On January 10 a snow leopard was born at the Chattanooga zoo. (Two of her littermates were apparently stillborn.)
The snow leopard (Panthera uncia), also known as the ounce, is a denizen of the mountains of central Asia. With its camouflaging cream-colored fur, speckled with black rosettes, it’s surely one of the world’s most beautiful cats. Its thick coat (most evident on the tail) and large paws are adaptations to the high-altitude mountain habitat. But these adaptations, and its beauty, have been the ounce’s downfall: hunted heavily to make hats and coats, only about 3500-7000 of these cats remain in the wild.
And a video:
[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.988372&w=425&h=350&fv=]
h/t: Michael
How could anybody kill such a beautiful animal just to turn it into a dead ornament?
If you really want to wear a cat, win its love and it’ll be quite happy to drape itself across your shoulders, so long as you keep rubbing an ear and patting its butt.
As an added bonus, your new fashion statement is self-cleaning and will keep your house free of vermin.
Cheers,
b&
I would totally start weight-lifting to bulk up, just so I could let a snow leopard drape itself around my shoulders…(after I’d won it’s affection, of course;-))
White lions and Snow Leopards…are Tigers next? Pleeeze? The big cats are mah favorites!
*sigh* kawaiiii…
Aaawwwwww.
(Yeah, I know: these do *not* make good, cuddly lapcats when they grow up. Stick with good ‘ol Felis catus — co-evolving with you for over 5000 years!)
“Sorry, kitty, I have to get up and start dinner now. Kitty? Kitty, I need to get up…”
Well, that happens anyways at our house. It’s got nothing to do with the size and weight of the animal, it’s just, well — He’s asleep! He’s purring! How can I possibly disturb such a picture of contentment?
(Yes, they do have us well-trained. Why do you ask?)
You ain’t kiddin’. I’ve actually gotten somewhat competent at typing one-handed, but not for the reason most people think of.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/kitteh-contest-baihu/infinite_baihu_small/
Cheers,
b&
Here’s a couple of cute katz in their natural habitat: http://world-o-crap.blogspot.com/2011/02/post-friday-beast-blogging-smother-may.html
Wait so there were three ounces but now there’s only one ounce but it weighs 80 ounces?
I really think they should stick to metric names for these things… Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
🙂
What a sweetie.
It’s easy with hindsight, but for heaven’s sake, no one got it before Darwin that these guys are house cats’ cousins?
Heck, many won’t believe that today. “Common design”, my ass.
Dear Professor Coyne,
If you are familiar with the paper in PNAS by Michael Lynch entitled “The Failure of Adaptive Processes for the Origens of Organismal Complexity” I would be interested in your comments and assessment.
Cordially,
William Stewart
FWIW, I think it is hard to be familiar with a paper that doesn’t seem to exist.
Creationism warning perhaps, as this should have been an email request and there is an old (2007) PNAS paper by Lynch titled The frailty of adaptive hypotheses for the origins of organismal complexity, which was heavily promoted by the “Biologic Institute” and Discovery’s website 2009.
My layman take is that Lynch’s paper works to strengthen the case for variation and selection both. From the abstract: “These issues [of having many evolutionary mechanisms] are examined in the context of the view that the origins of many aspects of biological diversity, from gene-structural embellishments to novelties at the phenotypic level, have roots in nonadaptive processes, with the population-genetic environment imposing strong directionality on the paths that are open to evolutionary exploitation.” [My bold, showing the partition between variation and selection, AFAIU.]
Seems that way. Lately these challenges are appearing regularly here…some coordinated campaign to plant dissension? Or maybe just one person? Perhaps JEC should check ISP addresses?
We have these in our local zoo, and they are wonderful.
so cutes … 🙂 … I think it’s scowling in its first video …
I wonder why this post reminds of the 101 dalmatians …