MANUELA HOELTERHOFF @mhoelterhoff1

A group of animal cognition experts gathered by New York University are grappling with a profound question: Which animals are sentient, with at least the capacity for conscious experience? #animalrights #newyorkuniversity #animalwelfare manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/23…

A juvenile, 500-pound elephant seal named Emerson has claimed a beach for his own on Vancouver Island. Authorities have repeatedly relocated the seal to areas free of rubbernecking humans, but Emerson repeatedly returns. #elephantseal #MarineMammals manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/20…

There was a time when Earth Day was a day of protest, specifically of the impacts of 150 years of industrial development. On the first Earth Day in 20 million Americans mobilized to call for greater protections for the planet. #EarthDay #CNNunderscored manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/16…

Republicans and Democrats have come together in a bid to end taxpayer-funded experiments on dogs and cats. #animaltesting #PAAWact #NancyMace #NIH #animalexperiments #AnimalRights manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/15…

A family-friendly zoo in England has an R-rated problem: five African grey parrots that curse a blue streak. The foul-mouthed birds are spicing up the proceedings at Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in Friskney. #LincolnshireWildlifePark manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/12…

A 34-year-old elephant named Ali at Florida’s Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens has just undergone an intense, drawn out dental procedure to remove his tusk. #JacksonvilleZoo #elephant #veterinarycare #neverlandranch manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/10…

A doglike, headless robot named “Aurora” has been hired to work at Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska. Her job: to spook the migratory birds and other wildlife. #robodog #Fairbanksairport #FairbanksAK #BostonDynamics #AlaskaWildlife manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/5/…

Prognosticating rodent Punxsutawney Phil may not have seen this one coming: last week he and wife, Phyllis, became new parents, to at least two baby groundhogs. #PunxsutawneyPhil #GroundhogDay #groundhogs #workinganimals #Punxsutawney manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/4/…

Angus, a corn snake who went missing from his Spennymoor, UK home last year, recently turned up on a surprised neighbor’s roof. #cornsnake #Spennymore #RSPCA #brumation #petsnakes manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/4/2/…

The zookeepers at London Zoo are gushing like new parents, because in a way they are. “To say we’re happy about this new arrival would be a huge understatement,” says Kathryn Sanders. #LondonZoo #primates #gorilla #ZoologicalSocietyofLondon #conservation manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/30…

Researchers at the Einstein Center for Neuroscience in Berlin noticed a strange clicking sound coming from the aquariums where they kept tiny fish from Myanmar, Danionella cerebrum. #Danionellacerebrum #acoustics #pistolshrimp #midshipmanfish #PNAS manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/29…

What next for Ko Muang Phet, a ginormous albino water buffalo that has soared to celebrity status in Thailand? #waterbuffalo #thailand #albinism #songkran #Phetchaburi #Thavisin manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/25…

A fossil discovered in Texas four decades ago has sat unexamined in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, until now. The 270-million year-old amphibian fossil has finally been described and named, Kermitops gratus, after Kermit the Frog. manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/22…

In August 2017, a total solar eclipse dazzled and baffled animals across much of the country. Even the US president at the time lost his head (momentarily?), and stared directly at the sun without using ocular protection. manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/18…

Every year, Shannon Keith writes a letter to every animal-testing facility in the US, asking them to release their animals to the organization she founded in 2010, the Beagle Freedom Project. #animalrescue #FreedomFields #BeagleFreedomProject manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/14…

Next week three animal-rights activists go on trial for sneaking into a beagle-breeding facility in Wisconsin, filming the atrocities therein, and running off with three doggos. #animalrights #animalexperimentation #animalresearch manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/12…

Because the spider called daddy longlegs has a particularly salient trait – namely its long legs – biologists never really considered the creature’s eyes, which were assumed to be a standard-issue pair situated at the top of the head. manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/11…

Last month the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology published an article on the function of stem cells associated with rat testes. The paper was published with AI-generated illustrations that are downright bizarre. #ai #midjourney manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/8/…

A zoo in Omaha, Nebraska, had to ask visitors to stop tossing coins into enclosures, mainly because a 36-year-old white alligator named Thibodaux had swallowed about $7 in change. #alligators #leucisticalligator #touristsbehavingbadly #HenryDoorlyZoo manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/2/…

Hundreds of stray dogs are fleeing the Eastern Siberian town of UIan-Ude, near the Mongolian border, because the local government has decided to kill them. #dogrescue #Buryatia #nokillshelter #UlanUde #BBCRussian manuelahoelterhoff.com/home/2024/3/2/…