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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the Eastern black rail a threatened species on Wednesday, but stopped short of the stronger protections some environmentalists were seeking for the elusive bird, now imperiled by habitat destruction, sea level rise, and the increasing frequency and intensity of storms with climate change. View the full article -
An activist speaking out about inadequate waste and water sanitation in rural America, an author of young adult and children's literature reflecting the world's diversity, and a neuroscientist who used mathematics to study the brain's development are among the 21 recipients of this year's "genius grants". View the full article
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Though some believe prehistoric humans lived in harmony with nature, a new analysis of fossils shows human arrival in the Bahamas caused some birds to be lost from the islands and other species to be completely wiped out. View the full article
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Oral avian trichomonosis is an infection caused by parasitic protozoon Trichomonas gallinae. By infecting mainly the oropharyngeal and crop mucosa, the severe lesions can cause the death of the birds due to suffocation or starvation, by preventing them from swallowing, or causing a lethal systemic infection. In order to facilitate the prognostication and to establish the best treatment of this infection, especially in the case of birds of prey, researchers from the CEU Cardenal Herrera (CEU UCH), Complutense of Madrid (UCM), Católica de Valencia (UCV) universities and the Native Fauna and its Habitat Rehabilitation Group (GREFA) have published the first scale of avian lesions caused by trichomonosis in international scientific journal Veterinary Parasitology. View the full article
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If you visit a particular stretch of South Africa's Cape South coast, about 400km east of Cape Town, you are stepping back in time—in more ways than one. That's because hundreds of fossil tracksites dot the area. These sites date back to between 400,000 and 35,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch. They occur in aeolianites (cemented dunes) and cemented foreshore deposits, the remains of dune and beach surfaces on which animals left their tracks. View the full article
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The common cuckoo is known for its deceitful nesting behavior—by laying eggs in the nests of other bird species, it fools host parents into rearing cuckoo chicks alongside their own. While common cuckoos mimic their host's eggs, new research has revealed that a group of parasitic finch species in Africa have evolved to mimic their host's chicks—and with astonishing accuracy. The study is published in the journal Evolution. View the full article
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What do songbirds and humans have in common? We crave social interaction, and the chemical rewards that flood our brain when we get it. View the full article
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Animal acoustic signals are amazingly diverse. Researchers from the University of Zurich and the University of Saint-Etienne, together with French, American and Dutch collaborators, explored the function and diversification of animal acoustic signals and the mechanisms underlying the evolution of animal communication systems. View the full article
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Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) are tracking white storks in a bid to find out about migratory habits that disappeared more than 600 years ago. View the full article
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The number of alien (non-native) species, particularly insects, arthropods and birds, is expected to increase globally by 36% by the middle of this century, compared to 2005, finds new research by an international team involving UCL. View the full article
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In birds and other species alike, pairs can face considerable difficulties with reproduction. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen have now shown in an extensive analysis of 23,000 zebra finch eggs that infertility is mainly due to males, while high embryo mortality is more a problem of the females. Inbreeding, age of the parents and conditions experienced when growing up had surprisingly little influence on reproductive failures. View the full article
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The future of biodiversity hangs in the balance. World leaders are gathering to review international targets and make new pledges for action to stem wildlife declines. Depending on whether you are a glass half-full or half-empty person, you're likely to have different views on their progress so far. View the full article
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A new study provides substantial evidence that the first fossil feather ever to be discovered does belong to the iconic Archaeopteryx, a bird-like dinosaur named in Germany on this day in 1861. This debunks a recent theory that the fossil feather originated from a different species. View the full article
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Surviving on a warming planet can be a matter of timing—but simply shifting lifecycle stages to match the tempo of climate change has hidden dangers for some animals, according to new research from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and Cornell University. The study has uncovered drastic consequences for birds that are breeding earlier in lockstep with earlier starts of spring: chicks hatching earlier face increased risk of poor weather conditions, food shortages and mortality. View the full article
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Dozens of countries representing more than a quarter of global GDP on Monday released a fresh set of pledges for "urgent and immediate" action to halt nature loss and protect Earth's crucial biodiversity. View the full article
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As the streets of San Francisco emptied out in the first months of the pandemic, the city's male birds began singing more softly and improving their vocal range, making them "sexier" to females, according to a new study published Thursday. View the full article
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Evidence continues to accumulate about human and wildlife exposure to chemical compounds called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively referred to as PFAS, and their deleterious effects on the environment. The latest study, by a University of Rhode Island graduate student, found high levels of the compounds in seabirds from offshore Massachusetts and coastal Rhode Island and North Carolina. View the full article
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On a rocky outcrop in an Ecuadoran nature reserve, a pair of prolific Andean condors are giving conservationists a glimmer of hope that the species, under threat from poisoning and hunting, could yet survive and thrive. View the full article
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Millions of ibis and birds of prey mummies, sacrificed to the Egyptian gods Horus, Ra or Thoth, have been discovered in the necropolises of the Nile Valley. Such a quantity of mummified birds raises the question of their origin: Were they bred, like cats, or were they hunted? Scientists from the CNRS, the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and the C2RMF have carried out extensive geochemical analyses on mummies from the Musée des Confluences, Lyon. According to their results, published on 22nd September 2020 in the journal Scientific Reports, they were wild birds. View the full article
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Most wild animals show a suite of predator avoidance behaviors such as vigilance, freezing, and fleeing. But these are quickly reduced after the animals come into contact with humans through captivity, domestication, or urbanization, according to a study led by Benjamin Geffroy from MARBEC (Institute of Marine Biodiversity, Exploitation and Conservation), publishing September 22nd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. View the full article
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Birds tweet, squawk, chirp, hoot, cluck, and screech to communicate with each other. Some birds have found another way to talk, though: they make sounds by fluttering their feathers or smacking their wings together really fast. Scientists just discovered another species that makes sounds with its feathers, a bird from the American tropics called the Fork-tailed Flycatcher. And by analyzing recordings of the birds in flight, the researchers found that subspecies with different migration patterns have different "dialects" to their feather sounds, possibly helping contribute to them splitting into separate species. View the full article
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Conservation planning can be greatly improved to benefit human communities, while still protecting biodiversity, according to University of Queensland research. View the full article
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A new report on biological collections from The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine points to the need for sustainability, digitization, recruitment of a diverse workforce, and infrastructure upgrades to meet the challenges now facing science and society. The report, "Biological Collections: Ensuring Critical Research and Education for the 21st Century," says these collections are a critical part of the nation's science and innovation infrastructure and a fundamental resource for understanding the natural world. View the full article
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Confuciusornis was a crow-like fossil bird that lived in the Cretaceous ~120 million years ago. It was one of the first birds to evolve a beak. Early beak evolution remains understudied. Using an imaging technique called Laser-Stimulated Fluorescence (LSF), researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) address this by revealing just how different the beak and jaw of Confuciusornis were compared to birds we see today. View the full article
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Billions of birds die annually from collisions with windows, communication towers, wind turbines, and other human-made objects. One reason is that birds see a reflection of the sky in the object and think they're flying into an unobstructed path. View the full article
