Sperm whales have their own unique cultures, accents, and potentially a phonetic alphabet. A team from MIT’s Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) may have decoded this phonetic alphabet that reveals sophisticated structures within sperm whale communication that could be similar to human phonetics and other animal linguistic systems. 

“Sperm whale calls are, in principle, capable of expressing a wider space of meanings than we previously thought!” MIT computer science graduate student Pratyusha Sharma tells PopSci. Sharma is a co-author of a new study published May 7 in the journal Nature Communications that describes these findings. 

Sperm whale ABCs

With some of the largest brains of any species on Earth, sperm whales have complex social behaviors. They travel in pods and have various cultural groups that dive and hunt together and even take turns looking after younger whales. They do this all in almost complete darkness, so they need strong communication to coordinate their lives in the ocean’s deepest depths.

[Related: Science Says Sperm Whales Could Really Wreck Ships.]

Sperm whales use a complex system of codas–short bursts of clicks–to communicate. In this study, the team collected 9,000 codas from sperm whale families in the Eastern Caribbean sperm observed by The Dominica Sperm Whale Project. They used acoustic biologging tags, called D-tags that were deployed on whales. The D-tags captured details of the whales’ vocal patterns. 

The team found that these short groups of clicks vary in structure depending on the conversational context. With this data in hand, they used a mix of algorithms for pattern recognition and classification, and on-body recording equipment. It revealed that the communications were not random or simple, but more structured and complex. 

The sperm whale’s essentially have their own phonetic alphabet. Various auditory elements that the team call rhythm, tempo, rubato, and ornamentation work together to form a large array of distinguishable codas. Depending on the context of the conversation, the whales can systematically modulate certain aspects of their codas. They may smoothly vary the duration of the calls–rubato–or add in some extra ornamental clicks. The team also found that the building blocks of these codas could be combined in various ways. The whales can then build many distinct vocalizations from these combinations. 

“The sperm whale communication system is a combinatorial coding system,” says Sharma. “Looking at a wider communicative context allowed us to discover that there is fine-grained variation in the structure of the calls of sperm whales that are both perceived and imitated in the course of their exchange.”

Using AI

The team developed new visualization and data analysis techniques that found individual sperm whales could emit various coda patterns in long exchanges. Using machine learning is important for pinpointing the specifics of their communications and predicting what they may say next. 

[Related: How bomb detectors discovered a hidden pod of singing blue whales.]

Scientists are interested in determining if these signals vary depending on the ecological context they are given in and how much the signals follow any potential rules similar to grammar that the listeners recognize. 

“The problem is particularly challenging in the case of marine mammals, because scientists usually cannot see their subjects or identify in complete detail the context of communication,” University of Pennsylvania Psychology Professor Emeritus Robert Seyfarth said in a statement. “Nonetheless, this paper offers new, tantalizing details of call combinations and the rules that underlie them in sperm whales.” Seyfarth was not involved in this study.

Alien communication on Earth

In future studies, CETI hopes to figure out whether elements like rhythm, tempo, ornamentation, and rubato carry specific intentions when communicated. This could provide insight into a specific linguistic phenomenon where simple elements are combined to present complex meanings. This “duality of patterning” was previously thought to be unique to human language. 

Research like this also parallels hypothetical scenarios in which humans contact alien species and need to communicate. 

“It’s about understanding a species with a completely different environment and communication protocols, where their interactions are distinctly different from human norms,” says Sharma. “Essentially, our work could lay the groundwork for deciphering how an ‘alien civilization’ might communicate, providing insights into creating algorithms or systems to understand entirely unfamiliar forms of communication.”

The post Sperm whales may have their own ‘alphabet’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

It’s baby Peregrine falcon season on a California island best known for its swift currents, cold water, and notorious prisoners. A new live webcam allows viewers to watch four recently hatched peregrine falcon chicks on Alcatraz Island. The camera was set up by the National Park Service (NPS) and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. The fixed-angle webcam provides high-definition images even at night. The livestream is also equipped with a 12-hour cache so that visitors can catch-up on allowing viewers to catch up.

The nest is the handiwork of a female falcon named Larry, short for Lawrencium. Larry hatched on the University of California, Berkeley’s bell tower in 2018. To track Larry’s progress in the wild, biologists placed a band on her leg when she was a chick. By 2020, Larry and her unnamed male partner were spotted breeding on Alcatraz Island. They were tucked away with their young in a natural cave called an eyrie on the western side of the island. According to the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, this was the first time that Peregrines had ever been recorded nesting on Alcatraz. The duo welcomed four chicks in April 2023, matching their four for this year. 

Biologists say that the goal of the livestream is to “share this incredible view of a wild peregrine falcon nest with the world.”

“I hope this livestream generates appreciation for Peregrine falcons and sparks viewers’ interest in the other bird life found on Alcatraz as well,” Alcatraz Island biologist Lidia D’Amico said in a statement.

[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]

While best known for its now-closed prison, Alcatraz Island has been a sanctuary for birds for years.  It’s home to loud Western Gulls, large Black-crowned Night-Herons, speedy Anna’s Hummingbirds, and more. According to the NPS, Peregrine falcons like Larry are the apex predators of the island who can be seen preying on other avians, including songbirds, shorebirds, ducks. This behavior is an important reminder that the falcons are wild animals. Parts of the popular island are closed from the months of February to September to allow for nesting and protecting the birds.

Peregrine falcons are the largest falcons in North America, with an impressive 39 to 43-inch wingspan. They are known for their spectacular dives called stoops. Urban-dwelling Peregrines fly high above their intended prey–usually pigeons–before they stoop and strike the bird in mid-air. This sharp blow is fatal and scientists estimate diving Peregrine falcons can reach speeds of over 200 miles per hour.  

[Related: Sadly, these live-streamed bald eagle eggs likely won’t hatch.]

Despite being such fearsome predators, their populations nationwide were once driven to the brink of extinction. They were federally listed as endangered in 1973. Organic pollutants, particularly the synthetic insecticide DDT, severely thinned their egg shells. DDT was banned in 1972 and Peregrine falcons were officially removed from the endangered species list in 1999.

“This impressive bird has long been noted for its speed, grace, and aerial skills,” the National Park Service says. “Now, it is also a symbol of America’s recovering threatened and endangered species.”

The post Watch four Peregrine falcon chicks in a nest on Alcatraz Island appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Despite the reputation for being the trash pandas of the bird world, seagulls are kind of the masters of evolution. They can survive and thrive alongside humans, have a remarkable memory, and some have been observed using pieces of food to bait fish the way primates use tools. The seagull species that have bigger brains that are also more likely to nest on coastal cliffs may also be better adapted to breed in urban environments. 

A study published April 25 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution found that more than half of cliff-nesting gull species that also nest in cities and towns have bigger brains. Species such as the Herring Gull, the Lesser Black-backed Gull, and the Black-legged Kittiwake potentially have a behavioral flexibility that allows them to nest in more challenging locations like rooftops.

“Many people will be familiar with gulls nesting and foraging in urban areas,” Madeleine Goumas, study co-author and a postdoctoral researcher specializing in herring gulls at the University of Exeter in England, said in a statement. “It’s not something you might expect from a seabird, so we wanted to try to understand why they do it.”

[Related: Seagulls hunger for food touched by human hands.]

In the study, the team combed through various research databases to find records of urban breeding and foraging among gulls and data on brain size by species. They then mapped a range of the different species present. 

Out of 50 gull species, 13 were recorded as using urban areas to breed, while 13 were recorded using urban areas to forage for food. Nine species bred and fed in more building-heavy environments. 

When they compared the figures for breeding with the birds’ known habits and brain size, they found that 10 out of the 19 cliff-nesting gull species (53 percent) also nested in urban areas. Only three out of 28 (11 percent) of generally non-cliff-nesting species nested in both spaces. 

[Related: The birds of summer patrolling Ocean City’s boardwalk.]

“We found that gull species with larger brains are more likely to be cliff-nesters, and cliff-nesting species are more likely to breed in urban areas,” study co-author and University of Exeter evolutionary biologist Neeltje Boogert said in a statement. “We also found that cliff-nesting is probably not something that was shared by the ancestor of gulls, so it is a relatively recent adaptation.”

They also point out that this is not a fixed or instinctive behavior in most gulls. The non-cliff-nesting gull species nest exclusively on the ground, most most traditionally cliff-nesting species can nest in both spaces. 

“This suggests that bigger brains enable these gull species to be flexible with regard to where they choose to nest, and this allows them to use unconventional sites, like buildings, for raising their young,” said Goumas.

[Related: Piping plovers are in trouble, but there’s some good news.]

In terms of foraging, the researchers found that neither brain size nor the shape of their wing were good indicators of seagull behavior in urban environments. The team also looked at the status of the gulls on the International Union on Conservation of Nature’s Red List. The gulls with stable or increasing populations were more than twice as likely to be observed using urban habitats than the species that are decreasing. Of the 10 Threatened or Near Threatened species, only the Black-legged Kittiwake was known to use urban spaces.

Observing how gull species function in populated areas with humans and buildings is important for conservation. Seeing what factors allow some to survive and thrive while others do not can inform why some aren’t faring as well. 

“Urbanization is a major problem for a lot of animals,” said Goumas. “It looks like some gull species have managed to overcome some of the challenges that prevent other animals from using urban areas, but we need more long-term studies as well as comparative studies on other taxa to fully understand the impacts of urban living.”

The post Bigger-brained gull species thrive in urban spaces appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Observers have documented multiple animal species using plants for self-medicinal purposes, such as great apes eating plants that treat parasitic infections or rubbing vegetation on sore muscles. But a wild orangutan recently displayed something never observed before—he treated his own open wound by activating a plant’s medical properties using his own spit. As detailed in a study published May 2 in Scientific Reports, evolutionary biologists believe the behavior could point toward a common ancestor shared with humans.

The discovery occurred within a protected Indonesian rainforest at the Suaq Balimbing research site. This region, currently home to roughly 150 critically endangered Sumatran orangutans, is utilized by an international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior to monitor the apes’ behavior and wellbeing. During their daily observations, cognitive and evolutionary biologists noticed a sizable injury on the face of one of the local males named Rakus. Such wounds are unsurprising among the primates, since they frequently spar with one another—but then Rakus did something three days later that the team didn’t expect.

After picking leaves off of a native plant known as an Akar Kuning (Fibraurea tinctoria), well-known for its anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and antioxidant properties, as well as its use in traditional malaria medicines, Rakus began to chew the plant into a paste. He then rubbed it directly on his facial injury for several minutes before covering it entirely with the mixture. Over the next few days, researchers noted the self-applied natural bandage kept the wound from showing signs of infection or exacerbation. Within five days, the injury scabbed over before healing entirely.

Such striking behavior raises a number of questions, particularly how Rakus first learned to treat his face using the plant. According to study senior author Caroline Schuppli, one possibility is that it simply comes down to “individual innovation.”

“Orangutans at [Suaq] rarely eat the plant,” she said in an announcement. “However, individuals may accidentally touch their wounds while feeding on this plant and thus unintentionally apply the plant’s juice to their wounds. As Fibraurea tinctoria has potent analgesic effects, individuals may feel an immediate pain release, causing them to repeat the behavior several times.”

[Related: Gorillas like to scramble their brains by spinning around really fast.]

If this were the case, it could be that Rakus is one of the few orangutans to have discovered the benefits of Fibraurea tinctoria. At the same time, adult orangutan males never live where they were born—they migrate sizable distances either during or after puberty to establish new homes. So it’s also possible Rakus may have learned this behavior from his relatives, but given observers don’t know where he is originally from, it’s difficult to follow up on that theory just yet.

Still, Schuppli says other “active wound treatment” methods have been noted in other African and Asian great apes, even when they aren’t used to disinfect or help heal an open wound. Knowing that, “it is possible that there exists a common underlying mechanism for the recognition and application of substances with medical or functional properties to wounds and that our last common ancestor already showed similar forms of ointment behavior.”

Given how much humans already have in common with their great ape relatives, it’s easy to see how this could be a likely explanation. But regardless of how Rakus knew how to utilize the medicinal plant, if he ever ends up scrapping with another male orangutan again, he’ll at least know how to fix himself up afterwards.

The post Orangutan observed using a plant to treat an open wound appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The saber-toothed cats that once prowled modern day California had more distinct dental features than even their sabers would suggest. Some of the complete skulls had a tooth socket occupied by two teeth–a permanent saber tooth and a baby tooth that would eventually fall out. These double-toothed sockets may have helped stabilize their signature front fangs and keep them from breaking off. The findings are described in a study published April 8 in the journal The Anatomical Record. 

Sharp, but easily lost teeth

The study looked at saber-toothed cat fossils found in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. There are at least five separate lineages of saber-toothed animals that have evolved around the world. The species Smilodon fatalis roamed widely across North America and into Central America, before going extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Paleontologists studying these fossils have been stumped by why the adult animals with two canines that are more like thin-bladed knives avoided breaking them. During periods of food scarcity, saber-toothed cats broke their teeth more often than they did during times of plenty, potentially due to altered feeding strategies and eating rocks. Paleontologists also still do not know how saber-toothed animals hunted prey without completely breaking these unwieldy teeth. 

In an earlier study, a team from the University of California, Berkeley speculated that a baby tooth helped stabilize the permanent tooth against sideways breakage as it emerged from the gums. The baby tooth–also called a milk canine–are the types of teeth that all mammals grow and lose sometime before adulthood. The growth data seemed to imply that the two teeth sat there together for up to 30 months into the animal’s adolescence. 

[Related: Mighty sabertooth tigers may have purred like kittens.]

To investigate this tooth stabilization theory for the new study, the team used computer models that simulate a saber-tooth’s strength and stiffness against the sideways bending that happens when the saber tooth grows outwards. They also tested and bent plastic models of saber teeth. They found evidence that while fearsome, the saber tooth would have been increasingly vulnerable to breaking off as they emerged from the gums. Having the baby or milk tooth behind it would have worked like a buttress to make it significantly more stable. 

The temporary baby milk canine remaining behind long after the permanent saber tooth erupted indicates that it would have stayed in until the maturing cats learned how to hunt without damaging them. 

“The double-fang stage is probably worth a rethinking now that I’ve shown there’s this potential insurance policy, this larger range of protection,” study co-author and Cal Berkley paleontologist Jack Tseng said in a statement. “It allows the equivalent of our teenagers to experiment, to take risks, essentially to learn how to be a full-grown, fully fledged predator. I think that this refines, though it doesn’t solve, thinking about the growth of saber tooth use and hunting through a mechanical lens.”

Applying some beam theory

Some of the double-fanged specimens found from the La Brea tar pits are considered rare cases of animals with a delayed loss of a baby tooth. This gave Tseng the idea that maybe they had an evolutionary purpose. He used  the beam theory engineering analysis to model real saber teeth.

“According to beam theory, when you bend a blade-like structure laterally sideways in the direction of their narrower dimension, they are quite a lot weaker compared to the main direction of strength,” said Tseng. “Prior interpretations of how saber tooths may have hunted use this as a constraint. No matter how they use their teeth, they could not have bent them a lot in a lateral direction.”

The beam theory combined with computer models that simulated the sideways forces of a saber tooth could withstand before breaking. As the tooth got longer, it became easier to bend, increasing the chance of breakage.

[Related: This tiger-sized, saber-toothed, rhino-skinned predator thrived before the ‘Great Dying.’]

When a supportive baby tooth was added to the beam theory model, the stiffness of the permanent saber kept pace with the bending strength. This baby tooth essentially reduced its chance of breakage. 

The study has implications for how saber-toothed cats and other saber-toothed animals like Africa’s Inostrancevia africana may have hunted as adults. They likely used their predatory skills and strong muscles to compensate for the more vulnerable canines. 

The post How saber-toothed cats’ baby teeth kept their adult fangs from breaking appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally published on KFF Health News.

For decades, concerns about automobile pollution have focused on what comes out of the tailpipe. Now, researchers and regulators say, we need to pay more attention to toxic emissions from tires as vehicles roll down the road.

At the top of the list of worries is a chemical called 6PPD, which is added to rubber tires to help them last longer. When tires wear on pavement, 6PPD is released. It reacts with ozone to become a different chemical, 6PPD-q, which can be extremely toxic—so much so that it has been linked to repeated fish kills in Washington state.

The trouble with tires doesn’t stop there. Tires are made primarily of natural rubber and synthetic rubber, but they contain hundreds of other ingredients, often including steel and heavy metals such as copper, lead, cadmium, and zinc.

As car tires wear, the rubber disappears in particles, both bits that can be seen with the naked eye and microparticles. Testing by a British company, Emissions Analytics, found that a car’s tires emit 1 trillion ultrafine particles per kilometer driven—from 5 to 9 pounds of rubber per internal combustion car per year.

And what’s in those particles is a mystery, because tire ingredients are proprietary.

“You’ve got a chemical cocktail in these tires that no one really understands and is kept highly confidential by the tire manufacturers,” said Nick Molden, CEO of Emissions Analytics. “We struggle to think of another consumer product that is so prevalent in the world and used by virtually everyone, where there is so little known of what is in them.”

Regulators have only begun to address the toxic tire problem, though there has been some action on 6PPD.

The chemical was identified by a team of researchers, led by scientists at Washington State University and the University of Washington, who were trying to determine why coho salmon returning to Seattle-area creeks to spawn were dying in large numbers.

Working for the Washington Stormwater Center, the scientists tested some 2,000 substances to determine which one was causing the die-offs, and in 2020 they announced they’d found the culprit: 6PPD.

The Yurok Tribe in Northern California, along with two other West Coast Native American tribes, have petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit the chemical. The EPA said it is considering new rules governing the chemical. “We could not sit idle while 6PPD kills the fish that sustain us,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, in a statement. “This lethal toxin has no place in any salmon-bearing watershed.”

California has begun taking steps to regulate the chemical, last year classifying tires containing it as a “priority product,” which requires manufacturers to search for and test substitutes.

“6PPD plays a crucial role in the safety of tires on California’s roads and, currently, there are no widely available safer alternatives,” said Karl Palmer, a deputy director at the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control. “For this reason, our framework is ideally suited for identifying alternatives to 6PPD that ensure the continued safety of tires on California’s roads while protecting California’s fish populations and the communities that rely on them.”

The U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association says it has mobilized a consortium of 16 tire manufacturers to carry out an analysis of alternatives. Anne Forristall Luke, USTMA president and CEO, said it “will yield the most effective and exhaustive review possible of whether a safer alternative to 6PPD in tires currently exists.”

Molden, however, said there is a catch. “If they don’t investigate, they aren’t allowed to sell in the state of California,” he said. “If they investigate and don’t find an alternative, they can go on selling. They don’t have to find a substitute. And today there is no alternative to 6PPD.”

California is also studying a request by the California Stormwater Quality Association to classify tires containing zinc, a heavy metal, as a priority product, requiring manufacturers to search for an alternative. Zinc is used in the vulcanization process to increase the strength of the rubber.

When it comes to tire particles, though, there hasn’t been any action, even as the problem worsens with the proliferation of electric cars. Because of their quicker acceleration and greater torque, electric vehicles wear out tires faster and emit an estimated 20% more tire particles than the average gas-powered car.

A recent study in Southern California found tire and brake emissions in Anaheim accounted for 30% of PM2.5, a small-particulate air pollutant, while exhaust emissions accounted for 19%. Tests by Emissions Analytics have found that tires produce up to 2,000 times as much particle pollution by mass as tailpipes.

These particles end up in water and air and are often ingested. Ultrafine particles, even smaller than PM2.5, are also emitted by tires and can be inhaled and travel directly to the brain. New research suggests tire microparticles should be classified as a pollutant of “high concern.”

In a report issued last year, researchers at Imperial College London said the particles could affect the heart, lungs, and reproductive organs and cause cancer.

People who live or work along roadways, often low-income, are exposed to more of the toxic substances.

Tires are also a major source of microplastics. More than three-quarters of microplastics entering the ocean come from the synthetic rubber in tires, according to a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the British company Systemiq.

And there are still a great many unknowns in tire emissions, which can be especially complex to analyze because heat and pressure can transform tire ingredients into other compounds.

One outstanding research question is whether 6PPD-q affects people, and what health problems, if any, it could cause. A recent study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters found high levels of the chemical in urine samples from a region of South China, with levels highest in pregnant women.

The discovery of 6PPD-q, Molden said, has sparked fresh interest in the health and environmental impacts of tires, and he expects an abundance of new research in the coming years. “The jigsaw pieces are coming together,” he said. “But it’s a thousand-piece jigsaw, not a 200-piece jigsaw.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. 

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

The post Tire toxicity faces fresh scrutiny after salmon die-offs appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Red squirrels living in Canada’s Yukon territory can have a pretty hard knock life. Bitterly cold winters, resource scarcity, intense competition for habitat, threats from large predators like the Canada lynx, and even take big reproductive risks for their genetic fitness. All of these stressors take their toll on these resilient rodents. Their early life struggles can also leave a lasting mark. The more challenges young red squirrels face in the year they’re born, the shorter their adult lifespan. The findings are detailed in a study published April 24 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences and could have some implications for humans. 

Food booms

Red squirrels are about 11 inches long and weigh just over half a pound on average. They are known for their rust colored fur and “scolding chatter” above the trees. The new study uses data collected by the Kluane Red Squirrel Project, a multi-university long-term field study. The project has tracked and studied thousands of wild North American red squirrels in the southwestern region of the Yukon for more than 30 years that individually tags and tracks individual red squirrels to learn how they deal with all that’s thrown at them  . 

The new study analyzing the observations found that red squirrels that survive past their first year go on to live about 3.5 years on average. However, early life adversity like food scarcity can cut their life expectancy by at least 14 percent.

[Related: A Medieval strain of leprosy is infecting squirrels in the UK.]

“The ecosystem red squirrels inhabit in this region is unique,” study co-author and University of Arizona ecologist and evolutionary biologist Lauren Petrullo said in a statement. “Every three to seven years, their favorite food–seed from cones of white spruce trees–is produced in superabundance during what we call a food boom.”

The team found that even though these food booms are rare, they can interrupt some biological processes for the squirrels and help shape their lifespans.

“If a squirrel had a harsh first year of life, if they were lucky enough to experience a food boom in their second year of life, they lived just as long–if not longer–in spite of early-life adversity,” said Petrullo.

Rodents as proxies

Rodents like squirrels, rice, and mats, are often used as models for humans in a lab setting. However, the laboratory environment often has limited relevance to the bigger pictures of what is going on at an ecological and evolutionary level. 

“It can be hard to really replicate the ecological challenges that animals have evolved to cope with in a lab setting,” said Petrullo. 

Wild red squirrels can offer scientists a chance to better study the role that early-life environment plays. Petrullo and her colleagues hope that continued observations in the wild can help them learn more about the biological mechanisms that link squirrels’ early developmental conditions with their later-life survival. This could have some insights into our understanding of human resilience. 

[Related: Nature wasn’t healing: What really happened with wildlife during pandemic lockdowns.]

“Our findings in red squirrels echo what we know about how early-life adversity can shorten adult lifespan in humans and other primates,” Petrullo said. “Humans vary widely in how vulnerable or resilient they are to challenges faced during early development. Our study demonstrates that future environmental quality might be an important factor that can explain why some individuals appear to be more, or less, susceptible to the consequences of early-life adversity.” 

‘Born with a silver spoon’

While growing up as a young red squirrel in the Yukon can be quite difficult, there are some things that can go right. 

“Some red squirrels have the luck of being born into gentler early environments, akin to being born with a silver spoon,” Petrullo said. “Because of this, we’ve got this really nice individual variation in early-life environmental quality across a natural ecological environment.”
However, as global temperatures continue to climb, this environment is expected to see a good deal of change. It’s possible that food booms and other ecological patterns could change right alongside the climate and the connections between early-life experiences and lifespan could also shift. According to Petrullo, these changes could offer more insight into how animals may continue to adapt to environments that are only getting more challenging to survive in. Future study could also help scientists learn more about what environmental factors can buffer these squirrels from ongoing environmental threats.

The post Early trauma can shorten a red squirrel’s lifespan appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

About five million years ago, the North American Pacific Northwest was teeming with some pretty big fish that would have made the continent’s biggest salmon runs look small. An eight to 10-feet-long prehistoric salmon species called Oncorhynchus rastrosus stalked the seas and streams of the Miocene. It weighed upwards of 400 pounds and was almost twice as long and three times heavier than today’s largest salmon species–the Chinook/king salmon. 

Oncorhynchus rastrosus also sported a formidable pair of front teeth that projected out from the sides of their mouths like tusks, but not like fangs as scientists previously believed. This major dental update is detailed in a study published April 24 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Oncorhynchus rastrosus was first described in 1972. At the time, scientists believed that its large oversize teeth pointed backwards into the month like fangs. This largest known member of the Salmonidae family was commonly called the “saber-toothed salmon” due to the position of its teeth. However, CT scans of some newer Oncorhynchus rastrosus fossils and analysis in the study confirmed that these two-inch long curved chompers were more similar to a warthog’s tusks. This makes the species more of a “spike-toothed salmon.”

“This is all part of the scientific process. You have an idea and you get new information,” study co-author and University of Oregon paleobiologist Edward Davis tells PopSci. “It’s a good reminder of the humility you need to have as a scientist.”

[Related: A gator-faced fish shaped like a torpedo stalked rivers 360 million years ago.]

Scientists are not exactly sure what these signature tusks were used for, but believe they were primarily used to fight off other salmon or predators. They also may have been a way for female fish to dig nests for their eggs or even to help both sexes swim upstream to spawn.

“When they’re swimming upstream, they could maybe hook the spikes on something and take a rest without having to use any energy,” says Davis. “It’s sort of like if you’re holding on to the side of the swimming pool.”

With these tusks, they would have been as “equally fearsome” as their male counterparts, according to study co-author and professor and curator of fishes at Oregon State University Brian Sidlauskas.

Their teeth likely weren’t used for catching prey. The spike-toothed salmon may have been a filter-feeder that dined on tiny organisms called plankton. This filter feeding may have been one of the reasons they reached such titanic sizes. Their relatives the sockeye salmon as well as baleen whales and basking sharks have bony features called gill rakers that they use to filter out oxygen and microorganisms from the water. According to Davis, Oncorhynchus rastrosus have an unusually large number of gill rakers. Filter feeding with these gill takers possibly helped them grow since it could consume larger organisms like jellyfish and get more nutrients. 

They also lived in an environment with the food and water resources that could support their large bodies. In this way, studying the spike-toothed salmon can also give clues about what might be in store for the planet as temperatures continue to rise. They lived at the end of the Miocene, when the world’s oceans were much warmer than today. Global carbon dioxide levels were also near what Earth could see in the year 2100. Like today’s salmon, they hatched in freshwater, went into the ocean, and then returned back into the freshwater to spawn and die. 

“But these fish were huge,” says Davis. “That means there had to be a lot more water in those ancient rivers than we see today, to give them the space to be able to swim all the way up into eastern Oregon.”

[Related: The salmon of 2100 will have new habitat: the remains of melted glaciers.]

Oncorhynchus rastrosus went extinct as the Earth began to cool towards the end of the Miocene. This change in climate likely depleted them of the resources that they needed to sustain such large bodies. 

In future studies, Davis and his colleagues plan to do a closer analysis of some

spike-toothed salmon specimens. While a complete skeleton has yet to be found, a number of fossils belonging to this enormous fish have been uncovered in recent years. They also hope to come up with new models to study how these tusk-like teeth were used and better understand what extinct ecosystems can teach us. 

“Cool extinct animals get people excited about science and the ancient world. But it’s important to understand that ancient world because it gives us a window into what the world could be like in future scenarios,” says Davis. “By looking at how the giant salmon lived on this much warmer Earth, we can think about what resources are going to change over the next 80 years if our Earth is returning to that warmer state.”

The post This 400-pound prehistoric salmon had tusks like a warthog appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

Check out Weirdest Thing’s new page on Reddit to meet fellow Weirdos!

FACT: These birds help humans hunt for honey, but it’s not as sweet as you might think

By Rachel Feltman

The greater honeyguide is a sub-Saharan bird that engages in a behavior that’s so fascinating to people that its entire genus and its entire family is named for it, even though they’re the only species in the bunch that definitely acts this way.

These birds literally guide humans to sources of honey. Humans call to the birds for help, the birds recognize the request and start leading the way, and the humans follow them straight to a big honeycomb. Hunter-gatherers are almost six-times more likely to find hives with a honeyguide assist than they are without. 

The people in question are The Hadza of Northern Tanzania. Even if you don’t recognize their name, you’ve almost certainly heard of or read research about them. If you’ve read an article about, for example, how eating a modern diet versus a traditional hunter-gatherer diet changes our microbiome, it was almost certainly based on research on the Hadza. 

Speaking of research on Hadza diets: Scientists have found that honey makes up a surprisingly large percentage of their caloric intake. It can make up around 20% of the calories they consume. 

That’s where the honeyguide bird comes in with a big assist. Some researchers estimate that up to 10% of the Hadza’s total diet is foraged with the help of these birds.

Incredible, right? But a lot of popular media on the subject takes things a little too far in the Disney Princess direction.

A lot of depictions of this process—including some documentaries—suggest that this is a mutually-beneficial partnership between birds and humans. Humans ask for help, birds provide it, and humans pay the animals for their services with chunks of honeycomb full of wax and grubs for them to eat. 

But as this feature in Atlas Obscura by Cara Giaimo explains, that isn’t quite true—and the sunnier portrayal of this relationship can cause trouble for the Hadza. Check out the article—and this week’s episode—for more on the (still very awesome) truth behind the misinformation. 

FACT: A barber may have come close to launching a massive revolt—until the Civil War got in the way

By Joel Cook

On this week’s episode of The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week, I’m sharing one of my favorite stories from my own show, Rogue History. It’s the story of a traveling barber named Moses Dickson. This jack-of-all-trades (seriously, he opened a fine dining restaurant at one point) may have laid the groundwork for a major insurrection. Dickson claimed to have recruited a vast network of enslaved people and free allies who were gearing up to revolt against their oppressors. He said the only reason it didn’t happen was that the Civil War started brewing, and he figured he’d let actual armies do the legwork instead. 

That might sound like a convenient claim for some random barber to make, but there’s some evidence that Dickson really had been about to light the fuse on a huge insurrection. Learn more in this week’s episode. You can also check out the Rogue History episode that inspired this fact.

FACT: Rats love taking selfies, too 

By Sara Kiley Watson

What’s not to love about a selfie? Millions are taken every single day, though the reasons why we snap so many pics of ourselves are still up in the air. Some folks guess it’s for vanity, but research has also shown that capturing a quick selfie can help us remember deeper meanings of those day-to-day events or big moments. 

One recent project from a Paris-based professional photographer and grad student shows that humans might not be the only animals that love a cheeky self-portrait. 

A Skinner box-inspired experiment showed that rats got a kick out of pressing a button that snapped selfies. They also enjoyed viewing the resulting images—even if they weren’t lured by a treat to do so. Of course, the psychological significance of rat selfies is still a mystery, and we’ll need to do a lot more research to truly understand our shared love of self-portraits (and/or button-pushing). But in the meantime, the photos produced by these curious little critters are still cute as can be. You can see them here. 

The post These birds help humans hunt for honey—but it’s not as sweet as you might think appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Many marine organisms–including sea worms, some jellyfish, sea pickles, and more–can emit ethereal glow through a process called bioluminescence. The evolutionary origins of this light production remain a mystery, but an international team of scientists have found that bioluminescence may have first evolved in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals at least 540 million years ago–nearly 300 million years earlier than they previously believed. This new timeline could help scientists unravel bioluminescence’s origin story. The findings are detailed in a study published April 23 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

What is bioluminescence? 

Bioluminescent organisms produce light via chemical reactions. This ability has independently evolved at least 94 times in nature. Bioluminescence is involved in multiple animal behaviors including communication, courtship, camouflage, and hunting. Fireflies, glowworms, and even some species of fungi on land are also considered bioluminescent organisms. 

“Nobody quite knows why it first evolved in animals,” Andrea Quattrini, a study co-author and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s curator of corals, said in a statement. 

The earliest dated example of bioluminescence in animals was believed to be roughly 267 million years ago in small marine crustaceans known for a mucus-filled synchronized mating dance called ostracods, until this new research turned back the clock. 

An octocoral evolutionary tree

In the study, the team looked back into the evolutionary history of octocorals to search for clues to when it first appeared in animals. Octocorals are an ancient and frequently bioluminescent group of living animals that includes sea fans, sea pens, and soft corals. Just like hard corals, octocorals are tiny colonial polyps that build up a reef structure, but they are primarily soft bodied and not stony. The octocorals that glow generally light up when they are bumped or otherwise disturbed. According to the team, this makes the precise function of their ability to produce light a bit of a puzzle  

[Related: These newly discovered bioluminescent sea worms are named after Japanese folklore.]

“We wanted to figure out the timing of the origin of bioluminescence, and octocorals are one of the oldest groups of animals on the planet known to bioluminesce,” study co-author and  Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History postdoctoral scholar Danielle DeLeo said in a statement. “So, the question was when did they develop this ability?”

They turned to a detailed evolutionary tree of octocorals that was built in 2022. This map of evolutionary relationships–or phylogeny–used the genetic data from 185 different species of octocorals. The team then placed two octocoral fossils of known ages within the tree based on  their physical features. They were able to use the fossils’ ages and their respective positions in the evolutionary tree to determine roughly when octocoral lineages split apart to become two or more branches. The team ultimately mapped out the evolutionary relationships that featured all of the known bioluminescent species alive today.

With this evolutionary tree and branches that contained bioluminescent species labeled, the team used a statistical technique called ancestral state reconstruction to analyze the relationships between the species.

“If we know these species of octocorals living today are bioluminescent, we can use statistics to infer whether their ancestors were highly probable to be bioluminescent or not,” said Quattrini. “The more living species with the shared trait, the higher the probability that as you move back in time that those ancestors likely had that trait as well.”

Multiple different statistical methods all reached the same result. About 540 million years ago, the common ancestor of all octocorals was very likely bioluminescent. This is about 273 million years earlier than in the ostracod crustaceans that were previously considered the earliest evolutionary example of bioluminescence in animals.

According to the team, the octocorals’ thousands of living species and relatively high incidence of bioluminescence suggests that glowing played a role in the group’s evolutionary success. While this does not exactly answer what octocorals are using bioluminescence for, the fact that it has been retailed for so long shows how important this form of communication has become for their survival. 

Conservation implications

Now that the team knows that the common ancestor of all octocorals likely could already produce its own inner glow, they are interested in conducting a more thorough count of which of the group’s more than 3,000 known living species are still bioluminescent and which have lost the trait over time. This may have them pinpoint a set of ecological circumstances that correlate with bioluminesce and potentially shed some light on its function. 

The team is also working on creating a genetic test to determine if an octocoral species has functional copies of the genes for luciferase–an enzyme involved in bioluminescence. Future studies could even show that bioluminescence is even more ancient and embedded in coral’s evolutionary history. 

[Related: Surprise! These sea cucumbers glow.]

The study also points to evolutionary insight that could help monitor and manage octocorals in today’s oceans. They are currently threatened by mineral mining, fishing, oil and gas extraction and spills, and human-made climate change. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently confirmed that the planet is currently experiencing the fourth global coral bleaching event on record and the second in the last 10 years due to heat stress from increasingly warming oceans. Octocorals can bleach the way that hard corals can under extreme temperatures. Understanding more about how they use bioluminescence could help scientists better identify their habitats and monitor their behaviors. Better knowledge of their genetics and what they need to survive can also inform better conservation policies for these marine organisms. 

The post Bioluminescence may have evolved 300 million years earlier than scientists previously thought appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Many of Madagascar’s charismatic lemurs are in big trouble. Slash and burn agriculture has destroyed their habitat and made most of its subspecies vulnerable to extinction. Now, critically endangered diademed sifaka lemurs (Propithecus diadema) are being attacked by another vulnerable species, a cat-like carnivore called the fosa (Crytoprocta ferox, also spelled fossa). 

A study published April 9 in the journal Ecology and Evolution details very rare observations of how diademed sifaka lemurs at Madagascar’s Betampona Strict Nature Reserve have been attacked by fosas. Fosas are reddish brown animals with slender bodies and long tails. They are excellent climbers and are often compared to cougars. However, they are actually part of the weasel family. 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources also categorizes the fosa as vulnerable and at risk of extinction. Nearly all of the lemurs that fosas have now been observed eating are also at risk of extinction. The fosas also prey on birds and rodents. 

The impact of this new predation by the fosa combined with low reproductive rates and a potentially high inbreeding in the lemur population of Betampona could affect the survival of this species at this site. Betampona is Madagascar’s first protected reserve. It includes roughly 5,400 acres of rainforest on the island’s east coast, surrounded by agricultural land. This makes it difficult for the lemurs and other animals in the reserve to find other eligible animals to mate with. 

[Related: Giant beasts once roamed Madagascar. What happened to them?]

In this new study, a team from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar came across one fosa preying on diademed sifaka lemur during the team’s daily behavioral observations.

“What we saw was very rare. There are other small carnivores in Madagascar, but they are not big enough to be able to prey upon an adult diademed sifaka [lemur] because they are among the biggest lemurs,” study co-author and Washington University in St. Louis biological anthropologist Giovanna Bonadonna said in a statement. “There are not so many predators that could actually get them.”

The team found that this dynamic can be particularly complex when the predation occurs in an isolated or poor-quality habitat without enough resources to go around. Also, fosas are rarely caught in the act since they are stealthy hunters. Previous studies could only gleam what they eat by examining the bones and other evidence left behind in their droppings. 

“We noticed that a female diademed sifaka [lemur] that we were following after the first attack didn’t run away very far,” study co-author and University of Antananarivo PhD student Onja Ramilijaona said in a statement. “Instead she stayed still and remained vigilant, looking at the fosa.”

Ramilijaona also documented the remains of another lemur that they presumed was killed by a fosa. Hair was scattered around the site and its abdominal contents were found near several bones. The tree branches nearby also indicated signs of a struggle between animals. The study describes other instances over 19 months of observations when the fosa appeared to stalk lemurs, but did not manage to take one of them down. 

[Related: Dams are hurting this enigmatic Australian species.]

While the Betampona reserve itself is protected, the forest’s relatively small size and isolation from other eligible mates can make it difficult for animals like the diademed sifaka lemurs to continue to breed and survive there.

“This population of diademed sifakas is already in bad shape,” Bonadonna said. “There is a huge predation pressure that was underestimated until we did this behavioral study. We were able to highlight inbreeding and other factors that may be behind the fact that this population cannot thrive at Betampona.”

Bonadonna stresses that fosas are not “the bad guy.” They are also in need of conservation and face threats from habitat loss, competition for food resources, and a bad reputation among humans who can often consider them pests. The study highlights just how difficult conservation can be. Human activities and behaviors can lead to changes within ecosystems and cascading effects on at-risk species, such as more inbreeding and lack of genetic diversity. 

“Despite the effort to conserve one species, it’s really the ecosystem and the balance of that ecosystem that is at stake once the habitat is compromised,” said Bonadonna.

The post Critically endangered lemur attacked by vulnerable fosa in Madagascar appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Lampreys look like something out of a horror movie, with their sucky mouths chock full of teeth, eel-like bodies, and parasitic behaviors. These “water vampires” represent a bit of an evolutionary fork in the road between vertebrates and invertebrates, and the scientific debate about just how closely related we are to these carnivorous fish has taken yet another turn. 

Scientists found some evidence that lampreys have a rudimentary sympathetic nervous system–which is believed to control the fight-or-flight reaction in vertebrates. The findings are detailed in a study published April 17 in the journal Nature and could prompt a rethink of the origins of the sympathetic nervous system.

Lampreys are the closest living organisms scientists have to studying the fish ancestors that vertebrates evolved from some 550 million years ago. They belong to an ancient vertebrate lineage called Agnatha–or jawless fish. Some scientists believe that they represent the earliest group of vertebrates that is still living and can give us an evolutionary window into all vertebrate ancestors. Other scientists question the theories due to a lack of lamprey evidence in the fossil record. 

[Related: Giant prehistoric lamprey likely sucked blood—and ate flesh.]

Scientists previously believed that lampreys did not have sympathetic neurons. These neurons are part of the sympathetic nervous system, a system of nerves that target the internal organs throughout the body including the gut, pancreas, and heart. The system works together to respond to dangerous or stressful situations. It also helps an organism’s body maintain homeostasis, making sure that the heart keeps pumping, the digestive system keeps moving, and more. 

In this new study, a team used lampreys to look at how developmental changes may have promoted the evolution of vertebrate traits like fight-or-flight. They found evidence of the types of stem cells that eventually form sympathetic neurons. The presence of these cells in lampreys could revise the timeline of when the sympathetic nervous system began to evolve. 

“Over a hundred years of literature has suggested that lamprey lack a sympathetic nervous system,” study co-author and California Institute of Technology biologist Marianne Bronner said in a statement. “Surprisingly, we found that sympathetic neurons do, in fact, exist in lamprey but arise at a much later time in lamprey development than expected.”

Bronner and her team studied neural crest cells. These are a kind of stem cells that are specific to vertebrates and give rise to the multiple cell types found throughout the body. Scientists previously believed that lampreys lacked the neural crest-derived precursors, or progenitors, that ultimately build the sympathetic nervous system.

According to Bronner, researchers previously looked for evidence of a sympathetic nervous system too early in lamprey development compared to other animals. For example, the sympathetic nervous system forms in the first two to three days of development in birds. 

[Related: You might have more in common with the sea lamprey than you realize.]

Study co-author and Cal Tech evolutionary biologist Brittany Edens looked at the neural crest–derived progenitor cells in lampreys that ultimately give rise to sympathetic neurons. She found that in lampreys, the neural crest–derived progenitors appear much later than other animals. They can appear as long as one month after fertilization. The cells also do not fully mature into neurons until about four months of development, during the fish’s larval stage.

It is still not known whether the sympathetic nervous system of lampreys controls fight-or-flight-like behaviors similar to other vertebrates. According to the team, these findings suggest that the developmental program that controls the formation of sympathetic neurons remains across all vertebrates, from lamprey to mammals. 

The post Lampreys offer clues to the origin of our fight-or-flight instinct appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Central California coast is proving to be a playground for baby sharks. Earlier this year, we caught a glimpse of what could be the first images of a newborn great white shark. Now, we’re learning more about where they like to live during their formative years. Juvenile great white sharks select warm and shallow waters and congregate about half a mile from shore. These findings are described in a study published April 19 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science and could have crucial conservation implications.

This water column is too cold

After they’re born, baby great white sharks–called pups–do not get any care from their parents. This new study looked at one of these populations of young sharks off Padaro Beach near Santa Barbara in Central California. Here, pups and juveniles gather together in ‘nurseries’ and are unaccompanied by adults in a sort of shark never, neverland, except these fish will eventually grow up.

“This is one of the largest and most detailed studies of its kind, because around Padaro Beach, large numbers of juveniles share near-shore habitats, we could learn how environmental conditions influence their movements,”study co-author and California State University, Long Beach marine biologist Christopher Lowe said in a statement. “You rarely see great white sharks exhibiting this kind of nursery behavior in other locations.”

[Related: This could be the first newborn great white shark ever captured on camera.]

In 2020 and 2021, the team tagged 22 juveniles with sensor-transmitters. Great white sharks can live for up to 40 to 70 years and the younger sharks in this study were all females and males between one and six years old. The sensor-transmitters measured local water pressure and temperature in real time. They also tracked each shark’s position by sending out “pings” to several receivers spread out over roughly two miles along the shoreline. 

When the juveniles temporarily left for offshore waters in the winter, the tracking was stopped. The team gathered more information on the temperature distribution with an autonomous underwater vehicle. With this data in hand, they used artificial intelligence to generate a 3D model of the juveniles’ temperature and depth preferences.

The juveniles dived to the greatest depths around dawn and dusk. This is likely when they were foraging for rays, skates, and schooling fish. They moved closer to the surface–between zero and 13 feet deep–during the afternoon when the sun was warmest. This shift towards the warmer water was potentially to increase their body temperature. They directly altered their vertical position within the water column to stay between 60 degrees and 71 degrees Fahrenheit. Their sweet spot also appeared to be between 68 and 71 degrees. 

“This may be their optimum to maximize growth efficiency within the nursery,” study co-author and California State University, Long Beach research technician Emily Spurgeon said in a statement. 

Keeping to the shallows

The temperature distribution in the water changes quite frequently, which means that the juveniles must constantly be on the move to remain within optimal range. They believe that this is why juvenile great white sharks spend more time in shallow water than adults tend to. Additionally, adult sharks were rarely observed in the nursery.

[Related: With new tags, researchers can track sharks into the inky depths of the ocean’s Twilight Zone.]

According to the team, the results show that the temperature distribution across three dimensions strongly impacted how the juvenile sharks were distributed. They spread out at greater depths when seafloor temperatures were warmer, and moved closer together towards the surface of the water when deeper water was cooler.

However, the team is still not sure what benefits the pups and juveniles have from gathering in nurseries in the first place. It could potentially help them avoid predators like some whales.

“Our results show that water temperature is a key factor that draws juveniles to the studied area,” said Spurgeon. “However, there are many locations across the California coast that share similar environmental conditions, so temperature isn’t the whole story. Future experiments will look at individual relationships, for example to see if some individuals move among nurseries in tandem.”

Great white sharks are considered vulnerable, with their populations decreasing in some parts of the world. Knowing where baby and juvenile sharks like to hang out can help inform better conservation laws to protect them as a species. It can also help protect the public from negative shark encounters. 

The post Baby sharks stick to the shallows appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Paleontologists already know that the extinct marine reptile ichthyosaurs were enormous. Some newly described jawbone fossils uncovered in England represent a new ichthyosaur species. The bones indicate that the ocean titan may have been over 82 feet long, and even pushed the possible limits of vertebrate size. The new find is detailed in a study published April 17 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

“This research has been ongoing for almost eight years. It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around what was the UK during the Triassic Period,” study co-author and University of Manchester paleontologist Dean Lomax said in a statement. “These jawbones provide tantalizing evidence that perhaps one day a complete skull or skeleton of one of these giants might be found. You never know.”

Meet the ichthyosaurs

Ichthyosaurs are an extinct group of reptiles that are distant relatives of today’s lizards and snakes. They had long fins and were potentially ambush predators like today’s great white sharks and wolves, feeding on fish and other marine dwellers. Ichthyosaurs also may have followed migration patterns that are similar to today’s whales. 

[Related: These ancient, swimming reptiles may have been the biggest animals of all time.]

They lived 228 to 112 million years ago and they were most abundant during the Triassic and Jurassic eras. There are over 100 known ichthyosaur species. Their remains have been found in parts of Asia, North America, and Europe. A fossil deposit in present day Nevada may have even been an ichthyosaur birthing ground. 

Solving a prehistoric jigsaw puzzle 

Over several years, a team from The University of Manchester has discovered and pieced together individual fragments of an ichthyosaur jawbone. A jawbone uncovered in 2016 at the Westbury Mudstone Formation in Somerset was similar to one collected from the same rock formation just a few miles away. The team believe that both of these jawbones belong to a previously undescribed species of ichthyosaur.

In 2020, a father and daughter from Devon named Justin and Ruby Reynolds found the first pieces of the second jawbone to be found in May 2020. Ruby was 11 years-old at the time and found the first chunk of giant bone before searching for more pieces. The family contacted Lomax and fossil collector and study co-author Paul de la Salle, who found the first jawbone in 2016. 

“I was amazed by the find. In 2018, my team studied and described Paul’s giant jawbone and we had hoped that one day another would come to light,” said Lomax. “This new specimen is more complete, better preserved, and shows that we now have two of these giant bones–called a surangular–that have a unique shape and structure. I became very excited, to say the least.”

Over time, several members of the Reynolds family, Paul, and Lomax’s research team visited the site to hunt for more pieces of this rare discovery. They found more pieces of the same jaw which happened to fit together perfectly.

[Related: Why kids make the best amateur fossil hunters.]

“It was so cool to discover part of this gigantic ichthyosaur. I am very proud to have played a part in a scientific discovery like this,” Ruby Reynolds said in a statement. Ruby and her father are both listed as co-authors of the new study. 

A new ichthyosaur species

The final piece of bone was recovered in October 2022. The research team found that the jaw bones belong to a new species of giant ichthyosaur they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, or “giant fish lizard of the Severn.” It was likely the size of the blue whale–today’s largest living organism. Comparing the two examples of the same bone with the same unique features from the same geologic time zone helps support the idea that it is a new species. 

The bones are about 202 million years old and date back to the end of the Triassic Period called the Rhaetian. During the Rhaetian, gigantic ichthyosaurs swam while dinosaurs walked on land. However, this was when ichthyosaurs’ time on Earth came to a close. They went extinct during the Late Triassic global mass extinction event some 200 million years ago and these bones represent the very last of their kind. Dinosaurs would not go on to live another 134 million years. 

While this new discovery is not the first giant ichthyosaur, these findings are unique among those known to science. These two bones appear about 13 million years after their latest geologic relatives. These include Shonisaurus sikanniensis from British Columbia, Canada, and Himalayasaurus tibetensis from Tibet, China. A closer examination of the bones’ internal structures also confirmed that the animal was likely still growing at its time of death.

“The anomalous periosteal growth of these bones hints at yet to be understood bone developmental strategies, now lost in the deep time, that likely allowed late Triassic ichthyosaurs to reach the known biological limits of vertebrates in terms of size,” Marcello Perillo, a study co-author and a paleobiology master’s student at the University of Bonn in Germany, said in a statement. “So much about these giants is still shrouded by mystery, but one fossil at a time we will be able to unravel their secret.”

The ichthyosaur bones will soon be on display at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

The post New species of extinct marine reptile found with help from 11-year-old child appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Robotic engineers are no stranger to turning to nature for inspiration. In recent years, birds, dogs, extinct sea creatures, and even humans themselves have all served as jumping off point for new mechanical designs. Now, researchers from Stanford are citing the Harvestman spider, better known as a daddy long-legs as inspiration for a new robot design they believe could be better equipped at navigating uneven rocky caverns and lava tubes. One day, they hope this spider-like design could even help robots navigate the icy caverns of the moon and Mars. 

How does the spider robot work?

The researchers introduced their new machine called the “ReachBot” in a paper published today in the journal Science Robotics. ReachBot features multiple extendable boom limbs which it can use to reach out for rocks and propel itself forward. Each limb comes attached with a three finger gripper that grabs onto the rocks and uses them as anchor points. The long-legged design means the robot’s limbs can potentially access the floor, ceiling, and walls of a lava tube or cave, which in turn provide increased leverage. This unique positioning, the researchers write, lets the ReachBot “assume a wide variety of possible configurations, bracing stances, and force application options.”

ReachBot attempts to fill in a form-factor gap among existing exploration robots. Small robots, the researchers argue, are useful for navigating through tight corridors but typically have limited reach. Larger robots, by contrast, might be able to reach more area but can get bogged down by their heft mass and mechanical complexity. ReachBot offers a compromise by relying on a small main body with limbs that can expand and reach out if necessary. 

The robot utilizes a set of onboard sensors to scale the area ahead of it and look for concave rocks or other signs suggestive of a graspable area. Like a physical spider. ReachBot doesn’t immediately assume rock surfaces are flat, but instead seeks “rounded features that the gripper can partially enclose.” Researchers say they tested the robot in simulation to help it improve its ability to correctly identify grippable surface areas and aid in footstep planning. Following the simulation, ReachBot was tested in the real-world in an unmanned lava tube near Pisgah crater in Mojave Desert. 

“Results from the field test confirm the predictions of maximum grasp forces and underscore the importance of identifying and steering toward convex rock features that provide a strong grip,” the researchers write. “They also highlight a characteristic of grasp planning with ReachBot, which is that identifying, aiming for, and extending booms involves a higher level of commitment than grasping objects in manufacturing scenarios.”

ReachBot could help researchers explore deep caves and caverns on other planets

Researchers believe ReachBot’s arachnid design could have extraterrestrial applications. Lava tubes like in the Mojave Desert where the robot was tested removes some of the area on the surface of the moon and Mars. In the latter example, researchers say ancient subsurface environments on the Red Planet remain relatively unchanged the time when some believe the planet may have been habitable. These sheltered cavern areas, they write, “could provide sites for future human habitation.” 

In theory, future exploratory space robots could use a design like ReachBot’s to explore deeper into areas contemporary robots could find inaccessible. Elsewhere, researchers are exploring how three-legged jumping machines and four-legged, dog inspired robots could similarly help scientists learn more about undiscovered areas of our solar system neighbors. 

The post Daddy long-legs-inspired robot could one day squirm through Martian caves appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Life may “find a way,” but how living things evolve is not a neat and orderly process. Instead of a tidy family tree with straight lines added for each new generation, the birth of a new species is much more tangled in reality. New research into one butterfly genus found in the Amazon shows just how entangled those evolutionary lines may be. Hybrids between some species can produce new butterfly species that are genetically distinct from both parent species and their earlier ancestors. The findings are described in a study published April 17 in the journal Nature. 

A third hybrid

In the study, the team focused on the brightly colored Heliconius genus of butterflies found in Central and South America. They are a common model for studying how butterfly wing patterns evolved due to the wide variety of wings within the group. In an 1861 letter to Charles Darwin, naturalist Henry Walter Bates referred to the Heliconius butterflies found in the Amazon as “a glimpse into the laboratory where Nature manufactures her new species.”

For a deeper look into Heliconius’ evolution, the team on this new study harnessed the power of whole-genome sequencing. All living organisms have DNA that is made of four nucleotide bases–adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. If you know the sequence of bases, you can identify the organism’s unique DNA fingerprint called a pattern. Sequencing determines these patterns and whole genome sequencing in a lab can determine the orders of these bases in one process.  

[Related: You might have more in common with the sea lamprey than you realize.]

The whole-genome sequencing indicated that a hybridization event occurred about 180,000 years ago between Heliconius melpomene and the ancestor of today’s Heliconius pardalinus butterflies. This event produced a third hybrid species called Heliconius elevatus. While it is descended from hybrids, H. elevatus is also a distinct butterfly species and has its own individual traits. These include color pattern, wing shape, flight characteristics, how they choose mates, and more. All three of these distinct species now fly together across a wide area of Amazon and indicate more evidence that hybrids are not always sterile as sometimes previously thought. 

“Historically, hybridization was thought of as a bad thing that was not particularly important when it came to evolution,” study co-author and Harvard University biologist Neil Rosser said in a statement. “But what genomic data have shown is that, actually, hybridization among species is widespread. Over the last 10 or 15 years, there’s been a paradigm shift in terms of the importance of hybridization and evolution.”

An evolutionary surprise

According to the team, this may alter how we view species and speciation. Scientists had generally believed that hybridization inhibited the generation of new species. Hybrid organisms are often born unhealthy or sterile and can’t reproduce, particularly when they are born with two different sex chromosomes. Most species are not perfectly intact tight units, but instead exchange a lot of DNA and can be considered “quite leaky.” The species that are evolving are actually exchanging genes constantly and it can trigger the evolution of new lineages. 

“Normally, species are thought to be reproductively isolated. They can’t produce hybrids that are reproductively fertile,” study co-author and Harvard University biologist James Mallet said in a statement. 

This is a different case for Heliconius  butterflies. They show that hybridization is not only occurring, but has driven the evolution of a new species in itself. While there is now evidence of hybridization between species, confirming if hybridization is involved in speciation has been difficult. 

[Related: Butterflies can remember specific flower foraging routes.]

“The question is: How can you collapse two species together and get a third species out of that collapse?” said Mallet.

This new research provides scientists with a next step in understanding how hybridization and speciation work in evolution. It could also help play a role in the planet’s biodiversity crisis, since fully understanding the question of what we really mean by “species” on a genetic level is important for conservation. It may also help in understanding the carriers of certain diseases. Multiple species of mosquitoes carry malaria, and while they are closely related, we still do not know how they interact or create new hybrids the way Heliconius butterflies do. 

As with evolution itself, this area of study will only continue to untangle as biologists learn more about what really makes a species a species. 

The post This butterfly hybrid thrived against evolutionary odds appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Microscopic tardigrades have fascinated scientists for their incredible toughness since they were first discovered back in 1773. They can sense when it’s time to go dormant and enter a tun state under harsh conditions. Tardigrades can even withstand dangerous levels of radiation and a surprising mechanism in the DNA may be why. The process to repair DNA goes into overtime when exposed to the deadly radiation to fix the damaged DNA. The findings are described in a study published April 12 in the journal Current Biology.

“What we saw surprised us,” study co-author and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biologist Bob Goldstein said in a statement. “The tardigrades are doing something we hadn’t expected.”  

Among the many dangers of excessive radiation exposure is its ability to damage DNA. In humans, the DNA damage from excessive radiation is linked to diseases including various cancers and cardiovascular disease. Tardigrade aka “water bears” can withstand an incredible amount of radiation. In 1963, researchers first discovered that they can survive 1,400 times more intense radiation than humans are known to live through. Now, scientists are getting a glimpse into how their bodies correct the radiation damage in DNA. 

[Related: What you need to know about the tardigrade cannon.]

In this new study, a team at UNC Chapel Hill used lab methods developed over the past 25 years to identify the internal genetic mechanisms tardigrades use to survive radiation exposure. They looked at a species of tardigrade called Hypsibius exemplaris that are not immune to DNA damage from radiation. Instead, they can repair this type of extensive damage. When they are exposed to radiation, tardigrade cells harness the power of hundreds of genes to create new proteins used to repair DNA. These proteins then ramp up the level of DNA repair to levels study co-author and biologist Courtney Clark-Hachtel called “ridiculous.”

“These animals are mounting an incredible response to radiation, and that seems to be a secret to their extreme survival abilities,” Clark-Hachtel said in a statement. “What we are learning about how tardigrades overcome radiation stress can lead to new ideas about how we might try to protect other animals and microorganisms from damaging radiation.”

[Related: We’ve seen how tardigrades walk, and it’s mesmerizing.]

As the UNC-Chapel Hill scientists completed the work, a team from France found similar results in their experiments. Museum of Natural History Paris researchers Jean-Paul Concordet and Anne de Cian and their colleagues found that while gamma rays shattered the DNA of the tardigrades, it didn’t kill them. They also discovered a new tardigrade protein called TRD1 that protects DNA. When it is put into human cells, the protein seems to help them withstand the damage. Concordet told The New York Times that TRD1 may grab onto the chromosomes and keep them in their correct shape, even as the chromosome strands start to fray. Understanding proteins like these can potentially lead to new treatments for cancer and other medical disorders where DNA is damaged. 

“Any tricks they use we might benefit from,” said Concordet. Concordet’s  findings were published as a reviewed preprint in the journal eLife in January. 

The post How super resilient tardigrades can fix their radiation-damaged DNA appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

As we wait for this spring and summer’s “cicadapocalypse,” when trillions will emerge across the Southern and Midwestern United States, some of the bugs may face a predicament that sounds straight out of science fiction. A sexually transmitted fungal pathogen exclusive to these periodical insects called Massospora cicadina can control them like “a puppet master.” It causes the infected cicadas to act hypersexual and infect other bugs before they eventually die.

Abdomens pierced open by a fungus

Massospora cicadina can affect both broods of periodical cicadas set to emerge in the coming weeks and months. Brood XIII–the Northern Illinois Brood–will emerge for the first time since 2007 and stretches across parts of Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, and northern Illinois. Some of Brood XIX–the Great Southern Brood–will overlap with Brood XIII. The Great Southern Brood last emerged in 2011 and is primarily located in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, George, North Carolina, South Carolina, and southern Illinois.

When they emerge, the cicadas molt into adults. Within a week to 10 days, this fungus opens up the backs of their abdomens. Scientists are still not sure when in their life cycle cicadas can initially become infected with Massospora cicadina, but the prevailing hypothesis is that they are infected on their way up from the ground. 

[Related: This parasite deploys mucus slime balls to make ‘zombie ants.’]

According to West Virginia University mycologist Matt Kasson, the infected cicadas look like they have “a gumdrop that’s gotten wet and dropped in chalk dust,” on them.

“If you look at a fungus infected cicada, you’ll see that basically, the backside of the body has been replaced by this chalky white fungal plug,” Kasson tells PopSci. “Now, if you or I had our abdomens pierced open by a fungus or a third of our body was replaced by some parasite, we probably wouldn’t feel well. We probably wouldn’t attempt to mate. We would just feel awful, lay down, and die.”

However, infected cicadas continue to fly around as if nothing is wrong with them even as their genitalia have been consumed by a fungus. They can do this because the fungus has sent them into a period of prolonged wakefulness–a time of increased stamina.

“A hypothesis for that prolonged wakefulness is that the fungus is producing an amphetamine called cathinone,” says Kasson. Kasson says it is similar to one of the synthetic stimulants commonly found in “illegal bath salts that were banned because of the aggressiveness that [they] would cause.” 

A quiet fungal ‘puppet master’

It makes the cicadas act hypersexualized, where males will continue to try to unsuccessfully mate with females and also mimic female behaviors to attract other males to mate with them. This then doubles the number of cicadas that will eventually become infected and is why it can be considered sexually transmitted. 

Massospora cicadina’s ability to keep the host alive long to maximize the number of cicadas infected makes it a biotroph. It does not work like the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus that takes over ants and makes them act like zombies or the fictional fungi from the television show and video game The Last of Us that pops out in a dramatic fashion. 

[Related: The Cicadapocalypse is nigh. 7 cicada facts to know before it hits.]

“It’s a trick of the fungus and it’s like a puppet master,” says Kasson. “It’s pulling the strings to maximize its own survival.”

Infection rates can reach 20 percent of a cicada if the environmental conditions are perfect, but some older studies suggest that it affects about five percent of cicadas in a given brood. 

Optimizing its genome

Massospora cicadina was first discovered in the mid to late 1800’s. Since periodical cicadas only emerge every 13 or 17 years, studying this fungus is difficult. It also can’t be cultured on a petri dish, so mycologists have a limited window to study them and are still not really sure where it comes from. 

In 2016, Brood V emerged near Kasson’s office in West Virginia and some of his graduate students suggested they look for signs of this fungus. They were able to sequence parts of its genome to see what makes it special. What they found was the largest genome ever sequenced for a fungus at about 1.5 billion bases.

“It’s about 20 times bigger than the average human genome and it’s mostly filled with these repetitive sequences called transposable elements,” says Kasson.

They indicate that Massospora cicadina has essentially spent millions of years optimizing its genome right alongside the cicada. The fungus and insect appear to have coevolved so that it can manipulate its host in a specific way to not kill it, but ensure its own survival. According to Kasson, their data on this coevolution hasn’t been published yet, but shows some interesting evolutionary dynamics. 

“What we see is a pattern where basically cicadas evolved in parallel to the fungus all together,” says Kasson. 

Massospora cicadina is not transmissible to humans, but  it would be smart to avoid eating any cicadas that have the white, chalky plugs on their abdomens. The infected bugs will not come with any sort of high or buzz, but do have several toxins that could be dangerous if eaten. 

“We found 1,000 other chemical compounds, some of which are known mycotoxins,” says Kasson. “So proceed with caution if you’re thinking about consuming one of these cicada fungi.”

The post This gnarly fungus makes cicadas hypersexual appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Tropical fruit-eating birds are so much more than just eye candy. These wildly colored avians are also a vital part of regenerating tropical forests. Data gathered on the ground in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil indicates that if birds like the red-legged honeycreeper, palm tanager, and toco toucan can move around more freely, carbon storage can increase by up to 38 percent. The findings are detailed in a study published April 15 in the journal Nature Climate Change. 

A crucial, but fragmented landscape

The Atlantic Forest in Brazil is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. It’s home to nearly seven percent of the world’s plant species and five percent of all vertebrates. This region is also one of Earth’s most fragmented tropical forests, due to deforestation, agriculture, and other human activities. Roughly 88 percent of its vegetation has been lost in the last 500 years, with only 12 percent of the original forest remaining in a patchwork of micro-forests. Many of these widely scattered forests are too far apart from one another to support bird movement.

Wild birds that eat a variety of fruits–or frugivores–can play a vital role in forest ecosystems by eating, excreting, and spreading seeds as they move around. Between 70 to 90 percent of the tree species living in tropical forests depend on seed dispersal from animals, as it allows the forests to grow and function.  

To combat this, 12 million hectares of land are targeted for restoration and natural recovery under the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact. New data from this study is helpful for determining how to proceed. 

[Related: Three nations pledge to reverse decades of destruction in the rainforest.]

“This crucial information enables us to pinpoint active restoration efforts–like tree planting–in landscapes falling below this forest cover threshold, where assisted restoration is most urgent and effective,” Daisy Dent, a study co-author and naturalist at ETH Zurich, a public research university in Switzerland, said in a statement. 

Bigger birds, bigger seeds

In the study, the team compared the carbon storage potential that could be recovered in landscapes with limited forest fragmentation to the more splintered landscapes. They found that the  more fragmented landscapes restricted the bird’s movement and more tree cover was needed.

According to the team, a minimum of 40 percent forest cover is critical across the Atlantic Forest region for species diversity and also maintain and restore ecosystem services needed to maximize forest restoration efforts. These ecosystem services include carbon storage and seed dispersal.

Different bird species also have differing impacts in terms of seed dispersal. 

The smaller birds can spread more seeds around, but they can only carry the smaller seeds that have lower carbon storage potential. 

Larger larger birds like the toco toucan or the curl-crested jay can disperse the seeds of bigger trees with a higher carbon storage potential. However, the larger birds are less likely to move across more highly fragmented landscapes.

“Allowing larger frugivores to move freely across forest landscapes is critical for healthy tropical forest recovery,” study co-author and ETH Zurich ecologist and biologist Carolina Bello said in a statement. “This study demonstrates that especially in tropical ecosystems seed dispersal mediated by birds plays a fundamental role in determining the species that can regenerate.”

What can be done

Preventing the poaching of tropical birds is one strategy, as more birds flying around can translate into more trees.

“We have always known that birds are essential, but it is remarkable to discover the scale of those effects,” study co-author and ETH Zurich ecologist Thomas Crowther said in a statement. “If we can recover the complexity of life within these forests, their carbon storage potential would increase significantly.”

[Related: Songbirds near the equator really are hotter, color-wise.]

Earlier studies suggest that recovering these forests could capture more than 2.3 billion tonnes of carbon. Natural regeneration could also be more cost-effective than planting more trees, but both should be done. This enhances animal movement in the areas where a more passive restoration is more likely. In highly fragmented landscapes, active restoration like planting more trees is necessary. In order for these tree planting methods to be ecologically effective, ensuring that the trees actually belong in the area and not are not being planted in grasslands is important. 

[Related: When planting trees is bad for the planet]

“By identifying the thresholds of forest cover in the surrounding landscape that allow seed dispersal, we can identify areas where natural regeneration is possible, as well as areas where we need to actively plant trees, allowing us to maximize the cost-effectiveness of forest restoration,” study co-author and nature based solutions project manager Danielle Ramos, said in a statement. Ramos is affiliated with the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and the Universidade Estadual Paulista, in Rio Claro, São Paulo, Brazil.

The post How fruit-eating birds could help regrow tropical forests appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Earth used to be absolutely crawling with more megafauna. The fossil record is full of enormous birds like New Zealand’s Heracles inexpectatus, giant lemurs from Madagascar, large marine reptiles that would put today’s sea snakes to shame. Paleontologists have now found evidence of three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo in present day Australia and New Guinea. The creatures are described in a study published April 14 in the journal Megataxa and indicate that these species were likely much more diverse in terms of shape, range of habitat, and hopping method. 

“Living kangaroos are already such remarkable animals, so it’s amazing to think what these peculiar giant kangaroos could have been getting up to,” study co-author and Flinders University PhD student Isaac Kerr said in a statement.

Meet the giant kangaroos

The three new species belong to an extinct genus of giant kangaroos called Protemnodon that lived from five million to about 40,000 years ago. They would have looked somewhat similar to modern gray kangaroos, but were generally more squat and muscular. Some species were roughly 110 pounds, but others were up to twice as large as today’s biggest living kangaroos.

Protemnodon fossils are fairly common across Australia, but they have historically been found as individual bones instead of in complete skeletons. This has made it difficult for scientists to determine just how many species there were and how they differed in geographic range, movement, and size. 

[Related: What prehistoric poop reveals about extinct giant animals.]

“The fossils of this genus are widespread and they’re found regularly, but more often than not you have no way of being certain which species you’re looking at,” study co-author and Flinders University paleontologist Gavin Prideaux said in a statement. 

For this study, the team was able to use multiple complete fossilized kangaroo skeletons from Lake Callabonna in South Australia, which may help give scientists a more clear picture of these giant kangaroos. Researchers also reviewed all known species of Protemnodon and found that they were all quite different from one another. The animals also adapted to live in different environments and even had different methods of hopping. 

One very heavy, wayfaring kangaroo

One of the new species is named Protemnodon viator. The word viator means ‘traveler’ or ‘wayfarer’ in Latin. This wandering marsupial was also much bigger than other known giant kangaroos at weighing up to 374 pounds. According to the team, this is roughly twice as much as the largest living male red kangaroos. 

Protemnodon viator was also likely well-adapted to its arid central Australian habitat. It lived in a smaller geographic area than the red kangaroos of today. It was also long-limbed and could hop quickly and efficiently. 

A ‘robust’ creature and a swamp wallaby-like kangaroo

Another of the new species is named Protemnodon mamkurra and it connects the paleontologists of today with a famous scientist of the past. British paleontologist and naturalist Sir Richard Owen famously coined the term ‘dinosaur’ in 1842, but also described the first species of Protemnodon in 1874.

When he first found these giant kangaroo fossils, he followed a common scientific approach at the time. He mainly focused on fossilized teeth, seeing slight differences between the teeth of his specimens. He ultimately described six species of Protemnodon and further study chipped away at some of Owen’s early descriptions. He also suggested that some or all Protemnodon have four legs, While not all of them do, this study agrees that one of his species–Protemnodon anak–likely did have four legs. 

[Related: Giant beasts once roamed Madagascar. What happened to them?]

“However, our study suggests that this is true of only three or four species of Protemnodon, which may have moved something like a quokka or potoroo–that is bounding on four legs at times, and hopping on two legs at others,” Kerr said. “The newly described Protemnodon mamkurra is likely one of these. A large but thick-boned and robust kangaroo, it was probably fairly slow-moving and inefficient. It may have hopped only rarely, perhaps just when startled.”

The best of these fossil species comes from the Green Waterhole Cave in southeastern Australia, on the land of the Boandik people. The species name mamkurra, means ‘great kangaroo’ and was chosen by Boandik elders and language experts in the Burrandies Corporation.

According to Kerr, it is unusual for a single genus of kangaroo to live in such varied environments. “For example, the different species of Protemnodon are now known to have inhabited a broad range of habitats, from arid central Australia into the high-rainfall, forested mountains of Tasmania and New Guinea.”

The third new species is named Protemnodon dawsonae. It is known from fewer fossils than the other two, so it is more of a mystery. The team believes it was likely a moderate speed hopper and potentially similar to the living swamp wallaby. It was named in honor of Australian paleontologist Lyndall Dawson.

While most species became extinct about 40,000 years ago on mainland Australia, they potentially lived longer in New Guinea and Tasmania. Future studies could shed more light on their extinction, as it is still an enduring paleontological mystery. 

The post Super-muscular 374-pound kangaroos once thumped around Australia and New Guinea appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

For a moment, things weren’t looking great for the newest California condor chick. But thanks to some quick thinking and CT scanning technology, the San Diego Zoo welcomed its 250th hatchling in conservationists’ ongoing species recovery program. To celebrate, the wildlife park has released images and video of the moments leading up to the arrival of Emaay (pronounced “eh-my”), including a fascinating look within the egg itself.

When the California Condor Recovery Program began in 1982, only 22 of the critically endangered birds could be located. Since then, that number has grown over 560, with more than half of all California condors living in the wild. A big part of that success is thanks to the recovery program’s first adoptee, a three-month-old abandoned male named Xol-Xol (pronounced “hole-hole”). Xol-Xol, now 42, has fathered 41 chicks over his life, but his latest addition needed some extra care.

Zoologists placed the egg of the new chick in an incubator ahead of hatching, but noticed what appeared to be a malposition—a bodily angle that could have produced complications. The condor egg was then moved to the Paul Harter Veterinary Medical Center and placed in a computed tomography (CT) imaging machine.

CT scanning takes a series of X-ray readings of an object from different angles, combining them through computer programming to create “slices,” or cross-sectional scans. The scans allow for far more detailed results than a basic X-ray image. Thankfully, subsequent CT scans of the condor egg confirmed a false alarm, allowing the team to return it to its incubator. 

[Related: California condor hatches after bird flu deaths.]

Upon pipping (a chick’s initial cracking of its shell), conservationists transferred the egg into the nest of Xol-Xol and his partner, Mexwe, who helped complete the hatching process. On March 16, Emaay greeted the world, with Xol-Xol and Mexwe caring for it ever since.

Emaay is one of about 50 California condor hatchlings now birthed every year—around 12-15 of which occur in the wild. But as San Diego Zoo’s 250th newcomer—and whose father was the program’s first adoptee—Emaay is particularly special to the team.

“Reaching this milestone feels incredible,” Nora Willis, senior wildlife care specialist at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said. “There’s still a long way to go but being part of this and helping the species recover is life changing.”

The post CT scans look inside a California condor egg appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

From a human perspective, chimpanzees and bonobos often represent two sides of our very nature. Chimpanzees are seen as more conflict ready. Bonobos are considered more peaceful, even demonstrating cooperation between groups. Some new research into both great ape species paints a more nuanced picture of both species and their behavior. Bonobos appear to be actually more aggressive than researchers previously thought within their own communities. The findings are described in a study published April 12 in the journal Current Biology.

“Chimpanzees and bonobos use aggression in different ways for specific reasons,” study co-author and Boston University anthropologist Maud Mouginot said in a statement. “The idea is not to invalidate the image of bonobos being peaceful—the idea is that there is a lot more complexity in both species.”

Pushing, biting, and chasing

In the study, the team focused in male aggression, which is often tied to reproduction. They analyzed three bonobo communities at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo and two chimpanzee communities at Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Researchers observed the behavior of 12 bonobos and 14 chimpanzees with a method called focal follows. This involves tracking one individual animal’s behavior for an entire day and noting how often the animal engaged in aggressive interactions, who they acted aggressively with, and whether or not they were physical. In great apes, these physical engagements included pushing, biting, or chasing an adversary. 

[Related: Popular chimpanzees set hand-holding trends for the whole group.]

“You go to their nests and wait for them to wake up and then you just follow them the entire day—from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep at night—and record everything they do,” said Mouginot.

They found that the male bonobos aggressive more frequently than chimpanzees. Overall, bonobos engaged in 2.8 times more aggressive interactions and three times as many physical aggressions than chimpanzees.

Bonobo males were also almost exclusively aggressive towards other males, while chimpanzees were more likely to be aggressive towards females. Chimpanzees were also more likely to use “coalitions” of males, with 13.2 percent of chimpanzee aggression and only one percent of bonobo aggressions featuring these groupings. 

The altercations involving groups of males can also cause more injuries and community infighting can potentially weaken the group’s ability to fight off different groups of chimpanzees. Bonobos do not appear to have this issue since most of their disputes are one on one. They have never been observed to kill one another and are not believed to be territorial, which leaves their communities more free to fight amongst themselves instead of outsiders. 

Male ‘coalitions’

The more aggressive males in both species also had greater mating success. The team was surprised to see this in bonobos because they have a co-dominant social dynamic where females often outrank males and can be more decisive with mates. Chimpanzees have male-dominated hierarchies, where these male coalitions coerce the females into mating.

“Male bonobos that are more aggressive obtain more copulations with females, which is something that we would not expect,” said Mouginot. “It means that females do not necessarily go for nicer males.”

The team notes that female bonobos and chimpanzees are not exactly passive, but that female aggression warrants its own future research.

The self-domestication hypothesis

These new findings of higher rates of male-male aggression in bonobos contradict a prevailing hypothesis in primate behavior called the self-domestication hypothesis. This idea that goes back as far as Charles Darwin posits that evolution has selected against aggression in bonobos and humans, but not chimpanzees. 

[Related: Primates have been teasing each other for 13 million years.]

Some of the findings do support some parts of the self-domestication hypothesis, specifically related to aggression towards females. Compared to chimpanzees, male bonobos direct less aggression towards females. According to the team, this aligns with earlier findings that male bonobos rarely use coercive mating strategies, even if they are physically larger.

The team could not assess the severity of aggressive interactions in terms of whether they caused wounds or injuries. They hope to collect this type of data in the future, along with comparing aggressive behavior that varies between communities and subspecies.

“I’d love to have the study complemented with comparable data from other field sites so we can get a broader understanding of variation within and between species,” said Mouginot.

The post ‘Peaceful’ bonobos bite and push each other, actually appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Earth’s octopuses have been around for at least 330 million years. While they evolved before dinosaurs roamed the planet, their present day descendents don’t live for very long. They generally die soon after mating or laying eggs, with some octopus species living only six months and the average living about two to three years. Some species like the giant Pacific octopus can live up to five years at most. 

To keep fish populations sustainable, fisheries must ensure that enough breeding individuals are either left alone or released back into the wild. Government agencies can enforce catch laws, while scientists can inform laws by understanding the breeding lives of various fish. For octopuses, their short lifespans have been okay on an evolutionary level. However, as human taste for these cephalopods grows, it’s become a problem to meet demand. 

In an effort to protect the longevity of this incredibly old and smart sea creature while ensuring that octopus fisheries remain sustainable, a team of scientists in Australia have created the first known step-by-step guide for determining the age of an octopus. The guide is detailed in a paper published April 11 in the Marine and Freshwater Research Journal and offers a first step in creating guidelines for fishers to follow and ensure that they are catching octopuses that are not of breeding age.

There are a few ways to tell how old an organism is–a process called aging. Trees famously have rings that indicate how many years they have been living. Examining teeth and bone structure in mammals also can reveal similar information about age. That process has been a little bit tricky for octopuses. In the new paper, the team looked at their beaks and stylets–internal shells located near their gills. They pinpointed the growth rings similar to tree’s are located here and are a useful tool to validate the age of an octopus.

[Related: Octopuses rewrite their own RNA to survive freezing temperatures.]

“Over the past 30 years, various studies have explored different methods to age octopus, but only a small number of researchers worldwide have the hands-on knowledge to execute these methods in the laboratory,” study co-author and University of South Australia marine ecologist Zoe Doubleday said in a statement. “It’s critical that we don’t lose this practical scientific knowledge because by determining their age, we can understand the impact of different rates of fishing on the population.”

The team explains how scientists can examine an octopus’ beak, stylets, and growth rings in the lab to determine how old the animal is. In the future, these methods could then be applied in the wild to get a sense of how old octopuses living in the ocean are.

“Understanding an octopus’s age helps to keep fisheries sustainable,” study co-author and University of South Australia PhD student Erica Durante said in a statement. “If you know a species’ age, you can estimate how fast they grow and reproduce and how much you can catch to keep a fishery sustainable.”

[Related: Eating seafood can be more sustainable and healthy than red meat.]

Age data can also tell scientists how long it takes for an animal to mature. This way, octopuses that have not matured enough to breed can be avoided when fishing. According to Durante, age is important for the general conservation and management of a species, whether or not it is commercially fished. 

One tricky part is that while growth rings on trees represent years, the growth rings on octopus represent days. According to the team, these methods will need to be customized for each of the roughly 300 known species of octopus. The team also acknowledges that these guidelines will continue to evolve as we learn more about the lives of these multi-legged creatures.

The post Why counting octopus ‘rings’ is crucial appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Dolphins and other toothed whales–or Odontocetes–use their heads to create sounds that help them communicate, navigate, and hunt in their murky marine world. These sometimes vocal-fry-like sounds reveal information about their murky marine world that is critical for survival. Some new genetic analysis suggests that the collections of fatty tissues that enable echolocation in toothed whales may have evolved from their skull muscles and bone marrow,changing how these animals eat and sense the world around them. The findings are described in a study published in the April 2024 issue of the journal Gene. 

Toothed whales include numerous dolphin species as well as orcas, sperm whales, belugas, and narwhals. Echolocation produced by a bulbous mass of fat tissue inside of their heads called the melon. 

Alongside of the jawbone of dolphins and toothed whales is a group of sound producing extramandibular fat bodies (EMFB). Another set of acoustic fat deposits called the intramandibular fat bodies (IMFB) are located inside the jawbone. The evolution of the melon, the extramandibular, and intramandibular fat bodies was critical for echolocation to develop in these marine mammals. However, little is known about how these fatty tissues themselves originated genetically. 

“Toothed whales have undergone significant degenerations and adaptations to their aquatic lifestyle,” Hayate Takeuchi, a study co-author and PhD student at Hokkaido University in Japan,  said in a statement. 

One of these adaptations was the partial loss of their sense of smell and taste, alongside the gain of echolocation. To look closer at this and other adaptations at a genetic level, the team from Hokkaido University studied DNA sequences of genes that are expressed in these acoustic fat bodies. They measured the gene expressions in harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) and Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens). 

[Related: This dolphin ancestor looked like a cross between Flipper and Moby Dick.]

They found that the genes which are normally associated with muscle function and development were active in the melon and EMFB’s on the outside of the jawbone. There was also evidence of an evolutionary connection between this fat and a muscle called the masseter muscle. In humans, the masseter muscle connects the lower jawbone to the cheekbones and is one of the the key muscles used in chewing.

“This study has revealed that the evolutionary tradeoff of masticatory muscles for the EMFB—between auditory and feeding ecology—was crucial in the aquatic adaptation of toothed whales,” study co-author and genome scientist and evolutionary biologist Takashi Hayakawa said in a statement. “It was part of the evolutionary shift away from chewing to simply swallowing food, which meant the chewing muscles were no longer needed.”

[Related: We finally know how baleen whales make noise.]

When the team analyzed the gene expression in the intramandibular fat on the inside of the jawbone, they found active genes related to some elements of immune response and regulation of a group of white blood cells that fight infection called T cells. The team believes that this is due to its proximity to bone marrow–which helps produce T cells–and requires more study.

The team also credited the Stranding Network Hokkaido as another important aspect of the research, as the samples used in this study were collected by them. The organization has  collected specimens of stranded whales along the seashore and river mouth in Hokkaido. Performing necropsies on stranded marine mammals have been critical for sampling and research to learn more about the potential causes of strandings and death, but also anatomy, physiology, and evolution. 

The post Toothed whales traded chewing for echolocation to evolve appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Worm bodies might not seem all that interesting. However, a closer look can also reveal how some worms use extra appendages to move through the water like “magic carpets,” while others detach their butts to procreate. Scientists have now discovered that a type of bristle worm is equipped with a complex vision system dominated by two really big eyes.

The Vanadis bristle worm’s eyes can potentially use ultraviolet (UV) light to communicate and find mates and/or food, which has not been well documented or studied in nature. The worms could also be among the only known bioluminescent animals that use UV light to glow. The findings are described in a study published April 8 in the journal Current Biology. 

Meet Vanadis bristle worms

The Vanadis bristle worms in this study are found around the island of Ponza, in the Mediterranean Sea west of Naples, Italy. It is a member of a family of large-eyed bristle worms called polychaeta. They are about six inches long and primarily eat plankton, algae, and bits of organic matter from dead organisms. As a pair, the worm’s eyes weigh about 20 times as much as the rest of the worm’s head, and appear like two giant red orbs are strapped to its body. If human eyes are as proportionally large, we would need to carry around roughly 220 extra pounds.  Since the worms are nocturnal and disappear when the sun is out, scientists wondered what they do with their eyes after and what they are used for.

[Related: How do animals see the world?]

In the study, a team from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, Lund University in Sweden, and Tuscia University in Italy examined three species of bristle worms that they collected by hand in shallow water. They brought them back to a lab, where they analyzed their eyes in close detail. The team found that Vanadis’ eyesight is better and more advanced than previously believed. Its eyes can see very small objects and track their movements, despite having a more simple nervous system.

A ‘secret language’–for mating

The team is still trying to figure out how they evolved such sharp eyesight. The worms’ bodies  are transparent, except for their eyes that need to register light to work properly. This means that they can’t be inherently transparent, so their eyes becoming visible must come with some evolutionary trade-offs. Some aspects about having a transparent body with visible eyes must have had evolutionary benefits that outweigh the consequences.

What the worms gain remains unclear partially because they do not come out during the day, when eyes typically work best. 

“No one has ever seen the worm during the day, so we don’t know where it hides. So, we cannot rule out that its eyes are used during the day as well,” University of Copenhagen marine and neurologist Anders Garm said in a statement. “What we do know is that its most important activities, like finding food and mating, occur at night. So, it is likely that this is when its eyes are important.”

[Related: Microscopic worms use electricity to ride bumblebees like EVs.]

The team believes that part of the explanation is that these worms can see different wavelengths of light than humans can. Like many birds, reindeer, and other more complex organisms, the worm’s vision can see UV light that is invisible to the human eye. This could indicate that the purpose of the eyes is to see bioluminescent signals in the pitch-black night time sea. Bioluminescence occurs when organisms can produce light on their own. Glow-worms are a famous example that use certain chemicals to produce light within their bodies. 

“We have a theory that the worms themselves are bioluminescent and communicate with each other via light. If you use normal blue or green light as bioluminescence, you also risk attracting predators,” said Garm. “But if instead, the worm uses UV light, it will remain invisible to animals other than those of its own species. Therefore, our hypothesis is that they’ve developed sharp UV vision so as to have a secret language related to mating.”

The worms also may need to be on the lookout for UV bioluminescent prey. Regardless of what it is used for, the Vanadis worm could become the first animal proven to naturally create UV bioluminescence to communicate, according to Garm.

Robotics research and evolutionary debates

The team has begun working with robotics researchers from the University of Southern Denmark to investigate how to better understand the mechanism behind these eyes well enough to translate it into technology.

“Together with the robotics researchers, we are working to understand how animals with brains as simple as these can process all of the information that such large eyes are likely able to collect,” said Garm. “This suggests that there are super smart ways to process information in their nervous system. And if we can detect these mechanisms mathematically, they could be integrated into computer chips and used to control robots.”

Beyond robotics, their eyes could also help settle a heavy debate around evolutionary theory. Did eyes only evolve once into every form we know today or have they arisen several times in evolutionary history?

Vanadis has eyes that are built relatively simply, but have very advanced functions. They have simultaneously evolved in only a few million years–a relatively short span of time in terms of evolution. These worm eyes likely developed independently of more complex eyes like humans, and could help prove that the development of vision is possible over a relatively short time.

The post Tiny worm with enormous eyes may have a ‘secret language’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Amphibians are known for their bright colors and their low and bellowing croaks that often announce when it is going to rain. Other frogs may make sounds that humans can’t even hear. These sounds are also potentially pretty violent. A study published April 4 in the journal Acta Ethologica describes how some amphibians in South America potentially emit sounds on the ultrasound spectrum to defend themselves against predators. 

Ultrasound in nature are sounds that are created at an ear-piercingly high frequency that is inaudible to the human ear. Humans can’t hear frequencies over 20 kilohertz (kHz). Ultrasound is used by some marine mammals, bats, and rodents for communication and to locate food. Some amphibian predators can also emit and hear sounds at this frequency. 

“One of our hypotheses is that the distress call is addressed to some of these, but it could also be the case that the broad frequency band is generalist in the sense that it’s supposed to scare as many predators as possible,” Ubiratã Ferreira Souza, a study co-author and ecologist at the State University of Campinas’s Institute of Biology (IB-UNICAMP) in São Paulo, Brazil, said in a statement. 

[Related: New proto-amphibian species named after Kermit the Frog.]

Another hypothesis is that this amphibian scream is meant to draw another animal to attack the predator threatening the amphibian. The leaf litter frog (Haddadus binotatus) that lives in the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest deploys this sonic tactic against potential predators, including bats, rodents, some snakes, and small primates.

In the study, a team of researchers recorded the amphibian’s distress call on two separate occasions. They used software to analyze the sound and found that it had a 7 kHz to 44 kHz. 

When emitting the distress call, the leaf litter frog makes a series of movements that are similar to defense positions. The frog raises the front of its body, opens up its mouth, and jerks its head backwards. It then will partially close its mouth and send out a sound that ranges from audible to humans (7 kHZ to 20 kHz) to an ultrasound band (20 kHz to 44 kHz) that humans can’t hear. 

“In light of the fact that amphibian diversity in Brazil is the highest in the world, with more than 2,000 species described, it wouldn’t be surprising to find that other frogs also emit sounds at these frequencies,” said study co-author and IB-UNICAMP PhD student Mariana Retuci Pontes said in a statement. 

Pontes may have discovered the use of this sonic strategy by another species accidentally. In January 2023, pontes saw a rock and an animal that was likely a Hensel’s big-headed frog (Ischnocnema henselii) in the Upper Ribeira State Tourism Park in Iporanga, São Paulo. When she tried to take a photo of the frog, she held it by the hind legs and found that the defensive moment and distress call was similar to the leaf litter frog. Pontes also noticed that a landhead pit viper (Bothrops jararaca) was only a few feet away, which she believes confirms that this behavior is a response to predators. While Pontes was able to record a video, she couldn’t analyze the sound to confirm if ultrasound bands were created. 

[Related: These clams use poop to dominate their habitat.]

“Both species live in leaf litter, are similar in size [between 1.8  and 2.3 inches], and have similar predators, so it’s possible that I. henselii also uses this distress call with ultrasound to defend itself against natural enemies,” study co-author and IB-UNICAMP zoologist Luís Felipe Toledo said in a statement. 

Researchers have also obtained recording of ultrasound calls by three Asian amphibian species, but the frequencies are used for communication between species and its not known if they are deployed when a predator is around

The team plans to address the numerous questions that arose from this discovery. These include which predators are sensitive to the frog’s distress call, how these other animals react to it, and if the call is intended to scare them or attract their natural enemies. 

The post Humans can’t hear these frogs screaming appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Sharks and owls are evolutionarily optimized in surprisingly similar ways. When it comes to the ocean’s apex predator, their skin’s textured patterns, known as riblets, help cut down on drag. With owls, their tiny feather ridges called serrations allow them to fly silently while hunting prey.

Although the naturally-occurring aids have inspired biomimicry-based aeronautic designs in the past, a collaborative team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and MIT Lincoln Laboratory recently investigated if these same principles could also apply to underwater tools. Their findings, published in a new study in Extreme Mechanics Letters, indicate the designs could be adapted to improve the towed sonar arrays (TSAs) utilized by ships and submarines.

TSAs are vital for marine vessels engaged in underwater security or exploration projects. But if ships start cruising at decent speeds, the ensuing drag around the equipment can generate extra noise that interferes with sonar capabilities.

[Related: Did sonar finally uncover Amelia Earhart’s missing plane?]

Utilizing computational modeling, researchers tested various riblet shapes and patterns interacting with simulated water environments. From calm currents to the more commonly unpredictable flows seen in oceans, the team observed how smooth, triangular, trapezoidal, and scalloped riblets might affect fluid dynamics and acoustics.

Of these variations, the rectangular form showed the most promising results in choppy water—reducing noise by over 14-percent alongside a roughly 5 percent reduction in drag. When the riblets were finer and closer to one another, drag could be reduced by as much as an additional 25 percent.

These simulations not only showcased potential riblet patterns for sonar casings, but also illuminated new fluid dynamics that underpin noise reduction during turbulent water flows. In a process researchers call “vortex lifting,” flows are elevated and redirected away from the textured surfaces while also lowering their rotational strength.

“This elevation is key to reducing the intense pressure fluctuations that are generated by the interaction between the water flow and the array wall, leading to noise production,” Zixiao Wei, a mechanical engineering graduate student and study first author, said in a recent statement.

The team also noted that adding the animal-inspired textures to TSAs and other underwater vehicles wouldn’t just help humans—it could improve habitat conditions for marine wildlife, as well. Systems reliant on riblet patterns could make for quieter operating, thereby reducing the chances of artificially disturbing their surrounding ecosystems.

That said, it’s one thing to simulate shark skin—actually replicating it has proven extremely difficult. But with additional testing and deployment, Wei believes the new designs will showcase “the vast potential of biomimicry in advancing engineering and technology.”

The post Shark skin and owl feathers could inspire quieter underwater sonar appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The living mammal family tree is full of diverse species–big blue whales, great apes, bats, rodents, and humans, to name just a few. The early evolution of mammals is a little bit murky, with some placental mammals even likely living alongside dinosaurs and others arising much later. 

Now, some teeth and ear bones uncovered in present day Inner Mongolia are offering some fresh insight into early mammalian evolution. The findings are described in two studies published April 3 in Nature that feature the work of scientists from the United States, Inner Mongolia, China, and Australia.

Keeping up with the shuotheriids–and their teeth

In the first study, scientists focused on the shuotheriids. This family of mouse-sized mammals from the Jurassic period had molars that are different from those in any living mammal. Their molars had a pseudotalonid– or a basin-like structure in their lower molars more similar to reptiles. By comparison, living mammals have a tribosphenic pattern that interlocks with upper molars when chewing food.  

“This unique tooth pattern has hindered our comprehension of shuotheriid relationships and the first steps in the evolution of mammaliaform species,” study co-author and Monash University paleontologist Patricia Vickers-Rich said in a statement.

With these unique back teeth, where these animals fit in the timeline of mammal evolution has been puzzling. Shuotheriids have previously been linked to a group called australosphenidans. This group includes living mammals that lay eggs like the platypus called monotremes. However, this relationship has been a bit controversial among scientists and leaves more questions that aren’t explained by some features seen in later mammals like different molars.

The team analyzed two newly uncovered and well-preserved skeletal fossils of shuotheriids. They lived in the Middle Jurassic between 168–164 million years ago in what is now Inner Mongolia. The team found that the molars of these animals were more similar to another extinct mammal group called the docodontans and not the australosphenidans. The two specimens also belong to a new genus and species named Feredocodon chowi.

[Related: A boiling hot supercontinent could kill all mammals in 250 million years.]

“When you look at the fossil record, both for mammals and many other sorts of animals, teeth are the part of the body that you are most likely to recover,” study co-author and curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology Jin Meng said in a statement. “Yet since the 1980s, the perplexing tooth shape seen in shuotheriids has been a barrier to our efforts to understand early mammal evolution. These new specimens have allowed us to solve this longstanding problem.”

The team believes that some common mammal ancestor independently gave rise to major groups of mammaliaforms: Docodontiformes, Allotheria, and Holotheria.

Listen up!

The second study focuses on the fossilized skulls of Feredocodon chowi and second new species named Dianoconodon youngi. It lived in the Early Jurassic between 201–184 million years ago. It was similar to an extinct rat-like animal called Morganucodon that is widely regarded as one of the first mammals. 

The team looked at the structure of Dianoconodon youngi’s middle ear, which helps give modern mammals their sharp hearing. In the middle ear, the spot inside the eardrum that turns vibrations in the air into ripples in the inner ear’s fluids has three bones. These bones called auditory ossicles are a feature that is unique to mammals and birds and reptiles only have one middle ear bone. At some point during the early evolution of mammals, the bones that formed the joints of the jaw separated and became associated with hearing. 

[Related: A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals.]

Both Feredocodon chowi and Dianoconodon youngi specimens show some fossil evidence of this evolutionary transition in action, as mammals evolved from a group that includes lizards, crocodilians, and dinosaurs. The team believes that this transition began from an ancestral animal that had a double jaw joint. It likely had the joint of a mammal on the outside and a more reptilian joint on the inside.

Analyses on the older fossil (Dianoconodon youngi) show that one of its two joints, the reptilian one, was already beginning to lose its ability to handle the forces created by chewing. The younger fossil (Feredocodon chowi) had a more mammalian middle ear that was formed and adapted exclusively for hearing.

“Scientists have been trying to understand how the mammalian middle ear evolved since Darwin’s time,” said Meng. “While paleontological discoveries have helped reveal the process during the last a few decades, these new fossils bring to light a critical missing link and enrich our understanding of the gradual evolution of the mammalian middle ear.”

The post New fossils of tiny, toothy early mammals could be a major missing link appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Rare earth elements touch almost every aspect of modern life. Elements and minerals including copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt support the technology that can power clean energy, electric vehicles,  telescope lenses, and computer screens, and more. Since they are stored deep within the Earth, extracting these elements can be ecologically damaging.

The demand for rare earth elements in countries in Africa is driving the destruction of tropical rainforests, as it is home to over half of the world’s cobalt and copper. Now, the continent’s great ape population is more threatened from mining than scientists originally believed. A study published April 3 in the journal Science Advances estimates that nearly 180,000 gorillas, bonobos, and chimpanzees are at risk.

[Related: A deep sea mining zone in the remote Pacific is also a goldmine of unique species.]

“There has been an increase in mining in Africa to satisfy the demand from more industrialized countries and linked to the ‘green revolution’. This requires [a] significant amount of critical minerals to build electric cars, wind turbines, etc.,” Genevieve Campbell, a study co-author and primatologist with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and conservation nonprofit re:wild, tells PopSci. “Unfortunately the location of these minerals often overlap with ape habitat, but people are not aware of the impact of their consumption patterns on apes. This study aimed to quantify this impact and bring awareness to this issue.”

Looking at west Africa

In the study, an international team of scientists used data on operational and preoperational mining sites in 17 African countries and defined 6.2 mile wide buffer zones to account for direct impacts from mining, including habitat destruction and light and noise pollution. They also defined 31 mile buffer zones for the more indirect impacts linked to increased human activity near mining sites, including new roads and infrastructure to access formerly remote areas and more human presence. More human activity generally puts more pressure on the animals and their environments due to increased hunting, habitat loss, and a higher risk of disease transmission. 

“Mining often exacerbates existing threats by, for example, building roads to remote areas that in turn facilitate access for hunters,” says Campbell.

Integrating the data on the population density of great apes allowed the team to pinpoint how many African great apes could be negatively impacted by mining activities and mapped out areas where high ape densities and heavy mining overlapped. 

They found that more than one-third of the great ape population–180,000 animals–is in danger. The west African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Guinea had the largest overlaps of high ape density and mining areas. The most significant overlap of mining and chimpanzee density was found in Guinea, where more than than 23,000 chimpanzees (80 percent of the country’s ape population) could be directly or indirectly impacted by mining activities. The most sensitive areas are also not generally protected.

“I expected the spatial overlap between mining projects and ape habitat to be large and I suspected that previous estimates had underestimated the potential impact of mining-related activities on great apes,” study co-author and IUCN and re:wild conservation biologist Jessi Junker tells PopSci. “The results of this study thus didn’t really come as a surprise since no assessments at this spatial scale had been done previously.”

‘Critical Habitat’ zones

The study also explored how mining areas intersect with areas that could be considered ‘Critical Habitat.’  These regions have unique biodiversity and plant life that is crucial to a species’ survival. They found 20 percent overlap between proposed mining areas and Critical Habitat zones. When a region is designated this way strict environmental regulations can be implemented. These regulations particularly apply to any mining projects looking for funding from groups such as the International Finance Corporation (IFC) or other money lenders adhering to similar standards. 

According to the team, previous efforts to map Critical Habitats in African countries have overlooked large portions of ape habitats that would qualify under international benchmarks.

“Companies operating in these areas should have adequate mitigation and compensation schemes in place to minimize their impact, which seems unlikely, given that most companies lack robust species baseline data that are required to inform these actions,” Tenekwetche Sop, a study co-author and manager of the great ape population database at the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Germany, said in a statement. “Encouraging these companies to share their invaluable ape survey data with our database serves as a pivotal step towards transparency in their operations. Only through such collaborative efforts can we comprehensively gauge the true extent of mining activities’ effects on great apes and their habitats.”

What can be done

In future research, the team hopes to quantify the direct and indirect impacts of mining activities in a different range of African countries and different ape species. Currently, these risks are not considered often and mitigated by mining companies. The study’s authors also urge mining companies to avoid their impacts on great apes and for more data collection to create a more accurate picture of where apes live in relation to where mining activities may take place. 

[Related: How can we decarbonize copper and nickel mining?]

The general population also has a responsibility to ensure a shift away from fossil fuels does not come at the expense of biodiversity. 

“We can all do something to help protect great apes and their habitat. It is crucial for everyone to adopt a mindset of reduced consumption,” says Junker. “Moreover, policymakers must enact more effective recycling policies to facilitate sustainable reuse of metals.”

The post Mining of materials needed for ‘green revolution’ puts great ape population at risk appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

John Ford still recalls the first time he heard them. He’d been puttering around the Deserters Group archipelago, a smattering of spruce- and cedar-choked islands in Queen Charlotte Strait, between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia. He was piloting a small skiff and trailing a squad of six killer whales. Ford, then a graduate student, had been enamored with cetacean sounds since listening to belugas chirp while he worked part-time at the Vancouver Aquarium as a teenager. Now here he was, on August 12, 1980, tracking the underwater conversations of wild killer whales through a borrowed hydrophone.

Ford had spent the previous two summers painstakingly recording the sounds made by other groups of these iconic black-and-white marine mammals, known as resident killer whales. In summer and fall, the residents traveled in noisy, tight-knit pods that often hugged the shorelines of British Columbia and Washington State, breaching in spectacular aerial displays that delighted tourists, scientists, and other bystanders. They emitted rapid overlapping clicks and thumps, along with squeals, honks, and bleats that could resemble seal barks or, occasionally, human flatulence.

Yet to Ford, the vocalizations he captured on his reel-to-reel that August day sounded nothing like the resident killer whales he’d recorded in previous years. They were coming from a gang of whales researchers had taken to calling “the oddballs,” because they appeared to scientists to be social outcasts who had left or been driven out of the resident group. Their calls were tonal, more alien, and far louder, sometimes sounding like a rusty hinge on a closing gate. Clicks were infrequent when they came at all. “I was amazed,” Ford says now.

While Ford spent the rest of his career studying whales, eventually leading the cetacean research program for Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Pacific Biological Station before retiring in 2017, he never forgot his reaction that day: these must be different creatures.

More than 40 years later, science is poised to agree.

A new study published last week in the journal Royal Society Open Science by a team of top whale experts argues that across the North Pacific, resident killer whales and the oddballs—long since renamed transient, or Bigg’s, killer whales—aren’t just different ecotypes. They’re entirely distinct species. The researchers contend that both are separate from a third species that encompasses the rest of the world’s killer whales.

Ford, who was not involved in the study, calls the research thorough and definitive, drawing from data collected across disciplines and over decades. “There’re just pieces of the story that have fit together to build, I think, a compelling case,” he says.

By proposing to split Orcinus orca into three separate species—residents, transients, and everything else—scientists aren’t only changing the taxonomic record to more accurately reflect what it means to be a killer whale. They’re also acknowledging the ways that communication, behavior, and even culture can help shape speciation as surely as genetics and physiology do.

Killer whales traverse all the world’s oceans, from polar waters to the tropics. They are the seas’ apex predators, described in scientific literature in 1869 as “wolves of the ocean,” who swim “in small companies” while “living by violence and plunder.” That’s true. Some killer whales eat birds or baby whales or balls of herring. Others prey on manta rays or sea turtles. In Antarctica, they work together to wash seals off ice by swamping floes with waves. In both hemispheres, killer whales have been seen surging onto beaches to pluck seals right off land.

There have long been signs that such hunting behaviors and dietary differences might be more than mere preference. In 1970, whale rustlers herded several killer whales into Pedder Bay, southwest of Victoria, British Columbia, with the intent of capturing them for marine theme parks. For more than 11 weeks, two of the whales refused to eat the fish that handlers served them, becoming more and more emaciated. What no one knew then was that these captives were transients, not the resident killer whales who were known to specialize in chinook salmon as prey. Scientists didn’t yet understand that transients even existed, or that they’d eat seals, porpoises, dolphins, even humpback calves—but not fish.

“These prey specializations aren’t just choices that orcas make on a daily basis—they are hardwired,” says Bob Pitman, a marine ecologist and affiliate of Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute. In fact, both populations are so set in their ways that researchers have spied resident fish-eating whales slaughtering harbor porpoises for sport without consuming them.

For decades, scientists misunderstood these behaviors, which are consistent everywhere residents and transients are found, from California, British Columbia, and Alaska to Japan, Russia, and beyond. “We didn’t recognize that as being evolutionarily significant,” says Phillip Morin, a marine mammal geneticist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Southwest Fisheries Science Center who led the Royal Society Open Science study.

By 2003, the population of one subsection of residents—the southern residents, often spied in and around the Salish Sea, which stretches from BC’s Strait of Georgia to Washington’s Budd Inlet—had plummeted to 83 individuals from an estimated high in the 19th century of more than 200. Scientists in the United States trying to advise the government on how to offer federal protections to these particular whales struggled to describe how they fit in with the rest of the world’s killer whales, and vice versa. Nor did scientists know how long members of a group struggling to survive had gone without breeding with other killer whale groups in the same area.

So Morin spent years coordinating with fellow experts, amassing evidence about the peculiarities of residents and transients across the North Pacific. Some elements had been known for decades. For instance, transients don’t just eat differently than residents, they hunt differently, too. Unlike their chatterbox neighbors, transients use stealth, and stalk meals in silence (likely because their prey use sound too). And while residents live in stable pods for decades, transients travel in looser groups with shifting alliances.

Furthermore, killer whales often live in communities with their own rituals, which get passed down from one generation to the next through social learning. Even subgroups of resident whales that are nearly genetically identical and overlap geographically can behave quite differently, their dialects as unalike as Spanish and Japanese. Northern residents, for example, frequently zip into shallow waters to scratch their bellies on the gravelly seafloor. Southern residents, who frequent similar waters, have never been documented doing that. Instead, they hold multi-pod gatherings and occasionally push baby salmon with their snouts—neither of which is a popular pastime with northern residents.

Alone, none of these differences is enough to classify different communities or ecotypes as distinct species. But for some groups of killer whales, what started out as behavioral traits handed down through generations may have ultimately helped lead to something more. “Most people tend to think [something is] either a different species or it’s not,” Pitman says. But “you have to understand: evolution is a slow change over time. It’s not a black-and-white situation.”

Over several decades, Morin’s compilation of research helped illuminate differences both subtle and extraordinary, through methods as diverse as finding and studying whale skulls and using cameras attached to drones. Transients, compared to residents, are longer and fatter, with more triangular dorsal fins. Their jaws are more robust and curved—a necessity, perhaps, for wrangling a half-tonne dinner of Steller sea lion.

But some of the most compelling distinctions come from work by Morin and colleague Kim Parsons, a research geneticist at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center. When studying tissue samples, Parsons found that whenever whales look, act, feed, and sound like transients, they have DNA that’s noticeably distinct from residents. In fact, Morin’s work showed that the two whale types, even when swimming in nearby waters, are so genetically removed from one another that they haven’t interbred for at least several hundred thousand years. As Parsons puts it: “They’ve obviously been on very separate, very divergent, and independent paths of evolution for a very, very long time.”

This pattern remains true across the North Pacific. Andrew Foote, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oslo who has studied killer whales but wasn’t part of this study, says that this speaks to how robust the barriers to gene flow are between residents and transients.

Morin’s best guess is that as ice ages came and went, groups of whales became isolated by changing geography and were forced to specialize. “There was this physical separation, which is the normal way that speciation starts to occur, and the cultural variation was overlaid on top of that,” Morin says. When the environment shifted again and whales came back together, “cultural differences reinforced the separation.”

Other animals that separated for millennia then reunited might not have a problem reintegrating, Morin adds. But killer whales have such cohesive family bonds and distinct dialects that “this cultural aspect helps drive their divergence—or at least helps maintain it.”

For the moment, killer whales globally will remain a single species. The Society for Marine Mammalogy’s taxonomy committee will debate the findings of Morin and his colleagues, maybe later this spring, and many experts suspect they will eventually accept the proposed partitioning of killer whales into three species: transients (Orcinus rectipinnus), residents (Orcinus ater), and everything else, including the offshore whales that also call the North Pacific home. All of those would still go by Orcinus orca—at least for now. This research may eventually pave the way for further divisions among the rest of the planet’s killer whales.

In the meantime, Ford looks forward to being able to finally settle a longstanding argument. “What this paper is going to do is resolve a problem I’ve had for years,” he says, chuckling. When he talks to the public highlighting differences between these whales, or tells someone at a dinner party how he spent his career, he invariably faces a question: “Why aren’t they different species?”

Now he can say, “I think they will be soon.”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

The post The fascinating truth about killer whales appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Arachnids are born dancers. After millions of years of evolution, many species rely on fancy footwork to communicate everything from courtship rituals, to territorial disputes, to hunting strategies. Researchers usually observe these movements in lab settings using what are known as laser vibrometers. After aiming the tool’s light beam at a target, the vibrometer measures miniscule vibration frequencies and amplitudes emitted from the Doppler shift effect. Unfortunately, such systems’ cost and sensitivity often limit their field deployment.

To find a solution for this long-standing problem, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln PhD student recently combined an array of tiny, cheap contact microphones alongside a sound-processing machine learning program. Then, once packed up, he headed into the forests of north Mississippi to test out his new system.

Noori Choi’s results, recently published in Communications Biology, highlight a never-before-seen approach to collecting spiders’ extremely hard-to-detect movements across woodland substrates. Choi spent two sweltering summer months placing 25 microphones and pitfall traps across 1,000-square-foot sections of forest floor, then waited for the local wildlife to make its vibratory moves. In the end, Choi left the Magnolia State with 39,000 hours of data including over 17,000 series of vibrations.

[Related: Meet the first electric blue tarantula known to science.]

Not all those murmurings were the wolf spiders Choi wanted, of course. Forests are loud places filled with active insects, chatty birds, rustling tree branches, as well as the invasive sounds of human life like overhead plane engines. These sound waves are also absorbed into the ground as vibrations, and need to be sifted out from scientists’ arachnid targets.

“The vibroscape is a busier signaling space than we expected, because it includes both airborne and substrate-borne vibrations,” Choi said in a recent university profile.

In the past, this analysis process was a frustratingly tedious, manual endeavor that could severely limit research and dataset scopes. But instead of pouring over roughly 1,625 days’ worth of recordings, Choi designed a machine learning program capable of filtering out unwanted sounds while isolating the vibrations from three separate wolf spider species: Schizocosa stridulans, S. uetzi, and S. duplex.

Further analysis yielded fascinating new insights into arachnid behaviors, particularly an overlap of acoustic frequency, time, and signaling space between the S. stridulans and S. uetzi sibling species. Choi determined that both wolf spider variants usually restricted their signaling for when they were atop leaf litter, not pine debris. According to Choi, this implies that real estate is at a premium for the spiders.

“[They] may have limited options to choose from, because if they choose to signal in different places, on different substrates, they may just disrupt the whole communication and not achieve their goal, like attracting mates,” Choi, now a postdoctoral researcher at Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, said on Monday.

What’s more, S. stridulans and S. uetzi appear to adapt their communication methods depending on how crowded they are at any given time, and who was crowding them. S. stridulans, for example, tended to lengthen their vibration-intense courtship dances when they detected nearby, same-species males. When they sensed nearby S. uetzi, however, they often varied their movements slightly to differentiate them from the other species, thus reducing potential courtship confusion.

In addition to opening up entirely new methods of observing arachnid behavior, Choi’s combination of contact microphones and machine learning analysis could also help others one day monitor an ecosystem’s overall health by keeping an ear on spider populations.

“Even though everyone agrees that arthropods are very important for ecosystem functioning… if they collapse, the whole community can collapse,” Choi said. “Nobody knows how to monitor changes in arthropods.”

Now, however, Choi’s new methodology could allow a non-invasive, accurate, and highly effective aid in staying atop spiders’ daily movements.

The post Spider conversations decoded with the help of machine learning and contact microphones appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

An enormous asteroid crashed into the Earth about 65 million years ago. While terrestrial dinosaurs like the famed Tyrannosaurus rex were wiped out, many avian animals really began to flourish. Considering that there are more than 10,000 species of birds on Earth, flourish may even be an understatement. Keeping birds organized in a neat family tree is a bit of a Herculean task, since there are so many species and their evolution has been a little unclear. However, some advances in genomic sequencing and analysis are beginning to create a more lucid picture of how the planet’s living dinosaurs evolved.

In two studies published April 1 in the journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and Nature, scientists reveal that a genetic event about 65 million years ago has misled them about the true history of avian evolution. A section of one chromosome hasn’t mixed together with nearby DNA as it should have. This section is only tiny fraction of the bird genome, but was enough to make it difficult for scientists to build a more detailed bird family tree.  

A sticky chunk of DNA

In 2014, advances in computer technology used to study genomes helped scientists piece together a family tree for the Neoaves. This group includes the majority of bird species. Using the genomes of 48 species, they split the Neoaves into two major categories. Doves and flamingos were in one group and all the other bird species belonged to the other group. 

When a similar genetic analysis was repeated using 363 bird species for this new study, the team saw a different family tree emerge. This one points to four main groups and reveals that flamingos and doves are more distantly related and it all came back to a specific spot in the chromosomes.

[Related: Birds are so specialized to their homes, it shows in their bones.]

Within these two family trees, the team looked for explanations that could tell them which one was correct. They found one spot on the genome, where the genes were not as mixed together as they should have been over millions of years of sexual reproduction. 

“When we looked at the individual genes and what tree they supported, all of a sudden it popped out that all the genes that support the older tree, they’re all in one spot,” a co-author of the study published in PNAS and University of Florida biologist Edward Braun said in a statement. “That’s what started the whole thing.”

Birds combine genes from a father and a mother into the next generation, but they first mix the genes they inherited from their parents when creating sperm and eggs. This process is called recombination and it is also something that occurs in humans. Recombination maximizes a species’ genetic diversity by ensuring that no two siblings are exactly the same.

One section of one chromosome did not mix with DNA nearby like it should have and has basically spent millions of years frozen in time. This chromosomal section makes up only two percent of the bird genome, but was enough to convince scientists that most birds could be grouped into two major categories–Passerera and Columbea. This new and more accurate family tree takes into account that  misleading section of the avian genome and identifies four main groups of birds.

The team also found evidence that this spot on the bird chromosome has suppressed the recombination process since around the time the dinosaurs disappeared. It is not clear if the Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and these genomic anomalies are related.

The result of this genetic suppression is that the flamingos and doves looked similar to one another in this one sticky chunk of DNA, but two groups are actually more distantly related when looking at their entire genomes. Flamingos and doves can now be considered more distantly related genetically. According to the team, this kind of stuck genetic mystery could be lurking in the genomes of other organisms. 

Building a better bird family tree

The study published in Nature details an intricate chart detailing 93 million years of evolutionary relationships between 363 bird species, or about 92 percent of all bird families. This updated family tree revealed patterns in the evolutionary history of birds following the Cretaceous-tertiary Extinction.

[Related: Dinosaurs may have evolved into birds, but early flights didn’t go so well.]

The researchers noticed sharp increases in effective population size, substitution rates, and relative brain size in early birds. These evolutionary changes shed new light on the adaptive mechanisms that drove the diversification of bird species in the aftermath of this planet-altering extinction event. 

To do this, they harnessed the power of a suite of computer algorithms known as ASTRAL. This program helps infer evolutionary relationships quickly and accurately and enables the team to integrate the genomic data from more than 60,000 regions in bird genomes. They then examine the evolutionary history of individual segments across the genome and pieced together several gene trees to build out a larger species tree. 

“We found that our method of adding tens of thousands of genes to our analysis was actually necessary to resolve evolutionary relationships between bird species,” study co-author and University of California, San Diego computer engineer Siavash Mirarab said in a statement. “You really need all that genomic data to recover what happened in this certain period of time 65-67 million years ago with high confidence.”

These computational methods also helped the team shed light on that same particular section of one chromosome in the bird genome that has remained unchanged over millions of years and made it difficult for scientists to study these changes. 

“What’s surprising is that this period of suppressed recombination could mislead the analysis,” said Braun. “And because it could mislead the analysis, it was actually detectable more than 60 million years in the future. That’s the cool part.” 

In future studies, similar computer models could help reconstruct evolutionary trees for a variety of other animals. The team is hoping to continue their efforts to build a more complete picture of bird evolution. Biologists are also continuing to sequence the genomes of other bird species in an effort to expand their family tree even more. 

The work is part of the international Bird 10,000 Genomes (B10K) Project, a multi-institutional effort with the goal of generating draft genome sequences for about 10,500 living bird species.

The post We were very wrong about birds appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Scientists have discovered a new species of gecko named for post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. A team of scientists from the Thackeray Wildlife Foundation were exploring the Southern Western Ghats in southern India when they came across this unusual lizard. The back of Cnemaspis vangoghi reminded them of one of the world’s most famous paintings. The new species is described in a study published March 27 in the journal ZooKeys. 

“Cnemaspis vangoghi is named for Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) as the striking colouration of the new species is reminiscent of one of his most iconic paintings, The Starry Night,” study co-author and biologist Ishan Agarwal said in a statement. 

The males of this species boast a yellow head and forebody, with light blue spots on their back. They live among the rocks in this mountainous and rainforest covered region and occasionally are found on buildings and trees. Scientists don’t currently know what Cnemaspis vangoghi eats, but other geckos eat crickets, earthworms, waxworms, mealworms, moths, fruit flies, or grasshoppers. Some geckos will also eat fruit, including papaya, pineapple, and grapes. 

[Related: This tiny robot grips like a gecko and scoots like an inchworm.]

Genetic sequencing helped the team determine that this is a new species of gecko. There are roughly 1,500 known gecko species around the world. These lizards are found on every continent except for Antarctica, but are especially prevalent in warmer climates. Ishan Agarwal and colleagues Akshay Khandekar and Tejas Thackeray found the new species during an April 2022 expedition in Tamil Nadu, India. 

“Tamil Nadu is an exceptionally biodiverse state and we expect to name well over 50 new species of lizards by the time we are done [with our expeditions]!,” said Agarwal. “I also had more than 500 tick bites during that summer trip, with the highest densities in the low-elevation, dry forests of Srivilliputhur, where the new species are found.”

Cnemaspis vangoghi is a small gecko that can get up to only one to two inches in length. The largest known gecko in the world is the New Caledonian gecko. They are exclusively found on the islands of New Caledonia in the South Pacific and can grow up to 14 inches long. 

[Related: This 6-inch-long Jurassic creature does a great lizard impersonation.]

Cnemaspis vangoghi was described as new to science with another species in the same genus named Cnemaspis sathuragiriensis. This other gecko is named for its locality the Sathuragiri Hills.

“The two new species are distributed in low elevation [820 to 1,312 feet], deciduous forests of Srivilliputhur, and add to the five previously known endemic vertebrates from Srivilliputhur-Megamalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, India,” said Agarwal.

Both species are also diurnal, meaning they are primarily active during the cool hours in the early morning. They have only been found in very restricted locations, which makes them an  “an interesting case of micro-endemism in low-elevation species,” according to Agarwal. 

The post New tiny gecko species named after Vincent van Gogh appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The brain’s ability to create and store memories is pretty mysterious. Memory can’t always be trusted, and yet it is crucial to survival. Remembering where food is stored during lean winter months is a necessity for many animals, including black-capped chickadees. New research suggests that these birds with impeccable memories use a system similar to something you’ve probably seen at the grocery store. They appear to memorize each food location using brain cell activity that functions similar to how a barcode works. The findings are described in a study published March 29 in the journal Cell.

“We see the world through our memories of objects, places and people,” study co-author and Columbia University neuroscientist Dmitriy Aronov said in a statement. “Memories entirely define the way we see and interact with the world. With this bird, we have a way to understand memory in an incredibly simplified way, and in understanding their memory, we will understand something about ourselves.”

‘Memory geniuses’

Scientists have long known that the brain’s hippocampus is necessary for storing episodic memories like where a car is parked or food is kept. It’s been more difficult to understand how these memories are encoded in the brain, since it’s hard to know what an animal might be remembering at a particular time. 

To work around this problem, the new study looks at black-capped chickadees. Arnov calls these birds “memory geniuses” and masters of episodic memory. Most chickadees live in colder places and don’t migrate in the winter like other birds. Their survival hinges on remembering where they hid food in the summer and fall, with some birds making up to 5,000 of these stashes every day.

[Related: Dogs and wolves remember where you hide their food.]

“Each cache is a well-defined, overt, and easily observable moment in time during which a new memory is formed,” said Aronov. “By focusing on these special moments in time, we were able to identify patterns of memory-related activity that had not been noticed before.”

A hippocampal ‘barcode’

In the study, the team built indoor arenas in a lab that were inspired by the birds’ natural habitats. During the experiments, a black-capped chickadee instinctively hid sunflower seeds in the holes in the arenas, while the team monitored the activity in the bird’s hippocampus, using an implanted recording system. This device allowed the team to monitor the brain while the birds moved about freely and was removed between recording sessions. At the same time, six cameras recorded the chickadees as they flew and an artificial intelligence system that automatically tracked them as they stashed and retrieved seeds. 

“These are very striking patterns of activity, but they’re very brief—only about a second long on average,” study co-author and postdoctoral research fellow Selmaan Chettih said in a statement. “If you didn’t know exactly when and why they happened, it would be very easy to miss them.” 

They saw that the hippocampal neurons fired in a unique pattern each time the chickadees stored food in a certain location. Each memory was tagged with a unique pattern in the hippocampus that lit up when the bird retrieved the cached food. The team referred to these patterns as barcodes since they are very specific labels of individual memories. 

“For example, barcodes of two different caches are uncorrelated even if those two caches are right next to each other,” said Aronov.

These barcode-like patterns also occur independently from the other activity of hippocampal neurons called place cells. These cells encode memories of locations in the brain. Each of these pseudo barcode stayed distinct, even for the stashes that were hidden at the same place, but at different times, or at nearby stashes that were made in quick succession. 

“Many hippocampal studies have focused on place cells, with the Nobel Prize awarded for their discovery in 2014,” said Aronov. “So the assumption in the field was that episodic memory must have something to do with changes in place cells. We find that place cells don’t actually change when birds form new memories. Instead, during food caching, there are additional patterns of activity beyond those seen with place cells.”

What this could mean for humans

According to the team, the question of whether and how these patterns are being used by the brain to drive behavior remains. It is not fully clear whether the chickadees activate the ‘barcodes’ and use those memories to make decisions about where to go next. 

[Related: Do cats and dogs remember their past?]

In future studies, the team hope to see if the birds activate these barcode-esque patterns when looking for caches in more remote spots or in more complicated environments. They also plan to record brain activity while the birds make choices about which cache to visit. 

The team is also eager to know if this barcoding tactic is in widespread use among other animals–ourselves included, since memory is a critical part of the human experience. 

“If you think about how people define themselves, who they think they are, their sense of self, then episodic memories of particular events are central to that,” said Chettih. “That’s what we’re trying to understand.”

The post How these feathery ‘memory geniuses’ remember where they stashed their food appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Human technology has long drawn inspiration from the natural world: The first airplanes were modeled after birds. The designer of Velcro was inspired by the irksome burrs he often had to pick off his dog. And in recent years, engineers eager to explore the world’s oceans have been taking cues from the creatures that do it best: fish.

Around the world, researchers developing robots that look and swim like fish say their aquatic automatons are cheaper, easier to use, and less disruptive to sea life than the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) scientists use today. In a recent review of the technology’s advances, scientists claim only a few technical problems stand in the way of a robotic fish revolution.

Over the past few decades, engineers have designed prototype robotic fish for a variety of purposes. While some are built to carry out specific tasks—such as tricking other fish in a lab, simulating fish hydrodynamics, or gathering plastics from the ocean—the majority are designed to traverse the seas while collecting data. These robotic explorers are typically equipped with video cameras to document any life forms they encounter and sensors to measure depth, temperature, and acidity. Some of these machines—including a robotic catfish named Charlie, developed by the CIA—can even take and store water samples.

While modern ROVs can already do all these tasks and more, the review’s authors argue that robotic fish will be the tools of the future.

“The jobs done by existing [ROVs] can be done by robotic fish,” says Weicheng Cui, a marine engineer at Westlake University in China and a coauthor of the review. And “what cannot be done by existing ROVs may [also] be done by robotic fish.”

Since the invention of the first tethered ROV in 1953—a contraption named Poodle—scientists have increasingly relied on ROVs to help them reach parts of the ocean that are too deep or dangerous for scuba divers. ROVs can go to depths that divers can’t reach, spend a virtually unlimited amount of time there, and bring back specimens, both living and not, from their trips.

While ROVs have been a boon for science, most models are large and expensive. The ROVs used by scientific organizations, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and OceanX, can weigh nearly as much as a rhinoceros and cost millions of dollars. Such large, high-end ROVs also require a crane to deploy and must be tethered to a mother ship while in the water.

In contrast, robotic fish are battery-powered bots that typically weigh only a few kilograms and cost a couple thousand dollars. Although some have been designed to resemble real fish, robotic fish typically come in neutral colors and resemble their biological counterparts in shape only. Yet, according to Tsam Lung You, an engineer at the University of Bristol in England who was not involved in the review, even the most unrealistic robot fish are less disruptive to aquatic life than the average ROV.

Unlike most ROVs that use propellers to get around, robotic fish swim like the animals that inspired them. Flexing their tails back and forth, robotic fish glide through the water quietly and don’t seem to disturb the surrounding marine life—an advantage for researchers looking to study underwater organisms in their natural environments.

Because robotic fish are small and stealthy, scientists may be able to use them to observe sensitive species or venture into the nooks and crannies of coral reefs, lava tubes, and undersea caves. Although robotic fish are highly maneuverable, current models have one big downside: their range is very limited. With no mother ship to supply them with power and limited room to hold batteries, today’s robotic fish can only spend a few hours in the water at a time.

For robotic fish to make modern ROVs obsolete, they’ll need a key piece that’s currently missing: a docking station where they can autonomously recharge their batteries. Cui envisions a future where schools of small robotic fish work together to accomplish big tasks and take turns docking at underwater charging stations powered by a renewable energy source, like wave power.

“Instead of one [ROV], we can use many robotic fish,” Cui says. “This will greatly increase the efficiency of deep-sea operations.”

This potential future relies on the development of autonomous underwater charging stations, but Cui and his colleagues believe these can be built using existing technologies. The potential docking station’s core, he says, would likely be a wireless charging system. Cui says this fishy future could come to fruition in under a decade if the demand is great enough.

Still, getting scientists to trade in their ROVs for schools of robotic fish may be a tough sell, says Paul Clarkson, the director of husbandry operations at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.

“For decades, we’ve benefited from using the remotely operated vehicles designed and operated by our research and technology partner, MBARI,” says Clarkson. “Their ROVs are an essential part of our work and research, and the capabilities they provide make them an irreplaceable tool.”

That said, he adds, “with the threats of climate change, habitat destruction, overfishing, and plastic pollution, we need to consider what advantages new innovations may offer in understanding our changing world.”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

The post Get ready for the robotic fish revolution appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Non-verbal gestures are an integral part of how humans and some other organisms communicate, as with various sign languages  and expressing emotions. A small-bird species called the Japanese tit (Parus minor) also may also use this more complex form of communication. In a study published March 25 Current Biology, a team from the University of Tokyo describes how this small bird appears to use this wing to say “after you” to indicate that the other bird.

According to the study, when a mating pair arrives at their nest box carrying food, the two will wait outside. One bird will then often flutter its wings towards the other, apparently indicating that the other bird can enter the home first. 

The team believes that this discovery challenges earlier beliefs that only a few species use gestures to communicate. Chimpanzees, bonobos, ravens, and some fish appear to use a form of communication called deictic gesturing. This is when simple gestures are deployed to point out objects or show something of interest. Symbolic gestures, such as how humans use an open hand to signal “after you,” requires more complex cognitive skills and have been difficult to observe.

CREDIT: Suzuki and Sugita, 2024/ Current Biology

“In our latest discovery, we revealed that the Japanese tit uses gestures to communicate with their mate,” study co-author and University of Tokyo animal linguist and biologist Toshitaka Suzuki said in a statement. “For over 17 years, I have been engaged in the study of these fascinating birds. They not only use specific calls to convey particular meanings, but also combine different calls into phrases using syntactic rules. These diverse vocalizations led me to initiate this research into their potential use of physical gestures.”

[Related: Why do humans talk? Tree-dwelling orangutans might hold the answer.]

During the spring, these birds form mating pairs and build their nests inside a tree cavity with a small entrance. In the study, Suzuki and his co-researcher Norimasa Sugita observed the behavior of 16 parent birds (eight pairs) breeding in nest boxes built in the wild. The birds enter one at a time when feeding their nestlings. The team noticed that when they’re carrying food back to the nest, the birds would often find a perch nearby first. Then, one would flutter its wings towards the other.

The team analyzed over 320 nest visitations in detail and observed that the wing-fluttering display promoted the mate who was being fluttered at the go into the nest box first. The other bird who fluttered entered second, seeming to mirror the “after you” gesture that humans sometimes use. 

“We were surprised to find that the results were much clearer than we had expected,” said Suzuki. “We observed that Japanese tits flutter their wings exclusively in the presence of their mate, and upon witnessing this behavior, the mate almost always entered the nest box first.”

Female birds performed the gesture more often than males and male birds usually entered the nest box first, regardless of which bird arrived first. Females usually entered the nest box first if she didn’t flutter her wings. 

[Related: Artificial intelligence is helping scientists decode animal languages.]

The team believes this behavior should be classified as a symbolic gesture. It only occurred in the presence of a mat, stopped after the mate entered the nest box, and encouraged the mate to enter without any physical contact. The wing-fluttering “after-you” gesture was also aimed at the mate and not the nest box, meaning that it wasn’t being used to point out where something of interest was located.

“There is a hypothesis that walking on two legs allowed humans to maintain an upright posture, freeing up their hands for greater mobility, which in turn contributed to the evolution of gestures,” said Suzuki. “Similarly, when birds perch on branches, their wings become free, which we think may facilitate the development of gestural communication.”

The team says that they will continue to look into what birds are talking about to learn more about animal languages and the evolution of human speech. 

The post These birds appear to be signaling ‘after you’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

In late July, dozens of brown bears congregate at Brooks Falls, in Katmai National Park and Preserve on the Alaska Peninsula, to gorge on sockeye salmon catapulting their bright red bodies upstream to reach their spawning waters.

Enchanted, I stand with a crowd of tourists on a wooden viewing platform, observing as dominant bears score spots at the top of the falls, and leggy subadults patrol the banks for leftover carcasses. A 350-kilogram male submerges in the frothy pool of water beneath the falls, surfacing with a salmon 10 seconds later. He clutches the fish between his two front paws, as if praying, then skins it whole.

I’ve always dreamed of traveling to see the bears of Brooks Falls, a destination for up to 37,000 visitors each year. But I’ve come now for a much smaller, lesser-known mammal—one that will take the stage when the sun sets and the dusky, dying light calls forth a groundswell of mosquitoes.

Meet Myotis lucifugus, commonly referred to as the little brown bat. Or, as chiropterologist (bat researcher) Jesika Reimer fondly calls it, “the flying brown bear.” Little brown bats share many similar physiological and behavioral traits with Ursus arctos. Both are slow-reproducing mammals that can live for many decades in the wild. Both feed in a frenzy through the summer and autumn months to prepare for a winter in torpor, a state of metabolic rest. Yet the little brown bat weighs less than 10 grams.

“They’re so small and we’re so oblivious to them,” muses Reimer. “That’s why I love bats so much.”

Several hours after observing the bears, I meet Reimer a short distance from the falls at a log cabin that houses US National Park Service staff in Brooks Camp. She flicks on her headlamp and scans a mist net she’s erected outside—black mesh so fine it’s nearly invisible, strung between metal poles that stand six meters tall. Somewhere above us, as many as 300 female little brown bats jostle in the cabin’s warm, safe attic where they have gathered for the summer to birth and rear pups—an arrangement called a maternity colony. Tonight, at the 58th parallel, with just four to five hours of true darkness, Reimer aims to capture a few in hopes of solving a long-standing mystery.

Perhaps because bats so easily evade human awareness, scientists know little about where those that live at this far northern margin of the species’ range spend their time through the winter months. To find some answers, Reimer is leading the first-ever gene-flow study of maternity colonies in Alaska outside of the state’s more temperate southeastern arm. How interconnected are these Myotis lucifugus populations, she wonders? And where, exactly, are they hibernating?

We hear a fluttering from the cabin’s awning, and Reimer’s handheld acoustic monitoring device picks up a rapid-fire pulse of echolocation—high-frequency sounds that bats produce to navigate and find food. Not long after, one snags in the net. With expert precision, Reimer gently disentangles the creature. It squints up at us, its snout squished-looking and its black ears nearly as big as its head. It’s smaller than I had imagined, just nine centimeters long. Reimer turns the bat over in her palm and gently blows on its pale brown fur. I glimpse a pink nipple. “Lactating female,” Reimer says, then stretches the bat’s black wings wide on a table. “Their wings are basically their hands,” she explains, noting that there are almost exactly the same number of joints in a bat’s wing (25) as in a human hand (27). Then, she gently secures a silver ID band to the bat’s forearm and uses a small tool to extract a pinprick of tissue—genetic material for her study—from each wing.

As she works, she invites several bystanders to take a closer look. “They’re actually so cute,” one exclaims. Another takes a slow-motion video as Reimer releases the bat into the night sky. She says that engaging citizens in research is a vital part of her work to change the dominant narrative about bats, a mammal that many people fear unnecessarily—and one that faces serious conservation threats.

A fungal disease called white-nose syndrome is decimating bats across North America, killing an estimated 6.7 million since it was first detected in upstate New York in 2006. The fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, has been documented in bats in 40 US states, and its known northern spread includes eight Canadian provinces. It thrives in the cool, damp conditions of hibernacula, caves and hollows where hundreds to thousands of bats huddle together for the winter, creeping onto their ears and noses and across their wings, causing lesions and dehydration. Infected bats stir out of torpor to groom themselves, spending precious fat reserves, and often starve to death once they’re depleted.

Recently, in places where the fungus was first detected, subpopulations with genetic resilience are starting to bounce back, but the situation is still dire. The mortality rate of bats with white-nose syndrome can reach as high as 90 to 100 percent, depending on the colony. Canada listed little brown bats as endangered in 2014 due to drastic declines in eastern provinces. The United States is considering listing the species as well.

It’s not a question of if, but when white-nose syndrome will arrive in Alaska, potentially threatening little brown bats here, too. Reimer hopes that the gene-flow study will put biologists one step closer to locating the bats’ winter hibernacula. That way, when white-nose arrives, they will be better able to monitor—and manage—the impacts.

Reimer has spent over a decade specializing in chiropterology, the study of the species with “winged hands.” She was drawn to study bats, in part, because of the way they’ve evolved to fill ecological niches, pollinating specific flowers, distributing fruit and tree seeds that help sustain and regenerate forests, and regulating insect populations.

Bats are incredibly diverse in their adaptations. They’re the only mammal capable of true flight, living on every continent except Antarctica. Next to rodents, bats are the second-largest mammal group in the world, with over 1,400 documented species and counting. These range from massive fruits bats—the size of a small human child—to the tiny bumblebee bat, which weighs in at just two grams. The fish-eating bat, meanwhile, has elongated feet for raking the surface of the water to catch fish and crustaceans. And the Mexican long-tongued bat uses its long, tubular tongue—nearly half the length of its body—to feed on nectar. Bats are the major pollinators of over 500 different plant species, boosting both natural habitats and human agriculture.

Despite these wonders, the bat has an unfair reputation as a “bloodthirsty, rabies-carrying rodent,” Reimer says. “In North America, less than two percent of wild bats test positive for rabies, a number significantly lower than, say, foxes,” she points out. In 2021, only three people in the United States died from rabies contracted from bats.

And even when bats aren’t feared, they’re often overlooked. Many scientists and conservation organizations favor more charismatic megafauna: wolves, humpback whales, and, no doubt, brown bears. But Reimer likes an underdog. “I’d much rather go hike in the woods and look at things no one else has cared about,” she says. “I want to ask the questions that haven’t yet been asked.”

Reimer grew up in Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories (NWT), worked as a tree planter in northern Alberta, and tromped along caribou trails as a research technician in Greenland. She fell in love with bats as an ecology major at the University of Calgary in southern Alberta, studying the diets of bats killed by wind turbines. But she always longed to return to the North.

Then, in 2010, cavers stumbled upon an enormous bat hibernaculum in a cave system nestled in the boreal forest outside Fort Smith, NWT, where thousands of little browns were overwintering. Reimer had found her ticket home. She spent several seasons there studying bats at their maternity colonies, conducting acoustic monitoring and capture surveys. Her research showed that, at the 60th parallel, little brown bats exit torpor at cooler temperatures and give birth later than their counterparts in the US lower 48—likely a physical response to the northern environment. Eventually, Reimer migrated west to take a research position with the Alaska Center for Conservation Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and she began locating and collecting data from maternity colonies in Alaska.

The little brown is one of the most widely distributed bat species in North America, found in all states, provinces, and territories except Nunavut, where the forests that the bats favor shrink into tundra. Though five other resident bat species are found in southeast Alaska, the little brown bat is the only documented species north of this region, with a known range extending all the way to the 64th parallel.

When Reimer moved to Alaska, she and her colleagues had only scant knowledge of the behaviors of little brown bats there. Some scientists weren’t even sure if mist netting would be possible. But Reimer received regular calls from homeowners about bats roosting in their attics, and the first night she set up a net in Anchorage, she captured dozens. It was clear they were making a home. But how exactly does a nocturnal, hibernating species thrive in a place where true darkness can last less than two hours on summer solstice, and more frigid winters demand heftier fat stores?

Brown bears can gorge all day and night through the summer and fall. But bats rely on darkness to protect them from predators while they forage, and so must pack on fat in short, intense feeding spurts, says Reimer. They also can’t get too fat, or they won’t be able to fly to their hibernaculum when the time comes. Using acoustic monitoring devices to record and analyze feeding frequencies, Reimer has begun to sort out how the bats make it work. For example, in the Far North, they fly at dusk—what Reimer calls “extra-solar flights”—despite greater vulnerability to owls and other raptors.

The cold also poses serious challenges for Myotis lucifugus in Alaska. Not only can little browns get frostbite on the tips of their ears, but food is often more scarce. The species is insectivorous, and individual bats can eat their weight in mosquitoes, moths, midges, and mayflies in a single night. They’re adept at “aerial hawking”—scooping insects into their mouths with their tails or wing membranes. When the temperature plummets, so do available insects, and little browns have adapted to go into torpor as easily as flicking a switch. “If there’s a bad weather event, or no food, bats can save energy rather than go find energy which doesn’t exist,” explains Reimer.

Little brown bats in Alaska have also developed a more diverse diet than southern populations. In 2017, researchers discovered that, in addition to catching arthropods on the wing, they “glean” them from webs and foliage, adding orb-weaver spiders and others to their menu. In the face of climate change and shifting habitats—including the northerly expansion of the treeline—this versatility could be advantageous.

But there’s one thing Reimer hasn’t been able to sort yet. Since 2016, she’s located more than 25 summer maternity colonies. She has yet to find any winter hibernacula.

Twenty kilometers southeast of Brooks Camp, I follow Reimer down a trail that plunges into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The slopes are densely forested, a stark contrast to the valley floor, which is covered in pink pyroclastic rock. That’s a result of the 1912 eruption of Novarupta, a magma vent at the base of nearby Mount Katmai—the largest volcanic eruption in the 20th century.

We pass into an airy grove of birch where there’s plenty of space to move between the trees or, if you’re a bat, to fly. “Little browns love open forest canopies like this one for foraging,” Reimer says. “Once you know bat behavior, you start to see their habitat everywhere. You’ve got to think like a bat.”

The chiropterologist is deeply curious about where bats’ minds are leading them on the landscape to hibernate, and whether they’re spending the winter in large or small groups. Some migratory bats travel quite far, Reimer notes. For example, the European Nathusius’ pipistrelle flies over 2,000 kilometers to hibernation areas. After all the samples she’s collecting have been analyzed, she hopes to publish the results next winter. Reimer wonders: Will they indicate some level of genetic isolation among northern Alaskan bats? Or will they show that populations are connected? If connected, that would mean the bats congregate in larger winter colonies, perhaps in a cave somewhere. That would lead to rapid transmission of deadly white-nose syndrome, when it arrives, and add urgency to management efforts.

But Reimer’s hypothesis—and her hope—is that bats here behave differently than their southern counterparts. There’s good reason to think so, based on recent findings in southeast Alaska by biologist Karen Blejwas. Starting in 2011, Blejwas glued radio tags, weighing 0.3 grams, onto dozens of bats from summer roosts near Juneau, Alaska, in hopes of finding their hibernacula. In the late fall, she boarded a fixed-wing plane outfitted with radio telemetry. She flew at sunset, circling where the bats swarmed, waiting for one of them to make a move so she could follow. Sometimes she’d get a signal only to have it disappear. “It was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” recalls Blejwas.

Then, three years after Blejwas began her search, her research team struck gold. The first-known Alaska hibernaculum wasn’t a cave with 1,000 bats; it was a small hollow, tucked beneath rocky scree on the side of a steep ridge, with just a handful of occupants.

Since then, Blejwas has found 10 hibernacula in unassuming places: under tree stumps and mossy rubble, in a jumble of rocks, tucked into upended root balls on toppled trees. She set up trail cameras at some of the sites and observed bats swarming outside and entering their hibernacula. They were all small colonies, ranging in size from one to 12 bats.

Could the same thing be happening around Katmai National Park and in other parts of Alaska, over 1,000 kilometers away? The unique hibernating strategy could make little brown bats here more resilient against disease, Reimer says. “If they’re disconnected populations and using these small cracks and crevices like biologists are seeing in southeastern Alaska, it could potentially slow or halt the spread of white-nose syndrome,” simply by limiting the number of bats it can infect at once. Physiologically, however, little browns in the North are just as vulnerable as populations in the South. They’re a small species without enough fat reserves to outlast the fungus, though one recent study indicates that other factors, such as genetic differences in metabolic rates during hibernation, play a role in determining which individuals survive.

We emerge from the forest and follow the steeply cut bank of the churning and tumbling Ukak River. Reimer stops and points at something across the surging water. I’m not entirely sure what she’s looking at. Then, I see it: a series of cracks and crevices running through the volcanic rock wall, slight enough for a bat to take refuge in.

The sun sets at 10 p.m. in King Salmon, a small fishing community of 300 residents on Alaska’s Bristol Bay. This is the launch point for visiting Katmai National Park, about an hour-long boat ride from Brooks Falls, and Reimer and I are back for one last survey before I leave, driving through the dusk in a Park Service truck to look for promising sites.

We pull in next to a clutch of run-down outbuildings piled with fishing buoys. Reimer hops out to inspect an old storage shed that has “all the ingredients” of a place that bats would love to roost in: it has a high ceiling, an attic, and sun-bleached wooden shakes that bats could easily slide under to take refuge. But she finds only a few dried guano pellets. Despite everything she knows about bat preferences, she confesses that the most reliable way to locate a bat roost is when a homeowner calls to complain about one.

In most cases, homeowners want colonies removed. Living with bats isn’t easy. Hungry juveniles are noisy, and bat urine stinks. Over time, structural damage can occur. And living close to any wildlife can pose some real risks, including the spread of disease, though with bats this is extremely rare. Meanwhile, the benefits of having bats around, such as their being the main predator of disease-spreading, night-flying insects like mosquitoes, are significant and measurable.

Yet, Reimer has heard stories of homeowners firing bear spray into their roofs or pouring bleach into their walls; often, they kill entire colonies. Bats aren’t like mice, which can replenish their numbers quickly by having five to 10 litters per year. And more than 50 percent of bat species, including the little browns, face the risk of steep population decline or extinction over the next 15 years. “Once you exterminate a bat colony, that colony isn’t coming back,” says Reimer. “It would be like killing all the bears at Brooks Falls. The following year, there won’t be any bears.”

So as Reimer works on her surveys, she also works on the public, hoping to help more people learn to appreciate bats. She tells homeowners who report colonies that bats aren’t likely to chew insulation and wires like mice. She also makes sure they know that the bats will depart by late August. She recruits homeowners to participate in efforts to count bats as they emerge for the night—one of the ways researchers get an idea of populations—or to help with one of her capture surveys. Seeing little browns up close and learning about their unique adaptive biology and behaviors often changes people’s minds about them, she says: “They start to care about ‘their’ bats.” And once the bats have left for the winter, homeowners can seal off their homes so that the bats find a more appropriate place the following year.

Before full dark, Reimer gets a gut feeling about the three-story Park Service apartment building where we’ll bunk for the night. We head back and erect mist nets, then set up her field equipment on the tailgate of the truck in the parking lot. It isn’t long before we hear the familiar flutter of wings from the building’s awning. A shadowy form swoops down, arcs back up, dives again, and lands softly in the net. It’s among the last for this particular study—one more unwitting helper in the effort to secure its species’ future in the Far North.

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

The post Can niche lives of bats help them avoid the white-nose syndrome? appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The adjective “fluffy” is not usually one that applies to the billions of bugs that call Earth home. Still, some caterpillars, spiders, and beetles do have longer fuzzy hairs from their many appendages. Now, there is a new genus of fluffy longhorn beetle in Australia that was found by chance and a bit of mistaken identity. The newly discovered Excastra albopilosa (E. albopilosa) is described in a study published March 19 in the  Australian Journal of Taxonomy.

Excastra was initially discovered by entomologist James Tweed while he and his partner were camping in the rainforests of Queensland, Australia. He initially thought the less than an inch long critter with its long white and black hairs was a bit of bird poop. 

“I was walking through the campsite at Binna Burra Lodge one morning and something on a Lomandra leaf caught my eye,” Tweed said in a statement. “To my amazement, I saw the most extraordinary and fluffiest longhorn beetle I had ever seen.” Tweed is an entomologist at the University of Queensland. 

After his trip, Tweed combed through available books, scientific papers, and on the internet to find the name of this species, but his search came up empty. Some photos posted to an Australasian beetles Facebook group sparked some interest, but even the most seasoned insect identifiers were stumped. 

The Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra officially confirmed that the beetle was not only a completely new species, but a new genus. They selected the name Excastra for the genus name, which means “from the camp.” Its species name albopilosa means “white and hairy.”

[Related: Army ants could teach robots a thing or two.]

“We don’t yet know what these hairs are for, but our primary theory is that they make the insect look like it’s been killed by an insect-killing fungus,” said Tweed. “This would possibly deter predators such as birds from eating it, but until someone can find more specimens and study this species further, we won’t be able to say for sure why this beetle is so hairy.”

The area where Excastra was located has been popular with entomologists for over a century and Tweed has not seen it on any additional trips back to the park. These types of chance discovered highlight just how many unknown species are out there and how many may risk going extinct. 

“Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet but are also the most underappreciated and understudied,” said Tweed. “Best estimates suggest there may be 5.5 million insect species worldwide and only one-fifth of these have been named and described.”

The post New fluffy longhorn beetle discovered in Australia appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Not all dolphins live in the salty ocean. While rare, some river dolphins live and eat in freshwater and are best known for their candy colored hues. Now, paleontologists have uncovered a fossilized skull belonging to a 16-million-year-old extinct river dolphin species in Peru named Pebanista yacuruna. It could grow to about 10 to 11 feet long and is the largest known species of river dolphin known to science. Pebanista is described in a study published March 20 in the journal Science Advances. 

The name Pebanista yacuruna is inspired by the Yacuruna, a mythical aquatic people that legends say inhabit underwater cities in the Amazon basin and are similar to the god Neptune in Greek mythology. The fossilized skull was found in the Peruvian Amazon and belongs to the group Platanistoidea. This group was a common animal in the Earth’s ocean between 24 and 16 million years ago. The team believes that their primarily salt water dwelling ancestors invaded the prey-rich freshwater ecosystems of the early Amazon and learned to adapt to this new environment.

“Sixteen million years ago, the Peruvian Amazonia looked very different from what it is today,” Aldo Benites-Palomino, a study co-author and paleontologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, said in a statement. “Much of the Amazonian plain was covered by a large system of lakes and swamps called Pebas.” 

[Related: Eavesdropping on pink river dolphins could help save them.]

This landscape stretched across present day Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil and included a variety of ecosystems in its lakes and swamps. About 10 million years ago, the Pebas system began to give way to the floodplain that Amazonia looks like today. Pebanista’s prey began to disappear as the landscape began to change, driving these giant dolphins to extinction. With Pebanista out of the picture, the relatives of today’s Amazon river dolphins called Inia had an opportunity to sneak in. 

While these pink dolphins may look similar to the extinct Pebanista, they are not directly related. Pebanista’s closest living relatives of this newly discovered species are actually found in South Asia.

“We discovered that its size is not the only remarkable aspect,” says Benites-Palomino. “With this fossil record unearthed in the Amazon, we expected to find close relatives of the living Amazon River dolphin–but instead the closest cousins of Pebanista are the South Asian river dolphins (genus Platanista).”

Both Pebanista and Platanista have highly developed facial crests that help them with echolocation. That is when they emit high-frequency sounds and listen to their echoes in order to “see” their prey through sounds. 

“For river dolphins, echolocation, or biosonar, is even more critical as the waters they inhabit are extremely muddy, which impedes their vision,” study co-author and University of Zurich paleontologist Gabriel Aguirre-Fernández said in a statement.

[Related: This dolphin ancestor looked like a cross between Flipper and Moby Dick.]

Pebanista’s elongated snout with many teeth suggests that it fed on fish the way other river dolphins do. Modern Amazon river dolphins called boto are considered critically endangered and their primary threats include habitat loss and degradation and getting entangled in fishing gear. 

The Amazon rainforest remains a very difficult place for paleontological fieldwork. Fossils like these are only accessible during the dry season, when water levels drop low enough to expose ancient layers of bedrock. If the fossils are not collected in time, they can be swept away during the rainy season. 

The specimen was found in 2018 in an expedition led by Peruvian paleontologist Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi, who completed his postdoctoral work at the University of Zurich. The team traveled more than 180 miles of the Napo River in northeastern Peru and collected dozens of other fossils. The dolphin skull is now housed at the Museo de Historia Natural in Lima.

The post Paleontologists uncover enormous fossilized river dolphin skull in Peru appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

House finches, mourning doves, and maybe even the occasional cardinal are coming out of their winter hiding spots to sit amongst blooming Magnolia trees and maybe indulge in some spare crumbs on the street. Noticing nature isn’t just a good practice in mindfulness—it’s also a fun hobby. Birding can be done any time of year and all over the world. If you want to entice more birds into your backyard—and bully some squirrels while you’re at it—this smart bird feeder is 52 percent off on Amazon as part of its Big Spring Sale. The sale ends Sunday, so make sure to get yours before it migrates back to full price.

Gyozol Smart Bird Feeder with Camera $99.98 (Was $209.99)

SEE IT

This camera is easy to put together, clean, and refill, making it a great pick for aspiring ornithologists and experienced birders alike. The 1080p camera only records when a bird sets off its PIR motion sensor. Then, it saves the recording to an SD card or in the cloud. Built-in AI bird recognition identifies the winged friend that lands on the feeder, and an app lets you file through avian visitors past and present. If you’re tired of squirrels stealing your bird feed, you can tell them to buzz-off, literally. Finally, the squirrels can get what they deserve.

If you’re looking for the best bird feeder camera and you’re cool with buying something at full price, go for the Bird Buddy. It’s $239 for the base version, but we recommend upgrading to the $299 version with the solar roof. It’s pricey, but completely worth it for up-close and personal views of the birds in your neighborhood.

The post Save 52% off this solar-powered bird feeder camera during Amazon’s Big Spring Sale appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

It’s not easy being green, but a newly described amphibian ancestor is seeing limelight after decades safely tucked away in the Smithsonian’s National Fossil Collection in Washington DC. This new species is named Kermitops gratus, in honor of world-famous amphibian Kermit the Frog. It lived more than 270 million years ago and its discovery is altering the story of amphibian evolution. The findings are described in a study published March 21 in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 

A stout salamander-like creature 

Based on an inch-long skull fossil, scientists believed that Kermitops likely would have resembled a stout salamander. The fossil has large, oval-shaped eye sockets, much like the distinct eyes on the Muppet it is named after. Kermitops was likely a temnospondyl–a member of a diverse group of early amphibian relatives that lived for more than 200 million years from the Carboniferous Period up to to the Triassic. 

“It probably was a little more terrestrial than some other frogs and salamanders,” study co-author and Smithsonian vertebrate paleontologist Arjan Mann tells PopSci. “The ecosystems that would have inhabited probably marginal pond environments, similar areas to where you find amphibians living today. 

At times, Kermitops’ environment was potentially similar to the swamp where viewers first meet Kermit singing and strumming the banjo in 1979’s The Muppet Movie. This prehistoric ecosystem also saw large shifts in seasonal rainfall and dry spells, similar to the monsoons seen today in the Southwestern United States and Southeast Asia.

[Related: These pleasantly plump salamanders dominated the Cretaceous period.]

“That rainfall would really feed this ecosystem in pulses,” study co-author and George Washington University evolutionary biologist and PhD student Calvin So tells PopSci. “That’s what sustained animals like Kermitops and modern amphibians have some of the same or similar constraints.”

Paleontological patience

The fossil was originally found by the late Smithsonian paleontologist Nicholas Hotton III. Hotton made several research trips to dig for fossils from a group of rock outcrops in north central Texas called the Red Beds. These rust-colored rocks date back to more than 270 million years ago to the Permian Period and are full of the fossilized remains of ancient reptiles, amphibians, and even some precursors to modern mammals called sail-backed synapsids.

Hotton’s team collected so many fossils that they couldn’t study them all in close detail. This included a small proto-amphibian skull that they found in a rock layer called Clear Fork Formation in 1984–the same year The Muppets Take Manhattan was released. The skull was labeled as an early amphibian and spent decades before researchers could take a closer look. It caught Mann’s eye in 2021 when he was a postdoctoral paleontologist at the Smithsonian. 

“It was easily identifiable as a taxa that that’s something new and different from anything we knew,” Mann tells PopSci. 

A head that snaps

Mann and So worked together to determine what kind of prehistoric creature the fossil belonged to. It has a mix of traits that appeared different from the skulls of older tetrapods–the ancient ancestors of amphibians and living four-legged vertebrates. The region of the skull behind the animal’s eyes was also much shorter than its longer and curved snout. These skull proportions likely helped it quickly grab food like a modern day snapping turtle.

“It may have been predisposed for these quick snapping motions,” says So. “Because of its small size, it was probably feeding on things smaller than itself, like insects, worms and vertebrates, but also potentially smaller amphibians.”

Since the skull had such unique features, the team concluded that it belonged to an entirely new genus they named Kermitops. It is a play on the amphibian’s wide-eyed face and is a mix of the words “Kermit” and the Greek suffix “-ops,” for face. The word Gratus represents the team’s gratitude to Hotton and the rest of the team that originally unearthed the fossil so many years ago. 

The team also hopes that naming it after the beloved frog who was created by puppeteer Jim Henson in 1955, can help get more people excited about the discoveries that scientists make using museum collections.

[Related: These legless, egg-laying amphibians secrete ‘milk’ from their butts.]

“There’s so many implications for reaching a broader audience,” says So. “We don’t only want to inspire future generations of paleontologists, but we hope to broaden what science is, from this very dedicated field to something that may potentially integrate with more creative and artistic things. “

In a statement sent to PopSci, Kermit the Frog wrote: “When the Smithsonian team approached me asking to name a newly-discovered amphibian species after me, I was truly honored… and a little puzzled. I don’t quite see the resemblance, but Miss Piggy and the other Muppets assured me it’s uncanny! Wait ‘til I tell my family in the swamp about our new great-great-great-great-great aunt or uncle–although we never got any gifts from them, so maybe they’re not that great.”

[Related: These spiky frog skulls look more like dinosaur fossils.]

Small fossil, big deal

Despite being such a tiny specimen, Kermitops is filling in some large evolutionary gaps for amphibians. The early fossil record of amphibians and their ancestors is very fragmented, which makes it difficult for scientists to put together how frogs, salamanders, axolotls, and their kin evolved. Finding more early forms of amphibious life is essential for building out the early branches of the amphibian family tree.

“Amphibian evolution was believed to be sort of a linear pattern before, but fossils like Kermitops, kind of put a wrench in that by showing maybe this wasn’t as simple as we thought,” says Mann. “It might have been a process that occurred over many lineages at the same time. Paleontology is always more than just dinosaurs, and there are lots of cool evolutionary stories and mysteries still waiting to be answered.”

The post New proto-amphibian species named after Kermit the Frog appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A distinct subpopulation of orca whales appears to be using specialized hunting techniques to hunt the marine mammals that they eat. Orca–or killer whales–are the ultimate apex predators, who have been observed attacking great white sharks, porpoises, and even blue whales. They are found in every ocean on the planet, and the specific environments that they live in have largely shaped their particular food preferences. The killer whales that forage near the deep submarine canyons off the California coast may use the sloping seascape to inform the ways that they catch food. These findings are described in a study published March 20 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Residents vs. transients

Groups of orca whales can form different populations or ecotypes. They have their own social structures, food preferences, and hunting techniques. Resident killer whales, like the three endangered pods that spend the summer and fall months in and around Puget Sound near Seattle, Washington exclusively eat salmon and have a more round dorsal fin.

[Related: Orca observed hunting and killing a great white shark by itself for the first time.]

The other type of killer whales called transient killer whales specialize in hunting marine mammals. Transients are typically slightly larger than resident orcas have a more pointed dorsal fin. 

The transients that forage in the Northern Pacific Ocean can also be further divided into two groups. The inner coast whales feed in shallow coastal waters, while outer coast whales hunt in deeper water. Most studies have focused on the orcas that hunt closer to shore and not much is known about the foraging techniques for the more offshore whales, such as those near the Monterey Submarine Canyon in California.

“Monterey Bay provides a conducive environment to investigate transient foraging ecology and behavior, due to it having a large deep submarine canyon system occurring close to shore that is accessible to researchers,” study co-author and University of British Columbia marine ecologist Josh McInnes tells PopSci. 

Two distinct foraging behaviors

McInnes and his team looked at the outer coast transient killer whales that foreage around the undersea Monterey Canyon, which is one of the deepest in the United States. They compiled and analyzed data from marine mammal surveys conducted between 2006 and 2018 and whale-watching ecotours between 2014 and 2021. The whales mainly ate California sea lions, gray whale calves, and northern elephant seals. 

The orcas were observed using two different foraging behaviors that appear to be unique to these more offshore transients. When foraging open water, the groups spread out and searched independently for marine mammals to eat. Each whale would also surface at a different time. 

However, if they were looking around the deep submarine canyons and shelf-breaks, groups of whales would search for prey following the contours of the canyon. The group would also surface at the same time. 

According to McInnes, both foraging behaviors appear to be unique to these whales from the other transient groups that hunt in shallow water. 

[Related: Raising male offspring comes at a high price for orca mothers.]

“Their ability to locate and follow the contours of the canyon was surprising based on our focal follow surveys,” says McInnes. “We hypothesize that transient killer whales hunting in submarine canyons may listen to water being upwelled along the continental slope or shelf-break.”

Ramming or punting sea lions

The orcas also deploy special techniques if their prey couldn’t be easily cornered in open water. They subdued their prey by ramming into them with their head or body–as some orca do to boats. The whales also used their powerful tails to hit or launch sea lions out of the water and into the air. 

McInnes and the team believes that these outer coast whales are a distinct subpopulation that has developed these hunting techniques in such a deep water habitat. It’s also possible that these foraging behaviors may be culturally transmitted from one generation to the next. The team was surprised by their affinity for along the slopes of the canyon and shelf-break and just how much time they spent foraging and feeding. 

“Transient killer whales in Monterey Bay, California spend 84 percent of daylight hours foraging (searching, pursuing, and feeding), which is a significant amount of time,” says McInnes. “Feeding appears to be related to the size of prey these whales tackle, with long hunts involving gray whale calves and California sea lions.”

McInness also said the team “really appreciate” any photographs or sightings of killer whales. Images of killer whales can be sent to oceaniceologyrg@gmail.com.

The post How crafty orca whales hunt near submarine canyons appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Though they’ve captivated the internet since late February, three eagle eggs in a nest in Southern California are unlikely to hatch. Parents Jakie and Shadow continue to take turns keeping the eggs warm, as snow dots their nest overlooking Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. 

“At this point, from the date that the eggs were laid, it’s past the time that Jackie’s eggs have hatched in the past,” biologist and nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley executive director Sandy Steers tells PopSci. “It’s not past the time that any eagle eggs have hatched. So there’s still a small window, but it’s diminishing quickly.”

According to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, it typically takes eagle eggs about 35 days to hatch. The first egg was laid on January 25, so the earliest the hatching would have been on February 29 and all three eggs should have hatched by now. A three-egg clutch like this is rare for bald eagles and is a first for Jackie. Only about 50 percent of eagle eggs hatch.

[Related: Watch: Three bald eagles could hatch any day now.]

Weather, altitude, and biology

“It could be that the temperatures we had during the incubation period, and when they were laid, were not that good. It could be the amount of oxygen. We’re at a very high altitude, higher than most eagle’s nests, so we have low oxygen levels to begin with,” says Steers. “We also had those big storms. It could also be something biological that just was off when the eggs were created, or during the development process. We just don’t know.”

In previous years, Jackie has left the eggs alone sooner, but this year, Shadow fills in as needed. Jackie and Shadow have had one chick in 2019 and one in 2022, but lost two eggs last year. In the coming days and weeks, they will likely start to spend less time sitting on the eggs. Eventually, the eggs will either be buried into the nest under sticks and twigs or could be taken by a predator like a raven.

Connecting with thousands viewers

The viral livestream of the nest has consistently been clocking in over 20,000 viewers per day, as intense blizzards and fierce winds have spread across the valley. Many viewers have expressed sadness that the eggs will likely not hatch and worry what this means for the pair. According to Steers, this does not tell us much about their future and has given the public some important life lessons from nature.

[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]

“Jackie and Shadow take every day as it comes and they deal with what’s in front of them. I think watching nature and learning from nature as to, it’s okay to have reactions,” says Steers. 

As for the eagle pair, Steers says, “We don’t know that they’re feeling exactly what we’re feeling, but they change their behavior in very distinct ways, based on what’s going on. They’re resilient; they move on.”

The nest cameras will remain on 24/7, so viewers will be able to tune in to see what changes as spring settles into the valley. The nonprofit also keeps a blog with daily updates about the nest. 

The post Sadly, these live-streamed bald eagle eggs likely won’t hatch appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Ireland may not be home to any snakes, but the island’s actual natural past and present is still bustling with other wildlife. It’s currently home to 40 species of land and marine mammals, 12,000 species of insects, and more than 400 bird species. Fearsome wolves used to roam the forests of Ireland, before being hunted into extinction by 1786 These wolves were likely a primary predator of one of the larger players of Irish natural history–the extinct giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus), more commonly known as the Irish elk.

Clocking in at about 6.5 feet tall and weighing upwards of 1,500 pounds, the males boasted antlers over 12 feet wide. By comparison, modern elk have antlers that are about four feet across. These enormous Ice Age mammals were the largest deer in Europe.

While they are primarily associated with Ireland, they have been found from the current western edge of the continent east towards Russia’s Lake Baikal. A 17,000 year-old cave painting in southern France depicts a deer with enormous antlers that archaeologists believed could be Megaloceros. Additional specimens have also been uncovered in Asia and Northern Africa. Megaloceros was first uncovered in a bog in Ireland and scientifically described in the 1690s, but its fossils continue to be uncovered all over the island.

[Related: Why doesn’t Ireland have snakes?]

“Despite Ireland being a tiny place, we have a lot of modern deer and a lot of giant deer deposits,” Paolo Viscardi, Keeper of Natural History at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin tells PopSci. “The depositional environment is just perfect and the preservation of these animals is incredible. There’s just this massive constant stream of giant deer turning up here.”

Heavy heads

Despite most museums listing the animal as an elk, Megaloceros was a deer. Their antlers were made of strong bone. This sturdy bone is one reason why they are more well-preserved than animal horns that are made of keratin. This same material that makes human hair and fingernails, that withers away over time. Horns are also more permanent like the ones found on a bighorn sheep. 

The earliest fossils of Megaloceros date back about 400,000 years and the most recent fossil is roughly 8,000 years old. Some Megaloceros antler fossils have been found completely detached, while others have been uncovered still connected to the skull. 

“The anatomy is just really interesting because they’re so big,” said Viscardi. “I’ve handled quite a lot of them and when you pick them up, you realize just how much they weighed. It’s really incredible that an animal not only grew this, but then walked around with it every day, on its head, and managed to use it to fight with.”

Antlers in the rut

Like deer, they shed these antlers every year. Paleontologists believe that the males had extra thick skulls and sturdy neck vertebrae to carry these antlers. Reproduction was also the primary reason for these enormous appendages, since males used them to fight one another for mates the way modern deer and elk do. 

“It was signaling to other males that you’re not to be messed with, which really helps when it comes to that in the actual nitty gritty of the fighting,” says Viscardi.

[Related: How do deer grow antlers so quickly?]

Megaloceros was likely a very opportunistic eater, grazing on whatever plants were available. While it was primarily an herbivore, they may have dined on some animal parts, since this annual competition for mates took up enormous amounts of energy. 

“I would be more surprised than not if they didn’t eat bits of animal remains,” says Viscardi. “I suspect the males would have actually actively sought out bones and the leftovers from scavengers and carnivores to feed on. It’s something you see today with a lot of deer. They’ll nibble on bits of bone they find to get the nutrients and minerals out.”

While having such large antlers benefited the species as a whole for reproductive survival, it came at a high individual cost. According to Viscardi, some of the specimens that have been found with antlers intact likely died shortly after the rut because they just did not have enough food to keep going. The fossils of large groups of males have been found together in bogs and farmland throughout Europe, many of whom likely did not have a chance to get enough food before the winter set in. 

A drawn out extinction

Extreme cold also likely played a role in their extinction in parts of western Europe. Their first wave of extinction began about 12,000 years ago. The giant deer began to disappear from present day Ireland and most of Europe when the climate began to cool.

“Food becoming less available and reproduction rates going down is probably what drove the extinction in Ireland,” said Viscardi. “As it gets colder, the quality of the food availability goes down. 

[Related: Researchers retraced a woolly mammoth’s steps 17,000 years after it died.]

However, their extinction was not a one and done event. Some fossils uncovered in central Russia reveal that there was an enclave of giant deer alive as late as 8,000 years ago. This last population of giant deer may have gone extinct due to a water climate, unlike their counterparts in Western Europe who disappeared due to extreme cold and ice. In a warmer world, they would have had to navigate increasing forests with their huge antlers and there would have been less grassland available for them to feed on. 

In some parts of Europe, they may have faced pressure from humans, as Neolithic settlements were beginning to expand when they went extinct. Humans removing a lot of vegetation could have put them under continued stress, but it was still glaciers and extreme cold that most likely led to their extinction in Ireland. 

“I don’t think there’s any really good evidence that humans turned up on the scene in Ireland, and we’re hunting or anything like that,” said Viscardi. “It’s very much more about the climate getting less hospitable.”

The post Ireland was once home to deer with massive 12-foot antlers appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Hudson River used to be among some of the most contaminated rivers in the United States. Following decades of environmental legislation and activism, wildlife including bald eagles, bears, and whales are being spotted in New York in larger numbers. The Hudson is also an important habitat for migratory American eels, who are now getting some help from citizen scientists. 

For the first time, this citizen science data will be treated as official data entered in the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) peer-reviewed eel stock assessment report. Since 2008, the Hudson River Eel Project has relied on close to 1,000 citizen scientists donating their time every spring to net, count, and release about two million juvenile American eels. 

“What I love about the eel project is it takes another step deeper toward volunteers actually becoming scientists and thinking about research methods and the research questions we’re trying to answer,” Chris Bowser, project leader and Cornell University environmental scientist and educator, said in a statement.

[Related: How eels might hitch a ride to Europe.]

The project has several monitoring sites between Troy south towards New York City. Volunteers count and track the juveniles who are often called glass eels, since they are transparent at this stage of life. Their data helps inform conservation management decisions, since the species is an essential part of the food web. 

An eel’s life

American eels hatch about 3,700-miles miles southeast of the Hudson in the salty Sargasso Sea. When they are larvae, the eels are shaped like willow leaves and they migrate north towards the freshwaters of the Caribbean islands, South America, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic coast from Florida to Canada. 

To get to New York, the eel larvae catch a ride on the Gulf Stream current. They transform into their translucent 2-inch long glass eel state when they hit the brackish waters of coastal estuaries. They migrate into the 150-mile Hudson River tidal estuary every year from February through May. Glass eels then serve an important form of prey for larger organisms. 

When they move into freshwater streams and creeks, they develop pigment and turn into miniature adults called elvers. The elvers become sexually immature yellow eels in their next adult phase, turning a brown, dark green, gray, or mustard yellow color. These older eels become apex predators that help balance the ecosystem by eating fish, aquatic insects, and crustaceans.

They may remain yellow eels for five to 30 years before they reach sexual maturity and turn into silver eels. The sexually mature silver eels then head back down to the Sargasso Sea to spawn and likely die.

Citizen scientists stepping in

Tributaries and estuaries can create a bottleneck for the swimming juveniles, which provides those studying them an opportunity to catch, count, and release the eels to get an idea of population trends that can inform larger scientific studies. 

“When done right, citizen science can be very helpful because it can greatly expand an agency’s or a biologist’s geographic spread, and also a time series [spread over time] with tens of thousands of volunteer hours over the years,” said Bowser. “We have tried to collect data that is as robust as what’s been done at the agency level.”

[Related: How to become a citizen scientist—and when to leave it to the professionals.]

ASMFC accepted the most recent data in August 2023, partially due to the eel project’s strong data quality-control procedures. Partners from Cornell University and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation developed these standards to make sure that their protocols were easy to follow, standardize, and could be repeated every year. According to Bowser, the citizen scientists are all well trained and their eel count numbers and procedures are checked. 

Eels have been found in every waterway that connects with the Hudson River, including urban rivers such as the Saw Mill River in Yonkers, the Fall Kill Creek in Poughkeepsie, and the Poesten Kill creek further north in Troy. They also swim in rural areas, including the Hannacroix Creek in New Baltimore and Black Creek in Esopus.

“The widespread geographic diversity of eels means that you also have widespread diversity of volunteers,” said Bowser. “Different ages, different socioeconomic backgrounds, different experiences.”

Monitoring at the Fall Kill Creek site in Poughkeepsie for this migration season began in late February. There, local high school students and their teachers wade into about two feet of water around nets and traps that are set up along the shoreline where the glass eels swim. Another group may be counting and weighing the eels, while others gather air and water temperature data. 

‘Every single dam is a potential barrier’

Chemical pollutants, overfishing, climate change, habitat loss and human-man obstructions like dams have all taken their toll on the eels over the years. 

“Every single dam is a potential barrier for eels on their migration route,” Bowser said. 

To help combat this, the eels that the project counts are released past at least the first known barrier to their migration, whether it be a road, culvert, or dam.

If you are interested in participating in a citizen science project like the Hudson River Eel Project, visit citizenscience.gov to find something nearby.

The post How citizen scientists are protecting ‘glass eels’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

To the human eye, a video of a faux fox may look like a character from an animated movie. However, to an orphaned juvenile red fox–called a kit–the furry friend is the best imitation of its mother that the employees from the Richmond Wildlife Center in Virginia can provide.

The video posted to Facebook shows Richmond Wildlife Center Executive Director Melissa Stanley wearing a red fox mask to cover her face, along with rubber gloves. She is feeding the kit with a syringe. The kit is also sitting on a large stuffed animal fox that is meant to resemble her mother, while cuddling up with another, smaller stuffed animal. 

CREDIT: Melissa Stanley/Richmond Wildlife Center.

“It’s important to make sure that the orphans that are raised in captivity do not become imprinted upon or habituated to humans,” the wildlife center wrote in the post. “To prevent that, we minimize human sounds, create visual barriers, reduce handling, reduce multiple transfers amongst different facilities, and wear masks for the species. The mask helps ensure that she does not see human faces when feeding, which is important if and when she can be released into the wild.”

Imprinting occurs when a very young animal fixes its attention on the first object that it sees, hears, or feels shortly after birth. It then follows that object or animal around, usually a parent. Human handlers must prevent the injured, orphaned, or endangered baby animals in their care from getting too attached, if their mother or father is not present. 

[Related: How to help an injured bird.]

“The goal is to release animals back into the wild, not only to give them a greater chance of survival, but to recognize their own species and to reproduce to carry on their wildlife population,” Stanley told the Associated Press.

The kit was admitted to the center on February 29. A man walking his dog found the kit in an alley in Richmond. She was brought to the Richmond SPCA, since her rescuer initially believed that she was a kitten. The kit was less than one day old, weighed about 2.2 ounces, and her umbilical stump was still attached. Staff from the wildlife center initially tried to find the baby’s mother and den so that they could reunite the pair. However, they found the den site but were told by a grounds superintendent that the foxes had been trapped and removed. The wildlife center believes that the fox kit either fell out of an enclosure or from the back of a truck when the foxes were caught. Since then, staff have been taking turns feeding her every two to four hours while wearing the fox mask. 

Director of the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council, Kai Williams, told The Washington Post that she hadn’t seen this technique for foxes, but that it is a common one for humans caring for birds. Avians rely more on their eyesight than mammals, who are dependent on smell. 

“Something you’d see much more is somebody dressing up in a whole crane suit or a brolga— something like that,” Williams said. “Sometimes they’ll just dress up in a covering that hides their shape a little bit, so they don’t quite look like a human, they look like a weird mass. Or they’ll use a hand puppet.”

The end goal is not to inhibit a healthy amount of natural fear of humans by ensuring that they do not associate humans with nurturing activities or feeding. 

[Related: Grizzlies are getting killed by roads, but the risks are bigger than roadkill.]

The Richmond Wildlife Center located three other red fox kits in rehabilitation settings throughout northern Virginia. They hope to eventually place the baby with these other red foxes and release the kits back into the wild together when they are healthy. 

According to the Humane Society of the United States, some signs that an animal may need help include shivering, an obvious injury like a broken limb, or if it has been seen crying or wandering. For birds, signs include missing feathers or if it looks like it has fallen to the ground. If you see an animal acting unusual or with any of these signs, contact local wildlife officials for additional help. 

The post Wildlife care staff wear fox masks to care for orphaned kit appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Please do not spend nearly a decade working to secretly clone endangered sheep in a bid to create giant Frankensheep hybrids for wealthy people to hunt for sport. It is very illegal, and the US government will make an example out of you.

Case in point: Arthur “Jack” Schubarth. The 80-year-old owner of a 215-acre “alternative livestock” ranch in Montana who the Justice Department reports pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two felony wildlife crimes—conspiracy to violate, as well as “substantively violating” the Lacey Act, a law enacted in 1900 to combat illegal animal trafficking.

Located in Vaughn, Montana, Schubarth Ranch is what’s known as a shooting preserve or game ranch, where people pay exorbitant amounts to hunt captive, often exotic animals like mountain goats. Or, in this case, extremely large, never-before-seen hybrid supersheep derived from Central Asia’s Ovis ammon polii, or the Marco Polo argali.

With a shoulder height as tall as 49-inches and horns over five-feet wide, the 300-pound Marco Polo argali is unequivocally the world’s largest sheep species. They are also extremely protected, and fall under the jurisdictions of both the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the US Endangered Species Act. On top of that, they’re prohibited from the state of Montana in an effort to protect native species against disease and hybridization. Despite all this, Schubarth and at least five associates thought it wise to try breeding new sheep hybrid species using Marco Polo argali DNA in the hopes of jacking up hunting rates.

[Related: How hunting deer became a battle cry in conservation.]

Pulling it off apparently required serious scientific and international scheming. According to Justice Department officials, Schubarth secretly purchased “parts” of Marco Polo argali sheep from Kyrgyzstan in 2013, then arranged transportation of the biological samples to the US. Once here, Schubarth then tasked a lab to create embryo clones from the Marco Polo argali genetic material. These embryos were then implanted in ewes of a different sheep species on his farm, which eventually produced a pure male Marco Polo argali Schubarth crowned the “Montana Mountain King,” aka MMK.

From there, “other unnamed co-conspirators” alongside Schubarth artificially inseminated other ewes (also apparently of sheep species illegal in Montana) using MMK semen. All the while, the sheep scandal grew to include forged vet inspection certificates claiming the legality of their livestock, as well as even the sale of MMK’s semen to breeders in other states. According to court documents, sheep containing 25-percent Montana Mountain King genetics fetched as much as $15,000 per head. A son of MMK, dubbed Montana Black Magic, helped produce sheep worth around $10,000 each.

The genetic thievery wasn’t limited to Marco Polo argali, either. Court filings also show Schubarth pursued similar endeavors to amass genetic material harvested from Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, which he then also sold through interstate deals.” All of this, perhaps unsurprisingly, also violated state laws prohibiting the sale of game animal parts and the use of game animals on alternative livestock ranches.

The crimes unfortunately go far beyond simple greed. These animal trafficking laws are not simply meant to protect conservation efforts—they’re in place to maintain the health of local ecosystems.

“In pursuit of this scheme, Schubarth violated international law and the Lacey Act, both of which protect the viability and health of native populations of animals,”  Todd Kim, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD), said on Tuesday, with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Chief of Enforcement Ron Howell adding, “The kind of crime we uncovered here could threaten the integrity of our wildlife species in Montana.”

It’s unclear how many hybrid sheep Schubarth and his colleagues successfully bred, as well as how many were ultimately sold and potentially hunted. PopSci has reached out to the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division for clarification.

In the meantime, Schubarth now faces upwards of five years in prison per felony count, a maximum $250,000 fine, and three years supervised release. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.

The post Montana traffickers illegally cloned Frankensheep hybrids for sport hunting appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The idea that most biologically male members of a species are physically larger than the females goes back to Charles Darwin’s 1871 book The Descent of Man. While this is typically true for some species including gorillas, buffalo, and elephants, it is not necessarily a one size fits all fact. 

A study published March 12 in the journal Nature Communications found that the males in most mammalian species are not bigger than the females. Monomorphism–or both sexes being roughly the same size–is very common and females can be larger in some cases. The authors suggest that biases in scientific literature from over more than a century and a focus on more charismatic species like primates and carnivores has likely led to this misconception.

A persistent narrative

For some mammals, physical differences in size do vary depending on competition for mates and the differences in how mothers and fathers invest time and energy in their offspring. Male lions and baboons typically engage in physical competition for mates and the males are larger than the females. It has been assumed that sexual dimorphism–where the sexes differ in size–is most common in animals. Additionally, the idea that males of a species are always larger, which is the case in lions, applies to most species has also stuck around for decades.

“That’s how Darwin laid out the scene,” study co-author and evolutionary biologist Kaia Tomback tells PopSci. “And it’s very Victorian Era thinking about gender roles.”

[Related: A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals.]

During the 1970’s, a mammalogist and conservation biologist named Katherine Ralls was among the first to take a real scientific look at this narrative and push back against this idea that most male mammals are larger. Ralls found evidence that most mammals do not have an extreme dimorphism. More typically, the female members of the species are the same size as the males. Larger females are surprisingly common in nature. According to Tombak, Ralls has also been commonly misquoted as supporting the larger male narrative.

“Science is always changing, so it’s possible that the story will change,” says Tombak, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Purdue University. “But [the idea] has been a misconception in the sense that it’s this scientific narrative with very weak evidence.”

From bats to lemurs to elephant seals

In this new study, Tombak and her colleagues went through available scientific literature and compared the male and female body masses of 429 animal species in the wild. In the majority of cases, they found that the males are not larger than the females. In many species, including lemurs, golden moles, horses, zebra, and tenrec, both sexes are the same size.

A male and female plains zebra interacting in Kenya. Males and females are the same size in this species. CREDIT: Severine B.S.W. Hex

Some species did show significantly larger males, including the northern elephant seal. This is what Tombak calls a “famously dimorphic” species, with male northern elephant seals weighing in at about three times larger than females.

On the other end of the spectrum is the peninsular tube-nosed bat. Females are about 40 percent larger than the males. 

“If you want to talk about most mammals, most mammals are rodents and bats, by far,” says Tombak. “Just almost half of bats have larger females. Some hypotheses suggest that for female [bats], it’s better to be bigger so that they can fly carrying fetuses and offspring more easily. Others have said that for males competing for mates, maybe agility matters more in fighting than size.”

A more complicated reproductive story

While the study did not sample all mammalian species, the team did identify trends that made sense given when a lot of these earlier studies were conducted. They believe that the reason for this persistent larger male narrative is related to more studies focusing on charismatic keystone species like primates and seals who have larger bodied males that compete with each other for mates. 

[Related: These female hummingbirds don flashy male feathers to avoid unwanted harassment.]

“As we read through the literature, there was just so much cool biology that we got into,” says Tombak. “I think what the study brings about is that there’s probably way more to reproductive strategies. A diversity of strategies is probably more common than just the males fighting physically for females.”

One example includes the topi, a type of antelope where females have been documented fighting each other for access to mates. Challenging this belief has met resistance and has been understudied, as it goes against the ideas of a seminal figure like Darwin.

“The story is really one of like the other side of the story of having been ignored for a long time,” says Tombak. “In terms of the science, I think it’s important because there’s just so much focus on the male perspective, male mating competition, and sexual selection theory.”

Tombak and her co-authors recommend more research on female biology across species to create a more realistic view of animal size and sex selection and are working on follow-up papers. The authors also caution that findings in this study could change, as more robust data on mammal body sizes is gathered in the future.

The post Sorry, Darwin: Most male mammals aren’t bigger than females appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

To better understand the ocean’s overall health, researchers hope to harness some of evolution’s simplest creatures as tools to assess aquatic ecosystems. All they need is $20 worth of materials, a 3D-printer, and some jellyfish hats. 

Jellyfish first began bobbing through Earth’s ancient oceans at least half a billion years ago, making them some of the planet’s oldest creatures. In all that time, however, their biology has remained pretty consistent—a bell-shaped, brainless head attached to a mass of tentacles, all of which is composed of around 95 percent water. Unfortunately, that same steady state can’t be said of their habitat, thanks to humanity’s ongoing environmental impacts.

Although it’s notoriously dangerous, technologically challenging, and expensive for humans to reach the ocean’s deepest regions, jellyfish do it all the time. Knowing this, a team of Caltech researchers, led by aeronautics and mechanical engineering professor John Dabiri, first created a jellyfish-inspired robot to explore the abyss. While the bot’s natural source material is Earth’s most energy efficient swimmer, the mechanical imitation couldn’t quite match the real thing. Dabiri and colleagues soon realized another option: bringing the robotics to actual jellyfish.

“Since they don’t have a brain or the ability to sense pain, we’ve been able to collaborate with bioethicists to develop this biohybrid robotic application in a way that’s ethically principled,” Dabiri said in a recent profile.

First up was a pacemaker-like implant capable of controlling the animal’s speed. Given its efficiency, a jellyfish with the implant could swim three times as fast as normal while only requiring double the energy. After some additional tinkering, the team then designed a “forebody” that also harmlessly attaches to a jelly’s bell.

This 3D-printed, hat-like addition not only houses electronics and sensors, but makes its wearer even faster. Its sleek shape is “much like the pointed end of an arrow,” described Simon Anuszczyk, the Caltech graduate student and study lead author who came up with the forebody design. In a specially built, three-story vertical aquarium, the cyborg hat-sporting jellyfish could swim 4.5 times faster than its regular counterparts.

[Related: Even without brains, jellyfish learn from their mistakes.]

By controlling their jellies’ vertical ascent and descent, Dabiri’s team believes the biohybrids could one day help gather deep ocean data previously obtainable only by using extremely costly research vessels and equipment. Although handlers can only control the up-and-down movement of their cyborg animals at the moment, researchers believe additional work could make them fully steerable in any direction. They’ll also need to develop a sensor array capable of withstanding the deep sea’s crushing pressures, but the team is confident they are up to the challenge.

“It’s well known that the ocean is critical for determining our present and future climate on land, and yet, we still know surprisingly little about the ocean, especially away from the surface,” Dabiri said. “Our goal is to finally move that needle by taking an unconventional approach inspired by one of the few animals that already successfully explores the entire ocean.”

The post Hat-wearing cyborg jellyfish could one day explore the ocean depths appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The Pacific is the largest and deepest ocean basin on the planet. Scientists barely know just how many different organisms call these deep waters home. Many of these areas are remote and difficult to explore, but that hasn’t stopped efforts to find out what’s really lurking under the sea. In February, a team of researchers exploring the Bounty Trough off the coast of New Zealand discovered roughly 100 new and potentially new marine species. 

Team members from the nonprofit organization Ocean Census, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand (NIWA), and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa collected close to 1,800 samples during the three week long expedition. Some of the specimens were uncovered more than 15,000 feet deep. 

“It looks like we have a great haul of new, undiscovered species,” Ocean Census science director and expedition co-leader Alex Rogers said in a statement. “By the time all our specimens are examined, we will be north of 100 new species. But what’s really surprised me here is the fact this extends to animals like fish–we think we’ve got three new species of fish.”

The team also found dozens of new mollusks, a shrimp, and a cephalopod that is a type of predatory mollusk. According to Ocean Census, we currently know of 240,000 marine species and an average of 2,200 species are discovered annually. 

[Related: See the strange new species discovered near Chile—with the help of a deep-diving sea robot.]

One find has been particularly baffling to the experts working to identify the new species. Initially, the team believed it was a new sea anemone or a seastar, but taxonomists do not believe that it is either of those species. 

“We now think it could be a new species of octocoral, but also a new genus [wider grouping of species],” Queensland Museum Network taxonomist Michela Mitchell said in a statement. “Even more excitingly, it could be a whole new group outside of the octocoral. If it is, that is a significant find for the deep sea and gives us a much clearer picture of the planet’s unique biodiversity.”

[Related: Four new octopus species discovered in the deep-sea vents off Costa Rica.]

Expeditions to underexplored ocean regions like the Bounty Trough are critical to discovering new species. The Bounty Trough is a roughly 500-mile long basin east of the South Island of New Zealand. Previously, geologists have surveyed this very deep ocean basin, but this is a first for biologists. 

“We’ve gone to lots of different habitats and discovered a whole range of new species, from fish to snails, to corals, and sea cucumbers–really interesting species that are going to be new to science,” NIWA marine biologist Sadie Mills said in a statement. 

At the beginning of the February 2024 expedition, the team used an imagine system and video cameras to map the area. This was in an effort to make sure that their equipment and cameras could safely operate and not harm any vulnerable animal communities. To collect specimens, they used a sampling device called the Brenke sled. It uses two nets, with one close to the seafloor and the other about three feet above that other net. It drags along the floor, churning up the animals that live close to the sea floor. Baited nets were used to find some of the larger animals of the trough. 

The specimens will be stored at the NIWA Invertebrate Collection (NIC) and National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in their Mollusca and Fish Collections. The findings will also be included in future editions of the New Zealand Marine Biota NIWA Biodiversity Memoir. 

The post New squid alert! 100+ species discovered off the coast of New Zealand appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The planet’s deep-sea worms survive and thrive in some pretty inhospitable places. Some are bioluminescent, glowing in regions too deep for the sun’s powerful rays to shine. Other sea worms can live surrounded by methane, one of the Earth’s most potent greenhouse gasses. Now, scientists have discovered a new species of deep-sea worm. It was found about 30 miles off of Costa Rica’s Pacific coast in an underwater methane seep. Pectinereis strickrotti is described in a study published March 6 in the journal PLOS ONE.

[Related: These newly discovered bioluminescent sea worms are named after Japanese folklore ]

Life 3,280 feet under the sea

Pectinereis strickrotti is about four inches long and its elongated body is flanked by a row of feathery, gill-tipped appendages called parapodia. Parapodia help them swim in a wavy pattern. The worms are blind, owing to the total darkness that they experience 3,280 feet under the ocean. The team believes that Pectinereis strickrotti likely has a keen sense of smell and touch to navigate this inky black world.

These deep-sea dwellers have a hidden set of robust, pincer-shaped jaws that they can thrust outwards   for feeding. While marine biologists are still not sure what they eat, they speculate that Pectinereis strickrotti may leisurely feast  on bacteria and other worms. The worms also looked red in color when lights were shone on it, likely due to its blood. 

Pectinereis strickrotti live in methane seeps. These are parts of the seafloor where this powerful greenhouse gas escapes from rocks and sediments in the form of bubbles. Unlike hydrothermal vents, methane seeps aren’t hotter than the water that surrounds them. Both are ecosystems fueled by chemical energy and not sunlight, where the tiny microbes living in them can turn methane into food. The microbes then form the base of the food web in hydrothermal vents and methane seeps, sustaining bigger creatures, including crabs, mussels, and soft-bodied polychaete worms like Pectinereis strickrotti.

This species is a member of the ragworm family, a group of about 500 species of segmented mostly-marine worms that look like a mix of an earthworm and centipede. Many species of ragworm have two distinct life stages–atoke and epitoke. As a sexually immature atoke, these worms spend most of its life on the seafloor hanging out in a burrow. In their final act, they transform into sexually mature epitokes that swim up from their homes to find mates and spawn.

Pectinereis strickrotti is also a bit unusual compared to most ragworms. It lives in the deep sea, while its kin live in shallow waters. Its parapodia are also covered with gills, where most ragworms can absorb oxygen through their parapodia without the help of fish-like gills. The males also have large spines on the end of their tails that the team believes may have to do with reproduction. 

Help from Alvin

A team from University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada in Mexico, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Germany, and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) collaborated on this discovery.

[Related: Why these sea worms detach their butts to reproduce.]

Pectinereis strickrotti was first spotted in 2009 at about 3,280 feet deep, during a dive in the HOV Alvin submersible. This human-occupied underwater exploration vehicle is operated by the WHOI and owned by the US Navy and famously played a role in helping discover the wreckage of the RMS Titanic at the bottom of the North Atlantic. 

“When we first saw it, we immediately starting asking what is was. A vertebrate? Some strange fish? We had this blurry image and that was it, but we were very intrigued,” Alvin’s lead pilot Bruce Strickrott tells PopSci. “That’s how it is down there. You see things for one minute, they’re gone, and then you talk about it.”

The team returned to the Costa Rican methane seeps in 2018. During a dive around Mound 12 of the seep, they encountered six or more individuals of the unidentified species that they first spotted back in 2009.  For an unknown reason, the sea worms were less skittish than they had been nine years earlier. Using a five-chambered vacuum canister device on Alvin that Strickrott called the “slurp gun,” the team carefully collected several specimens and enough images and video to formally describe the new species.  

“They swim slowly, but when he really wanted to move, he started to undulate almost like a living magic carpet,” says Strickrott. “The first thing that really caught my eye was just how quick it was.”

Pectinereis strickrotti is named after Strickrott, for his his piloting work that was crucial to the worm’s discovery. He says he was completely “honored and humbled” to have this new species named after him. However, this is not the only animal that bears the submersible pilot’s name. A deep-sea dwelling hagfish called Eptitretus strickrotti is also named for him.

During the 2018 expedition, the team collected three male Pectinereis strickrotti epitokes and part of one female. Tulio Villalobos-Guerrero of the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada in Mexico conducted the primary anatomical analysis that was necessary to determine that this was a new species. The specimens are currently in Scripps’ Benthic Invertebrate Collection and the Museo de Zoología at the Universidad de Costa Rica. The National Science Foundation also supported this research.

“We’ve spent years trying to name and describe the biodiversity of the deep sea,” Greg Rouse, a study co-author marine biologist at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said in a statement. “At this point we have found more new species than we have time to name and describe. It just shows how much undiscovered biodiversity is out there. We need to keep exploring the deep sea and to protect it.”

Rouse and other researchers from Scripps are planning on heading back out to sea later this year to explore deep methane seeps off the coasts of Alaska and Chile. 

The post Newly discovered deep-sea worm moves like a ‘living magic carpet’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

If you take a look at a horseshoe crab, you are essentially peering back in time millions of years. Animals like horseshoe crabs, coelacanths, and the duck-billed platypus are what Charles Darwin called “living fossils” since alive specimens show very few physical differences from their ancestors in the fossil record dating back millions of years.

[Related: A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals.]

Now, an ancient group of ray-finned fishes called gars may be the ultimate living fossils, evolving slower than any other of these vertebrates. A study published March 4 in the journal Evolution found that they have the slowest rate of molecular evolution among all jawed vertebrates and its genome changes much more slowly than other animals.

What are gar?

There are seven known species of gar. They are found in North America and can live in fresh, brackish, and salt water and commonly live in slow-moving bodies of water like estuaries. They have bodies shaped like darts and a long beak that acts like a pair of forceps. They also lay green colored eggs that are highly toxic to any predators who want to eat them.

All seven living species of gar species are nearly identical to the earliest known fossil gars. These specimens date back about 150 million years ago to the Jurassic period. As early as 100 million years ago (Mid-Cretaceous period) one of the two living major lineages of gars began to appear in the fossil record. 

Looking at hybridization

In this new study, the team analyzed a dataset containing 1,105 exons–DNA’s coding region–from a sample of 471 jawed vertebrate species. They found that the gars’ DNA consistently evolves up to three times more slowly than any other major group of vertebrates. Sturgeon and paddlefish also showed slow rates of change, but their rate of changes was not as relaxed as gar. 

Researchers then looked at a process called hybridization, where two different species produce viable offspring that have the ability to reproduce when they reach maturity. For example, a horse and a donkey are two different species, but they can mate and produce mules. However, mules are usually born sterile and can’t reproduce. Some gar species can mate and their offspring will remain fertile when they reach sexual maturity. 

The team looked at the alligator gar and longnose gar, two different gar species found in the Brazos and Trinity River systems in Texas. Both species last shared a common ancestor at least 100 million years ago, yet are still producing viable and fertile babies, but not new species. This successful reproduction by two different species of gar is likely linked to how slowly their DNA changes  and keeping their numbers of species at only seven.  

“The slower a species’ genome is mutating, the more likely it is that it will be able to interbreed with a separate species that it’s been genetically isolated from over a long stretch of time,” study co-author and Yale University PhD student Chase D. Brownstein said in a statement. 

According to the study, gars have the oldest identified parental split among all animals, plants, and fungi that can produce offspring that can survive and reproduce. The previous record holders were two fern species and the gar’s common ancestor is about 60 million years older than the shared ancestor of both ferns.

Not an evolutionary accident

The team believes that gars have an unusually strong DNA repair apparatus. This allows the fish to correct somatic and germline mutations. These mutations are changes to the DNA that occur both before and after conception. Gars may be able to alter these mutations more efficiently than many other vertebrates and understanding that process could have future implications for human health.

[Related: We probably have big brains because we got lucky.]

“Most cancers are somatic mutations that represent failures of an individual’s DNA repair mechanisms,” study co-author and Yale University evolutionary biologist Thomas J. Near said in a statement. “If further study proves that gar DNA repair mechanisms are extremely efficient, and discovers what makes them so, we could start thinking about potential applications to human health.”

According to the team, the study indicates that Earth’s living fossils are not just freak evolutionary accidents.They are living, breathing depictions of how evolution works in nature.

“It shows that analyzing patterns in living fossils’ evolutionary history might have implications for our own story,” said Brownstein. “It not only helps us better understand the planet’s biodiversity, but potentially could one day be applied to medical research and improve human health.”

The post Meet the new king of the ‘living fossils’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

When their kin aren’t attacking boats and porpoises or monitoring their large adult sons, some pods of orca whales are also known to attack the fearsome great white shark. Groups of these marine mammals are known to hunt and kill these giant fish in an epic battle of apex predators. Now, a solitary orca–aka killer whale–has been observed eating a great white shark for the first time. The findings are described in a study published March 1 in the African Journal of Marine Science.

“The astonishing predation, off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa, represents unprecedented behavior underscoring the exceptional proficiency of the killer whale,” Alison Towner, a study co-author and shark biologist from Rhodes University in South Africa, said in a statement. 

Pack hunters–Willy vs. Jaws

Typically, orcas work together in groups to catch their prey–most often sea lions, seals, sharks and even other whales. When hunting together in a pod, they surround their prey and use combined strength and intelligence to attack. South Africa’s white sharks are predators in their own right and known for their stunning acrobatics and solo hunting. 

[Related: Watch what can happen when killer whales tangle with great white sharks.]

In 2022, the same research team revealed that a pair of orca named Port and Starboard had been hunting and killing South Africa’s white sharks since 2017. Their predatory behavior has since driven large numbers of the sharks away from their natural aggregation sites. While orca whales can hunt large animals individually, this most recent occurrence is the first time that a single whale has been observed attacking a great white shark.

‘The scent of shark liver oil’

This incident was observed in June 2023 near Seal Island in Mossel Bay, about 248 miles east of Cape Town and is challenging conventional beliefs about the cooperative hunting behaviors in the region. Starboard the orca was working alone to “incapacitate and consume” an eight foot-long juvenile white shark in only two-minutes. Later, the orca was observed carrying the shark’s liver in its mouth. 

“Upon reaching Mossel Bay’s Seal Island, the scent of shark liver oil and a noticeable slick indicated a recent kill. Tracking Port and Starboard near the island, they remained separated,” Esther Jacobs, from marine conservation initiative Keep Fin Alive, said in a statement recounting the day. “Witnessing a white shark’s fin break the surface initially sparked excitement, but that turned to a somber realization as Starboard swiftly approached. The moment Starboard rapidly preyed on my favorite shark species was both devastating and intensely powerful.”

What Jacobs and the others on the water that day were observing is a specialized feeding behavior. Orca in South Africa appear to have a strong preference for eating the lipid-rich livers of white sharks.

[Related: This could be the first newborn great white shark ever captured on camera.]

“Over two decades of annual visits to South Africa, I’ve observed the profound impact these killer whales have on the local white shark population,” added Primo Micarelli, from the Shark Studies Centre and Siena University in Italy. “Seeing Starboard carry a white shark’s liver past our vessel is unforgettable.”

At least two great white sharks were killed during these interactions, as a second carcass measuring 11.6 feet was also found nearby. 

“This sighting revealed evidence of solitary hunting by at least one killer whale, challenging conventional cooperative hunting behaviors known in the region,” said Towner. 

Shifting dynamics at sea

In addition to offering some new insight into predatory behavior in orcas, it’s also helping provide context to the ecosystem changes that may happen when orcas displace sharks as the apex predator. Understanding the dynamics at play as killer whales continue to prey on large sharks underscores the need for conservation strategies that can be adapted in a timely manner as the environment and ecosystem changes. 

[Related: Great whites don’t hunt humans—they just have blind spots.]

“The observations reported here add more layers to the fascinating story of these two killer whales and their capabilities,” ecologist Simon Elwen said in a statement. “As smart, top predators, killer whales can rapidly learn new hunting techniques on their own or from others, so monitoring and understanding the behaviors used here and by other killer whales in South Africa is an important part of helping us understand more about these animals.”

Elwen is a whale ecology expert at the University of Stellenbosch and Founding Director and Principal Scientist at Sea Search Research & Conservation. He was not an author of this specific study. 

These new findings and future studies should provide scientists in the region with more insight in how to adapt conservation measures. According to Towner, skilled “shark spotters” in Cape Town documented a record of over 300 great white shark sightings across eight beaches in 2011. Since 2019, there haven’t been any sightings in the area, as the sharks are moving further away from Cape Town. Threats from orcas like Port and Starboard and dwindling resources have prompted these great white sharks to begin to move further away. 

“Despite my awe for these predators, I’m increasingly concerned about the coastal marine ecology balance,” said Micarelli.

The post Orca observed hunting and killing a great white shark by itself for the first time appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Researchers using an AI photo-scanning tool similar to facial recognition have learned that there’s been a 20% decline in North Pacific Ocean humpback whale populations over the past decade. The researchers pointed to a climate change related heat wave as a possible culprit. The findings, published this week in Royal Society Open Science, used the artificial intelligence-powered image detection model to analyze more than 200,000 photographs of humpback whales taken between 2001 and 2022. 

Facial recognition models used to identify humans have faced sustained criticism from researchers and advocates who say the models struggle to identify accurately identity nonwhite people. In this case, the model scanning humpback whale photos was trained to spot and recognize unique identifiers on a whale’s dorsal fin. These identifiers function like a one-of-a-kind whale fingerprint and can consist of marks, variations in pigmentation, scarring, and overall size. Researchers used successful photo matches to inform estimates for humpback whale populations over time.

[ Related: The government is going to use facial recognition more. That’s bad. ]

Images of the whale tails, captured by scientists and whale watchers alike, are stored by a nonprofit called HappyWhale, which described itself as “largest individual identification resource ever built for marine mammals.” HappyWhales encourages everyday “citizen scientists” to take photos of whales they see and upload them to its growing database. The photos include the data, and location of where the whale was spotted. 

From there, users can track a whale they photographed and contribute to a growing corpus of data researchers can use to more accurately understate the species’ population and migration patterns. Prior to this AI-assisted method, experts had to comb through individual whale tail photographs looking for similarities with their named eye, a process both painstaking and time-consuming. Image matching technology speeds that process, giving researchers more time to investigate changes in population data. 

 “Having an algorithm like this dramatically speeds up the information-gathering process, which hopefully speeds up timely management actions,” Philip Patton, a  University of Hawaii at Manoa Phd student who has worked with the tool said in a previous interview with Spectrum News. 

Research links humpback whale population decline to climate change 

Humpback whales, once on the brink of extinction, have seen their population grow in the 40 years since commercial hunting of the species was made illegal, so much so that the giant mammals were removed from the endangered species list in the US in 2016. But that rebound is at risk of being short-lived. Researchers analyzing the whale data estimate their population peaked in 2012 at around 33,488. Then, the numbers started trickling downwards. From 2012 to 2021, the whale population dropped down to 26,662, a decline of around 20%. Researchers say that downward trend coincided with a record heat wave that raised ocean temperatures and may have “altered the course of species recovery.” 

That historic heat wave resulted in rising surface sea temperatures and decreases in nutrient-rich water which in turn led to reductions in  phytoplankton biomass. These changes led to greater disruptions in the food chain which the researcher says limited the whales’ access to krill and other food sources. While they acknowledged ship collisions and entanglements could be responsible for some of the population declines, the researchers said those factors couldn’t account for the entirety of the decline. 

“These advances have shifted the abundance estimation paradigm from data scarcity and periodic study to continuous and accessible tracking of the ocean-basin- wide population through time,” the researchers wrote. 

Facial recognition can shed light on animals on a population level 

Whales aren’t the only animals having their photos run through image detection algorithms. Scientists use various forms of the technology to research populations of cows, chickens, salmon, and lemurs, amongst species. Though primarily used as an aid for conservation and population estimation, some researchers have reportedly used the technology to analyze facial cues in domesticated Sheep to determine whether or not they felt pain in certain scenarios. Others have used photo matching software to try and to find missing pets. 

[ Related: Do all geese look the same to you? Not to this facial recognition software. ]

These examples and others highlight the upside of image and pattern matching algorithms capable of sifting through vast image databases. In the case of conservation, accurate population estimates made possible by these technologies can help inform whether or not certain species require endangered classifications or other resources to help maintain their healthy population.

The post Why scientists are tracking whale tails with AI appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

All eyes are on two new avian internet celebrities and their cozy home in Southern California. Three bald eagle chicks could hatch any day now from their nest atop a Jeffrey pine tree overlooking Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles. Onlookers from near and far can follow along via a live stream monitored and maintained by the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley.

[Related: Lockdown made cities friendlier for some birds.]

The eggs were laid in late January by a bald eagle named Jackie. According to the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley, she sat on the eggs for over two and a half days when the region was hit with a snowstorm. She sat there keeping those eggs warm for 61 hours and 58 minutes without a single break. Incubating duties have been shared with their father, Shadow, who has also supplied Jackie with plenty of fish. 

The nest is about five feet across and five feet deep and offers beautiful lake and mountain views. According to the nonprofit,  a three-egg clutch like this is rare for bald eagles and is a first for Jackie. Biologists monitoring the situation are watching for a “pip.”

“The pip is when there’s a visible bump or crack in the eggshell that we can see,” biologist and Friends of Big Bear Valley executive director Sandy Steers told the Los Angeles Times. “Even when there’s a pip, it’s going to take at least a day—sometimes longer—for the chick to hatch. With nature, we need to be patient. It can teach us to just breathe and enjoy the process instead of focusing on the result.”

March 1 officially marks 36 days since the first egg was laid and Jackie’s eggs have previously piped at 38 and 39 days.

The weather is also adding to the excitement and anticipation. Another winter storm is barreling towards the region, with a winter storm watch posted for Big Bear Lake for the evening of Friday March 1 through the afternoon of Sunday March 3. Because of the storm, it is possible that the hatching will happen off camera, as Jackie or Shadow will sit on the nest to keep them protected from the cold and wet weather. Adult eagles have about 7,000 waterproof feathers that should help keep the chicks warm if they hatch in the storm. 

[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]

This nest camera was installed in 2015 by Friends of Big Bear Valley and documents breeding successes and failures every season. In that time, Jackie and Shadow have laid five eggs that have produced eggs. In January 2023, Jackie laid eggs and spent weeks incubating them. The two then began to leave them unattended. Ravens breached the eggs in March, but revealed no obvious signs of development inside. Only about 50 percent of bald eagle eggs hatch.

The large and iconic American bald eagle has been brought back from the brink of extinction. According to the American Eagle Foundation, there were only 417 known nesting pairs in the lower 48 states in 1963. Since then, it has since skyrocketed to at least 316,700 known individual bald eagles, including 71,400 nesting pairs. Banning the pesticide DDT and other conservation measures enforced during the 1970s have helped the species rebound. However, they are still in danger of lead poisoning, bird flu, habitat destruction, and collisions with human made infrastructure. 

This is a developing story, please check back for updates. 

The post Watch: Three bald eagles could hatch any day now appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Some of Earth’s fish are known for their Herculean strength and funky vision. For the less than one inch long Danionella cerebrum, it’s their loud vocals. This tiny fish in the minnow and carp family can produce sounds louder than an airplane taking off as perceived by human ears at a distance of 328 feet, according to a study published February 26 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

[Related: World’s oldest living aquarium fish could be 100 years young.]

Danionella cerebrum is a small and translucent fish that was first discovered in 2021 in shallow and murky mountain streams in southern and eastern Myanmar. It has the smallest known vertebrate brain, but can hold its own with other members of the animal kingdom of all sizes when it comes to making noise. Small snapping shrimp can produce popping sounds of up to 250 decibels, while large elephants use their trunks to make noises up to 125 decibels. 

“This tiny fish can produce sounds of over 140 decibels at a distance of 10 to 12 millimeters [about 0.4 inches],” Ralf Britz, a study co-author and ichthyologist at the Senckenberg Natural History Collections in Germany, said in a statement. “This is comparable to the noise a human perceives of an airplane during take-off at a distance of 100 meters [328 feet] and quite unusual for an animal of such diminutive size.”

For Danionella cerebrum, its impressive vocals come from sound-generating apparatus that helps them communicate with one another through cloudy waters. An international team of researchers took high-speed videos of groups of fish in a tank to observe how this specialized muscle works to make noise. It is made up of drumming cartilage, a specialized rib, and even some fatigue-resistant muscle. 

To make noise, it hits the drumming cartilage against a gas-filled organ that helps them stay underwater called a swim bladder. This drumming produces rapid pulses in high and low frequencies. The higher frequency pulses are generated by compressing the swim bladder from the left and right in an alternating pattern. Lower frequency pulses are created with repeated compressions on the same size of the fish’s body. According to the study, no other fish is known to generate sound from repeated unilateral muscle contractions.

[Related: How echolocation lets bats, dolphins, and even people navigate by sound.]

The team assumes that competition between males in a very dark and murky environment has contributed to the development of this special noise making organ. Understanding the extraordinary adaptation of Danionella cerebrum is helping scientists learn more about animal movement and all of the different  propulsion mechanisms different species use. 

See-through fish like zebrafish are often used as a model organism in biomedical research since it is possible for scientists to easily study their organs and larvae since they are transparent. The fish in the Danionella genus like Danionella cerebrum offers scientists a similar opportunity to compare how the mechanisms behind sound generation differ between species. 

“The sounds produced by other Danionella species have not yet been studied in detail,” the team writes. “It would be interesting to learn how their mechanism of sound production differs and how these differences relate to evolutionary adaptation.” 

The post This tiny fish is louder than an airplane taking off appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

Heads up: Rachel and Jess are planning a livestream Q&A in the near future, as well as other fun bonus content! Follow Rachel on Patreon and Jess on Twitch to stay up to date. 

FACT: Birds? Making milk!? It’s more likely than you think. 

By Liz Clayton Fuller 

In a world of upwards of 10,000  species of birds, only three kinds of birds create “milk”: doves/pigeons, flamingos and emperor penguins. This is not your typical mammalian milk because, as you may or may not know, birds do not have nipples! But it is compositionally similar to that milk and serves a similar purpose, though it doesn’t bear much physical resemblance. Unfortunately it looks like cottage cheese. Woof.

So how do birds make milk? They secrete it from the lining of their crops, which is a pouch-like part of their digestive system typically used for food storage. The hormone that stimulates pigeon milk production is called prolactin, which is the same hormone that causes lactation in mammals like us!

So let’s start with Pigeon Milk! The modern day pigeon or rock dove typically lives in kind of unforgiving environments like cities, so when their babies are born they need a lot of protein and fat—and the pigeons don’t have a reliable way of providing that outside of, you guessed it, creating crop milk! They start making milk a few days before the eggs are due to hatch and start feeding it to the babies, aka squabs, as soon as they emerge. The squabs are fed an exclusive diet of crop milk for the first week or two of their life, and then gradually the parents mix in adult food. Amazingly, both the male and female Pigeons create crop milk!

On to flamingo milk. Similarly to pigeons, flamingo male and females produce crop milk for their babies. The reason they evolved the ability to create milk is that they have a very specific mechanism for feeding that is made possible by their unique beak. When baby flamingos are born their beaks are not developed enough yet for this type of feeding, so the parents feed them crop milk until they can eat on their own. A radical thing about flamingo milk is that it is BRIGHT RED because of all the carotenoids (a type of organic pigment found in nature) in their diet of little teeny tiny shrimps. 

Lastly, penguin milk! Male Emperor Penguins incubate a single egg on their feet for around two months in the Antarctic winter while the female goes out to sea to feed. When the chick hatches, to tide it over until the time the female returns with food, the male feeds the chick crop milk. Only the males can create crop milk in this species.

So the next time Brewster from Animal Crossing offers your Pigeon Milk in your latte, keep in mind that he thinks of you as a baby bird that could use some extra protein. Do with that information what you will! 

FACT: Hermit crabs are wearing our trash

By Rachel Feltman

Hermit crabs are super cool. They evolved to have bodies that require shells for protection, but not to create their own. As far back as 200 million years ago, the fossil record shows us that hermit crabs were already tooling around shopping for homes discarded by mollusks. They have these asymmetrical, squishy bodies that would be super impractical, except that they’re designed to fit into—and hold onto—as many shapes of shell as possible. They evolved from free-living crabs sometime before 200 million years ago, and in at least a couple cases evolved back into shell-free crabs with harder exoskeletons.

They engage in some truly wild behavior to find new shells, including something known as a “vacancy chain.” Check it out:

But what happens when shells are in short supply? Apparently when a homemade snail shell isn’t available, a store bought chunk of plastic will do.

People have spotted—and taken pictures of—hermit crabs wearing bottle caps, light bulb bases, and other bits of trash for years. In a recent study, Polish researchers decided to delve into the internet record of trash-wearing hermit crab photos to try to learn more. 

The researchers did a search of the existing literature, but only found four studies on hermit crabs using plastic debris and other human waste. So they also searched Flickr, iNaturalist, Google Images, YouTube, and Alamy with the same keywords to find photographic evidence of the phenomenon. They were able to find 386 individuals with artificial shells, representing 10 of the world’s 16 species of terrestrial hermit crabs. The behavior was spotted in every tropical region on the planet. They gleaned as much info as they could from each photo to try to determine why and how crabs would resort to living in garbage. 

They found that hermit crabs are particularly fond of white and black bottle caps, but have been seen making mobile homes out of everything from broken bottles to the threaded bits of lightbulbs. 

It’s possible that hermit crabs are using our garbage because the species they tend to get shells from are on the decline. It’s also possible that the combination of strength and lightness found in plastic makes them see the materials as better than natural shells, at least in some cases. But it’s also possible that the critters are simply attracted to plastics because they smell like food, which is a known issue. Hermit crabs are among the estimated 100,000 animals that die in the ocean due to plastic pollution each year, and there’s evidence that microplastics can impact their cognitive abilities. Those problems extend to the shore, too. One study estimated that half a million hermit crabs die each year on just a pair of extremely remote islands in the pacific due to plastic waste. They climb into old plastic bottles, which smell like a food source due to the presence of a particular chemical, and get stuck inside. Then, when they die, their scent attracts other hermit crabs to come see what’s up—an evolutionary trick that exists to help them find vacant shells. Unfortunately, those hermit crabs also get trapped. 

FACT: Not everything is rocket science—but sometimes lube is 

By Amanda Reed

Lube has a long history, from the Romans using olive oil as lubrication to KY Jelly’s start as a surgical lubricant. And we have literal rocket science to thank for Astroglide. 

In 1977 during the building of the Space Shuttle Enterprise, a young scientist by the name of Daniel X. Wray was working at the Edwards Airforce Base in California to improve heat transfer in the Enterprise’s cooling system. He discovered a water-soluble, non-toxic solution that became more slippery when wet. He bottled up this magical liquid and gifted it to a male colleague as a gag birthday gift. Then, to Wray’s surprise, his friend came back asking for a refill. That’s when the rocket scientist knew he had something incredible on his hands.

Wray tinkered with the formula, creating 300 different versions of Astroglide before landing on the version known today. He then licensed it to a North Hollywood-based company in 1982 and… went back to rocket science. Relatable! 

When the company that he licensed his liquid creation to closed in 1991, he purchased the rights back, got an $8,500 business loan, and formed BioFilm, which is the current parent company of AstroGlide. He gave it the name we know today as a nod to its rocket science roots. Wray passed away in 2018 after a brief battle with cancer, but his legacy lives on in the hearts of his community—and the hands of the many people using Astroglide today.

The post Why flamingo milk is pink appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Imagine a crime scene. Chances are, you’re also imagining someone dusting for fingerprints. Despite recent debates of whether fingerprint evidence is accurate and reliable, it can still prove extremely useful in certain situations, such as narrowing down potential suspect lists. Unfortunately, this technique often employs toxic powders, including environmentally harmful petrochemicals that can damage DNA evidence.

[Related: The racist history behind using biology in criminology.]

Thanks to a collaboration between scientists from the UK’s University of Bath and China’s Shanghai Normal University, this may change in the future. In a new study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers laid out their case for a novel method of lifting latent fingerprints—a water soluble spray that is not only safer and faster, but easier to examine thanks to its ability to glow in the dark.

It all started with a tip-off from jellyfish.

For millions of years, many of these ocean invertebrates have contained Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), which are fluorescent under certain lighting conditions. Knowing this, the team created two different dyes, LFP-Yellow and LFP-Red, that are based on the protein found in jellyfish. Short for “latent fingerprints,” LFP-Yellow and LFP-Red are applied using a simple spray bottle, which then selectively binds to negatively-charged molecules within fingerprints. Once stuck to the residual prints, the dyes begin to glow under blue light in just 10 seconds.

Interestingly, the solution is only “weakly fluorescent” before applied to LFPs, according to University of Bath researcher, Luling Wu, in a recent profile. It’s only once the dyes interact with fingerprint’s fatty or amino acids created by skin oil and sweat that they glow brighter.

Because it is applied as a fine mist, forensics examiners don’t need to worry about splashes that could potentially disturb prints. It also avoids the mess that often accompanies dusting with frequently toxic powders, and is even effective on rougher surfaces like concrete or brick.

Going forward, researchers hope to make their less harmful solution available commercially, as well as expand on the number of fluorescent colors to ensure use across a wider array of surfaces. Forensic analysts may not consider fingerprint evidence as ironclad as before, but with alternative methods of detection, they could soon lift them more accurately and safely. What’s more, doing so won’t risk damaging any nearby, much more sought after DNA clues.

The post Jellyfish-inspired glowing dye can glom onto fingerprints at crime scenes appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Less than 4,500 tigers remain in the world, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Habitat loss continues to pose an immense existential threat to the planet’s largest cat species—a problem compounded due to the animals residing in some of Earth’s most ecologically at-risk regions and landscapes.

To better monitor the situation in real time, NASA, Google Earth Engine, and over 30 researcher collaborators are announcing TCL 3.0 today, a new program that combines satellite imagery and powerful computer processing to keep an eye on tigers’ existing and reemerging ecosystems.

“The ultimate goal is to monitor changes in real time to help stabilize tiger populations across the range,” Eric W. Sanderson, VP for Urban Conservation at the New York Botanical Garden and first author of a recent foundational study published in Frontiers in Conservation Science explained.

[Related: A new algorithm could help detect landslides in minutes.]

“Tiger Conservation Landscapes,” or TCLs, refer to the planet’s distinct locales where Panthera tigris still roam in the wild. Because of their size, diet, and social habits, tigers require comparatively large areas to not only survive, but flourish.

According to researchers, stable tiger populations “are more likely to retain higher levels of biodiversity, sequester more carbon, and mitigate the impacts of climate change, at the same time providing ecosystem services to millions of humans in surrounding areas.” In doing so, TCLs can serve as a reliable, informative indicator of overall environmental health markers.

Unfortunately, the total area of Tiger Conservation Landscapes declined around 11 percent between 2001 and 2020. Meanwhile, potential restored habitats have only plateaued near 16 percent of their original scope—if such spaces were properly monitored and protected, however, tigers could see a 50 percent increase in available living space. 

Using this new analytical computing system based on Google Earth Engine data, NASA Earth satellite observations, biological info, and conservation modeling, TCL 3.0 will offer environmentalist groups and national leaders critical, near-real time tools for tiger conservation efforts.

“Analysis of ecological data often relies on models that can be difficult and slow to implement, leading to gaps in time between data collection and actionable science,” Charles Tackulic, a research statistician with the US Geological Survey, said in today’s announcement. “The beauty of this project is that we were able to minimize the time required for analysis while also creating a reproducible and transferable approach.”

Researchers say government and watchdog users of TCL 3.0 will be able to pinpoint tiger habitat loss as it happens, and hopefully respond accordingly. National summaries of initial available data can be found through the Wildlife Conservation Society, with more information to come.

TCL 3.0 provides an unprecedentedly complex and advanced monitoring system for one of the planet’s most threatened creatures, but as researchers note in their new study, the solution is arguably extremely simple.
“What have we learned about tiger conservation over the last two decades? Conservation works when we choose to make it so,” the authors conclude in their recent report. “Conservation is straightforward. Don’t cut down their habitat. Don’t stalk them, harass them, or kill them or their prey. Control poaching and extinguish the illegal trade in tiger bones and parts. Prevent conflicts with people and livestock wherever possible, and where and when not, then mitigate losses to forestall retaliation.”

Correction 2/27/24 5:53PM: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect the world’s remaining tiger population. PopSci regrets the error.

The post NASA and Google Earth Engine team up with researchers to help save tigers appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Our oceans are vast and discovering new and lost species are among some of the most exciting discoveries in the big blue. An international team of scientists may have found more than 100 new species, during a mission to explore seamounts off the coast of Chile. These creatures who look like they come from a sci-fi novel call the 1,800-mile-long Salas y Gómez Ridge home. 

[Related: A sea creature extinct for half a billion years inspired a new soft robot.]

Seamounts are large underwater mountains that are often formed by volcanic activity and can be found in every ocean basin on Earth. They are a critical habitat for everything from corals and mollusks, up to crustaceans, fish and marine mammals. This newly explored underwater mountain chain comprises more than 200 seamounts and stretches from offshore Chile to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). 

Over the course of the expedition, the team mapped an area of more than 20,000 square miles of seafloor and discovered four new seamounts within Chile’s waters. They also explored two of Chile’s marine protected areas–the Juan Fernandez and Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks.

[Related: New jellyfish discovered near Japan may contain multitudes of venom.]

Researchers deployed an underwater robot named ROV SuBastian to collect data from the seamounts. ROV SuBastian can safely dive more than 14,000 feet under the Pacific and the data it collected will be used to advance protection of these underwater habitats. The scientists found that each seamount hosted distinct ecosystems. Many of these ecosystems are vulnerable, including sponge gardens and deep-sea coral reefs. 

Back on dry land, the team will spend the next several years analyzing the genetics and physiology of the specimens that they believe are new to science to confirm if they actually are new species.

The post See the strange new species discovered near Chile—with the help of a deep-diving sea robot appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Coral reefs all over the world are in serious danger. However, a critical way to keep reefs healthy likely comes from a lowly animal, some of whom spray goo out of their butts in self-defense. According to a study published February 26 in the journal Nature Communications, about 25 percent of coral reef’s health is dependent on sea cucumbers that keep the reefs clean. 

[Related: Surprise! These sea cucumbers glow.]

Over harvesting a critical member of the reef

Coral reefs currently face numerous threats, from ocean temperatures soaring to 100 degrees Fahrenheit to light harming their reproduction to bleaching. Reef health also may depend on sea cucumbers and the role that they play in the reef ecosystem. There are more than 1,200 species of sea cucumbers in the world’s oceans. These marine invertebrates can be less than an inch long up to six feet long and use their butts for both eating and breathing. They gobble up sediments on the ocean floor and on coral reefs similar to robot vacuum cleaners, sucking up, digesting, and then excreting sediments and eating bacteria. However, sea cucumbers have been over harvested for hundreds of years and cannot cannot reproduce in low density areas and are much more difficult to find.

“Humans have largely extirpated sea cucumbers from much of the world’s oceans and are still collecting thousands of tons per year,” Georgia Tech university marine ecologist Mark Hay tells PopSci. 

Between 2022 and 2020, annual wild harvests of sea cucumbers increased by about 30 percent. According to the authors of this study, this overharvesting is likely having direct effects on reefs, since removing predators from the ecosystem can have cascading effects on the ecosystem. Overhunting of otters for their pelts has led to degradation of kelp forests in California. Wolves can help keep the beaver population in check, and prevent their dams from creating ponds that turn forests into wetlands.

‘Scum suckers in the great fishtank of Earth’

To gather more concrete data on the role sea cucumbers play on the reef, Hay and research scientist and ecologist Cody Clements looked at Mo’orea, a tropical island in French Polynesia. Clements has planted upwards of 10,000 corals over the course of his career. He was planting coral in the sand off the island shore where many sea cucumbers were present. When he cleared them out, he noticed that the corals started to die. 

[Related: Scientists are intentionally bleaching and ‘cryopreserving’ coral.]

“I’ve planted a lot of corals in my day, and my corals generally don’t die,” Clements said in a statement. “So I thought there must be something to this.” Clements is also a co-author of this new study.

With this oddity in mind, Hay and Clements designed an experiment. The team set up patches to monitor the health of the coral with and without sea cucumbers. They marked the patches with GPS and monitored their health daily. 

They found that the coral patches without sea cucumbers had a white band developing at the base of the corals. This white band would eventually work its way up and kill the entire coral colony. Hay refers to this as the “white band of death” and it is associated with coral diseases seen all over the world.

The presence of sea cucumbers appeared to suppress the spread of coral disease. Hays and Clements found that corals without sea cucumbers present were 15 times more likely to die. They conducted a similar experiment in Palmyra Atoll, part of the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands. This experiment used different coral species and different sea cucumbers, but yielded similar results. Sea cucumbers seemed to be a major missing component of what had previously been an intact ecological system. 

“If you remove all the scum suckers in the great fish tank of Earth, you’re going to get a dirty tank eventually,” Clements said. “People have paid lip service to the idea that sea cucumbers could be important for a long time, but we didn’t know the scale of their importance until now.”

An ecological fuse?

In future studies, Hay says the team hopes to investigate which coral species are most susceptible and most resilient to a drop in sea cucumber populations, which sea cucumber species are the most critical to reef function, and study the effects of warming ocean temperatures and added nutrients on reef and sea cucumber health. 

The team also warns of the effects of removing so many sea cucumbers from the ecosystem, and urges major cutbacks to pollution and overharvesting in order to increase sea cucumber populations and reef health at the same time.

“This removal may have lit an ecological fuse that has been slow burning for decades but is now blowing up as devastating episodes of coral disease as we nutrify and heat the ocean, both of which advantage pathogens,” says Hay. “Just as sanitation workers were ‘essential workers’ during COVID, sea cucumbers may be essential workers on the reef. But we are only now recognizing their role and critical importance.”

The post Sea cucumbers are the ‘scum suckers’ corals desperately need appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

As the adage goes, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your relatives. This even applies to your distant evolutionary cousins. In terms of a very specific genetic function, humans are a little bit more closely related to the sea lamprey than scientists once believed. According to a study published February 20 in the journal Nature Communications, we share similar hindbrains as these 500-million-year-old animals with suction-cup mouths and sharp teeth.

[Related: Giant prehistoric lamprey likely sucked blood—and ate flesh.]

What is the hindbrain?

There are three basic units of an vertebrate brain–the midbrain, forebrain, and the hindbrain. According to the National Institutes of Health, the hindbrain includes the upper part of the spinal cord, the brain stem, and the cerebellum. It controls some of the vital functions that are necessary to our survival, including blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rhythm, motor activity, sleep, and wakefulness.

The hindbrain is an older region that has been evolutionarily conserved, or virtually unchanged throughout the process of evolution. Studying it can help evolutionary biologists peer back into the past and put together timelines for brain development and other physical features.

Sea lampreys are fish native to the Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes. They spend about 12 to 18 months in a parasitic stage where they suck on other fish to live, before they detach. They have remained unchanged for the last 340 million years, but have a backbone and skeleton like other vertebrates. However, they are missing a jaw on their heads. Since most vertebrates have jaws, this difference in sea lampreys makes them crucial for understanding vertebrate evolution. 

“There was a split at the origin of vertebrates between jawless and jawed around 500 million years ago,” study co-author and Stowers Institute for Medical Research geneticist Alice Bedois said in a statement. “We wanted to understand how the vertebrate brain evolved and if there was something unique to jawed vertebrates that was lacking in their jawless relatives.”  

The role of Vitamin A

The team built on previous work that found that the genes that build and subdivide the sea lamprey hindbrain are identical to those genes in jawed vertebrates. However, these genes are part of an interconnected network–or circuit–that has to be initiated and guided on how to correctly build a hindbrain.

In the new study, the team pinpointed a common molecular cue that is part of the gene circuitry that guides the hindbrain development in sea lampreys. The cue comes from something that is probably in your daily multivitamin–retinoic acid, or vitamin A. The team already knew that retinoic acid can cue the gene circuitry to construct the hindbrain in complex species. However, it was not believed to be involved in the hindbrains for more primitive species including sea lampreys.

To their surprise, the team found that the sea lamprey core hindbrain circuit is also initiated by retinoic acid. This provides some evidence that these sucky-mouthed sea monsters and humans are much more closely related than the team anticipated.  

“We found that not only are the same genes but also the same cue is involved in sea lamprey hindbrain development, suggesting this process is ancestral to all vertebrates,” said Bedois.    

Common ancestry sea lampreys and humans

According to the team, understanding how the cues retinoic acid provides are used to form normal head and facial structures in vertebrates is crucial for understanding how this process can misfire. Since retinoic acid is a major player that cues vital steps in development of the brain stem, better understanding the process could help in cases where the brain stem does not develop properly in humans and other animals. 

[Related: Our four-legged ancestors evolved from sea to land astonishingly quickly.]

“People thought that because sea lampreys lack a jaw, their hindbrain was not formed like other vertebrates,” study co-author and Stowers Institute for Medical Research developmental biologist Robb Krumlauf said in a statement. “We have shown that this basic part of the brain is built in exactly the same way as mice and even humans.”  

If hindbrain formation is also a shared and passed on feature for all back-boned animals, other mechanisms must also be responsible to explain their incredible diversity.  

“We all derived from a common ancestor,” said Bedois. “Sea lampreys have provided an additional clue. Now we need to look even further back in evolutionary time to discover when the gene circuitry governing hindbrain formation first evolved.”  
Research from 2021 threw some cold water on the idea that humans and lampreys are more closely related, based on fossils of Paleozoic lamprey larvae. Either way, the enduring mystery of how closely humans and sea lamprey fit on the vertebrate family tree will continue.

The post You might have more in common with the sea lamprey than you realize appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Rediscovering a lost species is exciting, and important for boosting conservation efforts. However, it is not for the faint of heart. An international team of scientists traversed 75 miles of steep mountain terrain to capture the first recorded photos of a bird once considered lost. The yellow-crested helmetshrike (Prionops alberti) was listed as a ‘lost bird’ by the American Bird Conservancy because it hadn’t been seen by scientists in almost 20 years. 

[Related: These unusual plants had disappeared—until citizen scientists helped hunt them down.]

That did not deter a group of scientists from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). They embarked on a six-week expedition to the Itombwe Massif mountain range in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo alongside a group of Congolese researchers from the Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles. The team trekked by foot for over 75 miles to survey all of the birds, amphibians, and reptiles they found along the way.

While exploring the cloud forests on the slopes of a mountain, the team stumbled upon the helmetshrike, with its bright yellow “helmet” and black plumage. They primarily feed on insects and other small prey and forage in tight groups. The birds were observed in very noisy groups in the forest’s midstory–the area between the shortest and tallest trees, between the top canopy and shrub layer. 

[Related: Why small, scary, and ‘non-charismatic’ lost species are harder to rediscover.]

“It was a mind-blowing experience to come across these birds,” UTEP ornithologist Michael Harvey said in a statement. “We knew they might be possible here, but I was not prepared for how spectacular and unique they would appear in life.”

The yellow-crested helmetshrike is endemic to the western slopes of the Albertine Rift of Central Africa. About 18 birds in total were found at three sites during the expedition. The photos of the helmetshrikes have been reviewed and confirmed by Cameron Rutt, who leads the American Bird Conservancy’s Lost Birds project. 

The December 2023 to January 2024 expedition also led to the rediscovery of the red-bellied squeaker frog (Arthroleptis hematogaster), which had not been documented by scientists in this region since the 1950s. The frog rediscovery was confirmed by biologist David Blackburn from the University of Florida’s Museum of Natural History.

While the photos are exciting, the team remains concerned for the future of the recently rediscovered frog and bird species. The IUCN Red List suggests that the helmetshrikes may lose over 90 percent of its range due to climate change by 2080. Amphibians like the red-bellied squeaker frog are also the most threatened class of invertebrates due to climate change. 

“Mining and logging as well as the clearing of forests for agriculture are making inroads deep into the forests of the Itombwe range,” Harvey said. “We are in discussions with other researchers and conservation organizations to further efforts to protect the region’s forests and the helmetshrike. Right now is a golden opportunity to protect these tropical forests, so that we don’t lose species like the helmetshrike before they are known and studied.”

The post ‘Lost Bird’ not seen in 20 years photographed for the first time appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Baleen whales, including today’s blue, humpback, and fin whales rely on sounds to live in their watery world. Their songs must be able travel far in the murky, dark ocean so that they can find their kin and migrate hundreds of thousands of miles. In the more than 50 years that scientists have been studying whale song, it’s remained unclear what physical structures baleen whales use to make noise until now. A  study published February 21 in the journal Nature finds that baleen whales evolved unique parts in their larynx that create their complex vocalizations.

[Related: The planet’s first filter feeder could be this extinct marine reptile.]

“Whales are absolutely amazing creatures, they are the biggest animals to have ever lived. They’re way bigger than the largest dinosaurs, they can dive deep, and are very social,” Coen Elemans, study co-author and a voice scientist at the University of Southern Denmark, tells PopSci. “Because it is so difficult to find another animal in a huge ocean, many of these behaviors are guided by sound. Thus understanding how they make sound is crucial to understand the biology of whales in general.”

Toothed whales vs. baleen whales

Whales fall into two main groups–toothed whales (Odontocetes) and baleen whales (Mysticetes). Toothed whales include, orcas, sperm whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Many of these species have visible teeth that they use to crush their prey.

Baleen–or whalebone–is a hard substance made up of keratin. It grows from the whale’s upper jaw in plates with bristle-like fringes. It works like a sieve to filter out the small fish or zooplankton that it eats. 

“Baleen whales make sound with their larynx and toothed whales in their nose,” explains Elemans. “Both use the same mechanism of vibrating tissues just like human vocal folds, but with completely new structures.”

Evolving new vocal structures

In the study, the team examined three stranded whales. Each specimen was from different baleen species–sei, common minke, and humpback whale. Whales that strand themselves on  the beach can provide researchers with an opportunity to study their anatomy closer. After the larynx of each whale species was extracted, the team built a computational model of the entire whale larynx in the lab. The model included accurate 3D shapes of the muscles surrounding the larynx, which made it possible to simulate how the sound frequency is controlled by muscle movement.

They found that baleen whales evolved to produce sound with the  vibrations of specific internal structures in the larynx, that toothed whales do not have. These specialized structures in baleen whales allow for sound to be produced and air recycled, while preventing the whales from inhaling water. 

While both types of whales can still produce sound with their larynx, baleen whales have novel structures that do this. They use cartilages called the arytenoids that are also found in the human larynx. The arytenoids change the position of human vocal folds. In baleen whales, they appear as  large, long cylinders at the base of a U-shaped rigid structure that covers the full length of the larynx, instead of small cartilage. This helps keep their airway open when moving large amounts of air through their massive bodies and not choke. 

“The toothed and baleen whales evolved from land mammals that had a larynx serving two functions: protecting the airways and sound production,” Tecumseh Fitch, a study co-author and  biologist at the University of Vienna in Austria, said in a statement. “However, their transition to aquatic life placed new and strict demands on the larynx to prevent choking underwater.”

Turn it down

While the study showed how baleen whales produce low frequency vocalizations for the first time, thesound production that they have honed over millions of years of evolution is becoming threatened in an increasingly noisy ocean. 

“They can’t make sound very deep and most species can’t make high frequencies,” says Elemans. “This limits the range of their communication. On top of that, these depths and frequencies overlap with human made noise in the oceans, such as boat traffic, and thus the whales cannot escape this noise by singing for example higher.”

[Related: Is it loud in the ocean?]

The authors cite the flurry of conservation and political activity in the wake of the first acoustic recordings of humpback whale song in 1970. Roger and Katy Payne’s album Songs of the Humpback Whale was considered so important that selections from it were included on a record aboard the Voyager 1 spacecraft, to give any extraterrestrials who may find the spacecraft an idea of what life on Earth is like. The oceans have only gotten noisier since the 1970s, and similar conservation efforts are needed to reduce noise. 

“We need strict regulations for such noise, because these whales are dependent on sound for communication,” Elemans said in a statement. “Now we show that despite their amazing physiology they literally cannot escape the noise humans make in the oceans.”

The post We finally know how baleen whales make noise appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The reproduction of giant sea spiders in Antarctica has been a puzzle for over a century. Studying their habits requires deep dives under thick Antarctic ice in frigid ocean temperatures. Now, a group of scientists may have finally solved the 140-year-old mystery of why the giant sea spiders lay their eggs on the bottom of the seafloor, unlike other sea spider species who carry them around. The findings are described in a study published February 11 in the journal Ecology.

[Related: Sea spiders use their guts to pump oxygen through their freaky little bodies.]

Polar giants

Sea spiders belong to a group of invertebrates found in marine habitats around the world. These marine arthropods are in the order Pantopoda. They are related to, but not the same as land spiders who are in the order Arachnida. 

While most sea spider species are smaller than a human fingernail, Antarctica’s giant sea spiders (Colossendeis megalonyx) have a leg span that is more than one foot apart. They can grow up to 20 inches wide, or the size of a dinner plate. C. megalonyx is a famous example of polar gigantism–where certain organisms in the Arctic and Antarctic grow larger than their relatives in warmer regions. Living on a diet of sea anemones, jellyfish, and other invertebrates.

C. megalonyx’ above average size and a unique parenting style sets them apart from other animals, not just those that live at the poles. Many sea spider species carry their eggs around until they hatch, in a behavior biologists call brooding.

“In most sea spiders, the male parent takes care of the babies by carrying them around while they develop,” study co-author and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa marine invertebrate ecologist Amy Moran said in a statement. “What’s weird is that despite descriptions and research going back over 140 years, no one had ever seen the giant Antarctic sea spiders brooding their young or knew anything about their development.”

Collecting mating spiders

In October 2021, Moran and PhD students Aaron Toh and Graham Lobert dove under thin ice during a field expedition in the Antarctic. They hand-collected groups of giant sea spiders that appeared to be mating and took them back to tanks for observation. 

“We were so lucky to be able to see this,” Toh said in a statement. “The opportunity to work directly with these amazing animals in Antarctica meant we could learn things no one had ever even guessed.”

The two different mating groups produced thousands of eggs in a gelatinous cloud. One parent–likely the father–spent two days attaching the eggs to the rocky bottom of the tank. There, the eggs developed for several months before hatching as tiny larvae. 

After a few weeks, the eggs became overgrown with microscopic algae. This created the perfect camouflage to keep them hidden from predators including sea stars, rays, and crabs. The protective camouflage explains why the eggs can be left on the floor and why it has been harder for researchers to spot them.

[Related: What an ancient jawbone reveals about polar bear evolution.]

“We could hardly see the eggs even when we knew they were there, which is probably why researchers had never seen this before,” Lobert said in a statement.

Taking care of embryos this way may represent a middle-ground breeding strategy. It could be a step between free spawning–where larvae are shot out into the water like in corals–and the brooding that sea spiders and octopuses perform. This first glimpse of their reproductive strategy is important for learning more about the biology and natural history of these and other animals living in polar regions. 

The post Giant Antarctic sea spiders’ reproductive mystery solved after 140 years of confusion appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Domesticated animals like cats, dogs, horses, and pigs can recognize their names when called by human caregivers. Some new research suggests that exotic big cats that are tended to by humans in captivity can also discriminate the familiar voices of their caregivers from other people. The findings are described in a study published February 15 in the journal PeerJ Life & Environment. 

[Related: Your cat probably knows when you’re talking to it.]

Previous studies found that domesticated cats can recognize their names and can even tell their names apart from other words. Less attention has been paid to how well non-domestic cats respond to human voices. Understanding how well an exotic feline can differentiate from a caregiver saying their name from a stranger could help keep the animals safer.

“My graduate student, Taylor Crews, had worked as an exotic cat caregiver for many years and wanted to design a Masters project that informed us of their ability to respond to their name and the voice of familiar caregivers,” Jennifer Vonk, a study co-author and comparative/cognitive psychologist at Oakland University in Michigan, tells PopSci. “Having been in the zoo world, she noted that zoos are sometimes concerned that having the public speak animals’ names may be distracting for the cats.”

To look closer, the team designed a series of experiments to gauge if non-domesticated captive big cats could recognize familiar voices. They played audio recordings of known and unknown humans to 25 different cat species, including cheetahs, tigers, and lions. All of the cats had varied rearing history, meaning that some of the cats had been raised by their mothers, while others were brought up by humans. 

They found consistent evidence of voice recognition and the cats responded more intensely, quickly, and for a longer period of time to familiar voices than they did for unfamiliar ones. 

“Non-domestic cats seem to respond similarly to domestic cats in responding more strongly to a familiar caregiver’s voice, but we did not find evidence that they respond more strongly to the use of their names,” says Vonk. “We were able to show that rearing history was not predictive, but, overall, cats did respond selectively to their familiar caregiver’s voice.”

[Related: This tell-tail sign means your cat likes you.]

According to Vonk, close human contact instead of domestication was associated more closely with the cats’ ability to discriminate between human voices. This also challenges the idea that less social species don’t have the same cognitive abilities as more outgoing or group-living species like dogs.

“It is important not to assume that non-group living animals are less equipped to reason about aspects of social behavior or form social bonds,” says Vonk. “Even non-domestic cats distinguish their caregivers from other humans, suggesting they are not as indifferent as people sometimes assume.”

The team is further testing the recognition of familiar human voices in snakes and owls, to see how well reptiles and birds can recognize voices. 

The post Captive big cats can tell voices apart appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Scientists in Myanmar listened in on the love songs sung by Skywalker gibbons (Hoolock tianxing) to find the largest known population of the endangered primate. Every morning, skywalker gibbon couples will wake up and sing to each other, with their voices echoing across the forest canopies. The love songs helped scientists confirm a hunch that the southeast Asian nation has the world’s largest population of Skywalker gibbons. The discovery is described in a study published February 14 in the International Journal of Primatology.

[Related: Primates have been teasing each other for 13 million years.]

“We were able to genetically identify 44 new groups of Skywalker gibbons in Myanmar,” study co-author and University of California, Davis wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist Tierra Smiley Evans said in a statement. 

These primates are technically called Skywalker hoolock gibbons and were named by a group of Star Wars-loving scientists in 2017, after observing them in southwestern China. The gibbons are omnivores, but most of their diet comes from plants and not animals. According to the New England Primate Conservancy, figs are their favorite food to eat and they will also eat spiders and the occasional bird or chicken egg. They are about 32 inches tall on average and weigh between 13 and 15 pounds. 

While the exact number of individual Skywalker gibbons is still unknown, they were found in areas previously thought to be occupied by the Eastern hoolock gibbon. Some 2013 population estimates suggested that there may have been up to 65,000 gibbons in the area where the Skywalkers have now been identified. 

While these new groups are the largest probable population of Skywalker gibbons in one place, scientists believe that today’s numbers are lower due to limited protected areas, hunting, and 

political unrest in Myanmar.

Silly love songs

Skywalker gibbons can’t swim, so rivers often form natural boundaries for them. This led the team to theorize that Skywalkers likely extended between two rivers to the west and another river to the east in Myanmar. 

Between December 2021 and March 2023, a local field team in Myanmar built acoustic monitoring systems that they used to listen in on the songs that Skywalker gibbons sang to each other every morning  to wake up. They recorded their duets, solos, and when each song started and ended. 

The team then collected chewed plants and fruits from the monkeys. This noninvasive way of sampling DNA allowed the team to genetically confirm that these were left by Skywalker gibbons. 

[Related: These fuzzy burrowers don’t need oxytocin to fall in love.]

They used photographs to scan for the physical characteristics that distinguish Skywalker hoolock gibbons and other hoolock species. Skywalkers have thinner eyebrows, a black or brown beard instead of a white one, and incomplete white face rings on the females. 

Threat assessment surveys in 12 villages were also conducted to gather critical local knowledge about the gibbons and the threats they face. 

“Biologists did not believe Skywalker gibbons could live in the small remaining patches in Southern Shan State before we started this project,” study co-author and executive director of Nature Conservation Society Myanmar said in a statement. “I am delighted with our field team members who have done an excellent job, within a short period of time, building community trust for further conservation actions. This area is degraded forest. It is really important for Myanmar and China to consider extending conservation approaches for the Skywalker gibbon to this new geographic area.”

Should Skywalker gibbons remain endangered?

The team hopes that the new findings will help guide updates for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. While the population estimates of Skywalker gibbons is higher than previously believed, ongoing habitat loss, degradation, and human conflict in Myanmar are a continued threat to the species. The authors believe that they should retain their Endangered designation on the IUCN Red List and that its habitat should be considered for protected area status.

“We found Skywalker gibbons in two regions of Myanmar: Kachin State and as far south as Shan State, in degraded forests and at much lower elevations than we expected, showing us they’re highly adaptable,” Smiley Evans said. “There needs to be a protected area system there that focuses on them.”

The post Scientists tracked the love songs of Skywalker gibbons to find them appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Almost half of the migratory species on Earth monitored by the United Nations are declining and more than one-fifth are currently threatened with extinction. These stark numbers come from the first State of the World’s Migratory Species report released by the UN’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) on February 12.

[Related: These new interactive maps reveal the incredible global journeys of migrating birds.]

Billions of animals including sea turtles, wildebeest, fruit bats, and pelicans make annual migratory journeys by water, land, and air. Some travel thousands of miles to eat and reproduce, while crossing national boundaries and continents. They provide a vital role in the ecosystem, by pollinating plants, being part of the food web, transporting nutrients, and helping store excess carbon. 

Why are migratory species in trouble?

The report focuses on 1,189 specific animal species that have been recognized by CMS as in need of international protection. About 22 percent including are threatened with extinction and that risk is growing worldwide. Nearly every CMS-listed species of fish–including migratory sharks, rays, and sturgeon–are facing a high risk of extinction. Their populations have declined by 90 percent since the 1970s.

Overexploitation and habitat loss from human activity are cited as the two biggest threats to migratory species. Three out of four species are impacted by habitat loss and further degradation and fragmentation of the regions that they live in. About seven out of 10 species are impacted by overexploitation–activities like hunting and poaching. Invasive species, pollution, and climate change are also impacting migratory species.

Some of the migratory species listed under CMS are improving. About 14 listed species including the blue whale, humpback whale, white-tailed sea eagle, and black-faced spoonbill have improved their conservation status. However, 70 migratory species have become more endangered over the past three decades. These include the wild camel, Egyptian vulture, and steppe eagle. 

“Today’s report clearly shows us that unsustainable human activities are jeopardizing the future of migratory species–creatures who not only act as indicators of environmental change but play an integral role in maintaining the function and resilience of our planet’s complex ecosystems,” UN Environment Programme Executive Director Inger Andersen said in a statement. 

An international solution

The report was released at the beginning of a world summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to discuss better ways to protect the world’s migratory species. The species listed are at risk of extinction across most or all of their range, so they need a coordinated international collaboration to boost their protection. 

[Related: We don’t have a full picture of the planet’s shrinking biodiversity. Here’s why.]

The report was prepared for CMS by conservation scientists at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. According to the UN, it uses robust data sets and includes expert contributions from institutions including BirdLife International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

“Migratory species rely on a variety of specific habitats at different times in their lifecycles. They regularly travel, sometimes thousands of miles, to reach these places,” CMS Executive Secretary Amy Fraenkel said in a statement. “They face enormous challenges and threats along the way, as well as their destinations where they breed or feed. When species cross national borders, their survival depends on the efforts of all countries in which they are found.”

The report recommends that human infrastructure near the areas that migratory species use to travel should be minimized. The team also stressed more work to understand the landscape, seascape, and flyways that are critical to migratory species to boost conservation efforts. 

“The reason why species are covered by the convention is because they are in trouble – it is not surprising to find that some of them are endangered,” Fraenkel told The Guardian. “The problem is the trend: 44 percent of listed species are in decline and that increasing extinction risk is something that applies globally to migratory species.”

Participants of this five day UN meeting plan to evaluate proposals for new conservation methods and whether or not to formally list new species of concern. According to the Associated Press, eight governments from South America are expected to jointly propose adding two species of declining Amazon catfish to the list of migratory species of concern. Governments pledged to protect 30 percent of Earth’s land and water resources during the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference.

The post Close to half of migratory species are in serious decline: UN report appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Paleontologists in Kentucky and Alabama discovered fossils belonging to three new ancient shark species. These long-dead predatory fish lived during a time when the region was covered by a shallow sub-tropical sea and a waterways that connected ancient land masses older than Pangea.

[Related: Prehistoric shark called Kentucky home 337 million years ago.]

An accidental dental discovery 

One of the new sharks is the species Palaeohypotodus bizzocoi and it is described in a study published February 7 in the open-access journal Fossil Record. Palaeohypotodus translates to “ancient small-eared tooth,” and it had small needle-like fangs on the sides of the teeth. Finding its fanged teeth allegedly happened by accident.

“A few years ago, I was looking through the historical fossil collections at the Geological Survey in Alabama and came across a small box of shark teeth that were collected over 100 years ago in Wilcox County,” Jun Ebersole, study co-author and Director of Collections at the McWane Science Center, said in a statement. “Having documented hundreds of fossil fish species over the last decade, I found it puzzling that these teeth were from a shark that I didn’t recognize.” 

Upon investigating the teeth, Ebersole found that it likely belonged to a new species. It lived roughly 65 million years ago, during the Paleocene Epoch. This is just after the dinosaurs began to die out and more than 75 percent of life on Earth went extinct. The team believes that P. bizzocoi was a leading predator at a time that ocean life was beginning to recover. 

“This time period is understudied, which makes the discovery of this new shark species that much more significant,” Lynn Harrell, Jr, a study co-author fossil collections curator at the Geological Survey of Alabama, said in a statement. “Shark discoveries like this one give us tremendous insights into how ocean life recovers after major extinction events and also allows us to potentially forecast how global events, like climate change, affect marine life today.”

325 million-year-old seaway sharks

On February 1, paleontologists from Mammoth Cave National Park announced the discovery of two new species of ancient shark. According to the National Park Service, Troglocladodus trimblei and Glikmanius careforum, were identified by fossils collected in deposits from Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and northern Alabama. Both of these shark species lived about 325 million years ago and are ctenacanths. These ancient cousins of modern sharks all had barbs on their spines used for defense. 

Scientists found juvenile teeth that belonged to Troglocladodus trimblei. It was likely about 10 to 12 feet long, roughly the same size of a modern oceanic white tip shark. The name Troglocladodus means “cave branching tooth,” in reference to its “forky-looking” chompers.

Glikmanius careforum pushes the origins of this Glikmanius genus of ctenacanth back over 50 million years earlier than expected. It was identified from teeth and a partial set of jaws and gills that belonged to a young Glikmanius. Scientists estimate that it also reached lengths of 10 to 12 feet. By the shape of its jaw, it likely would have had a powerful bite that it used for hunting bony fish, squid-like orthocones, and smaller sharks. 

[Related: The ‘meg’ may have been longer and less chonky than previously thought.]

Both species would have hunted the ancient near-shore habitats. The region was once an ancient seaway that connected present day eastern North America, Europe, and northern Africa. The waterway later disappeared as the supercontinent Pangea formed. 

Over 400 unique species of sharks and bony fishes have already been uncovered in Alabama alone, making it a very diverse fish fossil deposit. Ongoing research like the Paleontological Resources Inventory at Mammoth Cave National Park could continue to uncover even more new fossil sharks. 

The post Three new ancient shark species discovered in Alabama and Kentucky appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally featured on Hakai Magazine, an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems. Read more stories like this at hakaimagazine.com.

Bieito Fernández Castro wasn’t expecting to find a turbulent hotbed of anchovy sex.

Commissioned by the Spanish government to investigate the conditions behind algae blooms, which kill mussels, Castro and his team were studying a peaceful spot in a bay in northwestern Spain. In the absence of strong winds or waves, toxic algae blooms occur more frequently here compared with surrounding areas, to the detriment of the resident mussels—and mussel farmers. But after two weeks of monitoring the apparently tranquil water with sensors that measure small shifts in temperature and velocity, Castro and his colleagues found that the bay’s calm surface belied what was happening below.

“Every night and without any apparent reason, we were seeing very, very high levels of turbulence,” says Castro, a physical oceanographer at England’s University of Southampton. Castro and his colleagues eventually traced the source of all this mixing: the frothing free-for-all of an anchovy orgy.

Most animals mate, but few do so with such frequency, and with so many bodies packed so closely together, as anchovies. As Castro and his colleagues’ data shows, these fornicating fish churn the water as much as a major storm.

Anchovies are among the ocean’s more amorous residents. The fish move in large aggregations of millions or more, and a female anchovy can release between 20,000 and 30,000 eggs each year, which males promptly fertilize like aquatic crop dusters.

All that “frantic activity,” as Castro calls it, causes quite a stir. And it’s something other sea dwellers might actually benefit from.

Turbulence is crucial for mixing heat and nutrients throughout the ocean. Previous research largely shows that the turbulence animals cause living their lives isn’t enough to substantially mix the layers of the ocean’s water column. But Castro’s study—which was published in 2022 and won a 2023 Ig Nobel Prize for humorous, thought-provoking scientific achievement—shows that within ocean layers, anchovy spawning causes significant, if subtle, swings in temperature. This finding suggests that in shallower water, the ruckus produced by plentiful piscine participants procreating all at once might be more powerful and more important for ocean mixing than previously thought.

In general, winds, tides, and forceful currents are the main things that stir and mix the ocean. Kirstin Schulz, a physical oceanographer at the University of Texas at Austin who studies small-scale mixing and wasn’t involved in Castro’s research, says scientists don’t typically consider animal movement a major cause of mixing in the ocean as a whole. However, Schulz says researchers have a lot to learn about how tiny turbulent motions mix ocean layers of different densities, salinities, and chemical makeups in shallow bays and other waterbodies. “This study shows that it definitely happens and can be of importance in a more local setting,” she says.

It’s even possible, Castro says, that his study actually underrepresents the effects of anchovy sex. Local fishermen told him the anchovy aggregation he studied was much smaller than similar swarms spotted farther offshore. In places like La Jolla, California, researchers have seen anchovy aggregations of between 10 million and one billion fish—schools so vast and dense they look like an oil spill cutting through clear water. Other schooling species, such as sardines and herring, swim in groups of similar sizes. But scientists have very little data on whether these species produce similarly titillating turbulence.

Curtis Deutsch, an oceanographer at Princeton University in New Jersey who studies oxygen and nutrient cycling and wasn’t involved in the study, says that to get the full picture of the extent to which fish and other marine life might be mixing the sea, scientists will need to study their effects on the deep ocean as well as surface waters. Water in the deep ocean is generally calmer than that at the surface, as it’s not stirred by wind or waves. Down there, Deutsch says, biological activity would be disproportionately important for ocean mixing. Unfortunately, he adds, that’s where “a lot of schooling behavior goes undetected.”

While much more research is needed to fully understand ocean mixing and the role marine animals might play in the process, Castro’s accidental anchovy discovery shows there’s more to the sultry lives of sea creatures than we surface dwellers might think.

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine and is republished here with permission.

The post Anchovy sex is a force of nature appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Every winter, about 500,000 gray seals gather on a remote sandbar called Sable Island. Located 200 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, the seals gather here to rest, molt, give birth to their pups, and breed. While they don’t face many predators on the island, they do mingle with some wild horses that have roamed free on the island for years. 

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) marine biologist Michelle Shero and colleagues are currently spending several weeks studying these pinnipeds. They are studying how much iron the mother seals get in their diets and how that impacts the pup’s diving capacity and survival rates. The population of gray seals on Sable Island has exploded in recent decades, but roughly 90 percent of pups die during their first year. The team believes that it is because of an increased competition for food. 

Check out some pictures of the work below:

Shero is working with the Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and her research is funded by the National Science Foundation in partnership with Texas Tech University and the University of Alaska.

The post See wild horses and gray seals mingle on Sable Island appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A Japanese and Brazilian team of scientists found a funky new jellyfish with a distinguishing mark. The St. George’s cross medusa (Santjordia pagesi or S. pagesi) is a new medusa jellyfish species that was found about 2,664 feet deep in the Pacific Ocean. It lives in a deep-sea volcanic structure called the Sumisu Caldera. This hot, hydrothermally active caldera is about six miles across and is located off the coast of Japan’s Ogasawara Islands, about 285 miles south of the capital city of Tokyo. The findings are described in a study published in November the journal Zootaxa.

[Related: Even without brains, jellyfish learn from their mistakes.]

Protecting its snacks–with a shield and 240 tentacles

The St. George’s Cross medusa is considered fairly large for a jellyfish, at about four inches wide and three inches long. It also boasts roughly 240 tentacles. It gets its name from a cross shape on its body when viewed from above that resembles the red Cross of St. George on the English flag. 

It is a type of jellyfish called a medusa (or the plural form, medusae), which are free-swimming jellyfish that are shaped like an umbrella and have a reduced stalk. 

“The species is very different from all the deep-sea medusae discovered to date. It’s relatively small, whereas others in this kind of environment are much larger. The bright red coloring of its stomach probably has to do with capturing food,” André Morandini, a study co-author and biologist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, said in a statement. 

Like all jellyfish, S. pagesi is transparent. It also eats other bioluminescent organisms in the deep sea that give off light. The team believes that its bright red stomach acts like a shield to hide its prey. This way, other organisms can’t see its meal after it has swallowed it. 

A rare find

While new species are discovered and described all the time, this one was particularly rare. It was so difficult for the team to collect, that the findings are based on one single specimen. However, the team reportedly saw another S. pagesi nearby and expect future surveys to show more members of the group.

The specimen in the study was captured back in 2002 by the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Hyperdolphin. The Sumisu Caldera can only be accessed through an ROV since it is so deep . Scientists didn’t see any other specimens until 2020. An ROV filmed, but didn’t collect, another jellyfish of the same species.

[Related: These fingernail-sized jellyfish can regenerate tentacles—but how?]

“We opted to publish the description and call attention to the species that are present at the site, which has a substrate rich in minerals and the potential to be commercially developed. Unfortunately, research can’t be conducted in such places without partners who have interests of this kind,” Morandini said.

‘Arsenal of venoms’

S. pagesi  belongs to a new subfamily named Santjordiinae. It has small sensory structures called rhopalia on underneath and on the edges of its umbrella, which makes it unique among jellyfish in the order Semaeostomeae. This is the order that more common species like moon jellyfish belong to. The team believes it could eventually fit within Semaeostomeae when they can collect more species. For now, it remains in Ulmaridae, the broader jellyfish family.

Since it is so different among jellyfish, the authors believe that it potentially has an “arsenal of venoms” that are unlike those previously discovered in jellyfish. The Indo-Pacific box jellyfish releases a venom that makes the heart contract and Australian box jellyfish can release this venom from thick tentacles that grow up to 10 feet long. 

“Who knows? Maybe it holds secrets more valuable than all the mineral wealth that could be extracted from that place. All this with the advantage of keeping the species and the site intact,” said Morandini.

The post New jellyfish discovered near Japan may contain multitudes of venom appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Under the darkness of night, bats use soundwaves to find moths to eat. However, these insects are not completely defenseless against bats. Some moths use their wings to produce an ultrasonic warning sound against winged mammals. The findings are described in a study published February 5 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

[Related: Why artificial light—and evolution—trap moths.]

A genus of moths called Yponomeuta (or ermine moths) click twice per wingbeat cycle using a small ridged membrane located in their hindwing. These moths do not have hearing organs and thus do not appear to be aware that they are even making these sounds and they can’t even control the sound using muscular action. 

Defenses like these can help the moths thwart the bats by annoying them and save them from becoming a meal, even if only temporarily. Decoding the mechanics of how this works in moths could help researchers better understand more intricate aspects of the way insects produce sounds for self-defense. 

In the study, a team of engineers and biologists from the University of Bristol in England looked at how the individual ridges that make up a corrugated patch in the ermine moth’s hindwings snap. This sudden snap-through buckling vibrates the membrane that is next to the hindwing. The strength and direction of the sound is then amplified like how the skin of a drum or a speaker makes a sound louder. This sound-producing organ in moths is called an aeroelastic tymbal.

“In ermine moths, the snap-through buckling events act like drumbeats at the edge of a tymbal drum, exciting a much larger portion of the wing to vibrate and radiate sound,” study co-author and mechanical engineer Hernaldo Mendoza Nava said in a statement. “As a result, these millimeter-sized tymbals can produce ultrasounds at the equivalent level of a lively human conversation.”

To study the mechanics behind the ermine moth’s aeroelastic tymbal, the team merged the biological concept of how the wing is formed with material principles from engineering. This fusion of biology and engineering helped the researchers build a detailed computer simulation of the wing’s snap-through response and sound production that matched actual recordings of the moth signals in frequency, structure, amplitude, and direction.

Structural buckling and sound production, as when the wings generate noise, are not always studied together, even though they both affect one another. Looking at how these two actions work in tandem has applications in aerospace, where engineers are constantly trying to make wings more aerodynamic. Buckling and snap-through instabilities are called nonlinear elastic responses that generally don’t follow the rules of aerodynamics and cause strain. They generally considered something to avoid in engineering, but this new research shows that buckling and snap-throughs could be used in wing design. 

[Related: How do sound waves work?]

“In our research, we have been advocating a paradigm shift and have demonstrated that buckling events can be strategically leveraged to imbue structures with smart functionality or enhanced mass-efficiency,” study co-author and mechanical engineer Alberto Pirrera said in a statement. “Yponomeuta’s aeroelastic tymbal embodies the concept of beneficial nonlinearity. The natural world, once again, serves as a source of inspiration.”

The team hopes that studying the month’s aeroelastic tymbals will encourage new developments in morphing structures, acoustic structural monitoring, and soft robotics.

The post Moths fight against echolocating bats with sounds of their own appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally published on KFF Health News.

Each fall, millions of hunters across North America make their way into forests and grasslands to kill deer. Over the winter, people chow down on the venison steaks, sausage, and burgers made from the animals.

These hunters, however, are not just on the front lines of an American tradition. Infectious disease researchers say they are also on the front lines of what could be a serious threat to public health: chronic wasting disease.

The neurological disease, which is contagious, rapidly spreading, and always fatal, is caused by misfolded proteins called prions. It currently is known to infect only members of the cervid family—elk, deer, reindeer, caribou, and moose.

Animal disease scientists are alarmed about the rapid spread of CWD in deer. Recent research shows that the barrier to a spillover into humans is less formidable than previously believed and that the prions causing the disease may be evolving to become more able to infect humans.

A response to the threat is ramping up. In 2023, a coalition of researchers began “working on a major initiative, bringing together 68 different global experts on various aspects of CWD to really look at what are the challenges ahead should we see a spillover into humans and food production,” said Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious disease at the University of Minnesota and a leading authority on CWD.

“The bottom-line message is we are quite unprepared,” Osterholm said. “If we saw a spillover right now, we would be in free fall. There are no contingency plans for what to do or how to follow up.”

The team of experts is planning for a potential outbreak, focusing on public health surveillance, lab capacity, prion disease diagnostics, surveillance of livestock and wildlife, risk communication, and education and outreach.

Despite the concern, tens of thousands of infected animals have been eaten by people in recent years, yet there have been no known human cases of the disease.

Many hunters have wrestled with how seriously to take the threat of CWD. “The predominant opinion I encounter is that no human being has gotten this disease,” said Steve Rinella, a writer and the founder of MeatEater, a media and lifestyle company focused on hunting and cooking wild game.

They think, “I am not going to worry about it because it hasn’t jumped the species barrier,” Rinella said. “That would change dramatically if a hunter got CWD.”

Other prion diseases, such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad cow disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, have affected humans. Mad cow claimed the lives of more than 200 people, mostly in the United Kingdom and France. Some experts believe Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s also may be caused by prions.

First discovered in Colorado in captive deer in 1967, CWD has since spread widely. It has been found in animals in at least 32 states, four Canadian provinces, and four other foreign countries. It was recently found for the first time in Yellowstone National Park.

Prions behave very differently than viruses and bacteria and are virtually impossible to eradicate. Matthew Dunfee, director of the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance, said experts call it a “disease from outer space.”

Symptoms are gruesome. The brain deteriorates to a spongy consistency. Sometimes nicknamed “zombie deer disease,” the condition makes infected animals stumble, drool, and stare blankly before they die. There is no treatment or vaccine. And it is extremely difficult to eradicate, whether with disinfectants or with high heat—it even survives autoclaving, or medical sterilization.

Cooking doesn’t kill prions, said Osterholm. Unfortunately, he said, “cooking concentrates the prions. It makes it even more likely” people will consume them, he said.

Though CWD is not known to have passed to humans or domestic animals, experts are very concerned about both possibilities, which Osterholm’s group just received more than $1.5 million in funding to study. CWD can infect more parts of an animal’s body than other prion diseases like mad cow, which could make it more likely to spread to people who eat venison—if it can jump to humans.

Researchers estimate that between 7,000 and 15,000 infected animals are unknowingly consumed by hunter families annually, a number that increases every year as the disease spreads across the continent. While testing of wild game for CWD is available, it’s cumbersome and the tests are not widely used in many places.

A major problem with determining whether CWD has affected humans is that it has a long latency. People who consume prions may not contract the resulting disease until many years later—so, if someone fell sick, there might not be an apparent connection to having eaten deer.

Prions are extremely persistent in the environment. They can remain in the ground for many years and even be taken up by plants.

Because the most likely route for spillover is through people who eat venison, quick testing of deer and other cervid carcasses is where prevention is focused. Right now, a hunter may drive a deer to a check station and have a lymph node sample sent to a lab. It can be a week or more before results come in, so most hunters skip it.

Montana, for example, is famous for its deer hunting. CWD was first detected in the wild there in 2017 and now has spread across much of the state. Despite warnings and free testing, Montana wildlife officials have not seen much concern among hunters. “We have not seen a decrease in deer hunting because of this,” said Brian Wakeling, game management bureau chief for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks. In 2022 Montana hunters killed nearly 88,000 deer. Just 5,941 samples were taken, and 253 of those tested positive.

Experts believe a rapid test would greatly increase the number of animals tested and help prevent spillover.

Because of the importance of deer to Indigenous people, several tribal nations in Minnesota are working with experts at the University of Minnesota to come up with ways to monitor and manage the disease. “The threat and potential for the spread of CWD on any of our three reservations has the ability to negatively impact Ojibwe culture and traditions of deer hunting providing venison for our membership,” said Doug McArthur, a tribal biologist for the White Earth Nation, in a statement announcing the program. (The other groups referenced are the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and Red Lake Band of Chippewa.) “Tribes must be ready with a plan to manage and mitigate the effects of CWD … to ensure that the time-honored and culturally significant practice of harvesting deer is maintained for future generations.”

Peter Larsen is an assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota and co-director of the Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach. The center was formed to study numerous aspects of prions as part of the push to get ahead of possible spillover. “Our mission is to learn everything we can about not just CWD but other prionlike diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease,” he said. “We are studying the biology and ecology” of the misfolded protein, he said. “How do prions move within the environment? How can we help mitigate risk and improve animal health and welfare?”

Part of that mission is new technology to make testing faster and easier. Researchers have developed a way for hunters to do their own testing, though it can take weeks for results. There’s hope for, within the next two years, a test that will reduce the wait time to three to four hours.

“With all the doom and gloom around CWD, we have real solutions that can help us fight this disease in new ways,” said Larsen. “There’s some optimism.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

The post Possibility of wildlife-to-human crossover heightens concern about chronic wasting disease appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The colorful anemonefish–aka clownfish–that call the carnivorous and stingy anemones on coral reefs home have a happy and carefree reputation among humans. However, their real personalities aren’t always appropriate for a Pixar movie. They will very aggressively bully and defend their space from other anemonefish that they perceive as an enemy and not part of their colony. Some new research suggests that they can recognize fish that they don’t want around them based on the number of white bars on the intruding fish’s body. The findings are detailed in a study published February 1 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

[Related: Baby anemonefish can rapidly change their genes to survive in the sea.]

There are 28 described species of anemonefish. They live in warmer waters in the Indian and Pacific Ocean. These fish are only about four inches long and have anywhere between zero and three white bars on their bodies. Scientists have observed the clownfish allowing other anemonefish species to visit their home. However, if a member of their own species that is not part of their colony enters their home, the largest fish–or alpha fish–will chase and bite at the intruder. 

Counting bars

To determine how these fish can tell who they want in their clique (and who they don’t), a team at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan conducted two experiments with immature lab-raised common clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) that had never seen any other species. The team then recorded the fishes’ reactions to intruders of their own species and other anemonefish species–including Clarke’s anemonefish (A. clarkii), orange skunk clownfish (A. sandaracinos), and saddleback clownfish (A. polymnus).

In the first experiment, they placed different species of anemonefish that had different numbers of white bars in small cases inside a tank. They watched for how often and for how long the fish would stare at the case and circle it.

They found that the common clownfish were the hardest on members of their own species with three white bands. They fought 80 percent of the fish for up to three seconds and even maintained an 11 second standoff with one fish. 

Intruders from other species had a better time. The orange skunk clownfish has no side bars and a white line along its back and were barely confronted. The two-barred Clarke’s clownfish and three-barred saddleback clownfish were “mildly bullied,” according to the team. 

During the second experiment, the researchers showed a colony of clownfish various plastic discs. The discs were painted with anemonefish coloration and measured the level of aggression towards these fish dupes.

Like with the live fish, the plastic models that had two bars were attacked slightly less frequently. Those without any bars saw the least aggressive behavior from the young fish. 

According to study co-author and ecologist Kina Hayashi, the results “suggests that they are able to count the number of bars in order to recognize the species of the intruder.” 

Earlier studies have shown that clownfish also react much more aggressively towards fish models with vertical rather than horizontal bars. This suggested that the amount of white color or the general presence of white bars was not necessarily a deciding factor in how the fish behave. However, the plastic discs in this new study only have vertical bars and no other physical features that would tell the common clownfish what species they are seeing.  The researchers believe that the clownfish may be counting the number of vertical white bars to determine how cordial (or not) they will be towards a fake fish. 

A very strict hierarchy

The team also found that a rigid hierarchy within clownfish colonies determines which specific fish attack the intruder. A wild colony is typically made up of one alpha female, one beta male, and several gamma juveniles. Social position is determined by very slight differences in size. 

[Related: Flamingoes have big personalities—and their friendships prove it.]

Their sex also plays an interesting role. All clownfish are born male, but some will change into females when they mature. As they reach their adult size and their sex is determined, anemonefish will also gain their third and final stripe. A colony’s current alpha will even chase out colony members if they grow too large as a way to uphold the status quo within the group.

.

This study used fish that had not matured and were in a lab setting, but the team still observed the same size-based hierarchy. The largest juvenile took on the alpha role and led the charge against the intruder. 

“Anemonefish are interesting to study because of their unique, symbiotic relationship with sea anemones,” Hayashi said in a statement. “But what this study shows is that there is much we don’t know about life in the marine ecosystems in general.” 

The post Can clownfish count? appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

Human fear of sharks has deep roots. Written works and art from the ancient world contain references to sharks preying on sailors as early as the eighth century B.C.E.

Relayed back to land, stories about shark encounters have been embellished and amplified. Together with the fact that from time to time–very rarely–sharks bite humans, people have been primed for centuries to imagine terrifying situations at sea.

In 1974, Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel “Jaws” fanned this fear into a wildfire that spread around the world. The book sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S. within a year and was quickly followed by Steven Spielberg’s 1975 movie, which became the highest-grossing film in history at that time. Virtually all audiences embraced the idea, depicted vividly in the movie and its sequels, that sharks were malevolent, vindictive creatures that prowled coastal waters seeking to feed on unsuspecting bathers.

But “Jaws” also spawned widespread interest in better understanding sharks.

Previously, shark research had largely been the esoteric domain of a handful of academic specialists. Thanks to interest sparked by “Jaws,” we now know that there are many more kinds of sharks than scientists were aware of in 1974, and that sharks do more interesting things than researchers ever anticipated. Benchley himself became an avid spokesman for shark protection and marine conservation.

In my own 30-year career studying sharks and their close relatives, skates and rays, I’ve seen attitudes evolve and interest in understanding sharks expand enormously. Here’s how things have changed.

Swimming into the spotlight

Before the mid-1970s, much of what was known about sharks came via people who went to sea. In 1958, the U.S. Navy established the International Shark Attack File–the world’s only scientifically documented, comprehensive database of all known shark attacks–to reduce wartime risks to sailors stranded at sea when their ships sank.

Today the file is managed by the Florida Museum of Natural History and the American Elasmobranch Society, a professional organization for shark researchers. It works to inform the public about shark-human interactions and ways to reduce the risk of shark bites.

In 1962, Jack Casey, a pioneer of modern shark research, initiated the Cooperative Shark Tagging Program. This initiative, which is still running today, relied on Atlantic commercial fishermen to report and return tags they found on sharks, so that government scientists could calculate how far the sharks had moved after being tagged.

After “Jaws,” shark research quickly went mainstream. The American Elasmobranch Society was founded in 1982. Graduate students lined up to study shark behavior, and the number of published shark studies sharply increased.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Minorities in Shark Science (@miss_elasmo)

Field research on sharks expanded in parallel with growing interest in extreme outdoor sports like surfing, parasailing and scuba diving. Electronic tags enabled researchers to monitor sharks’ movements in real time. DNA sequencing technologies provided cost-effective ways to determine how different species were related to one another, what they were eating and how populations were structured.

This interest also had a sensational side, embodied in the Discovery Channel’s launch in 1988 of Shark Week. This annual block of programming, ostensibly designed to educate the public about shark biology and counter negative publicity about sharks, was a commercial venture that exploited the tension between people’s deep-seated fear of sharks and their yearning to understand what made these animals tick.

Shark Week featured made-for-TV stories that focused on fictional scientific research projects. It was wildly successful and remains so today, in spite of critiques from some researchers who call it a major source of misinformation about sharks and shark science.

Physical, social and genetic insights

Contrary to the long-held notion that sharks are mindless killers, they exhibit a wide range of traits and behavior. For example, the velvet belly lantern shark communicates through flashes of light from organs on the sides of its body. Female hammerhead sharks can clone perfect replicas of themselves without male sperm.

Sharks have the most sensitive electrical detectors thus far discovered in the natural world–networks of pores and nerves in their heads, known as ampullae of Lorenzini, after Italian scientist Stefano Lorenzini, who first described these features in the 17th century. Sharks use these networks to navigate in the open ocean, using Earth’s magnetic field for orientation.

Another intriguing discovery is that some shark species, including makos and blue sharks, segregate by both sex and size. Among these species, cohorts of males and females of different sizes are often found in distinct groups. This finding suggests that some sharks may have social hierarchies, like those seen in some primates and hoofed mammals.

Genetic studies have helped researchers explore questions such as why some sharks have heads shaped like hammers or shovels. They also show that sharks have the lowest mutation rate of any vertebrate animal. This is notable because mutations are the raw material for evolution: The higher the mutation rate, the better a species can adapt to environmental change.

However, sharks have been around for 400 million years and have been through some of the most extreme environmental changes on earth. It’s not known yet how they have persisted so successfully with such a low mutation rate.

Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, describes how DNA analysis provides insights into shark science.

The marquee species

White sharks, the focal species of “Jaws,” attract enormous public interest, although much about them is still unknown. They can live to age 70, and they routinely swim thousands of miles every year. Those in the Western North Atlantic tend to move north-south between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico; white sharks on the U.S. west coast move east-west between California and the Central Pacific.

We now know that juvenile white sharks feed almost exclusively on fishes and stingrays, and don’t start incorporating seals and other marine mammals into their diets until they are the equivalent of teenagers and have grown to about 12 feet long. Most confirmed white shark bites on humans seem to be by animals that are between 12 and 15 feet long. This supports the theory that almost all bites by white sharks on humans are cases of mistaken identity, where humans resemble the seals that sharks prey on.

Still in the water

Although “Jaws” had a widespread cultural impact, it didn’t keep surfers and bathers from enjoying the ocean.

Data from the International Shark Attack File on confirmed unprovoked bites by white sharks from the 1960s to the present day shows a continuous increase, although the number of incidents yearly is quite low. This pattern is consistent with growing numbers of people pursuing recreational activities at the coasts.

Around the world, there have been 363 confirmed, unprovoked bites by white sharks since 1960. Of these, 73 were fatal. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 236,000 deaths yearly due to drowning, which translates to around 15 million drowning deaths over the same time period.

In other words, people are roughly 200,000 times more likely to drown than to die from a white shark bite. Indeed, surfers are more likely to die in a car crash on the way to the beach than they are to be bitten by a shark.

Disclosure: Gavin Naylor receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Lenfest Foundation.

The post ‘Jaws’ portrayed sharks as monsters 50 years ago, but it also inspired a generation of shark scientists appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

An international team of scientists believe they have finally found the elusive answer to the question of why moths are drawn to light. The artificial light appears to trap moths and other flying insects in a wonky flight pattern. The light makes them lose their sense of up and down, since they are used to following light in the night sky instead of on the ground. The moths aren’t necessarily attracted to the light, but are more likely trapped in its glow. The findings are described in a study published January 30 in the journal Nature Connections.

[Related: Light pollution is messing with coral reproduction.]

Millions of years of evolution

Moths and butterflies have called Earth home for at least 200 million years. Through that time, 

moths and other insects that fly at night may have evolved to tilt their heads back towards whatever direction is brightest. This light source was originally the stars and moonlight in the sky and not on the ground. This ensured that the bugs knew which way was up and kept them flying level. 

When artificial light sources began to fill up the Earth, the moths found themselves tilting their backs at lamps in the street or fires. This caused them to fly in endless loops around the streetlamp, as they were trapped by instincts learned through millions of years of evolution.  

“This has been a prehistorical question. In the earliest writings, people were noticing this around fire,” study co-author and Florida International University biologist Jamie Theobald said in a statement. “It turns out all our speculations about why it happens have been wrong, so this is definitely the coolest project I’ve been part of.”

Monitoring flight paths

In the study, a team of international researchers in the Costa Rican cloud forest used high resolution and high-speed infrared video recordings to capture insect flight paths around artificial lights. They collected over 477 videos spanning more than 11 insect orders. This technology was able to capture the insects’ fast and frenzied orbits by the lights and was used to reconstruct points of their flight paths in three dimensions. The team noticed that moths and dragonflies turned their backs to artificial lights, which appeared to drastically change their flight paths. The insects may have thought that the lights were a source of light in the sky and not on the ground.

“If the light’s above them, they might start orbiting it, but if it’s behind them, they start tilting backwards and that can cause them to climb up and up until they stall,” study co-author and Imperial College London entomologist Sam Fabian told The Guardian. “More dramatic is when they fly directly over a light. They flip themselves upside down and that can lead to crashes. It really suggests that the moth is confused as to which way is up.”

The research has some entomologists buzzing, since it provides a potential answer to a phenomenon in nature that is millions of years old.

Conservation concerns

This study is the first known documentation of this behavior in nocturnal insects and provides a new possible explanation of why lights seem to attract moths. While it appears to confirm that light is disruptive, it also gives new insights into a conservation concern. Light pollution is a major reason behind recent declines in insect populations. Moths and other insects can become trapped in the lights and become easy prey for bats. The fake light can also make moths believe that it is daytime and signal that it is time to sleep and not eat.

[Related: City lights could trigger a baby boom for some moths and butterflies.]

The study also suggests light direction matters when designing and installing exterior lights. According to the team, the worst direction is an upward facing or bare bulb. Shrouding or shielding a lightbulb could help offset the negative impacts.

Scientists are also beginning to think about how light color impacts flying nocturnal insects. The unexplained mystery of how these insects are initially attracted to light over great distances also still remains. 

“I’d been told before you can’t ask why questions like this one, that there was no point,” Yash Sondhi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History and study co-author, said in a statement. “But in being persistent and finding the right people, we came up with an answer none of us really thought of, but that’s so important to increasing awareness about how light impacts insect populations and informing changes that can help them out.”

The post Why artificial light—and evolution—trap moths appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Scientists have confirmed the first known deaths from a contagious and highly pathogenic avian influenza strain called H5N1 in some Antarctic penguin species. H5N1 first arrived in the Antarctic in late 2023 and the virus has now been confirmed in some Gentoo penguins that were found dead in the Falkland Islands. Over 20 Gentoo chicks have been reported dead from the virus or are showing symptoms of bird flu. Other Gentoo penguins have been reported sick or dead at this same location, according to the Falkland Islands Department of Agriculture. 

[Related: Seal pup die-off from avian flu in Argentina looks ‘apocalyptic.’]

Possible case in King penguins

Additionally, at least one King penguin is suspected to have died from bird flu. According to the Antarctic Wildlife Health Network which is part of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, this would be the first death from bird flu in this species. The suspected case was reported on South Georgia island, about 900 miles east of the Falklands. However, the extent of the virus spread is still being reviewed and this death has yet to be officially confirmed.

“We have no conclusive evidence that king penguin populations in South Georgia have been impacted by the virus,” Laura Willis, the chief executive of the government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, told The New York Times in an email. “We are monitoring the situation across the islands and apply a precautionary approach, which includes closing some sites to allow further investigations to take place.”

Colonies at risk of disease

The penguins in the Antarctic likely do not have any existing immunity to this pathogenic virus. They also breed in large colonies with cramped conditions, so it can spread rapidly if one bird is infected. More than 500,000 seabirds have died since the virus arrived in South America last year, with pelicans, boobies, and penguins among the hardest hit animals. Chile reported the deaths of thousands of Humboldt penguins. Mass deaths of elephant seals have since been reported, as well as increased deaths of kelp gulls and brown skua. 

“The arrival of this H5N1 virus in the Antarctic towards the end of last year rang alarm bells because of the risk it posed to wildlife in this fragile ecosystem,” molecular virologist at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research Ed Hutchinson told The Guardian. “And while it is very sad to hear reports of penguins dying … it is unfortunately not at all surprising.”

No infections have been reported on the Antarctic mainland, but the virus could be currently spreading there undetected. 

In 1996, H5N1 was first detected in China. The virus had been largely confined to domesticated birds for several years, but has been spreading quickly in wild populations since 2021. Bird flu spreads through air droplets and bird feces. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, it has been exacerbated by alterations to bird migration schedules due to human-caused climate change and repeated re-circulation in domestic poultry. 

[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]

Scientists confirmed that the virus jumped to wild mammals in May 2022 and it has since been detected in dozens of mammals including pumas, foxes, skunks, and brown bears. Almost 96 percent of elephant seal pups living at three breeding sites in Patagonia, Argentina died from bird flu in 2023.

It also continues to spread through wildlife populations on the other side of the world. In December 2023, officials in Alaska confirmed that a polar bear had died of H5N1 in the Arctic for the first time. 

The World Health Organization has urged public health officials to prepare for a potential spillover to humans in the future. Initially, scientists thought that mammals could only catch the virus through contact with infected birds. While cases of humans getting infected and seriously ill from bird flu are rare, the more it spreads among mammals, the easier it will be for the virus to evolve to spread.

The post Antarctic penguins are now dying from the H5N1 strain of bird flu appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Tracing how some primates went from getting around on all fours to walking around on two legs  has been difficult. The fossil record hasn’t always presented a clear evolutionary history of bipedalism. These days, our species primarily walks upright on two legs, but primates can also climb up trees using arms and legs to propel the body. Some primates like great apes typically walk using all four limbs and smaller monkeys gracefully swing among tree branches. Scientists are now beginning to see more clearly how humans developed our bipedal walking ability, by studying the inner ears of the extinct primate Lufengpithecus—likely, an evolutionary stepping stone.

[Related: Our tree-climbing ancestors evolved our abilities to throw far and reach high.]

A team of scientists used three-dimensional CT-scans of a 6-million-year-old fossilized Lufengpithecus skull’s bony inner ear and found a structure that looks similar to some of today’s bipedal mammals. This inner ear area likely played a role in bipedal evolution. The findings are described in a study published January 29 in the journal The Innovation.

Meet Lufengpithecus

Lufengpithecus lived in East Asia during the Miocene Era, about 23 million to five million years ago. The land-dwelling animals at this time were starting to look more like the animals we see today, but some of their earlier and intermediate forms like Lufengpithecus were still living. 

“It would have been about the size of a chimpanzee. We don’t have too many clues to this, but we can be pretty sure it was primarily specializing in fruit,” study co-author and New York University biological anthropologist Terry Harrision tells PopSci. “It did seem to have relatively long arms and it would have been quite fragile moving around the trees. Most of its time would have been spent in the trees.”

The team examined skulls that were first discovered in China’s Yunnan Province in the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the skulls have become damaged over time and previous work on them revealed that the crucial and delicate semicircular canals in the inner ear were not well preserved.

“The semicircular canals, located in the skull between our brains and the external ear, are critical to providing our sense of balance and position when we move, and they provide a fundamental component of our locomotion that most people are probably unaware of,” Yinan Zhang, a study co-author and Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IVPP) PhD student, said in a statement. “The size and shape of the semicircular canals correlate with how mammals, including apes and humans, move around their environment. Using modern imaging technologies, we were able to visualize the internal structure of fossil skulls and study the anatomical details of the semicircular canals to reveal how extinct mammals moved.”

Recreating a six-million-year old inner ear

To get a more accurate look inside Lufengpithecus’ inner ears, the team needed to recreate the damaged semicircular canals using data from the fossil record. The team used three-dimensional scans to virtually recreate the inner ear’s bony canals. They then compared the scans to living and fossil apes and humans from Africa, Europe, and Asia. 

[Related: Foraging in trees might have pushed human ancestors to walk on two feet.]

“Our analyses show that early apes shared a locomotor repertoire that was ancestral to human bipedalism,” study co-author and IVPP paleoanthropologist Xijun Ni, said in a statement. “It appears that the inner ear provides a unique record of the evolutionary history of ape locomotion that offers an invaluable alternative to the study of the postcranial skeleton.”

From this comparison, the team believes that three steps led to the evolution of human bipedalism. Apes first moved in the trees in a style that is similar to how today’s gibbons swing through trees. The last common ancestor of both apes and humans used a combination of climbing, clambering, walking on four limbs while on the ground, and using only two limbs in trees to get around. It was from this mix of motion that bipedalism eventually became dominant in humans. It’s possible that once our species got a solid grasp of walking on two legs, more fine motor skills that are related to the inner ear like balance could be refined over time. 

“Even though humans generated bipedalism during their evolutionary history, we did come from a group of very unusual primates that developed unique ways of moving around their environment,” says Harrison. “So we are an oddity.”

Incredible ape diversity

As a species that is in the middle of an evolutionary tree, Lufengpithecus gives scientists a window into understanding how ape diversity originated over 20 million years ago. The team also believes that climate changes may have been an important environmental catalyst of how apes and their ways of movement evolved. Ice sheets began to form in the Northern Hemisphere and temperatures began to cool about 3.2 million years ago. These environmental changes corresponds to an uptick of changes in the bony labyrinth of the inner ear. 

Future research is needed to determine exactly why evolving this way of walking around was particularly helpful as the ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere were growing and why ape diversity began to decrease worldwide. 

“The modern [living] apes are just a small sampling of the incredible diversity that we’ve had in the past. We wouldn’t have known about this incredible diversity haven’t had if it hadn’t been for the fossil record,” says Harrison. “It’s confusing, and it won’t be figured out in my lifetime, but the fact is, we’re getting a lot closer to really beginning to understand it.”

The post Extinct ape’s inner ear holds clues to how humans learned to walk upright appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A wildlife filmmaker and biology doctoral student have taken what could be the first picture of a newborn great white shark. The images and findings are described in a study published January 29 in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes.

[Related: Sharks have a sixth sense for navigating the seas.]

Most famous for terrorizing beachgoers in the greatly exaggerated Jaws movies, great whites are the largest predatory sharks in the world. Despite their apex predator status, fatal attacks on humans are rare. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, humans are more than 75 times more likely to be killed by lightning than a shark. They can weigh between 1,500 and 4,000 pounds and their newborns typically feed on fish and other sharks. Even though they are fish, many sharks give birth instead of laying eggs. 

On July 9, 2023, filmmaker Carlos Gauna and University of California, Riverside biology doctoral student Phillip Sternes were looking for sharks near Santa Barbara on California’s central coast. Most great whites are gray on top with white bellies, but Gauana’s drone camera showed a roughly 5-foot-long shark pup that had more white on its body than normal.

“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming,” Sternes said in a statement. “I believe it was a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer.” 

Gauna has spent thousands of hours filming sharks all over the world and this recent observation could help solve the longstanding mystery of great white birthing habits.

“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science. No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive,” Gauna said in a statement. “There have been dead white sharks found inside deceased pregnant mothers. But nothing like this.”

While the shark may have been shedding some skin due to an unknown dermatological condition or have albinism, Gauna and Sternes do not believe that either explains the pup’s more white color. They are both co-authors of the study and believe that the shark in their footage is a newborn great white for four primary reasons. 

Intrauterine milk

While great white shark pups are in utero, the embryonic sharks may eat unfertilized eggs for protein. The mothers also potentially give a milk-like substance that is secreted in the uterus as additional nourishment to the growing shark pups.

“I believe what we saw was the baby shedding the intrauterine milk,” Sternes said. 

Pregnant sharks nearby

In the weeks leading up to the observations, Guana had seen large and likely pregnant great whites swimming in the vicinity. 

[Related: With new tags, researchers can track sharks into the inky depths of the ocean’s Twilight Zone.]

“I filmed three very large sharks that appeared pregnant at this specific location in the days prior. On this day, one of them dove down, and not long afterwards, this fully white shark appears,” Gauna said. “It’s not a stretch to deduce where the baby came from.”

Size and shape

The team believes that the shark’s appearance is also indicative of a newborn and not a juvenile shark. They observed a shark that was thin, shot, and rounded instead of a longer older shark. The study posits that the shark is potentially only hours to one day old at most. 

Location, location, location

Scientists believe that the location off the coast of central California where the pup was observed is a potential birthing ground for great whites. 

“There are a lot of hypothetical areas, but despite intense interest in these sharks, no one’s seen a birth or a newborn pup in the wild,” Sternes said. “This may well be the first evidence we have of a pup in the wild, making this a definitive birthing location.”

However, other scientists believe that great whites are born further out to sea. This pup was spotted about 1,000 feet from the beach, so it was likely born in more shallow waters. More research is needed to confirm if this area of California’s coast is a breeding ground.

The post This could be the first newborn great white shark ever captured on camera appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Marsupials are anything but a boring group of mammals. Kangaroos have some of the most powerful kicks in the animal kingdom, wombats are known for their poop cubes, koalas have a toxic diet, and the mouse-sized antechinus has its busy sex life. These small Australian marsupials will sacrifice multiple hours of sleep every night during their fast and furious mating season to make more time for reproduction. These new findings are described in a study published January 25 in the journal Current Biology and shows the first known direct evidence of this kind of sleep deprivation in a land-dwelling mammal.

[Related: These animals spend their whole lives waiting to have sex, and then they die.]

Strange breeding system for a mammal

Antechinuses are small carnivorous marsupials that live in wooded areas of northern and eastern Australia. There are currently 15 recognized species of antechinus, including the brown antechinus, swamp antechinus, and fawn antechinus. They are primarily nocturnal and eat insects, spiders, and even some small reptiles and frogs. 

Their unique breeding system is more reminiscent of the short-lived bugs that they feast on than other mammals. While females can live for two years, male antechinuses only live for a year. They can only reproduce once in that short lifetime and the males will typically all die at about the same time following their short and intense mating season. 

“The males have one shot at fathering offspring during a single three-week mating period,” study co-author John Lesku, a zoologist who specializes in sleep at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, said in a statement. “We found that male, but not female, dusky antechinuses, become restless during their only breeding season.”

The sleep vs. sex trade-off

Males will trade off between sleep and reproduction that is likely driven by strong sexual selection. For animals–including humans–not catching enough Z’s can typically lead to numerous issues including irritability, lack of concentration, and increase the risk of high-blood pressure, and heart disease. During mating season, antechinuses lose sleep at a rate that would make an average human act as though they were intoxicated, according to the study’s authors.

“Using a combination of techniques, we showed that males lose sleep during the breeding season, with one male halving his sleep during this mating period,” study co-author and La Trobe University PhD student Erika Zaid said in a statement. “In humans and other animals, restricting the normal amount of sleep leads to worse performance while awake, an effect that compounds night after night. And yet, the antechinus did just that: they slept three hours less per night, every night, for three weeks.”

[Related: Why do people need to sleep?]

The team used accelerometers to track the patterns of movement of 15 dusky antechinus (10 males) from captive and wild settings, both before and during mating season. They took blood samples to measure hormonal changes and electrophysiological recordings from four of the males to determine how much they were sleeping. Additional blood samples were taken from 38 wild agile antechinus (20 males) to check if a biomarker for sleep loss called oxalic acid similarly decreased in mating season. 

Females lose sleep too

The results showed that the males were sleeping three hours less every night for weeks. The antechinus may have some unknown way to thrive with less sleep during their mating season. They also may simply accept the physical downsides of sleep deprivation in order to improve their chances of producing offspring. 

The decrease in oxalic acid suggests that the agile antechinus were sleep deprived during mating season, but there was no significant difference between the males and females. This could suggest that the females are also sleep deprived because of male harassment during mating season. 

Biologists are still not certain what causes the males to die after breeding season, but do not suspect that sleep loss alone is the culprit. The males that the team observed sleeping were not the ones in the worst condition. The team wants to learn more about how these marsupials handle their sleep loss. In part that’s because the males they saw sleeping the least were not the ones in the worst condition.

“Are antechinus equally compromised, but just get on with it?” they ask. “Or are they resilient to the negative effects of sleep restriction?” 

The post Sex is more important than sleep for these marsupials appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Dark stains on the pristine white ice and snow in Antarctica gave scientists from the British Antarctic Survey the clues they needed to find four previously unknown Emperor penguin breeding sites. The penguins’ guano–aka bird poop–showed up on satellite imagery as a series of dark smudges and allowed researchers to zero in on these new breeding sites. The findings are described in a study published January 20 in the journal Antarctic Science. 

[Related: The march of the penguins has a new star: an autonomous robot.]

Colonies of thousands of these large penguins live and breed on the frozen sea ice along the coast of Antarctica. However, rising ocean temperatures due to climate change is melting the ice at a rapid rate and forcing Emperor penguins to relocate to more stable ground. Typically, Emperor penguins breed in sites that are remote and inhospitable to humans, so researchers rely on satellite imagery to find and monitor Emperor penguin colonies and the poop stands out clearly against the white landscape. In 2018, a “super-colony” of about 1.5 million Adélie penguins (751,527 pairs) was discovered by satellite images that showed large amounts of penguin poop.

Finding a ‘lost’ colony

Some known colonies have already moved 18 to 25 miles towards new breeding grounds. In the process, the scientists using satellites discovered the four colonies that had never been recorded. One of these groups includes the Halley Bay colony which the researchers previously thought had vanished. This group has re-established itself near the MacDonald Ice Rumples, which are about 18 miles east of their old breeding sites. There are now a total of 66 known Emperor penguin colonies, according to the British Antarctic Survey.

Researchers used images from the European Commission’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission and high resolution images from the 383-mile high Maxar WorldView-3 satellite to confirm the discovery, which comes with some mixed news.

Emperor penguin colonies living in the Earth’s South Pole saw an unprecedented breeding failure when the region saw a total loss of sea ice in 2022. Four out of five Emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea on the western side Antarctica did not see any chicks survive to successfully fledge in the spring of 2022. They are classified as “near threatened” with about 600,000 Emperor penguins remaining on Earth. However, scientists think that nearly all of their remaining colonies will not be viable by the end of this century. 

[Related: Emperor penguins suffer ‘unprecedented’ breeding failure as sea ice disappears.]

“These newly identified locations fill in almost all the gaps in the known distribution of these iconic birds,” British Antarctic Survey remote sensing expert and environmental scientist Peter Fretwell said in a statement. “All except one of these colonies are small with less than 1,000 birds, so finding these new colonies makes little difference to the overall population size. In fact, it is overshadowed by the recently reported breeding failures due to the early and fast ice loss.”

Running out of sea ice

Since 2016, the Antarctic has experienced our years with the lowest sea ice in the 45 years that satellites have been monitoring the area. As of August 2023, the sea ice extent was 849,424 lower than it was in 1981. This is equivalent to losing an area of sea ice larger than Greenland.

The strategy of moving to more stable sea ice is becoming increasingly difficult, as the sea ice is affected across the entire region. Record high global air and ocean temperatures like the planet felt in 2023 only will continue to melt more of the ice in the South Pole. 

“We spend all this time monitoring these animals and seeing if they can adapt to climate change, but really, in the end, it’s not the penguins that need to adapt, it’s us,” Fretwell told NBC News. “We need to stop our addiction to fossil fuels—not just for penguins, but for all species, even ourselves.”

It is still too early to tell how successful the breeding season will be. The 2022 season that saw such a catastrophic breeding failure was affected by La Niña and change in wind patterns. A switch in weather patterns could help, but it is still unclear. 

“Hopefully, this is a one year thing for now and with the weather pattern changing back to El Niño, the sea ice in this location this year and next year will grow back to what it normally is,” Daniel P. Zitterbart, a physicist by training and an Emperor penguin remote sensing expert from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told PopSci in August 2023. Zitterbart was not involved in either study. “But we all know that this year we had the first 6.4 Sigma event, which means that the sea ice in Antarctica is very low.” 

The post Poop stains reveal four previously unknown Emperor penguin colonies appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The roaches, spiders, and dung beetles of the world can face a real uphill–or up anthill–battle as they navigate the big world. Their small stature makes them an easy target for squishing and they have many natural predators. Humans also view these organisms as generally less charismatic than larger and more furry critters. Our evolutionary bias makes us fear for our safety around bugs. In turn, these organisms are often sadly left behind in conservation efforts.

[Related: Why small, scary, and ‘non-charismatic’ lost species are harder to rediscover.]

“One of the reasons why we find them less charismatic is because on that evolutionary tree, they are relatively distant from us,” entomologist Tim Cockerill tells PopSci. “Our instinct is to say that insects and bugs in general are very different from us. But it’s the other way around. We’re the weird ones in terms of the diversity of animals on planet Earth.”

If you added all of the species of birds, amphibians, fish, reptiles, and mammals together, it would not be close to the over one million known insect species that live on planet Earth. 

To film bugs, you must know bugs

The new docuseries A Real Bug’s Life on Disney+ is trying to change this perspective by showcasing the world’s insects and arachnids in some stellar new light. Narrated by actor Awkwafina, National Geographic’s new five-part series is inspired by the world of the 1998 Disney and Pixar animated children’s film A Bug’s Life and shows us the high stakes, real-life world of some of our planet’s smallest animals and what it takes for them to survive. The series brings viewers to New York City, a Costa Rican jungle, a backyard in suburban Texas, the African savanna, and a farm in Britain to see how familiar and more unique bugs live, eat, and get around.

The series was filmed in 4K HDR and a new generation of probe lenses helped the filmmakers really get down to a bug’s eye view. However, all of the tech in the world relies on intimate bug knowledge. That is where a bug wrangler comes in.

“Anytime that where animals and TV interact, we’ve got to set up the situation whereby we’re showing off the animal in its best light. In order to do that, you need to know these things intimately,” says Cockerill, who served as a bug wrangler and scientific consultant on the new series.

Cockerill has spent over 20 years studying insects and relies on that basis of animal behavior to help filmmakers capture images like how fire ants create an ant-bridge in a backyard pool or how dung beetles climb out of piles of feces. 

“The thing that has helped more than anything is still kind of being a seven year old kid in the backyard, looking at insects in the bushes. You begin to realize that when the temperature comes up, that’s when they start to take off,” says Cockerill. “Conversely, you know that early in the morning they are nice and still, so we can get close-up portraits.”

‘Underdogs of the bug world’

In the series, one of the most difficult creatures to film was the ubiquitous cockroaches of New York City. While there are an estimated 120 cockroaches for each person in the Big Apple, they are lightning fast and difficult for even experienced bug wranglers to catch.

“Cockroaches are the underdogs of the bug world. I’ve got a strange fondness for cockroaches,” laughs Cockerill. “Having to spend days on end working with cockroaches and trying to encourage them to perform their natural behaviors for us in front of the camera is always a slight challenge.”

[Related: Scientists strapped tiny cameras to beetles to get a bug’s-eye view of the world.]

Cockerill points to their “hidden superpowers” that make them some of the animal kingdom’s ultimate survivors. There are an astonishing 4,600 species of cockroaches in the world and scientists estimate that they are at least 200 million years old. They can survive and thrive in dirty and dingy environments and their bodies can survive without a head for up to one week. Roaches breathe through the small holes in their body segments and have an open circulatory system. This means its head is not required to breathe. Without a way to drink water, they will eventually die from dehydration. They can squeeze into gaps that are only one tenth of an inch wide. 

“It’s a bit like if you take a can of Coke, you squeeze it, and then it kind of pings back out when you let go. Cockroaches have evolved the ability to do that. They can squeeze through the tiniest tiny crack so that it’s almost like pouring liquid through cracks,” explains Cockerill.

Documenting drama–accurately

Engaging nature documentaries can run the risk of anthropomorphizing, or applying human characteristics or attributes to animals. Cockerill and the team addressed that in this series by not giving the bugs a name and showcasing the very real struggles in their lives, from outrunning a hungry mantis, finding food, to avoiding being squished by our shoes. 

“All of the dramas that happen in our lives and the things that drive us are also happening in the lives of all these smaller animals,” says Cockerill. “So by making films where we’ll be following an individual character, it’s just a human way into the lives that are happening for real under our noses all the time.”

A Real Bug’s Life premieres on Disney+ on January 24.

The post How bug ‘wranglers’ help document the lives of flies, dung beetles, and more appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Animals in the wild must make crucial decisions by detecting moving targets. Their survival can depend on finding prey or evaluating a potential mate and their eyes all perceive colors in nature a little differently. Getting an accurate view of what animals are seeing has been a challenge, but a camera system developed by scientists at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom and George Mason University in Virginia could help ecologists and filmmakers create videos that closely replicate the colors that different animals see in their natural environments. The system is described in a study published January 23 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. 

[Related: How do animals see the world?]

Different photoreceptors in the eyes can affect how we perceive the world around us. Animals including bees, reindeer, and some birds can see ultraviolet (UV) light that human eyes cannot perceive. By reconstructing the colors that we know animals can see, scientists can learn more about how they communicate and navigate the world around them. 

“As sensory ecologists, we are interested in how animals perceive colors in nature. Traditional techniques for measuring these colors often told only part of the story,” Daniel Hanley, a study co-author and sensory ecologist at George Mason University, tells PopSci. “The scientific community lacked adequate tools for studying colors in motion. We designed our camera system to provide a solution to this problem. Now, we can record color signals as they would appear to wild animals in the wild.”

The new camera system builds on current techniques called spectrophotometry. Using this technique, images are taken at specific wavelength ranges that are typically beyond what humans can see. However, using these methods can be time consuming, produce false colors, require specific lighting conditions, and can’t always capture something that is moving. 

To overcome some of these limitations, the team developed a camera and software system that captures animal-view videos of moving objects under natural lighting conditions. 

“The system is built around two separate cameras, where light is split and simultaneously directed to a camera sensitive to ultraviolet light and to a standard camera sensitive to human visible light,” says Hanley. 

[Related: How this computer scientist is rethinking color theory.]

One of the cameras simultaneously records video in four different color channels: blue, green, red, and UV. That data is then processed into perceptual units using a popular programming language called Python. This generates a more accurate video of how animals perceive those colors, based on what biologists know about the photoreceptors in their eyes. The team tested this new camera system against the traditional spectrophotometry methods and their new system predicted the perceived colors with an accuracy of over 92 percent.

“Our project was quite involved, and we had many surprises along the way,” says Hanley. “The most surprising thing that we discovered was how much clouds can impact a perceived color. We didn’t tend to notice these shifts, but they were notable.”

The system is built from commercially available cameras and is housed in modular 3D-printed casing. The software that the team developed is also open-source, so other researchers could build on this technology in the future. 

“We plan to apply the camera system as broadly as possible. Currently, we are exploring a range of applications from natural history through conservation,” says Hanley. “Our hope is that through community engagement our designs can improve and we will gather many novel observations about colors in nature.”

The post How animals see the world, according to a new camera system appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Sea otters are more than just photogenic fluff balls known for floating on their backs with buoyant fur and eating about 25 percent of their body weight in one day. They are also potentially strengthening the health of California’s kelp forests. A study published January 18 in the journal PLOS Climate found that the sea otter population is significant in regions where kelp forest canopy has increased over more than a century. The study suggests that sea otter populations kept the kelp forests more resilient. This research reinforces why conservation and recovery of the threatened southern sea otter is important and highlights some solutions to restoring California’s famed kelp forests.   

[Related: These otters learn how to snag snacks by watching their friends.]

Why this big seaweed is a big deal

Kelp is a large, brown algae that lives in relatively shallow waters close to shore. They grow in large groups that resemble forests on land. These kelp forests are important because they contain a greater variety and higher diversity of plants and animals than most of almost any other community in the world’s oceans. Fish, sea birds, seals, small marine invertebrates, and more use the thick blades of kelp as a safe shelter for their young and even take shelter in them during storms. They also provide a barrier against coastal erosion for the mainland. In the Western Pacific Ocean, Kelp forests predominantly grow from Alaska and Canada south to the waters of Baja California, Mexico. 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), they also provide humans with a habitat for commercially important fishery species including kelp bass and black rockfish. 

Some of the primary threats to kelp forests include runoff from chemicals and sewage on land, rising ocean temperatures, overharvesting, and invasive species. 

More sea otters, more kelp

The study looked at changes to the kelp canopy from 1910 to 2016. During this time period, the central coast of California was the only region to see a significant increase in kelp forest canopy. This is also the only region in the state that had a population of southern sea otters. Coveted for their warm fur, the mammals were nearly hunted to the extinction during the 19th Century. 

Over the 100-year period, the southern sea otter’s favorable impact on kelp forests along the central coast almost completely compensated for the kelp losses along both southern and northern California.

“Our study showed that kelp forests are more extensive and resilient to climate change where sea otters have reoccupied the California coastline during the last century. Where sea otters are absent, kelp forests have declined dramatically. In fact, we found sea otter population density as the strongest predictor of change in kelp canopy coverage across this hundred-year span,” study co-author and Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Otter Program research biologist Teri Nicholson said in a statement. 

The study also noted similar trends in the Channel Islands, with kelp canopy increasing where sea otters were present and a similar assessment in Alaska also showed that sea otters help maintain kelp forests. The otters are likely an important carnivore in degraded ecosystems where there were previous predator-prey imbalances. They can eat sea urchins and other organisms that could overpopulate the ecosystem and hurt the kelp.

[Related: Why seaweed farming could be the next big thing in sustainability.]

The team analyzed historical surveys of kelp forests dating back to the early 1900s to generate estimates of kelp canopy extent, biomass, and carbon storage. Their method also corrected for year-to-year variation and differences in surveying methods. Looking at these records allowed the team to study California’s kelp forest trends over a longer time period. These records went back more than 60 years before aerial and satellite imagery was available for studying kelp canopies. They took these historical estimates and compared them to contemporary datasets and used computer models to assess what has been driving changes over the last century.

“The use of historical maps provided an important opportunity to help us examine long-term kelp forest trends,” Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Otter Program Manager Jess Fujii said in a statement. “This broader view is important for understanding trends related to climate change, and developing effective science-based conservation strategies.”

The study found that statewide, there was only a six percent decline in kelp canopy from 1910 to 2016. However, the regional changes were more sizable. In northern regions, it decreased by 63 percent. The southern region saw a 52 percent decrease in kelp canopy. The kelp canopy increased nearly everywhere throughout the central coast which gained an estimated 56 percent of kelp forest.

The computer modeling showed that sea otter population density was the strongest predictor in changes to kelp forest coverage. It also revealed that rising marine temperatures due to human-caused climate change were other factors in kelp loss. 

“Today, extreme heat in the ocean is intense and persistent. Beginning a decade ago, this threat now affects more than half the ocean’s surface,” study co-author and Duke University research scientist Kyle Van Houtan said in a statement. “This is a major problem for kelp forests as chronic temperature stress undermines kelp growth and health. Ecosystems are complex, and to give them their best chance at surviving these extreme changes, they need all their component parts. Sea otters, of course, are hugely influential for Pacific kelp forests. Historical studies like this are a crucial demonstration of this dynamic over the long term.”

The post Sea otters can help conserve vital kelp forests appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Tardigrades are some of the toughest animals on the planet. These microscopic creatures commonly called “water bears” can survive in environments with extreme temperatures, without water or oxygen. Scientists may have pinpointed the precise molecular mechanism the tiny invertebrates use to put up with such intense conditions. They have a molecular sensor that detects uninhabitable elements of their environment, and tells them when to go dormant and when to resume their normal activities. The findings are described in a study published January 17 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

[Related: Tardigrades go where the slime takes them.]

What is a tardigrade?

There are more than 1,100 species of tardigrade. These free-living invertebrates are considered close relatives of arthropods. They are about 0.04 inch or less in size and live in a variety of habitats. They are found on flowering plants, in moss, sand, fresh water, and the ocean.  

Most plant-eating tardigrades pierce individual plant cells with their stylets and suck out the cell’s contents for sustenance. Some are predatory carnivores that eat other small invertebrates.

German zoologist J.A.E. Goeze saw tardigrades through a microscope in 1773 and recorded that its body looked like a shriveled and shrunken version of a bear. He named it kleiner Wasserbär, or German for “little water bear.” 

How do they survive extreme environments?

When faced with dry, barren, and otherwise inhospitable environments, tardigrades go dormant and enter a tun state. Their eight legs retract, their bodies become dehydrated, and their metabolism slows down so much that it is almost undetectable. They curl up into a ball. They can remain in this state for years. Previously, scientists weren’t sure what signals water bears to enter or leave their death-like state where they don’t require nutrients.

In this new study, researchers exposed the tardigrades to temperatures of -112 degrees Fahrenheit or high levels of hydrogen peroxide, salt, or sugar to trigger dormancy in a lab. Their cells produced damaging oxygen free radicals in response to these harmful conditions. The free radicals will react with other molecules, but they will also oxidize an amino acid called cysteine. It is one of the building blocks of proteins in the body and the reactions make the proteins change their function and structure, and signal the water bear to go into its dormant state. The cysteine allows them to feel out their environments and react to stressors. 

When the conditions improve and the free radicals are gone, the sensor is no longer oxidized. The tardigrades then remerge from their dormancy. The team also applied chemicals that block cysteine to their environment and found that the water bears couldn’t detect the free radicals and did not go dormant.

According to the team, these results show that cysteine is a key sensor for switching dormancy on and off in response to multiple stressors. It suggests that cysteine oxidation is a vital mechanism that water bears use to help them survive in constantly changing environments. 

[Related: We’ve seen how tardigrades walk, and it’s mesmerizing.]

“Our work reveals that tardigrade survival to stress conditions is dependent on reversible cysteine oxidation, through which reactive oxygen species serve as a sensor to enable tardigrades to respond to external changes,” the authors wrote in a statement.

Can this help humans?

Future studies into this mechanism could determine if this happens across all tardigrade species. Since free radicals may be linked to age-related ailments, more studies of tardigrades could help scientists better understand aging.

“Whether this is a universally conserved protection mechanism and whether this is conserved across tardigrade species are really important questions,” study co-author Leslie Hicks from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told New Scientist. The answers may help us better understand the aging process and even how to achieve long-term space travel, she says.

The post We may know what makes tardigrades so darn tough appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

While the mighty megalodon (Otodus megalodon) went extinct about 3.6 million years ago, its grip on popular culture remains strong. However, the ‘meg’ may not have been as wide as scientists previously believed. A study published January 21 in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica proposes that the megalodon was likely more slender than other studies previously suggested. However, the revised anatomical theory for the underwater legend does not compromise its apex predator status.

[Related: Megalodons were likely warm-blooded, despite being stone-cold killers.]

The megalodon swam in the Earth’s oceans over 23 million years ago. While paleontologists have found many fossilized teeth, their bodies were mainly built from cartilage instead of bones. Cartilage is rarely preserved in the fossil record, making a full skeleton difficult if impossible to find. This has made the apex predator’s true size a decades-long paleontological mystery. 

The new study is based on an incomplete set of fossil vertebrae at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, Belgium. Previous research estimated that this specific megalodon would have been 30.2 feet long and that some megalodons could grow to 50 to 65 feet long and could snack on animals as large as orca whales. 

Paleontologists have historically used modern great white sharks as a stand-in model for reconstructing megalodon bodies. A 2022 study reconstructing the megalodon based on the same skeleton in Belgium proposed that the ancient shark relative was potentially a stocky and powerful fish that was built for bursts of speed similar to the modern great white shark. However, the new study casts doubts on its size estimate. 

A team of 26 scientists from institutions around the world reexamined the megalodon vertebrae and compared them to living sharks. They now believe that the strength of the spinal column suggests that the megalodon would have had a more slender body shape than the great white great white. A shark as long as the megalodon would have been overly cumbersome if it had the more bulky shape of great white. 

“Our team reexamined the fossil record, and discovered the Megalodon was more slender and possibly even longer than we thought. Therefore, a better model might be the modern mako shark,” study co-author and University of California, Riverside biologist Phillip Sternes said in a statement. “It still would have been a formidable predator at the top of the ancient marine food chain, but it would have behaved differently based on this new understanding of its body.”

Swansea University paleontologist Jack Cooper, a co-author of the 2022 study that this new paper casts some doubt on, stands by this team’s original research. PopSci covered that study in August 2022.

“While alternative hypotheses should be and are welcomed in science, the proposal of this paper that megalodon may have been skinnier than previously suggested suffers from a circular logic. Its basis comes from a criticism of our work in using the great white shark as an ecological analogue to megalodon, which it argues we should not have done,” Cooper told PopSci. “However, not only does that criticism ignore that we account for multiple analogues (great white, shortfin mako, longfin mako, salmon shark, and porbeagle shark) when adjusting the model, but the ‘elongated body’ interpretation entirely originates from a comparison to a great white shark. Their results are not surprising though, in our 2020 paper, we tested an alternative model using only the great white shark and it indeed resulted in a slenderer model (a megalodon with an elongated body). Importantly, the ‘elongated body’ interpretation is based on a single observation, a comparison with a single analogue, and lacks statistical tests. More critically, several aspects of the study are impossible for future researchers to verify or replicate as the authors do not provide the raw data.”

Discoveries happen by testing and retesting older hypotheses based on new data or findings, so refuting old evidence does not make an old study incorrect. It typically builds upon it. Since finding a complete megalodon skeleton may be impossible, this debate will likely continue. Sci-fi fans and scientists alike will have gaps to fill in the megalodon’s story and its life stalking ancient seas. 

[Related: This whale fossil could reveal evidence of a 15-million-year-old megalodon attack.]

A different understanding of the megalodon’s body type could help inform how these giant extinct sharks impact the evolution and ecology of the ecosystems that shaped the present-day oceans. The team behind this most recent study believes that it may have had a longer digestive canal, which would have enhanced their absorption of nutrients, so they would not have to eat quite as often as previously believed.

“With increased ability to digest its food, it could have gone for longer without needing to hunt. This means less predation pressure on other marine creatures,” Sternes said. “If I only have to eat one whale every so often, whale populations would remain more stable over time.”

Some shark scientists have theorized that a natural decrease in prey coinciding with the emergence of the great white shark led to the extinction of megalodon. Others proposed that the same warm-blooded biology that likely fueled their massive size made them particularly sensitive to environmental changes. 

“Despite the major scientific advancement in our new study, the fact that we still don’t know exactly how O. megalodon looked keeps our imagination going,” study co-author and DePaul University paleobiologist Kenshu Shimada said in a statement. “The continued mystery like this makes paleontology, the study of prehistoric life, a fascinating and exciting scientific field.”

Update 01/22/24 3:36PM: This article has been updated in one instance to clarify that the new study proposes that the megalodon was “not as wide” as scientists originally believed instead of “not as large.”

The post The ‘meg’ may have been longer and less chonky than previously thought appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

The plants and animals living in critical swampland or dwelling in dark caves can often get left behind by conservation efforts. Humans generally consider these organisms as less charismatic than other species that benefit from large awareness campaigns.  

[Related: Wetlands lose some environmental protections in new Supreme Court ruling.]

“When we generally talk about charismatic animals, we think of the poster children, so to say. Pandas, tigers, elephants, usually large mammals,” Christina Biggs, a biologist from conservation foundation Re:wild, tells PopSci. 

Focusing on the ‘under frogs’

Earth is facing a sixth wave of mass extinction that threatens all walks of life, charismatic or not. To help save them, Biggs is the lost species manager for Re:wild’s Search for Lost Species project, an initiative that is looking for 2,200 lost species across 160 countries. Since 2017, it has documented 12 of their 25 most wanted lost species. It’s timely work, as over 20 species were removed from the endangered species list due to extinction last year.

“We tend to focus on what we call the ‘under frogs,’ the things that are not as commonly studied,” says Biggs. “Everything that lives in an ecosystem is charismatic and plays a role that then supports the health of that entire area.”

These smaller, slimy, scaly, or scary creatures often don’t get the same amount of conservation attention and care from humans. Our species has an evolutionary bias to fear many of them for our own safety. These organisms then don’t get the same levels of awareness that they deserve or need, and that attention is critical for rediscovering lost or extinct species. Originally a marine biologist, Biggs admits that she has had to overcome her own biases when asked to crawl into caves in Madagascar and look at some of the animals living there. 

“You then stop and apply logic, and you think that’s why I’m here. I’m here to do these discoveries,” says Biggs. 

Losing more than we are rediscovering 

Biggs is a co-author of a study published January 17 in the journal Global Change Biology compiled a catalog of tetrapods–animals with four limbs–that were once considered lost to science, but were later rediscovered. Scientists consider a species lost if they have not been observed in the wild for over 10 years despite being searched for by scientists and citizen scientists alike. A rediscovered species is one that has been lost for at least a decade before being found. These rediscoveries sometimes happen by accident, such as the pygmy blue-tongue lizard, but they primarily come from extensive time in the field.

[Related: Elusive egg-laying mammal caught on camera for the first time.]

“We are losing tetrapod species more rapidly than we are rediscovering them,” study co-author and Free University of Berlin conservation scientist Thomas Evans tells PopSci. “So the number of lost species is increasing decade-on-decade. Not good news.”

According to Evans, lost species tend to be highly-threatened with extinction and have small populations. To create the lists for the study, the team worked with experts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) based in different countries around the world and focussed on lost and rediscovered tetrapod species (birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals and reptiles). They identified more than 800 lost species and collected as much data as possible on what factors might help scientists rediscover them. Those variables included body size, whether their habitat is more isolated, and their relationship with human activities. 

Rediscovery can lead to successful conservation

Developing appropriate conservation methods for these species is important for saving them, but that can be incredibly difficult if scientists don’t know where a specific species might be living. 

[Related: How we can help the most endangered class of animals survive climate change.]

“Lost tetrapod species are a global phenomenon. About a quarter of lost bird species haven’t been seen in the wild for over 100 years,” says Evans. “Lost mammal species are on average three times heavier than rediscovered mammal species–these large, conspicuous lost species should probably have been rediscovered by now. They might be extinct.”

One of the study’s primary messages is the importance of paying attention to these less charismatic species that live in some hard to reach places. The team believes that more attention should be paid to amphibians and reptiles and that they deserve more conservation attention. 

A study from October 2023 found that two out of five amphibians are threatened with extinction and they continue to be the most threatened class of vertebrates. However, the same research found that the extinction risk of 63 species has been reduced due to conservation interventions made since the 1980s that can still work today. 

“When you start focusing attention and putting money behind things, it’s possible, it’s doable,” says Biggs. “It’s a great story of hope, because we are in the middle of this extinction crisis. Anything we could do to stave off those extinctions is really important.”

The post Why small, scary, and ‘non-charismatic’ lost species are harder to rediscover appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

A very contagious strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is wreaking havoc on elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) on the coast of Patagonia, Argentina. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), almost 96 percent of elephant seal pups living at three breeding sites where the H5N1 strain of HPAI was detected have died. The WCS team estimates 17,000 elephant seal pups died in these areas in 2023.

[Related: Thriving baby California condor is a ray of hope for the unique species.]

“It’s the first report of massive elephant seal mortality in the area from any cause in the last half century. The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along the breeding beaches can only be described as apocalyptic,” WCS Executive Director of Health Chris Walzer said in a statement. “This 2023 die-off contrasts starkly with the 18,000 pups born and successfully weaned in 2022.”

The WCS believes that the elephant seals had little to no interaction with infected bird populations, which is further evidence of mammal to mammal transmission. According to veterinarian Marcela Uhart at the University of California, Davis, since newborn elephant seal pups suckle their mothers to feed, there is little chance that the pups ate infected birds. “This is all highly suggestive of some sort of transmission between mammals,” Uhart told New Scientist.

H5N1 was first detected in 1996 in China. The virus had been largely confined to domesticated birds for several years, but has been spreading quickly in wild populations since 2021. H5N1 infected over 150 domestic and wild bird species around the world. Over 500,000 birds in South America alone have died from the disease. H5N1 has also killed more than 2,200 Dalmatian pelicans in Greece and about 20,000 Sandwich terns in the Netherlands. 

Bird flu spreads through air droplets and bird feces. According to WCS, it is exacerbated by alterations to bird migration schedules due to human-caused climate change and repeated re-circulation in domestic poultry. There have also been outbreaks of the virus at mink farms in France and Spain and the USDA banned poultry imports from France in October 2023. Scientists confirmed that the virus jumped to wild mammals in May 2022 and has since been detected in dozens of mammals including pumas, foxes, skunks, and brown bears. Roughly 700 endangered Caspian seals died from the virus in 2023. H5N1 also killed a polar bear for the first time in fall 2023, according to health officials in Alaska. 

[Related: USDA bans French poultry imports over avian influenza vaccine.]

In response to the spread, the World Health Organization has urged public health officials to prepare for a potential spillover to humans. Initially, scientists thought that mammals could only catch the virus through contact with infected birds. While cases of humans getting infected and seriously ill from bird flu are rare, the more it spreads among mammals, the easier it will be for the virus to evolve to transmit more easily between them. For COVID-19, the number of healthy humans infected by a single sick individual–or R naught value–initially ranged from 1.7 to 7 new infections. Among birds with H5N1, around 100 birds can be infected by a single sick bird. 

“It is imperative that we take a collaborative One Health approach to identifying emerging strains of bird flu across the globe to support the development of specific and universal vaccines that can quickly treat infection in people to prevent another pandemic,” said Walzer. “The cost of inaction is already causing major devastation to wildlife. As we work to help affected populations recover, we must remain vigilant against the spread of this deadly pathogen to people before it’s too late.”

The post Seal pup die-off from avian flu in Argentina looks ‘apocalyptic’ appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Scientists have discovered at least four new octopus species off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. According to Schmidt Ocean Institute, the new species were spotted around the region’s hydrothermal vents bursting with life in an area about 100 square miles. 

[Related: Female octopuses will chuck seashells at males who irk them.]

An international team of researchers found the new cephalopods during two expeditions of the seamounts last year aboard the R/V Falkor (too). In June 2023, two octopus nurseries, one skate nursery, and two low-temperature hydrothermal springs were discovered by researchers using a remotely operated vehicle named SuBasitan. Scientists went back to the nurseries in December and confirmed that the octopuses appear to be active year-round. They also observed several other new octopus species away from the hydrothermal springs in the area roughly 10 to 30 nautical miles apart.

While the four new species haven’t been formally described, one has been named the Dorado octopus. It was found on a rock unofficially called El Dorado hill. It is distantly related to a species of pearly octopus that was found at Davidson Seamount in California in 2018. The Dorado octopus is also a type of Muusoctopus, a genus that has possibly evolved to gather to brood their eggs in warmer water near the vents. They were found about 1.5 miles below the surface of the ocean.

The species are currently being described by Janet Voight, associate curator of invertebrate zoology from the Field Museum of Natural History, and Fiorella Vasquez from the Zoological Museum at the University of Costa Rica.

“Through hard work, our team discovered new hydrothermal springs offshore Costa Rica and confirmed that they host nurseries of deep-sea octopus and unique biodiversity,” oceanographer Beth Orcutt of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine said in a statement. “It was less than a decade ago that low-temperature hydrothermal venting was confirmed on ancient volcanoes away from mid-ocean ridges. These sites are significantly difficult to find since you cannot detect their signatures in the water column.”

[Related: Octopuses rewrite their own RNA to survive freezing temperatures.]

More than 160 deep-sea animal specimens were collected during the December expedition. They will join the 150 specimens uncovered in June and be archived at the Museum of Zoology at the University of Costa Rica. According to Schmidt, this marks one of the first times that all biological specimens will be stored within the Latin American country from which they were acquired after a deep-sea expedition, instead of going to Europe or the United States. Keeping the specimens in Costa Rica should enable local scientists to easily access samples for research and potentially inform deep sea management strategies.

“The impact of the R/V Falkor (too) expeditions on understanding the deep Pacific waters of Costa Rica will last into the future and hopefully create awareness that evolves into policies to protect the deep sea of the country,” oceanographer Jorge Cortés of the University of Costa Rica said in a statement. “I hope that the expedition serves as an inspiration for new generations. We need more international collaborations to advance knowledge of our deep-sea heritage.”

The post Four new octopus species discovered in the deep-sea vents off Costa Rica appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

John Gould, an amphibian scientist at the University of Newcastle in Australia, had wandered into a dense thicket of vegetation around a pond when he first spotted the fluffy frogs. Frogs are not usually fluffy, so Gould took a closer look and discovered that the frogs were covered in the wispy seeds of Typha orientalis, a common pond plant also known as the broad-leaved cumbungi.

[Related: Check out some of the weirdest warty frogs in North America.]

“It immediately reminded me of a recent science story about a frog that was found to carry pollen on its skin,” Gould told PopSci via email. “Which made me think it might be possible for frogs to do the same thing but with seeds.”

Plants have evolved many different ways of spreading their seeds around the planet. Some seeds have adapted to float on the wind, some can float through water, and others simply drop on the ground and hope for the best. But one of the most ingenious ways plants spread is through animals. They can coax wildlife to eat fruits containing their seeds or even cover their seeds in bristles that stick to the fur of an animal, who drops those seeds far away.

But while this phenomenon has been widely studied in animals like birds and mammals, this new observation could be one of the first documented instances of seed dispersal in an amphibian.

“I think we often have a simplistic view of the environment and how species interact within these systems,” Gould said.

The frogs that Gould spotted were Litoria fallax, or Eastern dwarf tree frogs, a small green species native to Australia’s east coast. After the initial spotting, he and his colleague collected some data to investigate how common it was for these tree frogs to end up covered in Typha seeds and published their results on January 3 in the journal Ethology.

The team found that around 30 percent of the tree frogs at their pond had Typha seeds stuck to them, with seeds found all over their feet, legs, backs, and bellies. Some of these frogs were carrying just one seed, but at least one individual they observed had up to 14 individual seeds all over its body.

Gould said that he believes the frogs probably picked up the seeds by climbing through the thicket of plants where the seeds had fallen. But just because you brush up against something doesn’t mean you’ll start carrying it around. The Typha seeds seemed to attach themselves to the frogs specifically because the seeds’ thin, hair-like tufts can easily stick to the frogs’ wet skin. Scientists believe the seeds’ wispy tufts evolved to help them catch the wind like a kite—but Gould said that this trait could also come with the secondary, or even unintentional, advantage of attaching the seeds to sticky frog skin.

“One trait may have several benefits, some of which have not been directly selected for but happen to be advantageous,” he said.

[Related: This tiny ‘leaf-nester’ is the smallest known fanged frog.]

Their study notes a couple of instances where amphibians are known to act as seed dispersers, like Izecksohn’s Brazilian tree frog, which has been documented carrying the seeds of a couple of different plants after eating their fruit. These examples are rare—most frogs are carnivorous, Gould said, meaning they don’t eat fruit and carry seeds around. But the role of amphibians in seed and pollen dispersal may also be understudied, he added.

That being said, it’s unclear how important these frogs are to the Typha’s seed dispersal—or even whether the frogs contribute to the plant’s seed dispersal at all. Just because the seeds stick to the frogs doesn’t mean that the frogs often carry them to places where they might sprout into new plants. To study this, researchers could follow seed-covered frogs to see where they bring the seeds and how the seeds fall off, Gould said. Additionally, he added, researchers could place seeds on different frogs and track them that way.

But dispersing their seeds through sticky frog skin might be advantageous to the Typha plants, Gould noted. Seeds carried on the wind are dispersed essentially randomly, wherever the wind happens to take them. But, as he pointed out, frogs might carry those seeds directly to another pond, or some other optimal location where the plants can grow.

The post These Australian frogs get absolutely covered in seeds appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

There’s always a reason to stop and appreciate the smaller stuff in life. Since 2018, Tracy and Dan Calder have drawn attention to documenting daily minutiae with the Close-up Photographer of the Year competition, highlighting the past 12 months’ best images capturing nature, animal, underwater, and human subjects.

The 5th annual edition is no exception, with amazing glimpses of everything from slumbering frogs, to magnetic waves, to microscopic life, to rarely seen deep sea creatures. Across a wide range of categories, photographers around the world managed to snap some extremely striking images, making even some of the creepiest of crawlies look pretty cute for a change. Check out a few of our favorite finalists and winners of 2023 below, and remember to keep an eye out for the little things this year. They’re always there and worth seeing, even if you don’t have a camera in hand.

See more at Cupoty.com.

The post Check out some of the past year’s best close-up photography appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

This article was originally featured on Grist.

As spring arrived in southwestern Alaska, a handful of people from the state Department of Fish and Game rose early and climbed into small airplanes. Pilots flew through alpine valleys, where ribs of electric green growth emerged from a blanket of snow. Their shadows crisscrossed the lowland tundra, where thousands of caribou had gathered to calve. Seen through the windscreen, the vast plains can look endless; Wood-Tikchik State Park’s 1.6 million acres comprise almost a fifth of all state park land in the United States.

As the crew flew, it watched for the humped shape of brown bears lumbering across the hummocks. When someone spotted one, skinny from its hibernation, the crew called in the location to waiting helicopters carrying shooters armed with 12-gauge shotguns. 

Over the course of 17 days, the team killed 94 brown bears—including several year-old cubs, who stuck close to their mothers, and 11 newer cubs that were still nursing—five black bears and five wolves. That was nearly four times the number of animals the agency planned to cull. Fish and Game says this reduced the area’s bear population by 74 percent, though no baseline studies to determine their numbers were conducted in the area. 

The goal was to help the dwindling number of Mulchatna caribou by reducing the number of predators around their calving grounds. The herd’s population has plummeted, from 200,000 in 1997 to around 12,000 today. But the killings set off a political and scientific storm, with many biologists and advocates saying the operation called into question the core of the agency’s approach to managing wildlife, and may have even violated the state constitution. 

The Board of Game, which has regulatory authority over wildlife, insisted that intensive control of predators in Wood-Tikchik was the best way to support the struggling herd. But the caribou, which provide essential food and cultural resources for many Alaska Native communities, are facing multiple threats: A slew of climate-related impacts have hampered their grazing, wildfires have burned the forage they rely on, warmer winters may have increased disease, and thawing permafrost has disrupted their migrations.

With conditions rapidly changing as the planet warms, wildlife managers nationwide are facing similar biodiversity crises. Rather than do the difficult work of mitigating rising temperatures, state agencies across the country are finding it easier to blame these declines on predation.

“We don’t want to talk about how the tundra is changing, because that’s something we can’t fix,” says Christi Heun, a former research biologist at Alaska Fish and Game.

In Wyoming, where a deadly winter decimated pronghorn and mule deer, the state spent a record $4.2 million killing coyotes and other predators and is considering expanding bear and mountain lion hunts. Wildlife officials in Washington are contemplating killing sea lions and seals to save faltering salmon populations from extinction. In Minnesota, hunters are inaccurately blaming wolves for low deer numbers and calling for authorities to reduce their population. Culls like these are appealing because they are tangible actions—even when evidence suggests the true threat is much more complex. “You’re putting a Band-Aid on the wrong elbow,” says Heun, who now works for the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife. 

As the climate crisis intensifies, she and others say, wildlife management strategies need to shift too. “All we can do is just kind of cross our fingers and mitigate the best we can,” she adds. For people whose job is to control natural systems, “that’s a hard pill to swallow.”

In January 2022, a flurry of snow fell as the Alaska Board of Game gathered in Wasilla, far from where the Mulchatna caribou pawed through drifts, steam rising from their shaggy backs. Its seven members are appointed by the governor. Though they make important decisions like when hunting seasons open, how long they last, and how many animals hunters can take, they are not required to have a background in biology or natural resources. They also do not have to possess any expertise in the matters they decide. Board members, who did not respond to requests for comment, tend to reflect the politics of the administration in office; currently, under Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy, they are sport hunters, trappers, and guides. 

That day, the agenda included a proposal to expand a wolf control program from Wood-Tikchik onto the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge—though that would require federal approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; the government ultimately rejected the proposal.

The conversation began with two Fish and Game biologists summarizing their research for the board on the herd. Nick Demma explained that, like most ungulates, on average half of Mulchatna’s calves survive. In a study he conducted, many died within two weeks of birth; he mentioned as an aside that their primary predators are brown bears. “But I want to stress that this basic cause of death and mortality rate information is of little use,” he quickly added. Predator and prey dynamics are complex: The calves may have died anyway from injury or disease, and their removal may reduce competition for food and resources, improving the herd’s overall health. 

When Demma tried to analyze the existing wolf control program, he found he didn’t have the data he needed to see if removing the canines helped calves survive. In fact, from 2010 to 2021, when Fish and Game was actively shooting wolves, fewer caribou survived. So the researchers turned their attention to other challenges the herd might be facing. 

His colleague, Renae Sattler, explained that preliminary data from a three-year study suggested there could be a problem with forage quality or quantity, especially in the summer. This could lower pregnancy rates or increase disease and calf mortality. In the 1990s, the herd had swelled as part of a natural boom-and-bust cycle, leading to overgrazing. The slow-growing lichen the animals rely on takes 20 to 50 years to recover. Compounding that, climate change is altering the tundra ecosystem the animals rely upon. She also found that today, 37 percent of the sampled animals had, or were recently exposed to, brucellosis, which can cause abortions, stillbirths, and injuries. Biologists consider such high levels of disease an outbreak and cause for concern.

Sattler also noted that half of the animals that died in the study’s first year were killed by hunters taking them out of season—meaning the predators killing the most adult caribou were people. For all these reasons, the biologists suggested that the Board of Game reconsider the wolf control program.

Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang, who oversees the agency, immediately questioned their conclusions, and their recommendation. Killing predators, he said during the meeting, “seems like one of the only things that’s within our direct control.” In other words, it was better than doing nothing. 

Demma seemed taken aback, and chose his words carefully. “I guess what we are kind of trying to present there is just the information,” he told the board. “It’s—you know—wolves aren’t an important factor right now.” The meeting broke for lunch. When it resumed, the board unanimously voted to continue the wolf program through 2028, and, even more surprisingly, to add brown and black bears over a larger area. The public and Fish and Game biologists didn’t have the typical opportunity to comment on this expansion of predator control.

When he heard what happened, “I just was stunned. I was shocked,” says Joel Bennett, a lawyer and a former member of the Board of Game for 13 years. A hunter himself, Bennett served on the board under four governors and recalls his colleagues having a greater diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. Their votes were always split, even on less contentious issues. The unanimous vote “in itself indicates it’s a stacked deck,” he says. That’s a problem, because “the system only works fairly if there is true representation.”

In August, Bennett and the Alaska Wildlife Alliance filed a lawsuit claiming the agency approved the operation without the necessary “reasoned decision-making,” and without regard for the state’s due process requirements. Bennett also was troubled that the state has tried to keep information about the cull private, including where the bears were killed. He suspects that, to have slain so many animals in just 17 days, the flights might have veered beyond the targeted area. He also wonders if any animals were left wounded. “Why are they hiding so many of the details?” he asked. A public records request reveals that although the board expected the removal of fewer than 20 bears, almost five times that many were culled without any additional consideration. 

Alaska’s wildlife is officially a public resource. Provisions in the state constitution mandate game managers provide for “sustained yields,” including for big game animals like bears. That sometimes clashes with the Dunleavy administration’s focus on predator control. In 2020, for example, the board authorized a no-limit wolf trapping season on the Alexander Archipelago, a patchwork of remote islands in southeast Alaska. It resulted in the deaths of all but five of the genetically distinct canines. The Alaska Wildlife Alliance sued, a case Bennett is now arguing before the state Supreme Court. “That was a gross violation of ‘sustained yield’ in anyone’s definition,” he says, adding that even today, there is no limit on trapping wolves there.

Once, shooting bison from moving trains and leaving them to rot was widely accepted. Attitudes have evolved, as have understandings about predators’ importance—recent research suggests their stabilizing presence may play a crucial role in mitigating some of the effects of climate change. Other studies show predators may help prey adapt more quickly to shifting conditions. But Bennett worries that, just as Alaska’s wildlife faces new pressures in a warming world, management priorities are reverting to earlier stances on how to treat animals. “I’ve certainly done my time in the so-called ‘wolf wars,’” Bennett says, “but we’re entering a new era here with other predators.”

Even as legal challenges to the board’s decisions move forward, scientific debate over the effectiveness of predator control has flourished. Part of the problem is that game management decisions are rarely studied in the way scientists would design an experiment. “You’ve got a wild system, with free-ranging animals, and weather, and other factors that are constantly changing,” says Tom Paragi, a wildlife biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game. “It’s just not amenable to the classic research design.” Even getting baseline data can take years, and remote areas like Wood-Tikchik, which is accessible only by air or boat, are challenging and expensive places to work. 

Paragi has for more than a decade monitored the state’s intensive wildlife management programs and believes predator control can be effective. Looking at data collected since 2003, he notes that when Alaska culled wolves in four areas in a bid to bolster moose, caribou, and deer populations, their numbers increased. They also remained low in those areas where wolves were left alone. (His examination of this data has not yet been published or subject to peer review.) Elsewhere in the state, removing 96 percent of black bears in 2003 and 2004, reducing hunting, and killing wolves boosted the number of moose. Heavy snowfall during the next two winters killed many of the calves, and most of the bears returned within six years, but Paragi still considers the efforts a success. By 2009, the moose population had almost doubled.

He’s also not convinced that Demma and Sattler were right when they told board members that predation doesn’t appear to be the most pressing issue for the Mulchatna caribou. He says record salmon runs have likely brought more bears near the park and the calving grounds, and warmer temperatures have fostered the growth of vegetation that provides places to hide as they stalk caribou. As to the suggestion that the herd is suffering from inadequate food supplies, he notes that their birth rate has been high since 2009. That’s often a strong indicator of good nutrition. 

But Sattler says, “It isn’t that cut-and-dried.” A female caribou’s body condition, she explains, exists on a spectrum and affects her survival, the size and strength of any calves, and how long she can nurse or how quickly she gets pregnant again. “The impact of nutrition is wide-reaching and complex, and it isn’t captured in pregnancy rates alone.” Understanding how nutrition, brucellosis, and other factors are impacting the herd is complicated, she says. 

There are a lot of interacting factors at play on the tundra—and among those trying to determine how best to help the herd. “Part of the frustration on all sides of this is that people have different value systems related to managing wild systems,” Paragi says. To him, last spring’s bear kill wasn’t truly a question of science. “We can present the data, but what you do with the data is ultimately a political decision,” he says. 

Sterling Miller, a retired Fish and Game research biologist and former president of the International Association for Bear Research and Management, acknowledges that crafting regulations is left to the politically appointed Board of Game. But Miller says the agency tends to dismiss criticism of its predator control, when there are valid scientific questions about its effectiveness. In 2022, Miller and his colleagues published an analysis, using Fish and Game harvest data, showing that 40 years of killing predators in an area of south-central Alaska didn’t result in more harvests of moose. “Fish and Game has never pointed out any factual or analytical errors in the analyses that I’ve been involved with,” he says. “Instead, they try to undercut our work by saying it’s based on values.”  

Miller also was involved in what remains one of the agency’s best examples of predator relocations. In 1979, he and another biologist moved 47 brown bears out of a region in south-central Alaska, which resulted in a “significant” increase in the survival of moose calves the next fall. But Miller says Fish and Game often misquotes that work. In reality, due to a lack of funding, Miller didn’t study the young animals long enough to see if they actually reached adulthood. Similarly, Fish and Game conducted an aerial survey this fall of the Mulchatna herd, finding more calves survived after the bear cullings. But Miller and other biologists say that’s not the best metric to measure the operation’s success: These calves may still perish during their first winter. 

The Alaskan government is the only one in the world whose goal is to reduce the number of brown bears, Miller says, despite the absence of baseline studies on how many bears are in this part of the state. It irks him that the state continues to use his research as justification for allowing predator measures like bear baiting. In most parts of Alaska, Miller says, “the liberalization of bear hunting regulations has just been so extreme.” 

While last year’s bear killings were particularly egregious, similar cullings have gone largely unnoticed. State data shows over 1,000 wolves and 3,500 brown and black bears have been killed since 2008 alone. In 2016, for example, the federal government shared radio tag information with the state, which used it to kill wolves when they left the safety of the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve—destroying so many packs that it ended a 20-year study on predator-prey relationships. “There weren’t enough survivors to maintain a self-sustaining population,” recounted an investigation by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The nearby caribou herd still failed to recover.

Multiple employees for Fish and Game, who didn’t want to be named amid fear of repercussions, told Grist that the agency was ignoring basic scientific principles, and that political appointees to the Board were not equipped to judge the effectiveness of these programs.

Even these criticisms of the agency’s science have been subject to politics: This summer, a committee of the American Society of Mammalogists drafted a resolution speaking out about Alaska’s predator control—only for it to be leaked to Fish and Game, which put up enough fuss that it was dropped. Link Olson, the curator of mammals at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, was one of many who supported the group taking a position on the issue. Olson says that even as someone who “actively collect[s] mammal specimens for science,” he is deeply concerned with Alaska’s approach to managing predators.

A month later, 34 retired wildlife managers and biologists wrote an open letter criticizing the bear cull and calling the agency’s management goals for the Mulchatna herd “unrealistic.” Meanwhile, neither Demma nor Sattler, the biologists who cautioned the board, are still studying the herd; Demma now works in a different area of the agency, and Sattler has left the state and taken a new job, for what she says are a variety of reasons.

Every fall, millions of people follow a live-streamed view of the biggest bears in Katmai National Park, which sits southeast of Wood-Tikchik. The animals jockey for fish before their hibernation, in an annual bulking up that the National Park Service has turned into a playful competition, giving the bears nicknames like “Chunk,” and, for a particularly large behemoth, 747. 

Though marked on maps, animals like 747 don’t know where the comparative safety of the national park ends and where state management begins. This can mean the difference between life and death, as Alaskan and federal agencies have taken very different approaches to predator control: The National Park Service generally prohibits it. This has sparked a years-long federalism battle. Back in 2015, for example, the Board of Game passed a rule allowing brown bear baiting in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, leading the Fish and Wildlife Service to ban it in 2016. The state sued, and in 2020 the Trump administration proposed forcing national wildlife refuges to adopt Alaska’s hunting regulations. Similarly, the National Park Service challenged whether it had to allow practices like using spotlights to blind and shoot hibernating bears in their dens in national park preserves. In 2022, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal agencies have ultimate authority over state laws in refuges; last year, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

How these agencies interact with local communities is markedly different, too. Both Alaska Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have regional advisory groups where residents can weigh in on game regulations, but Alissa Nadine Rogers, a resident of the Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta who sits on each, says that, unlike the federal government, it feels like “the state of Alaska does not recognize subsistence users as a priority.” On paper, the state prioritizes subsistence use, but under its constitution, Alaska can’t distinguish between residents, whereas the federal government can put the needs of local and traditional users first. This has frequently led to separate and overlapping state and federal regulations on public lands in Alaska. 

Many people in the region rely on wildlife for a substantial part of their diet. Since the area isn’t connected by roads, groceries must be barged or flown in, making them expensive—a gallon of milk can cost almost $20. In addition to being an important food source, caribou are a traditional part of her Yupik culture, Rogers explains, used for tools and regalia. It’s a real burden for local communities to be told they can’t hunt caribou, which has driven poaching. As state and federal regulations have increased restrictions on hunting, she says residents have difficulty obtaining enough protein to sustain themselves through the winter. “If people don’t understand how it is to live out here, what true perspective do they have?” she asks. “Subsistence users are the ones who bear the burden when it comes to management. And a lot of the time, folks aren’t feeling that their voices are being heard or adequately represented.”

Yet Rogers says state and federal systems can provide an important balance to each other, and she approves of Fish and Game’s predator control efforts. As the former director of natural resources for the Orutsararmiut Native Council, she helped the council write a resolution, later passed by the statewide Alaska Federation of Natives, supporting last spring’s bear and wolf cull. She thinks officials should focus more on climate change but believes culling remains a useful tool. “It gives a vital chance for the [caribou] population and immediately supports growth and recovery,” Rogers says. She also asked Fish and Game to institute a five-year moratorium on all hunting of the herd. “If we go any lower, then we’re pretty much gonna be facing extinction.”

Who gets to make choices about the state’s fish and wildlife resources is a point of increasing tension this year, as a lawsuit unfolds between the state and federal government over who should manage salmon fisheries on the Kuskokwim River, to the west of the Togiak refuge. All five of its salmon returns have faltered for over a decade—making game like caribou even more critical for local communities. (In sharp contrast, to the east of the river, Bristol Bay has seen record recent returns, showing how variable climate impacts can be.) The Alaska Native Federation and the federal government say fishing should be limited to subsistence users, while the state has opened fishing to all state residents.

To ensure Alaska Native communities have a voice in such critical decisions, the Federation called for tribally designated seats on the Board of Game this fall. “We need to have a balanced Board of Game that represents all Alaskans,” says former Governor Tony Knowles. He, too, recommends passing a law to designate seats on the board for different types of wildlife stakeholders, including Alaska Native and rural residents, conservationists, biologists, recreational users, and others. Knowles also proposes an inquiry into Fish and Game’s bear killings, including recommendations on how to better involve the public in these decisions. “We deserve to know how this all happened so it won’t happen again.”

It’s clear to many that business as usual isn’t working. “I have no idea how the state comes up with their management strategy,” says Brice Eningowuk, the tribal administrator for the council of the Traditional Village of Togiak, an Alaska Native village on the outskirts of the Togiak refuge. He says Fish and Game didn’t tell his community about the bear cull, and he expressed skepticism that primarily killing bears would work. “Bears will eat caribou, but that’s not their primary food source,” he says.

Part of the solution is setting more realistic wildlife goals, according to Pat Walsh, whose career as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist involved supervising the caribou program in the Togiak refuge. Recently retired, he says the current goal for the Mulchatna herd size was set 15 years ago, when the population was at 30,000, and is no longer realistic. Reducing that goal could allow targeted subsistence use—which might help ease some of the poaching. Though Fish and Game has killed wolves around the Mulchatna herd for 12 years, he points out the caribou population has steadily dropped. “We recommended the board reassess the ecological situation,” he says, and develop goals “based on the current conditions, not something that occurred in the past.” 

Today’s landscape already looks quite different. Alaska has warmed twice as quickly as the global average, faster than any other state. When Rogers was in high school, she tested the permafrost near her house as an experiment. As a freshman, she only had to jam the spade in the ground before she hit ice. By the time she was a senior, it thawed to a depth of 23 inches—and in one location, to 4 feet. Summers have been cold and wet, and winters have brought crippling ice storms, rather than snow. Berry seasons have failed, and the normally firm and springy tundra has “disintegrated into mush,” Rogers says.

Feeling the very ground change beneath her feet highlights how little sway she has over these shifts. “How are you gonna yell at the clouds? ‘Hey, quit raining. Hey, you, quit snowing’?” Rogers asked. “There’s no way you can change something that is completely out of your control. We can only adapt.”

Yet despite how quickly these ecosystems are shifting, the Department of Fish and Game has no climate scientists. In the meantime, the agency is authorized to continue killing bears on the Mulchatna calving grounds every year until 2028. (The board plans to hear an annual report on the state’s intensive management later this month.) As Walsh summarizes wryly, “It’s difficult to address habitat problems. It’s difficult to address disease problems. It’s easy to say, ’Well, let’s go shoot.’” 

Management decisions can feel stark in the face of nature’s complexity. The tundra is quite literally made from relationships. The lichen the caribou feed on is a symbiotic partnership between two organisms. Fungus provides its intricately branching structure, absorbing water and minerals from the air, while algae produces its energy, bringing together sunlight and soil, inseparable from the habitat they form. These connections sustain the life that blooms and eats and dies under a curving sweep of sky. It’s a system, in the truest and most obvious sense — one that includes the humans deciding what a population can recover from, and what a society can tolerate. 

As another season of snow settles in, the caribou cross the landscape in great, meandering lines. There are thousands of years of migrations behind them and an uncertain future ahead. Like so much in nature, it’s hard to draw a clear threshold. “Everything is going to change,” Rogers says.