Saturday, May 30, 2009

Read this Post and Win Free Lemur...

...Photos. Sorry, I can't give away an actual lemur. They are very hard to mail. No matter how you lick the stamps, they just fall right off the fur.

A few weekends ago, we were lucky enough to visit several forests and parks near Andasibe. They were packed full of lemurs and other wonderful creatures. Just to make sure you come back, I will start with the other wonderful creatures. 

In a few days, I will unleash the lemur (photos that is).

Sadly, a lot of the forests in Madagascar have been cut down or burned, but this is one of the lucky forests that has escaped. The sciency way of saying that is "primary forest". Or to be even more specific, it is a "primary montane rain forest".

It is full of giant ferns and palms. It looks like a perfect place for a pet dinosaur.

Or perhaps a giant grub instead.

See? Big.

At night the forest comes alive with all kinds nocturnal thingamabobbers like tiny lemurs, funny-nosed bats, crawly insects and marvelous chameleons like this fellow. Well, most of the chameleons are not nocturnal, but they are much easier to find at night. A shining flashlight turns their eyeballs into two little headlights. All their wonderful camouflage makes them very hard to find during the day when they are out hunting insects and other tasty prey. Look at the special feet that are perfect for latching onto twigs.  But they're terrible for strolling on the ground. 

This is a baby Parson's chameleon. Some people think it is the largest chameleon in the world. It lives about 7 years, so this one still has time to grow into an  an 18 inch long giant (without the tail).

This is Gigantis madagascarius. Otherwise known as the goliath bird-eating chameleon.

Ok, not quite. Unless of course the birds are very, very tiny.

But the birds aren't tiny. And some of them do indeed like to eat chameleons. That is if they can find them. This one looks a whole lot like a branch and not a tasty morsel.

What sticky-footed fellow is hiding behind that leaf?

The striking Madagascar day gecko, that's who. He's on the hunt for some insects.

Like these guard termites who make sure no intruders try to break into their home sweet termite mound. Intruders have a nasty habit of tracking mud all over the place. Oh yeah, and eating everyone too.

Hey, it's a little rolly polly (pill bug).

Partly right. It is a roly-poly. But it is not little. This is a smaller and dead one. All the live ones rolled up into ping-pong-sized balls as soon as I touched them.

A wonderful frog. A petite one too. She could use a penny as an umbrella (that is if the penny had a handle and she an opposable thumb).

Nice spider! Not so fast. Count those legs again. It only has six legs. Its two antennae are colored to look like two more legs. That big abdomen is quite spider like too. But its other two main body parts aren't. Spiders only have two main body parts. Insects have three. So what is it? I have no idea. But it's not a spider.

Speaking of spiders. Here is an unfortunate moth stuck in spider web. Let's take a closer look.

Hum, that's funny? This moth has eight legs. That was probably the last thought of a lot of insects right before this thorn spider wrapped them up and ate them.

And, if you aren't careful, you could get wrapped up too. This web is taller than I am. Yikes.

And this is the home of some very special spiders. There are over 40,ooo different spider species in the world. And almost all of them prefer to be alone. The only time one adult spider hangs out with another adult is to make babies or to eat the other one for lunch. But there are about 20-30 spider species that do like to hangout together. They all help build a giant web/nest kind of thing and when some unlikely insect gets caught in the web. Dozens or even hundreds of spiders come bounding in from all sides to eat it or wrap it up for a snack later.

My wife Cindy and I after a great day of lemur and non-lemur spotting.

Don't worry, the lemurs are coming. Check back in a few days.

Friday, May 29, 2009

Read-Aloud Anyone?

For the benefit of Ms. Kirby's 5th grade class at LB and/or any other class and/or any nieces and/or nephew who may stop by the blog, here is a movie of me reading a wonderful book from England entitled The Gruffalo. Click and enjoy.

(No, it's not a science book, but remember I came from the land of third grade teachers before moving to the lab.)



Sorry, this is the small, low-quality version. If our connection improves, I will replace it with the high quality version.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

We'll be back online soon!

I know you are on the edge of your seat waiting for the next installation of life in Madagascar, but you will have to wait a little longer. Sorry for the delay, but there have been technical difficulties. Can you believe the internet has been so slow that sometimes I can’t even send an email or a Skype message? Maybe all the visitors to our blog have clogged up the works. We’ll try to be less interesting in the future.

However, I would like to part on a piece of good news for the blog. We are procuring our very own internet connection that we can use from home, and will hopefully be more reliable than the connection we have been using. Please come back soon!

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

When you Grow Up, No One Can Tell you Not to Play with your Food


Here is the delicous rambutan fruit after being set free from the basket.

Bite it open and pop out the fruit. It is about the shape and sliminess of an eyeball only tastier.

They are not very filling, so you can eat them like grapes.

Or you can play with them...then eat them.

Or take them home and have a fruit decorating party with your wife, Cindy (right) and roommate, Swanni (left). Then you can make marvelous things like...

Three amigos: Mickey Mouse, Don Pedro and Marvin the Martian

Weevil

Spider

Germinating Plant

Blowfish

Glyptodon

Penguin

Or even your pet dog, Dashiell

Playing with your food seem like fun? Well, get some fruit and have some fun yourself. Then please send me photos of your wonderful creations and I will post them on the blog. 

Send photos to: chad_lebo@monet.prs.k12.nj.us

Sunday, May 10, 2009

How Many Bones in a Giraffe's Neck?

Well, this is the place in Paris to find the answer. This is La Galerie de PalĂ©ontologie at Le MusĂ©e National d'Histoire Naturelle (that's French for bone museum). "A Night at the Museum" would be a very different movie if it happened here. Or maybe not, I never actually saw the movie. Most of you voted for twenty-one vertebrae in a giraffe's neck. And...most of you were wrong. If you take a close look, you'll see that a giraffe has only seven bones from its head to its shoulders. Amazingly, so do you. Yours are just a wee bit shorter is all.


All that height is good for a giraffe in the wild. It lets them eat the tasty leaves that others can't reach and they can see when pesky meat eaters may be lurking nearby.

So, have you ever wondered what a pod of whale zombies might look like? Wonder no more.

Have you ever seen a cuter skull? Be honest now. It's from a tiny monkey called a Buffon macaque.

Two mouths. Two noses. Two eyes. Too bad it is too hard to live like that.

Birds have bones, of course, but did you know they are hollow so the heavy bones don't keep them from flying?

Sure, you've seen a sand dollar. But how about a millions-of-years old sand bank?

Don't forget humans are animals too.

This is a dragonfly fossil. A really big dragonfly fossil. A nearly two-foot wide dragonfly fossil. Imagine that, a dragonfly as big as a hawk.

This may be France, but Madagascar pops up everywhere. There are two bird skeletons in this photo, but these bird bones aren't hollow? Hey, you lied to us! You said birds have hollow bones, so they can fly? Right, but these birds don't fly. The smaller one on the left is a large ostrich. So, if the small one is an ostrich what the heck is the big one? That's a big ol' elephant bird from Madagascar. They are extinct, but they are one of the largest birds ever to walk the Earth. It weighs as much as 125 big chickens. It is as tall as 30 robins. And a whopping 14,000 hummingbird eggs could fit inside just one elephant bird egg. Yeah, 14,000!

Enough elephant bird eggs to hold 84,000 baby hummingbirds.

The glytodon. This extinct fellow is no ordinary armadillo. He is taller than I am.

And what bone museum would be complete without a vicious pointy-toothed dinosaur?