Power-generating wind turbines have long been recognized as a potentially life-threatening hazard for birds. But at most wind facilities, bats actually die in much greater numbers. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology, a Cell Press journal, on August 26th think they know why.
Ninety percent of the bats they examined after death showed signs of internal [...]
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A gorilla at a zoo in the German city of Muenster is refusing to let go of her dead baby’s body several days after it died of unknown causes.
The gorilla at a German zoo has been carrying around her dead baby since he died last week.
Allwetter Zoo spokeswoman Ilona Zuehlke says the 3-month-old [...]
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A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity.
The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide.
One of them spent a short time after illness in a dolphinarium 20 years ago and may have picked [...]
Self-recognition, it has been argued, is a hallmark of advanced cognitive abilities in animals. It was previously thought that only the usual suspects of higher cognition—some great apes, dolphins, and elephants—were able to recognize their own bodies in a mirror.
Psychologist Helmut Prior and colleagues have shown evidence of self-recognition in magpies—a species with a brain [...]
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African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989. But the public outcry that resulted in that ban is absent today, and a University of Washington conservation biologist contends it is because the public seems to be unaware of the [...]
Continue reading about Ivory Poaching At Critical Levels: Elephants On Path To Extinction By 2020?
It has long been debated whether dinosaurs were part of the ‘Terrestrial Revolution’ that occurred some 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous when birds, mammals, flowering plants, insects and reptiles all underwent a rapid expansion.
An international study, led by the University of Bristol, shows that during their last 50 million years of existence, dinosaurs [...]
West Edmonton Mall plans to launch a new program that would allow visitors into the water to touch and swim with the shopping centre’s three sea lions.
Participants who pay $149.95 will be allowed to get in the water with the animals under the supervision of at least one trainer.
“It provides the public with a more [...]
Coat color of wild and domestic animals is a critical trait that has significant biological and economic impact. Researchers have now identified the genetic basis for black coat color, and white, in a breed of domestic sheep.
In the wild, mammalian coat color is essential for camouflage and plays a role in social behavior. Coat color [...]
Continue reading about Scientists Identify Genetic Basis For The Black Sheep Of The Family
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have discovered a type of gene regulation never before observed in mammals — a “ribozyme” that controls the activity of an important family of genes in several different species.
The findings, published July 9 in the journal Nature, describe a new and surprising role for the so-called hammerhead [...]
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Experts on invertebrates have expressed “profound shock” over a government report showing a decline in zooplankton of more than 70% since the 1960s.
The tiny animals are an important food for fish, mammals and crustaceans.
Figures contained in the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) document, Marine Programme Plan, suggested a fall in abundance. [...]
