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Researchers at the Universities of Hong Kong and Würzburg, Germany have addressed a question that no one asked, “How many ants are there on Earth?” The answer: 20 quadrillion. It’s difficult to grasp the enormity of such a number. The authors of the study that painstakingly added up the ants call it “20 thousand million millions, or in numerical form, 20,000,000,000,000,000 (20 with 15 zeroes).” The researchers warn that figure is a “conservative” estimate.
Certain small mammal species – shrews, voles, stoats, weasels – shrink their brains and other organs in wintertime, a strategy that helps them conserve energy when food is scarce. Now the European mole (Talpa europaea) has been found to deploy this same weird adaptation.
Prime minister Narendra Modi himself opened the gate to release the new arrivals into their quarantined pen. “Cheetahs have returned to India after decades. There is new energy in India’s wildlife lovers,” the prime minister said. “I am sure that these cheetahs will teach us about our values.”
Three bottlenose dolphins swam to freedom last week after years of confinement and degradation for the amusement of tourists. The three males – Johnny, Rocky and Rambo – were released off the island of Bali in Indonesia.
Researchers observing the sex lives of the rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) have learned what we all suspected to be true: the best musicians get the girl. According to the study published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology, males that sing the most and with rhythm have the best reproductive success.
The long-running war over garbage in Southern Sydney in NSW, Australia has evolved into a battle of wits. On one side are the humans, who want to keep their street-side rubbish bins sealed until the garbage trucks arrive; on the other side are the cockatoos, who want the opposite.
The rise of the lithium-ion battery has been essential to the tech revolution, as it is a crucial component of smartphones, electrical vehicles, and every electronic gizmo in between. But lithium exacts a harsh price on the environment, from cradle to grave: mining trashes local environments at the point of extraction, a
The winner was the stuff of nightmares: a parasitic fungus erupting from the body of a fly. Evolutionary biologist Roberto García-Roa captured the moment when “spores of the so-called ‘Zombie’ fungus infect arthropods by infiltrating their exoskeleton and minds. … Here, they await death, at which point the fungus feeds on its host to produce fruiting bodies full of spores that will be jettisoned to infect more victims—a conquest shaped by thousands of years of evolution.”
"We get invited, we show up, and we let the dogs do their work." So says Bonnie Fear, crisis response coordinator for the Lutheran Church Charities K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry, which sent ten golden retrievers to Uvalde, Texas, site of a school shooting in May.
An enduring and endearing staple of nature shows is the monogamous penguin. The idea that these tuxedo-clad flightless birds mate for life without the occasional affaire de coeur is adorable, but is it true?
Turkmenistan’s Alabay - They really like the Central Asian shepherd dog, also known as the Alabay, in Turkmenistan. A new law recently took effect that restricts export of the beloved native breed and requires puppies to be registered in the government’s pedigree book.
Scientists at the far reaches of South America have identified a new bird species, the subantarctic rayadito. The little bird inhabits the Diego Ramírez Archipelago, 62 miles from southern Cape Horn and the southernmost point of the Americas. The discovery is reported in the journal Nature.
Conservationists in Zimbabwe are attempting to be Noah but without the ark. An effort to move thousands of animals – elephants, impalas, giraffes, buffaloes, wildebeest, zebras, elands, lions, and wild dogs – is underway as severe drought threatens this menagerie.
Last week 300 homeless pets from Puerto Rico were flown to a second chance at life in New York and Maine. The Sato Project and Wings of Rescue spirited 165 dogs and 135 cats from the island's overcrowded animal shelters, with a boost from an unlikely source – Tito's Handmade Vodka.
The CV for Sylvia Earle, who turns 87 today, is long, varied, and deep. The marine biologist, oceanographer, explorer, author, and science communicator has won a UN Lifetime Achievement Award, the Walter Cronkite Award, the Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science, and so many more.
The IUCN’s announcement last month that the Chinese paddlefish is officially extinct was really a formality. This species of sturgeon, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, checked out sometime between 2005 and 2010. It was already considered “functionally extinct” in 1993 when a tiny remaining population could no longer sustain itself.
A pair of giant pandas were born this week at the Qinling Panda Research Center in Shaanxi province, southwestern China. The male and female twins are reportedly healthy and definitely adorable.
It is unclear why there is both an International Dog Day and a National Dog Day. Wouldn’t one cover the other? But never mind, the day of the dog has arrived today, August 26.
Why are killer whales attacking sailboats off the European coastline? Scientists pondering this question have no answer, but they do have some wacky theories. This week NPR reported the harrowing tale of a sailing trip off the French coast, in which a father-daughter crew was surrounded and hounded by an unknown number of orcas, ramming their 37-foot boat for a solid 15 minutes.
Japanese researchers have observed a phenomenon that we thought was impossible: a nonhuman animal crying tears of joy. A new study reported in Current Biology this week demonstrated that our canine friends will well up with tears under certain circumstances, and it probably happens more often than we think.
