Ecology & Zoology

The general public sees terms like 'endangered', 'rare', and even 'extinct' used so interchangeably it's easy to believe there is little science involved. There isn't. While most of the science community has used a percentage of its range lost for being endangered, more activist academics placed on committees during political allied administrations - 70 percent of all endangered species listings were done by just two presidents - have now declared species should be endangered if a computer simulation says their habitat may become impacted during the next century. Sometimes new species are…

One of the odder disconnects in western culture is people who claim to care about the environment but will only eat fish that is caught in unsustainable ways - in the wild. I suppose I get the appeal of knowing laborers risked their lives for your food and that farmers in $300,000 tractors don't have the same cachet.(1) Yet those same people are horrified at the thought of hunting game like rabbit and venison, they want those farmed. Insisting on only wild salmon seems irresponsible. What if we did that about lettuce or strawberries? They'd be expensive and our nutrition would suffer.…

Conservation in modern times is a misused term that trial lawyers often invoke to win lawsuits against companies before progress can commence but Brunei on the island of Borneo, which is about the size of the state of Delaware, has a great reason for all countries of the world to preserve it.  The current landscape is similar to what was present during the Pliocene Epoch, 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago. A new study finds that the dipterocarps tree group has ruled those rainforests for at least four million years. The dipterocarps are the world’s tallest tropical trees, and the largest…

Tiger blood, rhino horns, any number of natural supplements, including from endangered species, are used in the alternative medicine spheres - and that market is dominated by Asia. Sea cucumbers are used in Chinese folk medicine but are also a luxury food product and that demand has meant once-thriving Mexican sea cucumber populations have been decimated due to poaching. China doesn't care where its products come from, so any certification could be as illegitimate as an organic food sticker from Russia. Sea cucumbers are ecologically critical but a new literature review finds that Asian food…

A lot of media articles a decade ago worried about risk to honeybees from crop protection products while science should have been worried more about the viruses they carry that put plants at risk of disease. A recent study sequenced the genetic material present on the pollen grains of 24 plant species across the U.S., the group found signs of many of the plant viruses already shown to travel on pollen—along with six new species, three new variants of known species and the incomplete traces of more than 200 more that have never before been identified. For viruses, the tiny, spiky vehicles for…

We all know there is no Beepocalypse by now, right? Seeing it referenced in sit-coms from the 2010s  is as anachronistic as watching "Soylent Green" from the 1970s and seeing them lament that they didn't listen to scientists and make the hole in the ozone layer larger. Sure, Washington Post readers probably still believe bees are dying, just like their contributors think "Soylent Green" got a lot right, but it's as unscientific as acupuncture.  Environmental activists have moved on from saving bees, just like they have moved on from endorsing hydroelectric power, natural gas, and…

Popular imagery is that dinosaurs were a bland color, but most birds are have bland color palates as well. Then you have parrots or peacocks. In between the extremes of bland and flamboyant, there are pink pigeon feet, red rooster combs and yellow pelican pouches. That may have been the case for dinosaurs as well. There’s a good chance that extinct dinosaurs rocked pops of color on similar body parts and may have flashed their colors to entice mates, just as birds do today, according to a study in the journal Evolution led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. “Living birds…

Oymyakon, Russia is the coldest town on earth - but that doesn't stop fires. According to Accuweather, the temperature in Delyankir, Russia, about 300 miles (483 km) to the north of the Sea of Oshkosh, fell to 75 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (59.2 degrees below zero Celsius), the lowest temperature there since January 2014. The entire region is known for its extreme cold but Oymyakon, located about 90 miles (145 km) to the southwest of Delyankir, is the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth. In 1933, it claimed a record low of 90 below zero F - 67.8 below zero C. Last night was not…

In 2021, there remains some confusion about the distinction between biological sex and gender. The fossil record only shows males and females, it does not show how those people, or even precursors of modern humans, felt about themselves. And fossil records only show what can actually be fossilized. Which is often just skeletal. Nature can be more complex than that. I almost always hunt in Pennsylvania and the rules say I can only shoot a buck early in the season. No does. The number of tines may vary each year in a maddening way - good luck seeing three on one side in Pennsylvania woods - but…

Do cats adjust their behavior to what works to get what they want or do they nag humans until people begin to respond in more agreeable ways? Some cat owners, and probably most dog owners, might argue that cats engage in the latter and when it seems like the former it is just a lucky meeting of personalities. A new study in Animal Cognition finds they 'read the room' better than expected. Cats were presented with a solvable task (an easily accessible treat in a container with a loose lid) and an unsolvable task (a treat in a closed container) in the presence of either an attentive or…