Island-dwelling white-eyes have long been dubbed "great speciators" for their apparent ability to rapidly form new species across geographies where other birds show little or no diversification.
The global trade in frog legs for human consumption is threatening their extinction, according to a new study by an international team including University of Adelaide researchers.
New data released today by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Malaysia's Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) reveals that a population of endangered Asian elephants living in a Malaysian park may be the largest in Southeast Asia.
Last winter, government agencies killed one third of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd due to concerns about the possible spread of a livestock disease to cattle that graze in areas around the park. Such drastic measures may be unnecessary, however, according to researchers who have assessed the risk of disease transmission from Yellowstone bison to cattle.
A treasure trove of information about pre-human New Zealand has been found in faeces from giant extinct birds, buried beneath the floor of caves and rock shelters for thousands of years.
New tires allow race cars to take tight turns at high speeds. Hind wings give moths and butterflies similar advantages: They are not necessary for basic flight but help these creatures take tight turns to evade predators.
Human-made light sources can alter natural light cycles, causing animals that rely on light cues to make mistakes when moving through their environment. In the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a collaboration of ecologists, biologists and biophysicists has now shown that in addition to direct light, cues from polarized light can trigger animal behaviors leading to injury and often death.
Pterosaurs have long suffered an identity crisis. Pop culture heedlessly "” and wrongly "” lumps these extinct flying lizards in with dinosaurs. Even paleontologists assumed that because the creatures flew, they were birdlike in many ways, such as using only two legs to take flight.
The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society announced today that its efforts to protect a wildlife-rich coastal region in South America have paid off in the form of a new coastal marine park recently signed into law by the Government of Argentina.
The more an animal walks during the day, the less energy it has to reproduce. Makes sense right? Not so fast, say two researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. They claim, based on a study of 161 mammalian species, that on average, animals which travel the longest distance each day to find food have the most offspring. The study, the first of its kind aimed at disproving the long-standing theory that more walking equates to less reproduction, was conducted by Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Jason Kamilar, Ph.D., research associate, both in anthropology in Arts & Sciences.
To many people, bird song can herald the coming of spring, reveal what kind of bird is perched nearby or be merely an unwelcome early morning intrusion. But to Sandra Vehrencamp, Cornell professor of neurobiology and behavior, bird song is a code from which to glean avian behavior insight.
Sure, they're polygamous, but male emus and several other ground-dwelling birds also are devoted dads, serving as the sole incubators and caregivers to oversized broods from multiple mothers. It is rare behavior, but research described in the Dec. 19 Science found that it runs in this avian family, all the way back to its dinosaur ancestors.
The first beaver to be seen in New York City in 200 years has returned to the site where it was first spotted in 2007 -- on the lower Bronx River where it flows through the Bronx Zoo.
When you take a bite out of a hamburger or chomp down on a piece of gum, you share this function of the lower jaw with the vast majority of animals. But not all: for some animals, lifting the head rather than dropping the jaw is a good idea. This bizarre reversal of how feeding occurs was achieved in 210-million-year-old amphibians, the plagiosaurs.
Elephants in Zakouma National Park, the last stronghold for the savanna elephants of Central Africa's Sahel region, now hover at about 1,000 animals, down from an estimated 3,000 in 2006.
Shocking new research shows size isn't always an advantage in the animal world, shattering a widely-held belief that bigger is better.
Despite protection policies to slow down boats in manatee-protection habitats, the number of injuries and deaths associated with collisions has reached record highs. Researchers have laid the groundwork for a sensory explanation for why manatees and other animals, including great whales, are hit repeatedly by boats. They have developed a novel device that addresses the root causes of these collisions.
Just as the first North Atlantic right whales are spotted making their seasonal migration from New England waters to their calving grounds off Florida and Georgia, these critically endangered animals are finally getting protection Tuesday from fast moving ships that accidentally kill or injure the majestic animals along the East Coast.
A new discovery challenges one of the strongest arguments in favor of the idea that animals with bilateral symmetry"”those, that like us have two halves that are roughly mirror images of each other"”existed before their obvious appearance in the fossil record during the early Cambrian, some 542 million years ago. Groove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals.
How marine animals find their way back to their birthplace to reproduce after migrating across thousands of miles of open ocean has mystified scientists for more than a century. But marine biologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill think they might finally have unraveled the secret.
The Wildlife Conservation Society, the Government of Cameroon, and other partners have collaborated to create a new national park to help protect the world's most endangered great ape: the Cross River gorilla.
For decades the puzzle has prompted much attention, speculation, and conjecture in the scientific community. But now, armed with cutting-edge flow measurement technology, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have tackled the problem and conclusively solved Gray's Paradox.
Southern Illinois University Carbondale research suggests ducks make intelligent choices about where and when to raise their young, even checking out neighborhoods for predators before deciding to breed.
Australian and New Zealand researchers have used ancient DNA from penguin fossils to make a startling discovery that may change the way we view species extinctions.
Americans are woefully out of touch with the fact that the American bison, or buffalo, is in trouble as a wild, iconic species, but they do love them as an important symbol of their country"”and as an entrée on the dinner table. These sentiments were found in a public survey released today by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) at a national conference on restoring bison populations in the North America.
Researchers from Cambridge and Dalhousie universities discovered spittlebugs leap more than 70 centimetres in a single bound. This amounts to 100 body-lengths, out-distancing its closest rival, the flea.
Accurately predicting whether plant root systems will sip, slurp or gulp water as if through a straw, a hose or a pipe, could greatly assist in implementing modern agro-ecosystem practices. Mario Biondini, professor in the School of Natural Resource Sciences at North Dakota State University (NDSU), Fargo, has developed a three-dimensional model that helps determine how much water plant root systems will absorb.
Some of the latest research on Darwin's finches of the Galápagos Islands shows an unexpected pattern of natural selection that is allowing researchers "a rare glimpse into what the early stages of speciation might look like," and emphasizing the central role of environmental conditions, according to a University of Massachusetts Amherst scientist.
A group of paleontologists visited the northern Arizona wilderness site nicknamed a "dinosaur dance floor" and concluded there were no dinosaur tracks there, only a dense collection of unusual potholes eroded in the sandstone. So the scientist who leads the University of Utah's geology department says she will team up with the skeptics for a follow-up study.
University of Adelaide zoologist Dr Jeremy Austin will lead a national project to help save the endangered Tasmanian devil from extinction.
The world's rarest big cat is alive and well. At least one of them, that is, according to researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) who captured and released a female Far Eastern leopard in Russia last week.
In an unusual research collaboration, a University of Massachusetts Amherst geoscientist, Douglas Hardy, and his son Spencer, 14, recently reported what is believed to be the first well documented evidence of a bird other than a penguin nesting directly on ice, in the Andes Mountains.
Why did the elephant cross the road? It didn't according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Save the Elephants that says endangered forest elephants are avoiding roadways at all costs.
Scientists from London, Cambridge and Chicago have identified one of the smallest dinosaur skulls ever discovered as coming from a very young Heterodontosaurus, an early dinosaur. This juvenile weighed about 200 grams. This skull suggests how and when the family of herbivorous dinosaurs that includes Heterodontosaurus made the transition from eating meat to eating plants.
Reducing the number of deer in forests and parks may unexpectedly reduce the number of reptiles, amphibians and insects in that area, new research suggests. A recent study found that a greater diversity of snakes, salamanders, and invertebrates were found in areas with deer populations than were found in areas with no deer activity.
University of Utah geologists identified an amazing concentration of dinosaur footprints and rare tail-drag marks that they call "a dinosaur dance floor," located in a wilderness on the Arizona-Utah border where there was a sandy desert oasis 190 million years ago.
Tufts University student and a faculty lecturer uncover what they believe is the world's oldest known full-body impression of a primitive flying insect, a 300 million-year-old specimen from the Carboniferous Period. Surprise discovery made in a most unlikely place - behind a suburban strip mall.
A Vanderbilt biologist has uncovered the secret of worm grunting "“ the practice in the Florida Panhandle of driving a stake into the ground and rubbing it with a long piece of steel to create vibrations that drive earthworms to the surface where they can be collected for bait. He has determined that the worm grunters are unknowingly imitating the sounds made by burrowing moles.
An international team of scientists, including Dr. James Burton of Earthwatch, published an analysis of the latest IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in Science today. The report is the most comprehensive assessment to date of the world's wild mammals, and is the result of a five-year effort including data collected by more than 1,700 experts in 130 countries. It presents overwhelming evidence of an extinction crisis, with almost one in four mammal species at risk of disappearing forever.
Scientists have confirmed the second-ever case of a "virgin birth" in a shark, indicating once again that female sharks can reproduce without mating and raising the possibility that many female sharks have this incredible capacity. This compelling new study will be published today in the latest issue of the Journal of Fish Biology, a leading international journal.
Work by researchers at North Carolina State University is leading to a new kind of crab harvest "“ blue crabs grown and harvested from freshwater ponds, instead of from the sea.
The songbird has a friend in the beaver. According to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the busy beaver's signature dams provide critical habitat for a variety of migratory songbirds, particularly in the semi-arid interior of the West.
Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse. Scientists are finding, however, that sea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior of another top predator: the bald eagle.
Two six-year-old Loggerhead turtles have grown large enough to be released into the waters of Florida at the end of this month. Feebee and Milton were hatched in July 2002 from two separate nests, and conservation scientists will be monitoring them closely by using satellite tags to learn more about their behavior and movements.
Black bears that live around urban areas weigh more, get pregnant at a younger age, and are more likely to die violent deaths, according to a study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
For the first time in waters surrounding New York City, the beckoning calls of endangered fin, humpback and North Atlantic right whales have been recorded, according to experts from the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
A set of stripy legs in a camera trap photo snapped in an African forest indicates something to cheer about, say researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Using remote camera traps to lift the veil on Myanmar's dense northern wild lands, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have painstakingly gathered a bank of valuable data on the country's populations of tigers and other smaller, lesser known carnivores.
Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled from tens of millions to a few thousand, are too small to protect the species from extinction, a University of Michigan analysis shows.
A WCS report reveals surprisingly large populations of two globally threatened primates in a protected area in Cambodia. The report counted 42,000 black-shanked douc langurs along with 2,500 yellow-cheeked crested gibbons in Cambodia's Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area, an estimate that represents the largest known populations for both species in the world.
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