Be a Team Player! Get Nature's Olympians on Your Phone | | | |  Right now the whole world is cheering for their favorite Olympic athletes. When we think about the fastest, strongest, and best, we are usually looking at human athletes. But it's fun to look to the the natural world as well, which has Olympians of many different species. Wildtones is highlighting a few of these non-human Olympic giants - all of which you can display or hear on your cellphone as wallpapers or ringtones. The obvious first choice is the Cheetah which is the worlds fastest land mammal. At speeds of up to 71 MPH, even our fastest Olympic world record holder could never catch one of these African savannah cats. Our Cheetah wallpaper can make your phone look like a racing machine. While the Arctic Tern may be the perennial gold medal winner for migration - traveling over 10,000 miles each direction every year, from above the Arctic Circle down to the southern parts of Patagonia - the Barn swallow, which is one of the most commonly found birds, migrates from the far north of Alaska down to southern Argentina. At 600 miles per day and a 14,000 mile round trip, they are long distance racers with incredible stamina. You can have the unusual call of the Barn swallow as your ringtone. The little Carolina Wren may hold the world record for singing. With about 32 different calls per male bird, they repeat them sometimes over 200 times before changing their song. One Carolina Wren was heard to sing 3000 times in one day! We have a beautiful Carolina wren song ringtone, an equally colorful wallpaper and a message alert of a Carolina wren scolding. And if you want Olympic level diving, you can count on the Elephant seal to deliver. With the ability to hold their breath up to 2 hours at a time, they can dive to depths of 3200 feet, and one seal dove to a depth of nearly a mile - over 5000 feet! Check out our Elephant seal group snorting, our wallpaper and a snorty Elephant seal message alert. The tiny hummingbird is a fearless and aggressive migrator and an animal of many superlatives - worthy of Olympic recognition. Weighing in at just a few grams with the eggs of some species the size of jelly beans, some hummingbirds migrate non-stop over the Gulf of Mexico battling winds, rain and hurricanes to get to their wintering grounds in Latin America. The smallest ones approach the medal stand with 80 wingbeats per second. Our beautiful Anna's hummingbird is a summer resident of the Western US and makes a perfect wallpaper for your phone. Who would have thought that Canada geese could be so athletic? We may be used to seeing them on golf courses where life is easy, but they are capable of flying around 45 MPH when they put their minds and wings to it. You can have the familiar call of a flock of Canada geese or the honking of a pair of Canada geese as your ringtone. These are just a few of the many Olympic level animals we have around us - there are many, many more. So, as you watch the Olympics, remember that world record holders come in all shapes and sizes! And right now, you can have these animal athletes and more on your cellphone by visiting Wildtones.com. Go Wild! on your cellphone with unusual and fun animal and bird ringtones and wallpapers. And, remember that we send a portion of every purchase to deserving animal-related charities. | | In the News | | Check out the latest on Antarctica and global warming with this article in Mother Jones featuring Antarctic researcher Ron Naveen founder of Oceanites. | | Featured Animal | | Get to know wildlife with this month's Featured Animal Emperor Penguin Aptenodytes forsteri  Nearly the height of a human, these flightless Antarctic birds which weigh over 80 pounds are the largest penguins found anywhere in the world. Emperor penguins should be Olympic medal winners for team parenting. Laying a single egg at the beginning of the austral winter in March, the males stand huddled in a huge group to stay warm through the dark 2 month winter. Each male balances the egg containing his chick on his large feet, and covers it with a flap of densely feathered skin, trying to keep it warm. This is a long, snowy and windy winter, and even with the most conscientious father, not all the eggs will hatch. Where is the female? She has taken the winter to head out to sea to feed for several months, and when she returns in the spring, her chick will have been newly hatched and fed by his father with a reserve of stomach oil left over from dad's last meals before the egg arrived. Dad hasn't eaten for months, and will not have the chance to eat again until he is relieved by the female. Then he must make the long walk out to the ocean to feed again. Around December, the chicks will leave for the open sea. In the meantime, they will start to grow into enormous birds, ultimately over 4 feet tall with a feather density of up to 70 waterproof feathers per inch. This keeps them warm even in the most frigid water and freezing winds and snow. They are able to dive to over 800 feet and stay underwater for nearly 20 minutes. Their only ability to fly is in the water and "fly" they do! They are able to do short bursts of water flight at nearly 12 MPH which comes in handy when they need to flee from predators. You can have this wonderful Emperor penguin family wallpaper and their unique call as your ringtone. It is a great way to have a reminder of these incredible birds with you all the time. | | A Fishy Way To Help | | | Wondering what you can do to help penguins and other marine animals whose fish supply is being reduced? Global warming is having a direct impact on Emperor penguins, as Emperor penguins breed on sea ice, and this ice is retreating - giving the penguins less and less area in which to breed each year. Our friends at Oceanites tell us that Humboldt and Galapagos penguins are even more threatened than Emperor penguins and for many of the same reasons. Global warming also is reducing the amount of fish available for these penguins and other marine animals. Plus, overfishing takes its toll as humans take more and more from a shrinking supply.
While there are lots of issues that affect penguins and other marine life in Antarctica, you can do something to help all animals that rely on fish and other sea creatures for food. The most effective way would be to stop eating fish or become a vegetarian, however, we know this is not for everyone! So, if you do eat fish, and want to buy fish that are sustainably harvested, check out this list below for fish that are harvested in a sustainable manner by certified fisheries. This list was provided to us by the Marine Stewardship Council. Look for the MSC logo to ensure you are buying sustainably harvested fish. 1 Astrid Fiske North Sea herring
2 Burry Inlet cockle 3 Hastings fleet Dover sole
4 Hastings fleet pelagic herring and mackerel
5 Loch Torridon nephrops creel
6 North Eastern Sea Fisheries Committee sea bass
7 Norwegian North Sea saithe
8 Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association North Sea herring
9 Scottish Pelagic Sustainability Group Ltd North Sea herring
10 South-west handline mackerel
11 Thames Blackwater herring drift-net
12 Patagonian scallop
13 South Africa hake trawl
14 South Georgia Patagonian toothfish longline
15 Alaska salmon
16 American Albacore Fishing Association Pacific albacore tuna-north
17 American Albacore Fishing Association Pacific albacore tuna - south 18 Bering Sea and Aleutian Island Alaska (Pacific) cod-freezer longline 19 Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands pollock
20 Gulf of Alaska pollock
21 Mexican Baja California red rock lobster
22 New Zealand hoki
23 Oregon pink shrimp
24 US North Pacific halibut
25 US North Pacific sablefish
26 Western Australia rock lobster
27 Australia mackerel icefish
28 Lakes and Coorong, South Australia
29 Norwegian north-east Arctic saithe
30 Lake Hjälmaren pikeperch fish-trap
31 Lake Hjälmaren pikeperch gill-net
You can get more information on sustainable fishing practices at the Marine Stewardship Council website. Before you order or buy fish check to see that they are taken in a sustainable manner. This way you can have a positive impact on the wild animals who rely on fish for their food. | | It's Not Too Late to Help Animals! | | Donation Packs  Irene Pepperberg at the Alex Foundation is something of an Olympian herself. With just her perseverance and a few small birds, she changed the way we think about the term "bird brain." She and her African Grey parrots, including Alex (pictured here) showed us that parrots have the emotional capacity of a 2 year old human child and the intellectual equivalent of a 5 to 6 year old human child. Without the work people like Irene Pepperberg are doing, we would never be able to see the world through new eyes and learn about the intelligence and uniqueness of the world around us. At Wildtones.com, we support a variety of animal-related charities, and we urge you to support them, as well. For a limited time, we will be offering our exclusive donation packs. When you buy a $24.99 pack, you will receive an exclusive ringtone and wallpaper of the animal you are supporting and $19 will be donated to the charity. The Alex Foundation, International Primate Protection League and the Bill Jordan Wildlife Defense Fund each have their own donation packs offered exclusively on Wildtones.com. You can find them on our home page under "Gifts and Donations." So don't miss out - they are only going to be around for a limited time. Check out all our supported charities on our site. | | Did You Know????? | | | You Can Learn About Animals & Birds at Wildtones.com Did you know that when you visit Wildtones.com, you can not only get great animal ringtones and wallpapers for your phone, but you can also learn about different animals and birds in the process? Just click on the animal's image or name, and a window will pop up with some interesting information about the animal you are thinking of putting on your phone! What an easy and fun way to learn more about the animals we live with! 
| | Many thanks for shopping with us and helping to support some great animal related charities. We love seeing you again and again at our site! Deb Rivel and Bob Goodale at Wildtones.com | | | |
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