FLORA FAUNA

5,060 articles

Encouraging signs for bee biodiversity
May 27, 2013 (SPX)
Declines in the biodiversity of pollinating insects and wild plants have slowed in recent years, according to a new study. Researchers led by the University of ...
Ant colonies highly efficient at amassing and parsing new information
May 27, 2013 (UPI)
A single ant isn't all that smart. But a new study suggests an amalgamation of the diminutive insects -- or ant colonies -- can create intelligent networks that...
Researchers analyse the hunting behaviour of fish larvae in virtual reality
May 27, 2013 (SPX)
Moving objects attract greater attention - a fact exploited by video screens in public spaces and animated advertising banners on the Internet. For most animal ...
Huge China ivory haul reveals extent of trade: report
May 27, 2013 (AFP)
A huge haul of illegal ivory in China has revealed the vast scale of the trade and flaws in the country's system of legal ivory sales, a wildlife monitoring gro...
Burchell's zebras undertake 300-mile migration, longest in Africa
May 27, 2013 (UPI)
The Burchell's zebra, a southern subspecies of the plains zebra, travel a total of 300 miles every year from Namibia to Botswana and back. It's the longest terr...
Scientists announce top 10 new species
May 27, 2013 (SPX)
An amazing glow-in-the-dark cockroach, a harp-shaped carnivorous sponge and the smallest vertebrate on Earth are just three of the newly discovered top 10 speci...
Small but speedy: Short plants live in the evolutionary fast lane
May 24, 2013 (SPX)
Biologists have known for a long time that some creatures evolve more quickly than others. Exactly why isn't well understood, particularly for plants. But it ma...
Climate change may have little impact on tropical lizards
May 23, 2013 (SPX)
A new Dartmouth College study finds human-caused climate change may have little impact on many species of tropical lizards, contradicting a host of recent studi...
Climate change will cause widespread global-scale loss of common plants and animals
May 22, 2013 (SPX)
More than half of common plants and one third of the animals could see a dramatic decline this century due to climate change - according to research from the Un...
Australia set to cull 10,000 wild horses
May 22, 2013 (AFP)
A controversial cull of up to 10,000 wild horses in Australia's harsh Outback reportedly began Wednesday in a bid to control the feral animals which officials s...
Scientists discover oldest evidence of split between Old World monkeys and apes
May 22, 2013 (SPX)
Two fossil discoveries from the East African Rift reveal new information about the evolution of primates, according to a study published online in Nature this w...
How much a single cell breathes
May 22, 2013 (SPX)
How active a living cell is can be seen by its oxygen consumption. The method for determining this consumption has now been significantly improved by chemists i...
Clam fossils divulge secrets of ecologic stability
May 22, 2013 (SPX)
Clam fossils from the middle Devonian era - some 380 million years ago - now yield a better paleontological picture of the capacity of ecosystems to remain stab...
New Rwandan praying mantis species hunts like a tiger
May 21, 2013 (UPI)
"Vicious" is how some news outlets are describing a new species of praying mantis discovered in the African nation of Rwanda. It sounds like an overstatement, b...
Australian zoo says white rhino birth 'sign of hope'
May 21, 2013 (AFP)
An Australian zoo said Tuesday the birth of a southern white rhinoceros was a "sign of hope" for the species given the escalation of poaching in Africa. Taronga...
Study: Penguins made evolutionary 'choice' of swimming over flying
May 21, 2013 (UPI)
British researchers say they've solved the puzzle of why penguins can't fly: Their survival hinged on swimming underwater not soaring in the air. A study of sea...
Dubai seizes 259 smuggled African ivory tusks
May 21, 2013 (AFP)
A shipment of 259 elephant tusks smuggled out of Africa has been seized in the United Arab Emirates, the International Wildlife Fund for Animal Welfare said Tue...
Princes William and Charles speak out against wildlife trade
May 21, 2013 (AFP)
Prince William and his father Prince Charles delivered impassioned pleas on Tuesday for action against the illegal trade in wildlife which threatens some of the...
US lawmakers seek to ban captive big cats
May 16, 2013 (AFP)
US lawmakers on Thursday proposed a ban on the private possession and breeding of big cats, saying that roadside zoos found around the country were inhumane and...
Mining the botulinum genome
May 16, 2013 (SPX)
The toxin that causes botulism is the most potent that we know of. Eating an amount of toxin just 1000th the weight of a grain of salt can be fatal, which is wh...
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