Tag: africa
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Meet the dik-dik
Some animals just have names that are fun to say. Like this week’s animal: the dik-dik. And, to make dik-diks even more fun, they’re also super cute! And as if dik-diks couldn’t be cuter, I have some good news for you: a baby dik-dik was recently born at the Edinburgh Zoo! The baby is a female named Petal, and…
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Meet the secretary bird
I’m excited to tell you all about this week’s animal. It holds a special place in my heart because it’s so cool: the secretary bird. First off, just look at that face. Absolutely fierce. And secondly, they hunt in such a cool way. I’ll talk about it at the end of this post, but here’s…
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Meet the cheetah
I’m running a race this weekend in North Carolina! It’s a short race (just 5 miles). But this race does have you eat a dozen doughnuts halfway through… Don’t worry, I signed up as a ‘casual’ runner, so I don’t have to eat all the doughnuts; I’ll probably eat just one! (Really hope I don’t…
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Meet the aye-aye
I’ve been playing a lot of the most recent Pokémon game recently. And let me tell you, there are a lot of cool new Pokémon in it! There’s a dog made of bread, a ghost dog, a mastiff dog…can you tell I like dogs? One Pokémon I’m not as enamored with is Grafaiai. It’s a…
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Meet the naked mole-rat
It’s a weird one this week, folks. I was preparing for a lab presentation when I stumbled across a paper looking at pain insensitivity in mole-rats. I was absolutely taken with this paper – who knew that naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) didn’t feel pain from peppers or citrus? (more on this later). Why are they…
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Meet the fossa
When I was in 7th grade, I had to do a social studies project on a country. The country I picked was Madagascar. It was here that I learned about the majestic fossa, and I’ve loved them ever since. These mammals are exclusive to the island of Madagascar. Fossa look like small cougars – sleek…
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Meet the aurochs
This past weekend, I was in Vermont; my partner was taking part in a bike race up there. On our way back to Boston, we stopped at Billings Farm and Museum, a fully-operational dairy farm that also has many exhibits explaining the farming process. I learned a lot about dairy farming AND got to see…
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Meet the hammer-headed bat
I like bats. They’re flying mammals that can echolocate; how cool is that? And I have exciting bat news today: I now have a favorite bat. I present to you the glorious, beautiful, and majestic hammer-headed bat (Hypsignathus monstrosus). Hammer-headed bats are a type of megabat – bats that belong to the family Pteropodidae. Megabats…