Alien Vs. Predator Vs. Parasaurolophus

A few days ago, I sat down and, with several hours of homework to do, watched Ridley Scott's 1979 classic "Alien."  It was phenomenal, and I enjoyed it, and went on to watch Predator (great) and Prometheus (not so great).  Now, on this excellent but snowy Thursday afternoon, I'm about an hour into "Aliens," knowing that any second now an Alien xenomorph is going to appear out of nowhere and kill something.  But that's not why I paused the movie at the 54:44 minute mark.  What I've been thinking about is far more pressing: what's the purpose of that enormously distended xenomorph cranium?

If you have no idea what's going on in this picture yet, that means you're probably sane.

Usually with aliens, you can just pass off a big head as an indicator of big brains.  Ki-Adi Mundi from Star Wars, for example, has two brains in that big 'ol Cerean cranium of his, and an extra heart to boot.  If you rewatch "A New Hope" extra carefully, see if you can't spot Pons Limbic (note the brainy pun) in the Mos Eisley Cantina, the big-brained Siniteen whose head literally resembles a brain.  The Guardians of the Universe from the D.C. Comics franchise are often pretty wise, but in light of some recent events, they might not be quite as level headed and emotion spectrumless as we thought (but that's a story for another bright snowy day).  The Face of Boe from Doctor Who seems to be pretty smart, given that he's literally just a giant head in a tank and can communicate telepathically.  Then there's Zilius Zox, a Red Lantern from the D.C. universe, who also appears to be little more than a giant head.  Both Jumba (from Disney's "Lilo and Stitch") and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) seem to have noggins that are larger than average in proportion to body size, and seem to have above average intelligence to match.  Marvin the Martian and Roger from American Dad?  Both smart, both big-headed.

A skull of the duck-billed hadrosaur Parasaurolophus at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, from my visit last summer with my good friend Zach Evens (who also deserves some credit listing big-brained aliens).

Now what about the aliens, or xenomorphs, from the "Alien" franchise?  Although undeniably intelligent to some degree, they aren't what you'd typically think of when the subject of brainy aliens comes up around the dinner table, at least not in terms of processing power.  But they definitely have big heads.  So what are they used for if not for thinking?  We, of course, can turn to the science of dinosaur paleontology to help us with this question.  Take a look at the dinosaur skull above.  This critter is a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, called Parasaurolophus.  Scientists believe that it blew air through its special crest to produce a sound very similar to that of a trombone!  Many hadrosaurs had wild cranial ornamentation, as did other dinosaurs such as some of the ceratopsians and the pachycephalosaurs, just to name a few.  These wacky head-dos almost certainly had a whole lot to do with attracting a mate and sexual selection.  Essentially, the bigger your crest is, the more attractive you are.  Is it possible a similar sort of thing evolved for the Alien xenomorphs?  In "Aliens," we can see that the queen has a different head pattern than do all of the other xenomorphs that we've seen so far, indicating some sort of sexual dimorphism is potentially at work.  Interesting.  What should you take from this blog post?  Probably just that I have way too much time on my hands.

On a brief side note, I realized I've actually talked about the skull of the xenomorphs previously, before I'd even seen the movies.  Check out that post, all about otter skulls, by clicking HERE.

Alien vs. predator vs. Parasaurolophus vs. Tyrannosaurus vs. Lego Gilderoy Lockhart vs. Darth Vader vs. Polly Pocket vs. creepy frog candle vs. macaw vs. Apatosaurus vs. medieval archer vs. Boba Fett Pez Dispenser vs. Ambelodon vs. mallard vs. fisherman from an ironic fish cake vs. Jumba vs. Craire Cat Hello Thingy vs. six different types of shark vs. Taz monster truck vs. Aragorn son of Arathorn vs. Liam Payne vs. Marty from "Pirates of the Caribbean" vs. mouse cat toy vs. basilisk lizard vs. Spider-Man vs. penguins with jet packs and missile launchers vs. Themistocles vs. Terri Irwin.  And this is why it takes me so long to write a blog post.  I think we were all a little surprised about how quickly things escalated.  Yeah, I definitely have too much time on my hands.

Harris Hawk at the Dinosaur Hotel!

A few times now, I have mentioned the fantastic dinosaur-themed renovation that the folks over at the Best Western Denver Southwest.  Complete with life-sized models, museum quality casts lining the hallways, and a pool in the shape of the Western Interior Cretaceous Seaway, this is a hotel that paleo-fans of all ages won't want to miss!  Another awesome thing they do is a weekly raptor show on Saturday's at 5:00 PM.  I don't mean raptor like Velociraptor (which would be both amazing and terrifying at the same time), I mean bird of prey raptors.  But don't be too disappointed: they are still really super cool!  I went for the first time last Saturday, and was blown away by both the birds and the knowledge and passion of the presenter, Anne Price.  I plan on sharing many of these birds with you, and today I am going to share one of my favorites from last week, the Harris hawk!

In this picture, you can see the Harris hawk is not too happy about the great-horned owl being held by another volunteer about ten or fifteen feet in front of it!

There are three different subspecies of the Harris hawk, and this one was native to the Sonoran desert, in the American southwest.  Although sometimes the other sub-species will live in more forested areas, this particular type of Harris hawk prefers a desert life.  

Due to the fact that much of what lives in the desert is spiny, the Harris hawk learns from a very young age how to pick spikes and thorns out of its feet, especially the spines of the saguaro cactus.  This particular cactus is SO huge and so integral to the surrounding ecosystem that it is illegal in Arizona to either harm or destroy a saguaro cactus!

When abbreviated, the scientific name of the Harris hawk, Parabuteo unicintus, spells "P. u."

Unlike many raptors, the Harris hawk is a very social bird, hunting cooperatively in packs often numbering four or five individuals.  These packs, or family groups, will often have one or two of the birds fly down low to flush out prey, and once the prey is on the move, the rest of the pack will swoop in for the kill.

 

Since it is so darn hot in the Sonora Desert,  the adult Harris hawks are forced to shield their nests, with their offspring inside, with their outstretched wings to keep them from cooking alive.  If the "shield-bird" has to move, for whatever reason, an aunt or an uncle or just another member of the pack will instinctively swoop in to take up the shielding duties!  

I feel like since the Harris hawk lives in groups, it would be more tolerant of other birds.  Since they kept the Harris hawk out almost the entire time, even while the other three birds were out, this would make sense.

You can see in the picture above and the picture below that, while the Harris hawk wasn't too bent out of shape because of the presence of the great-horned owl, it wasn't necessarily super excited about it.  I mean, let's face it: if you or I were a hawk in the presence of this incredible owl, I might be a little nervous, too!

Like in most other birds, the Harris hawk is pretty much full-sized when it leaves the nest, since it has to be able to fly, feed, and take care of itself.  When their entire volume is taken into account, the young apparently are often bigger than the adults!  I don't remember exactly why that would be, but most likely due to the fact that the young have just been sittin' around on their heinies, and their parents have been working their heinies off to feed and care for them.

As you can sort of see in the picture below, the innermost toe claw of the Harris hawk, and most (if not all) hawks, is much larger than the other two forward-facing toe claws.  As you can probably see in the picture above, the hallux, or backwards-facing claw, is also much larger than those other two forward-facing claws.  I don't recall if this is a feature seen in other raptors, I'll make sure to ask this Saturday!

I also have a short video that I took there of the Harris hawk.  You can see how it looks, get a good size comparison, and listen to a little bit of the information that Anne has to say about it!

Here is a second video where the Harris hawk is featured, however briefly.  Although it features the red-tailed hawk, at one point the hawk poops on the floor, which unfortunately happens off camera!

Finally, here is another video in which the Harris hawk makes an appearance.  You can see when the camera pans over to the Harris hawk (the cinematography, by the way, is reminiscent of Star Wars or Planet Earth or something like that) that the Harris hawk, like we talked about before, is not terribly happy about the great-horned owls presence so close to it, but it is tolerating it nonetheless.  Despite the fact that it doesn't feature the Harris hawk all that much, it's still a really cool video, and will give you a hint for what's in store for later posts!

Make sure you check out the website for the Raptor Education Foundation by clicking HERE, and checking out the Facebook page for the Best Western Denver Southwest by clicking HERE!  

Squirrel Footprints on Our Doorstep!

This morning we woke up to a fresh blanket of snow, the first (real) snow of the year for us!  Naturally this means that I must do all of my first snow traditions, including watching the Battle of Hoth scene from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and wearing my Mammoth and Mastodon Madness t-shirt from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  Anyways, on my way over to school, I saw a few footprints.  I took a few pictures on my phone so they aren't very good looking, but I believe them to be from the eastern fox squirrel, the type of squirrel that is just so common around here in Boulder, Colorado!  If anyone knows otherwise please let me know, but I am 99.99% sure that this is what we are looking at!  The first two pictures are the ones that I took with my phone.  The first picture has an impression of my right index finger in the snow next to the footprints for scale.  The third picture is a picture that someone else took of some eastern fox squirrel footprints in the snow too!

Behind The Scenes at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!

So, as promised, something especially exciting happened at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo this weekend!  My grandparents, Ted and Gail Neher, were able to get my dad (Mark Neher), friend (Masaki Kleinkopf), and I behind the scenes!  We got to play with the penguins, feed the grizzly bears, and check out the new elephant barn!  I am still trying to get all of my media files together (I took a LOT of video, not to mention the pictures!) but I thought that I could give you all a taste of the action right now!

Thanks again to Kelley Parker for showing us around, that was super awesome of you!  Thanks again!

First off, the penguins!  We actually got to go INSIDE OF THE ENCLOSURE and play with the penguins!  We were able to touch them, and I even got a feather or two!  (Off of the floor, of course, I wasn't just going in there and plucking the penguins!) 

 

Here, my dad and Masaki are scattering the toys for the penguins.  This way, they are able to stimulate their minds as they hunt around looking for the toys!

 

 

One of the penguins stops to admire my snazzy shoes!

 

 

Now, here are a few videos!

First, a comedic video that I made featuring penguins and Star Wars!  Enjoy!

Star Wars Penguins!

Here are the other three penguin clips that I have uploaded thus far:

African Penguin Grabs Donut Toy From My Hand
Playing With Penguins!
African Penguin Encounter!

Our next stop was at the grizzly bear enclosure!  We got to feed them!  Not by hand, of course, as that would be incredibly dangerous.  I only have one clip up so far, but it shows exactly how it is done!

Masaki Feeding The Grizzlies!

The so-called "Yoga Bear!"

 

 

 

Our third, and final, stop on the behind the scenes tour was a look at the new Elephant Barn!  We were unable to go on the ground floor due to the fact that the zoo's new rhinoceros had arrived within the last few days, but we were able to go up on the overhead viewing platform and check out the elephants, and we even got a glimpse of the rhino, too!  I took a lot of video here, and, again, I will post more soon when I have my wits about me!

The exterior of the elephant barn!

What will one day be (I believe) an elephant walkway.  Either that or a human walkway!

I promise, there will be more later!  Let me get my act together, and then you will be able to see more!  A WHOLE lot more!

Colorado Springs on Dwellable

The Sounds of Star Wars

The dog that was once owned by George Lucas has gone down in history in more ways than one.  One very famous example stems from the dogs name: Indiana.  This inspired the first name of the swashbuckling adventure hero "Indiana Jones" from the film franchise of the same name.  Another very important legacy of Indiana (the dog) stems more from appearance.  Apparently, the idea for Chewbacca, the lovable Wookiee from the Star Wars franchise, came to Lucas when he saw Indiana sitting up in the passenger seat of Lucas's own car!  In fact, the name "Chewbacca" apparently is derived from the Russian and Ukrainian word "собака," which means dog.

Ben Burtt, the sound editor for all six Star Wars movies, recorded a number of bear sounds for the purpose of creating Chewbacca's speech.  Along with bears, cats such as the lion and the mountain lion were also recorded.  Camels were used in addition to these fiercer companions.  These were by no means the only contributions by the animal world to the sounds of Star Wars, however!  For example, when it came to the patrons in the Mos Eisley Cantina in Episode IV: A New Hope, many different tactics were utilized.  Synthesized Latin and chopped-up Swahili served for two of the customers, but animals were used as well.  One patron's laughter stemmed from a hippopotamus, while anothers came from a spring peeper tree frog.

That's not all when it comes to the Cantina scene, however!  Ponda Baba was the Aqualish alien, below, who, along with his friend Dr. Evazan, picked a fight with Luke Skywalker and Ben Kenobi.  He was "voiced" by a walrus.  Meanwhile, besides "dogs growling and bats squeaking," the "laughter" of hyenas was also used for the laughter of some of the Cantina's other patrons. 


Here are some more sounds, and what kind of animals contributed to their creation:

Geonosians:  Here is what Matthew Wood, the actor who brought the voice of the famous and much-loved General Grievous to life, has to say regarding the sounds made by the Geonosians:

"I recorded the mating calls of penguins as they came back from the Antarctic to little Phillip Island in Melbourne.  Other sounds came from when I was up in the rain forest; I was in a flying fox area, and they let me get close to these two flying foxes.  One of them had a banana, but the other one wanted some of it, so they started fighting.  They were really mad, and I recorded that whole thing.  So, for the Geonosians, Ben [Burtt] combined mating penguins and fruit bats fighting over a banana."

The penguins that he is referring to are the korora, commonly called the little blue penguins, discussed in a recent post.  They would also not have been returning "from the Antarctic," as these birds, the smallest known penguin, past or present, are not cold-weather birds, and really stick pretty close to Australia.

Boga:  One of my absolute favorite characters (yes, I know, technically she is just an animal, but still) was voiced by a combination of one of my favorite REAL animals, the Tasmanian devil, along with a few yelps from dogs and coyotes.

Wampa scream: An elephant bellow, overlied by the squawk of a sea lion.

Mynocks:  The whinny of a horse played backwards at half the normal speed, beginning with the bark of a seal.

Ugnaughts:  The noises made by these pig-like aliens were primarily from the pups of an arctic fox, as well as the mother, but a bit of "raccoons in a bathtub" was mixed in.

Rancor Noises:  The dachshund owned by the neighbors of Ben Burtt, the Syllas, barking, growling, and hissing.

The Sando Aqua Monster:  The deep growls that this massive creature from Episode I: The Phantom Menace makes were actually from the throat of Burtt's then-three month old daughter, named Emma.  "At one point, she had a growl in her voice when she was crying.  I thought, I can use this!  So I recorded that and then lowered the pitch way down in the computer."

 Kaadu:  The snorts of the kaadu were recorded from the sounds a whale made out of its blowhole when surfacing at San Diego's Marine World.

Kaadu/Gamorrean Guard:  Both of these creatures (the grunts of the kaadu, and everything for the Gamorrean Guard) were recorded from pigs.  Unsurprising, at least for the Gamorrean, given his appearance!

Poggle the Lesser - The leader of the geonosians (that is, until Queen Karina the Great is revealed in season two of the Clone Wars) was voiced in a number of different ways, but partially through "Swahili-type vocal clicks."

Acklay:  This creatures noises and shrieks were created from reworked dolphin noises, as well as a few pig sounds.

Octuparra Droids:  The sounds from these massive droids from the Clone Wars were partially created by cows.

Gor:  Pet of the aforementioned General Grievous, Gor was voiced by a mixture of a lion and a vulture.

Gundark:  This creature, first mentioned in the original trilogy ("You look strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark," said Han Solo to Luke Skywalker after his traumatic ordeal at the hands [haha irony (because the wampa gets his hands cut off)] of the wampa) was created from a conglomerate of a horse and a shrieking parrot.

I have to say, I think one of the coolest places to visit would be Skywalker Sound, the place where all of the sound and stuff for the Star Wars movies and tons of other movies are made, organized, edited, and such.  If they gave tours, then I would totally make the trip out there!  To take a tour of Skywalker Ranch would be absolutely fantastic!

A Look Ahead, Fun Fact 8/3/2012

First off, check out today's post about the tapir, down below!

Next, I decided to spice our "Looks Ahead" up a little, each week I would add in a fun fact or something similar, that I didn't think I would have enough information to devote an entire post to.  So here is your fun fact!

FUN FACT:  For the first season of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the popular animated TV show in the same franchise of the classic movies, the producers decided to create a new planet for the premiere episode.  They settled on a small moon that was covered in coral, but no water; somehow, the moon had been drained of its oceans.  They decided to call the moon "Rugosa," after an extinct order of coral, commonly called "horn coral." 

This horn-shape, unique among coral, lived a long time ago, but not in a galaxy far, far away: before the dinosaurs, in fact!  They survived for an incredibly long amount of time, though, from the mid-Ordovician Period (~488 MYA) through to the Late Permian Period, thriving through the Silurian, Devonian and Carboniferous Periods as well.  Although I couldn't find any official confirmation, I assume that the horn-coral went extinct because of the "Great Dying," or the mysterious Permian Extinction, but I am not positive, so don't quote me on that.


Now here's what we have in store for this week:
(4) Saturday:  Ginger Kathrens, Cloud, and the Wild Horses of the Montana Rockies
(5) Sunday:  Animal Spotlight:  The Okapi
(6) Monday:  The Making of Planet Earth:  The Snow Leopard
(7) Tuesday:  Animal Spotlight:  The Red Panda
(8) Wednesday: What Is It?
(9) Thursday:  Animal Spotlight:  The Coati
(10) Friday:  Forget Biker Gangs: The River Otters of India

Masiakasaurus knopfleri, and Other Interestingly Named Creatures

A few months ago, while reading Dr. Scott Sampson's book Dinosaur Odyssey (you probably know him as the guy from Dinosaur Train), he has a very brief section of his book where he talks about some interesting scientific names of sometimes not that interesting of creatures.  He presents nine of them, and here I present them to you, as well.

1.  Masiakasaurus knopfleri
This dinosaur, from Late Cretaceous Madagascar, was named by Scott Sampson and his colleagues, means the "vicious lizard of Knopfler," meaning Mark Knopfler, a famous musician.

 2.  Milesdavis zlichovianus
This trilobite was named after the famous jazz musician Miles Davis.

3.  Mozartella beethoveni
This wasp was named after two famous classical musicians, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

4.  Dicrotenipes thanatogratus
This one is probably less obvious to most of you out there, but in Greek, thanatos means "dead" (think Thanos, the villain for the next "Avengers" movie from Marvel: he loves and worships death), and in Latin, gratus means "grateful."  This midge was named after the famous band, Grateful Dead.

5.  Montypythonoides riversleighensis
This extinct Australian snake was named after the Monty Python franchise, but unfortunately, the name is now outdated; its correct scientific name now is Morelia riversleighensis.

6.  Strigiphilus garylarsoni
Named after the famed cartoonist Gary Larson of The Far Side fame (watch for at least one post featuring him next week).  Besides having this owl louse named after him, also has had a beetle and a butterfly named in his honor. Regarding the owl louse, he said “I considered this an extreme honor. Besides, I knew no one was going to write and ask to name a new species of swan after me. You have to grab these opportunities when they come along.”

7.   Ninjemys oweni
"Owen's Ninja Turtle" is named after the famous group, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and was found in Pleistocene-aged rocks in Queensland, Australia.

8.  Gozillus

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0425/Mysterious-Godzillus-fossil-find-stumps-scientists

9.  Darthvaderum greensladeae
One of my personal favorites, this mite was named after the famous Darth Vader, from Star Wars.

Cloning the Cheetah: Why Bother?

In an attempt to discover why the cheetah has such a low fertility rate, a team of scientists, including David Wildt and Stephen O'Brien, decided to take a look at blood samples from a number of cheetahs, labeled "Vulnerable" by the IUCN.  What they found was startling, and very worrying; the cheetahs appeared to be dangerously, perilously inbred; they were all practically clones of each other. 

Wildt and O'Brien decided to confirm this hypothesis by taking skin samples from a number of cheetahs, and attempting to graft them onto a number of other cheetahs.  In a healthy population of animals, the skin grafts would be immediately rejected.  This is because the body of the animal who received the skin graft would recognize the skin to be from another individual, a foreign body, and attack it, just as it would attack any foreign body (i.e., germs or bacteria.)  Even in humans, skin grafts are often rejected, even ones from close relatives.

Normally a very majestic looking animal, this particular cheetah seems to have been caught at a bad time.  Photo Credit: Ted and Gail Neher

So when every single one of the cheetah skin grafts were accepted by the other animals, this did not bode well for the cheetah.  This meant the genetic diversity of the cheetah was incredibly, shockingly low.  But why is genetic diversity so important?  Well, without genetic diversity, the DNA of the individuals comprising a given population are very similar.  These individuals essentially become clones of each other, with many similar attributes, most important among them their immune systems.  In a healthy population of, say, cheetahs, say that fifty percent of them are immune to a certain disease, most of them evolving from a common ancestor.  The other fifty percent of the population has absolutely no protection against said disease, and the illness ravages their population.  An unfortunate (and oversimplified) event, to be sure, but fifty percent of the individuals remain to rebuild the population to what it once was.  With the low genetic diversity seen in the cheetah, if a similar disease in the hypothetical above sweeps through Africa, it is quite likely that a much lower percent than fifty would survive.  It is also possible that this disease would so ravage the global population of cheetahs that they would simply be unable to recover from this catastrophic event.

A cheetah scratching a log at the Denver Zoo.  The cheetahs incredibly slender build can help distinguish it from other cats. 

So why is the cheetah so catastrophically inbred?  Most of the time, low genetic diversity is due to a given species having passed through a "bottleneck."  20,000 years ago, cheetahs spanned the entire globe; ranging all over Europe, Asia and Africa, two species of cheetah, or "proto-cheetahs" if you will, even roamed North America (Miracinonyx inexpectatus and M. trumani.)  When the most recent Ice Age drew to a close around 10,000 years ago, the dramatic climatic changes (and likely human influences, as well) resulted in the extinction of much of the world's mammalian megafauna. Researchers think that this mass-extinction managed to knock the cheetah's numbers down to a very small population, likely comprising a mere handful of individuals.  (In fact, I remember reading once that at one time, some people thought that a single pregnant female mother was able to survive, but I don't think that this idea is all that highly regarded anymore).  While the cheetahs were obviously able to build their population numbers and density by a significant amount than that seen 10,000 years ago, this bottleneck came with a price; genetic diversity was, and is, miniscule.

Works Cited: