Defpuma - Untitled

Reflections of Mt Hood  | © Photographer |  LFST

As we prepare for more cold weather this weekend, let’s take a look back at Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 voyage to the Antarctic. Just one day’s sail from the continent, his ship Endurance became trapped in sea ice. Frozen fast for 10 months, the ship was crushed and destroyed by ice pressure, and the crew was forced to abandon it. After camping on the ice for five months, Shackleton made two open boat journeys, one of which—a treacherous 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island—is now considered one of the greatest boat journeys in history. Trekking across the mountains of South Georgia, Shackleton reached the island’s remote whaling station, organized a rescue team, and saved all of the men he had left behind.

Nola was born in the southern savanna woodlands of Sudan. In the mid-1970s she was captured to protect her from poachers, and in 1989 she moved to the San Diego Zoo. She shared her enclosure with buffalo, giraffes and gazelles, and enjoyed daily belly scratches. 

In 1990, a male rhinoceros named Angalifu joined Nola in San Diego, but she wasn’t interested in him. After hormone treatments, she mated with another male named Saut, but never became pregnant.

Saut died in 2004. Angalifu died last year. Nola was getting older, and suffering from a bacterial infection. Yesterday the zoo announced:

In the last 24 hours, Nola’s condition worsened and we made the difficult decision to euthanize her. We’re absolutely devastated by this loss, but resolved to fight even harder to #EndExtinction.

With the death of Nola this weekend, the northern white rhinoceros inches closer to true extinction. But it became extinct in the wild 2008, and the remaining rhinos have all been to old to breed for several of years. Still, there are plans to resurrect the subspecies using a preserved egg and sperm. The San Diego Zoo’s Institute has pledged $2 million to this difficult project. 

And there is reason to be hopeful. A cousin subspecies, the southern white rhino, has seen its population blossom from 20 to 20,000 in the last century thanks to the intervention of humans. 

Want to learn more? Check out this article by my friend (and housemate) Sarah Kaplan.

Image credits: Jeff Keaton, Make it Kenya, Ernst Schäfer, Colin P. Groves et al, TONY KARUMBA/AFP/Getty Images 

Taking part in a predator study in the Mount Hood National Forest. Got some great pics including blurry picture of an endangered subspecies of Red Fox!

Paleontologists Find 278-Million-Year-Old Amphibian, Reptile Fossils in Brazil

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/science-amphibian-reptile-permian-fossils-brazil-03415.html

Penelope.

The “dinosaur bones” that you see on display at the Museum aren’t really bones at all. Through the process of fossilization, ancient animal bones are turned into rock. 

Most ancient animals never became fossils. Their carcasses were likely consumed by other organisms, or worn away by wind or water. But sometimes the conditions were right and their remains were preserved. The most common process of fossilization happens when an animal is buried by sediment, such as sand or silt, shortly after it dies. Its bones are protected from rotting by layers of sediment. As its body decomposes all the fleshy parts wear away and only the hard parts, like bones, teeth, and horns, are left behind. Over millions of years, water in the nearby rocks surrounds these hard parts, and minerals in the water replace them, bit by bit. When the minerals have completely replaced the organic tissue, what’s left is a solid rock copy of the original specimen.

Learn more on the Museum’s Dinosaur website.