According to scientists and a new study which the journal Nature Communications recently published, hunters have caused Scandinavian bears and their cubs to slightly alter their behavior. Over the last few decades, the cubs have begun spending a lot more time with their mothers. It seems that hunters have a great impact on this species of bears and are causing them to change the way they behave. It’s interesting that before these recent observations, brown bear cubs were spending about a year and a half with the mothers. When cubs spent two, two and a half years with their moms, it was extremely rare.

According to the experts, now, the cubs are almost all spending one extra years with their mothers. Over the past 15 to 20 years, hunters have forced bears to adapt and change their behavior. Now, 30% more female bears are taking care of their cubs for one more year than before. The increase started becoming visible since 2005. Jon Swenson, an author on the study, says that hunters are more likely to shoot female bears if they don’t have a cub with them. It’s also worth noting that in countries that allow bear hunting, hunters are forbidden to target families.

Brown bears are changing their behavior because of hunters

Hunting is the main reason why female brown bears are now spending a lot more time with their cubs. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of mothers taking care of their cubs for one more year increased from only 7% to 36%. Coincidentally or not, hunting has also increased in Sweden in this exact time period.

However, it’s worth noting that taking care of their cubs for a longer time also means that the females will be reproducing less often. This could seriously affect the brown bear population. At the same time, this change has increased the average lifespan of female brown bears.

Image source: pixabay

Scientists confirmed that there is more than just one species of anteater in the Amazon.

 

A team of researchers conducting studies in the Amazon has confirmed the existence of six new species of anteaters. Instead of one single species, it has been confirmed that Cyclopes didactylus can be subdivided into an additional six species.

“The reason for this may be the life habits of these animals. All species occupy a similar and highly specialized ecological niche with no competition.”

The latest study claims that horses never actually lost their toes, as it was believed.

While hooved animals certainly have feet, most of them appear to be lacking toes. But like all walking animals, species with hoofs require toes for balance and for maintaining contact with the ground.

It has long been thought that a modern day horse had one “super toe” on each foot. But scientists have recently made an interesting find concerning the composition of horse feet.

Of all of the animal species with descendants still on the planet, few are better documented than the horse. On Earth over the last 55,000,000 years, the horse has been represented by a number of species. Many of them existed at the same time in different parts of the world.

The Evolution of Horses and Their Feet

The ancient horse was not one of the largest creatures of its times. A number of horse species were initially about the size of a small modern dog. But horses were one of the most rapidly evolving prehistoric mammals. Their feet offer good clues as to these evolutionary changes.

Horses left forests behind and began growing in size millions of years ago. As forest dwellers, they had five distinct toes on each foot. This is seemingly the proper number to have if you want to climb and cling to trees.

But this “toe abundance” gets in the way and slows you down if you want to run rapidly. Because of this, scientists believed that horses did some toe shedding about five million years ago. This might have happened as the animal and its leg bones grew and it moved from forests to plains.

Eventually, the horse’s foot morphed into the hoof we know today, with only a single prominent toe on each foot. Or so scientists thought.

A recent article, published by the Royal Society Open Science explains that these “extra” digits never vanished. They fused instead into one super toe to meet the animal’s changing needs.

Lead study author, Nikos Solounias, explained that:

“All five digits have merged to form the compact forelimb with hooves we know today”.

The other toe remnants are not visible to the naked eye but can be seen with special equipment. Since this toe transformation improved the use of the horse’s foot, it’s possible that further study could be used to eventually help humans with damaged limbs and digits.

Image Source: Pexels 

Birds-of-Paradise, especially males, are known for their brightly-colored and iridescent feathers. However, there are certain species that also sport some charcoal black feathers. For years, researchers have been trying to find out the secrets of this feathers that absorb the light. Also, to discover were this amazing and intense black color comes from because it’s deeper than any materials humans have created.

It’s important to know that feathers, being opaque, can get their color in two ways. Usually, the surface coatings create the wavelengths of light that an object reflects. Some examples of this would be the chlorophyll in leaves and melanin in skin. However, Dakota McCoy, the leader of the study, says that these black feathers the birds use for mating are not iridescent at all. According to the study, which Nature Communications published, the feathers absorb about 99.95% of the light. But if we were to take a closer look at the plumage, we would notice the trick.

The black feathers of the Birds-of-Paradise

The secret lays in the barbules located near the tip of the feathers: they are frayed. In comparison with them, barbules in flight feathers have some kind of small hook. McCoy says that each time light falls on them, it gets reflected into these small cavities, not outward, as it normally would.

According to experts, this study also reveals a new type of feather microstructure. The feathers are still black, but this structure does nothing more than enhance the blackness. These feathers are so special that they remained black even after being covered with a layer of gold. Normal black feathers became golden, as expected.

According to McCoy, the male Birds-of-Paradise developed these feathers to attract partners. So, when they want to mate, they make sure that the females see their feathers as black as possible. This means that the feathers are not for camouflage, as it was previously believed.

Image source: wikimedia

A new study revealed that guppy fish have actually complex personalities.

Guppy fish have quite complex personalities, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at the Exeter University, England. These found that, when faced with stressful situations, each fish responded in its own way.

Their reactions were also broader than just being risk-taking or risk-averse ones.

Stress Reveals the Complex Personality of Guppy Fish

The team of scientists, of the Exeter University Centre for Ecology and Conservation, studied the individual reactions of Trinidadian guppy fish. These were faced with diverse stressful situations, specially designed to trigger various stress levels.

In doing so, the team of researchers reported detecting significant differences in the reactions of the fish. According to the team, these could also not be explained by just applying a risk-averse or risk-taking behavior stamp.

The fish were reported to have returned widely different reactions to the same situation. For example, the fish were placed in an unfamiliar environment. While some of them tried to hide, and other to escape, some fish were ‘cautiously’ exploring this new habitat.

Tom Houslay, one of the researchers involved, states that the reactions of the guppy fish were different and “consistent” over time and also in diverse environments or different situations.

“So, while the behaviour of all the guppies changed depending on the situation – for example, all becoming more cautious in more stressful situations – the relative differences between individuals remained intact,” continued Houslay.

The researchers will now look to determine why and what led to the development of these fish’s complex personalities. So the next phase of the study will reportedly target to find the genetics behind these personalities and their associated traits.

Alastair Wilson, also part of the study, explains that the team will try and establish the relation between personality and other “facets of life”. Or to what degree this is driven by genetic and not environmental factors.

He explains that the ‘real goal’ is to better understand the “evolutionary processes”.

A study paper with the current study results is available in the journal Functional Ecology.

Image Source: Pixabay 

The patterns and colors on a butterfly’s wings are generated by just two genes.

For many years, the colorful and intricate patterns on the wings of butterflies were thought by scientists to be controlled by many genes. This was believed because of their complexity and vast amounts of variation. But now, entomologists believe that just two genes control the vast array of colors found in a butterfly’s wings. This conclusion was reached thanks to research done with the famous, pioneering, and controversial CRISPR technique.

The Two Genes, a Genetic Master Switch for the Colors and Patterns

One of the two studies on the matter, both published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was conducted by Bob Reed, an evolutionary development biologist, and an international team of scientists based at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The team first looked at the much beloved and very endangered monarch butterfly. It then moved on to several other species, and their findings helped confirm the initial study results.

Within the DNA of the butterflies, just two complementary genes called WntA and optix seemed to handle most of the outward expression of the patterns and colors on the wings of the butterflies. These two genes appear to be the so-called “adaptive hotspots”. This means that their expression is affected by the butterfly’s environment.

Such adaptations allow the insect to better mask itself within whatever field of wildflowers or bush, for example, it might be happening to live in or pass by.

“The two different genes are complementary. They are painting genes specialized, in a way, for making patterns,” states Arnaud Martin, the lead author of the other study and a developmental biologist at the George Washington University.

Whenever the scientists turned off the WntA gene, boundaries and shapes in the wing patterns became less vibrant. The dark contouring of the monarch’s wing, for example, faded to a pale gray.

When they turned off the optix, the colors in the center of the wings disappeared almost entirely. Butterflies with typically bright red and yellow wings turned out gray and brown.

However, altering this gene in bland species led to the exact opposite effect. In the Junonia coenia, for example, it resulted in the appearance of bright blue spots. The results seem to indicate that the optix gene may be about more than just pigmentation, as it might even have a role in other physical expressions as well.

Image Source: Wikimedia

This is why IUCN decided to classify the polar bear population as vulnerable.

The Earth is changing day by day and in some cases, it is getting worse. Some animals are having trouble adjusting to the new climate conditions. Climate change has been an important factor and has damaged a lot of areas including the polar area.

Many animals are going to be extinct in the near future due to the rise of sea levels and higher temperatures. The rising temperatures are affecting the sea ice levels which are getting smaller and smaller. The sea ice is melting and specialists warn people that in the next centuries there might be no ice left in some areas.

These are some of the factors that affect animals too. For instance, some of the animals that are affected by climate change are the polar bears. The polar bear population is getting smaller and smaller because they are losing their habitat and they will soon lose their food, too.

Sea ice is the best habitat for young bears that don’t know how to swim. They stay on the ice and catch fish. If the ice continues to melt at this rate, in the next 35 year more than 30% of the polar bear population will be lost.

This research made experts think about the fact that these animals are in danger. This is why IUCN decided to classify the polar bear population as vulnerable. This is only a small step to saving these animals.

The researchers who completed this study did not focus only on one group of polar bears, they analyzed all of them. There are 19 polar bear groupings all across the Arctic. The researchers were able to determine that climate change is affecting all of them because the ice sea is the thing that is keeping them alive.

The biggest problem is that during the summer there might be no ice left. This prediction is set for 2030. This means that in almost 10 years there will be no ice left during the summer. Experts predict that maybe during the winter there will be some ice. This will affect all polar animals not only the polar bear population.

Greenhouse gasses are also affecting the polar bear population. In the last 30 years, experts have found traces of toxic PCPs in the organs and tissues of female bears and their pups. All of these factors are affecting and threatening the lives of these animals.

Image source: Wikipedia

The Arctic sea ice is losing its oldest formations.

A new warning has been issued by specialists, as information from NASA reveals the alarming situation at the North Pole. The Arctic sea ice could melt away for good, as climate change advances. The new images from NASA were provided by satellites and showed that the ice was thinner than initially believed.

The researchers explain that the melting phenomenon is natural during summer. However, the cold season must be able to restore regularly the amounts of ice that were lost in the summer. Since the warm season seems to last more than usual and winters lose their power, specialists are concerned that the snow and ice in the North Pole will never be restored.

The new images from NASA reveal that the oldest ice formation in the Arctic Sea was affected by the abnormally warm temperatures. The structure has either shrunk or melted, but the change is visible, as specialists observed.

Scientists explain that this is more than a wake-up call on the damages of global warming. They say that it is normal that the summer heat should melt ice formed in recent years, which is young and thin. However, if the temperatures affected the old structures, then this is an extremely serious situation.

The specialists also believe that the weakening of the ancient formations didn’t occur all of a sudden. They suspect that this is the result of several abnormally warm seasons, which took their toll on the once strong ice structures. Prolonged exposure to ever-warming climate makes the ice vulnerable, prone to breaking and melting.

The reports from scientists show that the Arctic sea ice is getting weaker every summer. Each warm season has been stealing more ice than the previous one in recent years. The new evidence points out that the warm temperatures succeeded in affecting the old structures, which were thought to be safe from the damaging action of global warming.

Apart from the ice in the Arctic, snowy mountainous regions are also affected. Such is the case of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa or the Alps in Europe. The mountains can face the threat of losing their ice and glaciers.

The melting of the Arctic sea ice affects ecosystems all around the world. The snow and ice will turn to water and increase the sea levels worldwide. The animals will also be affected, as they rely on ice, cold water, and low temperatures to survive.

Image courtesy of: Flickr

Emperor penguins live in the largest marine reserve in the world, in Antarctica.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources announced an important environmental decision on October 28. The largest marine reserve was initiated off Antarctica, in the Ross Sea. The new protected area is almost six hundred thousand square miles large and it is the home of many marine species.

There was an international committee that decided to declare the Ross Sea a protected area. Officials from European countries and the United States expressed their opinion on protecting the marine life around the Antarctic shores.

Specialists explain that the Ross Sea is so large that it is commonly referred to as the “Last Ocean.” The region got its denomination also because it is remote and out of humans’ reach. As a result, the waters in Antarctica are not polluted, and the ecosystems are quite balanced and not affected by overfishing.

The largest marine reserve in the world harbors many animal species, such as penguins, seals, whales, and fish. Moreover, the populations are thriving, as they are not affected by human activities. Specialists estimate that there are about sixteen thousand animal species in the ecosystems of the Ross Sea.

The marine animals in Antarctica don’t deal with the survival struggles to which other aquatic creatures are exposed by human actions. There are no fishing gears to get entangled in, nor plastic items to get wrapped in or choked on. The populations are numerous, as they are not threatened by excessive hunting, fishing, nor exposed to collision with ships and boats.

The species which survive the cold temperatures in  Antarctica have special adaptations to the region. Penguins and fish can bear waters so cold that would cause heart attacks on humans. Orcas and Minke whales are also happy here, where they have plenty of food and proper climate conditions.

The researchers involved in the project explain that the Ross Sea might be the biggest ecosystem left on Earth and the most healthy as well. Specialists are aware that the planet lost most of its wilderness mainly because of human activities.

The sizes of the recently created marine reserve in Antarctica make the sanctuary the largest such place on Earth. Before the call of the international committee, it was a Hawaiian reserve the one that held the world record for biggest animal refuge ever. The reserve in Hawaii measured 1.5 million square kilometers and was initiated by President Barack Obama at the end of the summer.

Image courtesy of: Wikipedia