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All in Nature
A pair of Galapagos tortoises, the two oldest residents at the Philadelphia Zoo, have become first-time parents to at least four healthy hatchlings. The female, named Mommy, and her mate Abrazzo are both estimated to be about 100 years old.
Arachnologists from the University of Western Australia have discovered two new species of trapdoor spiders in northern Australia, a first for the area. The arachnids – Kwonkan fluctellus and K. nemoralis – make their debut in the Australian Journal of Taxonomy.
The lowly blobfish, long recognized as the world’s ugliest animal, has resurfaced this week to win a comelier title: Fish of the Year. New Zealand environmental group Mountain to Sea Conservation Trust holds the annual contest to raise awareness for freshwater and marine life.
Photographer Milko Marchetti happened upon a squirrel in a public park in Ravenna, Italy, so he snapped a shot of the rodent halfway in (or out) of a hole in a tree. “This photo had an effect on me and made me smile a lot in that moment that I clicked the button,” he says. “I knew I had to enter it into the competition.”
It’s been nearly 40 years since killer whales off the west coast of North America were spotted wearing dead salmon on their heads. No one knows why this whacky trend began or why it ended, but we do know it’s back.
There are plenty of anecdotes about animals getting squiffy on fermented fruits in the wild, but we tend to think of these drunken episodes as rare and accidental. New research, which appears in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, challenges this assumption.
Spider-gazing researchers in China say that the orb-weaving spider (Araneus ventricosus) entices male fireflies into its web, then it gets freaky. Somehow the spider manipulates its prey into mimicking a female firefly’s flashing light, which lures more amorous males into the deathtrap.
The cicadas have arrived. Slightly earlier than predicted, but the first bugs have been reported in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. In the coming weeks, two distinct bug broods, which usually emerge in separate years but in 2024 their disparate cycles are in sync, will infest the US southeast and midwest.
When vandals chopped down the famous “Sycamore Gap” tree in the UK last September, local horticulturist Rachel Ryver immediately collected young twigs and buds from the felled tree, thinking it was possible to graft genetic copies of the specimen.
In August 2017, a total solar eclipse dazzled and baffled animals across much of the country. Even the US president at the time lost his head (momentarily?), and stared directly at the sun without using ocular protection.
Because the spider called daddy longlegs has a particularly salient trait – namely its long legs – biologists never really considered the creature’s eyes, which were assumed to be a standard-issue pair situated at the top of the head. Now researchers have discovered two more sets of peepers, vestigial and useless, on the side.
Urban architecture often uses bird-unfriendly materials – spiky wires and nails, e.g., on ledges, statues, and elsewhere – to discourage birds from nesting and pooping on human structures. It mostly works, but now some clever crows and magpies have been removing the anti-bird bits and are using them to build their nests.
The grand prize winner in Audubon’s annual photography contest is remarkable for its banality: a pair of rock pigeons, one of the most common birds on the planet.
There are only a few hundred pink iguanas on Earth, and all of them live on the slopes of Wolf Volcano in the Galápagos. Now rangers from the Galápagos Conservancy and national park have spotted nesting sites and hatchlings of this critically endangered species for the first time.
We’ve known for some time that the Toxoplasma gondii parasite can infect the brains of rodents, forcing them via mind control into fatal encounters with predators. Now scientists have observed that wolves infected with T. gondii are also altering their behavior, in their case by taking more risks.
Researchers at Simon Fraser University have been watching the mating rituals of the false widow spider (Steatoda grossa). They find that the female spins her web, douses it with pheromones to attract males, then tweaks the composition of her come-hither chemicals as necessary to elicit the desired sexual response.
Ornithorhynchus anatinus is one odd duck. With a tail like a beaver’s, webbed feet, nostrils that can clamp shut for underwater foraging, this egg-laying mammal seeks prey by detecting electrical fields using receptors on their bills. Having no nipples doesn’t stop them from nursing their young, which feed through pores in mama’s skin.
A female African lion named Zuri has raised eyebrows (and other bodily hair) at the Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center. For the past two years the 18-year-old has been growing a mane, just like a dude.
In March, a new species of fish was discovered off the coast of the Maldives. More specifically, a misidentified fish discovered in the 1990s has been properly identified as a new species.
