Animals
S


Butterfly

Watchers Track Butterflies for Environment Signs

Greg Bluestein
The Associated Press
Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:00 UTC
Searching
© AP Photo/John BazemoreJerry Payne looks for butterflies during the annual butterfly count in Hillsboro, Ga., Friday, June 26, 2009.
The rusty van creaks to a halt and two men jump out, binoculars in hand, heads pivoting. Quickly, questioningly, they call out evocative names: Is that a Pearl Crescent? A Carolina Satyr? A Sleepy Orange? A Swarthy Skipper?

It's butterfly counting time at a central Georgia wildlife refuge. That means a sweaty but fun outing for these two men, one a retired entomologist, the other the abbot of a Roman Catholic monastery. But it has a serious side: some researchers worry butterfly populations may be in decline, possibly signaling a worsening environment.

The flying insects are often viewed as canaries in a coal mine because they are sensitive to changes in their habitats.
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Bizarro Earth

US: Algae are killing fish, but how is a mystery

Jake Grovum
IndyStar.com
Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:43 UTC
ExpSeveral hundred dead fish, one large algae plume and a "perfect storm" that led to it all have state officials and Rocky Ripple residents scratching their heads over what's killing fish in the White River.

Since July 17, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources has received reports of hundreds of dead fish alongside the White River near Rocky Ripple, just north of Butler University.erts puzzle over latest fish deaths in White River
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Heart

Whale Saves Drowning Diver, Pulls Her to Surface


Fox News
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:53 UTC
A beluga whale saved a drowning diver by hoisting her to the surface, carrying her leg in its mouth.

Terrified Yang Yun thought she was going to die when her legs were paralyzed by crippling cramps in arctic temperatures. Competitors had to sink to the bottom of an aquarium's 20-foot arctic pool and stay there for as long as possible with the beluga whales at Polar Land in Harbin, north east China.
Beluga whale
© EuropicsBeluga whale Mila spotted diver Yang Yun struggling in the water at Polar Land in Harbin, northeast China.
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Cow

Rare Angolan Antelope Tracked by Research Team


PhysOrg / Agence France-Presse
Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:12 UTC
Angolan antelope
© UnknownOne of the last remaining images of Angola's elusive giant sable antelope, last seen 30 years ago before the country's civil war.
A rare Angolan antelope feared to have been killed off during a 27-year civil war has been located, giving hope for the future preservation of the species, a government official said Monday.

Scientists at the weekend spotted three giant black sable antelope -- endemic to Angola where they are the country's national symbol and known in Portuguese as the Palanca Negra -- in two northern reserves.

"This is a huge step for us and it really pushes the project forward," Vladimir Russo, Angola?s national director of environmental management, told AFP.

"We were able to put a collar on one of the females which contains a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracker so we can follow her to find the rest of the herd. It's really great news, we are all very excited."
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Better Earth

India: Black Spotted Deer, Uhm, Spotted

Loren Coleman
Cryptomundo
Sun, 26 Jul 2009 15:53 UTC
Black spotted deer
© Unknown
Indian news services are reporting on Sunday, July 26, 2009, in the Sakaal Times of Pune, India, and in The Hindu of an intriguing example of melanism in a deer.

Needless to say, this may be a rare mutation or a new color morph seen near Coimbatore, India, but it is doubtful, as the article states in the Sakaal Times headline, that it is a "New species of deer spotted." (Since it seems to be a black spotted deer, I am not unaware that the Indian headline writer may have been attempting a bit of a pun here.)
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Hourglass

Poaching Crisis As Rhino Horn Demand Booms In Asia


Science Daily
Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:52 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto/Hilton KotzeEndangered black rhinoceros. Twelve rhinoceroses now are being poached each month in South Africa and Zimbabwe alone, according to new research.
Rhino poaching worldwide is poised to hit a 15-year-high driven by Asian demand for horns, according to new research. Poachers in Africa and Asia are killing an ever increasing number of rhinos - an estimated two to three a week in some areas - to meet a growing demand for horns believed in some countries to have medicinal value, according to a briefing to a key international wildlife trade body by WWF, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and their affiliated wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

An estimated three rhinos were illegally killed each month in all of Africa from 2000-05, out of a population of around 18,000. In contrast, 12 rhinoceroses now are being poached each month in South Africa and Zimbabwe alone, the three groups told the 58th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Standing Committee this week in Geneva.
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Frog

Population of nearly extinct frogs found in California


Science Daily
Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:58 UTC
Image
© Adam Backlin, U.S. Geological SurveyUSGS scientists found this adult mountain yellow-legged frog on June 10 in Tahquitz Creek, a rediscovered population of the endangered frog in the San Jacinto Wilderness, San Bernardino National Forest, California.
For the first time in nearly 50 years, a population of a nearly extinct frog has been rediscovered in the San Bernardino National Forest's San Jacinto Wilderness. Biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessing suitability of sites to re-establish frogs and scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum retracing a 1908 natural history expedition both rediscovered the rare mountain yellow-legged frog in the San Jacinto Wilderness near Idyllwild, Calif.

This re-discovery - along with the San Diego Zoo's first successful breeding of the frog in captivity, and successful efforts by California Department of Fish and Game to restore frog habitat - renews hope of survival for this Southern California amphibian.

Globally, amphibians are on the decline because of habitat loss, effects of climate change and the spread of a deadly pathogen called the chytrid fungus. The mountain yellow-legged frog is one of three frogs or toads on the federal Endangered Species List in Southern California. Prior to this recent discovery, USGS researchers had estimated there were about 122 adult mountain yellow-legged frogs in the wild.
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Bug

Alien-Wasp Swarms Devouring Birds, Bugs in Hawaii

Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic
Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:50 UTC
Wasps
© Erin Wilson Invasive western yellowjacket wasps in Hawaii (above, a wasp eats an unidentified insect near another wasp) are munching their way through an "astonishing diversity" of creatures, from caterpillars to ring-necked pheasants.
Attacking from nests as big as pickup-truck beds, invasive western yellowjacket wasps in Hawaii are munching their way through an "astonishing diversity" of creatures, from caterpillars to pheasants, a new study says.

Adult yellowjackets consume only nectar. But they kill or scavenge prey to deliver needed protein to their growing broods.

"They basically just carry it in their mandibles - you see them flying with their balls of meat," said lead study author Erin Wilson, who just finished her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego.

In their native habitat in the western U.S., the wasps die off in winter. But in Hawaii the wasps survive the winter, possibly due to mild year-round temperatures or subtle genetic changes.
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Magnify

Study Finds Chimps Die From Simian AIDS, Dispelling Widely Held Belief

Lawrence K. Altman
New York Times
Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:45 UTC
For the first time, scientists have shown that chimpanzees in the wild become sick and die from the simian version of AIDS.

The finding upsets a widely held scientific belief that chimpanzees, the closest relatives to humans, can get the virus that causes simian AIDS but without harm.

It also suggests that an outbreak of AIDS is contributing to the declining chimpanzee population in Africa, said the leader of the research team, Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
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Fish

Giant Shark Mystery Solved: Unexpected Hideout Found

Helen Scales
National Geographic
Thu, 07 May 2009 15:14 UTC
How do you lose track of the world's second largest fish?

Image
© National Geographic
For decades, that's what scientists have been doing each winter, when basking sharks mysteriously disappear from the cool waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Now the baffled experts have at least part of the answer: Giant basking sharks from New England take tropical vacations.

Previously thought to inhabit only temperate waters, a new study shows that the sharks, which grow up to 32 feet (10 meters) long, make vast migrations to deep, warm-water hideouts.

Before the annual winter disappearance, scientists tagged 25 basking sharks off New England with floating, timed-release satellite transmitters.
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