Chinese Giant Salamander

Meet the Jerboa: An Enormous-eared, Jumping Rodent with a Foot Fetish

Here’s one for the annals of fascinating, adorable animals you’ve likely never heard of: the long-eared jerboa. These rodents, whose ears are about a third larger than their head, bring to mind both mice and kangaroos. Mice because of their body shape and size; kangaroos because they have very long hind legs and move by jumping, as the video above shows. These resilient rodents live in desert habitats from southern Mongolia into northwest China, and it’s thought that they subsist largely on a diet of insects. The jerboa is just one of the distinct (both in terms of looks and behavior) and endangered species that the program is working to conserve. (EDGE stands for Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered.) The group goes beyond pandas and polar bears, working to ensure that one-of-a-kind species—like the Chinese giant salamander (aptly named) and long-beaked echidna (also aptly named)—don’t slide into extinction unnoticed. They aim to raise awareness of the species most at risk, initiate projects for species that don’t already receive conservation attention, and train and involve local conservation leaders.

Chinese Giant Salamander – a tasty treat! : AsiaObscura

Pickles Sr, my China-based pa, recently stumbled across this classic headline in the CAAC Inflight Magazine. The CAAC, of course, is the government organ that’s tasked with enforcing “the unified supervision and regulation on the civil aviation activities of the whole country.” Glad that they’re promoting such tasty treats! Now if only the inflight meal had been as interesting (or even as identifiable) as this.

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