the Jane Goodall Institute | 7 Extinct Animals: Rare Photographs Last Thylacine yawning: Note the unusual extent to which it was able to open its jaws From panthers and pandas to rhinos and tigers, dwindling animal numbers speak of the need to step up conservation efforts – if it’s not already too late. As a kind of wake-up call, we decided to take a look at seven extinct species captured on camera. With modern photography having only been invented in the 1820s, these snapshots are visible testament to just how recently the creatures shown were wiped out – and a jarring reminder of the precarious situation for many species still left on the planet. Karl Fabricius Scribol Staff
Discover the world's most endangered species Wildscreen's Arkive project was launched in 2003 and grew to become the world's biggest encyclopaedia of life on Earth. With the help of over 7,000 of the world’s best wildlife filmmakers and photographers, conservationists and scientists, Arkive.org featured multi-media fact-files for more than 16,000 endangered species. Freely accessible to everyone, over half a million people every month, from over 200 countries, used Arkive to learn and discover the wonders of the natural world. Since 2013 Wildscreen was unable to raise sufficient funds from trusts, foundations, corporates and individual donors to support the year-round costs of keeping Arkive online. As a small conservation charity, Wildscreen eventually reached the point where it could no longer financially sustain the ongoing costs of keeping Arkive free and online or invest in its much needed development. Therefore, a very hard decision was made to take the www.arkive.org website offline in February 2019.
It’s Getting Hot In Here Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition Citation: Marino L, Connor RC, Fordyce RE, Herman LM, Hof PR, Lefebvre L, et al. (2007) Cetaceans Have Complex Brains for Complex Cognition. PLoS Biol 5(5): e139. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050139 Published: May 15, 2007 Copyright: © 2007 Marino et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The brain of a sperm whale is about 60% larger in absolute mass than that of an elephant. Recently, Manger [8] made the controversial claim that cetacean brains are large because they contain an unusually large number of thermogenic glial cells whose numbers increased greatly to counteract heat loss during a decrease in ocean temperatures in the Eocene-Oligocene transition. The Origins and Evolution of Large Brains in Odontocetes Figure 1. Box 1. Figure 2.
Global Warming is Real | Climate | Energy | Sustainability Destroying the Indestructible: The Search for a Starfish Killer "There were more babies in one year than in the previous 20 years combined, in some places," Raimondi says. "We'll just see how that translates into recovery. If the disease is still present, they may die." Hewson says he isn't surprised. Of course, the very nature of a virus means it rarely kills off its host population entirely. Starfish, of course, aren't a species easily eradicated, mostly because they can be almost indestructible when they're healthy. Caren Chesler From a biological standpoint, starfish have an unusual anatomy. In the name of research, scientists have thrown everything they can at starfish to test their limits. "We can take bacteria that we culture from the environment, in an incredibly high density, until its milky white, and they still don't die," Hewson says. Which makes this mass-killing virus all the more ominous.
www.nonukes.org -- about nuclear power, weapons, waste and contamination The Ocean Is So Noisy, Whales Are Starting to Talk on a New Frequency The ocean is a noisy place. Beyond the typical noises like crashing waves there is the increasing presence of ships to makes things even louder. Above the water, this might not seem like a big deal, but below the waves, noise from ocean liners and large container ships can travel for miles and upset organisms like whales and dolphins that depend on their own noises to communicate and survive. New research from Oregon State University suggests that blue whales are learning to adapt by changing the frequency of their songs. Essentially, they're starting to communicate on a different audio band. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Whale songs have been dropping in pitch for a while now, and scientists have been noticing it for about two decades. "Our study shows that blue whales in particular—and perhaps other baleen whales in general—may be making their harmonious sounds in a much different way than previously thought," says lead author Robert Dziak. Source: Oregon State University
Ecological Solutions for the Twenty-First Century - Ocean Arks International Giant penguin find: remains suggest huge bird was taller than a human Scientists have discovered a now-extinct species of giant penguin that was taller than most humans. The remains of the bird, perhaps the tallest penguin species ever discovered, help show how quickly giant penguins developed after the extinction of the dinosaurs around 66m years ago. The animal revealed by fossil fragments found in New Zealand was around 1.77m tall and weighed around 101kg. The skeletal remains from a single penguin included parts of the breastbone, shoulders, wings, legs and spine. These were enough to demonstrate the bird was not only a unique species but also a previously unknown genus (group of species). Living penguins all share a set of adaptations such as flipper-like wings, short and smooth feathers that trap air to aid buoyancy, and countershading (a black back and white front) to help avoid predators and increase their own hunting ability through camouflage. Penguin origins We previously thought that giant penguins took much longer to evolve.
Environment News Service BBC Radio 4 - Soundstage, Dawn Chorus