The Veterinary Site

‘Smiling’ black bear caught on camera in Pasadena goes viral

2024-05-16T23:03:00.002+05:00

Wildlife photographer Johanna Turner used a trail camera to capture this cheery shot of a black bear, which is going viral after she posted it on social media.

AS THE glow of Pasadena, California, lights up the valley beneath the San Gabriel mountains, this handsome black bear has been captured by the flash of a trail camera.

A black bear above Pasadena, California

Johanna Turner

Wildlife photographer Johanna Turner connected her camera to a motion sensor to take the shot, which is currently going viral after she posted it on social media. “This shot is a long exposure, so each time an animal comes, I only get one chance at a photo – so everything needs to work perfectly. Which is rare,” she says.

Turner’s goal is to show wildlife in its natural habitat. “I also want people to know that even around a megacity, we have beautiful wildlife that need their habitat protected,” she says. “It is quickly disappearing.” The San Gabriel mountains were made a national monument in 2014, with President Joe Biden recently extending the protected area to include the portion where this bear lives.

Turner says she has many “fun photos” of bears, which often accidentally end up in these sorts of “selfies”, but she is most interested in mountain lions, or cougars (see below). “[They] are very difficult to capture on camera, mostly because there simply are more bears than lions… here,” she says.

A mountain lion in California

Johanna Turner

Fossil snake discovered in India may have been the largest ever

2024-04-20T22:08:00.002+05:00

The vertebrae of Vasuki indicus, a snake that lived 47 million years ago, suggest it could have been as long as 15 metres.

Fossil remains discovered in India have been identified as belonging to an enormous, 47-million-year-old extinct snake. Though only a few of the animal’s vertebrae were recovered, researchers estimate that it could have been up to 15 metres long, putting it in contention for being the longest snake of all time.

Artist’s illustration of a snake from the Madtsoiidae family
modified from nixillustration.com

Back in 2005, palaeontologists including Sunil Bajpai at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee were searching for fossils in a coal mine in Gujarat in western India.

“We were actually prospecting this locality for fossils of early whales,” says Bajpai, “but we found not just whales but a host of other vertebrate fossils, including those of snakes.”

Among these fossils was a collection of 27 vertebrae measuring up to 6 centimetres long and 11 centimetres wide. Due to their large size and the fact that their anatomy was somewhat obscured by sediment, these were first thought to belong to some sort of extinct crocodile, says Debajit Datta, also at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee.

After a closer analysis, Datta and Bajpai now believe the vertebrae belonged to an exceedingly large snake from an extinct family called the Madtsoiidae. Only the extinct species Titanoboacerrejonensis, which had slightly larger vertebrae and is estimated to have grown to a maximum length of between 12.8 and 14.3 metres, is of a comparable size.

The new species has been named Vasuki indicus, after Vasuki, a serpent in Hinduism that is often depicted curled around the neck of the god Shiva. The researchers say it is likely to have been an ambush predator living in either a terrestrial or semi-aquatic environment, such as a marsh or swamp, similar to many of today’s large species of python.

Using data from modern-day snakes that compares the size of their vertebrae with overall length, Datta and Bajpai estimate that V. indicus was between 10.9 and 15.2 metres long. While this is potentially longer than Titanoboa, the researchers emphasise that we don’t have complete skeletons of any Madtsoiid snakes, so it is impossible to know whether their length and vertebrae size would correlate in the same way as living species.

“Caution is always warranted whenever you are extrapolating beyond the available data set,” says Jacob McCartney at Nazareth University in Rochester, New York. “But the vertebrae of this new species are so big that they really are second in size only to those of the Colombian species Titanoboa.”

Journal reference:

Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58377-0

Ancient marine reptile found on UK beach may be the largest ever

2024-04-20T11:11:00.002+05:00

The jawbone of an ichthyosaur uncovered in south-west England has been identified as a new species, and researchers estimate that the whole animal was 20 to 25 metres long.

The 200-million-year-old fossilised remains of an ancient ichthyosaur, unearthed on a beach in south-west England, may be part of the largest marine reptile ever found.

Illustration of an Ichthyotitan severnensis carcass washed up on a beach
Sergey Krasovskiy

In 2020, amateur fossil hunters stumbled across a giant chunk of bone at Blue Anchor beach in Somerset. Upon further inspection, Dean Lomax at the University of Manchester, UK, and his colleagues quickly realised that it was a jawbone fragment of a giant ichthyosaur – a kind of reptile that roamed the oceans between 250 and 90 million years ago.

Subsequent digs at the beach have uncovered 11 more fragments, allowing the team to partially piece together a bone that sits in the back of the jaw called a surangular.

This latest discovery comes after a 2018 report that described a similar ichthyosaur jawbone found on a different Somerset beach. At the time, the team didn’t have enough evidence to determine its species.

“It was very clear that this was another one of these giant jawbones,” says Lomax. “So I was very, very excited.”

After comparing the partial surangular with the complete ones of other ichthyosaurs, the team estimates that the whole bone was at least 2 metres long – putting the animal’s body length at around 20 to 25 metres.

“We’re dealing with something truly enormous,” says Lomax. “It would certainly represent the largest marine reptile formally described.”

The nature of the surangular, which matches the one reported in 2018, means both fossils must have belonged to a previously undescribed species of ichthyosaur, says Lomax. The team have named it Ichthyotitan severnensis, meaning the giant fish lizard of the river Severn.

The remains date to around 202 million years ago, just before a major global extinction event that wiped out many species, including many giant ichthyosaurs.

“They are quite literally the last giants,” says Lomax. “No ichthyosaurs got anywhere near this size again.”

Journal reference:

PLoS One DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300289

Huge rewilding project will release 2000 white rhinos across Africa

2023-09-07T22:48:00.002+05:00

African Parks, a conservation group, has acquired a huge collection of southern white rhinos from a private estate in South Africa and plans to release them into the wild.

A conservation group says it will rewild 2000 mostly captive-bred southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum simum) representing around 15 per cent of the species’ population.

Around 7000 southern white rhinos live on private land in South Africa
Ann and Steve Toon/Alamy

The rhinos were raised on a 8500-hectare ranch in northern South Africa owned by John Hume, a businessman who trimmed the horns off his live animals in anticipation of the international trade in rhino horn being legalised. It wasn’t, and Hume had to put his farm up for sale. African Parks (AP), a conservation group that co-manages protected areas in a dozen African countries, announced this week it had acquired Hume’s rhino project, seen by some as one of the most successful breeding programmes for a threatened species.

AP says the task of rehoming so many rhinos will represent “one of the largest continent-wide rewilding endeavours to occur for any species.”

Once rewilded, the animals will “contribute to ecosystems by providing nutrient cycling, storing carbon, and increasing tourism revenue for local people,” says chief executive Peter Fearnhead.

The group’s intervention is “probably the best outcome”, says Hayley Clements at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. “Hopefully they can progressively rewild those animals and do so into parks that are well managed so that they don’t end up just getting poached.”

Private owners like Hume play a critical role in protecting and expanding the southern white rhino population, which came close to extinction less than a century ago. In 2021 South Africa had more than 80 per cent of the continent’s 12,968 white rhinos; just under 7000 of them were on private land. But poaching, which has led to steep declines of both white and black rhino (Diceros bicornis) in former strongholds like the Kruger National Park, has pushed up the cost of protecting them.

Clements worries that what happened to Hume’s operation might signal a broader trend.

“As poaching has increased, the cost of conserving those rhinos has really skyrocketed to the extent that now rhinos in many cases become a liability, more than a benefit,” she says.

Not all South African rhino owners raise rhinos as intensively as Hume did. Some question whether “rewilding” is the right term to use for his animals.

“The Hume rhinos contain a mix of wild-caught and captive-born animals, and a small proportion of captive-born animals of captive-born parents,” says Dave Balfour at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

Depending on how they are released, the captive-born animals could learn from the wild-caught ones, he says. “Most people that I have spoken to, and myself, seem to think that they will generally do fine if they are released into appropriate habitat and with adequate available water of reasonable quality,” he adds.

Fearnhead says his team anticipates moving 300 animals per year to parks across Africa where there is suitable protection, and sufficient grazing. “The overall vision is to establish a number of strategic populations across the continent including establishing new founder populations or supplementing existing populations,” he says.

In June his organisation translocated 16 white rhinos thousands of kilometers from another private South African game reserve to Garamba National Park in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Garamba was once populated with northern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), a subspecies now functionally extinct, with only two females surviving in Kenya. Garamba’s last white rhino was killed by poachers in 2006, and southern white rhinos are now filling the gap.

“Garamba is capable of supporting many more than this initial group and therefore will be an obvious recipient [of Hume’s rhinos] in the near future,” Fearnhead says.

Dog Brains Reveal a Special Affinity With Female Voices

2023-09-05T19:27:00.003+05:00

They say a dog is a man's best friend, but a new study has found that our pet canines may be more sensitive to the higher-pitched voices of women.

An analysis of brain scans by researchers from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology and Eötvös Loránd University in Hungry suggest dogs really do listen when we talk to them. What's more, they do so in a way that is oddly similar to human babies, with a preference for certain tones.

(Westend61/Getty Images)

Infants are highly sensitive to 'baby talk' – that high-pitched, sing-songy way of speaking that tends to exaggerate vowels – and studies show this exaggerated speech may actually help shape the child's developing brain for the better.

Unlike a baby, however, dogs aren't exposed to human female voices in utero, and in dog-to-dog interactions high-pitched communication is not typical.

So why have studies found dogs are sensitive to baby talk and high-pitched speech, too?

The research team set out to investigate. They trained 19 family dogs (Canis familiaris) consisting of eight different breeds, aged between 2 and 10, to climb into an fMRI machine and lie still long enough for the machine to scan their brains.

While each dog was inside the machine, they listened as the scientists played three different types of pre-recorded human speech: speech directed at dogs, speech directed at human infants, and speech directed at another human adult.

Sometimes the speaker on the recording was an adult male and sometimes they were an adult female.

Ultimately, the dogs showed greater activity in their auditory cortex when they heard the exaggerated voices we often use for pets or infants. And this was especially true when the speaker was female.

Neuroethologist Anna Gábor from Eötvös Loránd University thinks this "may be due to the fact that women more often speak to dogs with exaggerated prosody than men", referring to elements of speech like tone, stress, rhythm and emotion.

In the brain scans, human voices were processed in a secondary part of the dog's auditory cortex, known as the temporal pole, as well as an area between the temporal lobe and the frontal and parietal lobes called the Sylvian gyrus.

In past studies, neuroscientists have noticed a similar part of the brain 'light up' in human infants when they listened to baby talk.

As to how our pet dogs might have developed this human-like trait, scientists have two main hypotheses.

Either there is an ancient and universal sensitivity among mammals to sounds with higher pitch and greater variability in frequency, or this was a feature that humans selected for when domesticating wolves.

It's possible, Gábor and her colleagues explain, that pre-domesticated dogs with greater sensitivity to dog-directed speech "were more likely to stay close to humans and pay attention to their vocal cues."

Some experimental evidence does show wolves are more responsive to lower-pitched speech, while dogs are more responsive to higher-pitched speech.

Gábor's team was only able to include 19 dogs in their study, and they did not control for the sex of the pet's owners which could be an influencing factor in what types of speech the dogs were most sensitive to.

Further research is needed, but the authors say that the similarities they found between the way dogs and human babies respond to adult voices is worth exploring further.

Maybe our pets will turn out to be a really useful model for what we were like before we could speak.

The study was published in Communications Biology.

Pirate spiders ambush prey by tricking them with lines of silk

2023-09-04T22:34:00.000+05:00

A species of pirate spider in Costa Rica has a hunting strategy that has never been documented before in any spider.

A species of pirate spider in Costa Rica has a unique hunting strategy: It attacks other spiders that use its silk lines as scaffolding for their own webs.

A pirate spider resting upside down on a leaf in Costa Rica
Roman Willi / naturepl.com

Many spiders build webs to snare prey, but their web design and purpose can vary widely depending on where they live and what they hunt. Some webs are flat sheets, while others form tube-like funnels or spiralling orbs. Other species forgo web-building altogether, and instead chase down or ambush prey.

Of the roughly 200 documented species of pirate spiders, most follow the same general hunting plan: They pluck strands of their prey’s web to mimic a trapped insect. When the prey spider comes to investigate, the pirate spider sneaks from its hiding place and strikes. Typically, “they walk subtly onto a spider web and attack the spider when it’s in reach”, says Laura Segura-Hernández at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

But the species Gelanor siquirres seems to take an even bolder strategy, as Segura-Hernández and her colleagues discovered while watching the spiders one evening in Costa Rica in 2016. The researchers found webs built by six different G. siquirres spiders, each with long, dry silk lines that extended down from plants – often anchored to the underside of a leaf – to the forest floor.

These roughly two-metre-long lines are tempting scaffolding for web-building spiders, which try to attach their floating lines to the dry silk each night. When the prey spider goes to attach their sticky line to the vertical one, the pirate spider senses the vibrations and drops down from their roost to attack.

“It was surprising to be able to record a whole new behaviour, and on a species that we know nothing about,” says Segura-Hernández. The new-to-science strategy could be particularly effective in tropical rainforests, which host lots of nocturnal web-building spiders that begin to build their webs at twilight, just after pirate spiders have deployed their vertical silk lines.

Next, the team plans to investigate whether this hunting strategy is unique to G. siquirres. Because scientists know relatively little about pirate spiders, it’s possible that other species have novel hunting methods waiting to be discovered.

Journal reference:

Animal BehaviourDOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.07.001

Killing of rare Italian bear raises fears for future of its subspecies

2023-09-04T22:27:00.005+05:00

The shooting of Amarena, one of around 60 remaining Marsican brown bears in central Italy, raises doubts about whether large carnivores can coexist peacefully with humans.

The killing of a well-known wild bear named Amarena has shocked Italy and raised fresh doubts about whether humans and large carnivores can coexist peacefully.

Amarena with her cubs
Gianluca Damiani

At 11pm on 31 August, Amarena was wandering through the streets of San Benedetto Dei Marsi in the Abruzzo region of Italy with her two cubs, when she was shot dead by a man who said he was defending his chicken coop.

She was one of around 60 remaining Marsican brown bears (Ursus arctos marsicanus), a subspecies of the Eurasian brown bear classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is mainly found in the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park, one of Europe’s wildest areas, around an hour’s drive away from Rome. Poaching and collisions with cars and trains are the leading causes of death for the subspecies.

Typically, only three to four females reproduce each year, having a total of three to 10 newborn cubs. Amarena was the most prolific individual ever known. In 2020, she gave birth to four cubs, an unusually high number.

Amarena and her cubs were often seen in villages
Gianluca Damiani

Marsican bears are often spotted wandering around the small mountain villages in Abruzzo, and they are an attraction for tourists. But for the safety of bears and people, the national park and other institutions have tried unsuccessfully to prevent them from approaching villages.

“The presence of wild animals in villages increases the risk of negative interactions with people and the likelihood of accidents,” says Mario Cipollone, the co-founder of Salviamo L’Orso, a non-profit organisation working to save the Marsican bear from extinction. “If there are people who lure bears into towns for economic or selfish reasons, efforts by associations and institutions to keep these animals out of towns fail.”

Paula Mayer at ETH Zurich in Switzerland has studied the coexistence of bears and humans in Abruzzo, using a mathematical model to map the areas in which conflict is more likely. She found there is wide variation in people’s attitude towards bears, with more positive views in communities that profit from tourism and more hostility in those dependent on subsistence farming. Her research also shows that state investment, such as financial compensation for damage caused by bears, is crucial for fostering positive attitudes towards wildlife.

“In the area where Amarena was killed, the map shows a high probability of coexistence, meaning both threats to bears are low and human tolerance is high,” says Meyer. “However, a model remains a model and can never predict with certainty what will happen in reality.”

The killing of Amarena has taken people by surprise in a region that has been touted as an example of coexistence between humans and large carnivores.

“I believe that some areas of Abruzzo are truly models of coexistence. However, without a change in values, in the sense that the general population accepts wildlife in a shared landscape even if it brings them no instrumental benefit, we will never reach a deeply rooted and sustainable state of coexistence in the social-ecological system,” says Mayer.

“There is a need for the state to recognise the protection of nature and endangered species as a national priority, to invest in a culture of knowledge and respect for biodiversity, in the prevention of conflicts with large carnivores,” says Cipollone.

Invasive species are now a major threat to wildlife, farms and people

2023-09-04T22:18:00.001+05:00

The proliferation of alien species costs the global economy more than $420 billion a year, and the problem is only growing.

Human activities have resulted in the introduction of 37,000 alien species around the world, with 3500 of those species responsible for serious harm to wildlife, food production and human health. The global economic cost of these invaders is now more than $420 billion a year, according to the first major global report on invasive species, by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

The giant cane toad is an invader in Australia
edelmar/Getty Images

“This is a huge, huge problem, and it is a growing problem,” says Helen Roy at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, one of 90 researchers who helped put the report together.

However, the report also says that much can be done to tackle the issue and prevent further introductions. Individuals can help as well as governments, says Roy. “People all around the world can make a difference.”

People can take steps to ensure they don’t help invasive species to spread and can also report the presence of invasive species to help eliminate them or prevent them from becoming established in the first place. For instance, she says, reports by members of the public in the UK are helping to ensure that any nests of Asian hornets are promptly destroyed, which has so far prevented the species from becoming established in the country.

However, globally not enough is being done. Only 17 per cent of countries have national laws or regulations on alien species, the report says, and nearly half don’t spend any money on tackling biological invasions.

“What’s really crucial is the need to develop policies that cut across different sectors,” says Anne Larigauderie at IPBES. These sectors include tourism, farming, aquaculture, the pet trade and gardening, she says.

Invasive species are one of the main drivers of extinctions worldwide. They have been a major factor in 60 per cent of all recent extinctions, the report says.

“If things remain unchanged, by 2050, the total number of alien species globally is expected to be about one-third higher than in 2005,” says Roy. “However, we know that things are not remaining unchanged.”

Around the world, land is still being cleared for farms and cities, and the planet is rapidly warming as a result of carbon emissions. “The interactions among these causes of biodiversity loss will result in a much worse picture than we are presenting here,” she says.

In addition to biodiversity loss, invasive species are harming food production. For instance, in Lake Victoria in East Africa, the spread of the water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes) has reduced fish catches.

A large number of invasive species are a threat to human health. Giant hogweed can cause serious blistering if people’s skin touches the plant, while the recent wildfires that killed around 115 people in Hawaii were fuelled by invasive grasses, says Roy.

Many of the 37,000 alien species that aren’t problematic at the moment could become a problem in the future, says Roy. Alien species can be present for decades or more before something triggers a population explosion, such as climate change or the introduction of another invasive species, she says.

Dog Genes Could Help Cure Cancer in Humans

2023-08-22T23:50:00.003+05:00

There are many health benefits to owning a dog. Studies have shown that owning a dog can reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and boost immune health. And now, research revealed that dogs could help cure cancer as they have the same tumor-causing genes as humans.

Researchers from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the University of Georgia, and the One Health Company discovered that dog and human cancers are genetically more similar than previously thought. The study, published in the Scientific Reports, looked at genomic data of 671 pet dogs with 23 common tumor types to identify genetic mutations responsible for canine cancer. These samples were compared to human tumor samples to identify overlapping mutations.

Yana Vasileva/Shutterstock

The results were astonishing! Researchers discovered many previously unknown similarities in key genetic mutations. The study revealed 18 mutational hotspots that are likely the leading causes of canine cancer, eight of which are reported in human cancers.

Many of these hotspots can be treated with targeted drugs already used for human cancer patients. This means that dogs battling cancer will get access to highly effective target treatments that can replace or be used combined with traditional cancer treatments such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

The good news for human cancer patients is that scientists can use genetic data from dog tumors to advance the development of targeted cancer drugs for people. The research also discovered several previously unknown mutation hotspots in dog cancers.

“This study provides the most comprehensive genomic sequencing data on canine cancers, including several previously unsequenced types, and serves as a much-needed resource for comparative oncology,” said Shaying Zhao, a co-author of the study and a professor at the University of Georgia.

Researchers also discovered that TP53, the most commonly mutated gene in human cancers, is also the most frequently mutated gene in dogs. Mutations to the TP53 gene are usually associated with breast cancer, bone cancer, leukemia, and soft tissue sarcomas and cause cancer cells to grow and spread.

“The results of this study show the incredible potential of combining canine cancer genomics and big data analysis to save lives on both ends of the leash,” said One Health Company CEO and study co-author Christina Lopes. “Human cancer research has been moving towards a genomics-based paradigm for decades, but research on canine cancer genomics hasn’t kept up.”

In the past decade, researchers have already used data from dog cancer patients to further the development of more than 10 cancer drugs. But this study provides researchers with a bigger database and could help accelerate the treatment and research for both humans and dogs.

“Now people can look at cancer and say ‘oh, this cancer looks like a cancer in a human,’ and it also has the exact same genetic mutation as this cancer in people have, let’s see what therapies work here. It’s rare in science to have a win-win scenario - a win for pets, a win for people, and a win for pet parents,” Dr. Gerald Post told Salon in an interview.

It seems that better days are ahead for those battling cancer on two and four legs!

Scientists Finally Figure Out Why the Water Bear is Nearly Indestructible

2023-05-18T00:57:00.002+05:00

The tardigrade, also known as the moss piglet or water bear, is a bizarre, microscopic creature that looks like something out of a Disney nightmare scene: strange but not particularly threatening. The pudgy, eight-legged, water-borne creature appears to be perpetually puckering. It’s the farthest thing from what you’d expect an unstoppable organism to look like

Yet, water bears can withstand even the vacuum of space, as one experiment showed. A sort of microscopic Rasputin, tardigrades have be frozen, boiled, exposed to extreme doses of radiation, and remarkably still survive. How they do this has been a mystery to science, until now.

Being a water-borne creature, scientists in this experiment examined how it survived desiccation, or being completely dried out. When it senses an oncoming dry period, the critter brings its head and limbs into its exoskeleton, making itself into a tiny ball. It’ll stay that way, unmoving, until it’s reintroduced into water.

It’s this amazing ability that piqued Thomas Boothby’s interest. He’s a researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Boothby told TheNew York Times, “They can remain like that in a dry state for years, even decades, and when you put them back in water, they revive within hours.” After that, “They are running around again, they are eating, they are reproducing like nothing happened.”

Originally, it was thought that the water bear employed a sugar called trehalose to shield its cells from damage. Brine shrimp (sea monkeys) and nematode worms use this sugar to protect against desiccation, through a process called anhydrobiosis. Those organisms produce enough of the sugar to make it 20% of their body weight.

Not the water bear. Trehalose only takes up about 2% of its entire system, when it’s in stasis. Though employing a sugar to preserve one’s body sounds strange, the newly discovered process that the water bear goes through is even more bizarre. It turns itself into glass.

In this study, tardigrades were placed into a drying-out chamber, which mimicked conditions the organisms would encounter in a disappearing pond. As the water bears underwent anhydrobiosis, scientists examined what genes were activated. These genes produced a certain protein, which they named tardigrade-specific intrinsically disordered proteins (TDPs).

When the genes which produce TDPs were blocked, the water bears died. “If you take those genes and put them into organisms like bacteria and yeast, which normally do not have these proteins, they actually become much more desiccation-tolerant,” Boothby said.

It’s when the drying out process begins that such genes are activated, flooding the water bear’s system with the protective protein. The process occurs in much the same way as trehalose preserves sea monkeys, according to Boothby. This is an example of convergent evolution, when two unrelated organisms develop the same trait for survival.

Usually, proteins are formed in orderly, 3D chains of amino acids. But TDPs operate differently, in a kind of random, somewhat disorganized manner. Dr. Boothby said, “It’s a really interesting question about how a protein without a defined three-dimensional structure can actually carry out its function in a cell.” Another question, is this protein used by any other organisms?

When desiccation begins and TDP is activated, it engages a process known as vitrification. Boothby said, “The glass is coating the molecules inside of the tardigrade cells, keeping them intact.” From there, it goes into a form of stasis until it detects water. When that occurs, the protein is dissolved into the liquid and the tardigrade is revived.

There could be some practical uses to this discovery. For instance in medicine, vaccines often require refrigeration. But in the developing world, it isn’t always available, which makes delivering vaccines to vulnerable, rural communities difficult.

Dr. Boothby believes that we may be able to use TDP to sort of freeze-dry vaccines or medications, for easy storage and transport. What about putting humans in stasis for space travel or when they have terminal diseases, to await a cure? No word on that, yet. Scientists have years of research ahead of them already, just to understand the inner-workings of TDP.

This article was originally published in Big Think.

See a prize-winning photograph of mating golden-tabbed robber flies

2023-05-13T11:29:00.002+05:00

Pete Burford, who only took up macro photography two years ago, has won the Insect Week Photography Competition 2022 for this stunning close-up shot.

A pair of mating golden-tabbed robber flies
Pete Burford

SMALL, quick and often fleeting, it can be difficult to catch insects in all their miniaturised glory. Yet these close-up photos emphasise the beauty and intricacy of these critters in astonishing clarity.

The photos are from the Insect Week Photography Competition 2022, organised by the UK’s Royal Entomological Society as part of its annual initiative celebrating insect science. Pete Burford scooped the top prize for his photo, main image, of a pair of mating golden-tabbed robber flies (Eutolmus rufibarbis), so-named for the characteristic golden tufts of hair on the underside of males. Native to the UK, they are found in heathland in the central southern and central eastern parts of England, although they are a scarce species.

Burford, who took up macro photography two and a half years ago, during one of the UK’s covid-19 lockdowns, spent several fruitless hours at a nature reserve only for the flies to land on his leg midway through mating when he got home and sat down on the sofa. He managed to pick them up on a stick and capture his winning shot, entitled It Takes Two.

Forktail damselfly (Ischnura posita)
Benjamin Salb

Pictured above is one of the competition’s highly commended entries, taken by Benjamin Salb and showing a fragile forktail damselfly (Ischnura posita), a species native to eastern North America. Reaching a maximum length of 3 centimetres, it is one of the smaller members of the flying insect family that includes dragonflies – not that this hindered Salb. He stacked multiple images together to create the sharp final result.

Insect Week 2023 runs from 19 to 25 June in the UK and Europe.

Scientists Have Found 30,000 New Viruses Hiding in The DNA of Microbes

2023-04-26T13:51:00.003+05:00

While analyzing the genomes of single-celled microbes, a team of researchers made a startling discovery: Thousands of previously unknown viruses were "hidden" within the microbes' DNA.

The researchers found DNA from more than 30,000 viruses built into genomes of various single-celled microbes, they report in a new study. They explain that viral DNA might enable a host cell to replicate complete, functional viruses.

Arenavirus photographed under a transmission electron microscope. (Callista Images/Getty Images)

"We were very surprised by how many viruses we found through this analysis," says lead author Christopher Bellas, an ecologist who studies viruses at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. "In some cases, up to 10 percent of a microbe's DNA turned out to consist of hidden viruses."

These viruses don't seem to sicken their hosts, the researchers say, and they might be beneficial. Some of the new viruses resemble virophages, a type of virus that infects other pathogenic viruses attempting to infect its host cell.

"Why so many viruses are found in the genomes of microbes is not yet clear," Bellas says. "Our strongest hypothesis is that they protect the cell from infection by dangerous viruses."

Living on Earth means contending with viruses, the planet's most abundant biological entities, collectively infecting every type of life form. They're highly diverse, using many different tactics to exploit their cellular hosts.

Regardless of semantic debates about whether viruses are alive, they certainly insert themselves into the lives of other living things. Some even replicate by adding their DNA to a host cell and becoming part of its genome.

When that happens in a germ cell, it can lead to endogenous viral elements (EVEs), or viral DNA passed on from one generation to the next in a host species.

Scientists have found EVEs in a wide range of organisms, including animals, plants, and fungi. Mammals carry a variety of viral fragments in their DNA, for example, and about 8 percent of the human genome consists of DNA from ancient viral infections.

The study's authors explain that most of these are no longer functional and are considered "genomic fossils." Research suggests EVEs can be adaptive in humans and other organisms, though, possibly helping fend off modern viruses.

That's true for many single-celled eukaryotes, the researchers point out, noting these microbes are commonly infected and killed by giant viruses.

If a virophage already inhabits a host cell, it can reprogram a giant virus to build virophages instead of replicating itself, potentially saving the host.

According to the new study, DNA from the newly discovered viruses is similar to virophage DNA, suggesting microbes may enjoy some protection from giant viruses thanks to the "built-in" viruses residing in their genomes.

The study of EVEs so far has focused mainly on animals and plants, the researchers write, with little attention to protists – any eukaryotic organisms that aren't animals, plants, or fungi – even though they represent the majority of eukaryotic biodiversity on Earth.

Discovering thousands of new viruses hidden in microbe DNA wasn't the original goal for Bellas and his colleagues, who planned to study a new group of viruses they had found in the waters of Gossenköllesee, an alpine lake in the Austrian state of Tyrol.

"Initially, we wanted to find the origin of the new 'Polinton-like viruses' with our study," Bellas says.

"However, we did not know which organisms are usually infected by these viruses. That's why we conducted a large-scale study to test all microbes whose DNA sequences are known."

To do that, they enlisted help from "Leo," a high-performance computer cluster at the University of Innsbruck that can efficiently analyze vast amounts of data.

Noticing genes from virophages and other viruses in many of the microbe genomes, the researchers decided to investigate further, using Leo to systemically analyze all publicly available draft genome assemblies of protists.

They found EVEs "hidden throughout repetitive, difficult-to-assemble regions of unicellular eukaryotic genomes," they write, noting that thousands of integrated viruses in some species suggest viruses make up a significant, previously unrecognized swath of protist genomes.

The study also found evidence that many protist EVEs are not just genomic fossils but functional viruses, the researchers write, "which suggests that diverse arrays of these elements may be part of a host antivirus system."

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Long-Lost Letter Shows That Einstein Predicted That Animals Had 'Super Senses'

2023-04-08T14:58:00.006+05:00

Long before we knew birds could 'see' Earth's magnetic field, Albert Einstein discussed the possibility of animals with super senses in his fan mail to other researchers.

(Dyer et al., J Comp Physiol A, 2021)

A long-lost letter from the scientist to an inquiring engineer in 1949 turned out to be extraordinarily prescient in the fields of biology and physics.

The original inquiry from engineer Glyn Davys, which started the correspondence, has since been lost, but judging from Einstein's reply, Davys's question had something to do with animal perception and what it can tell us about the physical world.

"It is thinkable that the investigation of the behavior of migratory birds and carrier pigeons may someday lead to the understanding of some physical process which is not yet known," Einstein wrote in his reply.

More than 70 years later, we now know Einstein's hunch was right on the money. Evidence now suggests birds can sense Earth's magnetic field using special photoreceptors in their eyes that are sensitive to subtle shifts in the planet's magnetic field. This is what allows them to migrate thousands of kilometers without getting lost.

Other animals, like marine turtles, dogs, and bees, also show an uncanny ability to sense our planet's magnetic fields, although not necessarily through the eyes.

"It is amazing that [Einstein] conceived this possibility, decades before empirical evidence revealed that several animals can indeed perceive magnetic fields and use such information for navigation," wrote researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2021, where the letter was donated.

Still, the Nobel Prize winner did have some clues to guide his thinking. At the time the letter was written, biological science and physical science were beginning to merge like never before. Bat echolocation had recently been discovered, and radar technology was beginning to take root.

In fact, Davys himself was a researcher in this field, which is probably why he was interested in other strange animal senses, like those shown by bees.

In Einstein, he found a like-minded soul. It seems the famous physicist was also fascinated by biological science as a window to unseen physical forces.

His return letter, which was undiscovered until Davys's death in 2011, is short, but it confirms Einstein was similarly fascinated by the behavior of bees.

(Dyer et al., J Comp Physiol A, 2021)

In the type-written note, Einstein admits he is well acquainted with Karl von Frisch, who had recently figured out bees navigate using the polarization patterns of light.

Einstein is known to have attended one of von Frisch's lectures at Princeton University six months before the letter was sent. He even had a personal meeting with the researcher, and these interactions clearly left an impression.

While Davys seems to be most interested in how this new biological knowledge can inform future technology, Einstein argues we need more biological research.

"I cannot see a possibility to utilize those results in the investigation concerning the basis of physics," he replied to Davys.

"Such could only be the case if a new kind of sensory perception, resp. of their stimuli, would be revealed through the behavior of the bees".

Since the letter was sent, we've learned a lot about bee behavior and how these curious insects perceive the world. Just as Einstein predicted, that knowledge is already helping us improve technology, like the cameras on our iPhones.

Despite decades of research, however, there's still a lot of mystery left. The exact mechanisms by which animals perceive light or sense the Earth's magnetic field are still being teased apart, and it might not be the same for every species.

Bees, for instance, appear to sense the magnetic field in their abdomen, while birds and dogs seem to do so predominantly through special photoreceptors in their eyes called cryptochromes.

Even human cells make cryptochromes, and recent research reveals these cells respond dynamically to changes in the magnetic field.

This is ironic because it's what you would expect from a unique quantum reaction. For a photoreceptor to sense a magnetic field, it would require electrons within the cell to become entangled, and Einstein at the time had rejected this idea, calling it "spooky action at a distance".

Clearly, Einstein wasn't always right, but even when it came to fields of science outside his expertise, the man had brains.

The study was published in the Journal of Comparative Physiology A.

Sabertooth That Roamed South America 3 Million Years Ago Had Large Canine, Pushing Its Eyes to the Sides of the Head [Study]

2023-03-24T23:04:00.005+05:00

Sabertooth had extreme canines that extended up to their skulls affecting their eye sockets. The arrangement of their eyes had reportedly affected their eyesight.

Sabertooth's Extreme Canines Forced Their Eyes to the Sides

The extinct marsupials had huge teeth forcing their eyes to move to the sides of their heads. Scientists at the Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología, y Ciencias Ambientales in Argentina modeled the skull of Thylacosmilus - an extinct hypercarnivore that lived in South America three million years ago, Daily Mail reported.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Mauricio Antón)
Sabertooth That Roamed South America 3 Million Years Ago Had Large Canine, Pushing Its Eyes to the Sides of the Head

According to the researchers, sabertooth could not see well in 3D because their eyes were positioned far away from each other to allow their huge canines to grow.

The sabertooth's teeth were reportedly "ever-growing." They did not wear down, and their roots extended right up front of the creature's skull and round to its rear.

Despite the position of their eyes, sabertooth was still a successful predator because its eye sockets jutted outwards, giving them a sufficiently wide field of vision.

Thylacosmilus or Thylacosmilus atrox is an extinct genus of sabertoothed metatherian mammals that weighed 220 pounds before they were fully developed. They have to be carried in their mother's pouches while growing up.

They also have eyes on the side of their head like horses and cows, which led researchers to wonder how it affected their eyesight.

The outlet added that if the fields of vision in each eye did not overlap sufficiently, they would have struggled to see the world in three dimensions and determine the position of prey.

New Sabertooth Species With Specialized Teeth for Tearing Discovered

In a previous report from Science Times, paleontologists from San Diego Natural History Museum discovered a sabertooth roaming around California more than 40 million years ago. The team named the new species Diegoaelurus vanvalkenburghae and is declared to be among the earliest known examples of mammals adopting a cat-like approach in their all-meat diet, MailOnline reported.

The fossils found in 1988 at a construction site in Oceanside, California, had a lower jaw like a cat. The team used a modern approach to identify and discovered it belonged to a previously unknown machaeroidine, one of the five now-extinct sabertooth predators.

The early meat-eating predator and its relatives represent a sort of evolutionary experiment of how the first hypercarnivore lived and evolved into modern cats, Mirage News reported. However, the machaeroidines are poorly understood because of the lack of fossil specimens, with only a handful from Wyoming and Asia. Scientists were not sure whether multiple species lived in the same period.

Study co-author Shawn Zack said the analysis of fossils showed that achaeroidines were more diverse than initially thought. They also discovered that the smaller form lived almost simultaneously, raising the possibility that more species were waiting to be discovered.

Video:

Bird flu cases are expected to surge as birds migrate in coming weeks

2023-03-19T20:18:00.001+05:00

H5N1 cases in birds are expected to rise in the coming weeks as migratory species wing their way across the planet. Veterinary epidemiologist Victoria Hall explains why this outbreak is different – and what it could mean for humans.

A record outbreak of avian flu has been devastating poultry farms and birds that flock together on shorelines since 2021, raising new concerns that the virus could become endemic in wild birds. There have already been reports of spillover to other species, including foxes in England, grizzly bears in the US and farmed mink in Spain. And an 11-year-old girl in Cambodia died from an avian flu infection. All of this is stoking fears that we may be on the verge of another pandemic should this virus adapt to more easily infect humans.

With billions of migratory birds now taking flight from their southern wintering grounds to make cross-globe journeys, experts are bracing for a fresh wave of infections.

“This year’s outbreak is causing severe illness and death in much larger numbers than we’ve seen in the past,” says Autumn-Lynn Harrison at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington DC. “Although bird flu has had a series of outbreaks in the past, wild birds are typically asymptomatic – they don’t usually show these high numbers of symptoms or even death.”

Last summer, Harrison was working with shorebirds in Alaska called parasitic jaegers (Stercorarius parasiticus) and Arctic terns (sterna paradisaea) – two of the world’s furthest-migrating species, which travel from the Arctic circle down to South America and Antarctica every year. At her field site, dead birds from both species tested positive for avian flu, or H5N1. “It was the first time I saw some of these predatory seabirds just as random carcasses on the tundra,” says Harrison. She tagged some of the live birds with satellite trackers and followed their fall journey to Peru, where more than 3500 sea lions have died of avian flu this winter. “The effect is global at the moment,” says Harrison.

To learn more about how long this avian flu outbreak will last, how worried we should be about the spillover to mammals and whether it has the potential to become the next pandemic in humans, we spoke to veterinary epidemiologist Victoria Hall. She has expertise in studying ecosystem health, was previously an epidemic surveillance officer for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is now director of The Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota.

Corryn Wetzel: Avian flu has been around for decades – why are we seeing an outbreak now?

Victoria Hall: The current virus strain that’s been circulating has been acting very differently than past outbreaks. It is infecting way more wild birds than we typically see. And we’re seeing it spill over into bird species that are much more likely to get sick and or die. It’s incredibly devastating and expensive when it gets into poultry operations.

And this outbreak is remarkable because it’s lasting migratory season after migratory season. Often when we see an outbreak, we’ll see [avian flu] get into the poultry operations in an area, and it causes an outbreak for that season, but then it kind of goes away. But with this strain, we’re seeing it being sustained in wild bird populations.

How is avian flu sustained and spread by migratory birds?

Avian influenza circulates the world in migratory birds. There are a lot of species – we think primarily shorebirds, seabirds and waterfowl – that often can carry different strains of avian influenza without showing signs of illness. And they mix strains as they all gather together in migratory groups, and then they take off again and spread it.

Raptors, eagles, hawks, owls and vultures are birds that are very prone to getting very outwardly sick and potentially dying. Poultry – domestic chickens and turkeys – are very prone to getting very sick and dying if they catch it. The virus attacks their brains, and it causes seizing, vocalising and being unable to stand. Birds are lying on their back or just completely non-responsive.

Did you see an increase in sick birds last spring?

We had a huge surge [of infections] in April and May of last year – just astronomical. It really mirrored what was being seen in the poultry industry. We were seeing three to four times as many birds come in last spring as we normally receive, and some days up to 60 to 70 per cent of them had flu.

We saw 213 positive-testing birds in 2022 that came to our centre. Only one survived – a great horned owl. We were just bringing in sick bird after sick bird, and it was just emotionally shredding.

We’re expecting in the next couple of weeks to start seeing cases go back up here as migratory birds come back through.

How does the virus jump to other animals?

For this virus, we think that the majority of transmission is probably by fomites – infected virus particles that get on things. So, anything coming out of the mouth or the cloaca – both ends of an infected bird – is going to be packed full of the virus.

This virus can live for weeks in a cool, damp environment. Then other animals can get it on them [and become infected]. Animals can also get infected after eating a bird with the virus.

We’re now seeing avian flu spill over into mammals in numbers that we’ve never seen before, which would make sense because a lot more wild birds are shedding the virus, and there are opportunities now for it to jump into mammals. We’re seeing raccoons and bears and foxes and even seals and dolphins getting infected with avian influenza right now.

Are humans at risk?

There are cases [of humans contracting the virus] around the world and there have been some deaths associated with the strain as well. But it does not appear that it’s easily transmissible to people, which is great.

Infections can happen when a person spends a lot of time with an infected bird in very close proximity. We think about people that are in close contact with infected poultry, not so much the birds outside your window.

But we know everything about this flu until tomorrow comes because it’s an influenza virus – it can continue to change and mutate.

What can we do to limit the spread?

With migratory birds, the biggest thing the public can do is help us collect information on what’s happening out there in the environment. When there are sick birds, use wildlife rehabilitators or your department of natural resources in your state to get help for that bird. If you see dead birds out there, report it to your state officials.

If you must interact with a sick or dead bird, make sure that you’re using gloves, you’re using a mask to protect yourself, you’re disposing of [the bird] in a manner that’s safe so that you’re not causing any spread of that virus.

It’s also just about spreading that word: we’ve got this virus that’s happening in the poultry world, but it’s in our wild bird species, too.

Can we vaccinate birds?

Vaccines are a hot topic right now – I feel like everyone who has birds of any sort is ready for some vaccines. We would want to make sure it’s just like our seasonal flu vaccine, where it matches exactly what’s circulating or it’s not as effective. And we’ve got so many different species of birds. If we have a vaccine that’s been validated in poultry, what is it going to do in an eagle that lives 30 years versus a chicken that you don’t anticipate to live that long? So, it would be quite a process before you could start doing things like vaccinating birds.

There’s a lot of talk about using vaccines for critically endangered species, where every single bird really matters to that population because their numbers are so low. But [vaccinating birds] would be a long process. [Though avian influenza vaccines exist], they are regulated on a federal level, so it’s not something that you could just go buy from the store.

How long will this last?

Usually, people prepare for an outbreak, respond to the outbreak for a set of months and then recover. But this one’s not stopping. We saw this with covid, too. We do a huge response initially, and then you’re like, “Oh, we have to manage this long term.” That might mean changing our protocols, looking at how we’re using testing and looking at how we’re using personal protective equipment.

Whether you’re in agriculture, or whether you’re in wildlife, people are having to change their mindset from just an acute response to living with this for, potentially, years. I don’t expect it to go anywhere anytime soon.

China reclaims pandas from US zoos – is the panda politics era over?

2023-03-17T21:05:00.002+05:00

Most of the contracts loaning giant pandas to US zoos are expiring without extensions – some say this could be a reflection of rising tensions between the US and China, though others suggest it may be coincidence.

Giant pandas have been loaned to the US from China for decades
Shutterstock/Thomas Dekiere

Giant pandas housed at two US zoos will be returning to China later this year, leaving the US with only one zoo where the public will be able to see the gorgeous black-and-white bears. It s unclear whether China’s recall of the pandas at the two zoos that are about to lose them is the result of unsuccessful contract negotiations between the zoos and the Chinese government or a reflection of the rising tensions between the US and China.

As a gesture of thanks to former US president Richard Nixon for his visit to China in 1972, China gifted the US a pair of black-and-white bears. “That was the first kind of big diplomatic demonstration, and use, of the giant panda,” says E. Elena Songster at Saint Mary’s College of California and author of Panda Nation. “It set off this new era of panda diplomacy.” Fifty years later, there are more than 600 pandas living outside of mainland China, eight of which are in the US.

All giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are the property of the Chinese government, and at the country’s discretion, can be loaned to qualifying zoos around the world. US zoos usually pay China around $1 million per bear per year as part of a contract that typically renews on a five or 10-year cycles, according to details disclosed by the zoos. “It’s one of the few animals in the world that isn’t owned privately and can’t be traded privately,” says Paul Jepson at investment group CreditNature. “The panda is quite a unique case.”

All pandas outside of China are part of breeding programs aimed at bolstering the species’ numbers, and the cubs on US soil are required to be sent to China by their fifth birthday. When a zoo’s lease is up, as happened to the San Diego Zoo in 2019, China can decide to recall the bears.

Three US zoos currently host giant pandas: the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC has three, the Memphis Zoo in Tennessee has one and Zoo Atlanta in Georgia has four. The bears in Washington DC and Memphis will be sent to China by the end of the year, according to statements from the zoos.

The future of giant pandas at Zoo Atlanta isn’t clear, either. A spokesperson for Zoo Atlanta wouldn’t say how long those bears can expect to remain there. “We are not able to discuss the specifics of our giant panda loan agreement with China,” the spokesperson said.

One factor behind the apparent panda recall trend could be mounting political and economic tension between the nations, as the bears have been used as a symbol of partnership in the past, says Songster. Or it could be a coincidental case of multiple panda loans expiring in the same handful of years. “I think each case is separate,” says Melissa Songer at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington DC. “I don’t see it as a trend or a new policy toward US zoos.”

The astonishing recovery of giant pandas from the brink of extinction could be another reason China is asking for its bears back. Breeding programs abroad – in addition to those in China – have roughly doubled the number of pandas to more than 2000, allowing for downlisting the species from endangered to vulnerable. Perhaps China no longer needs the expertise of those in the West, says Jepson.

The termination of a zoo’s panda loan doesn’t mean the bears will never return. “We are hoping to have pandas in the future,” says Songer. “Those discussions are going on now.”

Rare bird not seen for 24 years found alive in Madagascan forests

2023-03-03T19:49:00.001+05:00

The dusky tetraka, a small, ground-dwelling forest bird, hadn't been documented since 1999, but sightings of three individuals have now confirmed that the species is still alive.

A rare bird that hadn’t been seen for 24 years has been confirmed alive after expeditions in Madagascar’s forests found three individuals.

The sightings of the dusky tetraka, a small, ground-dwelling forest bird, may prompt a rewrite of ornithology textbooks, as the birds were seen by the rocky banks of mountain streams – not previously thought to be their favoured habitat.

A dusky tetraka
John C. Mittermeier

The dusky tetraka (Xanthomixis tenebrosa), an olive bird with a yellow throat, was included in a top 10 “most wanted” list by the Search for Lost Birds, a conservation collaboration launched in 2021.

Since December, three individuals have been seen by two teams from charity The Peregrine Fund. The expeditions were made to forests on high mountain slopes, as this is where most remaining wooded areas are in Madagascar.

The first team found an individual near a stream in the island’s Masoala peninsula by using a mist net, a fine mesh that is suspended between trees so birds get tangled in it. The net is checked frequently and then birds can be released unharmed.

The second team’s efforts didn’t go smoothly as it was discovered that much of the target region near Andapa had been turned into vanilla farms.

But when the team switched to searching a lower elevation, at about 800 metres above sea level, John Mittermeier at the American Bird Conservancy saw a pair of the birds hopping around in undergrowth by a stream. “It’s a moment that’s tremendously exciting – to be looking for something that long and then there it is,” he says. “Afterwards it felt like a dream.”

The next day, the team caught what was probably one of the same pair in a mist net, and confirmed that it was indeed the right species.

Lily-Arison Rene de Roland at The Peregrine Fund says the confirmed sightings should help efforts to conserve the bird’s habitat.

If its preferred habitat is by streams, this might be why it hasn’t been seen for so long, as the sound of the rushing water may drown out its calls, says Mittermeier.

How To Take Care Of A German Shepherd Puppy

2023-02-08T06:49:00.005+05:00

German Shepherd dogs are known for their athletic capabilities, intelligence, and loyalty, making them one of India's most sought after breeds. Dog lovers are enamoured by the German shepherd's majestic appearance, intellect and guarding abilities.

If you have decided or have recently become a German Shepherd's parent, you should be grateful to have such a loving and loyal companion who will stand by you no matter what in the years to come. However, parenting a German Shepherd is not an easy feat. Multiple factors need to be taken into consideration before you are confident that you will be able to provide for the needs of this dog.

Parenting a German Shepherd is a highly gratifying affair, but the first step is choosing your puppy and caring for it. It needs to be planned out carefully to ensure that you and your dog spend all your days enjoying maximum satisfaction. This article will run you down through all the crucial decisions and actions that must be taken, starting from whether you should parent a German Shepherd, all the way to how you can care for your puppy.

Is a German Shepherd right for you?

Before answering this question, it is imperative to check if parenting any German Shepherd is right for you to begin with. This breed is a very demanding one. It requires plentiful exercise to remain physically and mentally healthy. Without adequate playtime and activity, dogs of this breed can become destructive.

So the question here is, do you have the facilities required to give your German shepherd this level of exercise? Do you have a yard, a park or a lawn near you where you can exercise your dog? Do you have the time to take them out on frequent walks? German Shepherds are usually suitable for people who engage in high-intensity sports such as running and bicycling. Will you be able to engage in such activities for the benefit of your dog as well as you?

Similarly, German Shepherds are highly sociable animals and thrive in interactive environments. They need other dogs or people around them most of the time. Does your daily routine allow you to be near your dog for long periods of time?

If you plan to leave your German shepherd at home for 8-10 hours a day while you are working, this breed may not be suitable for you. Dogs of this breed are also prone to excessive shedding, and you need to be ready to find a lot of dog fur all around you. Being a large breed, feeding and taking care of these dogs are time and money intensive. They live long lives and can suffer from health problems too, and thus, caring for them can be an expensive affair. Thus, these are some of the questions that need to be answered to gauge whether a German Shepherd is indeed right for you to begin with. With these conditions in place, this breed may not be ideal for first-time dog parents.

What Type of German Shepherd Is Right For You?

Coming to the type of German Shepherd that is right for you, this breed can be classified into two categories - work line type and show line type dogs. The differentiation is based on the heritage of the dogs of this breed and the purpose for which they were bred. Show lines were mainly bred for their look, colour and body type.

Work Lines were primarily bred for their health and personality rather than to look a certain way. The line you choose depends on what you really want to be doing with your German shepherd. Work lines should be chosen if you seek a family pet or want some type of function to be performed because this type is known for its trainability, knowledge and skill.

However, if you are more concerned with your dog's appearance, then going after show lines might be more appropriate. It must be mentioned, though, that it is possible to find show line dogs with the same characteristics as work line dogs and vice versa if they have been bred by individuals who are concerned with their appearance as well as health.

Beyond work and show lines, age is another essential factor to consider. A good breeder would not offer puppies that are lesser than 8 weeks old as they still require their mother's milk as well as other social skills. Puppies who have received this from their mothers will be less likely to engage in destructive and unruly behaviour.

How To Select The Right Puppy?

First and foremost, verify that the puppy's parents have good health and desirable temperaments. Then examine the puppy in terms of health and hygiene by checking the eyes, ears, teeth, skin, coat, paws, etc. Study the gait of your puppy; it should be even. With German Shepherds, in particular, it is vital that you choose a pup that does not have undesirable traits.

Visit the breeder at least four to five times before making a decision. Choosing a pup from the litter that is neither the timidest nor the most dominant would be wise if you want a bit of both traits. A German Shepherd puppy that is well built, energetic and sociable would be ideal.

Next, to gauge the temperament of a puppy you want to select, you could perform a few simple tests, such as making eye contact with them. If they hold contact, it reflects confidence. It might be a sign of nervousness and anxiety if it looks away. Clapping your hands is another simple test. If the puppy runs away, it can be judged as timid, but it can signify that the pup wants to be friends if it approaches you.

Similarly, other tests include calling the puppy to pet it, introducing it to a new toy, making a sudden noise, lifting the puppy and holding it above your head, or grabbing its paw. The reaction of puppies to such actions can provide much-needed insight into a puppy's temperament and help prospective dog parents make the right choice.

On the one hand, if you prefer a dog that isn't prone to undermining your authority, it would be sensible to choose a moderately submissive puppy. On the other hand, if you want a dog for protection, it would be wise to choose a tough, trainable, and courageous puppy.

After four to five visits, it would be possible for you to judge correctly - the personality and various character traits of the puppy you're interested in. As German Shepherds have highly individual personalities, you might bond more with one German Shepherd than the other.

Lastly, before making a final decision, it is always good to ask the breeder for their opinion, as good breeders often have vital information about their puppies and can provide valuable insight into their characteristics and temperaments, thereby ensuring that you exactly find what you are looking for.

Bringing Your German Shepherd Puppy Home

Once you have established a rapport with a puppy and have made up your mind about becoming a dog parent, or a dog parent to another puppy, take a friend or companion with you who can help you clean up if your puppy is carsick. If you intend on making your puppy comfortable in a crate, give the crate to the breeder a few days before you bring the puppy home so that the breeder can help it acclimatize itself to the crate.

The first day at home will be a traumatic experience for your puppy as it is away from its family. Thus, ensure that your puppy has a place to be comfortable and relaxed, with an adequate amount of food and water. It would be wise to spend some time exclusively with your puppy initially, such as an extended weekend plan so that your bond can grow.

Be sure to collect your puppy's adoption contract and veterinary records. Furthermore, find out the exact kind of food that the breeder was giving the puppy you just adopted. Giving your pup entirely different food during the first few days can be traumatic for them. With their unfamiliar sights, smells, and sounds, your home and car can frighten your puppy, leading it to stress out and get anxious. Anticipate this and give your pup some time to adjust to the new environment.

The first few days can be demanding as a dog parent because you need to adapt to changes in your schedule with the arrival of your puppy. Similarly, the puppy, too, can cry, whine or get overly affectionate, which can be regarded as coping mechanisms to deal with the sudden change in environment. During this time, make sure you don't scold your puppy or be overly affectionate either.

Introducing Your Puppy To A New Home Environment.

Before bringing your newly adopted puppy home, it is essential for you to puppy-proof your home! Go down on all fours and check for sharp objects, hazardous materials, or any other dangerous substance that your puppy might end up chewing or swallowing.

Cover your electrical outlets as well. Stock your home with food that your puppy has been eating while under the breeder's care. Keep an adequate amount of food and water, water bowls, treats, and grooming tools such as brushes, shampoos for puppies and nail clippers. Cleaning detergent for stains and smells will also come in handy in case of any accidents.

Decide on that area of the house that will be where your puppy spends most of its time. This step is crucial as constantly changing your puppy's place can lead to disruptive sleep patterns and cause stress.

German Shepherds, being extremely active, will tend to run across your halls, and in such cases, an accident or two are bound to happen. In such cases, it would be a good idea to restrict your dog's movements to areas that can be cleaned easily. Furthermore, German Shepherds have sharp claws and can ruin expensive hardwood floors, so it would be wise to keep them away from such flooring.

As mentioned previously, your puppy will be nervous during the first few days. Frequent bathroom breaks will be a necessity for your pup, and thus, keep an area designated just for this purpose. Also, let your dog run around the house and acquaint itself with its surroundings. If your dog is chewing or biting furniture in a puppy-proofed home, you could offer a toy as a distraction.

If you have children, teach them how to properly handle your puppy without being too rough. If you have other pets, give your pup a chance to meet and acknowledge them. Be careful while introducing your puppy to other puppies and grown dogs. However, most dogs are not aggressive with puppies, so it is doubtful that you will face problems on this front. Between eight and sixteen weeks of age, Puppies require plenty of clean water to drink and many meals a day. They also have small bladders and hence, will urinate often. Since they expend a lot of energy during the day, they will take several naps.

It would be recommended to begin a daily routine for your pup and stick to it. Since German Shepherds require a lot of physical activity, taking them out in the mornings and evenings for an adequate amount of time religiously would be necessary.

The faster you get your pup accustomed to a routine, the more beneficial it is to better sleeping schedules and better mental and physical health. When you begin house training your dog, be sure to praise them when they relieve themselves in designated areas but refrain from punishing them if they fail to do so. Remember that your home is a new environment for them, and thus, it will take a while to house train them.

Training Your German Shepherd Puppy.

Training your dog from the day they come home is very important. Clear rules should be set that should not be broken. For example, if you do not want your dog to get on the bed, do not let them come on the bed ever. Allowing them sometimes and then not other times gets confusing for your dog, and they may not be able to learn the desired behaviour effectively.

Training your puppy can be divided into two stages, each with different objectives. The first stage of training needs to take place when your pup is between eight to sixteen weeks of age. In this period, socialization, house training and crate training goals must be accomplished. The second stage of training needs to occur when your puppy is three months of age until about 9 months. The main objectives of this training phase are obedience training, impulse control, and recall.

From 8 - 16 weeks

Goal: Socialization

German shepherds are very protective of their owners. This makes it essential to make them see that other individuals are not necessarily threats. This period is critical to expose your puppy to different people in non-threatening situations.

This can help them grow more confident around strangers instead of becoming hostile. Socialization creates a strong foundation for the rest of your puppy's training. One example of socialization comes from the grooming requirements of this breed. German Shepherds need to be groomed regularly so that they don't shed a lot.

Thus, introducing them to groomers at a young age and to tools like blow dryers and nail clippers can help achieve this goal of adapting to social environments. Furthermore, to improve their mental development, expose your puppy to new sights, sounds and smells to help their confidence improve.

Goal: Crate Training

Training your puppy to sleep or stay in a crate can be difficult at first as they might face separation anxiety. Crate training is necessary if you prefer sleeping alone or washing the utensils in the kitchen and need your puppy to stay in one place for a couple of minutes. Patience is key to achieving this goal. Help them get over their separation anxiety with the help of treats and toys. You can also use your crate for feeding purposes to help your pup get more acclimated to it.

Goal: House Training

A strict schedule can help get your dog house trained. When your pup is around 8 weeks old, it should be taken outside for a bathroom break every two hours or so. At 12 weeks, it should be taken every 3 hours and around 16 weeks, every 4 hours or so.

Begin teaching your puppy how to eliminate on cue by looking for signs such as sniffing the floor or circling a particular spot, or going to an area where it has made a mess before. Using a command to push your puppy to go outside to relieve itself can be helpful. Remember to praise your pup when it obeys such actions.

From 3 - 9 Months

Goal: Obedience Training

German Speherds are acutely intellectual and have a commendable work ethic. Training that has begun early and consistently can help your puppy's best traits and features emerge with time. Dogs of this breed are excellent at obeying commands, and you can begin this type of training by teaching basic commands such as stay, down, and up. They can even be trained to walk on a leash easily during this period.

Goal: Recall

When obedience training is done right, the goal of recalling or successfully calling your puppy to come to you becomes relatively easier. Achieving recall takes patience and practice. It should be done diligently and on a daily basis, using treats and toys as incentives. Achieving this goal can come in handy during emergency situations as well.

Goal: Impulse Control

German Shepherds are highly susceptible to boredom, often resulting in excessive and inappropriate chewing, barking, chasing, etc.

They also have a tendency to chase down cars and even cats. Such impulses need to be controlled as they can otherwise lead to destructive and problematic behaviour. Training for impulse control simply means getting your puppy to pay attention to you when required.

You can begin such type of training by getting your puppy to sit before eating or using commands during playtime, which makes them focus on your voice only. Treats and toys could be attractive incentives to encourage your pup to respond positively to commands.

Feeding Your German Shepherd Puppy.

8-week old pups are off the mother’s milk and are fully ready to consume real food, which can be special puppy feed or a diet prescribed by a veterinarian. Remember to follow the breeder's diet in the initial days and gradually change this diet to incorporate different foods. Milk should not be given to puppies at this age as it can cause diarrhoea. Puppies need to be given food rich in protein, calcium and fats as they are still growing. Their food needs to be higher in calories when compared to the food given to a grown dog.

When you give your puppy a food bowl, give it a specific window of time to finish eating, such as 10 or 15 minutes. After this period, remove the bowl.

This will help your pup understand that it has to eat during a specific period of time only, which is a valuable component of obedience training. Between 4 to 6 months of age, you can start feeding your puppy increased portions of food four times a day.

Foods such as meat and vegetables would be ideal. Treats should only be resorted to during training and not as actual food for mealtimes. Make sure to never give leftover human food to puppies as they contain spices, salt, sugar and so on, which are very unhealthy for dogs.

For this highly athletic dog breed with high physical activity requirements, Doggie Dabbas recommends High-Value Training Treats, Sardine Oil, Chicken and Pumpkin, Fish and Dill and Fish Ferky as some of the ideal food choices for your German shepherd!

FAQs:

Are german shepherd puppies hard to take care of?

Not just german shepherds, all puppies are hard to take care of initially. This is because it is exactly like getting a newborn baby home. There will be sleepless nights, vet visits, training, creating and sticking to routines and so on. However, these efforts will eventually pay off, because once your pup is trained, they will be socialized and can adapt to your lifestyle easily.

How many times should a german shepherd puppy eat a day?

For up to four months, puppies should be fed three to four times a day. Post this period, gradually reduce the number of times your pup is fed. After eight to nine months, two meals a day will suffice.

Where should my german shepherd sleep?

German shepherds are highly sociable animals and should not be left alone for too long. Puppies should be trained to sleep in a crate or share the bed with you if you so desire. As they grow older, they can be allowed to sleep in a crate, or in an area specially designed for them.

What are the best foods for german shepherd puppies?

Like other puppies, they too require meals that are high in protein, grain-free, rich in good quality fats without any chemicals, artificial additives etc. Try Doggie Dabbas Fresh Meals & our High-Value training treats to get your German Shepherd puppy started on their fitness journey.

Is it okay to feed a german Shephard 3 times a day?

Up to eight to nine months of age, it is okay to feed your German Shepherd three times a day. However, feeding them twice a day is more than enough beyond this age. The amount of food ultimately depends on your dog's age, size, weight, and levels of physical activity.

When do german shepherd puppies stop biting and jumping?

It is perfectly normal for your puppy to constantly bite, chew, or jump for the first four to six months. However, while teething is normal, you must redirect your puppy to chew on toys and other things that are appropriate instead of household furniture. Do not wait to think issues will be resolved after 6-7 months. Get professional help from day 1 to teach your pup the right behaviours.

Antibiotic use in farming set to soar despite drug-resistance fears

2023-02-07T23:20:00.002+05:00

Analysis finds antimicrobial drug use in agriculture is much higher than reported.

Researchers have struggled to calculate the amount of antibiotics used in agriculture in many countries.Credit: Edwin Remsberg/The Image Bank/Getty

The use of antibiotics in animal farming — a major contributor to antimicrobial resistance — is expected to grow by 8% between 2020 and 2030 despite ongoing efforts to curtail their use, according to an analysis1.

Overuse of antibiotics in agriculture is thought to be a major driver of the rise in humans of bacterial infections that cannot be treated with antibiotics. Although antibiotics can be necessary to treat infections in livestock, they are often used to speed up animal growth and prevent diseases among animals in crowded, unsanitary conditions.

Many governments have struggled to make or enforce rules to decrease antibiotic usage. For instance, although a number of countries, including the United States and much of Europe, ban the use of antibiotics that promote growth, manufacturers can just say they are marketing the drugs to prevent disease.

Researchers have also struggled to calculate the amount of antibiotics used in particular countries because most do not release their agricultural-antibiotic usage data publicly, says co-author of the study, Thomas Van Boeckel, a spatial epidemiologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). Instead, many release the data to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), which group country’s antibiotics data into continents, so that is all that researchers can see. And around 40% of countries do not report their antibiotic use to WOAH at all. “The majority of data on antibiotic use in the world is unusable,” van Boeckel says.

Country estimates

To estimate antibiotic usage in 229 countries, Van Boeckel worked with Ranya Mulchandani, an epidemiologist at ETH Zurich, and other colleagues to collect data from individual governments, farm surveys and scientific articles that reported veterinary use of antibiotics. They cross-referenced these with data on farm-animal populations worldwide, as well as on antibiotic sales from the 42 countries that reported those data publicly. From there, they extrapolated trends for the remaining 187 countries.

The team calculated that antibiotic use in Africa is probably twice what WOAH reports, and use in Asia is 50% higher than reported. The authors attribute this to the fact that many countries in these regions do not respond to WOAH surveys. Accounting for these in their calculations, the authors estimate that by 2030, the world will use around 107,500 tonnes of antibiotics in livestock per year, compared with just under 100,000 tonnes in 2020. Antibiotic use is highest in Asia, and China in particular (see 'Antibiotic consumption by country') — a trend that is expected to continue until 2030. The researchers also estimate that antibiotic use will grow the fastest in Africa, rising by 25% between 2020 and 2030 owing to increased demand for meat products.

However, Mulchandani cautions that most of the 42 data-sharing countries were high-income, meaning that the types of antibiotic they use, and the purpose, might not represent all nations.

At a ministerial conference on antimicrobial resistance in Muscat, Oman, last November, 39 countries — including major agricultural producers Russia and India — pledged to reduce their agricultural use of antimicrobials by 30–50% by 2030. Even if that goal isn’t met, says Steven Roach, programmes director at the non-profit Keep Antibiotics Working, who is based in Iowa City, the agreement means that the countries are more likely to begin releasing baseline data on their antibiotic usage. “It suggests there is potential for real reduction if there’s global will,” he says. In the meantime, he adds, the types of method used in the latest study are the only way to get a global picture of antibiotic use.

In the future, Van Boeckel says, his team will model scenarios, such as what would happen if more countries adopted stricter antibiotic distribution approaches like that taken by Sweden, which requires a veterinarian's prescription for antibiotics to be used on animals. Making usage data more publicly accessible, he adds, could lead to increased accountability for countries — and agricultural producers — that do not use antibiotics responsibly.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00284-x

References

Mulchandani, R., Wang, Y., Gilbert, M., & Van Boeckel, T. P. PLOS Glob. Public Health 3, e0001305 (2023).

How to Train a Dog to Bark on Command or “Speak”

2023-02-06T08:23:00.002+05:00

Dogs are known as “man’s best friend” for a reason. They’re loyal, loving, and always happy to see us. But one of the coolest things about dogs is their ability to learn commands. You can train your dog to do almost anything, like sit, stay, or even come when called. One of the most popular commands to teach dogs is “speak” or “bark” on command. It’s a great way to keep control of your dog and ensure they’re not causing any disturbances. In this post, we’ll show you how to train your dog to bark on command in just a few easy steps! ?

Step 1: Start with a basic obedience command

Before you start teaching your dog to bark on command, it’s important that they have a good understanding of basic obedience commands like sit, stay, come, and down. If your dog doesn’t already know these commands, take some time to work on them before moving on to Step 2.

Step 2: Choose your command word

When you’re ready to start teaching your dog to bark on command, you’ll need to choose a command word or phrase that you’ll use every time you want them to bark. Some popular options include “speak,” “bark,” and “say hello.” Once you’ve chosen your command word, be sure to use it consistently so that your dog can learn it.

Step 3: Get your dog’s attention

Once you’ve chosen your command word, the next step is to get your dog’s attention before you give the command. This can be done by calling their name, making eye contact, or offering a treat. Once you have their attention, give the command in a clear and concise voice.

Step 4: Reward your dog for barking

The next step is to reward your dog whenever they bark on command. This could be done with treats, petting, or verbal praise. It’s important that you only reward them when they actually bark on command, otherwise, they may start barking randomly in hopes of getting a treat.

Step 5: Practice, practice, practice

As with anything in life, Practice makes perfect! The more you practice this command with your dog, the better they’ll get at it. Be sure to mix up your rewards so that your dog doesn’t get bored and always keep the training sessions fun!

Step 6: Practice regularly

As with any new trick, it’s important to practice regularly if you want your dog to learn and remember the command. Try to do a few short training sessions each day, and be sure to end on a positive note. With patience and consistency, your dog will be barking on command in no time!

Step 7: Troubleshooting

If your dog isn’t responding to the command, there are a few things you can try:

– Make sure you’re using the correct command word or phrase and that you’re being consistent with it.

– Try using a higher-value reward, such as their favorite treat or toy.

– If you’re still having trouble, consider enlisting the help of a professional dog trainer.

With a little patience and practice, you’ll be able to train your dog to bark on command in no time! ?

Can Train a Dog to Bark Help to Stop Unwanted Barking?

Yes, if you are consistent in your commands and rewards, you can train a dog to bark (or not bark) on cue. This could be helpful in reducing overall noise levels in your home, or if you need your dog to alert you to something specific. As with any behavior modification, it’s important to be patient and consistent when training your dog to bark on command. If you’re having trouble, consider enlisting the help of a professional dog trainer.

How To Take Care Of German Shepherd Puppy?

2023-02-05T20:28:00.002+05:00

Being a german shepherd owner is an amazing experience. From their majestic appearance to their loyalty and intelligence, it’s easy to understand why they’re often seen as the ideal family pet. As with any living creature, however, comes responsibility in taking care of them properly – especially if you’ve just welcomed a new puppy into your home.

In this blog post, we’ll explore How To Take Care Of German Shepherd Puppy? through topics such as nutrition and exercise, grooming habits, training tips, medical checkups, and more!

Whether you are a first-time or experienced dog owner ready for some refresher knowledge on raising a german shepherd pup – read along for essential guidance so that you can give your beloved pup the best possible start in life!

Taking care of a puppy is a process that does not start after welcoming the new puppy at home. Meanwhile, it starts when you buy the puppy. Therefore I want to discuss taking care process from scratch.

First of all, see the list that can help in taking care of the puppy.

Here are 10 easy ways how to care for a German Shepherd:

Regular exercise
Nutritious diet
Coat brushing
Dental care
Nail trimming
Regular veterinary check-ups
Training and socialization
Safe and secure living environment
Grooming and hygiene
Mental and emotional stimulation
Now Discuss the whole process in detail from start to end step-wise.

That can surely help you to care for your puppy.

How to Pick a German Shepherd Puppy?

When you decide to purchase a german shepherd puppy, make sure that you get it from a reputable breeder. The breeder should be able to provide documentation regarding the parents of the pup and any health screenings they have had done. Because we must have to observe the temperament and behavior of the puppy’s parents.

Choosing the perfect German Shepherd puppy can be an exciting but daunting decision. It’s tempting to simply pick the biggest and healthiest pup in a litter, however, there are other important factors you should consider first – including their physical appearance, character traits, and more.

German Shepherds require quite a bit of attention and care. Before you decide to get one, it’s important that you assess whether or not you are a good match for this breed of dog.

Now important is that Assess Whether You’re a Good Match for a German Shepherd.

Assess Whether You’re a Good Match for a German Shepherd.

German Shepherds are considered a large breed and require an owner who is able to provide the necessary care, attention, and exercise. The breed does not do well if left alone for long periods of time, so it’s important to assess whether you can commit to giving your pup the right environment.

6. Do you have the patience and consistency to handle a strong-willed and stubborn dog? German Shepherds can be strong-willed and stubborn, requiring patience and consistency in training and discipline.

7. Are you comfortable with a large dog breed? German Shepherds are a large breed and require adequate space for movement and play.

8.Have you a dog walker when you are in the office?

After taking the decision to purchase the pup and all other things are done then start discussing the 10 easiest ways to take care of the puppy.

Assess Whether You’re a Good Match for a German Shepherd.

Clean the dog’s ears twice a week whenever you have time. That can prevent the dog from ear infections.

Regular check-ups:

Take your german shepherd puppy for regular check-ups with your veterinarian to monitor their growth, health, and overall well-being. This is also a great opportunity to ask your vet any questions you may have about caring for your pup.

Proper socialization:

Socializing your german shepherd puppy is key to ensuring they grow up to be confident and friendly around people and animals. Introduce them to new environments, people, and other dogs in a positive, controlled way – this can help them develop strong social skills.

Keeping your german shepherds pup entertained:

Not only do german shepherds need plenty of exercises, they also require mental stimulation to stay happy and healthy. Consider investing in interactive toys that can help keep them occupied when you’re not around. This will help prevent boredom and destructive behavior.

These are just a few of the things you need to consider when taking care of your german shepherd puppy. With proper nutrition, exercise, grooming, training, and medical check-ups, your pup will be happy and healthy for many years to come!

One more thing you need to know especially for beginners.

How to potty train a german shepherd puppy Step Wise:

German shepherds are intelligent and easy to potty train relative to other breeds.

Establishing a bathroom ritual is crucial, including taking the puppy outside at regular intervals and after meals, allowing ample time for elimination, and praising the puppy when he or she finishes.

German shepherds may have accidents indoors occasionally even after full training due to health concerns or incomplete training; however, if you stay vigilant in your supervision, this should not be a problem.

Paper and crate training can also help with the process of housebreaking your german shepherd puppy. Crate training is one of the best way to house train.

Let’s Discuss Step wise Process :

1. Choose a designated potty area for your pup and make sure it’s easily accessible.

2. Develop a consistent routine of taking your puppy outside to the potty area at least every two hours, after meals, and after waking from sleep.

3. When you take them out to do their business, take them to the same spot and give them plenty of time to sniff around.

4. When they do their business in the right area, reward them with verbal praise and a treat or toy.

5. Clean up any accidents right away and never scold your puppy for making an accident indoors; instead, focus on preventing them in the future.

By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to successfully potty training your german shepherd puppy. With patience and consistency, you can help your pup learn the rules of the house and make sure they stay happy and healthy for years to come!

German shepherd puppies schedule:

Creating a daily routine for your german shepherd puppy is essential in order to keep them healthy and happy. Here are some tips on how to create the perfect schedule:

Feeding :

Feed your pup two to three times per day, with meals spaced out evenly throughout the day. This can help regulate their hunger and energy levels, and also give them a chance to digest properly.

At a young age german shepherd has a different diet.

Potty Breaks:

Take your pup outside every two hours or so for potty breaks; this will help reinforce good potty habits and reduce the chances of accidents indoors.

Exercise:

Set aside at least 30 minutes a day for exercise such as walks, runs, and playtime. German shepherds are active dogs who need routine exercise in order to stay healthy and fit.

Grooming:

Grooming your german shepherd pup regularly is important for their health, as well as keeping them looking their best. Brush their coat at least once a week and trim their nails every 2-3 weeks.

Training:

Spend some time each day working on obedience commands, as well as positive reinforcement activities such as clicker training. This will help your pup learn basic manners and build a strong bond with you.

Difference between puppy and adult dog feed

When it comes to feeding your german shepherd pup, there are some key differences between what you should feed a puppy and a young adult.

Puppy Food:

For german shepherd puppies up to one year of age, you should be feeding them specially formulated puppy food that contains the proper balance of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Look for foods that are made with quality ingredients and are free from fillers, by-products, and artificial additives.

Adult german shepherd Food:

Once your pup has reached one year of age, you can switch to an adult formula that is designed for adult dogs. This food should have less fat and protein than puppy food to prevent your pup from growing too quickly.

It’s important to keep in mind that all dogs are different and need may need slightly different diets to stay healthy, so always check with your vet for advice on the best food for your pup.

German shepherd Adult Food List:

High-quality dry dog food

Fresh lean meats such as chicken, beef, and fish

Brown rice

Vegetables such as carrots, green beans, and broccoli

Fruit such as apples and bananas (in moderation)

Eggs

Yogurt (plain, low-fat)

Cottage cheese (low-fat)

German shepherd Puppy Food List:

High-quality puppy food formulated for large breeds

Fresh lean meats such as chicken, beef, and fish (cooked and ground)

Brown rice

Vegetables such as carrots, green beans, and broccoli

Fruit such as apples and bananas (in small amounts)

Eggs (scrambled or boiled)

Yogurt (plain, low-fat)

Cottage cheese (low-fat)

What can I do with my German Shepherd puppy at night?

At night, you should factor in plenty of rest for your german shepherd puppy. It’s important that they get enough sleep to help with their growth and development, so sticking to a consistent bedtime routine is key. You can also provide them with a comfortable bed or crate where they can feel safe and secure – this will become their safe haven.

When it comes to nighttime activities, you can focus on continuing your pup’s training and reinforcing positive behaviors. This is a great time to practice commands such as sit, stay, and come by using rewards-based methods. You can also engage german shepherd in interactive play with toys or puzzles that will help keep their minds occupied and their energy levels in check.

Conclusion:

Taking care of a german shepherd puppy is an incredibly rewarding experience. They are loyal, intelligent, and majestic companions that will bring joy to your life for years to come. To ensure that they remain healthy and happy, it’s important to stay on top of their nutrition, exercise, and training needs, as well as regular grooming habits. I hope that after reading all of the instructions you have to know how to take care of a german shepherd puppy

Ultra-rare BLACK Tigers Are Caυght Oп Camera Iп Iпdia: Pair Of Big Cats With Highly Uпυsυal Coloυriпg

2022-12-19T20:18:00.006+05:00

Two extremely rare ‘black’ tigers have beeп captυred strolliпg aroυпd the Naпdaпkaпaп Natioпal Park iп easterп Iпdia.

The stυппiпg creatυres have oпly beeп seeп iп the Odisha state aпd experts have iп the past coυple of years claimed there were as few as seveп to eight of them left iп the regioп.

Black tigers get their distiпctive appearaпce dυe geпetic mυtatioпs called pseυdo-melaпism where their dark stripe patterп fυses together oп light oraпge-goldeп fυr, ofteп makiпg their pelt look eпtirely dark.

Extremely rare ‘black’ tigers have beeп captυred strolliпg aroυпd the Naпdaпkaпaп Natioпal Park iп easterп Iпdia. The stυппiпg creatυres have oпly beeп seeп iп the Odisha state.

Black tigers get their distiпctive appearaпce dυe geпetic mυtatioпs called pseυdo-melaпism where their dark stripe patterп fυses together oп light oraпge-goldeп fυr giviпg a dark black look

Amateυr photographer Satya Swagat, 23, a bυsiпess stυdeпt from New Delhi, was oпly 30ft away as he took pictυres of the rare aпimals – all males – last November aпd said he got ‘goose bυmps’ at first sight of them.

He said: ‘I got goose-bυmps wheп I first saw the melaпistic tiger.

‘It was hard for me to believe my eyes aпd for a miпυte I forgot to pick υp my camera as the big cat moved right iп froпt of my eyes.

‘I was takeп aback by the beaυty of the rare tiger.

Sightiпgs of black tigers have beeп pictυred oпly iп Similipal iп Odisha siпce 2007, bυt they have beeп observed there from 1993.

The photographers pictυred the pair of tigers strolliпg aroυпd jυst 30ft away from him as he sпapped the pics, sayiпg he had ‘goose bυmps’.

Experts have iп the past coυple of years claimed there were as few as seveп to eight of them left iп the easterп state of Odisha iп Iпdia.

Researchers have sυggested the exclυsivity iп the geпetic mυtatioп comes from the fact that the tigers are iпbred aпd rarely, if at all, iпteracted with other species oυtside the easterп Iпdiaп state.

Speakiпg of his lυcky shots, the photographer said: ‘Not maпy have seeп them iп the forest aпd пot maпy people have beeп able to get that close to the rare cats’.

Sυch tigers, whose geпetic mυtatioп ofteп makes their pelt look completely black, were rare eveп wheп the popυlatioп of wild cats were pleпtifυl iп the coυпtry ceпtυries ago

‘I kept my calm aпd the tiger obliged me with better sightiпgs aпd better shots.’

He said he first heard of the melaпistic tiger from his frieпds who had visited Naпdaпkaпaп, addiпg: ‘Not maпy have seeп them iп the forest aпd пot maпy people have beeп able to get that close to the rare cats.

‘I got the opportυпity to photograph oпe tiger iп 2020 bυt coυldп’t maпage aпy deceпt shots.

‘However, last November was differeпt wheп I was able to captυre пot oпe bυt two differeпt iпdividυals.’

Sυch tigers were rare eveп wheп the popυlatioп of wild cats were pleпtifυl iп the coυпtry ceпtυries ago.

The photographer was stυппed to see the wild cats, aпd said: ‘It was hard for me to believe my eyes aпd for a miпυte I forgot to pick υp my camera as the big cat moved right iп froпt of my eyes’.

The roamiпg creatυres, jυst 30ft away from aп amateυr photographer, were pictυred last November. A geпetic mυtatioп makes black tigers appear as if their black fυr is more fυsed together rather thaп striped .

Research iпto creatυre foυпd a possibility that black tigers exclυsive geпetic mυtatioп comes from the fact that they are iпbred aпd isolated to the Odisha area.

Iп September a light was shoпe iпto Odisha’s elυsive black tigers as researchers lookiпg at the eпdaпgered aпimals iп the Similipal reserve sυggested the exclυsivity iп the geпetic mυtatioп comes from the fact that the tigers are iпbred aпd rarely, if at all, iпteracted with other species oυtside the easterп Iпdiaп state.

‘The researchers combiпed geпetic aпalyses of other tiger popυlatioпs from Iпdia aпd data from compυter simυlatioпs to show that the Similipal black tigers may have ariseп from a very small foυпdiпg popυlatioп of tigers aпd are iпbred,’ Iпdiaп Express reported.

A black tiger was also spotted by a stυппed aпimal lover iп Odisha iп late 2020, aпd sпapped by amateυr photographer Soυmeп Bajpayee.

Sightiпgs of black tigers have beeп pictυred oпly iп Similipal iп Odisha siпce 2007, bυt they have beeп observed there from 1993.

Fiпaпcial Express reports alleged sightiпgs of fυlly black tigers have beeп made as far back as 1773 wheп artist James Forbes paiпted oпe iп Kerala.

Similar rυmoυrs were made iп Myaпmar iп 1913 aпd 1950s Chiпa.

Photographer Satya Swagat said of the creatυres: ‘I got the opportυпity to photograph oпe tiger iп 2020 bυt coυldп’t maпage aпy deceпt shots. However, last November was differeпt wheп I was able to captυre пot oпe bυt two differeпt iпdividυals’.

Soυrce: dailymail.co.υk

The lion falls in love with the white tiger, they are really attached as a couple

2022-12-11T07:30:00.006+05:00

Meet Cameron the lion and Zabu the white tigress who are crazy in love with each other.

Life hasn’t always been kind to the two of them, they were bred at a zoo in New England for one reason only, to make ligers.

During this time, Cameron was 200 pounds underweight and Zabu had genetic flaws caused by breeding. Thankfully, they were both rescued a few years later.

“When Zabu and Cameron were rescued, we constructed a large natural enclosure for the two of them to share since they are truly bonded as a couple.”

Once they were rescued, they were moved to a new sanctuary and were kept together.But after a little while, Cameron was getting very possessive of Zabu, which meant he was a threat to his keepers.

“We had only two choices; separate him from Zabu forever or neuter him”

So they chose to neuter him, which meant he, unfortunately, lost his majestic mane but is a small price to pay to stay with his true love, writes kingdomstv.com.

The two enjoy each other’s company, running around, nuzzling, and taking peaceful naps.

Watch the video here:

Big Python eats Alligator Goldfish Koi Carp Cooking Experiment Unusual Under Mud

2022-08-11T12:48:00.004+05:00

Big Python eats Alligator Goldfish Koi Carp Cooking Experiment Unusual Under Mud

Video:

7 Factors that can predispose farm animals to diseases

2022-08-07T22:16:00.003+05:00

Diseases in Farm Animals:

1. Malnutrition:

This can expose farm animals to disease. Young animals denied colostrums can develop low immunity and may fall sick easily.

Colostrum is the first stage of breast milk. It develops during pregnancy and lasts for several days after birth.

2. Harsh Weather Conditions:

This can cause farm animal disease e.g. cold causes pneumonia and can affect the production of eggs, milk, and wool. High temperature leads to heat stress in animals and poor ventilation can aid the development of agents causing diseases.

3. Injury and Poorly Treated Wounds:

Injury to udders can bring about diseases in cows, while poorly treated wounds can lead to tetanus infections, causing harm to the animals.

4. Overcrowding and Uncontrolled Mating:

Overcrowding of animals can lead to diseases e.g. airborne diseases. Uncontrolled mating can lead to sexually transmissible diseases.

5. Poor Handling, Poor Sanitation, and Poor Housing:

Animals may be injured when not properly handled. A dirty housing environment can lead to farm animal diseases. Animals kept under a leaking roof or poorly ventilated houses may be prone to disease.

6. Inbreeding Depression:

Mating closely related animals can cause diseases in farm animals. For example, scrotal hernia in pigs.

7. Improper Use of Drugs:

Overdose, underdose or unjudicious use of veterinary drugs can lead to more harm in animals.