By Dispatch staff

February 22, 2012

CGPGrey sets us straight again with a rundown of common misconceptions about animals. http://youtu.be/F9-iSl_eg5U

By Dispatch staff

October 22, 2011

The York County Department of Parks and Recreation has organized an educational hike, How Animals Prepare for Winter, 2:30-4 p.m. Oct. 30 at Nixon County Park.

Participants will hike with Jeri Jones, Parks & Rec program coordinator, to explore the animal world, and learn the steps they are taking to prepare for the coming season.

The free event is open to all ages. Pre-registration is not required. Please dress for the weather and wear sturdy shoes.

For more information, call the park’s Nature Center at (717) 428-1961.

By Dispatch staff

August 29, 2011

These stories were submitted to the Junior Dispatch by Kid Scoop, a Newspapers in Education program at the York Newspaper Co.

Fourth-graders from Mr. Richcrick’s Fishing Creek Elementary classroom and sixth-graders from Mrs. Myers’ E.H. Markle Elementary School classroom wrote African Animal Riddles.

WHO AM I?
I fight for females.
I have a long mane.
I am in the cat family.
I am the king of my pride.
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Answer: Lion — Alexus Hocker, fourth grade, Fishing Creek El., Mr. Richcrick

1.) I live in the jungle in Africa.
2.) I move by running and walking on 4 strong legs.
3.) I eat birds, snakes, baboon, sheep, and grasshoppers.
4.) I get my food by using my claws to rip the animal apart.
Who am I?
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A cheetah — Dana Wesneski, sixth grade, E.H.M.I.S., Mrs. Myers

WHO AM I?
Hey, hey, hey, you. Bet you can’t guess what I am!
I have an opposable thumb.
I hang on a tree branch.
I have orange hair all over my body.
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Answer: Ginger Monkey — Mikayla Close, fourth grade, Fishing Creek El., Mr. Richcrick

1.) I have black rings on my tail.
2.) My eyes can be red.
3.) I live in the forest.
Who am I?
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A ringtail lemur — Saad Siddiqui, sixth grade, E.H.M.I.S., Mrs. Myers

WHO AM I?
I am a mammal.
I’m in the cat family.
I’m in a movie.
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Answer: Simba — Reese Williams, fourth grade, Fishing Creek El., Mr. Richcrick

1.) My average life span in the wild is 30-40 years.
2.) I am an omnivore.
3.) I grow to be about 7-9 feet tall.
4.) I am a bird.
5.) My eye measures almost 2 inches across, the largest eye of any land animal.
Who am I?
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An ostrich — Bonna Sheehan, sixth grade, E.H.M.I.S., Mrs. Myers

WHO AM I?
My ears are too big for my head.
My head is too big for my body.
I am not a Siamese cat.
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Answer: Chihuahua — Steven Frank, fourth grade, Fishing Creek El., Mr. Richcrick

1.) I like eating what I can catch.
2.) I lay eggs and I am feared.
3.) The pressure of my bite is 1,000 pounds per square inch.
Who am I?
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A crocodile — Ashley Harmon, sixth grade, E.H.M.I.S., Mrs. Myers

I run everywhere.
I make funny sounds.
I look like a prairie dog.
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Answer: Meerkat — Elissa Keefer, fourth grade, Fishing Creek El., Mr. Richcrick

1.) I am afraid of mice.
2.) I live in the African Savanna.
3.) I have large white tusks.
Who am I?
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An elephant — Nicia Werner, sixth grade, E.H.M.I.S., Mrs. Myers

I have Mohawk like hair.
I have patterns on my body.
I look like a horse.
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Answer: Zebra — Eli Cooper, fourth grade, Fishing Creek El., Mr. Richcrick

1.) I have seven neck vertebrae, but I am not human.
2.) My heart can beat up to 170 times per minute.
3.) I have excellent eyesight.
4.) I don’t have tear ducts.
5.) I can moo, bleat, snort, moan, bellow, cough, hiss, roar, whistle and more.
6.) I gallop over 35 miles per hour.
7.) I can stand while sleeping and giving birth.
8.) I am born with horns.
9.) I eat leaves of plants or trees such as Acacia with my tongue that can extend to 18 inches long.
10.) I am the world’s tallest animal.
11.) My skin is made of different brown patches.
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Who am I? A giraffe — Sabrina Lam, sixth grade, E.H.M.I.S., Mrs. Myers

By Dispatch staff

August 25, 2011

Our world is a much wilder place than it looks. A new study estimates that Earth has almost 8.8 million species, but we’ve only discovered about a quarter of them. And some of the yet-to-be-seen ones could be in our own backyards, scientists say.

Penn State University Prof. Blair Hedges shows a Caribbean gecko, Sphaerodactylus ariasae, one of the two smallest reptile species known to exist, curled up on a dime. Found in the Dominican Republic, the gecko is about 16 mm, and is also the smallest amniote vertebrate of 25,000 species (includes birds, mammals, and reptiles). Hedges described "I found it with a colleague, while crawling on my hands and knees among dead leaves, anticipating a small lizard, but that not that small!" He said. (AP Photo/Penn State University, Blair Hedges)

So far, only 1.9 million species have been found. Recent discoveries have been small and weird: a psychedelic frogfish, a lizard the size of a dime and even a blind hairy mini-lobster at the bottom of the ocean.

“We are really fairly ignorant of the complexity and colorfulness of this amazing planet,” said the study’s co-author, Boris Worm, a biology professor at Canada’s Dalhousie University. “We need to expose more people to those wonders. It really makes you feel differently about this place we inhabit.”

While some scientists and others may question why we need to know the number of species, others say it’s important.

How they help: There are potential benefits from these undiscovered species, which need to be found before they disappear from the planet, said famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who was not part of this study. Some of modern medicine comes from unusual plants and animals.

“We won’t know the benefits to humanity (from these species), which potentially are enormous,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilson said. “If we’re going to advance medical science, we need to know what’s in the environment.”

Biologists have long known that there’s more to Earth than it seems, estimating the number of species to be somewhere between 3 million and 100 million. Figuring out how much is difficult.

Worm and Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii used complex mathematical models and the pace of discoveries of not only species, but of higher classifications such as family to come up with their estimate.

Their study, published Tuesday in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science, estimated the number of species at nearly 8.8 million.

Of those species, 6.5 million would be on land and 2.2 million in the ocean, which is a priority for the scientists doing the work since they are part of the Census of Marine Life, an international group of scientists trying to record all the life in the ocean.

By the numbers: The research estimates that animals rule with 7.8 million species, followed by fungi with 611,000 and plants with just shy of 300,000 species.

While some new species like the strange mini-lobster are in exotic places such as undersea vents, “many of these species that remain to be discovered can be found literally in our own backyards,” Mora said.

Outside scientists, such as Wilson and preeminent conservation biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University, praised the study, although some said even the 8.8 million number may be too low.

This creature was photographed in 2002 about one mile deep near a huge underwater volcano near Monterey Bay. The strange marine animal, thought to be a new species that has yet to be described or named. It is a type of mollusk, called nudibranch, that sheds its shell early in life. Scientists think there are millions of species, like this one, that have yet to be named or even discovered. (AP Photo/NOAA)

The study said it could be off by about 1.3 million species, with the number somewhere between 7.5 million and 10.1 million. But evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State University said he thinks the study is not good enough to be even that exact and could be wrong by millions.

Tiny creatures: Hedges knows firsthand about small species.

He found the world’s smallest lizard, a half-inch long Caribbean gecko, while crawling on his hands and knees among dead leaves in the Dominican Republic in 2001. And three years ago in Barbados, he found the world’s shortest snake, the 4-inch Caribbean threadsnake that lays “a single, very long egg.”

The study’s authors point to other species as evidence of the growing rate of discovery: the 6-inch, blind, hairy lobster-type species found in 2005 by a submarine looking at hydrothermal vents near where the Pacific meets Antarctica and a brilliant-colored frogfish found by divers in Indonesia in 2008.

Of the 1.9 million species found thus far, only about 1.2 million have been listed in the fledgling online Encyclopedia of Life, a massive international effort to chronicle every species that involves biologists, including Wilson.

If the 8.8 million estimate is correct, “those are brutal numbers,” said Encyclopedia of Life executive director Erick Mata. “We could spend the next 400 or 500 years trying to document the species that actually inhabit our planet.”

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Online:

Census of Marine Life: http://www.coml.org

Encyclopedia of Life: http://www.eol.org

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Reported by SETH BORENSTEIN of the Associated Press from WASHINGTON, D.C.

By Dispatch staff

October 25, 2010

Click on the comic for a larger image!

In the 81st installment of the ‘Phil Hardy’ comic strip, the captain of the Romanus tells Phil that he’s “homeward bound.” That immediately reminded us of a 1993 film called “Homeward Bound.” It’s about three animal friends trying to find their way home.  The 1993 film was a remake of a 1963 film, which was adapted from a book called “The Incredible Journey.” You should check one of them out!