ZOOBIQUITY was named “New and Notable” release in June’s Los Angeles Magazine!

We visited the Los Angeles Zoo today and were lucky to see Gracie, a chimpanzee, holding her new baby. (photo by Kathryn Bowers)

“Horses Know their Neigh-bors”—this post from Science says that horses can recognize individual humans. Forty horses were played recordings of the voices of handlers they knew. Most of the time the animals gazed in the direction of the correct handler—i.e, the one who matched the voice.

Interesting—but here’s a followup: Why does that surprise us?

Photo Credit: Ernst Vickne/Creative Commons (via Science)

While they’re probably not going out to brunch today, (non-human) animal mothers share the joys and challenges of motherhood that we do. This St. Louis Post Dispatch article highlights motherhood in animals at the St. Louis Zoo—from lemurs, foxes and orangutans to kangaroos, elephants and rhinos.

A set of gorgeous photos about animal moms illuminates a new book from National Geographic by Marina Gerosa Bellows called “Mother’s Love.” We especially love the sea otters.

And we think that few things say “mammal mother” better than this photo, also from Nat Geo. Wishing all moms—no matter what species—a happy mothers day today!

When a person gets a really bad cut, his (or her) doctor has several grave risks to worry about: infection, bleeding, and scarring. Treating deep gashes, especially once they’re infected, is what one dermatologist calls a “medical challenge”—one that sometimes requires hospitalization and even surgery.

Wild animals, of course, cannot rush to their local ER when they get injured. They don’t receive antiseptic washes—or stitches and sterile bandages. No one hooks them up to intravenous antibiotics. Yet animals get severe flesh wounds all the time in nature. Dolphins, for example, are frequently slashed by sharks—and these wounds can be long and very deep. (Australian biologists found that almost half of all bottlenose dolphins in one survey had survived shark bites.)

Why don’t these animals bleed to death? With their wounds exposed to microbe-filled seawater, why  don’t they get sick and die of infection? It’s because, as Michael Zasloff, an MD/PhD at the Georgetown University School of (Human) Medicine put it, dolphins have “remarkable wound-healing properties.” 

Zasloff’s observations, published in a July 2011 journal article, were described by Lowell A. Goldsmith, MD, MPH in Journal Watch Dermatology:

“Zasloff and colleagues studied two severely wounded adult animals, Nari and Echo, in an Australian marine lab. The animals had sustained shark-inflicted wounds, 30 cm long and 4 cm deep, that seemed relatively painless and healed in several quick stages. Within a day, blubber migrated to the surface and formed a white “wound dressing.” By day 2, “pink granulation tissue” gradually filled the wound upward from its base, eventually restoring the volume deficit with blubber. By 4 weeks, healing, including of the epidermis, was complete.”

Zasloff considers several reasons for the mammals’ hyper healing. Dolphin blubber contains a compound called isovaleric acid—which may have antibacterial properties and also keeps the tissue from freezing. Also, dolphin blood coagulates less readily than the blood of animals that live on land. You’d think this would be a disadvantage: how can thin blood stop flowing and eventually scab over? Zasloff hypothesizes that the answer may lie in the animals’ “diving reflex.” This is an ancient, well-documented mechanism shown by many mammals, including people and other land dwellers. To conserve oxygen underwater, the body reflexively slows the heart, constricts blood vessels, and shifts blood away from the extremities. The reflex is triggered by breath-holding and submersion in water. Zasloff writes that diving deep after injury may shunt the dolphins’ blood away from their flesh wounds, making up for the lack of coagulation. 

Zasloff notes that “efficient healing of soft-tissue injury” among marine mammals is probably not limited to dolphins.  Southern elephant seals and Hawaiian monk seals have been observed to be hale and healthy even after severe traumatic injury.

And he suggests that observing the dolphins’ healing process could “provide new insights to those of us involved in the care of human injuries.”

Thanks to Cynthia Cheung, M.D. for contributing to this post.

“Observations on the Remarkable (and Mysterious) Wound-Healing Process of the Bottlenose Dolphin” Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2011) 131, 2503–2505; doi:10.1038/jid.2011.220; published online 21 July 2011

In the past week, three professional athletes have torn vital knee ligaments, possibly injuring their careers in the process. As Brian Palmer pointed out in a Slate magazine “Explainer” feature:

“New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera tore his anterior cruciate ligament while shagging balls during batting practice on Thursday. On the first day of the NBA playoffs last weekend, both Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls and Iman Shumpert of the New York Knicks tore their ACLs, too.”

The piece cites evidence that this kind of injury is linked to humans’ “rapid shift to bipedalism.” But while that may have something to do with our injuries, humans are by no means the only animals that “blow out” their knees.

It turns out that this exact same injury—anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture—is the leading knee injury of dogs. In fact, say veterinarians, if a dog suddenly starts limping, chances are he or she has a torn cruicate ligament. (Dogs have essentially four knees, so vets use the term “cranial” instead of “anterior.” They call the injury a CCL rupture.)

For young, athletic dogs, the CCL can tear after a mistimed leap, bad step, or rough play. In older dogs, the risk comes from a more passive source: being overweight. As Wendy C. Brooks, DVM, DipABVP writes, “In this type of patient, stepping down off the bed or a small jump can be all it takes to break the ligament.”

Brooks explains that large-breed dogs—“Neapolitan mastiffs, Newfoundlands, Akitas, St. Bernards, Rottweilers, Chesapeake Bay retrievers, and American Staffordshire terriers”—are most prone to blowing out their knees in this way—even if they’re not professional athletes.

Thanks to Julio Lopez, DVM (@expertvet) for contributing to this post.

Photo courtesy of www.Copyright-free-photos.org.uk

UCLA cardiologist, Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, examines a lion at the Los Angeles Zoo.