Moon jellyfish, Aurelia aurita, in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Photo by Mike Callander.

This Photo of the Day was donated by a participant in the annual National Wildlife Photo Contest. See more photos or sign up for the 42nd Annual National Wildlife Photo Contest.

Komodo dragons: as adorable as they are awesome (Wikimedia Commons)

That’s as intolerable as eating less than 80% of one’s body weight might be to an extremely hungry Komodo dragon.

And so, I provide. Item one: noted something-or-other Kim Kardashian recently ‘freaked out’ at a Komodo Dragon proffered by a guy who sort of resembles Robert Goulet, per People magazine sources.

Item two, more noteworthy for a wildlife conservation group: the City of Sydney has joined the Taronga Zoo in launching a Year of the Dragon 2012 Chinese New Year campaign to save Indonesia’s beleaguered mammoth lizards:

The Komodo dragon […] is found only on five islands in eastern Indonesia. As few as 3,000 are believed to remain in the wild. Commercial trade in these lizards is prohibited by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

“We are delighted to join with the Taronga Foundation to support their important wildlife conservation work,” said Mayor [Clover] Moore [...] “[t]he Year of the Dragon is the perfect opportunity to get to know Taronga’s dragons, from the giant Komodo named Tuka, to the small eastern water dragons that roam wild in the zoo grounds – all of which are under pressure in the wild“

That’s right: Tuka. He’s one of the big attractions at Sydney’s popular Taronga Zoo, a 171-pound specimen who likes basking in the sun and probably eating you, if there were nothing else around. Eastern water dragons are great too, but they’re the opening act to the Komodos’ arena rock headliners (Komodos are thought to reach 300 pounds and 10 feet in length in the wild).

The Taronga Foundation, which helps fund conservation and education programs at the zoo, assists the Komodo Survival Program in Indonesia in helping local communities preserve the dragons in their natural habitat. They need the support: Komodo dragons are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s ‘Red List’ of threatened species.

I have a long story to tell about how Komodo dragons were the focal point of my childhood interest in wildlife (Varanus komodoensis was the first scientific name I ever memorized and one of the few I still remember), but it will have to wait for another time (maybe I can blog more about them after somebody pays for me to go on a $27,000 Komodo dragon getaway. Email my boss!) Right now, 20 years after Komodo dragons were hatched for the first time outside of Indonesia at the National Zoo, I’m just glad some groups are working to pull this amazing animal back from the brink of extinction.

From Taronga Zoo:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Black tip shark in Australia's Great Barrier Reef (Flickr's Paul Benjamin)

Scientists said on Tuesday that they had discovered the world’s first hybrid sharks in Australian waters, a potential sign the predators were adapting to cope with climate change.

The mating of the local Australian black-tip shark with its global counterpart, the common black-tip, was an unprecedented discovery with implications for the entire shark world, said lead researcher Jess Morgan. [...]

The Australian black-tip is slightly smaller than its common cousin and can only live in tropical waters, but its hybrid offspring have been found 2,000 kilometres down the coast, in cooler seas.

It means the Australian black-tip could be adapting to ensure its survival as sea temperatures change because of global warming.

Unfortunately, not every species is fortunate enough to have easy adaptation options:

• Polar bears can only hunt on seals on sea ice and some polar bear populations are already becoming noticeably thinner thanks to global warming
• The American pika lives on mountaintops and has nowhere to go as its high-altitude habitat shrinks
• Warmer water temperatures are causing population declines for trout, salmon and many other species that require cold water to survive

Tell your members of Congress you support limits on climate pollution under the Clean Air Act.

So, will a waterproof mp3 player and a collection of AC/DC songs protect you from Jaws this summer? Probably not, but at least you can rock out, too.

AC/DC: You Shook Me All Night Long

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But, when you include Greece, Australia and other places in the world, fires are in the news year-round indicating a global trend.

China view.cn reports:

“Wildfires have struck with increasing force in many parts of the world in recent years and experts suspect climate change has played a key role in the disasters. ‘Scientists can’t link … specific event[s] to global warming, but they forecast a need to adapt to erratic weather. This has implications for fire preparedness the world over,’…  A study led by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, linked climate change to recent increases in large forest fires. ‘Rising seasonal temperatures and the earlier arrival of spring conditions’ are connected to a dramatic increase in large wildfires in the western United States, the study said”.  See full article:

RedOrbit.com reports:

“A bar-tailed godwit, a bird banded near Victoria, Australia, was found more than 8,000 miles away in the western Arctic area of Alaska, wildlife experts said. While tagged birds are sometimes seen in the region where they were released, it’s rare to see them so far from a release site. Wildlife Conservation Society scientists [reported] ‘While we know that birds from all over the world come to the Arctic to breed, to see a living example first hand is a powerful reminder of the importance of this region,’ said biologist Steve Zack, who spotted the godwit with biologist Joe Liebezeit. The … godwit, a shorebird, was sighted this year while Zack and Liebezeit were searching for dunlins and semipalmated sandpipers tagged three years ago in nearby Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.” See full article.

Wire News Services reports:

“Australian authorities have warned the public to stay away from a rare white humpback whale named Migaloo that has made an appearance off the east coast. Officials in Queensland state have declared Migaloo a “special-interest whale” and banned anyone from coming within 500 metres of him. Anyone coming too close by boat, jet ski or aircraft will face a fine of … (£8,000).”   See full article >>