Los Perezosos

It's been a while since my last post because my personal computer is dead, and I'll have to wait a few weeks for someone to revive it (*fingers crossed*). However, because most of you probably thought I was just being a lazy blogger, here is some information about an animal who knows how to do lazy right- the Sloth.
There are 6 living species that make up the sloths, which belong to the suborder Folivora, meaning leaf-eaters. While there used to be more species that lived on the ground in North America and South America, these disappeared with the introduction of humans to these continents. Now we are left with only the tree-dwellers, two-toed and three-toed, who spend almost their entire lives up in the air. In fact, as David Attenborough explains in this video,

the sloth only comes down from it's tree to defaecate. They breed, sleep, eat and do almost every other activity in the trees, which gives them some protection from much faster land predators (but does not make them much safer to some birds of prey known to hunt them). However, when they do come down from their trees, they have been known to swim aptly.

But, why are they so slow? Due to their diet of mostly leaves (which is sometimes supplemented by the occasional small reptile or bird) they must have an extremely slow metabolism, because leaves are not rich in usable energy. It has been estimated that it normally takes a sloth about a month to digest the leaves it eats.
It used to be thought that the sloth was one of the longest-sleeping animals, sleeping for nearly 18 hours a day, but due to a recent study of sloths in the wild it was determined that sloths sleep just under 10 hours... quite similar to that of the elusive american teenager.

Happy Valentine's Day!

At the suggestion of my friend Rena, today's post will be a timely special on animal lovin'. But, since there are so many extreme courtship and mating rituals out there, it will be limited to mammals.
As you are probably aware-unless you're in the dog house for not buying your sweetie chocolates and flowers- mammals spend large amounts of time and energy in hopes of a chance at reproduction. This courtship behavior can involve touching, singing, dancing, and displays of beauty or strength. 
Here are just a few remarkable animal's mating behaviors:
1. The bonobo monkey: Share the Love. Bonobo monkeys don't see a reason to get jealous and confine themselves to one mate, or even one sex when it comes to making whoopy. And they're kinky too! They are one of the only mammals besides humans to engage in face-to-face genital sex, tongue kissing, and oral sex, and are often found to move from one partner to the next. 

2. Lions: Love hurts. During a mating period, lions will have sex on average 30+ times a day, and often forget altogether about eating. It may sound enjoyable, but the repeated copulations are to encourage the female to ovulate, which may occur when the spines of the male's penis rake the walls of the lioness'  vagina.  Not so fun.

She doesn't look too happy.

3. Elephants: Big Love. Due to their large mass and the fact that bulls are much larger than females (a phenomenon given the term "sexual dimorphism"), elephant mating can be a little tricky. After the nuzzling and trunk-play,

elephants deal with this size issue by having a prehensile penis, which means it can move separately from the rest of his body. 

Unfortunately, if you're a human male, you won't be able to use that feature to seduce the ladies, but I wish you all luck in your quest for love. 

Extreme Monotremes

5 species of egg-laying mammals are in existence today; 4 of these are species of echidna, or "spiny anteaters", 

while the other is the platypus, 

whose true scientific name is "Ornithorhynchus", meaning "duck-billed".

These animals are also unique to Mammalia in several other ways. For example,  while they do secrete concentrated milk from mammary glands, they do not possess nipples or teats, and instead the milk comes directly from the milk-line region of their skin. It is also notable that the name monotreme means "one opening" which refers to their common urogenital pore called a cloaca, a feature which suggests these species are the most primitive of the mammals around today. The males of these species also posses a poison spur on their hind leg (poison production is a very rare trait for mammals). One sting from a platypus spur can actually kill small pets!

  

Coping with the wintry weather.

Those of you who live on the east coast know we have been getting some serious snow this winter, which usually isn't the best weather for us primates. However, the Japanese macaque, which lives in the highest mountains in Japan has learned to deal with temperatures around -15 degrees F, which makes it the most northern-living non-human primate.

But it's the macaque's intelligence, not just it's ability to withstand the cold, that is most interesting. These mammals are one of three, along with humans and raccoons, that wash their food before eating. They also have highly developed language, with different accents belonging to isolated populations (similar to the way a person from Chicago has a different accent from someone in the deep south). And, to top that off, during the winter they throw snowballs, go "sledding" and have learned from the Japanese people to take refuge in the hot springs of their mountains.

Keep that mouth away from me!

Endemic to islands of Indonesia, the Komodo Dragon is the largest lizard in the world. Due to their large size, and the virulent strains of bacteria living in their mouths (close to 60 different strains can be found in just one lizard's mouth at one time), they are the top predators of their ecosystem. In fact, one bite from one of these animals can be lethal! 

And they will eat ANYTHING! Birds, invertebrates, other reptiles, monkeys, wild boar, you name it.
In the wild, these animals are mostly loners, and come together only for eating and reproduction. But, if a female Komodo is not able to find a mate for an extended period of time, the species is capable of parthenogenesis, which means they can produce eggs that will develop into offspring without mating. 
Thanks Alexa for suggesting this ruthless carnivore and National Geographic for video evidence.

This turtle is bigger than your turtle

Due to their status as "critically endangered", and their tendency to live in open ocean aside from nesting, Leatherback Sea Turtles are not often encountered, much less photographed, so many people do not know about these enormous animals. Besides members of class Crocodilia, the Leatherback Turtle is the largest member of the phylum Reptilia, and feed entirely on jellyfish! These turtles are unique to other tunicates (turtles) because their carapaces are made of skin and oily flesh instead of a hard bony material. What's the coolest things about these cold-blooded jelly killers? They migrate enormous distances across entire oceans between nesting periods.
All sea turtles are endangered but you can help the Leatherback specifically by not polluting our oceans with plastic bags which look similar to their jellyfish food source.

So.. they are a little slow, but pretty awesome creatures.