Thursday 31 August 2017

Fire Ants Make Themselves into Rafts to Float to Safety in Houston

By Sarah B. Puschmann, Staff Writer | August 29, 2017 05:53pm ET

As floodwaters rise in Houston and its surrounding area, fire ants are staging their own type of evacuation, by floating to safety on rafts made out of their own bodies.

On Sunday (Aug. 27), CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca tweeted a photo of a huge raft of fire ants seen in Houston — yet another danger inhabitants of southeastern Texas have had to contend with since Tropical Storm Harvey made landfall as a hurricane on Friday night (Aug. 25).



In the United States, fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) primarily inhabit the Southeast. When faced with a flood, they emerge from the soil, and form a floating raft by linking their bodies together. Rafts made up of as many as 8,000 ants have been observed, according to a 2011 study performed by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The ants' ability to trap air pockets makes them buoyant and, for the submerged ants at the bottom of the raft, provides a source of oxygen, according to the study. 



'Sea dragon' fossil is 'largest on record'


By Helen BriggsBBC News
28 August 2017


The fossil of a marine reptile ''re-discovered'' in a museum is the largest of its kind on record, say scientists.

The ''sea dragon'' belongs to a group that swam the world's oceans 200 million years ago, while dinosaurs walked the land.

The specimen is the largest Ichthyosaurus to be described, at more than three metres long.
It was discovered on the coast of England more than 20 years ago, but has remained unstudied until now.

Palaeontologist Sven Sachs saw the fossil on display at a museum in Hannover. He contacted UK palaeontologist, Dean Lomax, who is an expert on Ichthyosaurs.

''It amazes me that specimens such as this [the biggest] can still be 'rediscovered' in museum collections,'' said the University of Manchester palaeontologist.

''You don't necessarily have to go out in the field to make a new discovery.''

Keeping pandas off endangered list ledge


Date: August 28, 2017
Source: Michigan State University

Summary:
Things aren't all black and white for giant pandas. The beloved Chinese icons have basked in good press lately -- their extinction risk status downgraded from 'endangered' to 'vulnerable,' their good fortunes have shown to rub off on their less charismatic forest neighbors that benefit from panda-centric conservation efforts.

Continued

Woolly rhino neck ribs provide clues about their decline and eventual extinction

Fossils point to rare condition in the extinct species, possibly caused by inbreeding and harsh conditions during pregnancy. Monitoring vertebrae in modern rhinos could indicate the level of extinction risk

Date: August 29, 2017
Source: PeerJ

Summary:
A study reports on the incidence of abnormal cervical (neck) vertebrae in woolly rhinos, which strongly suggests a vulnerable condition in the species. Given the considerable birth defects that are associated with this condition, the researchers argue it is very possible that developmental abnormalities contributed towards the eventual extinction of these late Pleistocene rhinos.


Nevada Pushed To Tighten Wild Reptile Collection Rules – via Herp Digest


 The Nevada Independent by Daniel Rothberg, 8/27/17  
  
Explore Nevada’s wild reptile removal restrictions, and you’ll find some oddities.

Collectors can remove reptiles with their hands, but they can’t use explosives. They’re allowed to use tongs but they can’t use a jackhammer. They can use a noose or a snake hook or nets, but they can’t use a crowbar or a tire iron or cans or man-made pits that could disrupt the desolate terrain of the Mojave and Great Basin deserts.

Commercial collectors can remove an unlimited number of chuckwallas but they must submit monthly logs of the species, sex and age of their catch. They’re required to pay a $250 annual fee, must be a Nevada resident and keep a transaction history of all sales, trades or barters.

With these conditions, all listed in the state’s administrative code, the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners has issued a couple dozen permits to reptile collectors since the commissioners made the practice legal in 1986. Licenses peaked at 31 in 1994, when registered collectors took more than 31,000 reptiles, a number that has steadily decreased since then. About 7,000 reptiles were removed last year, and now there are seven collectors registered with the state, five of whom belong to the same family.

Regulators at the Nevada Department of Wildlife have been concerned about commercial collection, which is banned in bordering states. And after two past attempts, the department is renewing a push to restrict the practice, citing concerns about population loss and the possible use of illegal traps. 

The department is currently drafting two regulations, one that would prohibit all commercial reptile collection and another that would limit collections by criteria, such as season or species. Wildlife commissioners, who set policy, are expected to consider the proposals in September.

At a wildlife commission meeting in August, collectors defended their methods as legal and argued that their business did not threaten what they see as an abundant reptile population.

But the department sees commercial collection as one of many threats facing the roughly 50 reptile species in Nevada, said Jason Jones, an NDOW biologist pushing for the regulations. Other threats to population size include climate change, development and disease.

“It’s death by one-thousand cuts,” he said.

About 4.7 million U.S. households owned one or more reptiles in 2010, but they often buy pets from captive breeders, according to a 2011 report prepared for the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, a non-profit focused on responsible reptile ownership. This trend is not limited to the U.S. A 2014 analysis in the British Herpetological Society’s journal found that 90 percent of U.S. reptile and amphibian exports — shipped to countries in Europe or Asia — were captive bred.

For months, Jones has been presenting this data at wildlife commission meetings to provide regulators with context for where Nevada fits into the U.S. reptile trade, which brings in about $1.4 billion in annual revenue, according to estimates from the Association of Reptile Keepers.

Based on collection logs, he estimated that wild-caught Nevada reptiles (excluding turtles, which can’t be exported from Nevada), accounted for 12 percent of U.S. exports from 2005-2010. And Jones suggested that this trade can be lucrative, with gopher snakes going for $380 in Europe.

Jeremy Bentz, one of the remaining collectors in Nevada, said he was “laughing on the inside” when he heard that claim repeated back. “It’s not a whole big money-making thing,” he said.

He said he collects reptiles on the side for a few months out of each year, usually in April and May. His father collects reptiles full-time and his uncle uses it as one source of income, Bentz said. “I do it as a family thing,” he said during an interview. “It pays for my camping trip.”

The family has tangled with the department over commercial collection before. In 1989, the family, with other collectors, sued the department after its first attempt to prohibit commercial reptile collection. That case was ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the department. Despite winning the case, the commission backed down from the ban (the commission considered a ban again in 1998 but ultimately allowed the practice to continue).

In its ruling, the Nevada Supreme Court said that it was within the commission’s power to issue the ban — that the burden fell on the collectors to prove that the practice did not harm wildlife.

That claim is at the center of the department’s argument.

At recent commission meetings, Jones has argued that commercial collection poses an issue because it often overlaps with breeding months, and populations are slow to recover. Looking at collection logs, he showed the commission that in the Amargosa and Ivanpah valleys, collectors have, at times, come back with fewer reptiles per day, despite devoting more time to collection.

“Even with an increased effort, they had a very little return,” Jones said at the July meeting.

Jeremy Buntz said the department’s presentation was misrepresentative of what he observed on the ground. He questioned how the department defined effort, especially with a small sample size of collectors who work at different paces and are not all collecting to generate income.

Jones conceded that the commercial collection data is not perfect.

“It’s market driven,” Jones said. “But it raises a lot of red flags.”

Other environmental groups have joined the department’s push.

Patrick Donnelly, who runs the Center for Biological Diversity’s regional office in Las Vegas, argued collection can have “huge, cascading effects on overall (reptile) population numbers.”

Donnelly said it’s especially concerning that the the practice continues on public land managed by the BLM. A prohibition, he said, would bring “Nevada in line with the rest of the West.”

He added that the commission, a nine-member panel appointed by the governor and charged with protecting the state’s wildlife, could be “legally liable” if it doesn’t act on the reptile issue.

Then there are questions of legality.

According to the department, there are more than 700 pitfall traps in Southern Nevada. Pitfall traps, used for collecting insects or in controlled ecological studies, are an illegal method for capturing reptiles. The traps comprise small holes in the ground that blend with the desert. The department has documented reptiles, mice and scorpions falling into these traps.

Of the traps it checked in 2016 and 2017, it found that about half of all reptiles and nearly all mammals that fell into the traps had died. These traps are not permitted, the department said, and a number of them are maintained by reptile collectors. In recent months, nearly 300 have been removed by volunteers and solar developers, but they remain a concern for regulators.

“There is significant mortality of reptiles due to large numbers (700+) of unpermitted pitfall traps,” one NDOW administrator wrote in a memo ahead of the July commission meeting.

The collectors said they used traps to catch unregulated scorpions, a practice that is legal.

Doug Nielsen, a spokesman for NDOW, said there are ongoing investigations.

Wednesday 30 August 2017

The Endangered Baby Turtles in Harvey’s Path - a Desperate Race to Save Them – via Herp Digest


Washington Post, 8/25/17 by Andrew deGrandpre


As storm surges drown eggs and rough surf strands weeks-old hatchlings, workers at Sea Turtle, Inc., a rescue and rehabilitation non-profit based on South Padre Island, are racing to save endangered sea turtles.

Rescue center staff began preparing for Harvey on Wednesday, collecting eggs from nests along 50 miles of beach from the Rio Grande River to Port Mansfield.


“We knew the surge would be significant enough that that the eggs would have been drowned, said Jeff George, Sea Turtle, Inc.’s executive director.


Once recovered, the eggs were placed in sand inside styrofoam coolers. They’re now incubating in a warm, dark room until they can be re-released after the hurricane.


On Saturday, staff will turn to the task of rescuing helpless baby turtles washed up on shore. Because it’s hatching season, hundreds of thousands of recent hatchlings are now riding the currents in the Gulf of Mexico. Ordinarily, the turtles would spend the first year to two years of life hiding in floating seaweed; once washed ashore, they have no way to fend for themselves against predators.


The first two stranded hatchlings that were rescued Wednesday. (Daniel Blue Tyx)


“We’re going to be driving in four-wheel-drive vehicles, going slowly looking for turtles that aren’t much bigger than the palm of your hand,” George said. “We could potentially see hundreds of post-hatchlings washed up on beaches.”


The first two stranded hatchlings have already taken up temporary residence at the Sea Turtle, Inc. rescue center. Reaching into a white utility sink in a back room, George pulled out a turtle in each gloved hand. One was a Hawksbill, just two to three weeks old, that the storm had carried far off course from its nesting beach in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.


The other was a critically endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, which nests only in northeast Mexico and the Texas Gulf Coast.



“This is the most endangered of all sea turtles,” George said. “These guys are out there at the mercy of the currents and storms.”

Otters learn by copying each other

August 29, 2017

Otters can learn how to solve puzzles by watching and copying each other, new research shows.

Scientists created a series of puzzles baited with food, and found smooth-coated otters watched and copied each other's problem-solving techniques - with young otters more likely to copy than their parents.

But another species - Asian short-clawed otters - showed no sign of copying each other.

Many otter species are classified as threatened, vulnerable or endangered, and the researchers say their study may help improve efforts to reintroduce otters into the wild.

"Social learning has been studied in many species, but never in otters," said Dr Neeltje Boogert, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"Our results suggest smooth-coated otters adopt a 'copy when young' strategy.

"The offspring in our study learned how to solve these puzzles much quicker than their parents - more than six times faster.

"The order in which the young otters solved the puzzles followed the strength of their social ties. This indicates that the juveniles copied those siblings they spent most time with."

The otters, which were studied in zoos and wildlife parks in the UK, were given puzzles such as Tupperware containers with clips on the lid, screw-top lids or pull-off lids.

Rhesus monkeys found to see faces in inanimate objects too


August 28, 2017 by Bob Yirka report


A team of researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health has found that rhesus monkeys, like humans, recognize face-like traits in inanimate objects. In their study published in the journal Current Biology, the researchers describe experiments they carried out with monkeys looking at photographs and what they learned from them.

Humans are notorious for seeing face-like characteristics in inanimate objects—the likeness of an old woman in a sliced tomato, Jesus in a potato chip, etc. Such recognition is known as pareidolia, and has been studied extensively in humans. But does it also happen with animals? That is what the researchers with this new effort sought to learn. They chose a relatively obvious animal for a subject, rhesus monkeys. Not only are they more human-like than most other animals, but they are also very social, which prior work with humans has suggested is very strongly tied to pareidolia.

The team worked with five of the monkeys, showing them pairs of pictures on a computer screen while timing how long they looked at them. Prior research has shown that rhesus monkeys, like humans, tend to stare longer at faces than at other objects. The monkeys were shown pictures of objects that a group of humans had already approved as having face-like characteristics. They were also shown pictures of similar objects without face-like characteristics. And for comparison, they were also shown pictures of the faces of other rhesus monkeys.

Adorable pig-nosed frog completely new to science found in India – via Herp Digest


LAST UPDATED ON AUGUST 25TH, 2017 AT 5:14 PM BY TIBI PUIU 

An odd-looking frog that spends most its life underground and only comes outside when its ready to mate was recently discovered in India’s Western Ghats mountains. Its pointy snout, tiny eyes, and stumpy limbs might look funny but the truth is this is an extremely well-adapted creature to a life in the burrows.



Credit: JEGATH JANANI.


The frog is called Bhupathy’s purple frog (Nasikabatrachus bhupathi), in honor of Dr. Subramaniam Bhupathy, a well known Indian herpetologist who lost his life surveying the Western Ghats in 2014. Its appearance is characterized by a shiny purple coat, light blue rings around small eyes and a signature pig snout nose, according to researchers at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in Hyderabad.


With its long, fluted tongue, the frog gobbles up insects that live underground like termites and ants. Rarely does it leave the safety of the underground unless it rains during the monsoon season. This is the time for mating, as evidenced by the loud calls male Bhupathy’s purple frog bellow from under the sand in mountain streams.


In the same streams, the males court and mate with females, which deposit the fertilized eggs. Within a day or two, these are already ready to hatch into tadpoles. But even in this early life stage, the purple frogs are odd.


The tadpoles have sucker-fish like mouths which they use to cling to rocks behind waterfalls like leeches. Suspended from the wet rocks, the tadpoles can spend up to 120 days in the torrent which is the longest the species ever stays above ground during its whole lifespan. Once they’ve completed their transformation, the purple frogs ready themselves for a solitary subterranean existence, the authors reported in the journal Alytes. 


The findings are even more interesting once you realize this is only the second species in its family. The first is another purple frog described in 2003. Both species are very distant from their closest relatives, which live in Seychelles, likely because they had to evolve independently for millions of years.


“We confirmed it was a different species when we bar-coded its DNA and found that genetically it was very different from the Purple frog,” says Ramesh K Aggarwal, chief scientist at the CCMB and one of the five co-authors
This can only be yet another example of continental drift. About 65 million years ago, the Indian subcontinent was part of the ancient landmass of Gondwana before it split away from Seychelles.



If anything, this cute purple frog gives to show just how little we know about frogs or amphibians in general. There’s a whole world of unknown creatures out there and we can only rejoice at the opportunity to learn more about them on a daily basis.

An alternative to wolf control to save endangered caribou


Researchers study the effectiveness of a new government strategy to stabilize the caribou population by focusing on the reduction of invasive moose populations, indirectly lowering the density of the caribou's primary predator

Date: August 29, 2017
Source: PeerJ

Summary:
The iconic woodland caribou across North America face increasing predation pressures from wolves. A short-term solution to caribou conservation would be to kill wolves. But a new government policy looks at reducing the invasive species moose numbers propping up the wolf population. Researchers have now evaluated the effects of this policy on the caribou population.


Chinese scientists artificially breed rare snakes (Pearl Band Rat Snake) - via Herp Digest


Source: Xinhua| 2017-08-24 22:24:58|Editor: Yurou

HD Editor-Title of Article is misleading. According to the article they have finally laid eggs, which have yet to hatch. Still after 3 years of trying to get such a rare snake that far is an accomplishment.
  
CHENGDU, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists announced Thursday that they had artificially bred acPearl Band Rat Snake, an endangered species peculiar to Sichuan Province in southwest China.

The Chengdu Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the breeding marked an important step to understanding the species.

Because its habitat is quite limited and its wild population is rather small, it is difficult to fully understand this type of snake, said Ding Li, deputy researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Biology.

The snakes, with dark and yellow stripes, were discovered in Sichuan in 1929. Scientists did not locate them again until the 1980s when Chinese scientists discovered specimens in Wenchuan and Luding counties in Sichuan, confirming they had not gone extinct.

In July 2014, scientists started to look for the snakes, under a state-funded program to investigate and protect small-population biological species in Sichuan.

A male and female snake were caught in July 2014 in Labahe Nature Reserve in Tianquan county. The snake parents did not breed offspring for three years, so researchers put them under sufficient exposure to light to facilitate their mating.

"The eggs have been incubated for over a month, they grow every day, and hopefully will be hatched in another 20 days," said Chen Zening, a lab employee.

"I find this type of snake is rather active during early morning and at night," Ding said.

Their traditional habitat is in forests in western Sichuan and Shaanxi province, between 1,600 and 2,700 meters above sea level. They are likely to live under leaves and in piles of stones in thick woods, Ding said.

"From the new habitat and archive data, we have found the habitat of rat snakes are almost identical to those of pandas, which is a very interesting phenomenon," he said. "The snakes move slowly and are mild and non-poisonous, which means they can only live in a natural environment where there are few competing species.”


"The snake and giant pandas may have gone through a similar evolution in climate changes in east Asia," he said.

Monday 28 August 2017

Rare white moose caught on video in Sweden

AUGUST 14, 2017

by Chuck Bednar

If there’s one thing science enthusiasts love, it’s getting a glimpse of a hard-to-find creature, and a new video that has gone viral this month shows a rare white moose – believed to be just one of an estimated 100 living in Sweden – as it walks through the grass and wades across a stream.

The video, which was posted by BBC News, explained that the white moose – which was spotted in the Varmland province of western Sweden – is not albino. Rather, its white coat is the result of a genetic mutation which causes it to be born with an predominantly unpigmented coat of fur.

This condition is known as piebaldism, and according to the US National Library of Medicine, it occurs a creature lacks the cells that produce melanin (the pigment which produces hair, skin and eye color). Piebaldism can affect humans, as well as horses, dogs, pigs, cats, birds and cattle.

The term piebaldism dates back to the 16th century, and was a combination of the word ‘magpie’ and the older meaning of the term ‘bald’ (‘spotted’ or ‘white’) in reference to the magpie’s black and white colored plumage. Unlike albino creatures, piedbald animals do not have red eyes, and they often have at least some blackish specks or patches of fur mixed into their coats.

Bubonic plague-carrying fleas found in parts of northern Arizona

AUGUST 15, 2017

by Chuck Bednar
Fleas in some parts of northern Arizona have tested positive for the bubonic plague, a now-rare disease believed to have been responsible for millions of deaths during the Middle Ages, health officials confirmed to ABC NewsNewsweek and other media outlets over the past week.

The infected parasites were first detected in Coconino County and have since also been found in Navajo County, according to published reports. While the insects have indeed tested positive for Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes the plague, thus far, no illnesses have been reported.

In a statement, the Navajo County Health Department said that it was “urging the public to take precautions to reduce their risk of exposure to this serious disease, which can be present in fleas, rodents, rabbits and predators that feed upon these animals.” They added that the illness “can be transmitted to humans and other animals by the bite of an infected flea.”

Humans can also catch the disease through bodily fluids (such as respiratory droplets), as well as through direct contact with infected animals (including handling tissues or fluids from a creature that has contracted the disease), Newsweek noted. People living, working or visiting the affected areas are also advised to keep their pets from roaming free, ABC News added.

Spectacular rebirth of Belize's coral reefs threatened by tourism and development

Report reveals improvement but also details danger posed by tourist-generated pollution, oil extraction and climate change

Nina Lakhani in Laughing Bird Caye, Belize

Tuesday 22 August 2017 06.00 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 22 August 2017 10.35 BST
Just below the surface of the turquoise sea, coral flutters majestically amid schools of puffed up porcupinefish and fluorescent blue and yellow angelfish.

The gangly staghorn and fanning elkhorn corals are thriving in swimming distance of Laughing Bird Caye, a tiny Caribbean sandy islet in southern Belize, thanks to a restoration project that is yielding striking results.

More than 90,000 corals grown in sea nurseries have been planted in shallow reefs, increasing coral cover in these southern warm waters by 35%. Marine creatures are reproducing, and about 90% have survived natural and manmade pressures for almost a decade.

Hailed as the most impressive coral reef restoration effort in the Caribbean, its success is linked to a grassroots movement uniting fisherman, tour guides, scientists and environmentalists working to conserve the 700-mile Mesoamerican Reef (MAR) – the second largest barrier reef in the world.



Sunday 27 August 2017

UK charity helps rescue two orangutans in Borneo from illegal sale


Two baby apes were discovered in tiny cages in Ketapang, Borneo. A man has been arrested for trafficking wildlife via social media

Tuesday 22 August 2017 15.05 BSTFirst published on Tuesday 22 August 2017 15.02 BSTA UK charity has helped rescue two baby orangutans who were found by police in West Borneo caged and ready to be sold through social media to illegal buyers.

The two apes, a one-year-old male and an eight-month-old female, who were discovered in tiny cages are now in the care of International Animal Rescue (IAR) at its centre in Ketapang, Borneo.

A man was arrested for the trafficking of wildlife both directly and by using online social media sites.A spokeswoman for the charity based in Uckfield, East Sussex, said: “The general condition of the two orangutans is fair, although both are dehydrated and suffering from severe distress. One of them is rocking back and forth – this is an abnormal behaviour presented by animals in extremely stressful conditions.”

David Muhammad, head of the law enforcement agency of the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said the orangutans were captured by a hunter in Sintang, Indonesia, and collected by the arrested man who was selling them for about IDR 3m (about £175).


Who's a Blue Boy? Indian Dogs Tinted by Polluted River


By Sara G. Miller, Staff Writer | August 16, 2017 01:43pm ET



Dogs of a different color have been spotted roaming the streets of Navi Mumbai in India, according to news reports.

At least five bright blue dogs have been seen in the industrial area of the city, and a polluted river may be to blame, the Hindustan Times reported on Aug. 12.

Stray dogs often wade into the Kasadi River in search of food, but thanks to the industrial waste that's been released into the water, the dogs emerged with a Smurf-like dye job in addition to any scraps they could fish out. 


Leaping Lizards! Live Gecko Found Inside a Man's Ear


By Sara G. Miller, Staff Writer | August 22, 2017 01:26pm ET

Talk about an earache: When a man in China went to the hospital because of severe ear pain, doctors found a live gecko curled up in his ear canal, according to news reports.

The man woke up in the morning complaining of severe pain in his ear, as well as the feeling of something squirming around in there, according to the Deccan Chronicle, a South Indian newspaper. When doctors peered inside, they spotted a live lizard.

Initially, the doctors tried to remove the gecko with tweezers, but the lizard squirmed when it was touched, the Deccan Chronicle reported


First mutant ants shed light on evolution of social behavior


Date: August 10, 2017
Source: Rockefeller University

Summary:
Scientists disrupted a gene essential for sensing pheromones, resulting in severe deficiencies in the ants' social behaviors and their ability to survive within a colony.


New critically endangered tree species depends on unique habitat found only on Kaua'i


Date: August 16, 2017
Source: Pensoft Publishers

Summary:
A new tree species, endemic to the floristically rich high Hawaiian island Kaua'i, is already assessed as Critically Endangered according to IUCN criteria. First collected and documented as early as 1988, the new species, Melicope stonei, has been officially described and named in a new article.



Friday 25 August 2017

Public urged to drown wasps in beer in bizarre conservation project, condemned by wildlife experts

The Big Wasp Survey is urging members of the public to make wasp traps out of beer 

 Sarah Knapton, science editor 
22 AUGUST 2017 • 5:00PM

The public has been urged to drown wasps using beer in a bizarre conservation project, which has been condemned by wildlife experts.

Ecologists at the University College London (UCL) and the University of Gloucestershire are encouraging drinkers to set alcohol traps in their gardens then post the dead carcasses back to them, so the insects can be identified and counted.

The team claims it wants to ‘harness the public’s hatred of wasps’ to find out more about where they live and how common different types are, in the The Big Wasp Survey.

Entomologist Professor Adam Hart, of the University of Gloucester, said: “While we are asking people to kill some wasps, which is a bit unusual for a project aimed at conserving them, it really is the only way that we can identify the wasp species around and be sure that the information we get from the project is worthwhile.

“At this time of the year, wasp colonies are at the end of their life and the wasps we catch are old workers, who will die at the end of the summer anyway. This means our methods won’t have any effect on the overall population.”








When fish swim in the holodeck


Virtual worlds allow new experimental designs for the study of brain function

Date: August 21, 2017
Source: University of Vienna

Summary:
Standard behavior experiments to investigate behavior in popular lab animals only incompletely mimic natural conditions. The understanding of behavior and brain function is thus limited. Virtual Reality helps in generating a more natural experimental environment but requires immobilization of the animal, disrupting sensorimotor experience and causing altered neuronal and behavioral responses. Researchers have now developed a VR system for freely moving animals to overcome most of these limitations.


Post-whaling recovery of Southern Hemisphere


Date: August 21, 2017
Source: CSIRO Australia

Summary:
By 2100 some Southern Hemisphere whale species will not have reached half their pre-whaling numbers, while other species are expected to recover by 2050.


Why modern horses have only one toe


By Giorgia GuglielmiAug. 22, 2017 , 7:01 PM

How horses—whose ancestors were dog-sized animals with three or four toes—ended up with a single hoof has long been a matter of debate among scientists. Now, a new study suggests that as horses became larger, one big toe provided more resistance to bone stress than many smaller toes. To trace the evolution of the horse toe, researchers first examined 13 fossilized horse leg bones, from those of the 50-million-year-old, dog-sized Hyracotherium (which had three toes on its hind feet and four on its forefeet) to those of modern horses. They measured features like bone length and area using 3D scanning, which revealed the bones’ resistance to stresses such as squeezing or bending.


Why Australian tiger snakes have “hit the jackpot” – via Herp Digest


University of Queensland, Australia, UQ NEWS, 8/22/17


Tiger snakes are part of a group that has existed for 10 million years. Credit: Stewart Macdonald

Australian tiger snakes have “hit the jackpot” because prey cannot evolve resistance to their venom.


While that may sound foreboding, University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences expert Associate Professor Bryan Fry said this discovery had medical benefit for humans.


That’s because tiger snake antivenom has an extraordinary level of cross reactivity against other snake species, and can therefore neutralise the lethal effects on humans in snakebite cases.


“The level of conservation in the toxin sequences is not only really unusual, but this is why the corresponding tiger snake antivenom is so useful in treatments against bites from many Australian snakes that affect the blood in the same way,” Dr Fry said.


“No other antivenom in the world is so spectacularly effective against such a wide range of snakes this way and now we know why.”
Dr Fry said the research had overturned a central paradigm of venom evolution.


“A long-held belief is that snake venom varies with diet - that is, as the snakes evolve into new species and specialise on new prey, the venom changes along with it,” he said. 


“Our research has shown that tiger snakes and their close relatives have toxins that are almost identical, despite this group of snakes being almost 10 million years old.


“We worked out the reason was that the toxins target a part of the blood clotting cascade that is almost identical across all animals.
“So we have a new addition to the theory of venom evolution; that when the target itself is under extreme negative selection pressure against change, then the toxins themselves are under similar such pressure.


“This is a novel twist to the chemical arms race which most snake venoms evolve under. But it is one with direct human benefit since this is why tiger snake antivenom is so effective against treating the effects on the blood by quite a few other Australian snakes. No other antivenom is so widely useful.”


Dr Fry said normally, snake venom placed pressure on the target so that animals with some variance were more resistant to the venom, which in turn put pressure back onto the venom for change.




“In this case, if the animals had variation in their blood clotting proteins, they would die because they would not be able to stop bleeding,” he said.
Dr Fry’s team studied the venom of 16 tiger snake populations from across Australia including five island populations in the Bass Strait, and venoms from 11 other snakes in related genera.


“This is the most comprehensive examination of this clade of medically important snakes ever undertaken, including the first examination of the venom of the enigmatic Lake Cronin snake from Western Australia,” he said.


“This study is a great example of the human medical benefits that can come from studying evolution.”
The study involving researchers from UQ’s Venom Evolution Lab, Swansea University, UK, University of Melbourne, Venom Supplies South Australia, Snakes Harmful & Harmless, Western Australia, and the Fauna Vet Wildlife Veterinary Consultancy, Beerwah, is published in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part C (doi: 10.1016/j.cbpc.2017.07.005).


Media: Associate Professor Bryan Fry, bgfry@uq.edu.au, 0400 193 182 (Australia), +61 400 193 182. Twitter: @BryanGFry
Secondary photo: Lake Cronin Snake. All photos by Stewart Macdonald, stewart@ugmedia.com.au


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