The World's Heaviest Insect

 A nature-lover has revealed how he spent two days tracking down a giant insect on a remote New Zealand island – and got it to eat a carrot out of his hand. The former park ranger discovered the giant weta up a tree and his real life Bug's Bunny has now been declared the largest ever found.

The find is the world's biggest insect in terms of weight, which at 71g (2.5 ounces) is heavier than a sparrow and three times that of a mouse.

There are over 70 types of Weta species in New Zealand but the giant weta has been named the biggest insect in the world because of its weight. A female giant weta filled with eggs can reach up to 70g or more and the largest of the species are found on Little Barrier Island. They are usually less social and more passive than other weta.

Their diet consists of plants, other small insects and fruit. Their size is an example of island gigantism, which is a biological phenomenon leading to a larger size than their mainland relatives because of their isolation and lack of large predators.

See the original article here.

Hula Painted Frog Bounces Back From Extinction

A species of frog that was thought to have been made extinct during the drainage of the Hula marshlands in Israel, has appeared again after more than 50 years of hiding.

 The Palestinian or Hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer) originally went missing when the Jewish National Fund drained the marshlands around the Hula Valley in the 1950s. The swamp was a breeding ground for malaria, and the disease was killing off the population. The JNF removed the water from the swamp and redirected the flow of water to the river Jordan with artificial estuaries.

The operation led to huge destruction of ecosystems, wiping out water plants, tropical aquatic ferns, the ray-finned fish Acanthobrama hulensis and the cichlid fish Tristramella intermedia. Until this week, it was thought that the hula painted frog was among the lost species. But a routine patrol at the Ha’Hula lake by Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority turned up a mysterious, unknown female frog and took it back to the lab for testing.

It was soon confirmed that it was a Hula painted frog, and the rare species had hung on amongst the devastation of its habitat.

Original article here.

High-Speed Video Shows How Hummingbirds Stay Dry

How does a hummingbird keep dry? A series of high-speed videos reveal that hummingbirds shake themselves like dogs. Of course, dogs don’t shake while balanced delicately in mid-air, flapping their wings 45 times per second. At a glance, that might not seem like a pressing problem. But for a bird that weighs a few grams and lives on a razor-thin margin of bioenergetic error, it’s a life-or-death matter. See more in the original article here.

Murmuration of Thousands of Starlings

The video above was taken at the River Shannon in Ireland. It shows thousands of starlings in shape-shifting flocks that are referred to as a "murmation."

Flesh-Eating Piranhas Bark When Angered

Hollywood has given the piranha a rough reputation as a vicious fish with a penchant for biting. But according to scientists, the piranha barks more than it bites.

 The team of biologists plunged a hydrophone (an underwater microphone) into a tank of captive red-bellied piranhas and listened in to the different sounds they make in different situations.

 So far, the team registered three distinct noises. When piranhas enter into a confrontation they’ll make a barking noise. When they’re fighting for food or circling an opponent, a piranha will make short percussive drum-like sounds. And when their jaws snap at each other, a softer croaking sound is produced.

 Read more in the original article here.

12 New and 3 Lost Night-Frog Species Discovered in India

Researchers in India have found a dozen new frog species belonging to the night frog group, named for their nocturnal habits, and rediscovered three species, one of which had not been seen in nearly a century.

Night frogs are a group endemic to India and require either fast moving rivers or moist forest floor for breeding. The researchers write that half of the newly discovered species reproduce without any physical contact between the sexes, with the female depositing her eggs on a leaf and the males later fertilizing them. Despite their chaste procreation, both parents are active guardians for the eggs, bringing them water to prevent drying out and warding off predators.

All the frogs were spotted in a region known as the Western Ghats, a mountain range than runs along the western coast of India that has been identified as one of the ten hottest biodiversity hotspots in the world. Because of the small area they occupy, at least six of the new species are sensitive to habitat loss and will require immediate steps toward conservation.

For more information and pictures, see the original post here.

Rare Kingfishers Hatch at the Smithsonian

Two critically endangered Micronesian kingfishers, among the rarest animals in the world, hatched recently at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

These new chicks boost the total world population to 131. The chicks are hand-reared, fed at two hour intervals, seven to eight times a day.

Extinct in the wild for more than 20 years, Micronesian kingfishers are difficult to breed in captivity. Male and female birds can be reluctant to bond. Not all parents are able to successfully rear their offspring, and their health can be delicate. A third chick hatched at the Institute’s Bird House on Sept. 3 died two days later of unknown causes.

Original article here.

Attack of the Brain-Controlling Parasites

Once upon a time, parasites were thought to live relatively simple lives: They hitched a ride on a host, sapping nutrients and energy but otherwise leaving it alone. But that was only part of the story. Many parasites actually take control, causing their hosts to act in self-destructive ways that further their invaders' interests.

Below are some examples of parasites from the original article in Wired.

The Lymantria dispar baculovirus, for example, causes caterpillars to climb into treetops rather than hiding in bark. When those that go uneaten by birds finally die and decompose (as pictured above), viral particles rain onto foliage below, infecting a new generation of caterpillars.

Zombie Ants (below): The Ophiocordyceps fungus releases a chemical related to LSD, causing infected worker ants to leave their nests and find a leaf about 10 inches off the ground. Once there, the ants attach themselves to the leaf's side, then die. Over the next year, Ophiocordyceps consumes their bodies and uses them as a launching site for spores.

Webs for Wasps (below): Wasps are famous for laying eggs in insects that become living meals for their ravenous larvae. Hymenoepimecis wasps take it one step further: On the very evening that the larval wasp will kill its orb-spider host, it causes the spider to make a new type of web. Instead of spinning an elegant skein of concentric circles, the spider makes a structure capable of supporting the cocoon that the larva will build a few hours later, after killing and eating the spider.

Original article here.

Beautiful National Parks Seen From Space

Below are several examples from this gallery of national parks seen from space.  For additional information and pictures, see the original article.

Yellowstone National Park:

Kenai Fjords National Park:

Grand Canyon National Park:

Dolphins Blast Into School of Fish

Dolphins and gannets blast through a shimmering, pulsing vortex of fish known as "prey balls" in these up-close glimpses of an underwater buffet.

In a prey ball, tens or hundreds of thousands of fish cluster into a dense swarm, moving as a single entity. It’s not clear if they’re getting into this shape to reduce their chances of being eaten, or because dolphins are herding them to be in that shape.

Dolphins circled clockwise around prey balls — dolphins appear, like most humans, to favor their right sides — skimming bites off the edges rather than plunging straight in. Often two dolphins would attack at the same time, rather than individually. When prey balls tried to dive, dolphins herded them back up.

Original article here.

New Pacific eel is a 'living fossil', scientists say

A newly discovered eel that inhabits an undersea cave in the Pacific Ocean has been dubbed a "living fossil" because of its primitive features.

It is so distinct, scientists created a new taxonomic family to describe its relationship to other eels.

The scientific team say the eel's features suggest it has a long and independent evolutionary history stretching back 200 million years.

The animal used as the basis for the new study was an 18cm-long female, collected by one of the researchers during a dive at a 35m-deep cave in the Republic of Palau.

In order to classify the new animal, the researchers had to create a new family, genus and species, bestowing on the animal the latin name Protoanguilla palau.

The team's results suggest this new family has been evolving independently for the last 200 million years, placing their origins in the early Mesozoic era, when dinosaurs were beginning their domination of the planet.

The researchers say the Protoanguilla lineage must have once been more widely distributed, because the undersea ridge where its cave home is located is between 60 and 70 million years old.

See original article here.

Slow-Motion Chipmunk

Sea Turtle GPS Shows Ocean-Spanning Leatherback Buffet

The fact that leatherback turtles swim thousands of miles is driven home beautifully in this new map of their sophisticated, ocean-spanning movements.

Between 2000 and 2007, biologists attached GPS transmitters to 126 leatherbacks nesting in Indonesia, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. These individuals represent one of three remaining subpopulations of the endangered turtle, which can reach lengths of 6 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds.

The map resulting resulting from the transmissions shows creatures that don’t just drift in instinctive obedience to migratory impulse. The leatherbacks navigated in time with season and temperature and current, visiting eddies and boundaries and blooms.

See the original article here.

Don’t Mess With Pissarrachampsa

Baurusuchidae is a group of extinct Crocodyliformes with peculiar, dog-faced skulls, hypertrophied canines, and terrestrial, cursorial limb morphologies.

That is scientist-speak for terrestrial, dog-faced crocodiles well-adapted to running down prey and tearing into their victims with big, sharp teeth. Even better, these creatures lived alongside — and probably occasionally fed on — dinosaurs.

Scientists have recently added a new creature to this list, called the Pissarrachampsa sera.  This predator lived during the latter half of the Cretaceous in what is now Brazil, and is represented by two skulls — one more complete than the other. The better skulls is quite impressive. The basic, underlying croc structure is there, but is modified into a shorter, stouter shape, and the size of the teeth differs throughout the jaws. This was a crocodile with big canine-like fangs at the front of the jaw.

Below is an illustration of what the creature may have looked like:

See the original article here.

Inside the World's First Shark Sanctuary (CNN Video)

Watch the World’s Largest Shark Tank on Live Webcam

Until August 7, you can swim with sharks from your desk, thanks to a live webcam embedded in the world’s largest shark tank.  To get excited for Shark Week, the Discovery Channel teamed up with the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta to place a live streaming peephole in the aquarium’s Ocean Voyager exhibit.

The exhibit, which was designed to house whale sharks, holds 6.3 million gallons of seawater, enough to fill nine and a half Olympic swimming pools. It is home to seven different types of sharks, including enormous whale sharks, vicious-looking sand tiger sharks, and bottom-dwelling masters of disguise called spotted wobbegongs. It also holds several other species of fish and four manta rays, the only manta rays ever to live in a U.S. aquarium.

See the original article here.

Endangered Snow Leopards Caught on Camera in Afghanistan

A surprisingly healthy population of rare snow leopards has been caught on camera in the wilds of Afghanistan. Researchers spotted 30 snow leopards in 16 different locations by placing camera traps in the mountains of northeastern Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor.

Snow leopards are threatened by poaching for their fur, the illegal pet trade and shepherds, but researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society said they were pleasantly surprised by the number of cats they found.

Conservationists estimate between 4,500 and 7,500 wild snow leopards still live in the remote mountains of Central Asia.

See the original article here.

Lost Rainbow Toad Found After 87 Years

Herpetologists at Conservation International have rediscovered the exotic Sambas stream toad (aka Borneo rainbow toad, aka ansonia latidisca) after 87 years of evasion, and released the first ever photographs of the brightly-colored amphibian.

The spindly-legged species was last seen in 1924 and European explorers in Borneo only made monochrome illustrations of it. A decade or so later, the conservation groups added the species to their World’s Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs campaign.

Researches recently took a team to look for the frog in the area of Western Sarawak.  After months of fruitless hunting, the researchers finally found the small toad two meters up a tree. Later they found another.

In the end the team had found three individuals of the missing toad species — an adult female, an adult male and a juvenile, ranging in size from 51 mm to 30 mm. All three toads exhibited those gangly limbs and the brightly colored patterns on their backs.

Read more in the original article here.  Also, see CNN's article here.

Also, learn more about Conservation International's Global Search for Lost Amphibians.

Rare Hermaphrodite Butterfly Hatches in London Museum

Visitors to the London Natural History Museum can currently see a butterfly that is both male and female.

The gynandromorph Papilio Memnon butterfly hatched in the puparium at this year’s Sensational Butterflies exhibition. It is one of just 200 gynandromorph butterflies among the 4.5 million butterfly specimens in the museum.

The term gynandromorph comes from the Greek “Gyn” to mean female, and “Andro” to mean male. The butterfly has distinctly different male and female markings — darker colorings on the male side and paler coloring, with flecks of blue, red and tortoiseshell on the female side.

As the coloring denotes, the butterfly is literally half female, half male — its sexual organs are half and half, and even its antennae are different lengths.

The Museum explains: “Insects can become gynandromorphs if the sex chromosomes do not properly separate during the first division of a fertilized egg, resulting in an insect with both male and female cells. They can also occur when an egg with two sex chromosomes, instead of a single one, gets fertilized by two sperm.”

Gynandromorph lobsters, spiders and crabs have also been observed.

Read more in the original article here.

Chipmunks and Woodchucks Eavesdrop on Each Other

Chipmunks and woodchucks are entirely different rodent species, but they apparently speak the same language when it comes to alarm.

Despite belonging to a different genus, eastern chipmunks take heed of woodchucks’ alarm calls. To a lesser extent, woodchucks understand the warnings of chipmunks. Such inter-rodent understanding may not seem surprising, but both species are considered very solitary. They are not like prairie dogs that live in family groups.

Many creatures respond to their own species’ alarm calls, but interspecies comprehension is less documented. To see whether woodchucks and chipmunks responded to each other, scientists visited a nature preserve in Maine, recording their reactions to possible danger — both species share common enemies in red-tailed hawks, bald eagles and foxes — and to unthreatening chickadees.

Over the course of a few weeks scientists played the calls back on portable speakers. While woodchucks occasionally perked up to chipmunk squeaks, chipmunks were more attentive to woodchucks’ high-pitched whinnies. Sometimes the woodchuck alarms even sent chipmunks fleeing to their burrows.

To listen to the calls of both the woodchuck and chipmunk, read the original article here.

Both animals responded most to their own species’ alerts, but neither reacted much to crow alarms or chickadee songs.

Read more in the original article here.

Deepest-living land animal found

Worms have been found living at depths in the Earth where it was previously thought animals could not survive.

Discovered in South African mines, the roundworms can survive in the 118 degrees Fahrenheit water that seeps between cracks 1.3km beneath the Earth's crust.

The find has surprised scientists who, until now, believed only single-celled bacteria thrived at these depths.

The researchers found two species of worm. One is a new species to science, which the scientists have named Halicephalobus mephisto after Faust's Lord of the Underworld.

The other is a previously known roundworm known as Plectus aquatilis.

Read more in the original article here.

Emperor Penguins Rotate Through Giant Huddle for Warmth

Massive huddles of male Emperor penguins are crucial to keeping warm during Antarctica’s brutal winter while they incubate their eggs.

These tightly packed penguins shuffle en mass every 30 to 60 seconds, reordering themselves so every individual gets to cycle through the warm, central part of the huddle.

By taking small, 2- to 4-inch steps every minute or so, the penguins achieve maximum packing density. It’s like tapping on a can of flour to jiggle everything into the bottom.

But the shuffling also results in a wave of movement that rolls through the group and rotates every bird through the warmest parts of the huddle. Penguins can join the group on one end, cycle through the huddle and exit on the other end.

Read more in the original article here.

There's no such thing as a jellyfish

The video above is from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.  It illustrates how organisms commonly referred to as "jellyfish" are actually quite varied and diverse.  See the rest of the institute's videos here.

Spider Hunting Strategies

Stabbing, crushing, spitting and seducing are some of the more unusual, gruesome and clever ways spiders catch and kill their prey.

Though these predators are best known for ensnaring their food in sticky webs and paralyzing them with venom, this is only one of many ways the world's 40,000 or so known spider species catch a meal.

Spiders are found everywhere from rain forests to deserts, and can even be found in tide pools along the coast. What they eat, and how they capture it, is just as varied as where they live. Spiders catch and consume insects, other spiders and even small animals including snakes and birds.

The above fishing spider waits near water, typically with their front legs resting on the surface to detect the vibrations of potential prey. Once an animal comes close enough, fishing spiders strike with their fangs.

Net-casting spiders, below, hang upside down on a scaffold of silk, spin fuzzy webs they hold tight between two of their front legs and wait for insects. If a flying insect comes within reach, net-casting spiders will sweep their net toward the prey, snagging it out of the air. If an insect passes underneath them, the spiders drop down and spread a net over the victim.

To read more, see the original article here.

Tracking Whale Sharks With Astronomical Algorithms

With the help of algorithms designed to guide the Hubble telescope’s starscape surveys, conservation-minded coders have designed software that helps biologists identify whale sharks by their spots. The program enlists the help of citizens with cameras, and lets researchers track Earth’s biggest fish across time and oceans.

If you put a tag in the whale shark's skin, it wears off or falls away. But using this method scientists can recognize these animals without marking them, and it’s permanent.

The researchers developed a pattern recognition program that mapped X- and Y-coordinates of spots, then compared them between whale shark photographs

Soon they were joined by a NASA astrophysicist who introduced them to an astronomer who’d developed algorithms to compare photographs of the night sky and determine what star patterns they had in common.  The scientists adapted the equations to instead study whale sharks.

Read more in the original article here.

Eight potentially new fish species found along Bali reefs

Scientists have found eight potentially new species of reef fish and a potentially new species of bubble coral in waters surrounding the Indonesian island of Bali.

The species haven’t been named. The fish, with their genus in parenthesis, are:

– Two types of cardinalfish (in the genuses of Apogon and Siphamia).
– Two types of dottybacks (Manonichthys and Pseudochromis).
– A garden eel (Heteroconger).
– A sand perch (Parapercis).
– A fang blenny (Meiacanthus).
– A goby (Grallenia).

Above are pictures of the Manonichthys (top) and Parapercis (bottom).

Read more in the original article here.

The World's Ants Captured in 3D

Scientists have taken on a project to create detailed images of all approximately 12,000 known species of ants.  Below are several examples:

Click here to learn more about the ants depicted in these images.

Ghostly ‘Winged’ Octopus Caught on Camera

A rarely seen white deep-sea octopus has been captured on camera in high definition by researchers. The octopus features two “wings” which make it look just like the ghosts from Mario videogames, aka Boos.

The Grimpoteuthis bathynectes octopus, also nicknamed the Dumbo octopus, was filmed with an HD video camera at a depth of more than 6,500 feet about 200 miles off the coast of Oregon.

Little is known about the deep-sea octopuses, which live near the hydrothermal vent fields — fissures in the Earth’s surface generally found near volcanically active places that release geothermally heated water.

Original article here.

World’s Biggest Gathering of Whale Sharks

To see a single whale shark — the world’s largest fish, a solitary behemoth that can grow to school-bus size — is a rare experience.

Seeing hundreds gathered in one place is unprecedented.

The so-called "Afuera gathering" took place in August 2009 off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, not far from the waters around Cabo Catoche. Dozens of whale sharks have converged there each summer since 2002, drawn by crustaceans that feed on massive plankton blooms fueled by upswellings of nutrient-rich deep-sea water.

The Afuera whale sharks are just eating, not mating; the mating habits of whale sharks are a mystery to biologists. The gathering contained no juveniles, only adults; biologists don’t actually know where juvenile whale sharks live, where they’re born or even how they’re born. Whale sharks are literally a colossal mystery.

Read more in the original article here.

High-Speed Video Shows How Hummingbirds Really Drink

New high-speed videos of hummingbirds overturn nearly two centuries of conventional wisdom on how they drink.

Researchers previously thought tube-like channels in their tongues sucked up fluid by capillary action. But the new analysis shows that their tongues actually trap nectar by curling around it.

Read more in the original article here.

Humpback Whales May Be Migratory Astronomers

An eight-year project that tracked humpback whale migrations by satellite shows the huge mammals follow uncannily straight paths for weeks at a time.

The results suggest a single migratory mechanism isn’t responsible. Instead, humpbacks may use a combination of the sun’s position, Earth’s magnetism and even star maps to guide their 10,000-mile journeys.

According to scientists, they are going across some of most turbulent waters in the world, yet they keep going straight.  They’re orienting with something outside of themselves, not something internal.

Humpback whales feed during the summer near polar oceans and migrate to warm tropical oceans for the winter, where they mate and calves are born. A one-way trip can last upwards of 5,000 miles, making the cetaceans the farthest-migrating animal on Earth. (One was tracked migrating 6,200 miles).

To better understand humpback migrations, scientists embedded satellite tags in seven South Atlantic and nine South Pacific whales from 2003 through 2010.  The researchers found that, despite surface currents, storms and other distractions, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their migratory courses.  In about half the segments mapped by the researchers, humpbacks deviated by one degree or less.

Read more in the original article here.

Orangutans Use Simple Tools to Catch Fish

Orangutans swim about as well as they fly, but research on three Indonesian islands shows that these long-limbed apes nonetheless catch and eat fish.

Orangutans living in Borneo scavenge fish that wash up along the shore and scoop catfish out of small ponds for fresh meals.  Over two years, scientists saw several animals on these forested islands learn on their own to jab at catfish with sticks, so that the panicked prey would flop out of ponds and into a red ape’s waiting hands.

Although orangutans usually fished alone, scientists observed pairs of apes catching catfish on a few occasions. In one case, an orangutan cringed and pulled away as its companion extracted a fish from a pond. Scientists suspect that the onlooker was learning — or at least trying to learn — how to nab aquatic snacks.

Observations of fishing by orangutans raise the likelihood that hominids ate meat, including fish, before the emergence of the Homo genus around 2.5 million years ago. Anthropologists have traditionally held that meat-eating first assumed prominence among early Homo species and fueled brain expansion.

Fishing isn’t common among primates, but it does occur. Chimpanzees occasionally pluck fish out of ponds. Some monkeys that swim well, including certain macaque and baboon species, also catch fish with their hands.

Read more in the original article here.

Salamander Has Algae Living Inside Its Cells

In a symbiotic union more complete than any previously found in vertebrates, the common spotted salamander lives with algae inside its cells.

Such a degree of cross-species fusion was long thought to exist only among invertebrates, whose immune systems are not primed to destroy invaders. But algae live inside the salamanders from before birth, possibly passed down from parent to offspring.

That spotted salamanders and algae live in symbiosis was first noted in the 19th century, and in the 20th century researchers worked out the relationship’s mutual benefits. Salamander eggs provide a nitrogen-rich environment for algae to grow; algae oxygenate the embryos, which develop deformities without them.

But algae were believed to float outside the embryo itself, in the egg’s nutrient broth.  Now scientists have noted that algae’s distinctive green glow didn’t just emanate from eggs, but from inside embryos.

Algae invade spotted salamander embryos early in their development, when individuals are just beginning to take shape inside their eggs, as the brain folds up and tissue layers-to-be first organize themselves. As an embryo develops, algae suffuses its body, but most becomes concentrated along its gut and alimentary canal.

Read more in the original article here.

Poisonous Frogs are More Fit

After testing hundreds of frogs representing dozens of species on an amphibian version of a treadmill, researchers have determined that colorful, highly poisonous frogs have the greatest aerobic capacities.

Earlier studies had suggested a link between poison and metabolism in frogs, but involved just a handful species.

In frogs, especially bright colors generally signify toxicity, informing predators of their prospective meal’s unpalatability. But whereas most poisonous animals produce venom naturally, the frogs distill it from their food.

To find the right insects, they forage far and wide, rather than waiting for whatever fare passes by. Evolution would seem to have produced aerobic adaptations that help poisonous frogs roam, then amplified coloration as a defensive signal.

It’s also possible that bright coloration evolved first, providing some sort of advantage — predator defense, perhaps, or help finding mates — that allowed those frogs to range farther than their drab brethren. That in turn could have allowed them to specialize in eating uncommon, toxin-enabling insects.

Read more in the original article here.

Baby Bald Eagles Will Hatch on Live Webcam

Live video chat by Ustream

Three bald eagles are expected to hatch in Decorah, Iowa, between March 30 and April 1, 2011, and you can watch it happen on the above webcam.

The nest was built 80 feet up a cottonwood tree near the Decorah Fish Hatchery in 2007, and all 8 of the parents' children have entered the world on camera.

Viewers will be able to see tiny cracks lacing through the eggs before they hatch. The zoomed-in view gets so close, you can count the scales on the eagles’ feet.

The mother eagle laid the eggs on Feb. 23, Feb. 26 and March 2. All three were caught on camera and are up on YouTube.

Original article here.

Sperm Whales May Have Names

Subtle variations in sperm-whale calls suggest that individuals announce themselves with discrete personal identifier. To put it another way, they might have names.

The findings are preliminary, based on observations of just three whales, so talk of names is still speculation. But scientists say "it's very suggestive."

The scientists have for years studied the click sequences, or codas, used by sperm whales to communicate across miles of deep ocean. In a study published in 2010 in Marine Mammal Science, they described a sound-analysis technique that linked recorded codas to individual members of a whale family living in the Caribbean.

To read more and hear audio of the whale codes, see the original article here.

Video: Hike the 2,200-Mile Appalachian Trail in 4 Minutes

Green Tunnel from Kevin Gallagher on Vimeo.

Above is a video comprised of the 24 daily pictures that hiker Kevin Gallagher took during his six-month hike of the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in the spring of 2005.

Elephants Lend a Helping Trunk, Pass Cooperation Test

Asian elephants have passed a test of cooperation with flying colors, one that cognitive psychologists say demonstrates an ape-level awareness and sense of teamwork. Their collaboration isn’t just the product of rote learning, but the result of careful thought.

In the experiment, ropes were arranged so that if one elephant pulled alone, its partner couldn’t reach the rope. To get a banana treat, both had to pull simultaneously.

The elephants pick the trick up quickly. Then, in the study’s key step, they demonstrated patience. If only one elephant was present, it would wait for a partner to arrive. Until then, it wouldn’t try to pull the rope, and often wouldn’t pick it up.

If the elephants pulled automatically, it would be evidence of reflexive behavior. Waiting indicated something more. They understood that their own effort wasn’t enough. They understood their partner’s role. (One elephant, seen in the video below, even figured out how to cheat. By standing on her end of the rope rather than pulling, her partner had to do all the work — not very nice, perhaps, but smart.)

Read more in the original article here.

Secrets of Swimming in Sand Revealed

Using a lizard, a snaky robot and computer simulations, researchers have captured the secrets of swimming through sand.

Physicists filmed the movements of lizards and snake-like robots as they burrowed through sand, then boiled their motion down into a numerical theory. The theory ultimately led to a computer model that can emulate the fluid-like physics of sand and objects that can swim through it.

The scientists first explored sand-swimming motion by studying sandfish lizards, also known as Scincus scincus. The reptiles are native to North-African deserts and can quickly burrow into sand to escape predators and scorching heat.

The team found sine-wave-like movement allows the lizard, and their robot, to push forward in sand, but creating computer models for the experiments proved problematic. Simulating all of the tiny sand grains required a lot of money to purchase time on powerful computers. So, the team performed the same experiments using 3-millimeter-wide glass beads instead of sand.

Read more in the original article here.

Tiny Water Flea Has More Genes Than You Do

This tiny, near-microscopic water flea has more genes than you. In fact, this freshwater zooplankton is the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced, and its 31,000 genes crowns it the animal with the most genes so far. For those keeping count at home, the average human has about 20,000 to 25,000 genes.

The translucent water flea is a Daphnia pulex, and lives in ponds and lakes throughout North America, Europe and Australia. It can also reproduce without sex, is the most commonly found species of water flea and is a “model organism”, meaning it’s studied extensively and provides insight into other, rarer species.

The reason for this little critters’ super-high gene count comes down to its rapid rate of gene multiplication. Scientists estimate a rate that is three times greater than those of other invertebrates and 30 percent greater than that of humans.

As well as having a massive number of genes, more than a third of them have never been seen before in other animals. In other words, they are completely new to science.

Read more in the original article here.

New African Wolf Species Identified

Conservationists in Egypt have discovered a new species of wolf, which shares DNA with Indian and Himalayan cousins.

The “Egyptian jackal”, as it’s known, is not in fact a jackal at all, despite the visual similarities it bears to another local species, the golden jackal. The discovery sheds light on how wolf species migrated through Africa and Europe — proving that grey wolves emerged in Africa about 3 million years before they spread to the northern hemisphere.

As long ago as 1880 it had been noticed that the Egyptian jackal looked suspiciously like the grey wolf. Several biologists in the 20th century, studying skulls, made the same claim. Still, the creature retained its name. Now, the difference has been formalized.

The next step for the team is to work out how many of the wolves exist in the wild. While Golden jackals aren’t threatened, it’s possible that the “Egyptian jackal” — which is now due for a renaming — is much rarer. Discovering the extent of the population, and where they live, will now be a priority.

Read more in the original article here.

Bioluminescent Creatures From the Sea

While a handful of land animals can create their own light, homemade luminescence is the rule rather than the exception in the open ocean's dark waters.

Researchers estimate that between 80%-90% of deep-dwelling animals are bioluminous, creating light by mixing the pigment luciferin with luciferase, the enzyme that makes it glow. The light tends to green and blue, colors that travel far in seawater. Glowing helps attract mates, lure prey or confound predators.

Many of these animals live thousands of meters deep and are difficult for scientists to find and study.  Below are some of the prettiest and strangest glowing creatures of the seas. 

For more, see the original article here.