Researchers from Michigan Technological University have released the annual Winter Study report detailing updates on the ecology of Isle Royale National Park. For the third year in a row, the Isle Royale wolf population remains a mere two, while the moose population continues to stay above the historic average. Without the pressure of predation, the...
Climate-threatened animals unable to relocate
Many of the European mammals whose habitat is being destroyed by climate change are not able to find new places to live elsewhere.
30 of the 62 mammal species in the University of Exeter study will have their habitat substantially affected by climate change, but don't have the traits that could allow them to colonise a...
Think chimpanzee beds are dirtier than human ones? Think again
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) appear to keep tidier sleeping arrangements than humans do. That's one finding of a recent study that evaluated the microbes and arthropods found in the treetop beds that chimpanzees make each night.
"We know that human homes are effectively their own ecosystems, and human beds often contain a subset of the taxa --...
The mystery of lime-green lizard blood
Green blood is one of the most unusual characteristics in the animal kingdom, but it's the hallmark of a group of lizards in New Guinea. Prasinohaema are green-blooded skinks, or a type of lizard. The muscles, bones and tongues of these lizards appear bright, lime-green due to high levels of biliverdin, or a green bile...
Diverse and abundant megafauna documented at new Atlantic US Marine National Monument
Airborne marine biologists were dazzled by the diversity and abundance of large, unusual and sometimes endangered marine wildlife on a recent trip to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument, about 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod. Scientists with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium observed dozens of...
Early evidence of use of a bit on domestic donkeys found in the Near East
Donkeys may have worn bits as early as the third millennium BCE, long before the introduction of horses in the ancient Near East, according to a study published May 16, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Haskel Greenfield from University of Manitoba, Canada, Aren Maeir from Bar-Ilan University, and colleagues.
Donkeys are known to...