Story here.
Bald hedgehog is found abandoned
A bald hedgehog abandoned by his mother in a garden in Norfolk is being treated at a wildlife rescue centre in a bid to encourage his spikes to grow.
Baldrick, named after the character from the television programme Blackadder, was brought to Foxy Lodge wildlife rescue centre, Great Yarmouth.
He is now being cared for by Tonia and John Garner in the hope he can be eventually released into the wild.
Treatment includes antiseptic scrubs and baby oil massages.
Mr Garner told the BBC News website that Baldrick was spotted in a garden being pushed along by its mother.
He said: “They are not very good parents in the wild and if they have a family of six babies, about two will never make it.”
Baldrick’s mother eventually took her other babies away, abandoning her bald son who ended up at the wildlife centre.
Mr Garner said when Baldrick was brought in in August aged about six weeks he weighed 240g, but is now up to about 800g.
Since hedgehogs rely on their spikes for protection, Baldrick will not be released into the wild until his spikes return.
If despite treatment, he remains bald, Mr Garner said he will stay at the centre.
Video at the linked webpage.
]]>With a cumbersome tail, this miniature male lures a female. The slow motion capture is amazing but the best part I think is when he dance/skates his moves on a small leaf near the end.
]]>Ghostly ‘dance of a sea dragon’
One of the most elegant courtship rituals in the animal kingdom has been captured on film by a BBC crew.
The dance of the weedy sea dragon takes place every year in the shallow seas off the coast of Australia.
During the ghostly dance, two beautifully odd-looking fish mirror each other’s every movement.
At the end of the ritual, the male fish is the one to get pregnant, giving birth two months later, a process the BBC crew filmed for the first time.
The dance of the weedy sea dragon is captured for the BBC natural history series Life.
Weedy sea dragons are a type of fish related to seahorses and pipefish.
Two species exist. The weedy sea dragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) lives among weed beds in the seas off the southern coast of mainland Australia and Tasmania.
The leafy sea dragon (Phycodurus eques) lives further along the southern and western Australian coast.
When a male and female weedy sea dragon come together to mate, they perform an elaborate courtship ritual known as a “mirror dance”.
“It’s an amazingly engaging sequence, because it is so beautiful and graceful, and yet totally observed,” says Adam Chapman, a BBC producer who helped film the behaviour with cameraman Doug Anderson.
“There is no sense that they are at all concerned about anything other than each other.”
The mirror dance usually takes place in the fading evening light.
In a graceful duet, each partner mirrors the actions of the other, swimming and wriggling their bodies.
“What’s so lovely is you feel you have seen the most intimate moments of their lives,” says Mr Chapman.
The ritual usually takes place in spring.
With the help of independent biologist and leading sea dragon expert Mr Pang Quong, the BBC filmed the sequence in October, around two miles southeast of Melbourne.
After two months, the results of the courtship are revealed.
Sea dragons, seahorses and pipefish are the only fish species in which the males carry and raise the young.
In doing so, the male weedy sea dragon keeps them safe until the eggs are ready to hatch.
After two and half weeks of diving, Mr Anderson caught the act of a male sea dragon giving birth on camera.
Video on the linked webpage. Includes cute babies, even! Oooo!
]]>I’m going to relive some childhood memories for Halloween with this. (Oh, if only some cable channel would show reruns of “Dark Shadows”.)
]]>Story here.
I can remember those Sea Monkeys.
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