FAVORITE WILD ANIMAL

[Mike K.]

BEER?

 

[gluegungeisha]

Ahh!! I love this thread!

1. GIANT SQUID!!!

2. Duck-billed platypus

3. Black mamba

4. Elephant!

5. Pig!

And last but not least...
6. Octopus!!

Aside from their mind-blowing physical capabilities, octopi are extremely intelligent. One experiment involved putting two octopi in a tank, with a sheet of glass between them. The experimenter presented one octopus with a closed, lidded jar containing food. The octopus fiddled with the jar for a bit, then opened it and ate the food. Then the experimenter handed another jar containing food to the other octopus. The second octopus immediately unscrewed the jar and retrieved its treat. Genius!!

 

[Foofoogal]

I adore zebras. I saw a show on planet earth the other day that had an octupus with zebra stripes. Fascinating.

My very earliest memory is of a huge lunar moth on a fence when I was a baby. I think they are beautiful. Love nature period.

 

[Mike K.]

Very interesting! What made you select the black mamba? I've always been more partial to the green myself, but both are formidable reptiles.

 

[Lady Day]

The Black Rhino

I have always had a fascination with them, and did a series of illustrations of them in undergrad.

LD

 

[A. G. Geiger]

The Tasmanian Tiger or Thylacine.

 

[Matt Noir]

PA Dancer wrote:

"If you are interested, I highly recommend "Animal Speak" by Ted Andrews."


I will have to check this book out.

For me, I enjoy dragonflies for reasons that Ted Andrews would probably understand.

I also have a special bond with dogs - I do not say that I am Cesar Millan the Dog Whisperer...but I seem to have an innate way with dogs and I have had great success in correcting bad behavior as well as in gaining swift trust of wary and abused dogs.

 

[Spitfire]

The rhino and the elephant...are among my favourits. Because they are so "old" , like they have lived on earth millions of years and never changed.

Love the polarbear too because of its versatillity.

And my birdfavourit has to be The Golden Eagle.

 

[HungaryTom]

Resurrection

This is a fabulous animal - sad that it is gone I will celebrate the day should it be re-discovered!!!!!!!

The photo above is of a Caspian tiger from the Caucasus in the Berlin Zoo that was published in 1899

The rediscovery happened via DNA sequencing - scientists namely found out this year that this subspecies is almost identical with the existent Siberian tiger the difference is only 1 nucleotide in the mitochondrial DNA. Actually it looks very similar to a Siberian tiger on the photo.

This was the most exciting news I read in terms of animals

http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/speciesinfo/caspiantiger.htm

New genetic analysis revealed that the extinct Caspian tiger lives on in the Siberian Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica). Researchers from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom collected tissue from 20 Caspian tiger specimens kept in museums across Eurasia. Afterwards, researchers from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) Laboratory of Genomic Diversity in Frederick, Maryland, sequenced parts of five mitochondrial genes. The Caspian Tiger's mitochondrial DNA is only one letter of genetic code separated from DNA of the Siberian Tiger, while it is readily distinguishable from the other tiger subspecies' DNA. This indicates that the Caspian en the Siberian subspecies are really one. The scientists have concluded that the two are so similar because both were descended from the same migrating ancestor. The ancestor colonized Central Asia via the narrow Gansu Corridor (Silk Road) from eastern China. The researchers suggest that through the early 1900s, Caspian and Siberian tiger populations intermingled, but hunters subsequently isolated the two groups. This resulted in the Siberian population splitting off from the Caspian population only in the past century. (Driscoll et al. 2009)
A quote from Driscoll et al. (2009): "Depending on further study of nuclear genes and morphology, and in view of previous equivocal or conflicting morphological assessments, Caspian and Amur tigers (Panthera tigris virgata, Illiger,1815 and Panthera tigris altaica, Temminck, 1844, respectively) might be considered as synonymous under the prior Panthera tigris virgata trinomial as prescribed by the rules of the ICZN (1999), in which case pronouncing the Caspian Tiger extinct may have been premature".

Articles -

http://bigcatnews.blogspot.com/2009/01/caspian-tiger-extinct-but-lives-on-in.html

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/caspian-tigers.html#cr

 

[scottyrocks]

The frog.

I've had frogs on the dashboard of every car I have owned since my first in 1977.

 

[Fletch]

I would like to change my vote from the badgerbadgerbadger to the South Asian Fishing Cat. (warning: chicken killer)

 

["Skeet" McD]

I would like to change my vote from the badgerbadgerbadger to the South Asian Fishing Cat. (warning: chicken killer)

Quote: "They are friendly to humans if they have been acquainted since young."

Ummm-hmmmmm....

Any chance you'll reconsider and go back to BADGER BADGER BADGER? (mushroom; SNAKE!)

"Skeet"

 

[carter]

Wilfred Brimley? Nope, the California Sea Otter.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

The Sonoran Chubacabra..

-dixon cannon

 

[Diamondback]

Where's I put that double-barrel 12-gauge?
----------------
Now playing: John Barry - James Bond - Ninja
via FoxyTunes

 

[lairddouglas]

The Fierce and Dangerous ---- HedgeHog

 

[scottyrocks]

The Sonoran Chubacabra..

-dixon cannon

omg, if that thing is indeed real and not some photoshopped horror creation, and was in my neighborhood, I'd be sleeping with a baseball bat (or a spear, or hockey stick, or medieval sword, or a mace, or a hatchet) at hand.

 

[HarpPlayerGene]

I'm in for rattlesnake. I've always admired their nature (not to try to mess with or capture). They keep to themselves. They hunt their food. They are well armed but give you the benefit of a warning - sometimes - before defending themselves. And you'll never, never see one being taught to 'roll over' and make a fool of himself. Honest is what they are.

Second: Owls.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

tundra wolf and (black) wolf

any wolf for that matter

and for good measure

 

[Fletch]

[QUOTE="Skeet" McD]Any chance you'll reconsider and go back to BADGER BADGER BADGER? (mushroom; SNAKE!)[/QUOTE]kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty CHIC-KEN CHIC-KEN
FIIIIIISH FIIIIIISH whoooooa it's a FIIIIIISH lol