Best of Nature and Wildlife

  Here are some fun facts about gorillas! 1. A gorilla's DNA is about 98% the same as a human's DNA! 2. Gorillas are herbivores and play a crucial role in dispersing seeds. 3. Gorillas create nests on both the ground as well as trees to sleep in. 4. In a female gorilla's lifetime, she will only give birth 3-4 times with one baby. 5. A female gorilla is pregnant between 8.5-9 months 6. Despite what people think, gorillas are actually shy and non-aggressive animals! 7. Gorillas walk by using their legs and knuckles. 8. Gorillas eat leaves, berries, fruits, flowers, plants, and insects. 9. Gorillas are an endangered species. 10. Gorillas only predators are humans.

  A herd of elephants crossing the road in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.  Photo: Tyson Mayr / © IFAW “Human-elephant conflict” describes negative interactions between elephants and humans. The most common forms are crop raiding (when elephants eat or destroy crops), property destruction, or simply people getting too close to elephants and triggering defensive behaviours that may lead to injury or death of people and elephants.    Although the term doesn’t usually include wildlife crimes like poaching and trafficking of elephants’ body parts, people who feel threatened by elephants may be more likely to ignore or take part in these crimes.   These conflicts endanger not only people’s safety and elephants’ survival but also the health of ecosystems and the traditional lifestyles of rural communities.   What are some causes of human-elephant conflict? An Elephant at Amboseli National Park, Kenya.  Photo: Reno Omokri People have coexisted w...

  Orangutans are great apes, as opposed to monkeys, and are closely related to humans, having 97% of DNA in common. Orangutans are extremely patient and intelligent mammals. They are very observant and inquisitive, and there are many stories of orangutans escaping from zoos after having watched their keepers unlock and lock doors. Height: males - about 1.5m; females - about 1.2m Weight: males - 93 to 130 kg; females – 48 to 55 kg Life Span: 60 years or more Gestation: about 8.5 months Number of Young at Birth: usually 1, very rarely 2 Extinction in the wild is likely in the next 10 years for Sumatran orangutans and soon after for Bornean orangutans. Both the Sumatran species ( Pongo abelii ) and the Bornean species ( Pongo pygmaeus ) are classified as  Critically Endangered  according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The Sumatran and Bornean Orangutans' rainforest habitats are...

  For my first Post of the Year 2024, here's a funny moment between a hawk and a frog as captured by bird photographer  Randy Wei.  "I was shooting in a local park and my original target was to get a photograph of a hooded merganser. All of a sudden, a red-shouldered hawk appeared and landed in the mud under the shade. Then I started to see this hidden frog appear and begin to slowly start hopping toward the water. As the frog hopped, the hawk just stared at it without much action. I fired as many shots as I possibly could of these two in frame without much thinking, and this one appeared as if they were walking together. Well, that’s the shot, I thought!" - Randy Wei Randy Wei ( @randy_simplelife ) got into bird photography back in 2014. During the day, he works as an industrial design director, but after work, he likes to walk into nature with his camera and lens. We came across this fun shot he took of a red-shouldered hawk and a frog and connected with him to learn mo...

  Did you know that when a herd of zebra merge together their stripes make it almost impossible for predators to single out an individual animal? And that a zebra’s stripes are not unlike the identifying fingerprints of humans in that they are totally unique to each animal? Zebras have attracted man’s fascination for centuries. Mostly because of their intricate and distinctly patterned black and white stripes. In some cultures, the zebra’s stripes are a symbol of harmony and balance such as in Native American shamanism. The zebra is closely related to donkeys and horses, and there are three species of zebra: Gevy’s, mountain and plains zebra, and of the three the latter is by far the most commonly found all over Africa. Interestingly enough the zebra’s stripy coat also prevents the animal from overheating in the extreme African temperatures by acting as a sunscreen and dispersing more than 70 per cent of the heat. It even aids as a form of camouflage in the long grass by distractin...

  Well, it seems that monkeys have been shown to be more adaptable than humans. Although a Planet of the Apes scenario still looks quite far-fetched, and our position as the planet's dominant species is still undisputed, it's an interesting study that reveals a lot about the way we think and do things. Published in Nature's Scientific Reports , the study looks at the cognitive flexibility, meaning the mental ability to adapt to new ways of doing things, of humans compared to capuchin monkeys and rhesus macaques. By using a nonverbal computer task, participants were urged to follow one set of rules, which then changed midway during the study. How well the participants adapted to this change in rules provides tremendous insight. Participants, which comprised of 60 humans, 22 capuchin monkeys, and 7 rhesus macaques, were tested on a common cognitive flexibility experiment called the Learned Strategy–Direct Strategy (LS–DS) task. Participants had to learn to complete tasks in a...