FLORA FAUNA

5,060 articles

New Alaska butterfly species is first in 28 years
Mar 20, 2016 (UPI)
Biologists have discovered a new species of butterfly occupying Alaska's interior -- the first in 28 years. Researchers believe the hardy species is a hybrid of...
Bacterial resistance to copper in the making for thousands of years
Mar 18, 2016 (SPX)
Human use of copper dating back to the Bronze Age has shaped the evolution of bacteria, leading to bugs that are highly resistant to the metal's antibacterial p...
Elderly Kenyan mauled by lion in Nairobi rush hour
Mar 18, 2016 (AFP)
An elderly Kenyan man was clawed by a lion that was wandering along a busy road during morning rush hour in the capital Nairobi on Friday, wildlife officials sa...
Microbes may not be so adaptable to climate change
Mar 17, 2016 (SPX)
Microbes in soil - organisms that exert enormous influence over our planet's carbon cycle - may not be as adaptable to climate change as most scientists have pr...
'FARC frog' caught up in Colombian conflict
Mar 17, 2016 (AFP)
The little green frog's natural camouflage reminded the professor who discovered it of the guerrilla fighters hiding out in the very same Colombian forest. So A...
Beak evolution key to New Caledonian crow's tool use
Mar 15, 2016 (UPI)
The impressive tool-using abilities of the New Caledonian crow are made possible by its uniquely shaped beak. For the first time, researchers have quantified wh...
Evolutionary 'selection of the fittest' measured for the first time
Mar 15, 2016 (SPX)
A difference of one hundredth of a percent in fitness is sufficient to select between winners and losers in evolution. For the first time researchers have quant...
Louisiana black bear is removed from US 'endangered' list
Mar 10, 2016 (AFP)
The Louisiana black bear, which inspired the popular stuffed animal "teddy bears" in the early 1900s, was taken off the Endangered Species List on Thursday afte...
Division of labor in social insects
Mar 10, 2016 (SPX)
A characteristic of insect societies such as ants is the way tasks are distributed among group members. Not only queens and worker ants have clearly defined res...
Real-life aliens extremely efficient at turning their hosts into new parasites
Mar 10, 2016 (SPX)
The way parasitoid wasps feed may be gruesome, but it is an extremely efficient way to exploit prey, University of Exeter research has found. The wasps lay thei...
Syntax is not unique to human language
Mar 09, 2016 (SPX)
Human communication is powered by rules for combining words to generate novel meanings. Such syntactical rules have long been assumed to be unique humans. A new...
Record 1,300 rhinos poached in Africa in 2015: wildlife body
Mar 09, 2016 (AFP)
More than 1,300 rhinos were poached in Africa last year, a record since 2008 when South Africa banned trade in rhino horns, leading conservation body IUCN said ...
An elephant returns to Somalia for first time in 20 years
Mar 09, 2016 (AFP)
An elephant marched hundreds of kilometres and briefly crossed into Somalia this month marking the first time the animal has been seen in the country in 20 year...
Biophysicists discover how hydra opens its mouth
Mar 09, 2016 (SPX)
A team of biologists and physicists at UC San Diego has uncovered in detail the dynamic process that allows the multi-tentacle Hydra, a tiny freshwater animal d...
Dingo skull shape resistant to changes from hybridization
Mar 09, 2016 (UPI)
Humans and climate change aren't the only threats to vulnerable species. Sometimes it's another species, and not a predator but a potential sexual partner. Rese...
Giant reed is a photosynthetic outlier, study finds
Mar 08, 2016 (SPX)
Arundo donax, a giant reed that grows in the Mediterranean climate zones of the world, isn't like other prolific warm-weather grasses, researchers report. This ...
Leaf mysteries revealed through the computer's eye
Mar 08, 2016 (SPX)
A computer program that learns and can categorize leaves into large evolutionary categories such as plant families will lead to greatly improved fossil identifi...
Once extinct, world's last wild horse returns to Russian steppes
Mar 07, 2016 (AFP)
If the world's only surviving wild horses had a say in the matter, they might opt for a cosy stable and fresh daily oats, scientists studying them joke. But the...
Some birds are just as smart as apes
Mar 07, 2016 (SPX)
At first glance, the brains of birds and mammals show many significant differences. In spite of that, the cognitive skills of some groups of birds match those o...
Malaysia customs seizes 159 kg in smuggled ivory
Mar 04, 2016 (AFP)
Malaysian authorities said Wednesday they had confiscated 159 kilograms (350 pounds) of ivory smuggled by air passengers, the latest seizures in a country used ...
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