Written By: Aimee Turcotte Bats are creatures that some individuals believe are ‘bewitching’ or ‘bizarre’ and therefore, are a perfect symbol of Halloween. In fact, bats are frequently associated with vampires. Depictions of bats as vampires appeared in many cultures as far back as prehistoric times. For instance, there is a myth about a blood-feeding Philippine manananggal who would cleave the upper part of her body and then grow bat-like wings for flight (1.). The perception of vampires changed in Eastern Europe in the 18th century when horror stories would describe vampires as undead shapeshifters who would be active during the night. Like the Phillippine manananggal, Eastern European vampires transformed into bats for easier travel and for drinking the blood of the living (1.). By the 19th century, vampires became popular in Gothic fiction. In the early 20th century, Dracula became one of the most famous vampires in Gothic fiction. He turned into a bat multiple times in Bram Stocker’s 1897 novel “Dracula” to avoid being recognized and to travel efficiently (2.). Moreover, bats are often misunderstood because they are frequently mentioned in vampire stories as being associated with death and the underworld due to their nocturnal nature (3., 9.).
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Written By: Aimee Turcotte Bats are phenomenal animals typically shrouded in myths that make them feared and misunderstood. Many individuals are unaware of bats’ ecological importance in pest control, seed dispersal, and pollination. In this blog, we will uncover the truth about bats and how many of the resources we have would not be available without them. I attended an evening lecture at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo led by Keelyn Kotecki, a research student pursuing a master's at Southern Connecticut State University. She had the wonderful opportunity of becoming a bat expert by studying Vampire Bats in South America. During this lecture, she shared some general facts about bats that I found very interesting. Did you know that bats are the only mammals capable of true flight (1.)? Even though other mammals like flying squirrels can glide in the sky, they do not have the bone structure to support long flights. Bats have patagia, which are wing membranes that stretch over the bones of a bat’s wing to assist with wing flexibility and lift. Furthermore, bats are a part of the order Chiroptera, which can be split into two major suborder groups, Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera (1., 2.). Throughout the world, there are approximately 1,400 species of bats, so many that these bats make up 20% of all mammals (1.). Written By: Aimee Turcotte Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) are a part of the family Canidae, which is composed of animals that are “dog-like” [1.]. There are five main subspecies of Gray Wolves: Arctic, Great Plains, Eastern Timber, Northwestern Gray, and Mexican. There are many similarities and differences between these five subspecies. There are Mexican Gray Wolves at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo. Mexican Wolves are a species at the zoo protected under the American Zoo and Aquarium Association’s Species Survival Plan (SSP). The SSP is a “binational captive breeding program between the United States and Mexico for the Mexican Wolf. The SSP mission is to reestablish the Mexican Wolf in the wild through captive breeding, public education, and research” [8.]. Mexican Gray Wolves are the smallest and rarest subspecies of Gray Wolves that live in North America [1.]. These wolves are approximately 4 to 5 feet long and 2 to 3 feet tall [2.]. Mexican Gray Wolves can weigh 60 to 90 pounds. When comparing their size to a domestic dog, they are roughly the size of an adult German Shepherd [2.]. Occasionally, Mexican Wolves are called ‘El lobo’ because of their light brown and gray mottled fur, which allows them to camouflage in mountain forests and grasslands [4.]. The forest habitats of these wolves range from northern Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico [2.]. Mexican Wolves are carnivores typically seen wandering around their territory searching for prey such as small mammals like rabbits [2.]. Unfortunately, in the 20th century, there was a population decrease of deer, elk, and livestock in forests, leading people to believe that wolves were eating these animals [3.]. The government decided to eradicate Mexican Wolves through trapping and poisoning campaigns, which caused these animals to become endangered by the early 1970s [3.]. In 1997, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was permitted by the government to capture the last few Mexican Wolves and breed them in hopes of reintroducing them to their natural environments while increasing their population to prevent extinction [4.] Written By: Aimee Turcotte Years ago, Red Wolves (Canis rufus) were thriving in the bottomland forests, dense mountains, coastal prairies, swamps, and marshes of the southeastern United States [1.]. Unfortunately, their historic range has decreased due to habitat loss and is now limited to a designated area in northeastern North Carolina’s Albemarle Peninsula. Within the lands of the Albemarle Peninsula, Red Wolves occasionally interact with Coyotes, resulting in competing for resources or mating when a Red Wolf cannot find a mate of their species. The hybridization of Red Wolves and Coyotes has resulted in the loss of genetic diversity between these species. If there are more Coyote and Red Wolf hybrids, the population of Red Wolves may continue to decrease, resulting in this critically endangered species being closer to extinction. A Red Wolf pack typically includes a breeding pair and their young. There can be 5 to 8 individuals in one pack. A breeding pair of Red Wolves usually mate in February and tend to remain monogamous, only mating with each other. Once pups are born in April or May, they are blind and deaf until about 10 to 14 days after birth. When the young reach 1 to 3 years old, they leave the pack. Red Wolves live approximately 7 years on average in the wild and 15 years in human care. Written By: Aimee Turcotte Sloths: serene, sleepy, and slow. When Europeans discovered sloths in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, sloths were seen as unimpressive because of their slow movements and their perceived lack of motivation. In fact, sloths were named after the Middle English word slewthe or slouthe which means laziness [1]. The history of sloths goes back about 2.5 million years to 10,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch [2]. Sloths in the Pleistocene epoch could be found in the same grasslands, forests, mountain regions, tropical regions, and arid and semi-arid areas in South America as extinct animals. For instance, the extinct animals in these ecosystems include 1. The Terror Birds, a large extinct family of carnivorous flightless birds, 2. the Thylacosmilus, saber-toothed metatherian mammals, and 3. Glyptodonts, large armadillos. |
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