“Polar bears spend much of their lives in and around water, and they are well adapted for swimming. But recent findings of USGS scientists demonstrate that they are even better swimmers than many imagined: In years of extreme sea-ice retreat in the southern Beaufort Sea region of Alaska, polar bears have been documented taking very long swims, in excess of 30 miles.” Quoted from the USGS press release.
Researchers monitored the response of wildlife and plants in parts of New Mexico where there is significant human activity and noise related to natural gas production.
“BatsLIVE: A Distance Learning Adventure is an exciting, free education program for children in the 4-8th grades and their educators, that will bring bat conservation to life in your classroom or community.” Quoted from the BatsLive website.
“In the wilds of New York City–or as wild as you can get that close to skyscrapers–scientists have found a new leopard frog species. [...] For a new species to go unrecognized in this area is amazing.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.
LiveScience has an interesting article on the forms of life encountered around a deep-sea vent system at the boundary of the Cocos and Caribbean Plates off the west coast of Costa Rica.
Fifty-five million years ago, Earth underwent a very rapid global warming event. About a third of mammal species responded with a significant reduction in size during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum , some by as much as one-half.
“If the correlation holds, we would have a thermometer that goes back in time, a paleothermometer of how hot or cold water temperatures were when the nacre formed.” Quote from the University of Wisconsin press release.
“Despite brutal cold and lingering darkness, life in the frigid waters off Alaska does not grind to a halt in the winter as scientists previously suspected. According to preliminary results from a National Science Foundation-funded research cruise, microscopic creatures at the base of the Arctic food chain are not dormant as expected.”
“This large Burmese python, weighing 162 pounds and more than 15 feet long at the time of its capture in 2009, was caught alive in the Everglades and was found to have eaten an American alligator that measured about 6 feet in length.” Quoted from the USGS media gallery.
Did you know that different populations of killer whales specialize on particular types of prey and that some will prey on baleen whales that are over twice their own size?
Paedophryne amanuensis, a tiny frog found in Papua New Guinea has been judged to be the smallest vertebrate animal in the world. It is just 7.7 millimeters lon
Discarded pet pythons have multiplied and established a strong presence in the Everglades, causing lots of problems for people who work and live in the area. USGS is finding that their ability to survive salt water might allow them to expand their range into the Florida Keys.
In this video Hig and Erin of GroundTruthTrecking encounter a very large grizzly bear on the Alaska Peninsula. You can read another exciting story about a bear encounter on their GroundTruthTrecking website.
An article in The Guardian reports that frogs, newts, toads and salamanders are meeting extinction at a very rapid rate – with half of the world’s species in decline.
Trout populations in the Eel River of California which now spawn in separate locations were for centuries confined by a landslide into a single area where interbreeding occurred.
The Geomyces destructans fungus is thought to be responsible for the white-nose syndrome that has wiped out bat populations in many parts of North America. Understanding the source of the disease can be a big step towards stopping it.
When a development project destroys an acre of wetlands the responsible company is often required to create another acre of new wetlands in the same watershed. This has fueled a new business of “mitigation banks”.
“Researchers at Brown University argue that whether an animal can make it to a final, climate-friendly destination isn’t a simple matter of being able to travel a long way. It’s the extent to which the creatures can withstand rapid fluctuations in climate along the way.” Quoted from the Brown University press release.
First noticed in 2002, crazy ants are an invasive species of ants that have been causing increasing problems in the southern United States. They are called “crazy” because they move rapidly when they swarm. They also seem to be attracted to electrical equipment over which they can swarm and shut down.
Hear a podcast from the Texas Department of Agriculture.
“After years of planning for the largest project of its kind, the Department of the Interior will begin the removal of two dams on the Elwha River, Washington, in September 2011.” Quoted from the USGS news release.
“Fires have continuously occurred on Earth for at least the last 400 million years. But since the 1970s, the frequency of wildfires has increased at least four-fold, and the total size of burn areas has increased at least six-fold in the western United States alone.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.
“Explorers on NOAA expedition discover chemosynthetic shrimp, tubeworms together for first time at hydrothermal vent, also first live vent tubeworms seen in Atlantic waters.” Quoted from the NOAA news release.
“In research that will help address a long-running debate and apparent contradiction between short- and long-term evolutionary change, scientists have discovered that although evolution is a constant and sometimes rapid process, the changes that hit and stick tend to take a long time.” Quoted from the Oregon State University news release.
Scientists have estimated that there are 8.7 million species in the natural world and claim this to be the most accurate estimate ever. However, they say most have not been identified and it could take more than 1,000 years to catalog them.
“A well-preserved fossil discovered in northeast China provides new information about the earliest ancestors of most of today’s mammal species–the placental mammals.” Quoted form the National Science Foundation press release.
“Species have moved towards the poles (further north in the northern hemisphere, to locations where conditions are cooler) at three times the rate previously accepted in the scientific literature, and they have moved to cooler, higher altitudes at twice the rate previously realized.” Quoted from the University of York news release.
“The cisco, a key forage fish found in Wisconsin’s deepest and coldest bodies of water, could become a climate change casualty and disappear from most of the Wisconsin lakes it now inhabits by the year 2100.” Quoted from the University of Wisconsin-Madison news release.
“Every year many families unnecessarily lose their homes and possessions to wildland fire. These losses can be minimized if homeowners take the time to become aware of safety measures to help protect their homes and complete some effective actions.” Quote from the National Interagency Fire Center.
Heavy flooding this spring and summer has pumped so much fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico that many oysters have died – they require salt water to survive. As a result the oyster harvest could be cancelled or restricted to give oyster populations a chance to recover. This will severely hurt businesses and employees involved in the harvest, processing and sale of oyster products.
“Sea turtles — with their nighttime nesting habits and seafaring ways — have long captivated the imagination of landlubbers. Protecting sea turtles in the Dry Tortugas islands in Florida is a challenge because so little is known about their behavior, but a sea turtle nicknamed “Bertha” is doing her part to shed light on turtle habits. Bertha has been transmitting information to USGS scientists via satellite for almost two years about the location of her nesting events and where she goes post-nesting.”
“Researchers surveyed the heads of a large number of modern animals as well as one of the world’s best dinosaurfossils, the Stegoceras specimen from the University of Alberta. They found that the bony anatomy of some pachycephalosaur domes are better at protecting the brain than in any modern head-butter.” Quoted from the University of Calgary news release.
Scientists from the California Academy of Sciences conducted a survey in the Philippines and documented over 300 new species of terrestrial and marine life.
The Wallow Fire has been burning in Arizona since May 29 and has now expanded to a burn area of more than 733 square miles. It is now the largest wildfire to occur in Arizona since recordkeeping began.
A new species of roundworm, Halicephalobus mephisto, has been discovered living in the high-temperature pore water of a South African goldmine at a depth of over 1 kilometer. These are the deepest-living multicellular organisms ever discovered.
An article on MSNBC has photos and descriptions of the top ten new species for 2010 as selected by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. The new species include: a pancake batfish, glowing mushrooms and a jumping cockroach.
USGS biologists are working with staff of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks department to eradicate the American Bullfrog (an invasive species) from the Yellowstone River.
The federal government designated large areas in Alaska as a critical habitat for the polar bear, which was declared a threatened species in 2008. Oil and gas development would be blocked in the critical habitat area and stakeholders of that land have filed suit to protect their potential oil and gas revenue.
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