Category Archives: profiles

The white-tailed deer is an ungulate native to North, Central and South America. Adults stand about 3 ft tall at the shoulder and weigh 150–200 lb. Coat color varies seasonally from reddish brown with short, sparse, wiry hairs during warm months to grayish brown with long, dense, brittle hairs and a thick undercoat in theContinueContinue reading “Flashy tail, bony antlers”

Atlantic horseshoe crabs are most commonly found on shallow ocean floors in the Gulf of Mexico and along the northeastern coast of the US. Despite their common name, horseshoe crabs are not crustaceans but marine arthropods, closely related to arachnids. Lab Anim. (NY) 44, 83 (2015). view full text (login required)

The gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica) is a small marsupial native to South America. It inhabits forests, dry scrubland and agricultural environments in the eastern central part of the continent, south of the Amazon River. Lab Anim. (NY) 44, 53 (2015). view full text (login required)

The grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), native to the Congo in Africa, is a medium-sized bird weighing 400 g and measuring 33 cm in length, with an average wingspan of 46–52 cm. The plumage is predominantly grey with a white scalloping pattern, and the tail feathers are red. The face features bare white patches framing paleContinueContinue reading “Speaking of psittacine research”

Arbacia punctulata, the purple-spined sea urchin, is native to the western Atlantic Ocean along the eastern coast of the US and the Gulf of Mexico, where it usually lives on rock or shell substrates. It is spherical in shape and bristled with long, slender, dark purple spines, which are shorter on the lower aspect ofContinueContinue reading “Sea urchins point the way”

Chinchillas have served as animal models for investigating the pathology and treatment of both Chagas disease and cholera. But they are most commonly used in auditory research, in part because of the similarity between human and chinchilla hearing anatomy and sensitivity. The chinchilla has a sizeable middle ear with large auditory bullae and a conductiveContinueContinue reading “All ears”

The woodchuck, also called groundhog, land beaver, mouse bear or whistle-pig, is a type of marmot or large ground squirrel found primarily in lowland areas of North America. Its short, strong limbs and curved, thick claws are well-suited to digging and burrowing, one of the woodchuck’s main activities in the wild. It also sports roundedContinueContinue reading “What a woodchuck could chuck”

The Arabian horse takes its breed name from its location of origin: the Arabian Peninsula. It is one of the oldest horse breeds, with some evidence suggesting it has existed for almost 4,000 years. Originally developed in a desert climate and used in both war and trade activities, the Arabian is a good-natured yet high-spiritedContinueContinue reading “The Arabian horse SCIDs to a halt”

The tammar wallaby is a small marsupial mammal weighing up to 9 kg and standing 59–68 cm tall. Tammars have narrow, elongated heads with large pointed ears. Their tapered tails measure 33–45 cm in length. The tammar’s coat is dark gray to brown dorsally, reddish on the sides of the body and limbs and paleContinueContinue reading “The strange ways of the tammar wallaby”

The painted turtle is the most abundant turtle in North America. Four regional subspecies exist; although their ranges overlap and border populations interbreed, the subspecies differ in appearance, habitat and diet. The western painted turtle (C. picta bellii) is the most common and has the most colorful shell, featuring a red pattern on the plastron.ContinueContinue reading “Taking the temperature of the painted turtle”