Tag: mammal
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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 quokka
Folks, we’re heading back to Australia this week on the blog. Australia: the place where evolution went wild. The place where it went wild and created one of the cutest animals ever: the quokka! This smiling little creature is a quokka (pronounced KWAH-kuh; Setonix brachyurus). Quokkas are about the size of a domestic cat and look…
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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 fisher
This week’s animal is an identification request from my partner. He was biking around Massachusetts when he saw a sign that said, “Warning: fisher cats.” Which begged the question: what is a fisher cat?? He asked me if I knew what they were when I got home; I said I did, but I honestly only…
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Meet the vampire bat
I watched the movie Morbius over the weekend. It was… a movie. And not a very good one. Some of the movie’s choices I can look past. Most fantasy / action movies require some suspension of disbelief. Do I wish they had given more context about the character backstories? Sure. Can I look past the…
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Meet the Eurasian red squirrel
It’s officially fall! Which means, of course, that winter is right around the corner. This has gotten me thinking about what animals need to do in order to survive the winter. Some, like many birds, migrate to warmer climates; but those animals who don’t migrate must figure out how to deal with the snow and…
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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 Icelandic sheep
I’ve been away the past few weeks on vacation in Iceland. Let me tell you, Iceland is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend people go and visit! While I was in Iceland, I saw a LOT of sheep. I didn’t realize before going just how many sheep are in Iceland. There are in fact more sheep…
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Meet the horse
Ah, the horse. A classic staple of barnyards and beloved by children. I was no different. I, in my youth, was a horse girl. Okay, to be fair, I was only a mild horse girl. I did spend 4th grade pretending to be a horse at recess, but that’s it! Oh, and in 5th grade,…
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Meet the American black bear
My book club this month read “A Libertarian Walks into a Bear” by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling. It tells the true story of how a bunch of libertarians moved to Grafton, New Hampshire, with the goal of making it a libertarian utopia. They somewhat succeeded? At the very least, they got rid of a bunch of government…