Wild Biology News - September 2008 Archives

Common insecticide can decimate tadpole populations (9/30/2008)

Insecticide malathion initiates chain reaction that deprives tadpoles of food source, indirectly killing them at doses too small to kill them directly ...> Full Article

Researchers describe for first time how some bacteria kill males: They first invade the mother (9/29/2008)

Scientists have helped describe for the first time just how certain male-killing bacteria manage to specifically kill off males of a parasitic wasp. ...> Full Article

Captive breeding introduced infectious disease to Mallorcan amphibians (9/28/2008)

A potentially deadly fungus that can kill frogs and toads was inadvertently introduced by a captive breeding program. ...> Full Article

Researchers find animal with ability to survive climate change (9/26/2008)

researchers have found that the main source of food for many fish - including cod - in the North Atlantic appears to adapt in order to survive climate change ...> Full Article

Wolves show scientists are barking up the wrong tree (9/25/2008)

Wolves raised by people are at least as good as - and perhaps better than - dogs at following human signals. ...> Full Article

Extinct may not be forever for some species of Galapagos tortoises (9/24/2008)

Scientists report that genetic traces of extinct species of Galapagos tortoises exist in descendants now living in the wild, a finding that could spur breeding programs to restore the species ...> Full Article

Remembrance of tussles past: paper wasps show surprisingly strong memory for previous encounters (9/23/2008)

Paper wasps can remember individuals for at least a week, even after meeting and interacting with many other wasps in the meantime ...> Full Article

Walnut Trees Emit Aspirin-Like Chemical to Deal With Stress (9/22/2008)

Discovery may help scientists better understand air quality, farm crops ...> Full Article

Scientists Discover a New Pacific Iguana and More Clues to a Longtime Mystery (9/21/2008)

A new iguana has been discovered in the central regions of Fiji. ...> Full Article

Wild dogs reveal nature's 'poverty trap' (9/20/2008)

Hunting in a fast-moving pack is a high-risk strategy ...> Full Article

Bird-brains smarter than your average ape (9/19/2008)

Some birds are better at physical reasoning than apes ...> Full Article

To survive, tiger moths are bright for birds, click for bats (9/18/2008)

Moths have evolved bright coloring and clicking sounds as warning signals. ...> Full Article

Blood thicker than water for guppies (9/17/2008)

Fish born to promiscuous females may be at a disadvantage because of their behavior ...> Full Article

New ant species discovered in the Amazon likely represents oldest living lineage of ants (9/16/2008)

A new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant discovered in the Amazon rainforest is likely a descendant of the very first ants to evolve. ...> Full Article

In spiders, size matters: Small males are more often meals (9/15/2008)

Males are more likely to be eaten if they are much smaller than females, which likely affects how easy they are to catch. ...> Full Article

How plants fine tune their natural chemical defenses (9/14/2008)

Comparing anti-fungals produced by tobacco and henbane, researchers discovered that only a few mutations in a key enzyme are enough to shift the whole output to an entirely new product mixture. ...> Full Article

Unique animal species can survive in space (9/13/2008)

Water bears are the first animals in the world to have survived exposure to the vacuum and radiation of space ...> Full Article

Silent Streams? Escalating Endangerment for North American Freshwater Fish: Nearly 40 Percent Now At-Risk (9/12/2008)

Nearly 40 percent of fish species in North American streams, rivers and lakes are now in jeopardy ...> Full Article

Researchers survey for rare birds among Mayan ruins (9/11/2008)

Researchers have captured the first recording of a Caribbean dove in Guatemala and one of only a handful of known recordings of the bare-throated tiger heron, which emits a "spectacular low-deep" croon. ...> Full Article

As Andean glacier retreats, tiny life forms swiftly move in (9/10/2008)

Study has implications for how life might have once flourished on Mars ...> Full Article

Scavenger birds chew the fat (9/10/2008)

Bearded vultures prefer fatty bones according to new study ...> Full Article

Recovery efforts not enough for critically endangered Asian vulture (9/9/2008)

Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled from tens of millions to a few thousand, are too small to protect the species from extinction ...> Full Article

Artificial Meadows And Robot Spiders Reveal Secret Life Of Bees (9/8/2008)

Ecologists have discovered that bumblebees can learn to outwit color-changing crab spiders. ...> Full Article

Birds' harmonious duets can be 'aggressive audio warfare,' study finds (9/7/2008)

Researchers have new insight into the motivating factors that drive breeding pairs of some tropical bird species to sing duets. Those duets can be so closely matched that human listeners often mistake them for solos. ...> Full Article

New Insect Species Discovered (9/6/2008)

New species of parasitic wasp discovered in Ireland ...> Full Article

Researchers Show Fear of Predators Impacts the Health of Prey Populations (9/5/2008)

Predators can impact its prey without actually killing or consuming it ...> Full Article

Honest Lovers? Fallow Buck Groans Reveal Their Status And Size During The Rut (9/4/2008)

have shown for the first time that sexually selected vocalizations can signal social dominance in mammals other than primates ...> Full Article

Turtles like deserted beaches (9/4/2008)

Researcher has found that two species of marine turtle - the loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green turtle (Chelonia mydas) - produce more babies when nesting on natural beaches compared to those with human development. ...> Full Article

Graduate student's paper sheds light on bonobo language (9/3/2008)

Linguistic tools used to analyze human language applied to conversation between scientist and bonobo ...> Full Article

Polar Bears Found Swimming Miles From Alaskan Coast (9/2/2008)

An aerial survey by government scientists in Alaska's Chukchi Sea has recently found at least nine polar bears swimming in open water – with one at least 60 miles from shore ...> Full Article

Diversity among parasitic wasps is even greater than suspected (9/2/2008)

By combining ecological and genetic data with the painstaking detective work of taxonomy, the Researchers have dramatically increased – nearly doubling – the estimated number of species reported of six very species-rich genera of parasitoid wasps. ...> Full Article

Why did the squirrel cross the road? (9/1/2008)

A study has proved that red squirrels can and do make use of special crossings set up over busy roads ...> Full Article

Study of islands reveals surprising extinction results (9/1/2008)

Research sheds surprising light on the subject of extinction rates of species on islands ...> Full Article