feathers, fur and dangerous ribs

amazon river dolphin / leadbeater's possum / spanish ribbed newt / shoebill (click on photos for sources)

and pink dolphins! the world is full of really amazing animals and i suppose i am lucky to be working with one of the weirdos - that is, the kiwi - but there are so many other bizarre creatures out there that are disappearing much faster than the kiwi because of a lack of interest, lack of funds, and/or lack of knowledge.

i just learned about the amazon river dolphin when i went to the baltimore aquarium with reuben in february. as i remember, i really enjoyed the amazon river forest display, but i was running out of camera battery power by that exhibit and only got a few pictures. no river dolphins, though. we didn't go into the australia exhibit that they also had on while we were there, but if we did, they might have had some mention of the leadbeater's possum (the aquarium isn't strictly limited to aquatic animals), which is apparently the endangered emblem of victoria. luckily, the spanish/iberian ribbed newt isn't threatened, maybe because it has some kickass protruding ribs and poisonous secretions. check out the xrays and you can even see the change in rib position. then there is the B. rex. no protruding bones on this guy, i just really liked the photo (the one on wikipedia looks like a cartoon character!) and a new (to me) species.

fyi: september 7th is australia's threatened species day and 13-20 of september is nz's conservation week.