Category Archives: Biodiversity

Life Finds a Way

This is pretty interesting: An organism that was discovered in a South African gold mine, nearly 3km beneath the Earth’s surface, has scientists “buzzing with excitement” because it offers fascinating evidence that life could exist on other planets, say reports. A community of the organisms was found by researchers in water extracted from a rock […]

The Tower Lions

At some point between the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) and and that of Richard II (1377-1399), two lions lived in the Tower of London. They were part of a Royal Menagerie that was kept at the Tower for some 600 years, until the animals were moved to the London Zoo in the 19th century. […]

First Bees, Now Bats

It’s just plain weird. I wonder if there’s a connection? The obvious link would be if bats feed on bees (or honey), which I suppose some do, but I doubt that’s it.

Odd Critter

It isn’t just new species of insects and bacteria that are being discovered. Every once in a while we get something like this: New Species of Mammal A new species of mammal has been discovered in the mountains of Tanzania, scientists report. The bizarre-looking creature, dubbed Rhynochocyon udzungwensis, is a type of giant elephant shrew, […]

Aliens!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Even if we do discover extraterrestrial life one day, I doubt we’ll ever find any forms of life more bizarre than some of the creatures we have right here on Earth. Look at these non-terrestrial life-forms, for example. And these are just part of a much […]

Killer Mice!

How can gangs of tiny mice take out an albatross 300 times their (individual) weight? I guess it helps that the bird just kind of sits there: The scientists describe a brutal attack to illustrate the finding that chicks didn’t seem to fight against the attackers. “No chicks displayed appropriate behavioral responses to attacks, even […]

Tasmanian Tiger Lives?

Probably not. But then again… Wildlife scientists have re-opened the cryptic case of a carnivore that resembled a striped coyote and vanished from its Australian haunt nearly 80 years ago. While the scientists think chances are slim that the so-called Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) still roams the island off the coast of Australia, they can’t […]

Meet the SpecuFrog

This blog has been around for several years now, and it’s long past time we adopted an official mascot. (Don’t ask me why; it just is. Sheesh.) Anyhow, I nominate this newly discovered South American frog who went to all the trouble of evolving itself into a color scheme highly compatible with the CSS styles […]