PhysOrg

A total of 55 animal species in the UK have been displaced from their natural ranges or enabled to arrive for the first time on UK shores because of climate change over the last 10 years (2008-2018) - as revealed in a new study published today (18 July 2019) by scientists at international conservation charity ZSL (Zoological Society of London). View the full article

An animal rescue group is asking for help caring for 89 baby snowy egrets and black-crowned night herons that left homeless last week after a tree fell in downtown Oakland. View the full article

Senckenberg ornithologist Gerald Mayr, in conjunction with his colleague Alan Tennyson of the Te Papa Museum in New Zealand, describe a previously unknown, extinct albatross species from the Pliocene. The bird, which lived about 3 million years ago, only reached approximately 90 percent of the size of the smallest modern albatrosses. However, the fossil's most remarkable trait is the unusually narrow beak, which suggests that the new species mainly fed on fish. The diet of modern albatrosses, by contrast, is dominated by squid. The fossil discovery thus indicates a higher diversity in the feeding ecology of extinct albatrosses and raises the question why the fish-eating forms ultimately went extinct. The study is published today in the scientific journal Ibis. View the full article

A pair of New Zealand penguins that broke into a sushi stall at Wellington's busiest railway station have been returned to their natural habitat. View the full article

London's house sparrows (Passer domesticus) have plummeted by 71% since 1995, with new research suggesting avian malaria could be to blame. View the full article

In nature, as in life, there's often more than one way to solve a problem. That includes the evolutionary process. A new study in Evolution Letters finds that different bird species in the same challenging environment—the highly saline ecosystem of tidal marshes along ocean shores—were able to evolve unique species-specific ways to address the same problem. View the full article

When it comes to mating displays, a little persistence can go a long way, at least for the greater sage grouse. In "Hidden Markov Models Reveal Tactical Adjustment of Temporally Clustered Courtship Displays in Response to the Behaviors of a Robotic Female," published in The American Naturalist, Anna C. Perry and her colleagues at the University of California in Davis (USA), the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig (Germany) and the University of Florida (USA) use a custom-built statistical model to understand an under-explored dimension of greater sage grouse mating display behavior. The authors report that males that show greater display persistence, even in the face of seemingly uninterested females, have a competitive advantage over their peers. View the full article

Researchers at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, have painstakingly reconstructed the nation's 'once in a century drought' in the early 1900s, revealing that it caused mass ecosystem collapse and dramatic declines in plant and animal populations across more than a third of the continent. View the full article

Why did you choose your job? Or where you live? Scientists at the University of Warwick have discovered that it was probably to keep your options as open as possible—and the more we co-operate together, the more opportunities are available to us. View the full article

Non-native parrots can cause substantial agricultural damage and threaten native biodiversity, although impacts vary strongly depending on where these parrots have been introduced. Brought to Europe as pets, escaped or released parrots have established numerous wild populations across Europe. Tens of thousands of ring-necked and monk parakeets make up the bulk of Europe's parrots, but several more species are gaining a foothold too. View the full article

Organisers of this year's Gay Pride week in Munich have a group of rather wild partners—penguins, giraffes and lions at the city zoo where tours are being run about same-sex love in the animal kingdom. View the full article

The California condor's dramatic recovery from near-extinction was aided by removal of toxic substances from the land, which accumulated in animals whose carrion they ate. View the full article

A sweeping red-rock cliff at Utah's Zion National Park is now the home of a new California condor chick as the species makes a comeback in the wild three decades after they were on the brink of extinction, biologists have confirmed. View the full article

University of North Texas Ph.D. candidate, Amy Wynia, traveled more than 6,000 miles to Navarino Island in southern-most Chile to explore the forests in search of the Magellanic Woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus), the largest woodpecker in South America. While Wynia went to the ends of the earth to collect information for her Ph.D. dissertation, she also went because she really loves woodpeckers. View the full article

Little is known about how seabirds catch their food outside the breeding season but using modern technology, researchers at the University of Liverpool and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology have gained new insight into their feeding habits. View the full article