Readers’ wildlife photos

August 26, 2014 • 5:01 am

The readers have come through with a bunch more pictures, so I’m set for a while, although be aware that due to an upcoming trip (more later), posting will be light Thursday through Monday.  But today we have some lovely bird photos taken in China by reader Bruce Lyon. His notes are indented:

In June I was able to visit the remote Kuankuoshui Nature Reserve in Guizhou Province in south central China—an area that few westerners get to visit. My Chinese colleagues Wei Liang and Canchao Yang have been studying brood parasitic cuckoos at this site for the past decade and they kindly gave me the opportunity to visit their study area. The habitat was gorgeous—hilly Karst limestone clothed in many places with primary forest. It was also packed with birds.

Below: Typical primary forest habitat at the Kuankuoshui Nature Reserve. Bamboo is the typical understory growth in the forest.

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When I travel, I enjoy learning about the taxonomic relationships of the birds I encounter but a bunch of the birds I saw in China appear to be difficult taxonomic cases. Part of the problem is that ornithologists create wastebin families to deal with unresolved taxa and it seems that several of the birds I saw belong to groups that have either only very recently been resolved or remain to be resolved. John Harshman, who appears to be a regular reader at this site, compiled the Tree of Life page for these birds so he can set me straight if I am too far off the mark on the systematics.

Below: An Ashy-throated Parrotbill (Paradoxornis alphonsianus). According to Wikipedia, the genus name Paradoxornis —‘paradox bird’— reflects the difficulty ornithologists have had in figuring out the true relationships of parrotbills. Recent molecular genetic evidence puts them in the Sylviidae, which includes the Old World Warblers.

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Below: Ashy-throated Parrotbills have an interesting egg color polymorphism: some females lay blue eggs, others lay white eggs, and some lay pale blue eggs. This polymorphism appears to a defense against brood parasitism by the common cuckoo and my colleagues provided evidence for disruptive selection for egg color (birds with extreme egg colors are favored while birds with intermediate colors are less successful at reproduction). An Ashy-throated Parrotbill nest with blue eggs.

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Below: My favorite birds in China were the laughingthrushes (family Leiothrichidae), a taxonomic group with peak diversity in China. These guys remind me a little of jays. All three laughingthrush species I saw live in groups and I suspect they are cooperative breeders, where full-grown non-dispersing offspring help their parents raise the next batch of kids. Below is a Red-tailed Laughingthrush (Garrulax milnei). This species is often found in bamboo and, like many laughingthrushes, is a pathetic flyer.

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Below: A cuddly pair of White-browed Laughingthrushes (Garrulax sannio).

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Below: The Red-billed Leiothrix (Leiothrix lutea), another member of the laughingthrush family, was one of the most abundant forest species and lives in pairs, not groups. This species loves bamboo for nesting.

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 Below: White-collared Yuhinas (Yuhina diademata). This species lives in large groups and I commonly encountered them along the edges of roads through the forest.

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Cheetah cub squeaking

August 25, 2014 • 2:09 pm

Remember that cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus), although they’re large African cats, cannot roar: they chirp, as well as making a panoply of non-roaring noises. (Go here to see my recent post which shows an adult cheetah embarrassing itself when vocalizing.)

Here’s a cheetah cub making even cuter noises. The YouTube notes give some background:

This cheetah kitten named Nala was in Namibia Africa when I was visiting some friends of mine this past summer. Her mother was killed by a car, so my friends kindly took care of her. She was well fed and had 44,000 acres to roam around in and be safe. Enjoy!

Pika-boo: here’s the lagomorph

August 25, 2014 • 1:08 pm

Earlier today I posted reader Jeremy’s photo of a pika, both in close-up and then in the distance in its rocky environs.  I looked at it for the longest time, even in the enlarged photo like the first one below, and couldn’t find the damn thing. Then I finally spotted it; it’s almost as hard as a nightjar.

I’ll put the original photo up first (click to enlarge it even more if you still want to look for the pika), and then a photo with the pika circled, sent by Jeremy (he called it “pika-boo”!).  Hint: if you look at the original, the beast is just to the right of center:

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The reveal:

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And an enlarged view:

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There was no first human

August 25, 2014 • 12:08 pm

From PBS (via Matthew Cobb), and inspired by Richard Dawkins’s The Magic of Reality, we get a short video explaining to non-scientists why there was no first human. Matthew tells me he’s going to show it to his students, and it’s a good didactic tool. Have a look:

Dinesh puts his foot in it again, this time about Ferguson

August 25, 2014 • 10:05 am

Well, this bit of political theater (video below) occurred on “The Steve Malzberg Show,” a Newsmax talk show, last Thursday.  Not only does Dinesh D’Souza compare the American Left’s attitude toward the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri to the behavior of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but he argues that the Obama Administration has simply decided that Darren Wilson the policeman under investigation for shooting Michael Brown, should be “put up against the wall.”

Based on the news I’ve heard, my own view is that Wilson probably did commit murder or manslaughter, but there’s simply too much prejudgment on the Internet about this affair. I’d prefer to see what evidence comes out in court and let the justice system work it through instead of convicting Wilson before a trial, which seems to be happening at some places I’ll characterize as “blogs.” I reserve judgement—as I did with the first O.J. Simpson case—to disagree with a jury’s verdict, but a jury trial guarantees that a lot of evidence that we don’t know about will be produced and vetted.

But  D’Souza, as always, is simply a jerk. Of course, he’s trying to sell a new book, and controversy helps with right-wing loons like him  and Ann Coulter. And, by the way, why isn’t he in jail yet?

 

h/t: Diana