Photo: Hugh Rose, Accentalaska

The critical habitat established to protect Alaska’s polar bears is the largest of its kind in the United States.

For the first time polar bears in the U.S. have their own critical habitat. The 187,157-square-mile swath around Alaska is mostly offshore, where roughly 3,500 Ursus maritimus dwell on sea ice—and large oil deposits may lurk. Set last fall, the Interior Department designation means all future drilling plans will be federally scrutinized (existing structures are exempt). It also protects barrier islands and the coastline where more mother bears are denning as sea ice melts.

Map: Jerome N. Cookson, NGM staff. Sources: IHS Energy; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Click to enlarge.

So far, reactions have been mixed. The state of Alaska and Alaska Native corporations, which rely heavily on oil and gas dollars, say the red tape and the habitat’s vast size will spell huge revenue losses. Environmentalists cheer the move but fear it won’t be enforced. To save polar bears, they say, list them as endangered, not threatened. That would bolster legal protections and leave more room to tackle the chief threat to the animals’ territory: the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.
—Jeremy Berlin

From left: Aptenodytes forsteri (Emperor penguin), Inkayacu paracasensis, and Eudyptula minor (Little penguin)

Nothing is black-and-white, it seems. Not even penguins. That’s what University of Texas paleontologist Julia Clarke found after unearthing 36-million- year-old remains in Peru’s Paracas National Reserve—the first penguin fossil ever found with evidence of feathers intact. Like its present-day relatives, Inkayacu paracasensis was a deft swimmer. Unlike them, it weighed more than a hundred pounds and sported a coat with ruddy feathers. Clarke’s team deduced the color last year after comparing tiny pigment packages called melanosomes from the fossilized plumage with those of living species. This part of coastal Peru has recently produced other big penguin finds. Clarke says the area could be key to painting the full picture of the birds’ evolution. For now, a touch of color has been applied. —Catherine Zuckerman

Art: Mauricio Antón. Photo: Julia Clarke, University of Texas at Austin. NGM Maps

The new movie Soul Surfer tells the story of Bethany Hamilton, a competitive surfer whose steady rise to pro took an astonishing turn in 2003 when a shark bit off her left arm. Despite the loss, Hamilton went on to win the NSSA National Championships in 2005.

Though Hamilton’s tenacity is the centerpiece of the film, the plot is set in motion by her encounter with a 14-foot tiger shark while waiting for a wave on the morning of October 31, 2003. The shark makes two appearances: once as a gray blur during the encounter, and again as a pair of jaws that matches the bite on Hamilton’s surfboard.

Despite the great surfing footage, we couldn’t help wondering about shark attacks and their aftermath. To find out, we talked with Marie Levine, executive director of the Shark Research Institute. Here's what we learned.

Shark attacks are uncommon.

In the United States you are twice as likely to be killed by a bolt of lightning than to be attacked by a shark. Worldwide, there are about 70 to 100 shark attacks a year, though the number could be higher. Some shark encounters are not reported. Many shark encounters occur because sharks troll for food on the shore-side of sandbars or between them, spots where surfers and bathers also tend to congregate.

Sharks don’t have hands.

This may seem very obvious, but in explaining why sharks shouldn’t be demonized for biting humans, Levine notes: “All animals explore their environments. Sharks use their mouths to do so where we might use our hands.” Unable to swim backward, some sharks might attack out of fear when they meet a foreign object.

Hunting a shark suspected of involvement in an encounter isn’t wise.

1) You probably won’t catch it. After Bethany Hamilton’s shark encounter, two fishermen heard reports of a tiger shark around the North Shore of the island of Kauai and decided to hunt it. Their motive, according to an article published November 14, 2003 in The Garden Island, was to “protect surfers, fishermen and beachgoers on the North Shore.” The fishermen hauled in a 13-foot, six-inch tiger shark. There was nothing in its stomach except for shark they’d used as bait. Since a tiger shark can travel as far as 10 miles in a day at normal cruising speed, poetic justice would have been nearly impossible to achieve. 2) Even killing one shark adds to the strain on an already endangered population. “Sharks are critical for maintaining the balance of the marine ecosystem,” says Levine. Citing the east coast of the United States as a prime example, Levine explains that where populations of large sharks have declined, the animals they feed off, like rays and skates, have seen marked population growth. In turn, these sea creatures have decimated oysters, clams, and scallops, and strained the bivalve industry, putting people out of work.

Shark surfers in Hawaii have a lot of rules to follow.

Though some shark fishing is allowed, certain species are protected. Furthermore, the state has the most stringent rules on shark finning, in which a shark is captured, its fin removed, and then the animal is returned to the ocean. Hawaii has banned the killing of sharks for their fins (commonly used to make shark fin soup) and the possession of shark fins.

-Margaret Krauss

 
Bald eagle, Tongass National Forest, Alaska; photo by Michael Melford

The Raptor Resource Project in Decorah, Iowa, has mounted an eagle webcam (eagle webcam FAQs), to track the daily life of a nesting bald eagle pair who are hatching eaglets. The sturdy looking nest is high up in a cottonwood tree with large twigs and small branches on the outside, and fluffy material on the inside. There is usually an adult eagle sitting on the nest and if you are patient you will see two fuzzy eaglets pop out from under the eagle, along with an egg that may hatch any minute; the eaglets look like tiny bandits with black markings around their eyes. The two eaglets seem to treat the egg as if it were a coffee table, leaning on it as they get their wobbly bearings. There is an array of "leftovers" scattered about the nest which the nesting eagle chews up and feeds to the babies. Get the facts on bald eagles, check out the webcam and send an eagle ecard to a friend.

• Bald eagle facts on our website, including audio 
• Bald eagle facts and video on our KIDS website 
• Birds of prey photo gallery; includes eagles, hawks, vultures, and more 

Actor Charlie Sheen’s bizarre behavior seems an unlikely source of inspiration for a sober message. But when Sheen proclaimed to the world that he had “tiger blood, man,” it reminded us that in some parts of the world, tigers and other endangered animals are vulnerable to exploitation for the supposed medicinal and spiritual value of their body parts. While tigers’ blood isn’t much in demand, their pelts, whiskers, penises and bones are all commodities, and a whole tiger can fetch $10,000 and up.

For more insight on this issue, we talked to Bryan Christy, author of the book The Lizard King, who wrote a January 2010 National Geographic magazine feature about Asia’s illegal wildlife trade.

What do you think about the current satirical interest surrounding tiger’s blood, thanks to Charlie Sheen?

It was irresponsible of him to refer to drinking tiger blood, but I suspect no one consults Charlie Sheen for health or dietary advice. 

Are other tiger parts in demand by the illegal wildlife trade?

Tigers are among the species most highly prized by illegal wildlife trafficking syndicates. Every part of a tiger has a value, from its pelt to its penis. Even its whiskers are for sale. Its bones are used to make tiger bone wine. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) ascribes certain powers to tiger parts. Fortunately, the Chinese government outlawed use of tiger parts in TCM almost two decades ago, and most people have come to realize that what’s truly valuable about tigers is their role in the ecosystem.

Photo: A cactus bee pollinates a barrel cactus in Tucson, Arizona. Photograph by Mark W. Moffett

Pollinators help produce much of the food found in our grocery stores. Bees alone are behind every third bite of food we eat.

Renowned bug and plant wrangler Stephen Buchmann gives a behind-the-scenes look at the busy world of pollinators. He offers gardening tips for planting wildflower gardens to attract colorful pollinators like butterflies and hummingbirds.

 
Blue bird of paradise performs a courtship ritual; artwork by Walter A. Weber, 1950

Consider the male bowerbird who builds and decorates intricate bowers that Martha Stewart might envy—some zen-like and some covered with bling—solely to impress the ladies. If you like a snappy dresser, cast your gaze on birds of paradise; they are dazzling and they know it, with elaborate plumage and extreme courtship rituals. Last but not least is the penguin, paragon of dedication and devotion; once mated they work 24/7 taking care of the precious egg and chick. Choose your favorite: handyman, sharp dresser, or devoted mate.

• 2010 July—National Geographic magazine. Bowerbirds photo gallery by Tim Laman.
• 2009 September—National Geographic magazine. King Penguin photo gallery by Stefano Unterthiner.
• 2007 July—National Geographic magazine. Birds of Paradise photo gallery by Tim Laman.

Just like everyone else in America, we’ve been hearing the uproar in recent weeks over the relative merits and disadvantages of the super-strict parenting style espoused by Yale law professor Amy Chua in her new memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Chua, a mother of two, argues that hard-line “tiger mothering” has taught her children discipline, focus, and respect for authority—indeed, that it amounts to a recipe for success in adulthood. To that end, she justifies having called one daughter “garbage” after a show of disrespect, forcing another to go without dinner or bathroom breaks while practicing piano, and forbidding her girls from sleepovers and after-school activities like sports and drama.

There’s plenty of room for reasonable folks to disagree about the best way to raise kids. But is it correct to refer to Chua’s tough love as tiger mothering? How do real tiger moms raise their young? Are they so harsh? For a reality check, we consulted Emma Stokes, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and conservationist with the Tigers Forever program, a major international effort to save Asian tigers. Here’s what we learned:

Comparison of a woolly mammoth (left) and Asian elephant (right); by Kazuhiko Sano

Can you picture a live woolly mammoth hanging out with a herd of elephants? It could happen. An international project is underway to clone a woolly mammoth using frozen mammoth DNA and in vitro fertilization, with an African elephant as the surrogate mother. Read about an original baby mammoth, Lyuba, the 40,000-year-old frozen star of a National Geographic article, and a companion article discussing the complexities and ethics of cloning extinct species.

• Video and more online mammoth features from the NatGeo Channel.
• 2009 May—National Geographic magazine. Ice Baby: Secrets of a Frozen Mammoth. 30-51. Just a month old when she died, Lyuba was preserved almost perfectly, down to her eyelashes. Tom Mueller reports on the likely explanation behind her untimely death and what she can tell us about her vanished species. Photos by Francis Latreille.
• 2009 May—National Geographic magazine. Recipe for a Resurrection: Should We Clone Extinct Animals? 52-55. Tom Mueller discusses the challenges involved in sequencing mammoth DNA and the ethics of producing a one-of-a-kind creature: because we can, should we? An interactive feature illustrates how mammoth cloning would work.

Watching the new Green Hornet film, which stars Seth Rogen as a masked vigilante with a chauffeur sidekick, inspired me to find out more about its namesake in the natural world. Can hornets really be green? Well, no—they’re yellow, black and brown—but they do have plenty of other impressive characteristics you may not know about. Read past the jump for our list.

For years scientists have known that pigments aren’t the only way butterflies get their brilliant colors. Light can also bounce off structures and reflect hues through scattering or interference, as with the blue of the sky or the iridescence of a soap bubble. Now a group at Yale University has identified one such structure in five butterfly species as a gyroid—a complex, three-dimensional form that is one of nature’s most efficient ways of folding space (left). In the butterflies studied, from the Papilionidae and Lycaenidae families, the microscopic gyroids consist of chitin—the same material found in insect exoskeletons—and air pockets interwoven in a repeating pattern that resembles a network of three-bladed boomerangs. The green color resulting from the interplay of scattered light helps warn off predators, says lead scientist Richard Prum. Gyroids have superior optical properties, and the ability to synthesize similar forms could aid in the development of solar cells and insulation for fiber-optic cables. While the majority of butterfly colors are pigmentary—created when molecules absorb and reemit certain wavelengths of light—a variety of structural ones exist. So far green is the only known gyroid color, says Prum, “but I’m sure there are more.” —Luna Shyr

Cross section of a scale. Gyroids, seen here in a colorized electron microscope scan, produce this butterfly’s green hues.

Photos: Martin Oeggerli, with Marco Cantoni, École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (Above); Martin Oeggerli (Middle); Richard Prum, Yale University (Top). Art: Shizuka Aoki

Snakes are the unbilled stars of the new Coen Brothers’ western, True Grit. They’re talked about, given lots of screen time, and you’d better believe that they bite. We asked snake expert Terry Philip, curator of reptiles at Black Hills Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, South Dakota, to shed light on the movie depiction of the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake.

Spoiler alert: This post reveals the identity of the movie’s snake-bite victim.

Tiger eye, Madhav National Park, India, 1997; photograph by Michael Nichols

To mark Big Cat Week on the Nat Geo Wild channel, meet the people who are fighting to save the big cats in ways that may sometimes seem fanatical. In India a man risks life and limb in a battle against armed poachers. In the Americas another man is spearheading one of the largest conservation projects ever known to provide safe passage for the jaguar. And in the remote mountainous regions of Asia see what creative means have been undertaken to save the elusive snow leopard. Take a Big Cats Quiz and find out more about the National Geographic Society's Big Cats Initiative.

• 2009 June/July -- National Geographic Adventure magazine. Cat Fight: The War on India's Tigers. 60-68, 81-83. Dharmendra Kandal had been researching spiders when he happened to get a job surveying tigers in Ranthambhore National Park and wound up capturing poachers and tracking down rifle purveyors because no one else would. Author Paul Kvinta follows Kandal on the job and Tom Pietrasik photographs him in action.
• 2009 March -- National Geographic magazine. Path of the Jaguar. 122-133. From Mexico to Argentina the jaguar migrates, sometimes venturing into populated areas with tragic results. Mel White describes the ambitious effort led by the Panthera Foundation's Alan Rabinowitz to provide a network of corridors and refuges as a safe path, the Paseo de Jaguar. Photos show Alan Rabinowitz, and the jaguars, in motion.
• 2008 June -- National Geographic magazine. Out of the Shadows: Snow Leopards. 106-129. Douglas H. Chadwick reports on local conservation efforts to help this secretive animal who faces the challenges of a prized pelt, overgrazed lands and angry livestock owners. Photos by Steve Winter, who won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 award for one of the photos in this article.

It’s no secret that turkeys aren’t considered the geniuses of the animal world. Many people say the birds are so stupid that they'll stand in the rain, look up with their beaks wide open, and drown. Do they deserve this sorry reputation?

Jesse Grimes, professor of nutrition and poultry sciences at North Carolina State University, was happy to explain a few things about turkey behavior.

Media outlets have been atwitter over the recent death of TV sitcom Wild at Heart’s biggest— literally— star: Hamley the giraffe was struck and killed by a wayward lightning bolt on Monday, November 8 on the South African game reserve where the series is filmed.

This tragedy begs the question: Is Hamley’s death a freak occurrence, or are giraffes at increased risk for death by lightning because their long necks act as a lightning rod?

Setnet fishermen on Bristol Bay trap salmon when the fish swim close to shore with the incoming tide. Photo: Michael Melford

From my vantage point in the single-engine plane above Bristol Bay, I see an epidemic of salmon fever as big as the state of Alaska. Hundreds of boats are in high gear, chasing the millions of ready-to-spawn sockeye returning to the bay, hauling in nets filled with fish. Many boats are so laden with salmon they ride precariously low in the water, dangerously close to swamping. I had heard about this fishery for years, but nothing prepared me for the enormity of it until I saw it for myself. I was also not prepared for its beauty and remoteness—no dams, development, or human footprint, just endless miles of pristine creeks, lakes, and rivers. This was the wild Alaska I had imagined. A tranquil landscape. Nature at its grandest.

Today, nearly 28 years later, photographer Michael Melford and writer Edwin Dobb see the same breathtaking landscape and find the salmon still running. But the Bristol Bay watershed is no longer tranquil. Instead, it’s filled with tension provoked by the discovery of what may be the world’s largest deposit of gold and one of the largest deposits of copper. The lode, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, has spawned ambitions for an immense mining complex with an open pit possibly two miles wide and a cavernous underground mine. It’s a face-off between salmon and gold; the battle between those who support the mine and those who oppose it has reached a critical point. The risk, the values and priorities, the balancing of potential gains and losses all present uneasy and complicated questions. In this month’s issue Melford and Dobb wade into the fight.

Halloween is the time when humans can get a taste of what it is like to roam the streets as an animal. And this Halloween, the newest way to assume the guise of a beast is by climbing into an animal-print full-body “morphsuit.”

To see what it is like to straddle the line between human and animal, I took up my editor’s invitation to put on a $65 zebra suit and gallop around our nation’s capital. (On one excursion, I was joined by a colleague in a leopard suit.)

My conclusion is that even in this odd suit, I became a player in what scientist E.O. Wilson calls “biophilia” – an innate love that humans have for animals. (Either that, or people just love weird stuff). Aside from an unfortunate episode at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, in which my head-to-toe mask caused guards to call me aside and insist that I remove the head mask, I was met with outpourings of love from tourists and residents. It is unclear how zebras would respond: I made an attempt to find one at the National Zoo but did not succeed.

The following photos offer the high points from my walk (and pedicab ride) on the wild side. —William Shubert

TOUCHDOWN ZEBRA! In an ode to his black-and-white striped cousins on the football field, the zebra signals score during a pedicab ride by the Washington Monument.

Forgive us for bragging, but we're number one and number two. National Geographic photographers placed first and second in this year’s Wildlife Photojournalist of the Year competition Congratulations to Mark Leong and Brian Skerry!

The award is a brand new one for the 46-year-old Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, which is sponsored by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine. The category calls for a sequence of six pictures that tell a memorable story about animal behavior or about an issue affecting animals.

Mark Leong’s photos from our story, "Asia's Wildlife Trade," took first place. The story, published in January, covers the illegal international animal trade and its victims. The article has been credited with helping to prompt changes in enforcement of anti-smuggling laws in Malaysia.

Runner-up was Brian Skerry, for a portfolio based on several stories he did for the magazine, including one on global fisheries.

The photo editor for both stories was Kathy Moran.

Photo: Joel Sartore

Bugs are things we normally try to keep OUT of our soups and salads.

Maybe that’s the wrong attitude.

In many parts of the world, insects and worms have long been a cheap source of protein. North American and European cultures are really the only ones that have abstained. ”Insects are a vast and varied food resource,” says professor emeritus Gene DeFoliart of the University of Wisconsin, who for years kept up a website on entomophagy –the art of insect eating. With our planet packed with people, and limited land space for agriculture, he says, “we in the West should stop laughing at the idea of consuming termites and mealworms and crickets.”

So I decided it was time to try some insect edibles. A small brave group of writers and editors, all curious but admittedly icked-out, reserved a table at a favorite Mexican joint, Oyamel in Washington, D.C. The chef whipped us up a batch of grasshopper tacos (and a pitcher of something with triple sec and lime to wash them down, just in case).

Still, the film made me wonder about these ill-reputed creatures. Herewith, a piranha primer.

“Wolves are incredibly charismatic and very powerful creatures, and you can’t create a version … as good as the real thing,” executive producer Alan Ball has said. So he turned to Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife, whose trained wolves are descended from rescued wolves.

Lucy is part bonobo.

Hiking in a Nova Scotia park last fall, a young woman was killed by two canids. They were bigger than coyotes and smaller than wolves, with skulls and jaws unlike either species’. Some eastern Canadians and Americans had glimpsed “coywolves” before, but the grisly incident conjured fresh questions. What exactly are they? And should we be worried? 

Roland Kays of New York State Museum can answer the first one. In the 1920s, he says, coyotes from the west pushed into the Great Lakes region and mated with wolves from the east. The result wasn’t a new species but, according to recent DNA analysis, a hybrid that’s more coyote than wolf, with the street smarts of the former and the hunting capabilities of the latter. No one knows their current numbers, but eastern coyotes (the favored term) form families, seek food at night, and can prey on pets and livestock—the main reason for their recent run-ins with humans. 

As for worrying, Cape Cod wildlife specialist Peter Trull says there’s no need to; the Nova Scotia case was an anomaly. “Coyotes are wild animals, and people have been bitten by them,” he says. “But generally they avoid humans.” —Jeremy Berlin

A great hammerhead shark prowls the waters of the northern Bahamas. Photo by: Brian Skerry, National Geographic Stock.

A Shark’s-eye View Why are hammerhead sharks’ eyes so widely separated on their bizarrely shaped heads? Whatever the evolutionary reason for the placement, scientists have debated whether it was to provide good vision. Florida Atlantic University marine biologist Michelle McComb has settled that vision question by studying three of the eight types of hammerheads. She found that hammerheads see not only directly ahead with binocular vision similar to that of humans; they also see up, down, and behind themselves simultaneously. “Their eyes are canted forward, and that is the key,” McComb says. Their eye separation gives hammerheads great binocular vision and depth perception—a bonus when pursuing fast-moving prey.

Although hammerheads do have a particularly big blind spot in front of their widely spaced eyes, other senses compensate for this hole in their visual field. Sensors on the sharks’ heads help them detect electrical fields emitted by fish, and the placement of nostrils near their eyes could mean they use what McComb calls “enhanced stereo smell” to monitor the blind spot. —Jim Dawson

E. chlorotica’s leafy, two-inch-long body lets it efficiently capture sunlight for photosynthesis. The chlorophyll in its cells makes the slug green. Photo by: Nicholas Curtis and Raymond Martinez

Sun-Loving Slugs Plants, you aren’t so special. That’s the message from the marine mollusk Elysia chlorotica (above), which not only looks like a leaf but acts like one too. The slug can live on sunlight its entire life, up to a year; all it needs is a little yellow-green algae.

Capturing energy from the sun by photosynthesis is best known as a plant thing. But decades ago marine biologists realized that sea slugs steal cellular bits called chloroplasts from the algae they eat and use them to turn CO2 into sugar. In 2007 the slugs were shown to incorporate algal genes into their own DNA. This lets them make the plant proteins needed to keep chloroplasts in their cells long-term.

Now University of South Florida biologist Sidney Pierce and colleagues report that the Atlantic-dwelling E. chlorotica filches enough plant genetics that it can churn out its own chlorophyll, the pigment that chloroplasts exhaust during photosynthesis. That means the green slug can use the sun to refuel without ever eating again.

Pierce says it’s an intriguing evolutionary shortcut: “Movement of genes between species can make big and rapid changes. Evolution doesn’t always need to wait for a mutation.” —Jennifer S. Holland

Learn more about wildlife on the new TV network Nat Geo WILD.

In the matriarchal world of elephants, males are known as mostly independent sorts. Females maintain close, lifelong family ties, while bulls tend to wander off solo, at times banding with another male or more loosely with groups of them. 

Or do they? During a six-year study in Namibia’s Etosha National Park, Stanford University behavioral ecologist Caitlin O’Connell-Rodwell observed for the first time intense, long-lasting bonds among a dozen or so bulls—a tight-knit group of teenagers, adults, and seniors up to 55 she’s dubbed the Boys’ Club. Older males serve as mentors and mediators for younger ones, enforcing a strict social hierarchy and keeping underlings in line when hormones rage and rowdiness may erupt.

In drought-prone Namibia, rank becomes most rigid when water is scarcest. “In dry years the strict pecking order they establish benefits all of them,” O’Connell-Rodwell says. “Everyone knows their place.” That means young bulls supplicate more frequently to their elders—and peace is maintained while everyone gets to drink. —Hannah Bloch 

Learn more about wildlife on the new Nat Geo Wild network. Visit http://natgeowild.com.

Ernie’s eyes, though his oversize square glasses, spotted whoopers in the wild during early surveys. His hands first carried whooper eggs out of Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park to seed captive programs aimed at saving the birds from extinction (see “Counting Cranes” in our June issue). As a young biologist he’d contemplated a life studying wolves and caribou, but witnessing the grandeur of a whooper in flight turned his focus to the sky. Crane conservation would be many strides behind if the birds hadn’t won Ernie over at such a critical time.

Photograph courtesy Klaus Nigge

To photograph whooping cranes on the swampy breeding grounds in Wood Buffalo National Park, photographer Klaus Nigge sat in his one-meter-square blind for six days and nights. He hardly moved and barely slept—but the payoff was worth the cramped muscles and exhaustion. He caught on film a predatory interaction that few have ever witnessed. “It was one of my best photographic sessions ever,” he says.

Writer Jenny S. Holland interviews Klaus to get the story behind his photographs. 

Photos by Rebecca Hale, NGM Staff. Web Image: Samuel Zschokke

Those stray strands in the corner of the spare room? Not the work of the spider genus Nephila, aka golden orb weavers. Their orbs—those familiar spirals with silken spokes—are the world’s biggest, topping three feet across. And Nephila are the largest spiders that spin orb webs.

To add another superlative, researchers recently discovered the most imposing species of the widely dispersed genus, called N. komaci (right)—the first new Nephila in 130 years. The specimens on this page  look a bit out of joint because Matjaž Kuntner of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and Jonathan Coddington of the Smithsonian Institution discovered them, misclassified, in museum collections. Later, a colleague in South Africa found a few more crawling in the wild.

Every October millions of dragonflies— mostly the widespread species known as the globe skimmer—begin to arrive in the Maldives, more than 300 miles southwest of India. By year’s end the insects have gone, only to reappear briefly in May. Where do they come from? And where are they headed?

Charles Anderson, a Maldives-based biologist, has 14 years of dragonfly data and an intriguing theory. The insects, which breed in pools of fresh water, appear to follow seasonal rains. Each fall this takes them from India to East Africa via the Maldives and brings them back on a similar route months later—a round-trip distance of some 11,000 miles. If Anderson is right, the globe skimmers’ migration would be the longest of any insect, putting them in the company of other great travelers of the animal world. —A. R. Williams

Majesty alone can’t save them. The world’s top felines—including lions, cheetahs, and leopards—are slipping toward extinction. But an emergency effort to fund on-the-ground conservation projects may help put them back on their feet.

Vernon Yates took one of his 18 tigers to a party—his fee varies by event. “You can’t trust tigers,” a guest said. To prove her wrong, he told her he’d stick his head in the animal’s jaws and tug its tongue for $20. She had to pay up.

Photo: After defoliating trees, caterpillars turned their attention to something less edible in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Bushes, trees, an entire car shrouded in a ghostly white web—the sights last spring in the Dutch city of Rotterdam were like something from a horror film. People were “peering into the hedgerow expecting the mother of all spiders to emerge,” says Stuart Hine, a British Natural History Museum entomologist. What was responsible for this spooky mess? 

The platypus is so bizarre its discovery was first dismissed as a hoax. After an Australian specimen arrived in London in 1798, biologists had to make a call: reptile or mammal? On the mammal side, it was covered in thick fur and nursed its young—with milky patches on the belly instead of nipples. On the reptile side, it laid eggs. Scientists voted mammal. Now researchers have sequenced the platypus genome, confirming the classification but also finding much reptile-like DNA. 

The “star,”  with some 100,000 nerve endings, gives Condylura cristata its sensitive touch. Claws give it scraping power. Photograph by Kenneth Catania

What outlandish snoot is this? A handy one that helps the star-nosed mole clock in as the fastest forager among mammals. As the mole claws at wetland soil or stream sediment, the tentacles about its nose probe up to 13 spots a second for invertebrates, insect larvae, and other prey. Then in 230 milliseconds—quicker than our eyes can flit to a fl ash of light—the mole scrutinizes and devours the edibles. That’s a record for pinpointing and eating food. (Bats are the likely runners-up.)

Two thousand feet down lurks the baffling barreleye. What look to be its eyes are nostrils. Its real eyes are tubes topped by green lenses adapted to catch light and let the fish judge the gap from mouth to meal. (The pigment filters downwelling light, making prey easier to see.) On top, a fluid-filled dome shields the eyes from stinging animals without blocking the view.

Click to enlarge graphic.

UNESCO’s Index Translationum speaks volumes about topics and authors of global appeal. The bibliography of translations lists some 1.7 million books from 130 countries in 820 languages. Along with the authors above, works by Walt Disney Productions and the Old and New Testament are among the most widely translated. J. K. Rowling hasn’t cracked the top 50—yet. But lots of U.S. authors have. “Translation from other languages into American English,” says Rainer Schulte, of the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Texas, Dallas, “is limited in comparison to what gets translated from English into other languages.” —Diane Cole


Graphic: Oliver Uberti, NG Staff. Photo: Rebecca Hale, NG Staff

They’re fuzzy, white, and vocal, but maybe the most remarkable thing about them, says primatologist Erik Patel, is how few there are. He’s talking about the silky sifaka, a lemur that lives in only a few patches of high-altitude forest on Madagascar. Patel has found that fewer than a thousand remain. Like other lemurs, the silky sifaka is hunted for meat and is seeing its habitat slashed and burned to clear space for rice fields. Patel hopes that 12 new bungalows near the sifakas’ territory in Marojejy National Park will attract tourists—and that the money visitors bring will get locals excited about protecting lemurs too. —Helen Fields

Photo: Iñaki Relanzon.

When it comes to the art of egg decoration, Mother Nature is the original master. The patterns and lines that adorn many eggs—like those of murres, grackles, and jacanas—are positively calligraphic. These markings, which get their pigment from bile acids and broken-down red blood cells, are applied during the tail end of the 20 hours during which the egg is in the shell-gland region of the oviduct. A shell that emerges encircled with wispy streaks (above) means the egg rotated while the inking occurred.

African frogs have taken a page right out of comic books. Like the X-Men character whose fists encase deadly blades, some frog species conceal tiny claws in their toes that cut through the animals’ own skin in order to wield them against a foe.

These amphibians have been digging into humans—and no doubt other predators—for years, but until now no one sought the cause. While collecting frogs in Cameroon, Harvard biologist David Blackburn became intrigued when one of them gave him a bloody scratch. Examining museum specimens, he’s so far found 11 species with wound-inflicting anatomy in their back feet. During stress-induced muscle contractions, he says, the sharp bony tips “pierce their way to functionality.”

Defenses that harm their user are rare, and how this one evolved isn’t yet known. But the damage done is likely minimal. “I suspect the skin heals fine,” Blackburn says. “Amphibians have remarkable regenerative capabilities.” —Jennifer S. Holland

Photo: The hairy frog is one species with bony claws that rip its own skin—a bizarre anatomical feature. Photograph by David C. Blackburn. Art: Mariel Furlong, NG staff

In the smash-hit movie The Hangover, some guys wake up in their hotel room after a night of debauchery. One of them goes to relieve himself. He hears a roar. There’s a tiger near the toilet tank! Turns out it’s Mike Tyson’s pet.

Naturally, Pop Omnivore wondered: What should you do if there is a tiger in the room? And, on a more serious note, do people really have pet tigers?

Here is what we learned from tiger experts Philip Nyhus, assistant professor of environmental studies at Colby College and co-editor of the forthcoming book Tigers of the World, and Louis Dorfman, animal behaviorist at the International Exotic Animal Sanctuary.

It kills at least 50,000 people worldwide each year, mostly children. Dogs are the main culprits. But in the United States, where pet vaccination and stray-dog control programs are strong, rabies has a different face: Raccoons and skunks are by far the top four-legged viral hosts.

Some birds that look very different— say, bright hummingbirds and drab nightjars—are long-lost kin. Some never considered together, like songbirds and parrots, are really close relatives. Others that act similarly, such as falcons and other birds of prey, may be genetically unrelated. 

FROM BITE TO BELLY   How does a 12-foot-long eel move food down its throat? Sliding rear jaws. After the front jaws bite, the rear ones slide up and grab the prey. As those retract, the front jaws release. The eel then juts its head forward, which aids in the swallowing process.

Pulsing mouth, vacant stare, snakelike body: The moray eel truly suggests alien origins. But there’s more. Back behind this giant reef fish’s already toothy maw looms a second set of jaws, which launch from the throat, grab prey from the front teeth, then retreat into the dark tunnel of the eel’s esophagus. It’s the stuff of science fiction. But to scientists studying this unique morphology, it’s a brilliant feeding mechanism for such an elongated creature.

What does Paris Hilton want? Besides lasting fame and beauty and wealth?

Apparently, a cheetah.

According to the New York Daily News:
“A hotel spy tells us: "Every time Paris saw something she liked [on a recent trip to South Africa], like a woman's dress, she would ask how much it was. That included a cheetah she saw at an animal park. She asked how much it was and said, 'If I bought a cheetah, would it run away from me or could I keep it?'"

Actually, that’s the wrong question. A better question might be: Would it hurt me? Try asking the cheetah owner who was attacked by her cheetahs a few weeks ago. She owns a conservation center in Florida and was showing off the cats to an audience. Distracted by a child playing with a ball, they bit and clawed their owner.

The woman survived. Cheetahs are, as it turns out, not as dangerous as other big cats. “They’ll hurt you but they won’t kill you,” says Louis Dorfman, the animal behaviorist at the International Exotic Feline Sanctuary. But that doesn’t mean they’d make a good pet. In fact, he says a pet cheetah would be a “terrible idea.” Here’s why:

1.    They are wild animals, people!
“It’s always wild, it’s never a pet,” says Dorfman. “Wild animals have no inhibitions so they always will hurt somebody. It’s only their size that determines the severity of the injury. If they get angry, they’re going to strike out the only way they know how."

2.    They need lots (and lots and lots) of care.
A wild animal is “very sensitive,” says Dorfman. “No one should get one impulsively. You have to devote a great deal of your life to it.”

3.    They need lots of space for their mental health.
Cheetahs are the fastest cats: 70 mph in short bursts. If they’re cooped up, they get nervous and stressed out.

4. They get nervous and stressed out even if they do have enough space to run.
Since larger cats prey upon cheetahs and their young, cheetahs are “much more nervous” than other big felines, says Dorfman, and “need much more peace and quiet.” He adds: “They need someone with them that really knows how to react to their moods.”

In that respect, they sound a lot like celebrities.

-Marc Silver

Photo: Rocky, courtesy of Great Ape Trust of Iowa

Dunston isn’t checking in; he’s checking out. And Clint Eastwood is going to have to find a new co-star if he ever makes a sequel to Every Which Way But Loose.

Yes, the era of the Hollywood orangutan is coming to an end.

This month, Steve Martin’s Working Wildlife, reportedly the only West Coast source of orangutans for the entertainment industry, announced plans to donate its six orangs to the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, a sanctuary in Des Moines, over the next few months.

Pop Omnivore wanted to find out more, so we spoke to Rob Shumaker, director of orangutan research at the research facility (which offers educational tours, by reservation).

Why did the trainers make this decision?

I didn’t probe to ask all their reasons, but they were partially driven by genuine welfare concerns. It was important for them to find a destination they approved of for their apes. We have some philosophical differences, but I think of them as good people and friends at this point.

Did they treat their apes well?

There are folks who raise welfare concerns about apes in entertainment. There’s a range of how apes are treated. My interactions with the Martins have given me no indication to believe these apes were ever treated badly in any way.

Is it a bad idea for orangutans or other apes to appear on TV or in movies?

It depends how they’re portrayed. I would never suggest a National Geographic documentary about orangutans is a bad thing. But that’s obviously distinct from entertainment or advertisements.

And what’s your view on apes in entertainment programs?

Some folks firmly believe [such programs] can convey a positive message and stimulate interest in apes. Other folks believe [they] diminish concerns about conservation in the wild. I don’t have the answers. It’s certainly fair to say this is an issue people feel strongly about on both sides.

Is there any sort of “apes in entertainment” program you’d be OK with?

It depends what they’re having the ape do. If I saw apes manipulated with special effects to make it look like they’re talking to each other, and they were obviously filmed at a distance in a zoo setting, that doesn’t bother me.

What about Dunston Checks In, the 1996 movie that featured an orangutan?

That’s not the kind of thing I would be supportive of. I have my own kids, and that’s not a movie that I would give them to watch. I guess my general feeling is that I am uncomfortable any time apes are depicted on TV, in greeting cards, in documentaries, or in books in a way intended to be goofy or comic relief, or if they are diminished in any way. Anything that reinforces unfortunate stereotypes about apes makes it harder for people to understand, admire, and respect them.

What if a movie depicted an ape as a hero?

A great example was the most recent King Kong movie. King Kong was very heroic. The movie also depicted ape intelligence. And that ape was totally computer generated. I would prefer movies that depict apes in positive and heroic ways, and I think the best situation is what we saw with King Kong—all done with computer graphics.

So basically you’re against using real apes in entertainment?

I don’t want to condemn anybody who’s ever worked with an ape in entertainment. I cannot deny that my initial exposure to apes—and one of the things that most stimulated my interest—was watching Cheetah in Tarzan movies when I was a kid.

The first orangutans from the Martins are now at the refuge. How are they doing?

All apes are individuals. They are affected by what goes on in their lives just like any person would be. The first two have been here a little less than a week. I’m happy to report they are very, very comfortable. Rocky, the 3-year-old [pictured, above] , settled in very easily and quickly—you’d pretty much expect that from a healthy normal youngster. His mother, Katy, who’s 19, took a day or two to figure out what was going on. But in the last couple days, she’s so relaxed and has been very playful and happy.

How do orangutans compare with other great apes?

They are not nearly as energetic or animated as the African apes—chimps, gorillas, bonobos. I think people interpret that as being sluggish or uninteresting or maybe not so bright, but it’s just a difference in their pace of life.

So are they as smart as chimps?

Everything strongly indicates that orangutans are equally intelligent and as capable as any other great ape. There’s some indication they do better on a lot of measures of intelligence than other great apes.

Any other notable orangutan traits?

They have a wonderful sense of humor. They’re great at capturing a moment and turning it into something playful or funny. I recall one moment when I was working with one of the most wonderful females I ever knew, Indah, who died a few years ago. Apparently whatever task I had given her that day was not very exciting to her. There was one particular answer on the computer screen we were looking for, one of 28 symbols. Indah reached up and touched every single symbol on screen except the right answer, then looked at me and waited for me to respond. On another similar occasion, she looked at the task I presented to her, turned around, and made a silly face by putting her fingers on her eyes, making a goofy mouth, and just fell onto me and wanted to be tickled and to laugh.

- Marc Silver

Memo to badgers: You really need to hire a publicist.

Case in point: an ad for a car that claims to have superduper soundproofing. A dude is locked in the car with a nursing badger mom and her tykes. The badgers are described as “ferocious.” And they’re all asleep. Awww. The car windows are rolled up. An announcer says: “If awakened, the badger will gnaw [the human’s] face off.” A cannon is fired repeatedly. The soundproofing appears to work. Then dude-in-the-car’s cell phone goes off. Mother Badger snarls and lunges.

Not a good moment for the badger image.

It turns out badgers have a history of bad P.R. That’s what I learned from Roger Packham, a senior ecosystems biologist at the British Columbia Ministry of Environment. He’s been studying them since 2003 because of their endangered status in B.C.

Back in the 1940s and ‘50s, British Columbians were trapping 300 to 400 badgers a year. Today, says Packham, “we feel we have fewer than 400 left in B.C.”

“Persecution” was probably the main reason for their decline, Packham says. In other words, people kill them. “There’s a big myth that livestock fall into badger burrows and break their legs. So the only good badger, as far as a lot of farmers are concerned, is a dead badger.” Hence the trapping. Badgers were also pursued for their fur pelts. And nowadays, they often end up as roadkill.

As for the accuracy of the ad, Packham makes two Very Important Points:

1) “I don’t think you want to mess with any nursing mother, badger or human or anything else.”

2) “Let’s just face it: Badgers nursing their babies are not going to end up in a car in the first place.”

But what if a human came into close contact with a badger. Would it gnaw off the human’s face?

Packham says he’s had his nose fewer than 10 inches from a badger’s nose and never been threatened. (Ground squirrels and marmots, staples of the badger diet, would likely say otherwise.)

What’s more, Packham once worked with a vet who was implanting radios in badger body cavities to track the animals in the wild. And the vet made a comment about how easy the badgers were to handle. “His comment was, ‘If this was a house cat, we’d all be bleeding by now.’ ”

Meowr.

You can check our Packham’s badger work at www.badgers.bc.ca.  

-Marc Silver