Free 4th of July ecards from WWF

I did not know that people sent cards for the 4th of July but for those who do, the Word Wildlife Fund has a nice collection of ecards for no cost to you or the environment. Find 'em here. Happy Birthday, America!

Earth Hour Tonight

Join the movement and turn off your lights tonight from 8:30pm to 9:30pm. Learn more here.

Penguin Party!

January 20th is National Penguin Awareness Day! In honor of our flightless, flippered friends, JustSaying invites you to waste a solid hour of company time looking at pictures and videos of these little fellas. Here are some fun facts and photos to get you started:

• Penguins can swim at up to 15 miles per hour!
  
• The distinctive markings of penguins is no accident. The white underside and a dark upper-side is camouflage against predators - from above or below sea level.
  
• Penguins are very social animals, breeding in groups or in large noisy colonies called rookeries. After mating on shore in the spring - almost always with the same partner- female penguins lay one or two eggs (although usually only one chick is reared). Please watch March of the Penguins for a deeper understanding of penguins love, life and rookeries.
  
• Penguins are found in the Southern Hemisphere. The greatest number is found on the coasts of Antarctica and on the subantarctic islands. Some penguin species live as far north as the Galapagos Islands on the Equator and the subtropical coasts of South America, South Africa and Australia.

• That's right: Penguins don't only live on icebergs. They can be found in warm areas (like Humboldt Current along the western coast of South America and Benguela and Agulhas Currents around South Africa) but only because there are cold water currents there.
  
• Speaking of climate conditions, penguins are extremely sensitive to climate change and their greatest threat is global warming.
  
• Today's penguins face a number of other threats including: destruction of nesting habitats, competition with fishermen for fish and shrimp, and introduced predators (such as rats, dogs and foxes) which eat penguin eggs and young.
  
• Emperor penguins, who live on floating ice packs in Antarctica, can grow to be up to four feet in height and 80 pounds in weight.They are also the deepest diving penguins, capable of diving to depths of 1,700 feet! 

If you enjoy these seabirds as much as I do and want to help, consider adopting one or two through the World Wildlife Fund. (Note: This is a symbolic adoption. You will not actually be recieving a little penguin pet in a WWF box. So just saying... don't waste the vacation day waiting for him/her.)

Bright Side

Because JustSaying dedicated a fair amount of posts to endangered and threatened species last year, I'm thinking it may be nice to highlight some uber-cool new and evolving species because, well, I'm remarkably optimistic about the staying power of the conservation efforts, awareness and activism surrounding all things environmental of late. And I'd like to think that the more wildlife we see and discuss, the more considerate we all become. So cheers to a few newly discovered critters!

New Strawberry Crab Species. Discovered off of Suther Taiwan by Marine biologist Professor Ho Ping-ho from the National Taiwan Ocean University. These little gals have clam-shaped shells about an inch wide and resemble a species called Neoliomera Pubescens, that lives in the areas around Hawaii, Polynesia and Mauritius. Read more here.

The Kuranda tree frog, discovered in tropical Queensland state in eastern Australia by WWF-Australia conservationists, has a distinctive tapping call that scientists call "fast talk." The fast-talkin' frog has unfortnately already placed on the critically endangered list. More here.

White Lizards in the White Sands of New Mexico. These little lizards aren't exactly a new species but they are a new color! Learn more from professor Erica Bree Rosenblum here and here.

Speaking of lizards, I should give a shout out to the Mwanza Flat Headed Agama (aka Spiderman) lizard too. Not because of newness, but because of newfound popularity thanks to photograher Roy Daines.

Little Limestone Leaf Warbler. Found in the rocky forests of Laos and Vietnam by a team of scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, Lao PDR Department of Forestry, Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Swedish Museum of Natural History, BirdLife International and other groups. More here.

The teen-tiny Barbados Threadsnake, leptotyphlops carlae. It is one of the world's smallest snakes (a total length of 104mm, or 4.1 inches). Discovered by  Professor of Biology from the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment, S. Blair Hedges. So frickin' cool. More here.

Last - certainly not least but last because it is purely fictional fun i.e. not real - the Swiss Funk Squirrel (pictured). Possibly because he resembles a little dog we know and love that often smells like the other animal the Swiss Funk resembles.