Biology

Rich Wagner on February 9th, 2011

Arizona Game and Fish Department officials report that a rare ocelot was observed February 8, 2011 in the Huachuca Mountains in southern Arizona. An individual called the Game and Fish this morning to report that while he was working in his yard in the Huachuca Mountains, his dogs began barking at a cat-like animal which […]

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Rich Wagner on December 23rd, 2010

For the fourth straight year, a Short-tailed Hawk with atypical plumage has overwintered in Tucson (bit.ly/STHA-Tucson). In 2007, Helen and Noel Snyder, Narca Moore-Craig, Rose Ann Rowlett and I photographed and studied a Short-tailed Hawk nest (Buteo brachyurus) in the Chiricahua Mountains, a part of the Sky Islands region of the Southwest. The majority of Short-tailed […]

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Rich Wagner on December 19th, 2010

CARBOFURAN POISONING, VULTURES – KENYA

Vulture populations in one of Africa’s most important wildlife
reserves have declined by 60 percent, say scientists. The researchers
suggest that the decline of vultures in Kenya’s Masai Mara is being
driven by poisoning. The US-based Peregrine Fund says farmers
occasionally lace the bodies of dead cattle or goats with a toxic
pesticide called furadan. [Furadan is a carbamate pesticide.]
This appears to be aimed at carnivores that kill the livestock, but
one carcass can poison up to 150 vultures.

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Rich Wagner on September 20th, 2010

I recently photographed a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) eating a young Gambel’s Quail (Callipepla gambelii). The snake spent over 2 hrs and 17 minutes from the time I discovered it starting to swallow the quail until it finished swallowing and readjusted its mandibles and quadrate bones. The snake was visited by harvester ants, a Red and Charcoal Seedbug (Neacoryphus lateralis), and a tarantula.

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Rich Wagner on July 18th, 2009

Don’t serve this one on Thanksgiving! The Hoatzin (Ophisthocomus hoazin) is known as the ‘Stinky Turkey’ to Amazon natives because of the bad odors produced by the fermentation of leaves in the bird’s crop. Unlike most birds, Hoatzins eat the leaves of plants, and to a lesser degree the fruits and flowers. The Hoatzin’s digestive system is unique […]

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