31 posts tagged “environment”
My Erinaceidaes are in trouble:
Hedgehog numbers across the UK are falling, particularly in the east of the country, a survey has found.
According to the Mammals Trust UK, hedgehog numbers have dropped steeply since 2001, when a survey to spot animals on roads began …
In England as a whole, hedgehog numbers along roads have dropped by over 20% since 2001, the Mammals on Roads survey has found.
However, the article does give me a good response the next time Sam asks me to clean the aprtment: "Hedgehogs do not like tidy gardens!"
Link: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Hedgehog numbers 'in nose-dive'
Majikthise: I can rent penguins? Yes, yes you can.
While less exciting in a Movie-of-the-Week sort of way, new evidence suggests that dinosaurs killed themselves off by failing to head their own warnings about global warming rather then falling victim to a meteor impact.
Seems that if you are a a Cuttlefish you can score by being the Cuttlefish equivalent of a cross-dresser:
Diminutive Giant Australian Cuttlefish males have taken to pretending to be female to elbow out larger love rivals, science magazine Nature has revealed.
With males outnumbering females four to one, smaller cuttlefish stand little chance of getting close to a mate.
But they have been spotted changing colour to mimic females and hiding their masculine fourth arms.
Scientists say they were then able to trick their way past male consorts to make their move, often successfully.
Researchers led by Dr Roger Hanlon from the Marine Resources Centre in Massachusetts watched smaller male cuttlefish adopt the females' mottled skin pattern.
'Meeting under rocks'
"We found that female mimickers could successfully deceive the consort male and that they were able to position themselves near the female in 30 out of 62 attempts," he said.
Of the five males that tried to mate, one was rejected, one was unmasked by the "consort male", and three were successful.
Two of the three successfully fathered offspring with the female.
But there were risks attached. Some of the larger males got a little confused - researchers saw 41 attempts to mate with the fake females.
Link: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Cuttlefish wimps 'dress as girls'
Unless you've been living under a rock, you should already know that the biggest science news this week is that the Huygens probe's mission to Titan was a "resounding success."
Holy $&@%!
Some light Science Monday reading from the NY Times with a "A 9,000-Pound Fish Out of Water, Alone in Alaska" about a depressed Elephant in the cold North and a story from Spain, "Where Nelson Triumphed, a Battle Rages Over Windmills," about "fisherpeople" fighting a sea-based wind farm. Good stuff. I just don't have anything interesting to say about either.
This is just to darn cute not to share:
A 120-year-old giant tortoise living in a Kenyan wildlife sanctuary has become inseparable from a baby hippo.
Owen, the one-year-old hippo calf, was rescued by game wardens last month.
He was suffering from dehydration and had been separated from his herd in a river that drains into the Indian Ocean.
"When we released Owen into the enclosure, he lumbered to the tortoise which has a dark grey colour similar to grown up hippos," Sabine Baer, rehabilitation and ecosystems manager at the park, said.
