Researchers believe they have successfully mapped every known species that lives the Antarctic ocean, creating an atlas that they hope will make the effects of climate change in the region easier to track. (Photo : NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program)
Researchers believe they have successfully mapped every known species that lives the Antarctic ocean, creating an atlas that they hope will make the effects of climate change in the region easier to track.
They are calling it "The Biogeographic Atlas of the Southern Ocean" and it maps out the biodiversity of every marine species from the Southern Ocean waters to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The atlas reportedly took four years of international partnership between teams of oceanographer and marine biologists. More than 800 maps and 100 color photos make up 66 chapters examining the habitats, complex species interplay, and even genetics of the well over 9000 species that can be found in Antarctic waters.
It also examines the possible impact climate change will have on these organisms.
Michael Stoddart from the University of Tasmania told ABC that the atlas will stand as a benchmark for all future climate change research, and will help conservationalists better understand the region.
"It's as comprehensive an overview as we can put together," he said.
The complete project can be found digitally online, allowing researcher to easily find the information they are looking for, but like any true atlas it was also published as a nearly eight pound paperweight - the kind you find on sturdy coffee tables in impressive offices.
Stoddart said that aside from setting things up for easier work in the future, the couple thousand researchers involved in the project also found that the Southern Ocean is a "hot bed of speciation."
"That means it's a place where a lot of species arise and then move from there to other parts of the world," he explained.
He gave the sea spider and deep sea octopuses as two examples, where the genetic information of these creatures - now found all over the world - can be traced all the way back to Antarctic origins.
Still, the main point of the atlas speaks for itself; it tells researchers what they will find when looking at the Southern Ocean's chilly waters.
"How do we know if things are changing, and whether they're changing naturally or not, unless we know what's there?" Graham Hosie, a contributor to the project from the Australian Antarctic Division, asked New Scientist. "This type of bare-bones empirical information is what you need."
When male frogs try to put the moves on the local ladies during mating season, they may be unwittingly inviting a bat attack, according to a new study. (Photo : Wiki CC0 - Brian Gratwicke)
When male frogs try to put the moves on the local ladies during mating season, they may be unwittingly inviting a bat attack, according to a new study.
The study, recently published in The Journal of Experimental Biology, details how the male túngara frog's main strategy for wooing the ladies, which involves calling our while expanding its vocal sac, also makes it a target of bat predation.
Experts have long suspected this, but they were unsure what exactly was helping bats hone in on the tiny amphibian.
However, after Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama ran a series of field tests with imitation robotic frogs, they are now fairly certain that the sudden movement of an inflated vocal sac, and not necessarily the sound, is key.
The researcher made several of their robo-frogs emit sounds while puffing out inflatable air sacs while other just made sounds. Predictably, the frogs making a ruckus with their sacs quickly became the targets of bat attacks, while the solo singers were ignored.
However, when the researcher covered the frogs with transparent spheres, the bats no longer targeted sac inflation. This indicated that the bats were finding their prey by homing in on their bulging throats, not by visibly noticing the sudden movement of a swelled vocal sac.
Interestingly, compared to other frogs who employ a similar mating strategy the male túngara frog's display is very simple and underwhelming. The authors of the study suggest that this may be because eavesdropping bats have always quickly found the more impressive males before they could find a mate and reproduce.
The result is a frog society of fast, quiet, and fearful male frogs.
A similar study published in the journal Science this past February found that sometimes a male túngara will employ a third sneakier signal - using its vocal sac inflations to cause subtle ripples on a pond's surface.
However, researcher quickly found that clever bats can detect this too, tracking the ripple back to their source - a tasty and unsuspecting midnight snack.
The Oregon spotted frog will now receive protection under the Endangered Species Act, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Thursday. (Photo : USFWS/Flickr)
The Oregon spotted frog will now receive protection under the Endangered Species Act, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Thursday.
Having disappeared from up to 90 percent of its habitat, the Oregon spotted frog (Rana pretiosa) has now been classified as a threatened species.
This amphibian will be protected throughout its range, which extends from southwestern British Columbia through the Puget/Willamette Valley, and in the Cascades Range from south-central Washington to the Klamath Basin in Oregon. Oregon spotted frogs may even already be extinct in California and the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
"This unique and highly aquatic frog was once common in the Pacific Northwest and its decline signals degradation in the health of natural areas that provide for people as well as fish and wildlife," Tom McDowell of the FWS told KTVZ.
The palm-sized frog - about two to four inches long - has lost its habitat mainly due to urban and agricultural development, livestock grazing, the removal of beavers and the encroachment of non-native grasses, the service said, according to The Associated Press (AP).
R. pretiosa was first proposed for Endangered Species Act protection in 1991, though now that it has finally been deemed "threatened," some experts worry that it may be too little too late.
"It's probably the worst-off amphibian we have in the state," said Andy Blaustein, professor of biology at Oregon State University.
Some Oregon officials are also concerned that the decision will limit access to grazing lands and timber and hurt the local ranching and logging industries. For example, on the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southern Oregon, a rancher had been told to remove his cattle from a grazing allotment because his stock was straying behind fencing meant to protect frog habitat.
But for the FWS, protecting the spotted frog is priority, not just for the species itself but also because saving it will help other species, like songbirds and beavers.
"Our ongoing work with partners to conserve and restore Oregon spotted frog habitat means improvements to our land and water that will benefit many other species and provide for a healthy environment for future generations," McDowell told KTVZ.
The proposal did not include designation of critical habitat, but a final ruling on the matter is expected in the fall.
Many conservationalists will always say that there is no such thing as "enough" species protection. However, new research has revealed just how the current level of marine life protection isn't even adequate enough to allow threatened ecosystems to recover. (Photo : Pixabay)
Many conservationalists will always say that there is no such thing as "enough" species protection. However, new research has revealed just how the current level of marine life protection isn't even adequate enough to allow threatened ecosystems to recover.
That's at least according to a study recently published in the journal Ecology Letters that details how parts of the ocean dedicated to protect species that perform key ecological functions are in desperate need of expansion.
"The recognition that all species are not the same and that some play more important and different roles in ocean ecology prompted this new investigation. The study was expected to identify regions with vulnerable fish populations, something that has been sidetracked by the past species richness focus," study co-author Tim McClanahan, explained in a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) release.
"If you lose species with key functions, then you undermine the ability of the ocean to provide food and other ecological services," he added." Our analysis identifies these gaps and should provide the basis to accelerate the protection of ocean functions."
(Photo : pixabay)
McClanahan and his cohorts compiled a global database on tropical fish population from 169 locations around the globe, highlighting species that have been found to be ecological keystones through past research. They compared this data on more than 6,000 key species with known distribution maps.
Alarmingly, they found that many homes of these important fish were far outside of existing marine protected areas.
Areas of high vulnerability included the coastal waters of Chile, the eastern tropical Pacific, and the eastern Atlantic Ocean - where a very finite number of fish perform key roles, and few if any shared the same role. In this way, if one species were to decline, the entire ecosystem could crumble.
With regions like these, the authors argue, all fish are not created equal, and more key species should take precedence when being considered for protection.
Caleb McClennen, Executive Director of WCS's Marine Program added that "this decision theory framework can help marine managers make recommendations about where to place marine protected areas that expand and protect the ocean's ability to provide key services."
A newly discovered mammal called the olinguito, which didn't even have its own species name until a year ago, is now building its biography with help from dozens of bird watchers, scientists and others who are sharing their glimpses of this elusive creature. (Photo : Wikimedia Commons)
A newly discovered mammal called the olinguito, which didn't even have its own species name until a year ago, is now building its biography with help from dozens of bird watchers, scientists and others who are sharing their glimpses of this elusive creature.
Now officially named Bassaricyon neblina, the olinguito became the first carnivore species to be discovered in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years. The mammal is described in the Aug. 15 issue of the journal ZooKeys.
"The discovery of the olinguito shows us that the world is not yet completely explored, its most basic secrets not yet revealed," Kristofer Helgen, curator of mammals at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and leader of the discovery team, told Smithsonian Science. "If new carnivores can still be found, what other surprises await us?"
Though it looks like a cross between a house cat and a teddy bear, the olinguito is actually a member of the raccoon family, living in the forests of Colombia and Ecuador. This tree-dwelling critter weighs around two pounds, has large eyes and woolly orange-brown fur. Until now, the olinguito had suffered from a case of mistaken identity for more than 100 years, being confused for the olingo, its larger cousin.
A team of Smithsonian scientists, however, uncovered overlooked museum specimens of this remarkable animal, and along with DNA testing and the review of historic field data, revealed the olinguito's existence.
For 10 years researchers poured over this data, showing that the animal lives in a unique area in the northern Andes Mountains at 5,000 to 9,000 feet above sea level - elevations much higher than the known species of olingo.
But more is still to be learned about this fascinating species, and so Smithsonian researchers have taken to crowdsourcing to learn about every aspect of the olinguito. Some observers have even spotted olinguitos mating and a baby tucked into a nest of leaves and soft mosses high in a tree in a Colombia preserve, according to ScienceNews.
"In the year since the announcement, the olinguito has gone from literal unknown to being surprisingly well-documented through photos and videos shot by amateur naturalists, bird watchers, and others, a kind of crowd-sourced science," Jeffrey Brown of PBS said in an interview.
Unfortunately, the researchers also realized that the rare olinguito is under pressures from human development, and 42 percent of its habitat has already been erased.
File Photo of a Giant Panda. (Photo : REUTERS/Alfred Cheng Jin)
Giant panda Ai Hin has been accused of faking her pregnancy to get extra food and attention.
Six-year-old Ai Hin, who lives at the Chengdu Breeding Research Centre, was expected to star in the world's first-ever live broadcast of a panda giving birth. But now, panda experts believe that Ai Hin might have faked her pregnancy to get attention and improve her quality of life.
"Phantom pregnancies" are quite common in giant pandas. What makes Ai Hin's case distinct, according to panda experts, is that she might have acted pregnant to get attention from the staff and trick them into providing her with better food and care.
"After showing prenatal signs, the 'mothers-to-be' are moved into single rooms with air conditioning and round-the-clock care," Wu Kongju, an employee at the Centre, told Xinhua.
"They also receive more buns, fruits and bamboo, so some clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life," he added.
Ai Hin showed signs of being pregnant in July. The panda moved slowly and even had a spike in progestational hormone, Xinhua reported. However, within two months the staff at the Chengdu Breeding Research Centre found that Ai Hin's "behavior and physiological indexes returned to normal" after she was moved to a better facility at the Centre, The Telegraph reports.
Giant pandas are solitary creatures and seldom breed in captivity, CNN reports. These animals have a very low reproduction rate, as the females are in estrus (in heat) for only 12 to 25 days each spring. Females can mate only within two to seven days during this brief fertility window. Pandas are usually fertile for just about 24 to 36 hours in a year and there is no telling whether a female is really pregnant or not. Experts have to rely on certain signs such as movement or hormonal changes to spot a pregnancy. Pseudo-pregnancies are actually quite common in giant pandas.
Conservation efforts have helped save giant pandas from going extinct. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the number of giant pandas in the wild is increasing. The last full survey of panda populations found that there are about 1,600 individuals in the wild.
Spiders get a personality boost from long-term "friendships" with fellow web-weavers, a new study finds. [Pictured: A pair of Stegodyphus dumicola females beside the colony retreat in the field.] (Photo : Springer)
Novelty isn't something to boast about if you're an arachnid. Spiders get a personality boost from long-term "friendships" with fellow web-weavers, a new study finds.
Stegodyphus dumicola, native to the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, is such an example of this kind of social spider. According to results, social interactions can shape an animal's personality.
"If you live in the same group for a long time, with the same individuals, you are able to specialize in your own niche, and therefore avoid conflict with other group members," study leader Andreas Modlmeier, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, told Live Science.
The study builds on a theory known as "social niche specialization" - the idea that within social groups, individuals have to stand out from one other. In this case, the spiders develop differing personalities, exhibited by differences in their behavior deemed "shy" or "bold."
Modlmeier and his colleagues tested the theory on Stegodyphus dumicola, which live together in communally built webs of up to 2,000 individuals.
The researchers created 84 colonies of six spiders each. Eventually they would disturb these communities, either by simply swapping one container for a new one, or by mixing up the groups of spiders.
Overall, spiders became shyer after they were disturbed, meaning they hardly moved after experiencing a simulated attack by a predator using puffs of air.
Interestingly, spiders that remained close with their same buddies over the course of the experiment became more consistent in their behavior over time, and more divergent from one another. In other words, these arachnids settled into two personality categories: bold and shy. Researchers determined this by the way they responded to fake attacks, either by daringly exhibiting movement or quietly staying still.
On the flip side, spiders that were introduced to new "friends" were less comfortable, so to speak, into settling into a distinct personality or niche.
"It's a huge part of what makes social groups successful and effective," Modlmeier explained to Live Science. "If you have a very efficient group that works together well, where everyone knows their place and has a task to work on, that group will be much more successful."
The researchers reported their findings in the journal Biology Letters.
Dogs are more than furry bundles of love that like to run and play. New research shows that they can be great personal trainers, too.
British and Australian researchers reviewed more than 20 years of research and found "considerable evidence" that dog ownership is linked with higher levels of physical activity.
What was most striking was that owners who were more attached to their dogs were more likely to take them on walks, helping both man and his best friend stay fit, according to the study, published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.
But not all pups get to frequently stretch their paws - it's estimated that only 60 percent of dog owners regularly walk their dogs.
Dr. Carri Westgarth of the University of Liverpool, and lead author of the study, wanted to figure out how to motivate people to use dog walking as a form of exercise. People who worry about their pooches' behavior are less inclined to take it for a nice stroll in the park, she explains in a press release, but this only adds fuel to the fire, because "lack of walks may also be causing this bad behavior, due to boredom, frustration or lack of socialization."
The solution, in Westgarth's opinion, is a combination of factors. It includes more pet-friendly neighborhoods - equipped with off-leash and poo-disposal facilities - better education and improved relationships with pets.
Teaching owners the benefits of a 30-minute daily walk - in line with the American Heart Association guidelines for physical activity - is key.
That means healthier pets as well as healthier owners.
"If all people who owned a dog walked with it every day, physical activity levels would be much improved," Westgarth said, "benefiting the health of both the owners and their canine companions."
Monarch butterflies have declined by more than 90 percent since 1990, and conservationists fear that they could disappear from North America altogether if more isn't done to protect their habitats.
In a legal petition filed Tuesday, conservation groups asked the Obama administration to deem the monarchs as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
"Monarchs are in a deadly free fall and the threats they face are now so large in scale that Endangered Species Act protection is needed sooner rather than later, while there is still time to reverse the severe decline in the heart of their range," Lincoln Brower, a conservationist who has studied monarchs since 1954 and who joined the petition, said in a press release.
These brilliant orange and black butterflies can be found throughout the United States, and make a spectacular migration each year from Canada to Mexico. But where they are getting hit hardest is in the Midwest.
Where there were once one billion of these butterflies in the mid-1990s, there are now only 35 million - the lowest their population has ever been.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, who led the petition, widespread use of herbicides on genetically engineered crops is killing their only food supply - milkweed. Since the 1990s, American farmers have increasingly planted seeds that are genetically modified to resist herbicides like Monsanto's Roundup weed killer, a practice that in turn destroys milkweed.
And herbicides aren't the only factor threatening monarchs and their habitats. Climate change, drought, heat waves, and logging on their Mexican wintering grounds are also putting these insects at risk.
"We need to take immediate action to protect the monarch so that it doesn't become another tragic example of a widespread species being erased because we falsely assumed it was too common to become extinct," said Sarina Jepsen, endangered species director at the Xerces Society.
Monarchs have lost more than 165 million acres of habitat -- an area about the size of Texas - in the past two decades, a swath that includes nearly a third of their summer breeding grounds, the conservation groups said in their petition. A similar threat is facing other types of "pollinators," including honeybees, birds and bats, which have all seen their populations decline in recent decades.
Patrick the wombat turned 29 over the weekend, marking yet another successful and happy year for the world's oldest living wombat. (Photo : Ballarat Wildlife Park )
Patrick the wombat turned 29 over the weekend, marking yet another successful and happy year for the world's oldest living wombat.
Patrick turned 29 on Aug. 24, earning a great deal of love and congratulations from his friends and adopted family at the Ballarat Wildlife Park in Ballarat, Australia.
This latest birthday makes Patrick the oldest known wombat in captivity by 14 years. It also makes him likely one of the oldest, if not the oldest common wombat on Earth. Most of Patrick's species only live to around five years old in the wild, after fully maturing by age 2.
Patrick weighs nearly 90 pounds (~40 kg) in total, complete with a barrel-like body, short powerful legs and long flat claws more adapted for tunneling than walking.
He is affectionately called the "Wombassador" by admirers all over Australia, and is often brought out in a wheelbarrow to meet and greet park visitors. They are often floored by the incredible size of the cuddly animal, who looks a great deal like a giant hamster.
(Photo : Facebook/Patrick the Wombat/Ballarat Wildlife Park )
Patrick fell under the international spotlight recently after being named one of the top eight city mascots in the world by CNN. He even found his way onto the Today Show last month.
His fame has allowed him to meet some pretty well-known celebrities, including Nicolas Cage, Kirstie Alley and Kim Cattrall, according to the Ballarat Wildlife Park.
Unfortunately, there are not likely to be any little Patricks waddling around anytime soon, if ever. Patrick is nearly a 30-year-old virgin, having never fathered children or even interacted with a partner in all his time at the park.
Despite how much he enjoys cuddling with the staff and greeting park visitors, the massive wombat seems to also enjoy the bachelor's life, complimentary birthday carrots included, of course.
(Photo : Facebook/Patrick the Wombat/Ballarat Wildlife Park)
Although sightings of bears, mountain lions and wolves are relatively rare in Illinois, the three are now protected species under state law. (Photo : Flickr: Brian Gatwicke)
Although sightings of bears, mountain lions and wolves are relatively rare in Illinois, the three are now protected species under state law.
On Monday, Gov. Pat Quinn signed into legislation a bill that places gray wolves, American black bears and mountain lions, or cougars, under the state's protection. The Illinois Wildlife Code, which goes into effect Jan. 1, allows the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) to manage the species for the protection of both wildlife and public safety.
The move was prompted by recent encounters with all three species, which are native to the state but haven't inhabited the area since the mid-1800s.
"Wolves, mountain lions and black bears have been absent from Illinois for more than 150 years. As the populations of these animals continue to grow, we expect to see occasional individuals dispersing from their current ranges into Illinois," IDNR Director Marc Miller said in a press release. "This law gives the Department the ability to create long-term management goals and to draft response protocols on managing human-wildlife conflicts with these three species."
Earlier this summer, a black bear made a 300-mile trek through the northern part of the state, although there have been no sightings since then, with the bear now believed to be in Wisconsin, The News-Gazette reported. In December, a female gray wolf was killed by a vehicle in LaSalle County. The Midwest's wolf population is found mostly in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan; however, they are now making their way farther south, according to conservation officials.
And in November, an Illinois Conservation Police officer shot and killed a cougar in Whiteside County after it was spotted by a farm owner. The IDNR doesn't believe that cougars are currently breeding in Illinois, but individual big cats have occasionally trekked into the state, with three confirmed sightings between 2002 and 2008.
Before now, only the gray wolf had protection in Illinois as an endangered species, meaning it cannot be killed unless it presents an imminent threat to people. Now, this legislation extends similar protections to black bears and mountain lions. Although, the new law also allows landowners to apply for nuisance permits to kill animals that are not immediate threats to people or property.
At any rate, state officials don't expect this trio of species to re-colonize, given that Illinois doesn't have enough suitable space to house all three populations. According to habitat models, only about 14.7 percent of the state is suitable for black bears, 6.6 percent for mountain lions and 14 percent for gray wolves.
Fishing spiders, the largest and one of the six variations of the species, has been spotted in Wisconsin more times this year than is typical, according to local reports. (Photo : Flickr: Fyn Kynd)
Fishing spiders, the largest and one of the six variations of the species, has been spotted in Wisconsin more times this year than is typical, according to local reports.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) says that they have received more than 10 reports this year about sightings of this large, dark arachnid.
On Thursday, the DNR posted a picture on their Facebook page showing an enormous, terrifying spider, asking whether people have seen it. So far, the picture has received 2,000 comments and was shared over 10,000 times.
(Photo : Facebook)
"Fishing spiders are one of our native species of spider," Linda Williams, a forest health specialist with the state DNR in Green Bay, explained to 620WTMJ. "Most people never see fishing spiders because they're very well camouflaged, but they're out there hunting."
According to the DNR's Facebook post, fishing spiders are one of the largest species of spiders, which feed on very small fish as well as tadpoles, and even sometimes slugs.
"It's really kind of unique. We don't have a lot of spiders that are capable of doing that," Williams commented.
These eight-legged creatures can grow up to three inches across, and typically hang around stream and lakes, but they can range inland for a mile or more. The photo released shows a female fishing spider guarding her egg sac.
And even though these spiders aren't dangerous to humans, most people do not like that sightings are becoming more frequent.
"If these are becoming common in Wisconsin then I'm moving to Antarctica," one person commented on Facebook.
A fishing spider won't bite a human unless it's provoked. But in the case that you are bitten, it would feel like something probably less than a bee sting. It would be your average spider bite," Williams said.
If you come across one of these giant spiders, you should let it be or take it outside if you find it in your garage or home... if you're brave enough.
A goliath grouper surprised a group of fishermen earlier this month when it snatched a shark off their line and swallowed it whole in one giant bite. (Photo : YouTube)
Sharks may not be the baddest creatures in the sea after all.
A goliath grouper surprised a group of fishermen earlier this month when it snatched a shark off their line and swallowed it whole in one giant bite.
A YouTube video of the catch shows the fishermen reeling in a 4-foot black-tip shark off the coast of Bonita Springs in Florida - only to have the shark disappear in the blink of an eye as the grouper appeared.
[Credit: Gimbb14]
Uploaded Aug. 19 by fisherman and reddit user Gimbb14, the video has already racked up more than 19 million hits at last count.
After the unexpected feeding frenzy, the fishermen simply sat back and laughed as they watched nature take its course.
Gimbb14 wrote on reddit of the amazing incident: "As I was dehooking the shark, the goliath came back and inspected but didn't attack him. Finally, about an hour after the nurse shark, I hooked the black tip [shark] behind the boat in the chum slick, and then the hilarity in the video began."
Goliath groupers in the Atlantic can grow to about 8 feet long and weigh as much as 800 pounds, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
The goliath grouper (Epinephelus itajara) can be found in the western Atlantic Ocean from Florida south to Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. They occur in shallow, inshore waters to depths of 150 feet (46 meters), and prefer areas of rock, coral, and mud bottoms.
These solitary creatures are noted not just for their size, but for a unique feature that involves an audible rumbling sound generated by the muscular contraction of the swim bladder. This sound travels great distances underwater and is also used to locate other goliath grouper.
It's also ironic that predators of these massive sea creatures include sandbar and great hammerhead sharks.
Though, clearly that doesn't stop this goliath grouper from taking a bite.
New research has revealed that more than 100,000 elephants were killed in the last three years alone, butchered for their ivory tusks.
As a result, the world's wild African elephants are endangered and on the track towards extinction, with populations declining two to three percent a year.
This study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reinforces the growing concern about elephant poaching, and is the first to provide a verifiable estimation of the impacts of the ongoing ivory crisis.
"Our data has become the most sensitive barometer of change during this poaching epidemic. We needed to quantify the scale of killing and figure out how to derive rigorous interpretation of poaching rates," lead author George Wittemyer of Colorado State University said in a statement.
Using monitoring data collected throughout Africa, but primarily focused on elephants in Samburu in northern Kenya, the researchers determined that over the last decade, the number of elephants killed has risen from 25 percent to between 60 percent and 70 percent. According to experts, anything over 54 percent is a threat to population numbers, as elephant birth rates cannot overcome such a high death toll.
"History has taught us that numbers alone are no defense against attrition from the ivory trade, and this new work confirms that elephant numbers are decreasing in East, Central and Southern Africa," added co-author Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of the organization Save the Elephants.
It is thought there may have been as many as 3-5 million African elephants in the 1930s and 1940s. However, in the wake of hunting for their valuable tusks, there are now only an estimated 300,000 elephants roaming the continent, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Ivory is used either for trophies or for the art of ivory carving and jewelry making
The United States recently took a stand on the ivory trade when first New Jersey and then New York enacted stricter bans on all ivory and rhino horn products.
(Photo : Facebook/Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center )
What is suspected to be a large and rare sei whale unfortunately died yesterday after being stranded in Virginia's Elizabeth River for several days. Experts who were on the scene had suspected there was something very wrong with the animal, and are due to perform a necropsy to determine the exact cause of death.
The whale was first noticed in the wide Elizabeth River on Monday. It was reportedly acting very strange in the river's Southern Branch near the Jordan Bridge and Paradise Creek, where the Fifth Coast Guard District caught the whale on film.
By Tuesday, the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center (VAMSC) became involved, dispatching a stranding response team to monitor the situation alongside the NOAA's Office of Law Enforcement. At the time, the team and the NOAA agreed that the best course of action was to simply observe the whale, as any action taken could cause it to become severely stressed.
However, by Tuesday things has turned for the worse, with the VAMSC reporting that the whale had moved to shallow water and was not moving by Jordan Bridge.
"We are hoping that during a high tide the whale will swim to deeper water. Officials, including the Stranding Response Team, will be on site monitoring the situation. NOAA Guidelines prohibit interacting with the whale at this time," they said in a statement on social media.
(Photo : Facebook/Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center )
Unfortunately, by Thursday the whale had perished. Marine Patrol Police were with the Virginia Aquarium's Stranding Response Team on Thursday to monitor the whale and found it motionless off St. Julien's Creek Annex in Portsmouth.
"It swam out of the shallows overnight," the team reported. "As the situation unfolds, plans are being made to perform a necropsy (animal autopsy). Immediate results may or may not indicate probable cause of death. Tissue and blood samples will be drawn for further study."
"This is heartbreaking news and difficult to understand," VAMSC said that morning.
The team had already started to receive a significant amount of criticism for not doing more to help the animal, but the aquarium staff stood by their decision to not turn the animal around and help it find the ocean.
"Whales come to the surface to breath. One theory is that marine mammals strand to prevent drawing. If an animal is sick or weak and it cannot swim anymore, it would be inhumane to push it back out," a representative explained. "While it would be 'out of sight, out of mind for us,' it would likely suffer more in that situation."
Lizards may be the key to unlocking the mystery of limb regeneration, according to new research. (Photo : Flickr: Jean-Jacques Boujot)
Lizards may be the key to unlocking the mystery of limb regeneration, according to new research. Scientists have discovered the genetic "recipe" for lizard tail regeneration, which may lie in a goldilocks mixture of certain genes.
The research team used next-generation molecular and computer analysis tools to examine the genes turned on in tail regeneration - specifically, they looked at the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis).
The findings were published in the journalPLOS ONE.
"Lizards basically share the same toolbox of genes as humans," lead author Kenro Kusumi, a professor in Arizona State University's School of Life Science, said in a statement.
"Lizards are the most closely-related animals to humans that can regenerate entire appendages. We discovered that they turn on at least 326 genes in specific regions of the regenerating tail, including genes involved in embryonic development, response to hormonal signals and wound healing," he explained.
In their analysis, researchers discovered what is called the "Wnt pathway" - a process that is required to control stem cells in many organs such as the brain, hair follicles and blood vessels. Other animals like salamanders, frogs, tadpoles and fish can also regenerate their tails, but lizards have a unique pattern of tissue growth that is distributed throughout the tail, not just at the tip like other animals.
Though, researchers note that tail regeneration is not something that happens overnight. It usually takes these reptiles more than 60 days to completely develop a new, functional tail.
After investigating this complex process, the ASU team identified one type of cell that is important for tissue regeneration.
"Just like in mice and humans, lizards have satellite cells that can grow and develop into skeletal muscle and other tissues," said co-author Jeanne Wilson-Rawls.
Researchers are hopeful that if this unique gene sequence is applied to humans, one day it could lead to the regeneration of new cartilage, muscle or even spinal cord.
A young boy from Japan's Gunma Prefecture recently stumbled upon something extremely rare - a vibrantly pink adult grasshopper. (Photo : Flickr: Gilles San Martin)
A young boy from Japan's Gunma Prefecture recently stumbled upon something extremely rare - a vibrantly pink adult grasshopper.
What's extraordinary is that the sixth-grader actually managed to capture the agile insect, landing him a feature on his country's main national new channel Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK).
And while some might mourn this grasshopper, doomed to a life in a tiny plastic habitat, it's also very likely that its capture will allow the insect to avoid an inevitable and violent death.
Grasshoppers are traditionally green or brown for a reason. Their natural coloring allows them to hide from prey even as their powerful legs propel them around tall grasses. On instinct, a pink grasshopper will act similarly to any other insect, staying perfectly still when it senses a nearby predator in the hopes that it will be mistaken for vegetation.
However, it wouldn't be very hard to notice the young boy's "Mr. Hopper" in a field of green. In fact, it's a near-miracle the insect survived as long as it did with its unusual coloration.
Mark Bushell, assistant curator of invertebrates at Bristol Zoo Gardens, told BBC News back in 2012 that brightly colored grasshoppers were "fairly unusual but not unheard of."
"They may not tend to survive for long in the wild as they are easily spotted by predators," he said, "so it is a treat to see a grasshopper as beautiful as this."
(Photo : Flickr: emills1) The Northern Green-Striped Grasshopper (Chortophaga viridifasciata) with erythrism.
The expert added that nymphs sometimes boast a pinkish coloration, but that it tends to fade to a brown or dark pinkish-purple as the insect becomes an adult. True vibrant pink insects are instead the consequence of genetic mutation, not unlike albinism.
The mutation is called erythrism, and it promotes the over-expression of pigments. According to Victoria Hillman, a National Geographic Explorer and Research Director for the Transylvanian Wildlife Project, this mutation was first identified by entomologists in 1887 and is occasionally seen all over the world.
However, if you do see one, I recommend getting yourself to the nearest casino as fast as possible. Dutch photographer Roeselien Rasimond, who made it her mission to capture this rare phenomenon on film, says that there is a greater chance of winning the lottery than finding one.
Researchers have found that burst swimming or "sprinting" among salmon can lead to the fish having heart attacks mere feet from their spawning grounds, journeying so very far only to tragically die near the very end. (Photo : Marvina Munch/USFWS)
Researchers have found that burst swimming or "sprinting" among salmon can lead to the fish having heart attacks mere feet from their spawning grounds, journeying so very far only to tragically die near the very end.
Traditionally, when fish like the sockeye salmon encounter fast and turbulent water - such as parts of river just downstream of a dam - they launch into a swimming "sprint," fighting the rapids and trying to get to calmer water as fast as possible.
This makes for some fantastic imagery, with the determined fish valiantly climbing their way up a seemingly impassible obstacle. It is also the same behavior that allow fish ladders - man-made steps that lead fish around modern dams - to work.
However, this action can have a tragic effect on some salmon.
"Days after sockeye passed through extremely fast-moving water, we started to see fish dying only a short distance from their spawning grounds," Nicholas Burnett, a research biologist at the University of British Columbia said in a recent release.
Burnett and a team of his colleagues found that this burst swimming for too long creates a build-up of stress metabolites like lactic acid in the blood, and may lead to cardiac collapse or heart attacks.
They also found hat female salmon, which are essential for the spawning process at the end of the hard migration, were more likely to experience this "delayed mortality," supporting past theories that female salmon are more sensitive to environmental hardships.
"We now understand how this important but energetically costly swimming behavior can impact the survival of sockeye during their upstream migration," said Burnett. "Our work demonstrates how important it is for salmon to have easy access around obstacles in the river."
Obstacles, he says, like dams and their resulting rapids, need to be somehow circumvented if conversationalists want salmon populations to remains strong and healthy in the years to come.
The study was published in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology.
The deadly Ebola virus that is sweeping across west Africa, infecting and killing thousands of people, is thought have had originated in small and unassuming animals. Researchers have stumbled upon a number of carriers of the disease in the animal kingdom, where it is just as much an epidemic as it is in urban Africa. Some hope that finding the source of the disease will help them understand how it suddenly became so prevalent among humans. (Photo : REUTERS)
The deadly Ebola virus that is sweeping across west Africa, infecting and killing thousands of people, is thought have had originated in small and unassuming animals. Researchers have stumbled upon a number of carriers of the disease in the animal kingdom, where it is just as much an epidemic as it is in urban Africa. Some hope that finding the source of the disease will help them understand how it suddenly became so prevalent among humans.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of Aug. 18, 1,350 people have died from Ebola virus disease (EVD) - formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever - with more than 1,100 additional cases of infection confirmed and currently receiving treatment. Even with early medical care from aid groups based in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the WHO expects that about 90 percent of those affected will not survive the disease.
Nature World News recently reported about the new "miracle cure" that recently saved the lives of one American missionary and one doctor who were working in Liberia; however, that treatment is still considered "highly experimental" and was only administered to the Americans on compassionate grounds by the drug's manufacturers. The unfortunate truth is that there is no cure coming to west Africa anytime soon.
And experts know it.
Eating Some Bad Bat
That's why researchers are scrambling to confirm the biological origin of the outbreak, which was first identified in remote villages in the rainforest of eastern Guinea.
As of last March, Guinea officials had banned the sale and consumption of bat meat, according to BBC News. Rene Lamah, of Guinea's health ministry, hastily announced the ban while taking a tour of the forested region - the suspected epicenter of the epidemic.
You might be thinking, "Well of course eating bat would make you sick! That's why you don't eat bat!" But in fact, a lot of people do eat bat, and not only in remote villages in the rainforests of Guinea.
(Photo : Wiki CC0 - Gunawan Kartapranata) Paniki (Fruit Bat) meat cooked in spicy Rica green chilli pepper. An exotic Indonesian dish.
Travelers in parts of China, Thailand, Guam and even Australia might run across bats in food markets and restaurants. Varieties of fruit bats, including the sizable flying fox bat, are the most popular to eat. They are meaty and often beheaded, then deep fried with pepper and onions and sold as street food in more urban settings. For the most part, bat is just as healthy as any other bush meat.
Of course, the animal's diet certainly influences how safe it is. About 10 years ago, researchers found that flying fox dishes in Guam were actually slowly poisoning Chamorro people with a neurotoxin the foraging bats got from cycad seeds. However, the fruit-heavy diet of Guinea's bat population doesn't include this harmful seed.
Still, the bat ban was certainly not the wrong idea. Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family have always been considered to be the natural host of the Ebola virus, and the first suspected victims commonly handled and prepared bat corpses for their village.
However, the actual transmission of bat-borne Ebola to humans was never confirmed.
A Wild Goose (Bat?) Chase
A study published in the journal Viruses last April found that Ebola has long been circulating among a great number of fruit bat species that find their homes across Asia, west Africa, Central Africa and the Congo.
However, similar to a study conducted on MERS-carrying Camels in Saudi Arabia, it simply left the question, "why now?" What exactly was so special about last December (when Guinea's first cases were identified) that sparked a massive outbreak in a portion of the world that has always seen just small and contained cases?
(Photo : U.S. Air Force - Staff Sgt. Melissa B. White)
Disease ecologist Kevin Olival, the author of the study, admitted that even with the virus pumping through their blood, "the evidence is scant that bats are to blame for the West African outbreak."
In the wake of this study's publication, Fabian Leendertz, an epidemiologist and disease ecologist at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, led a 17-member team to Guinea. He hoped to conclusively identify a strong animal-to-human transferrable - a process called zoonosis - strain of the virus the in the local fauna.
The study's results remain unpublished, but the researcher did reveal to Science News that they didn't find anything compelling.
"We were still three months late," Leendertz added. "Many things may have changed in the meantime."
It may simply be that disease carriers had already moved away from the area, with migration and unrelated environmental changes causing the outbreak's true culprits to wander away before the research team showed up.
"We didn't stumble across any dead animals," he lamented.
The Clue is in the Corpses
That sounds like a pretty morbid thing to be upset about, but the researcher has good reason to be disappointed.
A study conducted in 2012 found that a focused analysis of recently deceased animal populations in Ebola-affected regions were far more successful at identifying the responsible virus strain, compared to a study of live samples.
(Photo : Flickr: Miran Rijavec (Artist in doing nothing))
"You can't test every single animal, so we used information from historical outbreaks to figure out how to help the field response team focus their effort," Sarah Olson, a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) epidemiologist and the lead author of the report, explained in a statement. "It turns out that carcass sampling yields a 50 percent chance of finding Ebola virus or antibodies compared to less than six percent when sampling free-ranging live animals."
The study occurred in the wake of the predictable and contained Ebola outbreaks that occur in rural parts of Central Africa.
"This study digests over 30 years of accumulated knowledge so field teams can arrive informed and prepared," added senior author Damien Joly.
Interestingly, the study reports that only three percent of sample bat populations were carrying implicated Ebola strains. It was actually the carcasses of gorillas and chimpanzees that proved to be the most useful samples.
Too Little To Late
Unfortunately, a study published just this month in the Journal of Animal Ecology supports the theory that Leendertz and other investigators did indeed miss their opportunity to find the Ebola zoonosis source.
If gorillas are the prime samples, the affected population was likely long gone three months into the outbreak.
(Photo : pixabay)
According to Pascaline Le Gouar, senior author of the study, Ebola disrupts gorillas in a very unique way, with entire populations quickly moving from an affected region and dissolving.
"Along with the decrease in survival and in reproduction, Ebola outbreak perturbed social dynamics in gorilla populations," Le Gouar explained in a release.
According to the study, once gorillas became aware of an Ebola threat they began to purposely isolate themselves, no longer immigrating with neighboring populations and only rarely breeding. The result? The virus quickly runs out of hosts, disappearing from shrinking populations entirely in the course of a few months.
And while that's good for gorillas, it leaves investigators with nothing to work with, who find themselves back at square one.
It appears that tree-climbing snakes may actually be afraid of heights - or at least you'd think so based on how tightly they grip branches. Researchers have found that when a snake climbs a tree, it holds on up to five times harder than necessary. (Photo : Flickr: iamNigelMorris )
It appears that tree-climbing snakes may actually be afraid of heights - or at least you'd think so based on how tightly they grip branches. Researchers have found that when a snake climbs a tree, it holds on up to five times harder than necessary.
A simple pipe wrapped in tennis grip may not seem like a particularly impressive piece of lab tech, but that's all researchers needed to finally measure the grip of tree pythons, constrictors and other climbing snakes.
According a study recently published in the journal Biology Letters, a series of small sensors lining the pipe determined that all 10 snakes tested gripped the pipe much tighter than they needed to when climbing to an elevated height, burning more energy in the process.
Greg Byrnes, who authored the study, claims that this may indicate that snakes value safety precautions over efficiency.
"What's interesting about this, is it's a choice by the animal to do more than they necessarily need to do," he told BBC News. "In other fields of biology, you see large safety factors, but this was the first time anyone's really tested something where the animal's choosing to give itself a safety factor."
Five species were tested in total, but Byrnes was especially surprised that boa constrictors appear to value a "safety first" climbing tactic just as much as the next snake.
Constrictors are infamous for their ability to squeeze just enough when killing prey, always stopping their deadly chokehold at the very moment their prey's heart stops. This helps the snake conserve valuable energy, as literally squeezing the life out of a meal can be hungry work.
They thought that the constrictors would employ the same cold efficiency when climbing trees, only holding on as tight as would be needed to support their significant weight. However, it turns out these snakes are just as cautious as the rest of us.
