Matt and Maureen Steer’s year long otter and other mammals global safari continues with a report from SE Asia where they got the otter trifector and saw some other nice stuff including a Pangolin!
Its here
Matt and Maureen Steer, 8 weeks & 31 species including Hairy-nosed Otters, Gaur and Pangolin (Thailand), Short-clawed Otters (Malaysia) and Smooth-coated Otters (Singapore).
Jon
Coke Smith and his family spent 3 weeks in India over Christmas and pretty much cleaned up. A trip report is linked here http://www.mammalwatching.com/Oriental/orientindia.html. Highlights include Striped Hyena, Sloth Bear, Capped Langurs and Hoolock Gibbons. And fabulous photos as usual.
Jon
I met up with John Fox last weekend and enjoyed meeting him and seeing a few flying squirrels around Arlington. Photos are here
http://www.mammalwatching.com/Nearctic/nearctusavirginia.html
I have no idea where I am going next 
Jon
Interesting new study indicating that an unusual subspecies of Golden Jackal actually represents the earliest diverging lineage of holarctic wolf.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0016385
Study could use improvement (sample size and distribution of samples, etc)…presumably “true” Golden Jackals are sympatric with these African wolves, and it’s unclear to me the extent of the actual range of the latter.
I just received a question about taking spotlights on flights from fellow mammal watcher Greg Easton, and thought I might see what others’ experience has been. In August, when I was meeting Jon in Vegas for his Southwest mammal trip, I had my spotlight confiscated at the Boise airport. They pulled it from my checked bag and held it at check-in, but would not allow me to take it. (My wife drove out and picked it up for me).
Anyhow, they said the regulation is as such: If it is a high-powered spotlight and has a battery, the battery must be removed and in a separate bag. If the battery is removed, it’s ok to go. Has anyone else encountered this? If not, you may want to consider removing the batteries on high-powered lights if you’re in the U.S.
Then again, they also confiscated my peanut butter on that same flight so maybe it was just not my lucky day.
Some research on two interesting species off of the Mauritanian coast.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110121081049.htm
This is interesting
Polar bear’s feat of endurance could reveal the potential impacts of climate change.
http://blog.arkive.org/2011/01/polar-bear-nine-day-swim/
Alan Dahl was back in Belize last year and has a nice report on http://focusedonnature.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html Mammals included Red Brocket Deer and Grey Fox
jon
Here’s my latest piece for The Nature Conservancy’s Cool Green Science blog, on black-footed ferrets. It’s based on my trip to see the ferrets with Jon Hall and his kids. Feel free to leave comments at Cool Green Science, too.
I will believe it when I see it…. but it would be a nice one to see in the wild http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-scientists-aim-mammoth-life.html
