Tag Archives: species

Even small amounts of plastic leave traces in storm petrel chicks.

By | September 1, 2026
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An adult brown duck cuddle-t hugging a white duckling on a rocky, muddy shore by the water.

Plastic was found in 71 percent of southern giant petrel chicks examined. Even small amounts relative to body mass were associated with changes in nutritional status, body condition, metabolism, liver and muscle function, and immune response in approximately one-month-old birds. This is reported by Luciana Gallo (CONICET) and Marcela Uhart (UC Davis) with partners in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety (DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2026.120628). Sampling took place in 2022… Read more »

Ocean acidification is destroying the social life of reef fish.

By | May 24
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Underwater coral reef with many small colorful fish swimming around a rocky outcrop, sunlight filtering from above.

Adelaide (LabNews Media LLC) – Ocean acidification not only directly affects the physiology of reef fish, but also, and perhaps more importantly, destroys their social structures. This is the finding of a new study from the University of Adelaide, published in the "Journal of Animal Ecology." The researchers used natural CO₂ sources off the coast of Japan as a real-world model of future ocean conditions. They discovered… Read more »

South Korean police arrest man for AI-generated fake photo of escaped wolf

By | April 24, 2026
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Close-up of a gray wolf's face with piercing green eyes against a dark background, conveying intensity and focus.

Seoul (Labnews Media LLC) – South Korean police have arrested a 40-year-old man for distributing an AI-generated image of a runaway wolf, thereby hindering the official search. As the BBC reports, the manipulated photo led to a false alarm and significantly hampered the nine-day search operation. The wolf, named Neukgu, escaped from the O World Zoo on April 8… Read more »

PFAS threaten penguins in Patagonia

By | April 8, 2026
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According to a study by the University of California, Davis, and the State University of New York at Buffalo, penguins living on the Patagonian coast of Argentina can serve as living observers of their environment by using small, chemically detecting leg rings. For the feasibility study, published in the journal "Earth: Environmental Sustainability," scientists from UC Davis equipped 54 Magellanic penguins during the… Read more »

Florida's most endangered bat is moving into safer artificial roosts.

By | March 14, 2026
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Florida landowners have been working for years to lure crested bats out of their homes and into artificial roosts, with varying degrees of long-term success. For other bat species, artificial roosts fail to protect them from extreme temperatures, and the bats either move out or die. Now, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with partners in the US, have found a solution. The Army… Read more »

Unsupervised strategies in naive animals: New model explains adaptive decisions without learning

By | February 3, 2026
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London – Newborn or newly hatched animals such as chicks, turtles, and insect larvae are not "blank slates." They possess numerous weak, innate biases that combine to allow them to make vital decisions without prior learning. This is shown by a new mathematical model published by researchers at Queen Mary University of London in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B… Read more »

Cities as catalysts for evolution: How urbanization promotes the spread of the grid cicada in the USA

By | February 3, 2026
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New York – The invasive spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) has spread explosively in the US since its discovery in 2014. A new genetic study from New York University now shows that adaptation to urban conditions in its native China – heat, pollution, and pesticides – has apparently “pre-hardened” the insects and facilitated their successful invasion of North American cities… Read more »

Five unknown winter birds from the north: The Heinz Sielmann Foundation presents rare visitors

By | February 3, 2026
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Germany – While many native breeding birds spend the winter in the south, conversely, species from Arctic and Scandinavian regions migrate to our latitudes. For them, the German winter is comparatively mild and offers abundant food. The Heinz Sielmann Foundation presents five special winter visitors that appear in Germany almost exclusively during the cold season and are unknown to most people. At least one of them… Read more »

New tarantula genus discovered on the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa

By | August 4, 2025
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On August 4, 2025, researchers reported in the open-access journal ZooKeys the discovery of four new tarantula species in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Due to significant morphological and molecular differences from known species, a new genus called Satyrex was introduced. The name combines the term "satyr" from Greek mythology, which refers to exceptionally large genitalia… Read more »