Category Biology

Where is the smallest deer in the world?

The pudús are the world’s smallest deer. The two species of pudús are the northern pudú from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, and the southern pudú from southern Chile and south western Argentina. Pudús range in size from 13-17 inches tall, and upto 33 inches long.

Both species of Pudú – Northern and Southern – are native to South America where they inhabit the dense undergrowth of temperate rain forests. Little is known about their lifestyle because they are so secretive. Pudú are the smallest species of deer in the world, with the Northern Pudú being slightly larger than the Southern Pudú. Fawns typically weigh less than three pounds at birth.

A male Southern Pudú fawn born on December 19 at the Los Angeles Zoo has been named “Haechan” after a musician who, according to his fans, resembles the tiny deer species.  Little Haechan (the Pudú) is thriving under the care of first-time parents Steph and Mario. The tiny fawn prefers to stay close to Steph and can sometimes be difficult for zoo guests to locate. As he grows, Haechan will gain confidence and spend more time away from mom. Destruction of their rain forest habitat has resulted in both Pudú species being under threat of extinction. Breeding programs like those of the Los Angeles Zoo are critical to gaining understanding of these elusive and endangered creatures. The tiny fawn was born to first-time parents, Steph and Mario. The playful newborn may be difficult for visitors to spot in its habitat. According to keepers, he likes to spend a lot of time tucked away, close to mom.

The Northern Pudú (Pudu mephistophiles) is found in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The Southern Pudú (Pudu puda) is native to southern Chile and southwestern Argentina. As of 2009, the Southern Pudu remains classified as “Near Threatened”, while the Northern Pudu is currently classified as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List. As a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Los Angeles Zoo participates in the Species Survival Plan (SSP) for the Southern Pudu, whose population is declining in the wild.

Credit : Zoo Borns

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Elephant from India caught smoking in the woods

Biologists in India recently recorded an Asian elephant in Nagarahole National Park and Tiger Reserve in Karnataka blowing out puffs of what appears to be smoke. The elephant appears to pick up and stuff chunks of charcoal into her mouth before exhaling a plume of ‘smoke’. Charcoal is readily available after forest fires, lightning strikes or controlled burns. According to Dr.. Varun R Goswami, a scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) India, the elephant may have been eating charcoal as a form of natural medicine, as charcoal is known for its ability to bind with toxins and also works as a laxative. Such animal self medication using natural materials is called ‘zoopharmacognosy’. According to WCS, charcoal may benefit animals by providing medicinal values. It can also act as a laxative, thus doubling its utility for animals that consume it. The charcoal in the wild is usually formed after forest fires, lightning strikes or controlled burns. According to a press statement from the WCS, researchers aren’t sure exactly what the elephant is doing, but it’s probably not just fooling around. Charcoal is known for its ability to bind with toxins and works as a laxative. So eating the charcoal may serve as a sort of wildlife medicine for the elephant. Charcoal is readily available in most places after forest fires or lightning strikes.

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WHAT IS THE STUDY OF FOSSILS CALLED?

Paleontology is the study of the history of life on Earth as based on fossils. Fossils are the remains of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and single-celled living things that have been replaced by rock material or impressions of organisms preserved in rock.

Paleontology, also spelled Palaeontology, scientific study of life of the geologic past that involves the analysis of plant and animal fossils, including those of microscopic size, preserved in rocks.

Paleontologists look at fossils, which are the ancient remains of plants, animals, and other living things. Fossils are mainly formed in two ways.

Credit: lisbdnet.com

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WHAT ARE STROMATOLITES?

Primitive life forms may have first appeared on Earth about 3800 million years ago. These bacteria lived in the oceans and built up solid mats of calcium carbonate, also known as lime. The deposits from the bacteria are known as stromatolites.

Stromatolites are living fossils and the oldest living lifeforms on our planet. The name derives from the Greek, stroma, meaning “mattress”, and lithos, meaning “rock”. Stromatolite literally means “layered rock”. The existence of these ancient rocks extends three-quarters of the way back to the origins of the Solar System.

With a citizen scientist’s understanding, stromatolites are stony structures built by colonies of microscopic photosynthesising organisms called cyanobacteria. As sediment layered in shallow water, bacteria grew over it, binding the sedimentary particles and building layer upon millimetre layer until the layers became mounds. Their empire-building brought with it their most important role in Earth’s history. They breathed. Using the sun to harness energy, they produced and built up the oxygen content of the Earth’s atmosphere to about 20%, giving the kiss of life to all that was to evolve.

Living stromatolites are found in only a few salty lagoons or bays on Earth. Western Australia is internationally significant for its variety of stromatolite sites, both living and fossilised. Fossils of the earliest known stromatolites, about 3.5 billion years old, are found about 1,000km north, near Marble Bar in the Pilbara region. With Earth an estimated 4.5 billion years old, it’s staggering to realise we can witness how the world looked at the dawn of time when the continents were forming. Before plants. Before dinosaurs. Before humans.

Credit: bbc.com

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WHEN DID PLANTS START TO GROW ON LAND?

The first land plants appeared during the Silurian period, around 440 million years ago. These simple plants reproduced by releasing spores. Plants produced oxygen and provided food for the first land animals – amphibians. Amphibians first developed in the Devonian period, 420 million years ago, from fish whose fins evolved into limbs.

Botanists now believe that plants evolved from the algae; the development of the plant kingdom may have resulted from evolutionary changes that occurred when photosynthetic multicellular organisms invaded the continents. The earliest fossil evidence for land plants consists of isolated spores, tracheid-like tubes, and sheets of cells found in Ordovician rocks. The abundance and diversity of these fossils increase into the Silurian Period (about 443.8 million to 419.2 million years ago), where the first macroscopic (megafossil) evidence for land plants has been found. These megafossils consist of slender forking axes that are only a few centimetres long. Some of the axes terminate in sporangia that bear trilete spores (i.e., spores that divide meiotically to form a tetrad). Because a trilete mark indicates that the spores are the product of meiosis, the fertile axes may be interpreted as the sporophyte phase of the life cycle.

Fossils of this type could represent either vascular plants or bryophytes. Another possibility is that they are neither but include ancestors of vascular plants, bryophytes, or both. The earliest fossils also include at least one or more additional plant groups that became extinct early in the colonization of the land and therefore have no living descendants. By the early Devonian Period (about 419.2 million to 393.3 million years ago), some of the fossils that consist of forking axes with terminal sporangia also produced a central strand of tracheids, the specialized water-conducting cells of the xylem. Tracheids are a diagnostic feature of vascular plants and are the basis for the division name, Tracheophyta.

Credit: Britannica

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WHAT DID EARLY ANIMALS LOOK LIKE?

By around 500 million years ago, bacteria in the oceans had evolved into the earliest fish. These strange creatures had no jaws; they had funnel-like Sucking mouths.

The first animals – including the common ancestor of all animals today – evolved in the sea over half a billion years ago. We have no direct evidence of what they were like.

But by studying animals today, we can work out features they must have shared – small size, soft bodies, and a tendency to stay very still or creep slowly across the ocean floor.

The creatures had bodies built from multiple cells with specialised roles, like organisms before them. Now, those cells could also form sheets called epithelia, allowing structures to develop. Along with increased genetic complexity, this set the scene for big changes.

Earth’s environment was in flux during the Cambrian period, and the Ediacaran period that came before it. Sea levels rose, and chemicals washed into the ocean. In the underwater world, evolution got to work. New creatures emerged that could move further than ever before – and change their environment by burrowing and building. Soon, the new species were living in every habitat across the length and breadth of the ocean.

Credit: Natural History

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