Category Archives: animals

Asiatic lioness adopts leopard cub

February 28, 2020 – 9:00 am

by Greg Mayer A paper just published by Dheeraj Mittal and colleagues in Ecosphere reports an Asiatic lioness (Panthera leo persica) that adopted a leopard (Panthera pardus) cub, nursing and feeding it along with its own two cubs for six weeks. As WEIT readers know, Asiatic lions survive in only a single relict population in […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in animal behavior, felids | Comments (6)

Readers’ wildlife photos: Stunning animal architecture

January 28, 2020 – 8:00 am

Nicky Bay is a superb photographer of small animals. I don’t think he’s technically a “reader” of this site, but I wanted to put his pictures under this category. Nicky has a Flickr site here, a Twitter page here, and a website, Macro Photography in Singapore, here. I’ve featured his photography three times on this […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in animal behavior, photography | Comments (11)

Darwin and the Falklands

December 1, 2019 – 8:30 am

[JAC: Greg wrote about Darwin, oceanic islands, and the Falkland Islands fox about six years ago, and gives the link to that post below. But I thought I’d add the link here at the top as well, because it’s a very informative summary of how islands buttressed Darwin’s theory of evolution, as well a discussion […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Comments (9)

What were the first animals?

October 31, 2018 – 11:45 am

by Matthew Cobb I’ve just finished making a BBC World Service radio programme about the first animals. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can listen to it (it’s only 28 minutes long!) – you just have to register with the BBC (free, rapid and cost- and spam-free). Click on the pic to go to the BBC […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in fossils, genetics, phylogeny and systematics, radio | Comments (35)

Friday duck report and wildlife humor

September 28, 2018 – 2:30 pm

Duck update: Honey was gone this morning, though she was here with James all day yesterday. At 7:30 a.m., James was again swimming disconsolately around the pond, and even attempting to quack, though not much of a noise came out. (Previously he’d just uttered low quack-y noises, but now he opened his bill wide and […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in ducks, photography | Comments (18)

Snoop Dogg narrates Plizzanet Earth

November 7, 2017 – 1:30 pm

What would happen if Snoop Dogg* replaced David Attenborough? We’d get something like this: (Be sure to watch the last bit about 9 minutes in.) *Real name Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.

By whyevolutionistrue | Comments (18)

A crustacean whodunit: which sea creature attacked an Aussie teen?

August 7, 2017 – 12:45 pm

by Greg Mayer Appropriately following upon Jerry’s monstrous, triffid-like seed pod,  an attack by tiny monsters on an Australian teenager has been splashed across world media, including the BBC and the New York Times. The victim, Sam Kanizay was cooling off after a football match by wading in the sea near Melbourne. After a half […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in invertebrates | Comments (40)

Don’t be cruel, says cockatoo, but his gal won’t listen

April 2, 2017 – 5:19 am

by Matthew Cobb Yes, this has been around for a couple of years (nearly 6 million views), but it’s still fun. What’s not resolved is why cockatoos dance.

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in birds, LOLz, Uncategorized, video | Comments (19)

Name the animal

March 21, 2017 – 12:09 pm

Here’s a tweet that Grania found. I’m pretty sure I know what this thing is (hint, it may not be an adult animal. . . ), but I’ll leave it to the readers to guess. But seriously please share this picture so some knowledgeable marine biologist can tell me what the hell it is bc I […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Comments (18)

Unusual stripes

March 16, 2017 – 4:34 pm

by Greg Mayer Matthew sent me the following tw**t from Bryan D. Hughes, the rattlesnakeguy: Here's a cool picture sent to us by Susan Harnage. It's a longnosed snake with a partial stripe – an error in the pattern. Pretty cool! pic.twitter.com/5Eakop7dcY — Bryan D. Hughes (@rattlesnakeguy) March 15, 2017 The tw**t doesn’t say where […]

By whyevolutionistrue | Also posted in reptiles, Uncategorized | Comments (26)