally selling tigers that are hidden in a secret room.
Fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild, but as many as 8,000 are held in captive facilities across China, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The bones of captive tigers are often used for wine or medicinal paste.
The skin of the tiger is used for furniture décor such as rugs or wall hangings.
The teeth may be set in gold and turned into jewelry.
Being able to wear, decorate, and use tiger parts led to people wanting to have them, however this also leads to tiger extinction.
Armored dinosaur found
A plant-eating dinosaur was found in a subtropical continent resembled today's Mississippi.
More than seventy-five million years ago, this dinosaur had lived and died on what scientists now call Laramidia, which was a continent that no longer exists.
The fossils consist of the animal's skull and parts of its skeleton, including its tail club, however the most prominent feature of the dino is the bony knobs dotting its skull that resemble pyramids.
Paleontologists named the new ankylosaurid species, Akainacephalus johnsoni, which is also known as “Johnson’s thorny head”.
Now, the animal's species name honors Randy Johnson, the volunteer fossil preparer who spent thousands of hours cleaning up the dinosaur's skull and lower jaw.
The discovery was amazing.🦕
Spice enduring mammal
Scientists has discovered that humans are not the only mammals who can eat spicy food; Chinese tree screws were found to be able to eat chili peppers.🌶
Researchers found a mutation in the species’ ion channel receptor, TRPV1, that makes it less sensitive to capsaicin.
That acts as a pain receptor on the tongues and throats of mammals, alerting the brain when it comes in contact with harmful heat.
Scientists say that the mutation is a evolutionary adaptation to expand the range of the tree screws diet.
With their mutations, tree shrews don’t feel as much pain from spicy food.
If you like spicy food then, you have something in common with the Chinese tree screw!
Halloween sky
In the sky's of Halloween night there is said to have ghostly figures shown around the constellation Cepheus. Many star constellations are known back as far as the Aztec civilizations. They believed it as legends associated with the moon. What is said to be creepier is that the monster seems to be winking at the star gazers. Even with these theories, keen eyed trick-o-treaters often search for a ghoul.🎃
Kissing Kits
On the field of Prince Edward Island located in Canada, there were red fox kits playing with each other. On average there could be up to six fox kits in one litter. They could stay with their parents for up to seven months. The young offspring can be called kits,cubs,whelps,or pups. The red foxes are known to be intelligent and sly. 🐺
Hello, Spring
Spring is the time of year when Sakura trees, are also called Cherry Blossom trees. Their flowers bloom the most beautiful soft pink color. Many birds come to visit the trees inspecting the offerings given to them by the radiant blossoms. The cherry blossoms are also the national flower of Japan. From this, the Spring time of year is "Japan's busiest tourist season."🇯🇵🌸
Earth-sided planet
11 light years away, there is a dim red star called Ross 128b. These dwarf planets are everywhere however what makes it special is the fact that it has seven Earth sized planets in it orbital embrace. Actually, the closest Earth sized planet in Ross 128b's orbital embrace is Proxima b. This is a great discovery even though all the Earth like planets are nothing like Earth. People still want to find out if Earth has a twin. 🌏 👩👩
' Prehistoric ' shark captured
A shark with a snake head was captured,pulled from the ocean near Portugal. This shark has more than 300 teeth and was around 5 feet in length. From more than 2000 feet below the surface of the sea, it was hauled by a trawler. These Frilled sharks have been around for more than 80 million years but we still don't have enough information on them. This long, slim "living fossil" also poses a large threat to squid and other fish they are thought to prey on because like their modern cousins(Hammerhead , Great white ect.)they have neddle shaped teeth and the jaws to catch large prey. 🇵🇹
Whale spa day
While studying the Bowhead whales, Sarah Fortune discovered that like humans, Bowhead whales in the Canadian Article pamper them selves. To get rid of loose and dead skin, Bowhead whales rub themselves against giant boulders. Beluga whales and Ocras (killer whales) were known to do this but this was the first known for Bowhead whales. The whales regularly molt, shedding the top layer of dead skin. These whale especially use rocks on Cumberland sound to exfoliate their skin. 🐋
Tenzing's Page (Articles all from National Geographic)
