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22. June 2021
This year at CEITEC we are celebrating 10 years since the founding of the institute! We wanted to make less traditional celebrations, so we decided to support Brno ZOO by adopting one of the animals. Our employees had the opportunity to vote for their choice among the symbolic number of ten animals. The original plan was to adopt only one animal, but the results of the vote were so tight that the choice fell to the first two – the Arctic wolf and the Australian green tree frog.
Cooperation is important to it. As in research
The Arctic wolf is a subspecies of the common wolf and is one of the largest subspecies. It occurs in the tundra, taiga and polar wastelands of northern Canada and northern Greenland, where temperatures drop below -50°C. The state of its population is stable, but its occurrence is adversely affected mainly by changing climatic conditions and human hunting. This wolf is definitely a not a small animal. It weighs 40–60 kilos and can reach up to 150 cm in length. It lives in the wild for 7–10 years, but in human care, its life span can double. Like our scientists, the wolf achieves the best results through teamwork in groups. Its hunting qualities are characterized by perseverance rather than speed, again similar to science, where our prey represents excellent scientific results. The wolf represents self-confidence, strength, intelligence, freedom, but also respect. It goes so well with the nature of CEITEC scientists.
Green like CEITEC
The Australian green tree frog is a nocturnal tree frog from the tree frog family, which is present in Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Fortunately, it is not too threatened with extinction, because it is very adaptable and can live close to human dwellings. The tree frog is only 10 cm big, but it also lives up to 20 years. At first glance, it looks like the exact opposite of a large and strong wolf, but even such a small animal has its meaning and contributes to higher goals. It is a symbol of a healthy ecosystem and life sciences, which we also research at CEITEC. In addition, frog skin secretions have antibacterial and antiviral properties that may prove useful in pharmaceuticals. It received a high number of votes because its colour is the typical CEITEC green colour. To some, even the frog’s fingers resembled our logo.
You can visit both of these animals at Brno ZOO and at the same time, you can support them or others yourself.
As you can see, both animal mascots were the right choice for us at CEITEC and they will represent us very well. It turned out that we really have a lot of animal supporters among CEITEC employees! Almost 300 people took part in the internal survey. In the picture below, you can see that the results were really tight.
Note:
When creating the article, we based on the answers of CEITEC employees in an internal survey, the Brno ZOO website, and Wikipedia.
Authors
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