History of animals
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: General History
Forum Name: Natural History
Forum Discription: History viewed through ecology, geology, paleoclimatology, paleontology & zoology to assist in understanding earth's history
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16186
Printed Date: 23-Apr-2024 at 19:47
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Topic: History of animals
Posted By: omshanti
Subject: History of animals
Date Posted: 13-Nov-2006 at 20:14
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I am not sure if this (general history ) is the right place to post this topic. I thought of posting it in the tavern or the intellectual discussions first but changed my mind because I thought animals need to be considered a part of the history as seriously as humans even though they do not have the ability to make or manipulate history like humans. They have been used , mistreated , hunted , driven to extinction and massacred by humans throughout the history. They have survived on earth which has been under the rule of humanity for thousands of years and which is increasingly becoming over-populated by humans and uncomfortable for animals. Maybe it is time for us humans to stop being so selfish and self- centered and devote a thread to the history of animals .We share the planet with them. Maybe by learning to respect animals, we can also learn to respect other people who are our fellow human-beings. At least we can forget in this thread about all those nationalistic views so popular in the All-empires forum, because nobody can claim a horse or a cat or a dog to be Turkic or Indian or Chinese or Aryan or African or American etc... So please share anything you know regarding the histiory of animals. It does not matter weather it is related to humans or not, just any thing about animals. Those below are the few things I know from here and there.
Lions lived in the middle east and Europe untill the 3rd century AD. The European lions are thought to have been a little bigger in size than the African lions and were extinct largely because of the huntings of the Roman empire. As you know Romans used lions for amusement and made them fight with gladiators.
Tigers lived in a much larger area than they do now (India ,Southeast-asia). They lived all the way to the middle east and Caucasus untill the 18th -19th century AD.
Horses are thought to have originally evolved in the American continent and later spread across the world while extinct in their homeland the Americas. When the Spanish took horses to the Americas from Europe in the 15th century AD , they were in fact reintroducing horses to their homeland.
Italian grey-hounds are a type of dog originating in Anatolia but were very popular as pets during the Renaissance time in Italy.
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Replies:
Posted By: Paul
Date Posted: 13-Nov-2006 at 20:26
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The one I always like is the Northern European Rhino, which was hunted to exstinction by pre-historic peoples.
Also the Moa in New Zealand, a bird which was 4 metres tall and only went extinct 400 year ago, thanks to the Maouri. ------------- Light blue touch paper and stand well back http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk - http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk - http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk |
Posted By: Eondt
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 04:03
| The wolf was once one of the most wide-spread and successful predators on the planet, until almost driven to extinction by man. |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 04:50
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There were supposedly a species of Hippopotamus living in the Thames River and around London in ancient times, however sources regarding this are not 100% credilbe. Note to self: Look further into this Great Topic; This is my real passion - animals - so I look forward to having good discussion, sharing some knowledge and learning new information! - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 04:55
And gave birth to an unbearable family of puns, which I decline to perpetuate.
 The history of the racehorse is well-documented and interesting. For starters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoroughbred - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoroughbred
And of course the racehorse is the only animal other than a human to have been a Roman Senator. ------------- |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 05:26
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As we know, many large mammals became extinct due to human recreation/hunting, sprawl and various other natural/unnatural processes. Some of the most noted examples were featured in the Roman Arenas: >>European Lion (Panthera leo europaea) - Distributed in Southern Europe from the Iberia through to Liguria, Southern (Cisalpine) Gaul, as well as the Italian Peninsula. The full extent of it's range spread through the Balkans, into Greece and Macedonia, and Thrace. The European Lion was a significant part of Roman, Greek, Macedonian and Balkan Culture and Religion because of the power and majesty it symbolised. However, as a part of sport and hunting, the European Lion gradually diminished and became extinct around 1000AD. It was also used in Roman Gladiatorial arenas. There are numerous accounts of these beasts, including those by Herodotus and Aristotle.  >>Caspian Tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) - This was the species of Tiger primarily used in Roman Arenas. It would fight other animals such as lions and aurochs (see below). They inhabited the area stretching from the most easterly border of the Roman Empire; Mesopotamia, Iran, Afghanistan and into China at its extent. It was hunted and exploited for human purposes extensively in ancient times, but survived to the Modern Age. The Soviets ran an eradication program to eliminate the already dramatically depleted population of Caspian Tiger's in Northern Afghanisatan/Southern Russia. It proved successful and it is believed the subspecies died out around the 1960's - however no exact date is agreed upon.  >>Aurochs (Bos primegenius) - The aurochs is a commonly unheard of ungulate (hoofed mammal) which was another of the animals commonly used by Romans for entertainment in the gladiatorial arenas. However, it is a very wide-spread figure used in the ancient world. They are believed to have originated in India, but migrated to the Middle East. The Aurochs spread over most of mainland Europe; into Scandanavia, Bohemia, France, The Balkans, and out towards Italy and Iberia. It also inhabited Mesopotamia, Asia Minor and the Middle East. The Aurochs was pitted against Big Cats such as the Lion or Tiger in the arenas, and it is also believed that this activity stemmed into modern day bull fighting (questionable). The aurochs was a mighty and formidable type of cattle and was domesticated for farming and agricultural purposes. The right to hunt large animals on any land was restricted to nobles and gradually to the royal household. As the population of aurochs declined, hunting ceased but the royal court still required gamekeepers to provide open fields for the aurochs to graze in. The gamekeepers were exempted from local taxes in exchange for their service and a decree made poaching aurochs punishable by death. They last fully purebred/wild one died in 1627 in Poland. The domesticated Aurochs was hybridized and interbred with other cattle at a point before the decline of this great creature, to eventuate into a modern-day subspecies of cattle. It is nice to know that we have the genealogical descendants of fierce lion slaughtering 'cows' as domestic animals today   *more to come* - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 05:28
 heheh Caligula, funny guy. Was the horses name Ignatius? Not sure but what an honour - FOR A HORSE  ------------- |
Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 07:58
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Wow Knights! Thank you so much for your great posts! I love animals so much too , but You seem to know about animals and their history so much more than me. Please keep them coming
This might not be ancient history because it only started few years ago and it is still going on . I call it the holocaust of the crows. In Japan, the city of Tokyo put out this plan a few years ago in order to get rid of the crows who eat the rubbish in the city before it is collected. The plan was to capture 5000 crows every year and exterminate them. Can you believe how they kill them? They put the captured crows in gas chambers. If you go to any park in Tokyo you will see huge trapping cages under the trees. When you ask people about it in Japan , they all say that it is a necessary thing that the city is doing and nobody cares about it. . From the crow s point of view Japan is a nazi country.
Talking of big cows, When the Europeans went to the Americas apparently there were 6 million ( please correct me if I am wrong with the numbers )bison in north America. They were very important animals to the native-American peoples and only because of this reason , were massacred by the Europeans. Although they escaped extinction, today very small numbers of them survive in Canada.
What is the story of Caligula and Ignatius? it sounds very interesting . Also were there any more well-known individual animals in the history?
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Posted By: gcle2003
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 08:35
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Caligula's horse's name was Incitatus and Suetonius reports a story that Caligula was thinking about making him a senator. Sadly I suspect he never was one.
There have however been a number of US Senators (and British MPs - fair's fair) who remind one of a certain part of a horse's anatomy.
The glaring modern example of deliberate near-extinction of a species is the introduction of myxomatosis to control rabbits. As a (partly) accidental result of this, 95% of the rabbits in the UK were killed off and what had been a staple food for countryfolk and the poor became an expensive luxury.
It didn't become a commonplace food again until rabbit meat started being imported from China in the '70s.
The story is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxamatosis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxamatosis
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Posted By: Styrbiorn
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 08:35
They weren't massacred until the latter half of the 1800s when the American railroad companies started issuing the big money. You can hardly blame the Europeans for that... What about a positive story instead? The musk ox, despite its name and appearance more closely related to goats than to oxen, is a up to half a ton heavy furry animal who lives in cold climates. The last of the large ancient animals, who lived alongside mammuths and sabre-toothed cats. They were native to all the Arctic regions, though in the early 1900s they had disappeared from all but Canada and Greenland. Even there they were threatened to extinction, being very easy to hunt since their defence against predators is to form a circle around the calves - effective against wolves (and maybe once against the sabre-toothed cats) but hardly against guns. However they were protected, and today around 50,000 animals remain, mostly on greenland and the Arctic islands of Canada. In the mid 1900s they were reintroduced into Norway and Russia. From Norway a group of animals left the herd and migrated to Sweden in 1971, where they roam around the sparsely populated areas. The latter group figures on the pictures below:     |
Posted By: jacobtowne
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 11:13
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"Talking of big cows, When the Europeans went to the Americas apparently
there were 6 million ( please correct me if I am wrong with the numbers
)bison in north America. They were very important animals to the
native-American peoples and only because of this reason , were
massacred by the Europeans. Although they escaped extinction, today
very small numbers of them survive in Canada." The positive side to this story is that the species was saved, and there are now herds of buffalo in the U.S. One can even buy buffalo meat in some specialty markets, although I suspect it's pricey. JT |
Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:04
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Iberian Peninsula have a curious history of animals, during times dominated african ones: cocrodiles, hyppopotamus, lions... Others northern: wolfs, mamuts, woolly rhinoceros... And times where both types was mixed. Like in all Europe, the arrival of the Holocene and the rise of the Homo Sapiens finished the megafauna: mamuts, rhinoceros, cave bears, all they dissapeared. And the lion, i have never heard about lions in Iberia after the 10.000, i don't know why recently many pages about lions include Iberia as a place where the european lions lived during roman times.
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Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:14
Have you ever tried a buffalo burger? Its a hamburger with buffalo meat instead of cow meat, and they taste soooooo good! I want to try to find buffalo steak. I bet it tastes amazing... |
Posted By: jacobtowne
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 12:20
No, I've never eaten buffalo. I've tried mooseburgers and caribou steaks, and we have venision from white-tailed deer once in a while. JT |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 14:38
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Well considering one of my favourite animals would have to be the Peregrine Falcon, I thought I'd include some trivia regarding these magnificent Aves. - In 1530 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500 - 1558) donated the island of Malta to the Knights Hospitaller. The annual rent which he requested was 'Peregrine Falcons', known commonly as the Maltses Falcon (see below) in this case  - One of my personal favourite historical figures in relation to animals is Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194 - 1250). He had a common love for animals in general, but was passionate about falconry in particular. There are accounts that on receiving a letter from the Mongol Khan - in which Frederick was invited to 'surrender' - he replied saying that he would only do so if he was appointed head falconer. Frederick also had a flamboyant array of animals that he kept in a mobile zoo. These included exotics from all around the known world. For example; Lynxes, Leopards, Caspian Tigers, Exotic Birds, Giraffes, Cheetahs, Zebra and numerous species of Dog/Wolf. The most prized of falcons in that day were the Gyrfalcons (see below), who personified majesty and grandeur, with their luscious white seasonal colour. Frederick requested these regal falcons from as far away as Greenland, but mainly got his from Scandanavia (seeing as they rarely live below the arctic circle.    *Any further information regarding Falconary - I'd imagine there's a lot! - in History, please share!*  More to come... - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 15:13
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I love animals, too. And I hope we could save in my country some species like the Condor, Guanaco and the marvelous Pudu. However, one thing is clear for me. Savage animals get extincted because a simple fact: they requere a large space to survive. That makes competition with humans for space a big problem.
And it is true that the problems for animals started very early. In the Americas there was a mass extinction after the entrance of humans beings through the strait of berings. Mastodons, Milodons, the giant armadillo, and the American horse, and that megafauna coexisted with man a couple of thousand years and afterwards become extinguished.
Imagine if the American horse had survived and become domesticated. Perhaps history would have been different.
Now, the problems are going on in a planetary scale. It is possible we start to extinguish fish now. What else will follow, I don't know.
In the other hand, in the case of dangerous animals, like poisonous serpents, the mortal spiders or the white sharks, I really wonder if it is practical to let them survive just because ecology, but anyways.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 15:41
Of couse they should be allowed to survive! Animals usually only attack when people are being stupid and agitate them! Also, if all the 'dangerous' predators are killed, then there will be a giant gap in the environment, which is never good. Take for example the deer population in some parts of the US. It is exploding do to lack of natural predators. Thousands are hit by cars every year, causing lots of damage to the car, and sometimes the people. If natural predators were allowed to survive the deer population would be kept in check, resulting in less car accidents. Furthermore, just because something can inflict harm does not mean it will. Peole just need to be careful out in the wild and not act stupidly. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 16:17
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Well, a teenage girl just died in my country because a domestic spider, (called the "spider of the corners" Loxosceles laeta) which is endemic in my country, bite her. That spider is such a dangerous criature that can kill anyone just at the first bite. Some people has lost limbs as well, or it has gangrenate the face of the victim.
If I got the way to do it, I would make sure that criature dissapear from the creation, together with the pitbull and the mouse that carry the Hanta virus. Yes sir.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 19:15
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It's fascinating to study and think about some extinct species, like the ones mentioned in this thread, the dinosaurs, etc.
What do you fellas think about these radical new projects of reviving certain recently extinct species of small animals through genetic engineering?
I'm too lazy to dig up the specific details right now, but I can remember at least 2 such projects.
Ok wait, gimme a few minutes to dig up the details, because I hate mentioning stuff without sources, wait...
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 19:23
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Ok, found this, but didn't do any background check on the author (Sydney Horton) so this is for amusement only:
Scientists are also working to clone several endangered species--though, of course, cloning is no substitute for habitat preservation--and analyzing ancient DNA to better understand evolution. Here's a roundup of some recent projects.
Gaur Status: Extremely rare, but no recent population figures; inhabits India and Southeast Asia Born on January 8, 2001, a gaur named Noah was the first clone of an endangered animal. American scientists created the baby gaur, a species of wild ox, by implanting DNA from the frozen tissue of a deceased male gaur into the eggs of a common cow from which the genetic material had been removed. The cow, acting as a surrogate mother, brought the gaur to term. However, within 48 hours Noah died of dysentery, which scientists say was unrelated to cloning. Asiatic Cheetah Status: Fewer than 60 remain, in Iran Indian scientists plan to reintroduce the cheetah to the Indian subcontinent by means of a clone. The donor DNA will be taken from a captive cheetah and implanted into the eggs of a leopard that have been stripped of genetic material. The leopard will carry the mixed embryo to term. A live birth is hoped for within a few years. Giant Panda Status: About 1,000 remain, in southwestern China Because the panda is a notoriously reluctant breeder in captivity, American biologists are considering cloning preserved cells from Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, two pandas that died in the 1990s at the National Zoo, in Washington, D.C. Black bears would serve as surrogate moms for the born-again pandas. Pyrenean Ibex (Bucardo) Status: Extinct, in 2000 The last known member of this Spanish goat subspecies was killed by a falling tree on January 6, 2000. Just months before its demise, Spanish scientists had captured the animal and taken tissue from its ears with an eye toward preserving the species; it is expected to yield DNA that is good enough for cloning. Moa Status: Extinct, circa 1500 In 2001 two species of this giant flightless New Zealand bird (of which there were 11 species in all) became the first extinct animals to have their mitochondrial genome sequenced. This achievement by Oxford scientists is critical to the understanding of the evolution, age, and distribution of some modern orders of birds, as well as the effect the moa had on the evolution of New Zealand's plants. Woolly Mammoth Status: Extinct on the continents circa 8000 b.c. (2000 b.c. for a small population on Wrangel Island, off Siberia) When a frozen woolly mammoth was discovered on the steppes of Russia in 1997, it was thought to be more or less intact, and much hullabaloo ensued over resurrecting the species through cloning. But the ancient pachyderm's genetic code turned out to be badly damaged, a jumble of pieces hundreds of times smaller than the DNA used in the Human Genome Project. --Sydney Horton |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 20:27
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Thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) Cloning Project: The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Museum - - Sydney
began a project in 1999 reminiscent of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction - - Jurassic Park . The goal was to use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics - - 20th century
to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloning - - DNA from the specimens. On
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005 - - 02-15 ,
the museum announced that it was stopping the project after tests showed the
specimens' DNA had been too badly degraded by the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol - - University of New South Wales Dean of
Science, former director of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Museum - The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Thylacine_Specimen_Database - Good thoughts Hellios, I'm quite interested in looking into genetic projects regarding extinct/critically endangered animals. Shall continue research** - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 21:22
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Musk Ox in northern Canada:
 Existed since the ice age, rubbing shoulders with woolly mammoths.
The Alaska population was wiped out in the late 19th c. but Musk Ox have been reintroduced to Alaska, Sweden, Norway, and Russia.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 14-Nov-2006 at 21:28
Wooly Mammoth:
 Known from bones & frozen carcasses from Ireland to the east coast of North America with the best preserved carcasses in Siberia.
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Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 15-Nov-2006 at 18:27
You are right Styrbiorn. Thank you for correcting me . I am sorry for that mistake. My only information on bison before writing that post was based on two TV documentaries ( Planet earth BBC/UK and World heritage TBS/Japan) in which the history of bison was mentioned briefly. I should have searched more before writing.
Posted below are the result of my seaching on internet.
 Much has been written concerning the economic value of the bison to the American Indian. The bison sustained a way of life, providing food, clothing, shelter, and fuel. Extermination of the bison spelled the doom of American Indian independence.In 1800, it was estimated there were forty million bison, by 1883, there were no wild bison in the United States. By 1900, there were less than six hundred left in North America. The majority of the forty million animals were killed in a fifty-five year period, beginning in 1830. Many people denounced the slaughter; few did anything to stop it. Fortunately, a small, devoted group of conservationists managed to save a few hundred. The bison we see and enjoy today were raised from these few survivors.
I found this picture in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bison_skull_pile%2C_ca1870.png"> 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bison_skull_pile%2C_ca1870.png"> Pile of bison skulls, 1870s |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 15-Nov-2006 at 20:43
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An animal on its way to becoming 'history' in Canada is the polar bear.
 According to recent studies, they'll be gone within a few decades.
 In order to get from one food source to another, polar bears must cross large bodies of water using floating ice patches as resting points; with global warming these floating ice patches (resting points) are disappearing so bears are drowning due to exhaustion. They can swim really long distance without stopping, but they still need those ice patches to stop & rest.
  We're also messing up the polar bear's food chain; fish stocks, seals, etc.
Some people still hunt them.   |
Posted By: Ponce de Leon
Date Posted: 15-Nov-2006 at 21:57
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i dont believe wooly mammoths ever exsisted. It is all just propoganda ------------- |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 15-Nov-2006 at 23:16
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I think the genetic distinction has also been proven, but anyhow, they're still a bit too big for elephants!
At the Canadian Museum of Natural History in Ottawa:
 An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, have successfully sequenced a portion of the genome of the extinct species.
For more information, please contact:
McMaster University.
Hendrik Poinar, Associate Professor, Anthropology & Paleontology.
Tel: 905-741-0896.
E-mail: mailto:poinarh@mcmaster.ca - poinarh@mcmaster.ca
McMaster University.
Jane Christmas, Office of Public Relations.
Tel: 905-525-9140 ext. 27988.
E-mail: mailto:chrisja@mcmaster.ca - chrisja@mcmaster.ca  Dr. Dick Mol, paleontologist in Holland, and Bernard Buigues, curator of the Mammoth Museum in Siberia, examine (below) the remains of a woolly mammoth, recovered from ice & preserved.
 Frozen head of a 10,000 year old woolly mammoth at a lab freezer at a research facility in Yakutsk, Russia:
 This specimen (below) is over 4 meters high, 3.6 meters long, with tusks 2.4 meters long. It's located at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre in Whitehorse, Canada:
 This woolly mammoth tusk (below) kinda big for an elephant:
 This fossil assembly (below) can be discussed with Dr. Adrian Lister of University College London and Dr. Andrei V. Sher of the Russian Academy of Sciences:
 Woolly mammoth are about as proven as the dinosaurs.
Excavations in the United States:
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 03:08
True. Wolf packs keep deer herds strong/healthy by targeting the weak/sick. Once the wolves disappear, sickness spreads more quickly within the deer herds, and with nothing to weed out the weaklings the herds become generally weaker also, resulting in fewer of them surviving harsh winters. Lone wolves keep rodent populations under control. Some Canadian farmers thought they were smart by exterminating lone wolves but then the rodent populations went out of control. Farmers should just build more secure fences, pens, enclosures, but that's expensive, and shepherding also requires resources, so they just wipe out the wolves. |
Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 08:09
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The wolf is such a beautifull animal. If my memory is right they are one of the very few spiecies who keep one partner for their whole life.
It is so shocking that the Polar bears are going to be history in few decades. Is there absolutely nothing to do to stop their extinction?
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Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 16:48
Well, if the world came together and tried to stop, or limit global warming, they may survive. Besides that keeping some in Zoo's, and get genetic material from as many individuals as possibe so they can be cloned in the future are two other alternatives. Ending global warming would be the best solution, however. |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 20:12
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This released today: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1337/ - http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1337/
There's a link at the bottom to download the full report of pdf.
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 21:21
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On the topic of Endangered animals;
Source: IUCN Red List 2006 And onto Polar Bears;
Polar bears rely almost entirely on the marine sea ice environment for their survival so that large scale changes in their habitat will impact the population. Global climate change posses a substantial threat to the habitat of polar bears. Recent modeling of the trends for sea ice extent, thickness and timing of coverage predicts dramatic reductions in sea ice coverage over the next 50–100 years. Sea ice has declined considerably over the past half century. Additional declines of roughly 10–50% of annual sea ice are predicted by 2100. The summer sea ice is projected to decrease by 50–100% during the same period. In addition the quality of the remaining ice will decline. This change may also have a negative effect on the population size. The effects of sea ice change are likely to show large differences and variability by geographic location and periods of time, although the long term trends clearly reveal substantial global reductions of the extent of ice coverage in the Arctic and the annual time frames when ice is present.
Also, while the polar ice caps are melting as a result of global warming, the climatic conditions above the Arctic Circle are being greatly varied. With average temperatures rising, Polar Bears are influenced by the misconception of time and season. Many Polar Bears are not even hibernating at all because it is just too warm! This has a drastic effect on the natural cycle and functioning of the Tundra/Arctic Ecosystem.
 Thought I'd include FURTHER photos, because they are such stunning animals
    *stay tuned*
- Knights -
PS.  Hellios------------- |
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 16-Nov-2006 at 22:45
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Sorry for changing the direction of the thread, but I'm curious, what is/are everyone's favourite animals, living or extinct? My personal favourites are the big cats, which you have probably already gathered
But if I had to pick one it would have to be the Snow Leopard (Uncia uncia). The majesty and regal nature of this amazing creature has entranced me since I was young. They are mysterious and elusive killers.
  
 - Knights -
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Posted By: Vivek Sharma
Date Posted: 23-Nov-2006 at 22:03
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At least one thread which is free of wars.
------------- PATTON NAGAR, Brains win over Brawn |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 24-Nov-2006 at 17:27
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And that's how it should stay
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Posted By: Ponce de Leon
Date Posted: 25-Nov-2006 at 11:44
Are you kidding me? You can so easily duplicate those fossils with chicken bones. It surprises me how creative these con-artists are. ------------- |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2006 at 21:57
 Ponce de Leon believes mammoths are a hoax sorry but it's very funny.  |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2006 at 22:26
Thanks for the snow leopard material; what a precious animal!
My 'favorite' (since you ask) are bears. Mainly polar & grizzly.
Polar are bigger, but their bodies are designed for aquatic & sub-aquatic efficiency, they're more water dynamic, and aerodynamic to withstand freezing polar winds.
Grizzly bears are smaller, but their bodies are designed in a way that makes them better fighters, which is why grizzly bears are known to chase away polar bears that venture too far south.
Grizzly bears have very long claws (6 inches) and their upper body is designed for strong swipes (probably to break small trees) with huge upper body muscles. Their shoulders & skulls are massive.
In the 19th century, North American west coasterners staged animal fights with grizzly bears brought from Alaska (the Kodiaks) against different animals, including imported animals from other continents, and the Kodiaks totally demolished anything their size, although if elephants were imported things would be different, but there are no historical records of Kodiaks vs elephants; only other grizzlies, polars, bulls, jaguars, lions, tigers, gorillas, buffalo, and that's all I can remember from numerous sources.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 26-Nov-2006 at 23:14
Look at this idiot hunting an endangered animal. Just 1 swipe from the grizzly would be nice for him.
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 27-Nov-2006 at 02:00
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yes I agree...tool...*swipe* Thanks for your post on grizzlies and polars...tis good to learn more stuff about those 2 amazing [cuddly ] creatures. We got 2 kodiak females at the zoo, and even though they are kept at a smaller wieght and are very old, they are still they giant...I think they wiegh in at around 250kg last time I checked. I'll try get some pictures of them.Here we go; this is a pic of Bethel the Kodiak about 6 months ago. She is 28 years old - very old!  - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 06:51
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...I am not sure what others will think, but i have a fondness for pigs!!!... ...they are more intelligent than usually regarded, it just seems to me that they do their own thing, yes, they wallow in muck (except their 'pig houses' where they carefully tread down the straw to form a very clean, soft, and admirable bedding and home) snuffle around and generally don't do much (except maybe truffle pigs!), but its exactly that attitude i admire!!!!....the indifference, the 'i'll do something if i choose to', but generally sit back and take in the world... ..i think i have a strange 'connection' with pigs...when i was a small child, my mother used to pick fruit on the local farms and i would be taken along for the ride...often i would go missing from the fields and apparently, my mother and the farmer knew exactly where to find me...in the pig pens and in the pigs houses!!!...i used to curl up and go to sleep with the piglets... ...so the farmer said, a quite unusual thing as a female pig is extremely protective over its young and will 'kill' if they feel their young are threatened, but maybe thats it, i was not a threat..the farmer told my mum that i was probably not a threat, i was in fact safer with the huge mother pigs than if i was roaming around the rest of the farm!!!!.. ...still, no matter how many times i got told off by the farmer and my mum, i still found my way back to my piggy friends...!!!! ..With history in mind, what about Carrier Pigeons'..apparently, some have been awarded medals for bravery in action.... ------------- |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 08:03
My favorite cat is the serval...
  Just look at those ears!
It just melts me into a mellow puddle!I also like the clouded leopard. Beautiful animal... and very endangered...
 But my favorite animal are birds from the crow family... So intelligent and so beautiful...
  ------------- 
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 08:28
The amphibious have very very serious problems...   ------------- |
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 11:52
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Aelfgifu: Wow, I love servals! Not too many people have heard of them, but they are very cool cats indeed! Extremely agile and yes, those ears hehe they are cute. The clouded leopard is also a very cool cat. Have you seen the length of their canines - longest for their body size in the cat family. I'll try get a good picture to illustrate this. Ikki: Yes the amphibians, and all those on that table are in danger. That's why we need conservational measures and education/awareness. I don't want to see our animals wiped out - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Ikki
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 12:13
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I hear that chemical products in the atmosphere was killing massivelly these amphibians, have you more information about this?
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Posted By: Ponce de Leon
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 15:47
here is a wonderful creature to behold
This animal has helped China, Persia, even the Roman Empire! The silk worm! Who would ever think such a nice fabric would come from this tiny and beautiful guy! ------------- |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 16:24
She looks content, and yeah, they're keeping her small/light considering her bone structure; just look how big her paws are & skull are in relation to the rest of her body. Main thing is she's healthy & happy!
Grizzlies make great moms, but not great dads. Moms keep the cubs aways from dad usually.
Which animals make the best dads? I know some "dads" do 'stick around' and some actually do 'more' work than the moms, if that's possible.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 16:39
That's really cool!
My province (Quebec) has one of the biggest "piggery" industries in the world, hehe, pork might be our province's biggest export, haha! But really, I agree with you about the misconceptions regarding swine. Baby pigs are incredibly cute.
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 18:23
Very true Ikki....I definatly know that amphibians such as frogs are very sensitive to climate and environmental change. They can be good indicators as to how well an ecosystem is functioning. I will look further into this tonight and try and grab some more articles for you.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D5DCC-CA4A-1E1C-8B3B809EC588EEDF Also, Hellios, The two bears at Taronga are very content, despite their very old age! Regarding 'good dads', I will get onto you about that tonight too - but I must be off.
EDIT: Marmosets (tiny South American monkeys) are excellent fathers to their young. The fathers take care of their babies from birth. When the baby marmoset is born, the father cleans it, then carries it to the mother only when it needs to be nursed (milk). When the baby can eat solid food, the father will feed it. Definatly one of the most endurant father, and possible all round parent would have to be the Emperor Penguin Dad. They endure FREEZING conditions (sub -50 Celsius) without eating anything, to look after the egg, waiting for mum to come back from a long hunting journey. Wolf dads are the protectorates but also 'role models' for the pups. They stand guard looking after the pups in the den while the mother hunts. The role of the father is also to teach the pups to survive - strategies to acquire food and basically live in the wild! Again, dedicated fathers. *more to come hopefully - that's just off the top of my memory...but there are a heck of a lot more 'dedicated dads'! - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 19:19
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Aelfgifu, the ears of the cerval are indeed cute. Their hearing must be so good. I've seen video of them jumping to bring down birds from quite high.
Are crows and ravens similar or the same?
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 21:08
Crows and Ravens are two seperate species, but are very closely related. They are both in the 'Corvidae' Family and even share the same genus, 'Corvus'. It is their species that differentiates between them. The Common Raven is 'Corvus corax' and the Carrion Crow is 'Corvus corone'. The 'Corvidae' Family is regarded as being the most advanced/highly developed of all the birds. They are extremely intelligent, adabtable, and most have copmlex social networks and heirarchies (sp?). Have you heard about the crows in Japan which have come up with a way of breaking the hard casings around some nuts which would otherwise be inaccessible? It's very cool! They drop the nut/s onto the road, but they know to drop them exactly where the pedestrian crossings are (with the little red and green man). As the cars pass by they crush the nuts. The crows are so intelligent and intuitive that they know that when the lights go red and the cars stop, and when the people begin walking across, they can go onto the road and retrieve their nut! Plus, these smarty pants even know to get off the road when the lights turn green again. Amazing. - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Ponce de Leon
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 21:49
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your saying that these "birds" know how to obey traffic laws? Next thing we'll hear is that cudley hippos actually kill people. geez whats next? ------------- |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 21:57
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lol...but serious, it's true. It's on numerous documentary's including the BBC's life of birds check this out: http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-7329182515885554944&q=crow+traffic - http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-7329182515885554944&q=crow+traffic ------------- |
Posted By: Ponce de Leon
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 22:04
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your saying that these "birds" know how to obey traffic laws? Next thing we'll hear is that cudley hippos actually kill people. geez whats next? ------------- |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 22:13
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No, I'm just saying that through their intelligence they have adapted to the functioning of these particular areas of the road. They do not know that they are 'obeying road laws' in that sense, but they have innovated to be better suited to their environment...taking advantage of the situation!
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Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 28-Nov-2006 at 23:46
Other members of the family are the Jackdaw, the Magpie and the Hooded Crow.
   They also cause a lot of trouble by being smart. There are also crows who found out how to crack nuts by throwing them against cars, which is less cute if you own the car... There also was a group of crows here in the Netherlands who terrorized a whole neighbourhood, molesting windscreen wipers by pulling off the rubber, attacking cats, dogs and small children by swooping over and pecking at heads and generally sh*tting all ovr the place... Must be pretty terrifying to leave your home when there is a gang of these waiting for you outside. Those beaks are big!-------------
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2006 at 00:21
| What's the closest living relative of the pterodactyls? |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2006 at 00:58
Aelfgifu...that is hilarious!!!!!!!  Stuff terrorism...BEWARE of the gangster crows!
Hellios; I have no idea to be honest! But I will endevour to find out - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2006 at 01:37
Crows are very beautifull and intelligent birds. Since we are discussing crows at the moment let me quote myself from the begining of the thread just to remind every one what is happening to these beautiful birds here in Japan.
Knights and Hellios ,this thread is going so well because of you . Thank you so much. Your passion for animals is admirable and I really respect it. Personally I do not have any favorites between animals. I love all of them. Knights , you beat me . I was actually thinking of posting about Snow-leopards too.They are very endengered. I did not know such a beautiful animal existed untill I saw Planet earth on BBC. I am thinking of fostering two orphaned Snow-leopard brothers right now. Apparently many of them are being hunted in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the US attack. |
Posted By: Styrbiorn
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2006 at 02:46
Magpies are cool. They sometimes eat a lot of yeast berries and have drunken raves in big gangs. I've seen magpies so drunk they couldn't fly, but were walking around on the ground, falling and wobbling around. On that topic, this year's annual drunken moose appearance was in the south of the country, where a female moose found an apple tree with yeast apples in someone's backyard. She spent a weekend eating and getting drunk off the apples, furiously defending her valuable find against anyone who dared come near the tree. |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 29-Nov-2006 at 03:00
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hahaha Styrbiorn...gotta love those drunken raves.
In response to Omshanti; Thankyou and thanks to Hellios too - I've had a great conversation with you and others too, and hope that it continues. Hehe..beat you to those snow leopards! As you may have gathered, I work at Taronga zoo in sydney, I'm a youth volunteer (I;m only 16) but I absolutely love it there. I work on the carnviores section and the snow leopards are amazing, as are all the others (lions, tigers, bears, dholes, meerkats, red panda.etc.). On the subject of 'two snow leopard cubs' you may be aware that last october the zoo had the first snow leopard cubs in about twenty five years in Australisia! They are adorable - Sabu and Kamala - and mum and dad are good parents. Onto planet earth, how exhilirating is the snow leopard chase down the mountainside, they are the supreme predators of the Himalayas and they have mad skills! Pity though what's been happening with hunting and killing by farmers in Afghanistan though . Good on you for even considering sponsoring them. I'm doing just the same actually, through the snow leopard trust, who I have got some valuable information and field data from.
Well, keep up the good work everyone, even though the topic has sort of morphed into 'Animals in general' rather than the history - anything is fine
- Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 30-Nov-2006 at 05:13
I was just wondering . Is it not possible to make some fake ice patches for the polar bears? it is just so sad to think about those bears drowning completely alone in the sea. |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 30-Nov-2006 at 21:41
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Well, I suppose it *could* be done...however it would be very challenging. Some sound strategies would be open range conservation parks (100's of Hectares big) in Greenland or Northern Russia.etc. where the Polar bears do not rely on pack ice, but can live in relative ease in the tundra. Also, after studies of polar bear movement patterns and home ranges, small marine reserves could be established with fake ice and a monitered environment for a/family of polar bear/s. The latter would be very cost ineffective and challenging, however can be done. Relocation is another viable option, though again, is time-consuming, and is a cure not a prevention - as most of these strategies are. If anyone has better/other ideas please contribute...or for any other animals who's plight is not looking good. - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2006 at 02:10
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"Never get out of the boat. Absolutely god damn right. Unless you're going all the way. Kurtz got off the boat. He split from the whole program." - Capt. Willard, Apocalypse Now.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2006 at 02:26
Not a bad idea if made of eco-friendly materials, but how would we know where to place them? I'm not sure of the bears always follow the same routes. How would we keep them from floating away? Would they have to be anchored to the ocean floor? Would they break loose during violent arctic storms or when hit by other icebergs?
Edit: Did some more checking; the drownings are not the main problem. The main problem is the species is dependent on coastal ice also, so it's not just the disappearing ice patches in the open water, it's the disappearing coastal ice also (their hunting environments). Consequently, the species is dying of "nutritional stress" meaning the mothers aren't getting enough nutrients to produce good enough quality milk for the cubs, and the survival rates of the cubs are dropping dramatically as the mortality rates continue to increase, in direct unison with the warming temperature and melting hunting environment.
"History in the making."
I suppose what we can do is push our local politicians to push our upper politicians to do more about the global warming issue.
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Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2006 at 23:26
That's presupposing global warming's man-made, and we can do something to stop it. I don't see a problem really with the polar bears going extinct, billions of species have done so in the history of the earth and there's always something to take it's place. If the problem with the polar bears is that they aren't getting enough nutrients, just set up "bird feeders" in reserves that contain the proper blend of nutrition. Space a few hundred of these out across the arctic coast, you'll certainly have volunteers for it and the polar bears will go to them. Way more cost effective then the above-mentioned solutions. ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 02:57
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Knights, check out the claw of a male wild Kodiak.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 03:10
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This criminal shows us how big polar bears are.
omshanti, notice the claws partially webbed (for water) and the nails shorter than grizzlies.
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 03:13
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Wow....that is one heck of a big [cuddly!] bear hehe..and yeh the kodiaks have enormous claws, not just for fighting, but for digging up yummy roots/shoots too
------------- |
Posted By: Goban
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 05:05
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Here is a big bear that went extinct 12,000 years ago in North America. Tremarctinae arctodus, aka The Short-Faced Bear.  Here one is compared with a grizzly (front) and a polar bear (middle). Yep, he was a big one. ------------- The sharpest spoon in the drawer. |
Posted By: Zagros
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 06:50
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There were wild lions and tigers in iran until the last ones were killed int he 20th century. There are still about 50 or 60 cheetahs, leopards and brown bears.
The lions were akin to the Indian lion with the large pom pom on their tails. ------------- |
Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 17:11
Whose to say he's a criminal, it seems like what he's doing is perfectly legal.....
------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 18:46
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JanusRook , I don't think Hellios used the word''criminal'' in a legal sense. Legality of an action alone, does not make it morally right. What do you think of this law in Canada which allows sport or trophy hunting of polar bears (who are a species on the verge of extinction) by non-natives? Do yo think this law is morally right?
I don't think so, because I don't think it is right to kill any living creature just for pleasure or sport.
Global warming is man-made.One of the biggest reasons for global warming is the unnatural amount of CO2 gas which is caused by the pollution we human-beings create. I am sure so many other members here are able to prove that global warming is man-made. Polar bears will not be the first nor the last victims of global warming. One of the first victims of global warming was the golden toad in Costa Rica which became extinct in 1987. Please read http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/328776.stm - THIS LINK about the golden toad. Until now other animals have paid for the mess humans make , but I am sure that if we do not take global warming seriously and don't take action , some time in the near future it would be humanity itself that will be the victim of the mess it is making. I also don't agree with your reasoning that if there have been billions of species who have gone extinct in the past, there is no problem with one more speicies ( in this case polar bears) going extinct. It is not about which species becomes extinct and which doesn't. It is about each individual animal's life. |
Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 08-Dec-2006 at 23:07
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter
earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are
from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity
in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes
and decaying land plants.Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 03:18
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I'd be more than happy to replace the word "criminal" with "idiot" or "moron". The polar bear is an endangered animal. Let him hunt non-endangered ones.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 03:49
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Janus,
That debate is a thing of the past for most people these days. It's already proven that mankind is aggravating global warming. The debates these days are about how to change our impacts on it. We all know that global warming has also occurred naturally in the past but this doesn't excuse us for aggravating it.
Above is a fine argument when talking about non-endangered animals, but when it comes to a highly endangered ones (such as the polar bear) it's pure nonsense (sorry to say) because there are plenty of non-endangered animals that can suit his moral code.
 Your point about the natives is very interesting. I agree with you that they shouldn't get special treatment in this regard. Good point Janus.
Rgds, Bill
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 08:23
What exactly is the "struggle" in lining up such a big target in the crosshairs of a spy-scope (like his) on a long range high caliber rifle like that? and how does this give the polar bear "quite a good chance of conquering him"?
That guy doesn't apply to what you say; he probably has a family, big salary, mistress, etc, back home, which he isn't interested in losing; so he's just looking to have a photo of him with a dead polar bear trophy.
Why does it have to be with an endangered one? There are plenty of non-endangered ones for him to "prove his strength".
Hardly a reason to choose an endangered target instead of a non-endangered one.
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Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 15:36
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Total human contributions to greenhouse gases account for only about 0.28% of the "greenhouse effect" Needless to say I don't see how that can effect the earth in such a profound way.
There are 20,000 polar bears in the world, which means they aren't in extreme danger of going extinct. In fact the IUCN Red List, lists them as only vulnerable which is defined as:
Which makes them just about as likely to go extinct as the Great White Shark.
Then he just has to prove to himself he's a man, slightly different moral code, kind of a sad outlook on life. But it's still a separate moral code, and he does have the right to follow that code.
Get it before it's gone mentality, perhaps?
Again see above for reasons, I personally don't think they're good ones, which is why I don't hunt. But I don't think people should be judged on killing animals because it's "too easy". Since nature has endowed us with the capacity to hunt that way. Also I don't think people should be judged on killing merely for trophies, since another animal, cats also do that. Anyone that's ever owned cats knows that sometimes in the morning you'll find a dead mouse or bird on your front door, that proves how much of a "man" your cat is. ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Ponce de Leon
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 16:01
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just a question for all animal and non-animal lovers. Would anybody have a problem if the mosquito became extinct?
------------- |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 16:31
We can spend all day throwing contradicting numbers at each other.
What I see is a growing number of high-level debates & actions on an issue you don't consider a real concern.
Yes, they are.
I respect your refusal to judge people who's reasoning you don't agree with.
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Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 16:33
The fact that there are such contradicting numbers should prove that neither position is fully right. Although I still believe my position is more right. 
I don't consider it a real concern since I believe that the whole of nature is stronger than anything humanity can throw at it.
Very much so, many insectivores would find a plentiful food supply gone so quickly, not to mention the extinction of many disease carrying organisms. ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 16:39
It's probably a crucial part of some food chains & maybe other species in those food chains would become 'history'.
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Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 17:40
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Hello JanusRook. Are you arguing just for the sake of argument? From the way you write I assume you to be a teenager or in your early twenties at the most. I'm just joking.
Any way I guess it was my fault that I wrote my post in a way that someone like you could just pick,pick, pick. Let me clarify things first.
I know that really well , that is why I asked your opinion and wrote ''I think'' before giving my opinion, however I do think that there are some universal moral codes such as compassion , generosity , humanity and love.
No , That was not the point of my argument.
That is not his moral code , it is his Ego, two quite different beasts. Think about it from the polar bear's point of view, this man who has nothing to do with him/her suddenly turns up and tries to prove his strength to him/her. What if the poor polar bear had cubs waiting for food at home?
Based on examples from other parts of the world such as the relationship between the Bison and the native Americans, indigenous peoples have usually lived in harmony with their natural environment taking only what they need for food, clothing and shelter. Bearing in mind the landscape of the Inuits, their main sustainable food source are the animals that live there. If you had read my post carefully and considered rather than reacting, you would have noticed that my answer to your question was already there. Let me quote myself.
You wrote
If I believed that humans are outside of the natural order, I wouldn't have written this.
I do think that humans are not in harmony with the nature any more and have lost their respect for it. JanusRook , you are very welcome to have the last word if you want , it seems like that is what you care most for in this thread, but please have a little respect towards the topic of this thread and other posters. If you do not care for animals or their well-being it makes me wonder why you wanted to write in this thread at all. Merely to play devils advocate? Take a look at this for some well researched fact on climate change. Click the following link. http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/4.asp - CLIMATE CHANGE FACTS |
Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 09-Dec-2006 at 23:58
Partly correct on one count, fully correct on another
None of these have to apply to man's relationship to animals they can just apply to man's relationship to man.
I'll give you it's his ego, I think that it's pathetic that people have to kill something to inflate their own self-worth. However I don't think that the cubs well being is important, nature is cruel, that polar bear could just as likely drown or be attacked by a killer whale, and those cubs would be in the same situation. It's just one of those random chance events that happens.* *Granted it is a chance event that could have been prevented, but you can't control everything, eliminating killer whales would be another way to eliminate a chance event.
So their respect for nature is so great, that they sell their hunting permits to outsiders? What are your opinions then on the Norwegian whale hunters, historically they have been engaging in this activity for hundreds of years, it is essential a part of their culture, should they be allowed to continue this practice if a sustainable quota is given?
So we are inside of the natural order but not in harmony with it? Has technology been the root of this, because our ancestors made the mammoths and other megafauna of the world extinct before we had major breakthroughs in technology.
Sorry, if I've offended, I know how some people can get when you make light of the plight of animals. I actually do care about animals, which is why I don't mistreat them, or advocate an active policy of extermination. Such as what happened to the Bison. I don't agree with the practice of putting the welfare of animals over the welfare of people, however I do believe in accomadation.
Sorry, but I do enjoy to do that. Although most of what I say, I actually mean. Such as, I see no problem with people hunting endangered species. However I would prefer if the government would put into place a policy similar to what loggers have, chop down one tree plant two. This could be implimented in for every time you hunt you must pay X amount of dollars to a government conservation fund. On a more friendly note, and a little more on topic, humans aren't always the great destroyer's of animals. Squirrels, Deer, Foxes and Raccoons have all thrived in the absence of predators and the creation of shelters. Even the peregrin falcon, has had a major rebound taking up home in major cities where skyscrapers mimic it's native cliffs.
That part of the discussion has gone a little out of hand. If you'd like I could open a new thread or I could discuss it with you in a pm. ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Ponce de Leon
Date Posted: 11-Dec-2006 at 21:29
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does anybody know why "the man" created the myth about "wolly mammoths" anyway? ------------- |
Posted By: QueenCleopatra
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2006 at 09:28
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http://www.thebigcats.com/ - http://www.thebigcats.com/
My own animal preferences are for Big Cats, arguably some of the most beautiful creatures on earth. My favourites are the Tigers. I think they are the most beautiful and mysterious of all the Cats and iit's a shame they are so endangered.
         ------------- Her Royal Highness , lady of the Two Lands, High Priestess of Thebes, Beloved of Isis , Cleopatra , Oueen of the Nile |
Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 12-Dec-2006 at 17:47
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Is that last one an ocelot?
------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 13-Dec-2006 at 08:35
Awesome.
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 13-Dec-2006 at 08:55
We have these cougars in Canada, along with bobcats (lynx rufus) and Canadian lynx (lynx canadensis).
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Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 13-Dec-2006 at 10:26
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White Yangtze dolphin may be extinct.
"An expedition searching for a rare Yangtze River dolphin ended Wednesday without a single sighting and with the team's leader saying one of the world's oldest species was effectively extinct."
"Around 400 baiji were believed to be living in the Yangtze in the 1980s. For 6 weeks, Pfluger's team of 30 scientists scoured a 1,000-mile heavily trafficked stretch of the Yangtze, where the baiji once thrived. The expedition's boats, equipped with high-tech binoculars & underwater microphones, trailed each other an hour apart without radio contact so that a sighting by one vessel would not prejudice the other."
"A few baiji may still exist in their native Yangtze habitat in eastern China but not in sufficient numbers to breed and ward off extinction."
"We have to accept the fact, that the Baiji is functionally extinct. We lost the race."
"It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world."
 URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/ap_on_sc/china_dolphin_extinction - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/ap_on_sc/china_dolphin_extinction
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Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 13-Dec-2006 at 15:42
Close, looks a lot like an ocelot. It is a Clouded leopard (Neofelis Nebulosa), endemic to South East Asia. Very Beautiful Cat indeed. They have the longest canine teeth of any cat for their size - up to 8cm! Kind of like a modern day Smilodon. Also, Thankyou Queen Cleopatra for posting those awesome pics of big cats - tis very cool! Hope to see more of you around! Excuse my delayed response but I've been holidaying, and I'll be back in a few days Peace out - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 13-Dec-2006 at 15:44
Awesomeness Indeed....coolest cat on the block!!!!!! ------------- |
Posted By: Eondt
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2006 at 01:20
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While on the subject of big cats...below are pictures of white lions. There are only +-50 known white lions. Also note that these aren't albino, but white due to a recessive gene, similar to the gene that causes blond and red hair in humans.
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Posted By: omshanti
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2006 at 02:16
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Wow , great pictures! Somehow all those big cats look so intelligent and wise. Much more so than average humans in pictures. They also project so much intensity and confidence through their eyes. Beautiful. No wonder C.S. Lewis used a lion for the character of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Hellios , Thank you for sharing with us the information about the white Yangtze dolphin. Eondt, I didn't know about the existence of white lions at all. Very interesting. Thank you for that information. |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2006 at 08:27
There are also white tigers. Also not albino's but a different type of Tiger. Some Indian sultan bred them I think, they are closest to Indian tigers. A zoo close to me has a few, really cool. -------------
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2006 at 08:35
The question however is not wether there is proof or not. I live in a country that is mainly under sea-level. If the polar caps melt, we drown.
The question is are we willing to take that change? There are few negative results in trying to be kinder to nature, but there are very large negative results for everybody if the doom-view turns out to be true. Putting a little effort in preservation is a win-win situation. That being said, I think you are smarter than that Janus, and I think you gave these remarks just to get Hellios wound up. If not, I'm dissapointed.
According to my uncle (who is a biologist) mosquitos and gnats have no important role in the system. Yes animals feed on them, but there are plenty of other insects to take over when they go, so the extinction of mosquitos would not have much effect, except for the dissapearance of a few diseases like malaria and dengue. So,....:
KILL THE BASTARDS! -------------
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Hellios
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2006 at 10:28
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omshanti & knights (our zoologist),
Some reasons why ursus maritimus is classified as a marine mammal:
- diet is aquatic & sub aquatic prey.
- spends most of its time in or at the water.
 - paws webbed.
 - front arms bowed, for swimming (makes them look funny when moving on land).
 - nostrils close when submerged.
- ears pull in close to head when submerged.
 - swims for several hours over long distances (tracked swimming approx 10 hours non-stop over 98 km).
- dives/swims at depths between 4.5 meters to up to 6 m (recorded) for several minutes before surfacing for air. Deeper/longer unrecorded dives have been reported.
  - can leap out of water up to 2.25 meters in the air to get onto icebergs/ice floes or to surprise seals resting on ice floes.
 - so well insulated they tend to overheat on land, so they try to move slowly on land unless otherwise needed (40 km/hr).
- so efficient at heat retention they don't show up on infrared thermographic scanners.
- body shape designed for water dynamics.
- hollow hairs help with buoyancy.
 - water-repellent hairs shake off water.
 - very agile in & under water - agile enough to catch fast moving fish or engage bigger prey like seals & walruses.
 - only predator is mankind & killer whales (orca) & orcas usually don't bother with them.
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Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 14-Dec-2006 at 18:36
It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Climate change will cause the polar ice caps to melt, and evidence shows that this is probably sooner than later. I disagree though that this is largely mankind's fault, I believe the true culprit is natural processes that have decided to coincide with our sudden industrialization. However, there are a few misconceptions that I believe need to be cleared. The only Polar Ice cap anyone has to worry about is the South Pole. Since the North Pole is floating in ice, it's mass is all ready accounted for, and if it was melted today, it would not increase the amount of water in the ocean so sea levels would not rise. No, rising coastlines occur when land ice trickles into the sea, thus adding more water to the ocean, Greenland could possibly be a concern, but recent studies have shown that Antarctica acts in a cyclical fashion where ice periodically grows and shrinks. I don't think there is enough data yet to confirm if it's a natural process though. More importantly though, sea ice does not raise sea level.
I think conservation is the better alternative though.
Honestly though, I do believe that global warming is not a man-made phenomena, even with rising temperatures we are still living in one of the coldest periods of our history. I also believe that it is wrong to try and come up with man-made "solutions" to a natural "problem". I know humans are awesome and all, but it took hundreds of thousands if not millions of years for an entire planet's biomass of cyanobacteria to alter the earth's atmosphere from methane/ammonia to the nitrogen/oxygen blend we find today, I find taken this achievement that 100 years of humans tampering with the atmosphere have "ruined the earth".
But don't the viruses have a right to live, errr mostly live, errr, exist?
Darn, I could've sworn it was an ocelot, say do you guys consider an ocelot a small big cat or a big small cat?
It's nice to note that in my hometown zoo, the Cincinnati Zoo you can find both white lions and white tigers. In fact the Cincinnati Zoo is world reknowned for it's breeding program with the white tigers. Most of the white tigers you'll find in zoo's can trace their lineage back to Cincinnati. (Siegfried and Roy have an agreement with the zoo as far as breeding programs are concerned). Also first born in Cincinnati where all-white tigers, called ghost-tigers because their stripes only show up under certain lights. Here are some ghost tigers:  ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Knights
Date Posted: 15-Dec-2006 at 22:36
Well the ocelot, along with things like cheetahs, clouded leopards, snow leopards, lynxes.etc are very tricky in how you class them. Generally you can consider any cat that is bigger than a domestic one as a generic 'big cat'. However, the scientific fact behind the matter is that true big cats are only made up of 4 species, differentiated to the others in the felidae family through several physiological aspects. The 4 true big cat species belong to the genus 'Panthera'. There are numerous subspecies within these, but put simply they are: - Tiger (Panthera Tigris) - Lion (Panthera Leo) - Jaguar (Panthera Onca) - Leopard (Panthera Pardus) This is a rather controversial list, as many zoologists believe that pumas, cheetahs and snow leopards (even Clouded leopards and lynxes) deserve a place too. A few things that set these four cats apart from all others are: - The arrangement of the bones in head. The Hyoid bone (which connects the tongue to the roof of the mouth) of Big Cats is incomplete in its ossification (the process of bones forming) causing a looser fit within the voicebox bones. Big Cats have an elastic segment within the hyoid whereas those of the small cats are hard all over. Also the larynx of Big Cats is formed differently (slightly morphed) to those of all other cats. (NOTE: Snow Leopards also possess incomplete ossification of the hyoid, but the structure of the Snow Leopard's larynx is not morphed into the fashion of true big cats) The result of this arrangement and morphing gives the true 4 big cat species the ability to roar (and purr) while all other cats cannot roar. Hyoid bone in human: (It's the bold black thing at the bottom in throat)  - The pupils are an identifiable feature for classing the big and small cats. Big Cats gave round pupils whereas the small cats tend to have slits or ellipses. This idea has its holes though, for example the lynx (classified as a small cat) has round pupils. Tiger eye (big cat) -- round Lynx (small cat) eye -- Round Domestic Cat (small cat) eye -- Slit/Ellipse    - A scratchy (not fully scientific) way of classing the big cats is by weight/size. All 4 species grow to over 75kg when adults. Although, Male Pumas and Snow leopards are able to pip the 75kg mark which introduces confliction. Nevertheless, BIG cats are not named unaccordingly. - Another way in which you can class big cats is by the fact that they tend to lay down while feeding. You may not notice it but when cats like Sand Cats (Felis Margarita), Margays (Felis Wiedi) and Ocelots (Felis Pardalis) etc. (all 'small cats') feed they have to either crouch or stand up to properly consume and digest their food. On the other hand, big cats are supposedly unable to stand while eating. Of course, there are exceptions, like the snow leopard which can stand or lie down or whatever it pleases! NOTE: I heard this somewhere and have seen it on a few websites, as well as on a info-sign at the zoo; but I do not know of its credibility. Any disagreements are welcome/encouraged because of my unsurity. In conclusion, I refer to a big cat by the true scientific term. Ocelots I refer to as big small cats, because it is true - they are in the larger half of small cats, at around 11-16kg (25-35 lb I think??). Ocelot:  
 Peace out - Knights - ------------- |
Posted By: QueenCleopatra
Date Posted: 16-Dec-2006 at 12:21
Awwww! They are just adorable! And the adult is really beautiul. I love tigers in case you haven't guessed. ------------- Her Royal Highness , lady of the Two Lands, High Priestess of Thebes, Beloved of Isis , Cleopatra , Oueen of the Nile |