Facts about Hermit crabs. Hermit crabs can be found both on land and in water. Unlike the normal crabs, hermit crabs have a soft vulnerable abdomen that needs protection. The most common protection they use is snail shells, but it can be any shell they fit into. When shells are hard to find they also READ MORE
Kleptoparasitism means parasitism by theft. What is parasitism? Parasitism is when an organism benefits at another organism expense. Kleptoparasitism is used in different ways e.g. bullying other organisms to give up their food they just caught, and steal collected or stored food. This way of obtaining food normally saves the kleptoparasite hunting time and also READ MORE
About a month ago a white Southern Right whale calf was spotted in Port Elizabeth. It arrived in Plettenberg Bay and was spotted with its mother on our 7H30 trip this morning.” White” whales (albinos) are a rare sight and do normally not survive because they are easily spotted by predators.
Whales and dolphins communicate with sounds, clicks and song. In some dolphin species and Humpback whales, individuals can be identified on the base notes throughout their life. When we hear dolphins and whales “speak” it sound like random sound, but they don’t listen to the sound itself they hear information that is riding on the READ MORE
Working with wildlife conservation and keeping track of animals over large geographic ranges is hard, as the animals will move a lot and if they haven’t been tagged you never know where to start looking for them. This has been solved by the Conservation Canines program. They train dogs to locate the scat (feces) of READ MORE
One of the main things in life for humans and animals is to reproduce, to secure that their genes make it to the next generation. There is a lot of different ways to do this. Mammals, like humans carry their young ones in the womb before giving birth. Reptiles and birds lay eggs. In most READ MORE
In many animal societies a group member born with disabling deformities or having a severe wound becomes a burden to the group and is often left behind. If left behind they normally die of hunger, disease from their wounds or they get killed by predators, however some species of dolphins and whales don’t leave their READ MORE
All animals need to sleep. Some of them are like humans and sleep during the night, others are nocturnal and sleep during the day. Pandas sleep more than 40% of the day. Whales and dolphins have special ways of sleeping. They need to always think about breathing since they are not conscious breathers like us READ MORE
With the yearly winter migration in the Southern hemisphere Humpback whales and Southern Right whales come up to their breeding grounds. The main reason they don’t stay in warmer waters all year round is food. Antarctic waters have a big primary production and produce a lot of their favorite food (krill). In return whales give READ MORE
People use the term dolphin, porpoise and whale to describe marine mammals belonging to the order Cetacean (from the Greek work ketos, “large sea creature”), and often use them incorrectly. Whales (Cetacean) are divided into two group’s baleen whales (Mysticeti) toothed whales (Odontoceti). The main difference between them is that baleen whales have baleen and READ MORE