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Rarest Rhinoceros Wrecks Camera (May 30, 2008) The world's rarest rhinoceros has been captured on film by a specially installed camera in the jungles of Java, Indonesia. But the female rhino, which was accompanied by a calf, promptly charged the camera, sending it flying. The animals are at severe risk of extinction, with only 60-70 animals left in the wild.
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Source: BBC |
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Oldest Parrot Fossil Found - In Scandinavia? (May 26, 2008) The fictional dead Scandinavian parrot that an unhappy customer tried to return in a famous Monty Python TV sketch may have a 54-million-year-old real-life ancestor, if a new study is to be believed. An ancient bird found on Denmark's Isle of Mors has already been nicknamed the "Danish blue" in honor of the fictional "Norweigan blue" breed of parrot featured in the 1970s British comedy show.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Chameleons Fine Tune Camouflage to Predator's Vision (May 22, 2008) Chameleons' mastery of camouflage goes further than anyone expected – it seems they can fine-tune their colour changes to the visual systems of specific predators. Devi Stuart-Fox at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues studied the Smith's dwarf chameleon(Bradypodion taeniabronchum), which lives in South Africa. This critically endangered chameleon can alter its colour palette in milliseconds, either for camouflage or for social signalling.
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Source: New Scientist |
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Fewer Caribou Born as Warming Causes Missed Meals (May 13, 2008) Greenland's caribou work up quite a hunger during their long migrations. But global warming now has the animals arriving late for dinner—and paying a heavy price. Fewer caribou calves are being born in the western part of the Danish island, and those that are born have slimmer chances of surviving, a new study reports.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Many Asian Vultures Close to Extinction, Survey Finds
(May 04, 2008) Several species of Asian vulture will be extinct within a decade, new research warns. The carrion-eating birds have been on the decline due to exposure to a common livestock drug. Now a survey of vultures in northern and central India has found the birds' populations have plunged to near-extinction levels—one species is down 99.9 percent since surveys began in the 1990s.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Lizards Rapidly Evolve after Introduction to Island (Apr 26, 2008) Italian wall lizards introduced to a tiny island off the coast of Croatia are evolving in ways that would normally take millions of years to play out, new research shows. In just a few decades the 5-inch-long (13-centimeter-long) lizards have developed a completely new gut structure, larger heads, and a harder bite, researchers say.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Diseases Threat to Rare Wild Cats (Apr 16, 2008) A vet has urged cat owners to neuter and vaccinate their pets against diseases in an effort to help protect Scotland's rare wildcat population. Jane Harley, who is based in the Cairngorms National Park, said the species was at risk from picking up highly contagious conditions.
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Source: BBC |
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World's Largest Catfish Species Threatened by Dam (Apr 11, 2008)
In the swift currents of the Mekong River in northern Cambodia, fishers expertly navigate their longboats past rock outcroppings and fallen logs. But soon these wild waters may be tamed. Plans for the construction of a large hydroelectric dam just across the border, at Khone Falls in Laos, would permanently alter one of the most pristine areas in Southeast Asia.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Wildlife Park Official Arrested in Gorilla Killings (Mar 27, 2008)
Congolese authorities have arrested a senior park official in connection to the recent execution-style killings of several mountain gorillas, a move that conservationists have praised as a crucial step toward saving the rare primates. Ten mountain gorillas were slaughtered in separate incidents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park in 2007.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Nets Threaten Rare New Zealand Dolphins (Mar 24, 2008)
The deaths of 22 dolphins in trawler nets prompted fresh calls Wednesday for the New Zealand government to ban two types of fishing nets from the habitats of two critically endangered species of dolphin. The World Wildlife Fund said that Maui's dolphins, which are found only along North Island's west coast and are on the brink of extinction, urgently need protection from set nets and trawler nets if they are to survive.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Tail "Key" for Gecko Acrobatics
(Mar 18, 2008) A gecko's tail is as crucial to the animal's acrobatic ability as its "sticky" feet, scientists report. High-speed video reveals that the creature uses its tail as a "fifth leg" to prevent it from slipping as it climbs wet surfaces. And the footage shows that if it does fall, a flick of the tail is all it takes for the gecko to land feet-down.
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Source: BBC |
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Rare Leatherback Turtles Gain Protection in Costa Rica
(Mar 14, 2008) As dawn breaks on Playa Grande, the light reveals shallow sand pits where leatherback sea turtles laid their eggs the night before. This Costa Rican beach, a 2-mile-long (3.2-kilometer-long) stretch of sand popular with surfers, is guarded around the clock by a small army of biologists and volunteers from the Leatherback Trust, a nonprofit group working to save the world's largest sea turtles from extinction.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Rare White Killer Whale Spotted (Mar 10, 2008) A white killer whale—fin pictured here— was recently spotted in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, sending researchers and their ship's crew scrambling for cameras. "I had heard about this whale, but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it."
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Source: National Geographic |
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Antarctic Fish "Hibernate" in Winter (Mar 09, 2008)
Antarctic cod go "on ice" and take a nap during the long winter months, a new study shows. The cod hunker down on the seafloor, reduce their feeding, and slow their heart rates—probably as a way to survive Antarctica's dark winters, when the fish might have a harder time spotting prey.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Green Sea Turtle to get Fake Flipper (Mar 01, 2008)
A three-year-old green sea turtle with only one flipper may be the first sea turtle to be fitted with a prosthetic appendage. The turtle was found in 2005 with fresh predator wounds, probably from a shark, said Jeff George, a curator at Sea Turtle, Inc., a South Padre Island, Texas-based turtle rescue organization.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Wildlife Trade Booming in Burmese Casino Town
(Feb 28, 2008) In a rundown casino town in northern Myanmar (Burma) market-goers can find everything from bear paws to tiger parts—evidence of a booming wildlife trade. However, recent crackdowns by governments in Southeast Asia may slow the illegal business, experts say. On a 2007 trip to Möng La, on Myanmar's border with China, wildlife photographer Karl Ammann found a vast array of animal body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine, including bear paws and gall bladders, big-cat teeth
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Source: National Geographic |
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Crab, Shark Invasion May Threaten Antarctic Marine Life
(Feb 18, 2008) Antarctica's native marine life is under threat from invasions of king crabs and other predators, researchers said today. As Earth's oceans heat up because of global warming, king crabs will likely expand into waters that were previously too chilly for them to survive.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Trading in Tiger Parts Unrelenting in Sumatra (Feb 13, 2008)
Tiger parts are still being widely sold in Sumatra, Indonesia, warns a new report. However, with tiger numbers dwindling, the illegal trade is looking like an increasingly unsustainable, as well as unsavoury, business. Traffic, a wildlife monitoring network which works with WWF and the World Conservation Union, says the number of Sumatran tigers that are being illegally poached and sold is dropping. But that is not good news. The group surveyed 326 shops across the Indonesian island of Sumatra in 2006 and found that 33 were selling body parts amounting to at least 23 tigers.
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Source: New Scientist |
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Flying Lemurs with "Backpacks" Reveal Gliding Secrets
(Feb 13, 2008) Gliding mammals equipped with high-tech "backpacks" chock full of sensors are giving scientists new insights into aerial maneuverability, a new study reports. The study focused on the Malayan colugo, a cat-size animal commonly called a flying lemur—even though it is not a true lemur, nor does it technically fly.
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Source: National Geographic |
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"Virgin Hatching"? Komodos Born Despite No Male (Feb 11, 2008) Two Komodo dragons have hatched at a Kansas zoo, apparently without fertilization by a male. The dragons—both males—are believed to be the first in North America known to have hatched by parthenogenesis—reproduction without fertilization—which occurs naturally in some species, including invertebrates and lower plants. It happens more rarely in some vertebrates.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Rhino Poaching Rise Spurs India to Deploy Armed Guards
(Feb 07, 2008) Authorities in India's remote northeast will deploy a hundred armed guards to a protected game reserve after poachers killed a rare one-horned rhinoceros—the fourth this year—at the park, a senior official said Wednesday. "We are alarmed at the seemingly organized poaching by gangs at the Kaziranga National Park," Assam state Forest and Environment Minister Rockybul Hussain said.
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Source: National Geographic |
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New Monkey Species Found in Remote Amazon (Feb 05, 2008)
A previously unknown species of uakari monkey was found during recent hunting trips in the Amazon, a New Zealand primatologist has announced. Jean-Phillipe Boubli of the University of Auckland found the animal after following native Yanomamo Indians on their hunts along the Rio Aracá, a tributary of the Rio Negro in Brazil.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Largest Elephant Shrew Discovered in Africa (Feb 01, 2008)
An elephant among elephant shrews has been found in remote forests in East Africa, scientists announced today. The previously unknown, squirrel-size species is the world's largest known elephant shrew and the only new species from the group to be discovered in more than a century, wildlife researchers say.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Hummingbird "Uses Tail to Chirp" (Jan 30, 2008)
A species of hummingbird makes a chirping noise with its tail feathers, not its throat, a study using high-speed video has suggested. The exact source of the noise from male Anna's hummingbirds has been the subject of debate among researchers.
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Source: BBC |
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Flame Retardants Found in Rare Tasmanian Devils (Jan 28, 2008)
Flame retardants that are suspected carcinogens have been found in some of Australia's Tasmanian devils, researchers announced last week. The find triggered local media reports suggesting that the chemicals might be linked to the mysterious cancer that has been killing the rare marsupials for more than a decade.
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Source: National Geographic |
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U.S Jaguar Plan Foiled by Border Fence, Critics Say (Jan 22, 2008)
The U.S. Department of the Interior has abandoned attempts to craft a recovery plan for the endangered Some critics of the decision said Thursday the jaguar is being sacrificed for the government's new border fence, which is going up along many of the same areas where the cat has crossed into the United States from Mexico.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Collar "Key" to Snow Leopard Secrets (Jan 18, 2008)
Lying somewhere in the mountainous, snow-cloaked terrain of Pakistan's Tooshi Game Reserve is a collar that could help unlock the secrets of the elusive snow leopard. For the past year, this piece of hi-tech equipment has sat around the neck of a wild snow leopard, recording, via the global positioning system (GPS), almost every step of her travels as she roamed the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
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Source: BBC |
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Parasite Makes Ant Resemble Berries (Jan 17, 2008)
Fruit pickers beware. That red berry might actually be an infested ant's rear end. Scientists have discovered a parasite in the tropical forests of Central and South America that makes its ant hosts look like juicy, red berries ripe for the picking. Presumably the change in appearance tricks foraging birds into eating the otherwise unappetizing ants—parasites and all. The parasites travel through the birds' guts intact and are pooped out, which allows them to spread.
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Source: National Geographic |
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