Adélie & Chinstrap Penguins

More penguins, this time the Adélie (Pygoscelis adeliae) and the chinstrap (P. antarctica).

Adélie penguin
Pygoscelis adeliae (Hombron & Jacquinot, 1841)


Adult Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae)

Distribution: circumpolar (77-54^oS); non-breeding distribution not past limit of pack-ice, but vagrant to South America, Australia, New Zealand and sub-Antarctic islands.

Size: 70 cm (27½’’); smallest of the three members of the genus Pygoscelis; males are significantly larger than females, males up to 5.4 kg (12 lb) and females up to 4.7 kg (10 lb).

Habitat: usually heavy pack-ice; breeds on rocky islands, peninsulas, beaches and slopes etc.

Diet: krill, fish and squid.

Etymology: Pygoscelis = “rump leg” in Greek; adeliae = after Jules Dumont d’Urville’s wife Adélie.


Adélie penguin chicks (Pygoscelis adeliae) of different ages

Chinstrap penguin
Pygoscelis antarctica (Forster, 1781)


Adult chinstrap penguin (Pygoscelis antarctica)

Distribution: circumpolar south of Antarctic Convergence (the area where the cold Antarctic waters meet the warmer northern oceans) to 64^oS and sub-Antarctic islands, Cape Horn and Heard Island; non-breeding range poorly known but good dispersers; vagrant to Australia.

Size: 71-76 cm (28-29”); males up to 5.3 kg (11½ lb); females up to 4.5 kg (10 lb).

Habitat: light pack-ice in Weddell Sea, never open water or heavy pack-ice there; breeds on ice-free coasts with steep slopes.

Diet: krill, fish and amphipods.

Etymology: Pygoscelis = as P. adeliae; antarctica = from Antarctica.


Juvenile chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) of different ages

Emperor & King Penguins

Here is the first in a series of profiles on the penguins. Today’s penguins belong to the genus Aptenodytes, and are arguably the most well known and distinctive, the emperor (A. forsteri) and the king (A. patagonicus).

Emperor penguin
Aptenodytes forsteri (Gray, 1844)


Adult emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri)

Distribution: Antarctica (between 66^oS & 78^oS); vagrant to South Georgia, Heard Island & New Zealand.

Size: 100-130 cm (40-50”); the largest penguin. Males can weigh up to 40 kg (88 lb); females no more than 32 kg (70 lb).

Habitat: restricted to pack-ice of Antarctica, as well as sea-ice, and very occasionally on land.

Diet: nototheniid fish, small cephalopods (squid) and crustaceans (such as amphipods and krill).

Etymology: Aptenodytes = ‘wingless diver’ in Greek; forsteri = after John Reinhold Forster.


Emperor penguin chick (Aptenodytes forsteri)

King penguin
Aptenodytes patagonicus Miller, 1778


Adult king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus)

Distribution: most sub-Antarctic islands between 45 and 55^oS, Heard and Falkland Islands; formerly bred on Tierra del Fuego; non-breeding range encompasses South Atlantic, South Indian and Southern Oceans.

Size: 85-95 cm (33-37”); the second largest penguin; males weigh up to 17.3 kg (38 lb); females up to 16.2 kg (35 lb).

Habitat: usually water free of pack-ice; breeding on bare ground with gentle slopes and level areas; at Heard Island, several hundred metres from the sea in tussock grass; at Crozet Island, mostly on beaches.

Diet: mostly small myctophiid fish and cephalopods (squid)

Etymology: Aptenodytes = as A. forsteri; patagonicus = from Patagonia (southern South America).


King penguin chick (Aptenodytes patagonicus)

A note about the artwork: I originally drew these in 2006/2007 whilst still doing my undergrad at Anglia Ruskin; the drawings are copied from the penguin monograph by Wayne Lynch.

Troodos Lizard

Troodos lizard
Phoenicolacerta troodica (Werner, 1936)
Lacertidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata
Bellapais Abbey, near Kyrenia, North Cyprus
October 2008

Like the Cyprus pied wheatear featured not long ago, the Troodos lizard is an endemic species to Cyprus. It was formerly considered (and still is, by some herpetologists) to be merely a subspecies of the Lebanon lizard (P. laevis). The genus Phoenicolacerta was only recently (2007) separated from the now-divorced Lacerta, which used to contain the common lizard amongst other European species. 

I am not sure whether the pictured animals are males or females, but there does appear to be a difference between the red-backed forms and those with red on their sides. In the breeding season, it is easier to tell the sexes apart, as the males turn green with blue heads, while the females are duller.

P. troodica is also the smallest of the four types of lizard I saw on the island, the only other one of comparable size I saw was the ubiquitous Schreiber’s fringe-toed lizard (Acanthodactylus schreiberi) which will get its own feature here shortly! The agama (Laudakia stellio) is usually larger, although the juveniles were commonly the same size as P. troodica and A. schreiberi, but are very different looking, with toad-like heads and diamond patterns on the back. I don’t think anybody could confuse any of these lizards with the chameleon though!

Art #11 - Solnhofen Scene

“Solnhofen Scene”
Coloured pencil illustration, October 2008 

Here is my first attempt at creating a realistic Jurassic scene in coloured pencil. What you see is an example of the animals and plants that lived in Bavaria during the Jurassic (I am not too sure if the plants pictured were found there at that time, but I am not a palaeobotanist, nor do I strive to be!). 

In the air we have Rhamphorhynchus (the flying reptile with a long tail and a brown body), and behind it is Pterodactylus (with purple “fur”). In the sea is Aegirosaurus, an ichthyosaur. Flying in the foreground with blue and white plumage is Archaeopteryx, and running on the ground are Compsognathus chasing Bavarisaurus. The plants are, from left: a cycad; a tree fern; a horsetail; and a Norfolk Island pine.

Solnhofen is the name of a town in Bavaria in southern Germany. It is in a limestone quarry near to Solnhofen that the fossils of the above animals were found, some in almost immaculate condition. It is believed that Bavaria at the time was a tropical archipelago with saltwater lagoons. The lagoons would harbour few bacteria as the salinity of the water would have been too high to support even brine shrimp. As a result, any animal that fell in (alive or dead) would have been well preserved. 

European Chameleon

European chameleon
Chamaeleo chamaeleon Linnaeus, 1758
Chamaeleonidae; Squamata; Sauropsida; Chordata
near Famagusta, North Cyprus
October 2008 

Chameleons are (said very scientifically) a cool bunch of animals. They are an instantly recognisable group of lizards: they are most well known for their ability to change colour at will, and their loopy eyes that can face any direction independently of each other. They are also known for their super-elastic tongue and unusual grasping feet and curly prehensile tail. 

The hotspot for chameleon diversity is Madagascar, with about 70 species including the world’s smallest and the world’s largest. Elsewhere they are found in Africa, southern Europe and Asia. The European (or common) chameleon pictured is found in Greece, some Greek islands, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, North Africa and the Middle East as far as Iran, and is often split into four subspecies: the Cyprus population would belong to C. c. recticrista. 

Cyprus Pied Wheatear

Long time no blog! In celebration of my voyage to Northern Cyprus earlier this month, I will be blogging on a variety of the natural wonders of that country. Today’s post will be on the Cyprus pied wheatear (Oenanthe cypriaca).

Cyprus pied wheatear
Oenanthe cypriaca (Horneyer, 1884)
Muscicapidae; Passeriformes; Aves; Chordata
Kyrenia, North Cyprus
October 2008 

The Cyprus pied wheatear is a small bird related to the robins and chats such as stonechats and whinchats. It is one of only two so-called breeding endemic species of bird in Cyprus. This means that they spend the summer months (up to October it seems) only in Cyprus. They migrate to Sudan to spend the winter. The other bird is the Cyprus warbler (Sylvia melanothorax), which I unfortunately didn’t see.

This bird is a female, you can see a dusky cap with white border (more white in the male), and buff-rufous underparts which are less extensive in males. 

Pet Biography #3: Dolly

Dolly, born 31st March 1997, is Scarlett's daughter. She's a sprightly, agile, playful feline that does not look her age. She just looks like a big kitten, and often acts like it too. She is the most social and people-loving of the three cats, and often goes to her mum for an allogrooming session, and can tolerate Sapphire to the point of sleeping on the same bed (my bed is quite small). She is always the first to greet strangers, to the point of ignoring me! I have a very close bond with Dolly, and we know each other quite well. In that way, I mean that I know where she'll be most of the time and how to react to her odd moods, and she knows that if she wants stroking, all she has to do is roll onto her back and show off her lily-white belly, curl her tail into an alluring question mark, and close on eye, purring like a jackhammer. Then I'll immediately stop what I'm doing and give her some attention.

Dolly's oddest quirk is that she hates anybody touching her tail. She tolerates it for a short while, then starts to grumble and then hiss, but never bites. She goes off in a huff, exhales in a uniquely Dollyish way, then 30 seconds to a minute later, she's back. Then you touch the tail again, then she's off. I think the cause of this "don't touch my tail" nonsense is that she was bitten by something as a kitten and had to have a few visits to the vet for infection. Luckily, she still has her tail, but it does seem to have a mind of its own. Scarlett, on the other hand, would let you curl her tail around your finger and not bat an eyelid, back when she had one of course.

Dolly likes popcorn, crisps, pretty much any other savoury snack, anything that moves, my bed and hiding underneath the card table with a green tablecloth in the living room. She mainly uses that area as a hiding place for when it's time to go outside and she doesn't want to be found, but has also found another use for it. Sapphire often brutishly chases the other two around the house, the only time he gets any exercise, the fat slob... and Dolly got her own back once by lashing out at Saff when he walked past the table.

Art #10: Acadoparadoxides

"Acadoparadoxides"

Coloured pencil illustration, August 2008

Acadoparadoxides Snajdr 1957

 

A drawing of what the wonderful Acadoparadoxides trilobite would have looked like in life, in colours I think are neat. Acadoparadoxides dates from an awe-inspiring 530 million years ago, and was found in Morocco (not by me, I purchased the above specimen from eBay). Of course, Morocco was then underwater, and must have remained so until at least the Devonian period millions of years later, as trilobites from that period have also been found there. 

Pet Biography #2: Sapphire

Sapphire is a big neutered male 12 year old shorthair cat we have had since he was 2 months old. Scarlett and Saff (as he is known for short, or Saffy) have never liked each other, and pretty much can't stand being in the same room together, except if it's a big room. He is the greediest of the three cats and eats more than his fair share.

He hasn't had as many misadventures in his life as Scarlett, for example, he's never been pregnant, but has had poor health over the last few years to with the bladder, and is slightly overweight so he is on a diet (less food less often). Once his collar got stuck in his mouth, and we thought he broke his jaw. The name comes from the fact that his eyes were once blue but turned greeny.

Saff's funny habits include preference for paper above plush carpet to sleep on, peeing in the bath, sleeping near the toilet, dribbling while he "kneads", sleeping with his head in people's slippers, sounds like ET when he's unhappy. His favourite human food is carrots, and likes playing ice hockey with carrot tops in the kitchen, and also likes food meant for other animals, such as algae-based catfish food. 

Next up, Dolly!

Pet Biography #1: Scarlett

This is the first of a series of posts on my blog about my pets, including those past and present. They go in chronological order from the earliest pet to the latest, but starting from 1996, as that is as far as I can remember, and have photos from!

Scarlett, born March 1996, has been with the family since she was two months old. She is now at the ripe old age of 12. I have no pictures of her when she was young, because none of us could work a camera properly and they are all blurry black blobs on a piece of paper that could be a bin bag or a kitten.

Scarlett was bought from a pet shop in Crews Hill, as many of my pets also did. This particular pet shop was an odd one, more like a zoo with free entry. If I remember correctly, they had meerkats, caimans (!), red squirrels, bullfinches and loads and loads of snakes. A few weeks before buying Scarlett, I remember seeing a pregnant Rex which was very friendly. I now think this cat was Scarlett's mother, and she has actually inherited some of that breed's characteristics, I think (very short crimped fur which falls out easily, Scarlett goes partially bald for a while each year, then the fur grows back).

All I can recall about Scarlett's first year was that she didn't like me very much, until she became pregnant and would come to me for comfort. She was 12 months old when she gave birth to five kittens on 31st March 1997. The father was a stray we nicknamed "Romeo" or another tabby stray, but not Sapphire as he was neutered before being sexually mature. Scarlett was a very good mother to her babies, each different looking to the other. One female was exactly like herself, with the white throat spot, two males were tabby and black and white, and the two other females were tabby and white, and the most unusual shade of creamy brown and white with a black-tipped tail, reminiscent of a stoat in its winter coat. This, the first born, we kept, and named Dolly after Ms. Parton (not my choice of name). Dolly matured into a pale brown spotted and white tabby, and kept the black banded tail. More about her later.

Scarlett's next episode happened after we couldn't find her for more than a day. Her daughter helped us to find her, sheltering in the garden shed, and she was injured; her tail was limp. The tail was amputated, and her bobtail look is now her most distinctive feature. She has gotten on well without a tail, and is still more agile than either of the other two cats.

Scarlett loves hiding in a nook between a fitted fridge and the plate cupboard, it can be impossible to get her out of there; my trick is to open a packet of chicken slices near the fridge. She hates loud noises, especially tin foil and the noise you make when you cough up phlegm (there's no nice way to describe it, I've tried). Her current favourite places to nap are on a pink cushion on one of the sofas near the kitchen, as well as on a padded footstool in the conservatory. She has also taken to sunbathing on the freezer in the conservatory when the sun is out. Her favourite human food other than meat is cheddar cheese, and she adores whipped cream from a can.

The next instalment will be about Sapphire...