migrationnotebook:

I took a side trip to Madagascar in the final weeks of my reporting trip and encountered the absolutely incredible call of the Indri indri lemur.

The Indri, the largest remaining lemurs in Madagascar get credit for the name lemur, which is related to the Latin for ghost. Indri calls can travel 2 km.

The story is either the first Europeans heard them coming from the forest and thought they sounded like ghosts or that it comes from Malagasy legend that the lemurs are the ghosts of their ancestors

(via emmaatlarge)

Source: SoundCloud / Emma Jacobs 3

beenevolence: “sixpenceee: “We now classify these creatures as Manta Birostris, or gigantic manta ray. They have the largest brain of all the world’s fishes. Despite its massive size, the giant manta ray feeds on some of the tiniest organisms in the...
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beenevolence: “sixpenceee: “We now classify these creatures as Manta Birostris, or gigantic manta ray. They have the largest brain of all the world’s fishes. Despite its massive size, the giant manta ray feeds on some of the tiniest organisms in the...
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beenevolence:

sixpenceee:

We now classify these creatures as Manta Birostris, or gigantic manta ray. They have the largest brain of all the world’s fishes. Despite its massive size, the giant manta ray feeds on some of the tiniest organisms in the ocean. Giant manta rays often jump clear of the water, possibly as a form of communication or even play. (Source)

holY

(via sixpenceee)

rhamphotheca: “ Germ-killing Molecules Identified in Alligator Blood by Curtis Abraham Thick armour and jaws packed full of teeth aren’t the only defences that alligators and crocodiles have. They also have formidable immune systems and some of the...
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rhamphotheca:

Germ-killing Molecules Identified in Alligator Blood

by Curtis Abraham

Thick armour and jaws packed full of teeth aren’t the only defences that alligators and crocodiles have. They also have formidable immune systems and some of the protective molecules that enable this have now been identified. Their discovery in the blood of the American alligator might even pave the way for a new generation of antibiotics.

Crocodilians have existed on Earth for at least 37 million years. Over the course of their evolution, they have developed a very strong defence against infection. “They inflict wounds on each other from which they frequently recover without complications from infection despite the fact that the environments in which they live are less than sterile,” says Barney Bishop of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, co-author of the new study.

American alligators have an enviable innate immune system, the “primitive” first line of defence that is shared by all vertebrates. In 2008, chemists in Louisiana found that blood serum taken from the reptiles destroyed 23 strains of bacteria and depleted reserves of the HIV virus. The germ-killing molecules were identified as enzymes that break down a type of lipid…

(read more: New Scientist)

photograph by Jody Watt/Design Pics/Corbis

(via libutron)