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Happy the elephant has had her day in court, but that court decided she is still an animal and not a person with basic rights. She will continue living out her life in the Bronx Zoo. The New York State Court of Appeals decided in a 5-2 decision that the principle of habeas corpus — which prevents unlawful confinement for human persons – does not apply to Happy, a female elephant in her fifties.
For more than a century we thought the “fantastic giant tortoise” (Chelonoidis phantasticus) of the Galápagos was extinct, but a 50-year-old female of the species has been found. She’s been named “Fernanda,” after the Fernandina Island in the western Galápagos Archipelago where she was living.
A California court has determined that a bee is a fish, at least as far as the California Endangered Species Act is concerned. The question arose in 2018 when three advocacy groups – the Center for Food Safety, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the Defenders of Wildlife — petitioned to have four types of bumblebees listed as endangered under CESA.
We’ve known for a few years that the larvae of certain beetle species can eat plastic, giving hope to the idea that the world’s waste problem might have a (quasi) natural solution. Now researchers in Australia believe they have identified the garbage-eating gut bacteria that makes this gastronomic feat possible. Their research appears in Microbial Genomics.
This week New Zealand unveiled a draft plan to tax farm-based methane emissions in an effort to fight climate change, which is another way of saying that the country is putting a price on belching cows and sheep.
On March 13, a 3-year-old husky named Leon disappeared from the Iditarod, having slipped his collar at a checkpoint roughly halfway through Alaska’s annual sled race. Three months and 150 miles later, Leon has been found “understandably skinny but seemingly healthy,” Iditarod spokesperson Shannon Markley told the Associated Press.
Zoo Miami is about to open its Sea Turtle Hospital, but it already has taken in a patient – a 50-year-old, 388 pound loggerhead turtle. On May 22, the zoo got a call from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission: a large female loggerhead was just rescued near the Port St. Lucie Power Plant. She had a severe wound on her left front flipper, probably from a shark attack.
West Sacramento, California has a novel answer to wildfires: 400 goats. The city has enlisted the services of the animals to eat their way through vegetation that would otherwise become fuel for the fires that have scorched the state in recent years.
The male of many species will go to great lengths to convince the female that his genes are worthy of passing on to future generations. Displays of size, strength, colors, and so on are deployed throughout the animal kingdom in mating rituals. Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have discovered a new ‘come hither’ ploy used by spiders: tap dancing.
It is a little strange that the world’s largest plant has only just been discovered. Where was it hiding all this time? The answer is underwater, just off the coast of Western Australia.
Male mice are freaked out by bananas, and now we know why. Researchers at McGill University in Montreal discovered the fruit fear while analyzing spiking stress hormones in male mice when they are near pregnant or lactating females. The boys are triggered by a compound in the females’ urine called n-pentyl acetate, which also happens to be the compound that gives bananas their smell!
When an octopus mom’s eggs are close to hatching, she will start acting a little bit nuts. She may stop eating, tear at her own flesh, beat herself against a rock; and if she does eat, the meal might be pieces of her own arms. The gruesome self-flagellation continues until death.
It is hard to imagine that 33 souped up racing cars that zoom 500 miles around an oval for three hours can possibly be considered environmentally friendly, but the annual Indianapolis 500 is trying.
The government of Cambodia has issued a stern warning to its denizens who enjoy the great outdoors: Stop playing with the phallic-shaped plants.
The Nashville Zoo has just announced a new arrival: a bouncing baby fanaloka. The male cub is the first spotted fanaloka born in the United States, according to the Associations of Zoos and Aquariums database. In fact the baby boy and his parents are the only known group of fanalokas in the US.
A visit to the dentist can be pure terror for small kids, but a clinic in Quito, Ecuador has found a soothing presence that can calm the most anxious nerves: a dog named Aldo.
