Thursday, March 30, 2017

London Zoo Part II: Happy Families, Into Africa, and Birds

Near the Rainforest Life/Nightlife building at the London Zoo is a section known as "Happy Families", probably because the species that it exhibits are all gregarious.

This is an Alaotran bamboo lemur. Despite being a bamboo lemur, it feeds mainly on reeds rather than bamboo. In the wild it has an extremely restricted distribution even for a lemur, only found around parts of Lake Alaotra.

Some Asian small-clawed otters. Though this species is ubiquitous in zoos (to the fatigue of some regular zoogoers), they were so cooperative during my visit that I couldn't help but snap a few photos.

Their exhibit is quite well-decorated, too.

Also in the same general area of the zoo is Into Africa, essentially the obligatory spotlight on charismatic African megafauna. To its credit, there are a few relatively rarely-seen species on display, such as this okapi.

Additionally, spot the red forest duiker!

Naturally, however, I was most interested in seeing the zoo's bird collection, so I headed to the northern edge of the zoo where there several species are exhibited. Unfortunately, due to recent reports of avian influenza in Europe, the zoo's walkthrough aviaries (of which there are several) were closed during my visit. Regardless, I was able to photograph this green peafowl from outside one of the aviaries.

A tawny frogmouth, which resembles a broken tree branch when at rest and a Muppet when wide awake.

An Edwards's pheasant.

Some northern white-faced owls, which have gained some fame as the "transformer owl".

In fact, here is one in its "camouflage pose".

Some northern red bishops, a type of weaverbird.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

London Zoo Part I: Rainforest Life and Nightlife

London Zoo is situated within a large park with abundant opportunities for birding. Here a mute swan browses from a waterside tree.

A European green woodpecker, a lifer for me. This species is ecologically similar to the North American northern flicker, which I'm more familiar with. Both woodpecker species forage mainly for ants on the ground.

I had to restrain myself from spending too much time on birdwatching in the park, but I eventually made it to the zoo.

My first stop was the exhibit closest to the zoo's main entrance, the aquarium. It has a nice collection with many rarely-seen fish species, but it is so dimly-lit that getting any decent photos was a real struggle. My only fish photo taken there that is remotely presentable was of this white-eyed moray.

There is also a poignant display on plastic pollution.

Next, I headed to the Rainforest Life/Nightlife building. Half of this building (the "Rainforest Life" half) is a walkthrough rainforest exhibit where monkeys, sloths, and tamanduas roam freely. Some of the branches in the exhibit are arranged so that the animals can (and do) venture close right overhead or next to the visitors. Here is an emperor tamarin keeping its distance for the time being.

Most surprising to me, however, were the narrow-striped bokies kept in a glass-fronted display on the side of the walkway. Though commonly called the narrow-striped mongoose (including by the exhibit signage), the narrow-striped boky is no longer considered a true mongoose, but a separate radiation of carnivorans endemic to Madagascar. I must have taken around thirty photos of them trying to get a good shot.

The other half of the building (the "Nightlife" half) is a nocturnal exhibit. I'd heard that Panay cloudrunners could be seen here, but, to some slight disappointment, they didn't appear to be on display when I visited.

I did, however, have a great time watching some other rodents present, namely the rakalis. Not only were they a first for me, they are an interesting species in themselves, being the largest Australian rodents. As placentals living in a land of marsupials, rakalis have taken on the role of semi-aquatic predators, a niche that hasn't been exploited by Australian marsupials. They have a decently-sized pool with underwater viewing at the London Zoo, though I didn't see them use it. Regardless, their terrestrial antics were plenty entertaining enough. As is typical of nocturnal houses, my attempted photos turned out less than stellar.

I also received another opportunity to get pictures of Malagasy giant jumping rats. Not there yet...

Say what? It is possible to get halfway decent pictures at nocturnal exhibits? It helps, naturally, when the subject of the photo is one that spends a significant amount of time not moving around much, such as this gray slender loris.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

How Therizinosaurs Nibbled and Munched

That new Anchiornis paper is quite something, isn't it? Everyone else is talking about it, so I don't have to, but check it out if you haven't already.

Instead, I will discuss another recent paper about a different group of maniraptors, the unusual therizinosaurs. Since 2012, a series of publications on the functional biology of therizinosaurs, primarily authored by Stephan Lautenschlager, have contributed greatly to demystifying these bizarre herbivorous theropods. (A selection of these papers is linked in the preceding sentence, but it is by no means an exhaustive list.)

These previous papers have largely focused on the therizinosaur Erlikosaurus from the Late Cretaceous Bayan Shireh Formation in Mongolia, a sensible choice given that this genus has the best-preserved skull material of all known therizinosaurs. The new study, also conducted by Lautenschlager, takes the logical next step by asking: how does Erlikosaurus compare to other therizinosaurs?

Phylogeny of therizinosaurs with digital models of the lower jaws of taxa used in the analysis, from Lautenschlager (in press).

To answer this question, Lautenschlager digitally modeled the lower jaws of other therizinosaur taxa, including Falcarius, Jianchangosaurus, Beipiaosaurus, Alxasaurus, and Segnosaurus, and subjected the models to finite element analysis (FEA). Under FEA, stress (force per unit area) experienced by the jaw under different simulated feeding conditions could be calculated, as could relative bite force. The different feeding scenarios tested were biting using one side of the jaw at different tooth positions, biting using both sides of the jaw at different tooth positions, clipping using the tip of the jaw, pulling an object upwards, pulling an object downwards, and pulling an object sideways.

The results of finite element analysis simulating potential feeding behaviors in different therizinosaur taxa, from Lautenschlager (in press).

It is worthy to note that this study did not calculate the absolute bite force of these therizinosaurs, only their relative bite forces. In other words, instead of estimating how strong a bite the therizinosaurs were actually capable of generating, the study estimated which therizinosaur could generate the highest bite force if all of them exerted the same amount of force with their jaw muscles.

With that in mind, what did the results say? It turns out of the taxa tested, Falcarius and Alxasaurus had, on average, the highest relative bite forces. This is consistent with the idea that Falcarius was more omnivorous than other therizinosaurs and may have still fed on some animal prey. Alxasaurus has also been interpreted as a more generalist forager than other therizinosaurs on the basis of its claw morphology, so having a relatively high bite force may have increased the variety of foodstuffs it could feed on.

On the other hand, the results indicated that Falcarius and Alxasaurus would have experienced greater amounts of stress during feeding than other therizinosaurs, whereas Erlikosaurus and Beipiaosaurus would have experienced the least. Additionally, all therizinosaurs would have experienced less stress while pulling items downwards compared to pulling upwards or sideways, suggesting that they habitually fed at or above head level. However, Erlikosaurus and Segnosaurus were more suited to pulling objects sideways than other therizinosaurs. What appears to have made the difference in this case is that Erlikosaurus and Segnosaurus both had a downturned lower jaw.

This is an interesting result considering that a downturned lower jaw has independently evolved in other herbivorous dinosaurs. The unusual ceratosaur Limusaurus even gained one during growth (in addition to losing its teeth)! This study confirms that such a jaw would have been advantageous for herbivores by helping to mitigate stress while feeding. A similar adaptive benefit has been attributed to the widespread presence of a beak in herbivorous dinosaurs (including therizinosaurids).

Among the taxa studied, Erlikosaurus and Segnosaurus were contemporaneous with one another, suggesting there may have been niche partitioning between them. This is supported by the study: Segnosaurus had relatively higher bite forces (as well as probably higher absolute bite forces, considering its larger size) and may have been able to feed on tougher plants, but Erlikosaurus experienced less stress during feeding and may have been able to use a greater variety of feeding methods. Though not discussed in the paper, one wonders whether the same was true of Jianchangosaurus and Beipiaosaurus, both found in the Yixian Formation. Here, however, the differences are less explicit: Beipiaosaurus experienced lower stresses while feeding, but both had similar relative bite forces.

Reference: Lautenschlager, S. In press. Functional niche partitioning in Therizinosauria provides new insights into the evolution of theropod herbivory. Palaeontology in press. doi: 10.1111/pala.12289