RIVERSIDE, Calif. – A new study shows that the desert tortoise, thought to be one species for the past 150 years, now includes two separate and distinct species, based on DNA evidence and biological and geographical distinctions.
This genetic evidence confirms previous suspicions, based on life history analysis, that tortoises west and east of the Colorado River are two separate species. (more…)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida researchers received a rare 25-foot-long, deep-water giant squid Monday, the only one of its kind in the collections of the Florida Museum of Natural History. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— This year marks a full century that instructors at the University of Michigan Biological Station on Douglas Lake near Pellston have been teaching students about northern Michigan’s birds. The station was established in 1909, and two years later a course titled “The Natural History of Birds” first appeared in the summer bulletin. (more…)
*A University of Exeter biologist has discovered a ‘lost’ species of bat breeding on the Isles of Scilly.*
*A pregnant female brown long-eared bat is the first of its species to be found on the islands for at least 40 years.*
It was discovered by Dr Fiona Mathews, Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, a postgraduate student and a team from the Wiltshire Bat Group.
The Scilly Isles Bat Group called in Dr Mathews and her team to help them find out more about bats on the islands. The researchers set up a radiotracking study, with funding from the Isles of Scilly Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, to monitor the islands’ bat activity. (more…)
*High-mountain wildflower season reduced, affecting pollinators like bees, hummingbirds*
It’s summer wildflower season in the Rocky Mountains, a time when high-peaks meadows are dotted with riotous color.
But for how long?
Once, wildflower season in montane meadow ecosystems extended throughout the summer months. But now scientists have found a fall-off in wildflowers at mid-season. (more…)
Fish treasure trove opened with funding from the National Science Foundation
The stories they could tell, these fishes that once swam the ocean deep and are now in jars and bottles. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Think “mass extinction” and you probably envision dinosaurs dropping dead in the long-ago past or exotic tropical creatures being wiped out when their rainforest habitats are decimated. But a major mass extinction took place right here in North America in the first half of the 20th century, when 47 species of mollusk disappeared after the watershed in which they lived was dammed. (more…)
In a joint research effort between the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB), University of Tokyo, the Japanese National Institute of Polar Research, and the University of Florida, scientists have shed new light on the hunting behavior of tiger sharks by studying their swimming dynamics off the west coast of Hawai‘i Island. (more…)
