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Bawean warty pig may be world’s rarest pig, with only 230 around 

by Fred Pearce

By day, they rest in the surviving scraps of rainforest on their remote tropical-island home. By night, they grub around for tubers and roots in the forest gardens of local communities, dodging guard dogs and the occasional angry farmer with a gun.

Now, the diminutive warty pigs of Bawean, a small island in Indonesia’s Java Sea, have a new claim to fame: they may be the rarest pigs in the world.

The warty pigs of Southeast Asia come in many shapes and sizes – and, it seems, many species too. Often dismissed as little more than pests, they are receiving a taxonomic makeover, with a dozen distinct species now acknowledged, and others likely to emerge.

The latest is the Bawean warty pig (Sus blouchi), a dwarf relative of the Javan warty pig (Sus verrucosus), but now claimed to be a species in its own right…

(read more: New Scientist)

photograph via: Bawean Endemik Konservasi Initiatif

Microscopic tardigrades are also called water bears because of their tiny lil bear legs and tiny lil bear-like movements

Customer: So seeing a whale is guaranteed, right?

Me: Well, it is the open ocean and they are wild animals so we cannot control when and where they are-

Customer: Yeah, but I’m paying to see a whale. How long until we see one?

Me: 

Snowshoe hares’ traditional habitat in Wisconsin may not be white enough to provide the animals with cover as the climate changes.

“The snowshoe hare is perfectly modeled for life on snow,” said Jonathan Pauli, a professor of forest and wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a coauthor of a study recently published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, in a release. “They’re adapted to glide on top of the snow and to blend in with the historical colors of the landscape.”

The snow is vital for snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus), who rely on it for camouflage from predators. But snow is becoming less common in the southern range of their habitat in Wisconsin…

photo by Gordon E. Robertson

Geologic Evidence May Support Chinese Flood Legend

A deluge that washed down the Yellow River nearly 4,000 years ago could be linked to the founding of China’s semi-mythical first dynasty.

Nearly 4,000 years ago, a landslide sent boulders and sediment tumbling into a valley of the Yellow River. The carnage created a massive earthen dam some 660 feet (200 meters) tall, cutting off the river for months.

When that dam finally burst and the river broke free, a massive flood raged across the countryside—and potentially altered the course of Chinese history.

That’s the story told by sediments and archaeological remains described Thursday in a provocative new study published in Science. If correct, the geologic evidence provides a kernel of truth to one of the country’s most important legends: a great flood that paved the way for the Xia, China’s semi-mythical first dynasty.

“Its importance is just like the story of Noah’s flood in the Western world,” says study leader Qinglong Wu of China’s Peking University.

According to the legend, ancient China held a vast watery landscape that took decades to make livable, largely through the efforts of a hero named Yu. For his work, he was rewarded with political power, ultimately founding the Xia dynasty.

There’s considerable debate, however, over whether the Xia actually existed. The main evidence comes from stories written down centuries after their rule, and no archaeologically recovered writings have been concretely tied to the Xia.

If the newly discovered flood is the great flood of legend, it offers tantalizing evidence for the tale. For starters, the flood dates to 1920 B.C., a period that coincides with a critical time in Chinese history: the beginning of the Bronze Age and the start of the Erlitou culture, which some archaeologists associate with the Xia.

“If the great flood really happened, then perhaps it is also likely that the Xia dynasty really existed too. The two are directly tied to each other,” says study co-author David Cohen of National Taiwan University.

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the bajau laut are some of the world’s last true sea normads, living as they have for centuries almost entirely in the waters of the coral triangle (said to contain 75% of the world’s coral species) on long boats known as lepa lepa.

hunters of fish, pearls and sea cucumbers, the bajau people free dive to depths of 20 meters, hold their breath for up to three minutes, and spend up to 60% of their time in the water submerged - the equivalent of a sea otter. it is a common practice amongst bajau people to intentionally burst their ear drums at an early age to deal with the problem of equalizing.

as photographer james morgan explains, “traditional bajau cosmology - a syncretism of animism and islam - reveals a complex relationship with the ocean, which for them is a multifarious and living entity. there are spirits in currents and tides, in coral reefs and mangroves.” the bajau people, for example, will not spit in the ocean.

in the last few decades, increasingly depleted fish stocks and government efforts have forced many to settle permanently on land and abandon a life of self sufficiency known as cari laut, or ‘searching the ocean’. a dwindling few, however, still choose to live the majority of their lives at sea.

Canaries do not hate these spicy treats. In fact, they would be more than willing to eat jalapeno peppers. These are rich in vitamins A and C. / via

protect these precious sea children

Big sister drops to her knees to show affection to newborn Photo by James Irwin