Amazing Animals

[Blue Frost]

I love them along with panthers, and puma, solitary, and has a secretive nature about them.

[Blue Frost]

[video][/video]

[Gary Oak]

I never thought of bats as being fast flyers.

Brazilian free-tailed bat is the fastest flyer in the animal kingdom
Bats are not just skilful aviators, they can also reach record-breaking speeds
November 09, 2016

Up to now, the speed record for horizontal flight was held by birds from the swift family: the common swift, for example, can reach speeds of over 100 kilometres per hour. Together with colleagues from the USA, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell have now discovered a new front-runner among the acrobats of the air. However, the animal involved here is not a bird but a bat: the Brazilian free-tailed bat shoots through the night skies at over 160 kilometres per hour. Their aerodynamic body shape and longer than average wings compared to other bat species enable them to reach such vast speeds.

© MPI for Ornithology Birds are still a model for aviation engineers today and remain unequalled when it comes to flight characteristics. While birds can take off at comparatively low speeds, even the most modern aircraft must reach a speed of around 300 kilometres per hour to be able to lift off. The main contributing factors here are the animals’ aerodynamic, projectile-like body shape and their low weight due to special bones. Moreover, the narrow wings found in faster-flying species also enable greater lift relative to the aerodynamic force invested.

Swifts, like the common swift (Apus apus), which can reach speeds of 110 kilometres per hour, are considered the fastest birds in the world at horizontal flight. Peregrine falcons can even reach speeds of up to 300 kilometres per hour when diving. In contrast, due to their wing structure, bats generate greater resistance, and are generally considered slower flyers.

Animals with long and narrow wings usually fly faster than those with shorter and wider ones. For this reason, the scientists selected the Brazilian free-flying bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) for their study. Even the experts themselves were surprised by their results: “Initially, we could hardly believe our data, but they were correct: at times, the female bats, which weigh between 11 and 12 grams, flew at speeds of over 160 kilometres per hour – a new record for horizontal flight,” says Kamran Safi from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.

The data on the bats’ flying speeds were collected using a radio transmitter weighing just half a gram and attached to the their backs using an adhesive and fell off after two to five days. Its regular beeping signal was localized using a mobile receiver installed on a small aircraft. “It was not easy for the pilot to follow the fast-flying animals so that we could localize them accurately and measure their flight path continuously,” explains Dina Dechmann. The scientists also evaluated the data recorded by the closest weather station and noted the wind conditions at the time of the studied flights. “External factors like landscape and tailwinds cannot explain these results, as they had no impact on the maximum speeds,” says Dechmann.

https://www.mpg.de/10820081/brazilian-f ... al-kingdom

[Blue Frost]

[video][/video]

Like its Greek mythological namesake, the chimaera — or ‘‘ghost shark’’ — is a mysterious, rarely seen creature with a patchwork of bizarre features.

Dwelling in the depths of the ocean, its eyes are pale and seemingly dead. Where teeth should be, the ghost shark uses tooth plates instead to grind food.

Their heads are lined with cryptic dots, like the remnant scars of ancient stitches. Male chimaeras have retractable sex organs — on their foreheads.

Its other nicknames — ratfish, rabbitfish, spookfish — hint at how bizarre chimaeras are in appearance.
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And now, scientists believe they have captured on video a species of ghost shark that had never before been filmed live: the pointy-nosed blue chimaera.

The actual video was taken in 2009 but was only recently released by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, along with a paper by researcher Lonny Lundsten and his colleagues at the institute.

Six years ago, researchers from the nonprofit sent an ROV, or remotely operated vehicle, on several dives off the waters of central California and Hawaii.

The ROVs captured footage from depths of up to 6,700 feet. What they returned with surprised researchers: On film was what appeared to be a species of ghost shark previously only caught in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.

According to his paper, Lundsten consulted with three chimaera experts who watched the video from the diving expeditions. All believed the fish was, in fact, a pointy-nosed blue chimaera.

Still, Lundsten and others from the Monterey Bay Aquarium institute can’t be 100 percent certain that the fish captured on video is a pointy-nosed blue chimaera, despite their similar physical characteristics. Because of that, the paper refers to the fish they recorded as Hydrolagus cf.trolli, rather than its scientific name, Hydrolagus trolli.

To be absolutely sure, researchers would have to capture the ghost shark and bring it back to the surface, the institute said.

‘‘This is much easier said than done, because these fish are generally too large, fast, and agile to be caught,’’ the institute notes. ‘‘If and when the researchers can get their hands on one of these fish, they will be able to make detailed measurements of its fins and other body parts and perform DNA analysis on its tissue.’’

Doing so would either allow them to remove the ‘‘cf.’’ from the species description — or lead to perhaps an even more exciting alternative: that they discovered a new species of ghost shark.

‘‘If these animals turn out to be the same species as the ghost sharks recently identified off California, it will be further evidence that, like many deep-sea animals, the pointy-nosed blue chimaera can really get around,’’ the institute said.

The pointy-nosed blue chimaera was first discovered by researcher Dominique Didier Dagit in 2002, in the deep waters around Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia.

Dagit, then an assistant curator of ichthyology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, told the Associated Press in 2002 that she named her discovery Hydrolagus trolli after Alaskan artist Ray Troll because they shared a love for ratfish.

‘‘It’s kind of nice to be able to name a species for someone,’’ Dagit told the AP. ‘’I thought, ‘Here’s my chance to name a fish for someone who’s really interested.’ . . . It kind of looks like him, [but with] less facial hair.’’

[Gary Oak]

There are some really bizarre creatures at great depths in the oceans. my favourite has always been that football sized anglerfish.

[Blue Frost]

Creepy little bugger, good thing they are not VW sized or things in the seas could be much different.

[Blue Frost]

Just think to be able to do this, you could remove a bullet from your body with no harm done doing it.

[video][/video]

[Gary Oak]

cool

[Gary Oak]

We have these in Canada too. I have never seen one flying and possibly never have seen one period. I didn't know that they were nocturnal.

See the Nighttime Acrobatics of Montana’s Flying Squirrels
Wintertime in a remote Montana forest heralds the arrival of mating season for the flying squirrel—and one of nature's most spectacular air shows.

By Alexander V. Badyaev And BioGraphic DECEMBER 28, 2016

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/se ... -squirrels

[Blue Frost]

Is it a flying rat lol, it's a cute little thing. It's something that those bat wing suits are modeled after those.

[Gary Oak]

It's always nice to hear the good news that an animal is making a comeback. Here it's the Fisher of Iowa.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/video/wonder/t ... ailsignout

[Blue Frost]

That is good cool Wiesel

[Blue Frost]

[video][/video]

[Gary Oak]

I was fascinated with the coral reefs when I was a boy. The coral reefs are spectacular.I have seen this on one of the scads of nature documentaries we watch. It seems like God created these fish to make our world have beautiful white beaches.

[Gary Oak]

place your bets, whose gonna win ? the video is about one minute.

Horse vs. Alligator
A battle was caught on tape.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ho ... ator-fight

[Blue Frost]

I hope this is the video Gary, my scripting wouldn't let it play on that page.
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[Gary Oak]

That's gotta hurt !

[Blue Frost]

The horse was lucky not to got chomped, it would have broke it's leg, the gator might have got internal damage from those hits, the horse wasn't playing.

[Gary Oak]

gators aren't good playmates.

[Blue Frost]

Not really, and they are tough critters that have been around a long long time.