During major floods, thousands of tiny fish convene at Luvilombo Falls in the upper Congo River Basin to undertake a peculiar vertical migration, described for the first time today in Scientific Reports.
Red-necked keelback snakes possess a potent toxin derived from the toads they consume, which can cause severe harm to predators like mongooses. The snakes store these toxins in specialized nuchal glands.
The fireflies were most likely to change their own flashing rhythm in response when the LED blinked almost, but not quite, at the same time as the fireflies. The males would speed up their next flash if the LED blinked just before and waited a bit longer for their next flash when the LED blinked right after.
This study started from a discussion with my co-author and postdoctoral researcher, Sabrina Rondeau, whose recent findings showed that these queens can survive submersion for over a week, which is extraordinary for a terrestrial insect. We wanted to understand how that's even possible.
An unnamed tourist saw it and told Aidan Moore, who works for Alcatraz City Cruises. Moore told SFGATE that he was initially skeptical, but the guest's iPhone footage left little room for doubt. The video shows, not a sea lion or an otter, but an actual Canis latrans, doggedly dogpaddling, then clambering out of the water, noticeably shaky and struggling to settle tired paws on the craggy rocks.
1 Rodney King beating. 2 Boreal forest (taiga). 3 Named storm in the UK. 4 Dr Faustus (Marlowe play). 5 Floella Benjamin. 6 Gentlemen v Players. 7 RNLI. 8 Classical music. 9 Plots against Elizabeth I. 10 Ways of having your steak in France. 11 Animals that can walk on water. 12 Birth states of US presidents. 13 Scales used to measure natural phenomena: tornadoes; earthquakes; hurricanes; hazard from near-Earth objects.
London is the only place in the UK where you can find scorpions, snakes, turtles, seals, peacocks, falcons all in one city and not London zoo. Step outside and you will encounter a patchwork of writhing, buzzing, bubbling urban microclimates. Sam Davenport, the director of nature recovery at the London Wildlife Trust, emphasises the sheer variation in habitats that you find in UK cities, which creates an amazing mosaic of wildlife.
What's scarier than a spider? A really big spider, of course. A newfound defensive tactic takes advantage of this idea: researchers documented spiders building giant spiderlike silhouettes on their webs to ward off predators. These decoys are an example of web decorations that some spiders are known to produce, often to prevent getting eaten, avoid bird strikes or attract prey.
On a spring day in 1694, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek - the father of microbiology - used a magnifying lens to look at a candle through the dissected eye of a dragonfly. But instead of seeing 1 candle flame, he saw hundreds of tiny flames, repeated over and over. But spoiler alert - this is not how insects see. Hi, I'm Niba, and today we're going to explore how insects really see the world.
Biodiversity loss is continuing at an unprecedented rate, with species becoming extinct at between 100 and 1,000 times the average pre-human, or 'background', rate. Human activities are the main cause. Although there are hundreds of local, regional and international initiatives to conserve and sustainably use species and ecosystems, many conservation scientists worry that measures such as interventions to conserve individual species or incentives to create protected areas are not supported by strong evidence from research.
When the category-5 storm Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica in October, its path crossed communities that had varying levels of preparedness. Many with maintained coastal protections, upgraded drainage and reliable early-warning systems had power and water restored in days. Others were immobilized for weeks.
The mirror spider can rapidly shift a patchwork of minuscule reflective plates underneath its abdomen's outer surface, altering the pattern of mirrorlike flashes. This uncommon display comes from common building blocks: Similar tilelike arrangements of plates and soft joints appear throughout the tree of life, from turtle shells to tropical fruit peels. Researchers have now compiled 100 examples of this pattern across animals, plants, microbes and viruses, which they describe in PNAS Nexus.