Critter Science
The Science of Animals
Once thought extinct, the silver-backed chevrotain was recently rediscovered in Vietnam in 2019! It had been 30 years since the last sighting. It was found by the Global Wildlife Conservation and partners Southern Institute of Ecology and Leibniz Institute for Zoo & Wildlife Research. Scientific journal
The pika, aka rock rabbit, resembles a mouse, but is actually more closely related to rabbits and hares. It’s part of the order Lagomorpha. A couple features set them apart from rabbits and hares too: short ears and a long tale. As cute as they are, don’t get any ideas of owning one for a pet. These are wild animals, through and through. They are best kept that way. Pikas are
They’re slow-moving, gentle grazers of sea grasses that mean no harm to anyone. The manatee, aka sea cow, is found in only a few locales in the world and there are only 3 known species of these docile creatures in the world today: the West Indian manatee, the Amazonian manatee, and the West African
Out of the world’s known 15 crane species, the endangered whooping crane is among the rarest. As of this year (2020), there are an estimated 25 new breeding pairs from 125 birds. The whooping crane is North America’s tallest bird, standing at over 5 feet tall! Even though they are
The red wolf is the world’s most endangered canid, having lost approximately 99.7% of its original territory. Sadly, due to poor management, there are only about 14 known pure red wolves left in the wild. Currently, there are lawsuits to force FWS (Fish & Wildlife Service) and NCWRC
Once found throughout the Great Plains in North America, the black-footed ferret is one of the most endangered animals in the U.S. They depend upon prairie dogs for food, almost exclusively, and use their burrows for homes and raising young. Consequently, their fate is coupled to that of prairie
The Mexican grey wolf is considered critically endangered by the IUCN. Only 115 Mexican gray wolves live in the wild and about 300 exist in captivity. Campaigns of poisoning and trapping in the early to mid 1900s nearly caused them to go extinct. Even though their
Found in silt heavy streams, the Gila trout calls Arizona and New Mexico home. These troubled trout have faced adversity for ages. More recently at the hands of agriculture and rerouting rivers and streams. Gilas are among the rarest trout species in the
Once upon a time the Chiricahua leopard frog was found in over 400 water locations in the Southwestern U.S. Now the frog can be seen, if you’re lucky, at less than 80! In Arizona, the Chiricahua’s populations have dwindled more than any other leopard frog species. These frogs need
The Galápagos tortoise is the largest tortoise on Earth. Sadly, out of the 15 known subspecies of these tortoises, only 11 remain in the wild. They live in dry lowlands to more humid highlands. Galápagos tortoises were hunted during the 17th, 18th, and 19th century to near extinction