 |
| A couple of rattlers, Crotalus oreganus, from the Peninsula. |
Stem cell technology might be necessary to save the White Rhino with only two females left. Black Rhinos would make very suitable surrogates.
Wired.com is all over camera trapping the last 6 months. This time a study out of Indonesia using videos. This compilation came from just one month of trapping, but 10 cameras. The water monitor, Varanus salvator, was unexpected. Are more studies using camera traps or are these studies just getting more press? When is Wired doing a story on the Codger?
Black Bear scat reported in Marin -- Camera Trapping Campus in on the case
Is that 12 hummingbirds in your pants or are you just happy to see me?
Tool using FISH!
Next week is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Yes Nobel Prize week. I have four old instructors on this betting list for chemistry, best odds being Scheckman at 19:1 Not seeing odds on Physiology & Medicine yet. If you are super nerd check this Nobel Prize watch 2011 blog.
And just as good as the Nobels, the Ig Nobels, where friend of the Codger Dave Rentz won this year. Dr Rentz's blog BunyipCo is over in the blogroll. CTC was into him before he was famous.
L'shana tova, my friends.
Hi JK
ReplyDeleteThe White Rhino link caught my eye. Rhinos seem to be one of the more popular animals from my neck of the woods, so I thought I'll chip in my 2c worth :)
The White Rhinos around here are doing fine, (despite experiencing a nation wide poaching crisis for the last 1-2 years). Still, there are a couple of thousand left, so the species should be safe for now.
Turns out it is the Northern sub-species that is in trouble.
Thought you might find these links interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_White_Rhinoceros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rhinoceros
The glimmer of light for the Northern whites are that their southern brethren managed to make a comeback themselves, From less than 20 a century ago to over 10 000 today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hluhluwe-Umfolozi_Game_Reserve
I enjoy these link dumps, keep them coming :)
Henry: Thanks for the comment and the links. Yes you are certainly right that the Southern subspecies of the White Rhino is doing much better. So of course they would make a better surrogate than the Black Rhino for an implanted cloned embryo. I had forgotten that there were two subspecies and that is pretty amazing that the Southerns had gotten down to 20! individuals and bounced back to well. There is certainly an issue of loss of genetic variation and bottleneck, but better than the alternative of extinction.
ReplyDelete