The marvelous pink hippo!

©Burrard-Lucas.com

Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas are two brothers from UK and two talented wildlife photographers. A couple of months ago, while they were taking pictures of the wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara region they stumbled across a very unusual guy: a pink hippo!

Here how they described this amazing experience with their own worda in their wonderful blog:

We have just returned from a trip to the Masai Mara in Kenya where we were photographing the annual wildebeest migration. After a rather uneventful morning, we stopped on the banks of the Mara River for a picnic breakfast. It was then that we came across a truly exceptional individual… just as we started to tuck into our breakfast, we looked up and gawked, open-mouthed, as a pink hippopotamus emerged from the river! Hippos are usually dark brown in colour, so this individual was very conspicuous! We dropped our breakfast and reached for our cameras.

The hippo was clearly a young one since it was much smaller than the others in the group. It was also very shy and tended to stick close to its mother. To avoid frightening it off, we used a long 600mm lens to photograph it from a distance. Nevertheless, it only stayed ashore for few minutes before returning to the safety of the river. Thereafter we caught fleeting glimpses of it as it came up to breathe.

©Burrard-Lucas.com

On the contrary of what many might think, this pink hippo is not an albino individual. Its condition is called Leucism. The main difeerence between an individual affected by albinism and a leucistic one is that caused by a reduction in all types of skin pigment, not just melanin. Therefore in species that have other pigment cell-types, for example xanthophores, albinos are not entirely white, but instead display a pale yellow colour.
Leucism instead is a general term for the phenotype resulting from defects in pigment cell differentiation and/or migration from the neural crest to skin, hair or feathers during development. This results in either the entire surface (if all pigment cells fail to develop) or patches of body surface (if only a subset are defective) having a lack of cells capable of making pigment. The last difference (and it's very clear in this pink hippo) is in eye colour. Due to the lack of melanin production in both the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE) and iris, albinos typically have red eyes due to the underlying blood vessels showing through. In contrast, leucistic animals have normally coloured eyes. This is because the melanocytes of the RPE are not derived from the neural crest, instead an outpouching of the neural tube generates the optic cup which, in turn, forms the retina. As these cells are from an independent developmental origin, they are typically unaffected by the genetic cause of leucism. This means great luck for pink hippo because an albino individual would have probably suffered vision problems, instead, as Burrard-Lucas brothers tell us, pink hippo seems to be able to live a normal life:

Being an animal that is so strikingly different often results in a hard life; these creatures frequently become outcasts, rejected by their conventionally colored peers. In this case however, we were relieved to note that the other hippos seemed to be treating the pink hippo just like any other. Leucistic and albino animals are also easily spotted by predators which greatly reduces their chances of survival. Fortunately, hippos are too big for most predators, and this young hippo’s mother would fiercely protect it if they were ever attacked. Finally, animals without skin pigmentation often suffer from severe sunburn. However, a hippos’ sweat is unique in that it acts as a very effective sunscreen, protecting them from harmful UV radiation… therefore it seems that this pink hippo should be able to survive perfectly well in the wild!

©Burrard-Lucas.com

If you've enjoyed  the pictures of the "Pinkopotamus" take a look to the Burrard-Lucas brothers blog, a comprehensive showcase of our wildlife and travel photographs from around the world.


©Burrard-Lucas.com

©Burrard-Lucas.com

The good samaritan Hippo

This is one of those amazing story that makes you love the animal world and that so many times I've written about in SeaWayBLOG.
This story is set in the Mara River, a river in Africa, flowing through Kenya and Tanzania, that lies across the migration path of ungulates in the Serengeti/Masai Mara game reserves:



all pictures ©Michael Yule

The protagonist is a Hippo and a very helpful one! so helpful that we might nickname it "The good samaritan hippo"...
Everything starts with some visitors to a safari camp called Lamala Mara witnessing the annual wildebeest migration. As you may know this kind of migrations aren't exactly a constitutional walk... it's a really tough journey full of dangers and when the animals have to cross the rivers these dangers get to the highest level, especially for calves, crocodiles are lurking under the surface trying to get the most from this rare abundance of preys, and the current is stong enough to sweep away the youngest wildebeests.
But here our hero comes into action!
The visitors were astonished to see a hippo come to the rescue of two drowning stragglers.
The strong current separated a wildebeest, or gnu, from her calf and she watched helplessly as it was swept away.  To everyone’s amazement the hippo came to the gnu’s rescue and pushed it gently to the river bank:




And this is not enough.
Within ten minutes she spotted a little zebra crossing the same stretch of water and pushed it across, its tiny head struggling to keep above the torrent:




That's it, a hippo, with nothing in return and even to push the calves (being at the same time a wonderful bodyguard against crocodiles aattacks) helping them to reach safely the bank of the river just as they were its own offspring.
Nothing moves me more than when I see "love" being so strong it can even surpass species boundaries, and it's not even the first time I heard a story like this one about hippos, there's another one that I will probably post tomorrow that show how, despite their bad repution (being the world's deadliest animal in terms of men killed, more than crocs and much more than sharks for example) hippos seem to have a sort of feeling of empathy towards other animals' suffering.

How cats and dogs drink

The act of drinking may seem like no big deal for anyone who can fully close his mouth to create suction, as people can. But the various species that cannot do so — and that includes most adult carnivores and our cats and dogs — must resort to some other mechanism, so if you have wondered how our pets drink this is the post for you:



The news is that using high speed cameras, a group of researchers uncovered the mystery of how cats drink. The answer is: very elegantly, and not at all the way you might suppose. Many people think that the raspy hairs on a cat’s tongue, must be involved in this process, instead they're mainly related to the process of grooming. Cats lap water so fast that the human eye cannot follow what is happening, which is why the trick had apparently escaped attention until now. They discovered that cats touch the surface of liquids with their tongues (up to four times per second) before quickly pulling back up, causing a stream of liquid to rise upward. Before gravity pulls the stream back down, the cat closes its mouth around some of it, capturing the liquid. The process is quite different from dogs, which cup the water using their tongues and haul it back into their mouths... probably more efficient but noisier and absolutely less elegant!



Dog owners are familiar with the unseemly lapping noises that ensue when their thirsty pet meets a bowl of water. The dog is thrusting its tongue into the water, forming a crude cup with it and hauling the liquid back into the muzzle. What it's strange in this case is that the "cup" is made twisting the tongue downward and backward towards the lower jaw, in the opposite way you might suppose:

Kleptosharks!

©Karin Brussaard

These remarkable pictures show the moment a tiger shark snatched an underwater camera system from the hands of dutch photographer Karin Brussaard during an underwater diving expedition in the Bahamas. After he took several photos, the shark decided enough was enough and grabbed the equipment in its jaws before swimming off.



©Karin Brussaard

Brussaard, from the Netherlands, said: "Luckily it did drop it eventually and remarkably the camera only seemed to have a couple of scratches on it".


©Karin Brussaard

She continued: "There were about six or seven tiger sharks down there and we couldn't believe our luck. We
were having a great time photographing them all until one diver swam towards one of them trying to get a better shot. The shark suddenly seemed to get angry and snatched the camera right out of his hands." Tiger sharks are considered to be one of the most dangerous shark species in the world and are responsible for many recorded attacks on humans, second only to the great white shark.
However this story it's not so unusual and sharks stealing cameras and videocameras have been reported several times as you can see in the amazing video here below where another Tiger Shark eats a diver's video camera while it is still rolling allowing us to get a first hand view of what it looks like to be chewed up by a giant shark. Filmed By Stuart Cove and his team from Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas and documented with still photography by world renowned underwater still photographer Stephen Frink.

Baby Sea Dragons!

ZooBorns is a very very nice blog that I advice you to follow if you are, like me, fond of the animal world. It presents almost daily, cute photos and videos of the newly born animals from zoos and aquariums all over the world. This time it has been the turn of some really unusual pups: Weedy Seadragons babies from the Georgia Aquarium.




Phyllopteryx taeniolatus, the Weedy Seadragon or Common Seadragon, is a marine fish related to the
seahorse. It is the only member of the genus Phyllopteryx. It is found in water 3 to 50 m deep around the southern coastline of Australia, approximately between Port Stephens, New South Wales and Geraldton, Western Australia, as well as around Tasmania. Weedy Seadragons are named for the weed-like projections on their bodies that camouflage them as they move among the seaweed beds where they are usually found. Weedy Seadragons can reach 45 cm in length. They feed on tiny crustaceans and other zooplankton, from places such as crevices in reef, which are sucked into the end of their long tube-like snout. They lack a prehensile tail that enables similar species to clasp and anchor themselves. Phyllopteryx taeniolatus swim in shallow reefs and weed beds, and resemble drifting weed when moving over bare sand.
Seadragons, seahorses and pipefish are the only known species where the male carries the eggs as you can see in the above picture.



The female lays up to 250 to 300 eggs onto the soft underside of the male's tail. The eggs are embedded into the skin in cup-like structures that harden and form around each egg to hold and protect them during brooding. After about two months, the bright pink eggs hatch into miniature juveniles, which settle into the vegetation.



After the babies were born they were transferred into a special off-exhibit holding system to keep them safe from adult dragons and allow the aquarists to provide them with special food items such as tiny mysid shrimp. They have since grown to approximately ½ adult size but are large enough to safely navigate in the exhibit and forage for food. Although they are smaller and less colorful, and have a much shorter snout, the juvenile Weedy sea dragon closely resembles the adult. The new babies are about 4-4.5 inches long and weighed less than an ounce at birth. They join the ten adult sea dragons within the habitat.

The great migrations

(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen) 

I hope that this Sunday you didn't lose the premiere of "Great Migrations" on National Geographic Channel, probably the best and biggest project that National Geographic has produced in the last two or three years: a new seven-part television series about the spectacular migrations in the animal world, and with it, a big campaign to promote it, a special website full of content, and a book.
To capture the images and video for the series, they spent two and a half years in the field, traveling 420,000 miles across 20 countries and all seven continents (having themselves in such a way their own migration!).



Move as millions, survive as one. That is the subtitle to the new seven-part television series. Animals great and small are on the move around the world, chasing resources in dangerous journeys that might take mere hours or span generations!
This is a small selection of pictures taken from the book:


(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen)

(© National Geographic/National Geographic Television)

(© National Geographic/Frans Lanting)

(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen)

(© National Geographic/Randy Olson)

(© National Geographic/Annie Griffiths)

(© National Geographic/Hiroya Minakuchi/Minden Pictures)

(© National Geographic/Jim Brandenburg/Minden Pictures)

(© National Geographic/John Eastcott & Yva Momatiuk)

(© National Geographic/Frans Lanting)

(© National Geographic/Brian Skerry)

(© National Geographic/Paul Nicklen)

(© National Geographic/David Hamlin)

(© National Geographic/Mauricio Handler)

(© National Geographic/Joe Riis)

(© National Geographic/Thomas Kitchin & Victoria Hurst/Getty Images)

Ten-day-old orphan dolphin rescued

These are a touching series of pictures about a baby dolphin, probably just ten days old, which has been found by tourists on a beach near Montevideo, Uruguay.




It was suffering from injuries believed to have been caused by a fishing net but now is recovering thanks to Richard Tesore, head of the NGO Rescate Fauna Marina, Piriapolis, who is taking care of him.



When it was found there was no sign of the mother, it was tangled in a net and it had bites that suggest the mother and other dolphins might have tried to help him free.



Mr. Tesore, however is not the only one that seems to be interested in the baby Dolphin: a Magellan penguin is also being looked after at the centre and has taken an interest in the new patient!

When a Great White Shark enter the cage that should protect you

Every time I saw one of those cages that are used to allow people to see the great white sharks in their own environment I've always felt a mix of adrenaline and fear, it should be absolutely fantastic but also scaring as hell... well, after seeing this footage from a 2007 accident, I've finally decided: Cage Diving is not for me!
Read here what happened in the words of the protagonist, cameraman Patrick Walsh:

"A 2 ton, 15 foot Great White barrels into my cage and brakes through the bars... Patrick Walsh - Filming
Paul Damgaard - Avoiding Sharks Mouth
CC - The Shark
"On November 4th we had an incident that was pretty darned exciting. CC, or Cut Caudal, one of our regular sharks, accidentally ran into one of the main cages on the Searcher. CC came up nearly vertical about 20 feet away from the cage and grabbed one of the hang baits, which he is known to do on a regular basis. However, on this particular day he swam right into the portside cage's viewing window. As CC took the bait he instinctively rolled his eyes back, couldn't see where he was going and accidentally swam directly into the viewing window. CC's entire head went inside the cage and he was stopped just short of his pectoral fins. Well, we all know that white sharks have no reverse and CC was too far in to turn around. He tried to turn, but he could not quite get his snout to clear the corner. He rolled on his side and began to thrash up and down trying to free himself. Being a rather large white shark he just ended up making the opening bigger by simply removing the front of the cage so he could get out of the cage. CC literally removed all the lower front vertical bars and the horizontal bar that connects all of the vertical bars to the main frame of the front cage panel and then swam away. What was amazing is that it took only about 10 seconds to do this. What was even more amazing was that there were 2 divers in the cage at the time and they thought that this was the coolest thing they had ever experienced and walked away completely unscathed. The divers also said that CC was just fine too!
We were all very relieved that no one was injured. We were also pleased that our divers listened to the safety briefing prior to diving and followed the instructions and evacuated the cage when this incident occurred. One diver utilized the emergency escape hatch and somehow managed to film the entire event. We learned something from this and we will take appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again.
When we said, "You can get face-to-face with the ultimate predator" this is not what we had in mind!"

Surfing Dogs

©GETTY IMAGES

Huntington Beach hosted the second annual Surf City Surf Dog competition last Sunday, raising money for animal charities while letting dogs strut their stuff in a costume contest, a one-mile walk, and of course, a surfing competition.
There were two surfing heats: GROMS, where dogs could have as many volunteers in the water as possible to help, and SHREDDER, where dogs were judged on "the length of their ride, the size of the wave and their confidence on the board" and could only have two helpers.






























Obviously just like in every other beach, sgus gather not only to surf but to show off and pick up the chicks too:


all pictures ©GETTY IMAGES

All pictures collected via DAYLIFE