Newborn zebra in the north-western area of the Okavango Delta. The zebra has a dark color due to a small genetic abnormality linked to the amount of melanin affecting the pigmentation of the fur. -Africageographic
Courtesy of Toby Styles
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Melaninistic Zebra Revisited
Newborn zebra in the north-western area of the Okavango Delta. The zebra has a dark color due to a small genetic abnormality linked to the amount of melanin affecting the pigmentation of the fur. -Africageographic
Courtesy of Toby Styles
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Interesting. Could this be a "throwback" to the extinct quagga?
Wade: I watched a few minutes of a TV show over the weekend called: "Da Vinci's Inquest", which is filmed in Vancouver. In the show they found a dead body in the polar bear grotto in Stanley Park, which is part of the ghost zoo. By co-incidence I heard on the news, later the same day, that Calgary Zoo has just acquired a white bear from British Columbia, which is one of two which were eating garbage in a town and making nuisances of themselves. I was looking at a picture of this white bear, but it doesn't look all that white to me. The Winnipeg Zoo also has a white bear, and Caalgaary and Winnipeg zoos are two of three Canadian zoos which have white bison. Sincerely Paul
Wade: Have you heard anything about these giant gorillas? "Elusive African Apes: Giant Chimps or New Species?" John Roach for National Geographic News April 14, 2003 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04//0414_030314_strangeape.html and "'New' giant ape found in DR Congo" http://news.bbc.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3730574.stm. Sincerely Paul
Wade: I was wondering whether you heard about Bob Barker donating $2 million to help injured servicemen and women? I was also thinking of something else on a related topic, since Bob Barker is a Native-American, I was reminded of an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation I saw recently, which had a number of Amerindian actors in it, including one who I think is a personal friend of yours. I don't know his name. I hope all is well with you. By the way I did hear from Mary Ann a while back. I'm out of time here. Gotta run. Take care. Sincerely Paul PS: Did you have fun on Halloween?
Wade: Have you heard of the Wroclaw Zoo in poland? Apparently they are now part of the Okapi EEP. Sincerely Paul
Wade: There was another part of the story I forgot to mention. Apparently Bob Barker was a WWII bomber pilot. I hope all is well with you. Take care. Sincerely Paul: PS I was hoping you would say something about your friend the Native American actor. I think I have seen him on "Northern Exposure". I used to watch that when I lived in Orange County in Southern California. Up here we have a TV channel called APTN, which is the Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network. I was taking a computer course a while back and while doing one of the assignments I was surprised to learn that the Inuit and the Metis in Canada are not considered "First Nations", so I gather that term only applies to Indian tribes, although I don't know why. Anyway take care.
Lovely kids!
Wade: I just read in the paper that they are celebrating Colo's 58th birthday at the Columbus Zoo. I didn't know that she was still alive. The article said that she had three offspring and currently has two dozen living descendants. It said that she was the first gorilla born in a zoo, which I know is false, and that she is the oldest gorilla in captivity. Remember Central Park Zoo's gorilla "Patty Cake"? Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Wade, Take care. Sincerely Paul
Wade: I was mistaken. Colo was the first gorilla born in a zoo anywhere in the world. I used to know that. I was just looking at pictures of Goma on the internet. My God is she still alive also? Whatever became of Jambo? Sincerely Paul
Wade: There is a program coming on CNN this week titled "The Modern Zoo". I couldn't find anything on the internet about it. Sincerely Paul
Wade: It's on Feb. 5. Morgan Spurlock is at the Detroit Zoo. Sincerely Paul
Wade: Here is a picture of the Crandon Park Zoo superintendent and vet, Gordon Hubbell, with the director of Berlin Zoo, Dr. Heinz-George Klos, in 1962. http://flashbackmiami.com/2014/08/27/crandon-park-zoo/ I was also curious about a comment made by the director of the Garold Wayne Interactive Zoological Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma on that CNN special. He said that there are about 15 different organizations which accredit zoos in the United States, and he said that the Zoological Society of Florida is one of them. He dismissed the AZA as a "country club for zoos". I also found an old postcard for sale on E-Bay of Bulu the gorilla at Monkey Jungle, who was, I believe, born in 1949. I think it's more likely the male gorilla in your picture or postcard was King. Monkey Jungle had two males and a female. I saw them when I was a child. We used to go to Miami and the Bahamas. I probably told you we used to drive up Nixon's street and past his house in Miami, just because it was his street and house. I was in Cleveland the day he resigned. Sincerely Paul
Wade: There was also this one I've mentioned to you: "The Wild Animals in My Life" by William M. Mann, National Geographic, April 1957. On page 521 there is a picture of Russell Arundel of Warrenton, Virginia, with the two, quite large, baby gorillas which he acquired for the US NZP in 1955 in the Belgian-Congo. They were Nikumba, the male (standing on Russell's shoulders), and Moka, the female, with her arms around his neck. They were beautiful little gorillas, and of particular interest to me, because they bred and were responsible for captive births 4 & 5. Colo was 1, and then Goma & Jambo were 2 & 3. The NZP had 2 & 3 in North America, including the first male born in the United States. There's a picture of William M. Mann with a baby Asian elephant, from Mills Brothers Circus, named "Little Miss Burma". On the next page is a picture of a baby white rhino, from Uganda, named Lucy. This must have been a Northern White rhino, which is virtually extinct today (Have you seen "Last Chance To See"?) and the NZP had a pair, which were displaced in 1972 by the giant pandas from China, which took over their air-conditioned house. The white rhinos were shipped to San Diego. I very much hope they are preserving tissues from all of the surviving Northern White rhinos for future cloning. The article also mentions N'Gi the gorilla, who as I recall was originally earmarked for that American lady who lived in Havana and collected apes as house pets. There was a movie about her and "Toto", who ended up being paired with Gargantua. The NZP also had a tuatara, but I don't see any mention of it in this article. Sincerely Paul
Wade: Did you hear that they just captured a 7 year old female white elephant in Burma? Sincerely Paul
Wade: I saw this amazing documentary you've got to see, on TV5, "Les Esprits du Congo", or "The Spirits of the Congo" http://tv5.ca/les-esprits-du-Congo . It features wild animals of the Congo (Zaire), such as Western Lowland gorillas, okapis, forest elephants (and they discussed Pygmy elephants at length, saying they were in American and European zoos in the 20th century, but are not recognised by science) The West German Ambassador filmed Pygmy elephants (Loxodonta pumilio) in 1990. They said something like the Pygmy elephant always exists just on the thresh-hold of reality, or at least that's my translation. They also discussed Common and Pygmy chimpanzees, Congolses peacocks, and the "Mokele-mbembe", which they said is more likely a forest rhinoceros than a dinosaur. However my book, "Crypto-zoology A to Z The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature", by Loren Coleman and Jereme Clark, says that a Japanese film crew filmed a large object moving through a river, in Zaire in 1992, which may have had a long neck, and dove under the water. Have you ever read Bernard Heuvelmans' "On The track of Unknown Animals"? He devotes a chapter to the Pygmy elephant, as does my book, saying that there have been Pygmy elephants in American, European, and African zoos, which did not grow any bigger. Specimen 35591 in the American Museum of Natural History is the skeletal remains of the Pygmy elephant, collected by a German, which died in the Bronx Zoo in 1915. My book has that picture of Bernard Heuvelmans holding a very large, young gorilla. It's as big as the one which tried to punch me in the face through the glass in Washington, but appears to me to be an Eastern Lowland gorilla, possibly at Antwerp Zoo (?) I seem to recall that Antwerp Zoo got the photo credits in his book, and he was a French-Belgian, so he would have lived not too far from Antwerp. I think the okapi is the coolest animal in the world, and the greatest status symbol for any zoo. Before I forget, there was a poster on the Buckles Weblog of Pygmy elephants. I also saw another TV show recently about the birth of a baby gorilla at Busch Gardens, and the arrival of baby Komodo dragons from the US at the Reptile Park in Australia. Take care. Sincerely Paul
Wade: You can watch the whole thing on their website, okapis and all, http://tv5.ca/les-esprits-du-Congo or try http://tv5.ca/videos?v=1j7iaw5vs4md4 Sincerely Paul
Wade: I was watching a TV show about this lady in New Zealand who swims with wild killer whales. She said that they live from 16-18 years in the wild, and I saw a recent Sea World commercials, which says that killer whales live just as long in captivity as they do in the wild. I had previously heard that killer whales and dolphins live to be 70 in the wild. I believe that killer whales, or orcas, are dolphins, although I'm not really sure. I thought they both belonged to the Delphinidae. I recall having a conversation with Mary Ann about this because Siegfried & Roy also have dolphins in their menagerie. There was also an article in the paper about the decision to move the two elderly Asian elephant cows from Seattle Zoo to Oklahoma City because, under new guidelines, they consider two individuals to be too few to constitute a herd, and some zoos still keep solitary individuals. However the two are now in San Diego for some reason. I forget why. The article said that 96 elephants a day are killed in the wild, or 30,000 a year. I also saw something about the moose population in Newfoundland. They were saying that they originally introduced 6 pairs to the island, although they may have added a few more after that, and they now number in the hundreds of thousands, so maybe the Northern white rhino could bounce back, although I'm not really optimistic. Sincerely Paul
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