Posted onJanuary 13, 2018byJames|Comments Off on Litter of Eight Cheetahs Born at Saint Louis Zoo
For the first time in Saint Louis Zoo history, a Cheetah has given birth to eight cubs. Three males and five females were born at the Saint Louis Zoo River’s Edge Cheetah Breeding Center on November 26, 2017.
In over 430 litters documented by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), this is the first time a female Cheetah has produced and reared on her own a litter of eight cubs at a zoo. The average litter size is three to four cubs.
The first few months of life are critical for newborn Cheetahs. The Saint Louis Zoo’s animal care staff is closely monitoring the new family and it appears that all eight cubs are healthy. Four-year-old Bingwa (BING-wah), which means “champion” in Swahili, continues to be an exemplary mother, according to the Cheetah care team.
“She has quickly become adept at caring for her very large litter of cubs: grooming, nursing and caring for them attentively,” says Steve Bircher, curator of mammals/carnivores at the Saint Louis Zoo.
Photo Credits: Carolyn Kelly & Saint Louis Zoo (Images 1,2,4) / Saint Louis Zoo (Images 3,5)
Bingwa is on loan to the Saint Louis Zoo from Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon. The cub’s nine-year-old father, Jason, is on loan from White Oak Conservation in Yulee, Florida. The birth of these eight cubs is a result of a breeding recommendation from the AZA Cheetah Species Survival Plan (SSP), a program to manage a genetically healthy population of cheetahs in North American zoos.
“We’ve brought together Cheetahs from great distances to continue this important breeding program,” says Bircher. “These handsome cats add genetic diversity to the North American Cheetah SSP population.”
Since 1974, the Zoo has been a leader in Cheetah reproductive research and breeding. Over 50 cubs have been born at the Saint Louis Zoo’s Cheetah Breeding Center.
Historically, Cheetahs have ranged widely throughout Africa and Asia. Today, fewer than 10,000 individuals inhabit a broad section of Africa, and less than 100 remain in Iran. Over the past 50 years, Cheetahs have become extinct in at least 13 countries. The main causes of decline are human-cheetah conflict, interspecific competition and lack of genetic diversity.
To help protect Cheetahs in the wild, the Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Institute Center for Conservation of Carnivores in Africa is working with its partners in Tanzania and Namibia to coordinate cheetah conservation efforts, including education, research and other programs to mitigate human-cheetah conflicts.
“Cheetahs are frequently persecuted for killing livestock. Our conservation partners are finding ways to improve the lives of local herders by providing education opportunities, food and medical supplies, so they can live peacefully with Cheetahs and support their protection,” says Bircher.
According to staff, the Zoo’s mother and eight cubs are doing well and will remain in their private, indoor maternity den behind the scenes at River’s Edge for the next several months.
French physicist Marc-Antoine Fardin was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize a couple of months ago for his groundbreaking research in rheology, which is the study of how matter flows and deforms. One of the problems in rheology is the definition of terms. The definition we learn in school is that a liquid is the state of matter that takes the shape of its container, but not the volume. The definition is further refined for scientists.
At the center of the definition of a liquid is an action: A material must be able to modify its form to fit within a container. The action must also have a characteristic duration. In rheology, this is called the relaxation time. Determining if something is liquid depends on whether it’s observed over a time period that’s shorter or longer than the relaxation time.
If we take cats as our example, the fact is that they can adapt their shape to their containers if we give them enough time. Cats are thus liquid if we give them the time to become liquid.
Posted onNovember 7, 2017byJames|Comments Off on Centaur-ific: The Centaur Excavations at Volos
September 29, 2017 — I was surrounded by hordes of 19-year-olds dressed in bright orange and white. Their youth was brazen with their tan legs and fresh faces, and they spoke in accents that placed them far below the Mason-Dixon. I stroked the scraggily beard on my pale, craggy face, feeling my age, and hunkered deeper into my dark cardigan. I just wanted to find a centaur skeleton.
I was braving the sunny campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, slipping through alleys and over walking bridges trying to find the shortest distance between my parking garage and the John C. Hodges Library. Because it had a centaur skeleton. Did I mention that?
Posted onNovember 1, 2017byJames|Comments Off on Whale lifts two kayakers out of the water
Aa video of a large surfacing baleen whale lifting a kayak filled with a father and daughter into the air while they were whale watching off the coast of Puerto Madryn, Argentina. There’s some speculation as to the species of whale doing the gentle lifting, with some viewers believing it’s a southern right whale — a type commonly spotted off the coast of the South American country.
Photo Credits: Carolyn Kelly & Saint Louis Zoo (Images 1,2,4) / Saint Louis Zoo (Images 3,5)
