WC is obviously biased in favor of birds, and makes no apologies for it, but from time to time will aim a camera at mammals, too. Including Old World Monkeys, our distant cousins and wildly diverse primates. WC’s Old World experience is mostly limited to Thailand, but that country offered a nice selection of species.…
WC is obviously biased in favor of birds, but from time to time will aim a camera at mammals, too. Including the New World Monkeys, our distant cousins and wildly diverse primates. The Howler Monkeys are the poster child for that diversity: there are about 15 species of Howler Monkeys alone. And Howlers provide another…
October is Bat Appreciation Month, so WC is here with a selection of the other flying vertebrates. There are at least 1,400 species of bats world wide, filling a number of ecological niches, almost all of them nocturnal. Photographing them is a real challenge. But here’s a sampler. At higher altitudes, where it cools down…
“Megaptera” is Latin for “big-winged” and “novaeangliae” means “New England.” The name is nearly nonsensical. Whales don’t have “wings,” although these do have the largest pectoral fins of all cetaceans, and while they may or may not have first been seen in New England, in fact the species’ fourteen diverse population segments (“DPS”) are scattered around…
WC suspects some readers are getting tired of birds. So today WC will switch to mammals. Specifically flying mammals: Mexican Free-tailed Bats. The cave itself is an unprepossessing hole in the ground, about 20 feet wide and perhaps six feet tall. It’s home to 10-12 million Mexican Free-tailed Bats, as well as a colony of…
WC’s recent trip to Thailand was focused on birds, of course, but we did see other critters, too, and photos were taken. Here’s a quick look at some of the mammals we encountered. Impossibly cute, with those google eyes and “Got Milk” mustache, silk fur and fearless attitude, Dusky Langurs are fairly common. Gibbons are…
They are North America’s largest rodent. They are environmental engineers that are so effective that it’s only in the last 150 years or so that humans have surpassed them in overall environmental impact. In some stream courses, drilling has revealed buried beaver dams, one on top of another, more than 1,500 feet thick. There is…
WC blames Dr. Brewster M. Higley, the songwriter who gave us “Home on the Range.” That’s the song that mis-identifies Pronghorn as “antelopes.” “Pronghorn” didn’t scan, WC supposes. They are more closely related to the giraffe and okapi than to true antelopes. That makes them much less distant cousins to goats and extremely remote relatives to the Bovidae, the…
WC has been accused of being a speciest. Unkind readers have suggested that WC’s photos of birds imply he dislikes other taxa. This is political correctness being carried too far. Besides, WC has been known to press the shutter when other species have wandered into the viewfinder. Here are five mammals to prove the point.…
Wickersham's Conscience 