Label: Cool Photo

May 17, 2011

This is a Three-Toed Sloth (Bradypus tridactylus). Sloths are arboreal, which means that they live in trees. They are built to hang, using those long claws to get a good grip on branches.

They are among the slowest moving creatures on Earth, spending about 18 hours a day hanging from a branch, sleeping. In fact, sloths move around so little that green algae grows on their furry coats! The algae works as camouflage because when a sleeping sloth is hanging from a branch, it looks like a bunch of leaves.

Sloths even mate and give birth while hanging in the trees, and their babies travel by hanging onto their mothers for the first nine months of their lives.

The three-toed sloth is an herbivore (a plant-eater) that eats at night, and it is about the size of a cat. They are endangered, due to the destruction of their tropical rainforest habitats in Central and South America.

 

You can read more about Tropical Rainforests in my latest book, which is now also available as an eBook for the Nook Color and iPad.

Photo: Christian Mehlführer

READERS: Are you wondering how to add your own "comment" to this blog? Click here for exact directions on how to add a comment so you can become one of our Seymour Science writers! We also want you to be safe and not share too much information when you write on this blog, so please take a minute to read about how to stay safe on the Internet. We love to hear from you, so give "comments" a try! 

May 10, 2011

Regular Seymour Science readers know that we do this every Tuesday…...and isn’t this trumpetfish photo a beauty?!

I am particularly interested in the trumpetfish (Aulostomus maculatus) these days because I am working on a new book about CORAL REEFS. Trumpetfish live in coral reefs, and they often swim vertically (straight up and down, as you see here) as a way of camouflaging themselves. They want to blend in with tall coral like sea rods and pipe sponges so that they can sneak up on unsuspecting prey. They catch their food by lying so still that they look like a stick, and then sucking up passing fish into their mouths.

These fish grow to be about 36 inches (just under one meter) long. If you spread both your arms out as wide as they can go, that is about the size of a full-grown trumpetfish.

Photo: Nick Hobgood 

READERS: Are you wondering how to add your own "comment" to this blog? Click here for exact directions on how to add a comment so you can become one of our Seymour Science writers! We also want you to be safe and not share too much information when you write on this blog, so please take a minute to read about how to stay safe on the Internet. We love to hear from you, so give "comments" a try! 

May 3, 2011

Today’s Cool Photo of the Week, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is of two spiral galaxies bumping up against each other. The bigger galaxy (NGC 2207, on the left) has such a strong gravitational pull that it is pulling the smaller galaxy (IC 2163, on the right) in toward it.  Look at the long, white streak that looks like streamers, or a tail, on the right-hand side of the photograph. These are stars and gases, being pulled so strongly that they seem to stretch out across the light years.

NASA astronomers have calculated that the last time the two galaxies came this close was about 40 million years ago. However, IC 2163 does not have enough energy to escape the bigger galaxy’s gravitational pull, so they will continue to elbow each other as they travel through space, and billions of years from now they will probably merge into one big galaxy. It is believed that our own Milky Way galaxy was formed in just this way.

Don’t you love these Hubble photographs? The opportunity to see not only out into the universe but also back in time is still amazing to me. I never tire of looking at these magnificent images.

Photo: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)

April 26, 2011

This photograph, taken in the wild at night, is of a Yellow Cricket Tree Frog (Dendropsophus microcephalus) in the middle of his mating call. 

These tiny frogs can be found throughout most of Central America, and some South American countries. It lives on the edges of the rainforest, mostly in marshy areas, ponds, and other pools of water.

This species of frog experiences metachrosis (meh-tah-CROW-sis, which means "color change"). During the night, its back is a light yellow color with various brown or tan markings. During the day, it darkens to a light brown with darker brown or red markings. We can tell that this is a photograph of a breeding male, because of his yellow vocal sac (the balloon-like bulge under his chin).

During the mating season, the male frogs gather in large groups of thousands of frogs around the breeding areas and call out from grasses at the edge of water. When they really get going, humans sometimes think the quick "creek-eek-eek-eek" call is being made by crickets. These frogs work hard when they are looking for a mate, producing between 200 to 380 notes per minute at their peak! Even though there are thousands of them making so many short noises, scientists have found that each male is careful to avoid having his calls overlap with others, because he wants to stand out from the other males in the group.

If you want to hear the sound of the calls of the yellow tree frog (and other frogs at well), click on this link. There are seven different frog calls captured in this video, which is a little dark because it was shot in the wild, at night. This frog is the last one on the clip (about 2½ minutes in).

Photo: Brian Gratwicke

Video: Nick Sly 

April 19, 2011

        Today’s "Cool photo of the Week" is from the very first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. Forty years ago we didn’t have the kind of environmental protection laws that we have today. One of my favorite writers, Rachel Carson, had just published a book called SILENT SPRING. In it she warned that an artificial pesticide called DDT, which was in wide use at the time, could cause human sickness and major ecological damage. Imagine a time when major bodies of water were too polluted to support aquatic life, and Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River was so polluted with oil and toxic chemicals that it burst into flames by spontaneous combustion! That was the scene when Earth Day was first established 41 years ago by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.

College students, in particular, rose to the call, and turned out in the millions to demonstrate in support of new environmental protections on that first Earth Day. In New York City, a Pace University student named Peter Hallerman grabbed an old gas mask (his mother had been a nurse in World War II), and took it with him to the demonstration. A photographer snapped this picture, and it has become a world famous symbol of Earth Day through the years.

 When I began writing books, Rachel Carson was the writer who most influenced me. I remember reading her wonderful book THE SEA AROUND US and thinking that I would love to write books about nature and science with the same sense of awe and admiration that she showed in her writings. Rachel Carson inspired me to write when I began and still inspires me to this day. What better time to celebrate her books than now on Earth Day! 

 Photo: ucsb.edu

What are you doing this Earth Week to contribute to the global effort to pledge a Billion Acts of Green? Click on “Comments,” at the bottom of this story, and tell me what you are doing. We will publish all your comments in one big article at the end of Earth Week, to honor each writer’s promise to protect our planet, and inspire other readers to do the same.

April 12, 2011

Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" features 15-year-old Regina Mayer, who lives in Germany and wanted a horse in the worst way. Unfortunately, her parents didn’t agree.

So, Regina did the next best thing. When this cow, named Luna, was born on her family’s farm, Regina decided to train her. She put a halter on the calf and started taking her for long walks in the woods. Then, she tried walking her with a saddle on, and finally, she sat in the saddle. Now, she not only rides Luna, but she has taught the cow how to jump!

Photo: Kerstin Joensson / AP

April 5, 2011

This insect-eating lizard is a Mwanza Flat-headed Rock Agama (Agama mwanzae), a common species found in Southern Africa. They live inside the thatch of huts and other small spaces, coming out during the day to soak up the sun on warm rocks and to eat. If they are caught out in the open, agamas stand up on their hind legs and run quickly to a safe place.

Some people look at the male’s strong colors -  head, neck and shoulders are bright red or violet, and the body dark blue - and say it should be called the "Spiderman Lizard." What do you think?

Photo: Christian Mehlführer

March 29, 2011

Did you ever have an itch in the middle of your back that you just couldn’t wait to scratch? If no one was around to help, maybe you even backed up against a doorframe, or against a piece of furniture, and scratched your back against that.

This black bear solved the problem by backing up and scratching his back against a tree! It looks like it feels good, doesn’t it?

Wildlife photographer James A. Galleto won an award for this photograph, which he captured with some smart planning. "This black bear repeatedly scent-marked this particular tree," said Galleto, "so I positioned myself nearby and waited." Sure enough, he got this wonderful shot of a bear in need of a back scratcher.

This is our Cool Photo of the Week, and you can count on a new "cool photo" every Tuesday here on SeymourSimon.com.

Photograph: Nature’s Best Photography / James A. Galletto

March 22, 2011

A photographer at Nogeyama Zoological Gardens, near Tokyo, caught this baby Black and White Colobus monkey in the middle of a big yawn.

These beautiful primates ("primates" are animals with good eyesight and flexible hands and feet, including gorillas, monkeys and humans) are native to Africa, and they are herbivores, eating leaves, fruit, flowers, and twigs. Black and White Colobus babies are born completely white; as you can see, this one’s black hair is already starting to grow in.

Did looking at this photograph make you want to yawn? Researchers have found that between 40% and 60% of all people are susceptible to "catching" a yawn from someone else. No one knows quite why, although lots of experiments have been done to try to understand why.

Photo courtesy of MSNBC.com’s "Animal Tracks"

March 15, 2011

Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" is a 6-week-old snow leopard cub, sitting for her weekly weigh-in at Tennessee’s Chattanooga Zoo. This cub is the only survivor of three cubs born to the mother leopard in January, and she is a success story in the zoo’s conservation effort. The zoo works with the Snow Leopard Trust  to breed these endangered big cats, raise funds for research, and help preserve the species. Though snow leopard cubs only have a 30 percent survival rate, this baby is healthy and gaining about a pound a week.

 This little cub does not have a name yet, and the zookeepers are looking for suggestions. If you have an idea, write a comment here and we will pass your suggestions on. You could be the lucky reader to name this beautiful snow leopard! The zoo’s deadline for naming the baby is April 25, so send your ideas in now.

The Snow Leopard is a large cat native to the high mountain ranges of South Asia and Central Asia. They were nearly hunted into extinction because their bones are considered powerful ingredients in traditional Asian medicine. Researchers estimate that between 3,500 and 7,000 snow leopards are left in the wild (and another 600 - 700 in zoos). These beautiful cats are hard to spot, since they are naturally secretive and their white coats act as camouflage in the snow.  So, researchers rely on other ways of detecting a snow leopard’s presence, including looking for scrapes (snow leopards scrape their back legs in loose soil, leaving a small hole with a pile of soil next to it), scent markings (they claim their territory by spraying rocks and bushes with a strong-smelling liquid from a scent gland near the tail) and scat (also known as feces, or "droppings").

Photo: Chattanooga Zoo 

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