Author: Heidi Kay Smith

Biology PhD student on the cusp of finishing and moving on to a postdoc in the behavioral ecology of amphibians. I blog to share my thoughts, ideas, and general feelings of awe of the natural world.

Meet the Arboreal Salamander

There is a recent natural history article in the Journal of Herpetology (click here for the link from D. E. Lee et al., 2012) describing the Arboreal Salamander (Aneides lugubris). The authors have characterized the basic life history traits of this salamander by capture-mark-recapture studies covering a 4 year span. This information is important for many areas of future research, but specifically this will aid in future conservation endeavors.

Oh yeah and this little guy has TEETH!

Basic life-history information like this is still lacking in many species because it is difficult to find funding. Check out the link above to read more about this salamander or click here to see more California salamanders.

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

Meet the Narwhal

This super-bad unicorn of the sea is most closely related to the beluga whale. The unicorn-horn is not a horn at all but a tooth that grows through the top lip. Male narwhals have one overgrown tooth (1 in 500 have 2) that usually comes from the left and in mega rare cases the female can have a tusk as well. The body length can be up to 3 meters and the tusk can be half that size. So, why do they have a tusk? Well, not for hunting because they eat benthic foods. Fighting? Breaking through the ice? These behaviors have rarely been observed. Continue reading “Meet the Narwhal”

Meet the Hyrax

These swarthy little mammals hang out in Africa and the Middle East and have been blowing up in the news recently. They are in the family Procaviidae which is the only living family in Hydrocoidea. Interestingly, they have multi-chambered stomach, but they are definitely not ruminants.

Even more remarkable, is their song which is a mammal freestyle like you’ve never seen. Check out the video below from Arik Kershenbaum from the University of Haifa:

“Meet the…” is a collaboration between The Finch & Pea and Nature Afield to bring Nature’s amazing creatures into your home.

Meet the Solenodon: Another weird, wonderful, venomous mammal!

Solenodon
paradoxus

While totally sounding like a sci-fi planet, Solenodons are actually just insectivores. In the family Solenodontidae, there is only one genus-Solenodon and just two species. Yes, solenodons come in just two flavors the Hispaniolan (Solenodon paradoxus) and the Cuban (Solenodon cubanus). These shrew-like looking creatures have a venomous bite that emanates from a groove in their second incisors. Solenodons are reported to eat plants, insects, small invertebrates, but also reptile, amphibians, and rodents. They kill prey larger than themselves most likely after inflicting a fatal bite. The toxin blarina produces a peptide called bradykinin and this bite then leads to paralysis and convulsions.
Continue reading “Meet the Solenodon: Another weird, wonderful, venomous mammal!”

Meet the Pselaphinae

A Snapshot of Pselaphine Beetle Diversity: plates from Raffray’s Étude sur les Psélaphides (1890)

Guest post by Joseph Parker, Coleopterist, Columbia University.

If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to walk through a rainforest, you’ll probably have noticed huge numbers of ants patrolling the ground at your feet. Ants dominate forest environments, dismembering other arthropods, harvesting honeydew from plant sucking bugs, and waging war on neighbouring colonies.

But amongst the ants exists another, far more poorly known group of creatures… a group of beetles called Pselaphinae (SEH-LA-FIN-EE). In terms of species richness they rival—and may even surpass—ants. These beetles are remarkable, being one of the most morphologically diverse groups of organisms out there, with a seemingly endless range of bizarre body forms. Continue reading “Meet the Pselaphinae”