spirit bear

Save the Spirit Bear

By sarajean on 4/2/10 7:43pm
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Ordinarily, the Spirit Bear might be something you’d hear about at Weird Animal Report. A white, non-polar bear must be some kind of albino creature, right? On the contrary, the Spirit Bear is really a type of black bear. One in ten black bears carry the recessive gene that makes the bears have white coats instead of black coats, resulting in the very rare bears considered sacred by many different native peoples. In fact, the National Resource Defense Council even uses the Spirit Bear in their logo.

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New Species Found in Ecuador

By sarajean on 6/26/09 6:54pm
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Scientists have found a handful of new species of creatures while working with Conservation International in Ecuador and Peru. The prime area of exploration, the Upper Nangaritza River Bain, is composed of remote mountains made up of forests, located in the Cordillera del Cor.

Along with an assortment of katydids, the Dendrobates poison arrow frog, the tiny “minute” Pristimantis frog, the Hyalinobatrachium glass frog, the Enyalioides lizard, and the “ugly salamander” are all potentially new species.

I showed my daughter the pictures, and while we both agreed that the “ugly salamander” is hideous, calling something ugly by name really isn’t a very nice thing to do. Even “appearance-challenged salamander” would have been better than flat out “ugly.”

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