Full Moon Energizes Birds

Wild and Crazy | Watch Animal Videos

- If the night sky seems less tranquil on nights when the moon is bright, the observation probably isn't imagined since a new study has determined that at least one bird's level of activity dramatically increases with moonlight.

The finding adds to a growing body of evidence that lunar phases affect the behavior of insects, birds, fish and mammals -- including humans.

The study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Animal Behavior, is among the first to provide direct evidence for the "full moon effect," since many other claims have been based on indirect observations and even folklore, such as werewolf tales.

In the case of streaked shearwaters, the focus of the study, this marine bird flew for longer periods and landed on water more frequently on nights with a full moon. But because sharks and other bird predators also appear to be more energized on such nights, the shearwaters didn't stay on the water for long.

"Pelagic seabirds, including shearwaters, are known to be preyed upon by sharks or seals at sea, so birds are attacked from under the sea, not from the air," lead author Takashi Yamamoto explained to Discovery News.

"When birds are sitting on the water's surface at night with a full moon, it shades moonlight passing through into the sea, so predators might be able to detect seabirds using such shades," added Yamamoto, a researcher at Japan's National Institute of Polar Research.

He and his colleagues captured 48 streaked shearwaters at Sangan Island in Japan. They attached global location sensors to the birds. These devices recorded time, light levels, immersion in seawater and water temperature. Geographical locations were estimated using the light data. At the end of the study, the researchers recaptured the birds and removed the sensors.

Since the birds are in the middle of the food chain, they not only move more to escape full moon-stimulated predators, but they also seem to take advantage of the improved light situation by feeding at night on squid and fish, especially their favorite: anchovies.

The scientists believe other marine birds, such as albatrosses, receive a comparable caffeine-like behavior jolt from a full moon.

Next »21« Previous

Yamamoto further pointed out that prior research found that lunar cycles change insect and bird hormones. They also help to influence fish reproduction. In rodents, they even appear to affect the way food tastes to rats.

Chanchal Bhattacharjee of the Accident and Emergency Department at Bradford Royal Infirmary and colleagues additionally found that animals bite more when the moon is full. Over a two-year study at the infirmary, based on patient numbers, they discovered that during such nights the chances of suffering a bite from any animal -- mostly dogs -- double.

As for humans, Yamamoto says the connection has proven trickier to establish "because many implicating factors may influence human behavior," such as interaction with others or stressful situations.

"But," he added, "there could be a possible explanation that lunar cycles affect hormone changes in humans and such changes consequently control human behavior, such as becoming violent."

He hopes future studies, on both birds and other animals, will help to better identify exactly how lunar phases change behavior and the biophysical processes that underlie these changes.

Kangaroo Rats Get Space-Based Census

Catch Me If You Can | Watch Animal Videos

- Scientists plan to use satellite photos to count giant kangaroo rats, the first-ever monitoring of an endangered species from outer space.

Scientists will examine images taken from the same satellite used by Israeli defense forces to find the circular patches of earth denuded by the rats as they gather food around their burrows. From that they plan to get the first-ever accurate population count of the rodents, a bellwether for the health of a parched plains environment.

By comparing the photos to 30 years of satellite images being released this month by the U.S. Geological Survey, researchers hope to better understand how the population has fluctuated in response to climate change and as the arrival of state and federal canal water turned the arid San Joaquin Valley into a patchwork of intensely cultivated farms and forced Giant Kangaroo Rats to concentrate on higher ground.

The information will help scientists determine when cattle might be used to reduce nonnative grasses, allowing the rats to more easily find food.

This study using satellite technology is taking place on the vast Carrizo Plain, a 390-square-mile desert grassland 150 miles southwest of here that is home to the most concentrated remaining populations of kangaroo rats.

The technology replaces trapping and tedious airplane fly-overs as a means of taking census.

"It allows us to more quickly recognize whether populations are declining where we want them to exist," said Scott Butterfield, a biologist with of The Nature Conservancy. "If they go below a threshold, that is when we would consider intervening."

Next »21« Previous

Giant kangaroo rats, nocturnal rodents so named because they hop on back legs, adapted to their desert environment by extracting moisture from seeds and in their nasal passages from the humid air they exhale. For food, they pile seeds from native grasses in circles outside their burrows, which provide shelter for the endangered San Joaquin antelope squirrel and blunt-nosed lizards. Their fat five-inch bodies are a favored source of food for the endangered kit fox.

High rainfall encourages the growth of taller nonnative grasses, which overrun the shorter grasses that kangaroo rats depend on for food. Less food means fewer offspring. When kangaroo rats decline, so do the endangered native plant and animal species that depend on them for survival, the researchers say.

Determining at what point rainfall affects foraging will help the U.S. Bureau of Land Management establish grazing policy to control nonnative grasses and encourage a healthy kangaroo rat population.

"Without them the entire ecosystem would go out of whack," said Tim Bean, a doctoral student with the department of environmental policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley. "It's fairly rare for something so small to be a keystone species. It's easier to track, say, bison."

Farming has taken 90 percent of the kangaroo rat habitat since the middle of the last century.

The Carrizo Plain National Monument is California's largest remaining undisturbed tract of grasslands similar in biology and geography to the San Joaquin Valley, and it supports many plant and animal species that once thrived on the valley floor.

"Carrizo is like a Yosemite for grasslands, and there are decisions people are learning to make to manage it in a way that preserves its natural state," Bean said. "Since the kangaroo rat is so important to its function, we've got to get a handle on it."

Spider Venom Recipe Could Be Key to Antidote

The Secret of My Success... | Watch Animal Videos

-- Brown recluse spider venom is powerful enough to destroy human tissue, at times leading to gangrenous lesions. Now, after figuring out the venom's ingredient list, scientists are an important step closer to finding an antidote.

Spider venom concoctions have inspired everything from environment-friendly pesticides to treatments for arthritis and erectile dysfunction, so it's likely the newly identified recipe will have pharmacological applications beyond the cure for bites.

The study, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that brown recluse spider venom contains both big and small molecules.

Enzymes and proteins make up most of the "big" compounds, but lead author Frank Schroeder told Discovery News that he and his team identified "additional components that have been previously overlooked."

Schroeder, a scientist at Cornell's Boyce Thompson Institute and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and his colleagues discovered a new family of chemicals in the venom known as sulfated nucleosides.

These compounds, he explained, are based on one of the building blocks of RNA, a molecule in living cells that helps build proteins. A seemingly minor switch in an RNA component appears to contribute to the venom's toxic properties.

The researchers made the discovery after analyzing venom samples from more than 70 different types of spiders, including black widows and three members of the deadly recluse family: the Arizona, desert and brown recluse spiders. To obtain their samples, the researchers electrically stimulated a gland in the spiders that allowed the scientists to "milk" the venom.

The scientists then employed two high-tech methods -- proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry and mass spectrometry -- that enabled them to look at the molecular structure of compounds, in this case, right down to their most basic components.

Although black widow and recluse spiders equally terrify most people, the scientists found that their venoms are very different.

"Our results show that black widow venom does not contain sulfated nucleosides," said Schroeder.

Instead, it seems that one of the hourglass-marked spider's most important venom ingredients is the deadly neurotoxin latrotoxin, which can invade a bite victim's cardiovascular system, as well as the muscles and nervous system.

The research "nicely demonstrates that molecules can be identified from mixtures without the often large amount of work involved in purification," said Arthur Edison, director of the Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Facility and an associate professor at the University of Florida.

In fact, he pointed out that conventional purification methods would destroy the newly identified compounds, so the spectrometry method may be the best, and only, way to study such venoms.

Schroeder, who said he had spiders crawling on his laboratory notebooks during the research, can now create synthetic versions of the venoms, which will be used in future studies.

---

Giant Pythons Invade Florida

Burmese Python

- Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home, potentially threatening other southeastern states, a study said.

"Pythons are likely to colonize anywhere alligators live, including north Florida, Georgia and Louisiana," said Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences professor, in his two-year study.

The pythons thriving in Florida are mostly Burmese pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in the wild.

From 2002-2005, 201 of the beasts were caught by state authorities, but in the last two years the number has more than doubled to 418, Mazzotti said in his study published on the university Web site.

The largest python caught so far in Florida measured 16.4 feet and weighed 154 pounds.

Mazzotti said the serpents, despite their awesome size, are not poisonous, but are excellent swimmers and able to cover great distances in little time. Some, trapped and released with radio transmitters, swam 37 miles in a few hours.

Highly adaptable, pythons prey on cats, dogs, hares, foxes, squirrels, raccoons and even alligators, allowing them to thrive in a variety of environments.

After populating the Florida Everglades -- a vast marshland -- where it is estimated they number 30,000, the giant python is now spreading across the rest of the peninsula.

"Females may store sperm, so they can produce fertile clutches for years. And a 100-something pound snake can easily be producing 60, 80 eggs a year," said Mazzotti, adding that the reptile could eventually populate the entire southern United States.

---

Related Links:

At One Undersea Volcano, Star Heaven

Brittle Star City

Marine scientists surveying a large undersea mountain chain were amazed to find millions of tiny brittle stars swirling their arms to capture food in the undersea current.

An expedition by 19 scientists studied the geology and biology of eight Macquarie Ridge sea mounts. They are part of a string of underwater volcanoes -- dormant for millions of years -- that stretches 875 miles from south of New Zealand toward Antarctica.

The scientists also investigated the world's biggest ocean current -- the Antarctic Circumpolar Current -- amid expectations they would find evidence of climate change in the Southern Ocean.

While the expedition's cameras found a wide range of corals and a high density of cardinal fish, the vast collection of brittle stars was the highlight of the voyage.

"I've personally never seen anything like this -- all these animals, the sheer volume -- all waiting for food from the current," expedition member and marine biologist Mireille Consalvey said Monday. "It challenged what we as scientists thought we knew."

Expedition leader and marine biologist Ashley Rowden said brittle stars usually cover only slopes away from the top of the undersea mountains.

"It got us excited as soon as we saw it," Rowden said of the site, dubbed "Brittle Star City."

The animals are about 0.4 inch across, with arms about 2 inches long.

The expedition began March 26 and returned to port in New Zealand's capital Wellington on April 26.

Tasmanian Devil Endangered as Cancer Hits

Going, Going...

Australia's Tasmanian devil will be listed as an endangered species this week as a result of a deadly and disfiguring cancer outbreak, the state government said Monday.

The disease, a fast-growing head tumor which spreads over the marsupial's face and mouth and prevents it from eating, often killing it within months, has cut the island's devil population in the wild by as much as 60 percent.

A spokeswoman for Tasmania's Primary Industries Minister David Llewellyn said the small, black-haired animal would be listed as an endangered species by state officials on Wednesday.

The minister told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the animal would be upgraded from a vulnerable to an endangered species so that the "appropriate resources and effort" can be poured into protecting it.

The government has also backed a plan to build an "insurance population" of healthy Tasmanian devils at wildlife reserves, zoos and other protected areas.

"If required, these animals could be utilized to help re-establish Tasmanian devil numbers in the wild," Llewellyn said.

The facial tumor is extremely unusual in that it is a contagious cancer, spread from devil to devil by biting.

The devil is the world's largest marsupial carnivore and now only lives in Australia's southern island state.

Early European settlers named the feisty marsupial the devil for its spine-chilling screeches, dark appearance and reputed bad temper which, along with its steeltrap jaw, made it appear incredibly fierce.

Rat Mojo All in the Tail

It's All in the Tail

- The function of tails has somewhat stumped scientists over the years, but now researchers have determined that female rats' tails play a very important role in the rodent mating process.

Female rats use their tails to direct, stimulate and balance their male partners, scientists determined.

Tails have been known to provide animals with extra sensory perception, since a tail can "feel" around itself, and to help with heat regulation, balance and navigation.

According to the research team who worked on the project, the new findings, which add mating facilitation to the tail's known list of functions, could also apply to cattle, cats, dogs, rabbits and certain primates, such as the spider monkey.

Every part of the tail appears to be important.

Pablo Pacheco, who led the study, told Discovery News that "the base of the female's tail facilitates, modulates and even permits the male's lateral mounting, which guarantees that the penile tip will find the vaginal opening," while the tip of her tail then offers the male stimulation.

Pacheco, a researcher at the Institute of Neuroethology at the University of Veracruz and the Institute of Biomedical Investigations at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and his colleagues surgically removed both female and male rat tails and then observed how the removals affected their mating.

Normally males sniff out receptive females, produce ultrasonic mating calls and engage in urine marking. They then join the female and initiate rhythmic pelvic thrusts, which lead to the actual mating.

Neither the males nor the females found the tail-less subjects to be any less attractive. Males without tails seemed to move a bit awkwardly, but it was the tail-less females that really threw off the normal pattern, according to the study, which was published in the journal Animal Behavior.

More Bird Species Means Fewer West Nile Cases

West Nile Carrier

Here's proof that biodiversity is good for your health: Having more bird species present in a given area reduces the incidence of West Nile virus infection in humans.

That's the finding of a new study analyzing every U.S. county east of the Mississippi River where human cases of West Nile virus infection have been documented, and comparing each with a neighboring county where human West Nile cases have not been reported.

Applying statistical analysis while controlling for socioeconomic factors and how urbanized each county is, John Swaddle and Stavros Calos at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., found that bird diversity and other factors related to the bird population could explain 50 percent of the variation in West Nile cases.

"We were surprised by how high it was," Swaddle said.

Bird diversity alone can explain about 20 to 25 percent of the variation, he said. The study was published online yesterday in the journal PLoS ONE.

Birds are the hosts for the West Nile virus, which is spread by mosquitoes. When the density of infected birds is high enough, the likelihood that a human will be bitten by an infected mosquito increases.

Most humans do not fall ill with West Nile virus, even if bitten by an infected mosquito; those over 50 are at greater risk of experiencing severe symptoms.

Part of the reason that increased diversity reduces West Nile cases, Swaddle said, is that some birds are better carriers for the virus than others.

The American robin, for instance, appears to be a good host for the disease.

Search Goes on for Elusive Woodpecker

Eagerly Sought

- For the last three years, researchers in camouflage and waders have slogged through the east Arkansas woods hoping to spot a rare bird that so far seems unwilling to be seen.

Some scientists still believe the ivory-billed woodpecker exists in the Big Woods, but they haven't been able to capture a sharp image of its remarkable 30-inch wing span and glossy black and white feathers on film or video camera.

To date, searchers have investigated about 83,000 of the 550,000-acre woods that swallow up the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is where kayaker Gene Sparling spotted the bird Feb. 11, 2004, and Cornell University experts said they made subsequent sightings.

Engineer David Luneau caught a blurry image of what some believe is the "Lord God bird," the third-largest woodpecker in the world, on video in 2004. Others challenge the claim that the ivory bill survived decades of clearing forests for farming, timber, roads and towns.

"Since early 2005, none of our group nor anyone from the public that we are aware of has made a definitive absolute sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker that we can document with a photograph or a sound recording," said Ron Rohrbaugh, project director at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

According to researchers, it became known as the "Lord God bird" because people, upon seeing it, would exclaim, "Lord God, look at that bird!"

The Big Woods is a hot, humid place -- tupelo, cypress and oak bottomland filled with mosquitoes, poisonous cottonmouths and thigh-high swamp water. The swamp is so thick with vegetation that scientists concentrate their work on the months when leaves are off the trees -- and the temperatures are bearable. They target areas where they have reports of credible sightings.

Wildlife biologist Allan Mueller said he saw an ivory-billed woodpecker during a search in May 2007. But it happened so quickly he missed getting the bird on camera.

"We were hearing calls, we were hearing the double-knocks, which is a distinctive way that the ivory-bill woodpeckers have of knocking on a tree," he said. "It's just two very quick knocks on a tree. Bam. Bam."

To the untrained eye, the ivory bill can be mistaken for a pileated woodpecker. Past research suggests the ivory bill ranges as much as six miles from its roost while searching for succulent beetle larvae, its favorite food.

Next »21« Previous

Apes Plan for the Future

This Will Work...

- What goes on in an ape's mind might be more similar to our own way of thinking than previously realized, suggests a new study that found chimpanzees and orangutans plan for their futures.

Since this skill also entails forethought involving self-control and mental time travel, the findings point to a complex "inner mental world" possessed by apes, including gorillas, which were studied in trials before the official research began.

"When humans shut their eyes, a new vivid world takes hold," co-author Mathias Osvath told Discovery News.

"This mental world with its first-person perspective has been suggested to be unique to humans," added Osvath of Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden. "It is arguably impossible to plan like the apes do without having an inner world of some sort. (Our results) strongly imply a consciousness that many think is restricted to the human domain."

For the study, published in Animal Cognition, he and colleague Helena Osvath first showed two female chimps, Linda and Maria Magdalena, along with a male orangutan named Naong, how to sip a yummy fruit soup using a straw-like hose.

The researchers next presented their furry test subjects with a favorite fruit -- a grape -- and the hose, which the animals could save and use to sip soup later. The apes exercised self-control by foregoing the immediate grape reward. They instead chose the hose and patiently waited for the bigger food payoff.

To control for associative learning, a process whereby someone just blindly links one thing to another, the researchers again offered fruit to the apes, as well as one functional tool and three non-functional ones.

The scientists also conducted a similar test, where they again presented the sippy hose, but tried to distract the animals with a blue plastic car, a small teddy bear, a colorful screwdriver handle, a brown bootlace, a yellow plastic toy spade, a picture of a banana, and other items potentially coveted by apes.

The chimps and the orangutan aced the tests, choosing the hose 11 out of 12 trials. In fact, one of the few glitches during the entire study occurred when Linda's playing infant grabbed the hose and hid it.

"In our study, we show that the value of the hose is not intrinsic, meaning it is not worth anything in itself, as it would have if it were associatively learned," said Osvath.

Next »21« Previous

Mutant Mosquitoes May Combat Malaria

Mutant Mosquito to the Rescue?

- In a cramped, humid laboratory in London, mosquitoes swarming in stacked, net-covered cages are being scrutinized for keys to controlling malaria.

Scientists have genetically modified hundreds of them, hoping to stop them from spreading the killer disease.

Faced with a losing battle against malaria, scientists are increasingly exploring new avenues that might have seemed far-fetched just a few years ago.

"We don't have things we can rely on," said Andrea Crisanti, the malaria expert in charge of genetically modifying mosquitoes at London's Imperial College. "It's time to try something else."

Malaria kills nearly three million people worldwide every year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Millions of bed nets have been handed out, and villages across the continent have been doused with insecticide. But those measures haven't put a significant dent in malaria cases.

After a string of failed initiatives, the United Nations recently announced a campaign to provide bed nets to anyone who needs them by 2010.

Some scientists think creating mutant mosquitoes resistant to the disease might work better.

"We still have a malaria burden that is increasing," said Yeya Toure, a tropical disease expert at the World Health Organization.

"Under such circumstances, we have to investigate whether genetically modified mosquitoes could make a difference," said Toure, who is not involved in the Imperial College research.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has found the work so promising it has invested nearly $38 million into genetic strategies to stop mosquitoes from transmitting diseases like malaria and dengue fever.

"This is one of those high-tech, high risk innovations that would fundamentally change the struggle between humans and mosquitoes," said Dr. Regina Rabinovich, director of infectious diseases development at the Gates Foundation.

Mosquitoes bred to be immune to malaria could break the disease's transmission cycle. "That is the nirvana of malaria control," said Rabinovich. "It would potentially transform what the field looks like."

In 2005, Crisanti proved it was possible to create a genetically modified mosquito by inserting a gene that glowed fluorescent green in males.

Among other possibilities, he and his team are now planning to create sterile male mosquitoes to mate with wild female mosquitoes, thus stunting population growth. They are also trying to engineer a malaria-resistant mosquito.

Last year, American researchers created mosquitoes resistant to a type of malaria that infects mice. Others are altering the DNA of the mosquitoes that spread dengue.

But not everyone thinks these super mosquitoes are such a good idea. Some scientists think there are too many genetic puzzles to be solved for modified mosquitoes to work.

The malaria-causing parasite, which mosquitoes then transmit to humans, is simply too good at evading anything scientists might devise to protect the mosquito, argued to Jo Lines, a malaria expert at London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Next »21« Previous

Tiny Critters Survive Space (With No Spacesuit)

Tough Space Traveler | Video: Discovery Space

When it comes to surviving open exposure in space, a tiny invertebrate now stands out: tardigrades, also known as "water-bears."

These small, segmented animals not only survived a 12-day orbital expedition, some members of the community felled by solar radiation actually recovered upon their return to Earth.

"How these animals were capable of reviving their body … remains a mystery," said lead researcher Ingemar Jönsson, with Sweden's Kristianstad University, who writes about the discovery in this week's issue of Current Biology.

In what is apparently the first test of an animal's ability to survive open exposure to space, tardigrades were packed aboard the European-funded Foton-M3 spacecraft launched by Russian in September 2007.

The tiny invertebrates, which range in size from about 0.1 to 1.5 mm, are more commonly found on mosses and lichens. Because their habitats often dry up, the creatures are extremely hardy and can survive prolonged periods of total dryness.

That seems to be just the beginning of their skills. Packed in ventilated chambers that were exposed to the vacuum of space, adults from two species of tardigrades were subjected to extreme heat, frigid cold, cosmic rays and deadly levels of solar ultraviolet radiation. They had no air, water or food.

Most of the 3,000 creatures not only survived, but they went on to reproduce once they came back to Earth.

About 12 percent of the animals exposed to ultraviolet radiation revived after being put back in water, a puzzling find since researchers presume the sterilizing rays broke down the tardigrades' DNA.

"This type of radiation cuts the DNA strand effectively in most organisms," Jönsson told Discovery News.

Further tests are needed to determine if indeed the animals' genetic material was indeed damaged and what sort of mechanisms tardigrades have to make such unprecedented repairs.

The ultraviolet levels of radiation in space were more than 1,000 times more intense than what reaches the surface of Earth.

The experiment was among 43 microgravity science investigations sponsored by the European Space Agency, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Canada and Russia aboard the Foton spacecraft, which circled about 168 miles above Earth.

While no additional flights are currently planned, the researchers would like to fly tardigrades aboard the International Space Station to see if they could survive even longer forays in space.

Zoo Animals Try Online Dating

Likes Walks on the Beach and Fine Bamboo | Watch Animal Videos

- Attention, amorous guys: Killarney's an Australian cutie, but woo her with care.

The feisty gal once swatted at a beau who got a little close, and gave another poor fellow the cold shoulder during their introduction.

Undaunted, Killarney's friends keep updating her online profile in the hope of finding her Mr. Right. Like many of her contemporaries, the koala might find her dream date waiting somewhere in the files of a computerized matchmaking service, keepers at the Riverbanks Zoo theorize.

Just like the digital dating services that pair up people, so-called studbooks are used to match most animals held in captivity. The databases containing information on sex, age and weight -- not so much about favorite comfort foods or long walks on the beach -- are used by more than 200 zoos nationally and some internationally. They're practically taking the place of Mother Nature in the not-so wild world of captive animal breeding.

Now, new software is going to the Web, promising more easily accessible data, faster matches and -- in a page out of the most particular of human dating sites -- details on an animal's personality to ease what can be a testy process.

Zoos won't be required to document the turn-ons and turn-offs of each animal in Zoological Information Management Systems, a collaboration between about 150 zoos and aquariums that's a year or two away from wide distribution.

At the very least, though, the software will give zookeepers better access to species-level details currently found only in zoo husbandry manuals that now are mostly e-mailed back and forth, said Bob Wiese, director of collections for the Zoological Society of San Diego.

While there's no candlelight or Marvin Gaye being played in the back rooms of zoos, there are endless tricks used to get the animals in the mood, said Wiese, widely considered the authority on ZIMS. In China, breeding experts have claimed success putting giant pandas in the mood by showing them images of other pandas mating -- panda porn, as it's been called.

"There are some frogs that you have to simulate rain for or they won't come out and breed," Wiese said. "Other frogs, they just need to hear the sound of rain and the sound of lightening and thunder. That's what sets off their hormones."

Around since the 1980s in paperback form, most of today's studbooks are in computerized databases. Basic information such as family tree, medical history, age and weight are entered by studbook keepers, then sent to a central location where the data is analyzed and converted into a "master plan" for breeding.

But the databases have their limitations. They aren't updated quickly and don't include the extra information from the dog-eared husbandry manuals on setting the optimal conditions for an animal's breeding.

Ants Slack Off for Colony's Greater Good

Just the Right Size... | Watch Animal Videos

They are capable of carrying up to seven times their body weight, but leaf cutter ants are slacking off for the greater good, according to new research.

In a paper published in today's Biology Letters, Martin Burd of Australia's Monash University details how a lower level of productivity by foraging leaf cutter ants improves productivity within the colony.

"What looks inefficient is actually efficiency," Burd, who is attached to the School of Biological Sciences, said.

Burd measured the work done by worker ants tasked with collecting and harvesting leaf fragments in colonies of Atta colombica. He measured the load the ants carried, the time it took to cut leaf fragments and the rate at which fragments were delivered to the colony.

Burd and co-author Jerome Howard at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of New Orleans found the ants were carrying about half the maximum load they could manage.

Even when the faster delivery time due to the lighter load was taken into account, they were still 35 percent less productive than their optimal performance.

Burd said it was "pretty clear they were underperforming." He added that the inefficiency was explicable only if it improved transportation and processing of the leaf matter inside the nest.

Once the leaf fragment is delivered to the colony, its tissue is processed for use to cultivate fungal gardens that provide feed for the colony's larvae, Burd said.

It is then transported by workers to one of the colony's fungal gardens where it is cleaned and dissected into tiny particles that are then implanted in the gardens.

Next »21« Previous

Africa's 'Unicorn' Caught on Camera

Candid Camera | Watch Animal Videos

- The okapi, an African animal so elusive that it was once believed to be a mythical unicorn, has been photographed in the wild for the first time, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said Thursday.

Camera traps set by the ZSL and the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) captured pictures of the okapi in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The pictures have dispelled fears that the species had died out in more than a decade of civil war.

Noelle Kumpel, ZSL's Bushmeat and Forests Conservation Program Manager, said: "To have captured the first-ever photographs of such a charismatic creature is amazing, and particularly special for ZSL given that the species was originally described here over a century ago.

"Okapi are very shy and rare animals, which is why conventional surveys only tend to record droppings and other signs of their presence."

The okapi, which have a black, giraffe-like tongue and zebra-like stripes on their behind, were last spotted in the Virunga National Park nearly 50 years ago on the west bank of the Semliki River.

The new ZSL survey revealed a previously unknown okapi population on the east side of the river.

Thierry Lusenge, a member of ZSL's Democratic Republic of Congo survey team, said: "The photographs clearly show the stripes on their rear, which act like unique fingerprints.

"We have already identified three individuals, and further survey work will enable us to estimate population numbers and distribution in and around the park, which is a critical first step in targeting conservation efforts."

The exact status of the okapi is unknown as civil conflict and poor infrastructure makes access to the forests of DRC difficult.

But ZSL warned that even the newly-discovered okapi population was under threat from poachers.

Okapi meat, reportedly from the Virunga park, is now on sale in the nearby town of Beni and ZSL warned that if hunting continues at the current rate, okapi could become extinct in the park within a few years.

Tiny Frog, Believed Extinct, Found in Australia

Back From the Brink | Watch Animal Videos

- A tiny frog species thought by many experts to be extinct has been rediscovered alive and well in a remote area of Australia's tropical north, researchers said Thursday.

The 1.5 inch-long Armoured Mistfrog had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck northern Queensland state.

But two months ago, a doctoral student at James Cook University in Townsville conducting research on another frog species in Queensland stumbled across what appeared to be several Armoured Mistfrogs in a creek, said professor Ross Alford, head of a research team on threatened frogs at the university.

Conrad Hoskin, a researcher at The Australian National University in Canberra who has been studying the evolutionary biology of north Queensland frogs for the past 10 years, conducted DNA tests on tissue samples from the frogs and determined they were the elusive Armoured Mistfrog.

Alford's group got the results on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency also confirmed Hoskin's findings.

"A lot of us were starting to believe it had gone extinct, so to discover it now is amazing," Hoskin said. "It means some of the other species that are missing could potentially just be hidden away along some of the streams up there."

Next »21« Previous

Roadsides Helping Bees Thrive

Bee Real Estate | Watch Animal Videos

- Roadsides may seem like the crummiest real estate around, but new research suggests that in fact they could serve as nature preserves for crucial pollinators, particularly native bees.

Roadsides planted with native plants hosted more than twice as many total bees and almost 50 percent more bee species than roadsides covered in non-native grasses, according to the study, published in Biological Conservation.

Jennifer Hopwood made the discovery while in graduate school in ecology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. She started the research after picking up a book on roadside ecology from her colleague's desk and starting to read.

"I just became really interested in the idea that roadsides could be potential habitat for animals and could also be a haven for plant species," she said.

Several programs have restored the plants along roadsides in the Midwest to native species, which offer advantages over the non-native plants that were once recommended.

Native plants have deep roots, so they help prevent erosion, and they require less mowing and herbicide use, which saves on maintenance costs, although the up-front cost of planting and establishing the native grasses is higher.

But Hopwood's primary interest was in bees, so she began investigating bees' success in such habitats.

Hopwood collected bees from several roadside sites in Kansas that had been restored to native plants, and compared them with nearby, unrestored roadsides. Not only did Hopwood find that native plants hosted more than twice as many bees and almost 30 more types than weedy sites, but she also found that this relationship held regardless of how many flowers were present.

Next »21« Previous

Climbing: A Cake Walk for Some Primates

Walk, Climb -- No Sweat

-- Scientists have long thought that walking is easier than climbing for primates -- explaining why we humans ended up on our feet all the time.

But researchers at two U.S. universities have found that, at least for smaller primates like squirrel monkeys and lemurs, climbing is no more difficult and energy-consuming than walking.

And that could explain the evolutionary conundrum of why some 65 million years ago the tiniest ancestors of humans, apes and monkeys climbed into the trees and never came down.

In research published in the May 16 issue of the journal Science, researchers at Duke University in North Carolina and the University of South Alabama in Mobile said they sought to find out if climbing with hands and arms was more energy-intensive than walking for several small primate species.

They tested five species: the slender loris (Loris tardigradus) found in Sri Lanka; the pygmy slow loris (Nycticebus pygmaeus) of Indochina; the fat-tailed dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus medius) and the mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz), both of Madagascar; and the Bolivian squirrel monkey (Saimiri boliviensus).

Duke University's Daniel Schmitt, one of the leaders of the study, said scientists had assumed that gravity always made walking less energy-intensive than climbing.

"We thought climbing would always be more expensive" for the animals, Schmitt said.

The researchers had to design a "climbing treadmill" -- essentially a loop of rope around two pulleys -- to measure the animals' exertion while climbing.

Extinct Tasmanian Tiger Gene Resurrected

Gone, But Not Forgotten

- Scientists said Tuesday they had "resurrected" a gene from the extinct Tasmanian tiger by implanting it in a mouse, raising the future possibility of bringing animals such as dinosaurs back to life.

In what they describe as a world first, researchers from Australian and U.S. universities extracted a gene from a preserved specimen of the dog-like marsupial -- formally known as a thylacine -- and revived it in a mouse embryo.

"This is the first time that DNA from an extinct species has been used to induce a functional response in another living organism," said research leader Andrew Pask of the University of Melbourne.

The announcement was hailed here as raising the possibility of recreating extinct animals.

Mike Archer, dean of science at the University of New South Wales, who led an attempt to clone the thylacine when he was director of the Australian Museum, called it "one very significant step in that direction."

"I'm personally convinced this is going to happen," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "I've got another group working on another extinct Australian animal and we think this is highly probable."

Pask said in a telephone interview that while recreating extinct animals might be possible one day, it could not be done with the technique his team used on the Tasmanian tiger.

"We can look at the function of one gene within that animal. Most animals have about 30,000 genes," he said.

"We hope that with advances in techniques that maybe one day that might be possible, but certainly as science stands at the moment, we are not able to do that, unfortunately," he said.

"We've now created a technique people can use to look at the function of DNA from any extinct species, so you could use it from mammoth or Neanderthal man or even dinosaurs if there's some intact DNA there.

Cancer-Sniffing Dog to Be Cloned

Black Lab Like Me

- A Japanese center which says it has trained a dog to sniff out human cancer cells is cloning the animal in South Korea, a Seoul-based biotechnology company and the dog's owner said Wednesday.

Cloned fetuses from the black labrador retriever named Marine were last month implanted into a surrogate mother dog, said Ra Jeong-Chan, president of RNL Bio.

"We are going to see the clones around the end of this month," Ra said.

Marine, who is six and half years old, lost her ability to reproduce when she had her womb removed because of disease.

She is owned by Yuji Satoh, a head trainer at St. Sugar Cancer Sniffing Dog Training Center, located at Shirahama in Chiba prefecture.

Satoh said experts from Seoul National University, which created the world's first cloned dog in 2005, had taken some skin samples from Marine and brought them back to South Korea for the project.

"We are making clones of Marine. She is touted as having a world top cancer-sniffing ability. By making her clones, we want to promote studies into cancer-sniffing dogs," Satoh said.

"It's the world's first cloning of a cancer-sniffing dog."

He and the Korean firm, which is coordinating the project, have agreed to produce two clones and train them at Satoh's center.

Caribou Food Supply Threatened by Warming

A Changing Landscape

Caribou in West Greenland migrate inland in spring, to the western edge of the country's inland ice sheet, where they give birth to their calves. There, they feed on freshly emerged plants, which provide the best nutrition.

But two new studies by Eric Post of the Pennsylvania State University and colleagues show that global warming has thrown this system out of whack. Plants are emerging earlier, and all at once across the landscape, so the caribou are arriving to find the plants they rely on are past their prime.

"Because of warming, food is becoming available earlier in the year for caribou. That might sound like a good thing, because caribou come out of the long Arctic winter hungry," Post told Discovery News by e-mail from Greenland, where he is awaiting the spring calving season.

"But we also found that caribou are not adjusting their birth season to help keep up with changes in plant growth. As a consequence, their food is in a sense being taken off the table again before caribou have had a chance to get what they need."

Post documented that over a period of six seasons -- 1993, and 2002-2006 -- the average spring temperature rose by more than 8 degrees Fahrenheit and plants emerged about two weeks earlier, while calf mortality increased fourfold and calf production declined by a factor of seven. These results were published online earlier this month in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

In the second study, appearing online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Post's team showed that warming is also causing plants across the landscape to mature all at the same time. Normally, caribou would start out in the valley where plants emerge first and move uphill, following new plants as the season progresses.

"As it gets warmer, there's less and less difference between the plants in the valley and those on the hilltop. So now, when the caribou goes uphill, counting on finding a good meal, it's out of luck," Post said. "The plants are past their peak."

Pandas Evacuated From Quake-Hit Reserve

Helping Hands

- Six rare giant pandas were transferred Friday from the world-famous breeding center at Wolong, joining eight other animals who will leave the site in southwest China due to severe damage caused by last week's quake.

Xinhua news agency said the six of the endangered animals were trucked to another nature reserve in quake-hit Sichuan province because of damage to their shelters and a food shortage caused by the May 12 earthquake.

"There is enough water now, but food is still a major problem. The pandas are in urgent need of bamboos and apples," Xiong Beirong, an official with the Sichuan provincial forestry bureau, was quoted as saying.

The pandas were headed for a reserve near the city of Ya'an, about 124 miles to the southwest.

The fate of the Wolong pandas, possibly Sichuan's most famed residents, has been a cause of public concern following the quake.

Wolong is a major tourist draw to the region and source of some of the animals that China has loaned to overseas zoos in diplomatic goodwill gestures.

The epicenter of last week's quake was in Wenchuan county, about 20 miles from Wolong.

The quake had a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale, and caused catastrophic damage and at least 55,000 deaths.

Eight other pandas were to be flown out of Sichuan to Beijing Zoo on Saturday, a zoo spokeswoman said on Thursday.

However, that was a previously scheduled transfer as the pandas were due to be displayed in the capital during the August 8-24 Olympic Games.

Bee Prefers Sex With Orchid Over Females

Hey There, Handsome

- It's no wonder romantic couples give each other flowers, since researchers have determined one orchid is so attractive to male bees that the males actually prefer sex with the orchid over sex with female bees of their own species.

The finding demonstrates the incredible seductive powers of certain flowers, and how these flowers -- in this case Ophrys orchids -- can compete with female insects for male attention.

The orchid sexual tool kit includes three powerful "weapons" that overwhelm male Colletes cunicularius bees through sight, touch and smell. All three mimic characteristics of female bees that are ready to mate.

"The visual mimicry includes (copying) the color and shape of a female (bee)," co-author Florian Schiestl told Discovery News.

"Tactile memory includes (copying) the hairs on the body of a female," added Schiestl, a University of Zurich botanist and biologist.

He and colleague Nicolas Vereecken focused, however, on the orchid's perfume, which humans cannot smell, but is irresistible to male bees.

One whiff of the scent encourages the bees to hop on flowers and mate with them, just as they would with a female bee. Unbeknownst to the male, pollen from the flower attaches to the bee during the process, so that when he hops to another flower, pollination takes place.

For the study, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists collected 391 virgin C. cunicularius female bees and multiple Ophrys flowers from 15 different populations across Western Europe. Most females within solitary bee species mate just once during their lifetime, so finding virgins wasn't too difficult.

The scientists analyzed the chemical composition of sex pheromones emitted by the female bees and compared this to the chemical make-up of the orchid's perfume. The mixtures were nearly the same, containing the same compounds, except the chemical ratios were different in the orchid, meaning that the flower's perfume wound up being its own unique blend, which the male bees actually preferred over the scent of the female bees' sex pheromones.

The researchers tested this fact by tweaking the female pheromones so that they matched the orchid's perfume. The scent, as expected, drove male bees into a lovemaking frenzy.

Balding Penguin Gets Wetsuit

Does This Make My Flippers Look Fat?

---

-- What's black and white and warm all over? A penguin in a wetsuit, naturally. Sounds like a joke, but it's quite serious for biologists at the California Academy of Sciences, who had a wetsuit created for an African penguin to help him get back in the swim of things.

Pierre, a venerable 25 years old, was going bald, which left him with an embarrassingly exposed, pale pink behind.

Unlike marine mammals, which have a layer of blubber to keep them warm, penguins rely on their waterproof feathers. Without them, Pierre was unwilling to plunge into the academy's penguin tank and ended up shivering on the sidelines while his 19 peers played in the water.

"He was cold; he would shake," said Pam Schaller, a senior aquatic biologist at the academy.

Pierre's species of penguin is accustomed to temperate climates, unlike many of their cousins. The birds are nicknamed Jackass penguins because they make sounds similar to braying donkeys, quite startling the first time you hear it in an aquarium.

Schaller first tried a heat lamp to keep Pierre warm. Then she got another idea: If wetsuits help humans frolic in the chilly Pacific, why not whip up one in a slightly smaller size?

Staff at Oceanic Worldwide, a supplier of dive gear based in San Leandro, were enthusiastic about making a real penguin suit.

"We were really excited to do it," said Teo Tertel, company marketing specialist. "We heard most of these penguins only live to 20, and our little buddy there was already 25. Anything we could do to help them, we were all for it."