Animals

More than 1,300 critically endangered land snails have been released in the Ilhas Desertas (Desert Islands) archipelago off the Moroccan coast. The reintroduction of the tiny molluscs to their native habitat followed the rescue of two obscure species of the snail from the edge of extinction, reported The Guardian. The snails hadn’t been recorded for […]

More than a third of animals on Earth are herbivores, but since plants don’t have a lot of calories it can be hard for grazers to eat enough to meet their energy needs. To add to the problem, climate change is lowering the nutritional value of certain foods that these plant eaters rely on. Fossil […]

Scientists have estimated that bowhead whales — the longest-living whale species — can live more than 200 years. It was once thought that the bowhead’s cousin, the right whale, had an average lifespan of about 70 to 80 years, but new research has revised that estimate to more than 130 years — nearly twice as […]

Researchers in northwest Peru’s Alto Mayo region have discovered 27 new animal species, including a semi-aquatic mouse, a salamander that climbs trees and a “blob-headed fish.” The 38-day survey uncovered and recorded more than 2,000 species of plants and wildlife, reported The Guardian. “Discovering even one new species of mammal on an expedition would be […]

The amount of rain that falls affects our environment in various ways, from river flow to the availability of freshwater, but it can also shape the diversity and distribution of ecosystems within different regions of the globe. A new long-term study of Seychelles warblers (Acrocephalus sechellensis) on Cousin Island has revealed that rainfall during the […]

Beginning in late fall 2014 and lasting into 2016, an anomalous, massive marine heatwave nicknamed “the Blob” developed off the western coast of the U.S., covering all of Alaska’s coastwater and extending as far south as Southern California, raising ocean temperatures by several degrees Celsius. The Blob had an extreme effect on Alaska in particular. […]

With the climate crisis leading to more frequent and severe droughts, many wildlife species in the lower 48 United States will suffer from year-long droughts almost five times as frequently in the coming decades as they did historically, according to a new study. Droughts lasting three years could become nearly seven times as frequent, a […]

When we have an audience, it can affect how well we perform. New research has found that the performance of chimpanzees on challenging computer tasks is influenced by how many humans are watching. The findings of the study suggest that the “audience effect” existed before reputation-based human societies, a press release from Cell Press said. […]