FLORA FAUNA - AFRICA DAILY

Darwin theory confirmed 161 years after conception

Mar 18, 2020 (UPI)

Research led by Laura van Holstein, of the Cambridge biological anthropology department, confirmed that mammal subspecies are more crucial in evolution that pre...

Aerial insect trap network describes life in the skies

Mar 16, 2020 (SPX)

Scientists from the University of Illinois got to work almost immediately to track the pest's movement. They have been collecting soybean aphids throughout the ...

Bacteria form biofilms like settlers form cities

Mar 16, 2020 (SPX)

By pairing super-resolution imaging technology with a computational algorithm, a new study in Nature Communications confirms that this metaphor is more apt than...

Study reveals how plants communicate for defense using gene regulation

Mar 13, 2020 (UPI)

In a study published Friday in the journal Nature Plants, researchers noted that plants have hormones to signal defenses against drought, insects or intense tem...

Researchers detect wildlife using DNA found in river water

Mar 13, 2020 (UPI)

Ecologists from five British universities and one Norwegian university collaborated with researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst to study if en...

Baboon moms carry deceased infants for up to 10 days

Mar 11, 2020 (UPI)

Over the course of 13 years, scientists observing wild Namibian chacma baboons documented group responses to 12 infant deaths. Chacma baboons live in mixed-sex ...

As health of prairie grasses decline, so does number of grasshoppers

Mar 11, 2020 (UPI)

Usually, declines in species abundance, whether insects or mammals, are linked with habitat destruction. But the latest research -- published this week in the j...

Soldier ants prove evolution sometimes works in reverse

Mar 10, 2020 (UPI)

Some ants have round heads, like a manhole cover, ideal for blocking a small round entrance. Other ants, with square heads, congregate to form a blockade, like ...

Honeybees use different dance dialects

Mar 04, 2020 (UPI)

As numerous studies have detailed, bees wiggle their abdomen in a dance-like pattern to tell their hive mates where and how far away a newly discovered food sou...

The brains of shrimps and insects are more alike than we thought

Mar 04, 2020 (SPX)

Both insects and crustaceans possess mushroom-shaped brain structures known in insects to be required for learning, memory and possibly negotiating complex, thr...

Why is the female wallaby always pregnant?

Mar 04, 2020 (SPX)

Unlike humans, kangaroos and wallabies have two uteri. The new embryo formed at the end of pregnancy develops in the second, 'unused' uterus. Then, once the new...

Real-life 'Rio': near-extinct macaws return to Brazil

Mar 03, 2020 (AFP)

The bright blue parrots, which are extinct in the wild, shot to fame in 2011 with the animated film, featuring a Spix's macaw that is raised in captivity in Min...

I.Coast burns 3 tonnes of pangolin scales

Mar 03, 2020 (AFP)

The scales were seized in raids in 2017 and 2018, following which some 20 people were arrested. Beijing announced a total ban on the sale and consumption of the...

Vulnerable species safest on federally protected lands

Mar 02, 2020 (UPI)

For the study, scientists at Tufts University and the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife surveyed three decades of earth satellite images for evidence of ...

Biofluorescence suprisingly common among amphibians

Feb 27, 2020 (UPI)

For the study, Jennifer Lamb and Matthew Davis, biologists at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, exposed a handful of specimens from 32 different amphibia...

Male-killing bacteria explains color variability among monarch butterflies

Feb 27, 2020 (UPI)

According to a new study, published this week in the journal PLOS Biology, a male-killing bacteria explains the African monarch's diversity of patterns. Usually...

Bushfire smoke killed endangered Aussie mice far from blazes

Feb 27, 2020 (AFP)

Charles Sturt University researchers said Australian 'smoky' mice -- so called because of their silvery grey fur -- began dying in captivity three days after th...

Study: To curb biodiversity declines, protect land in the tropics

Feb 26, 2020 (UPI)

Currently, planet Earth is losing biodiversity at a worrying clip. But according to a new study published this week in the journal Ecography, conserving 30 perc...

Cannibalism on rise among polar bears, say Russian scientists

Feb 26, 2020 (AFP)

"Cases of cannibalism among polar bears are a long-established fact, but we're worried that such cases used to be found rarely while now they are recorded quite...

Why coronavirus could help save China's endangered species

Feb 26, 2020 (AFP)

The scaly mammal -- listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) as threatened with extinction -- is a traditional delicacy across China ...