A Sealion, Not Lyin'!

This is a captive female seven year-old Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) whom I and a friend of mine had the pleasure of encountering without barriers at the Vancouver Aquarium on Sunday, 19th December (We also got to toss fish to one of the sea lions!). This animal and her comrades are part of the University of British Columbia's ongoing research on the decline of Steller sea lions in Alaska.

Wowwee, the Biology of Maui!

The following pictures were taken on my winter vacation to the island of Maui in Hawaii, USA.

Me with a cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis), an introduced bird in Hawaii which is native to parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Another introduced species, the East African giant land snail (Achatina fulica), obviously native to East Africa.

Me with a stingray (family Dasyatidae) at the Maui Ocean Center.

Me with yet another of Maui's introduced species, this one quite familiar: a mother feral chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) and her chicks.

Me with a small bush bravely eking out a living in Maui's rocky Haleakala Crater.

 An introduced grey francolin (Francolinus pondicerianus), which is native to India and some of its surrounding areas. I honestly don't think I saw a single native bird species on my entire trip to Maui!

 A piece of an eggshell found near a bird breeding ground near Kihei, Maui.

Although I can't prove that I was there to take this picture, as the shot with my fingers in it was accidentally deleted from my camera, I was, and here it is. This is a gold dust day gecko (Phelsuma laticauda laticauda). Native to Northern Madagascar and the Comoros Islands, and endangered within its native range, the Hawaiian Islands are the only place in the world in which there is a stable wild population of these geckos and their relatives, which are collectively referred to as day geckos.

Day at the Museum (and C.K. Choi Building!): Part I

My biology 11 class recently took a fieldtrip to the Beatty Biodiversity Museum and C.K. Choi Building at the University of British Columbia. Above is me pictured with my favourite specimen that I encountered at the Beatty Biodiversity Museum, a mounted northern pintail duckling (Anas acuta).

Here is the famous blue whale (in this case, Balaenoptera musculus musculus) skeleton hanging in the Atrium at the Beatty Biodiversity Museum. Its pectoral flipper is homologous to a human's arm, as it contains the same bones as our arm, merely modified in the whale's case into a flipper, as a result of their common ancestor with us also having the same bones as both us and whales do in their forelimbs.

   Here is the tooth of an extinct "megalodon" shark (Charcharodon megalodon).

The fossilised foot of the dinosaur Lambeosaurus.

My hair being chewed on by a sable antelope (Hippotragus niger spp.). Just kidding, it was mounted and behind glass!

Me with a mounted penguin (family
Spheniscidae), situated nearby the mounted sable antelope in the Museum.



Me with, from left to right, a preserved elephant shrew, baby crocodillian, and bat (family Macroscelididae, order Crocodilia, and order Chiroptera, respectively).

Me with the preserved wrasses and parrotfishes (families listed above).

And now for a picture from the C.K. Choi Building:

One of my partners in the biology 11 UBC fieldtrip scavenger hunt standing in front of one of the C.K. Choi Building's recycled brick walls.

Bug-eyeing

Here are two pictures of me with some beautiful preserved framed arthropods. The first is a picture of me with a frame containing assorted arthropods, and the second is of me with a frame containing strictly beautiful butterflies. Some of the arthropods pictured above include a stag beetle (family Lucanidae), a frog beetle (genus Sagra), and what is probably a jewel beetle (subfamily Cetoniinae).

Say Hello To My Little Friend 2

Here is a picture of me with a captive azure damselfish (Chrysiptera hemicyanea). Native to the tropical pacific ocean, damselfish like this one are usually small but surprisingly aggressive. Their aggressiveness, however, cannot save them from being the basis of a predatory food web of bigger animals on Pacific tropical reefs! The picture is somewhat blurred, as there is algae growing on the inside walls of the fish tank containing the fish and debris on the outside walls.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

A captive adult male green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis) rests in the shade. Green anoles are small, mainly insectivorous lizards, the only species of anole native to mainland North America. Although they look somewhat like geckos, they are actually more closely related to iguanas, an example of convergent evolution.

The Glass House of the Scorpion

Pictured is me with a mounted scorpion (probably Pandinus imperator) in a clear plastic case. This photo was taken in my biology 11 classroom. Scorpions are members of the class Arachnida (animals with four pairs of jointed legs) with a front pair of legs modified into grasping claws and a tail ending with a venemous stinger. They are strict carnivores, and can be found in regions all around the world.