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CT SCAN BY DANIEL PALUH
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Frogs have teeth? Sure they do. Most have a small number of them on their upper jaws, but Guenther’s marsupial frog, an interesting-looking amphibian from the Andes, has a full set. Florida herpetologist Daniel Paluh used a micro-CT scanner to peer into the skulls of the frog species, known as Gastrotheca guentheri, preserved for decades in alcohol. The results are the first clear look at the animal’s chompers (pictured above).
To cull or not to cull? That IS the question of this provocative New Yorker story. Whether it’s hunting or vasectomies of the estimated 30 million white-tailed deer in the U.S., it’s controversial. The deer “cause collisions, chomp expensive landscaping, and become vectors for disease, especially Lyme,” Brooke Jarvis writes. Nonetheless, conservationists have been attacked for trying to limit the population.
A victory for the spotted owl: U.S. wildlife officials struck down the previous administration’s attempt to open millions of acres of western forest to logging. The officials told the AP that Trump political appointees had used faulty science to justify stripping habitat protection for the imperiled northern spotted owl. The bird has been in decline with the cutting of old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.
Why so cruel? Every day, animal welfare officials see pitiful, starving, thirsty dogs chained up all day to some barren semicircle of yard. They’re troubled with “why.” Common reasons given for animal abuse are inconvenience, tradition, breeding for status, and a lack of resources. A Washington Post reporter investigating the abuse and a Tufts veterinary behaviorist don’t buy the excuses. “People just suck,” concludes the Post’s Gene Weingarten. Tufts’ Nicholas Dodman adds: “People who mistreat animals are the same ones who mistreat people.”
Cruelty-free beauty expands: New Jersey will become the eighth state to ban the sale of cosmetics tested on animals, following California, Nevada, Illinois, Maryland, Maine, Virginia, and Hawaii, People magazine reports. Globally, more than 40 countries have banned the testing of products on animals, including Mexico last month. The law takes effect in March.
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