“ The larger a shoal is, the smaller is the proportion of it that needs to know what is actually going on for it to feed and avoid predation effectively. Indeed, having too many leaders with conflicting opinions results in confusion. At least, that is true in the model.”
Touched by a Wild Mountain Gorilla (small version) (par aleutiandream)
Visiting a national park in North Sulawesi, Indonesia, award-winning photographer Mr Slater left his camera unattended for a while.
It soon attracted the attention of an inquisitive female from a local group of crested black macaque monkeys, known for their intelligence and dexterity.
Fascinated by her reflection in the lens, she then somehow managed to start the camera. The upshot: A splendid self-portrait. (via Black macaque takes self-portrait: Monkey borrows photographer’s camera | Mail Online)
Belugas are famed for the way in which their faces are able to convey human-like expressions. Certainly Matrena and Nilma seemed to enjoy frolicking with Natalia. The taming of the whales happened in the Murmansk Oblast region in the far north-west of Russia at the shore of the White Sea near the Arctic Circle branch of the Utrish Dophinarium. (via Naked female scientist tries to tame beluga whales in the arctic | Mail Online)
"In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo, took in Hachikō as a pet. During his owner’s life, Hachikō greeted him at the end of each day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno did not return. The professor had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage and died, never returning to the train station where Hachikō was waiting. Every day for the next nine years the golden brown Akita waited at Shibuya station."
"Almost 200 dead bottlenose dolphin bodies have been found since mid-January through this week along shorelines of Gulf coast states, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Reuters notes. About half of the carcasses are newborns or stillborn infants.
That number is around 14 times the average numbers recorded during the same time frame between 2002 and 2007 and has coincidentally occurred during the first calving season since the BP Deepwater Horizon debacle last year in the Gulf."
That number is around 14 times the average numbers recorded during the same time frame between 2002 and 2007 and has coincidentally occurred during the first calving season since the BP Deepwater Horizon debacle last year in the Gulf."
— Obama administration restricts findings on Gulf’s dead dolphins
CNN and the UK Telegraph have both reported that the dogs have been rescued since the footage aired, and are both receiving veterinary care; the more seriously wounded dog is at a clinic in the city of Mito, while the protective spaniel-type dog is receiving care at a shelter in the same town. (via Yahoo)
Ultimate Loyalty: Japanese Dog Refuses to Leave Injured Friend Behind (via LNeilB2)
“One of our co-authors saw them actually flapping their fins. Some people have seen them jetting water while in flight. We felt that ‘flight’ is more appropriate because it implies something active.” (via Photographic Evidence Proves That Squid Can Fly : TreeHugger)
Seven elephants have been killed by a speeding freight train in eastern India, after two baby elephants strayed onto the tracks and older ones followed to try to save them.
One of the elephants was dragged for about 400 meters (yards), while the other four died on the spot,” district official Kalyan Das told India Today. Two others were severely injured and died hours later, he said. “It is a ghastly sight,” forest conservator S. Patel told the same paper. The baby elephants were among the dead.
Finally, EEG-like recordings have been done in both octopus and cuttlefish, leading to the general (but very preliminary) finding that cephalopods have complex, low-frequency “background” electrical activity in some parts of their brains that seems to vary with their states of consciousness. In addition, they show sensory-evoked changes in this activity, in the same way that human EEGs do. This suggests that some of the gross functional properties of the cephalopod brain might resemble those of mammals on a system-wide level.
All of the arguments by analogy should be taken with a grain of salt, because while it is interesting to consider the possible theoretical importance of the apparent similarities between octopus and vertebrate brains, it seems premature at this point, given how little we know about them. While laterality, distributed low-amplitude electrical activity, and a certain kind of memory system architecture are found in the brains of animals who are almost definitely conscious (eg. mammals and birds,) it’s hard to say that their presence in such highly divergent nervous systems (eg. those of vertebrates and cephalopods) has the same set of functional consequences in all cases. (via Cephalopod Consciousness Part 3: The Case for Cephalopod Consciousness | Cephalove
)
"The two-year-old cephalopod has a record of predicting past German results in this manner, his owners say. Paul has so far correctly predicted all of Germany’s results in South Africa. His keepers say he correctly predicted nearly 70% of Germany’s results during the 2008 European Championship."
— BBC News - ‘Psychic’ octopus predicts Germany victory over England
