PhysOrg

Scientists have discovered how a biological switch helps animals make the seasonal changes crucial for survival, such as growing a warm winter coat and adjusting body temperatures. View the full article

A revolutionary group of scientists has been rethinking for two decades how we understand bird song, with women leading the way. Several of these scientists are from UMBC, and their latest research has revealed findings not just about birds, but about bird researchers. View the full article

A pair of researchers with Universidade Federal de Santa Maria has pieced together fossilized bones of a species of dinosaur called Sacisaurus agudoensis, a creature that was not much bigger than a modern dog. In their paper published in the journal Biology Letters, Rodrigo Temp Müller and Maurício Silva Garcia discuss their work and why they believe what they learned can fill in a major part of the story of ornithischians. View the full article

"A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why," wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1903. View the full article

A California wildfire has destroyed a sanctuary for the endangered California condor and the fates of several condors, including a chick, remain unknown. View the full article

Precipitation patterns, along with temperature, dictate where tropical forests are distributed around the world. Surprisingly, though, scientists know very little about the direct effects of rainfall on tropical animals. View the full article

Six black-naped terns—a coastal seabird found in the Pacific and Indian Oceans—have given researchers a glimpse into how they navigate tropical typhoons. View the full article

The origins of birds and their flight was a major event in the history of life. A wealth of spectacular fossils has demonstrated that birds are theropod dinosaurs, with Pennaraptora being the most relevant subgroup to transition from non-avian dinosaurs to birds. Here we announce the publication of a landmark journal volume on pennaraptoran theropods edited by HKU Research Assistant Professor Dr. Michael Pittman (Vertebrate Palaeontology Laboratory, Division of Earth and Planetary Science & Department of Earth Sciences) and Prof. Xing Xu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment (Beijing, China), who both specialize in these animals. View the full article

The world's tropical regions are home to the widest range of plants and animals, but research from The University of Queensland reveals that climate change is pushing species away, and fast. View the full article

Balanophora have some of the smallest fruits among angiosperms, leading researchers to question how the seeds of these plants are dispersed. However, very little is currently known about their seed dispersal system. Associate Professor Suetsugu Kenji (Kobe University Graduate School of Science) documents an unrecognized seed dispersal mutualism between the peculiar, mushroom-like non-photosynthetic plant Balanophora yakushimensis and its avian visitors. The birds obtain nutrients, not from the tiny undernourished fruits, but from the larger fleshy bracts, while B. yakushimensis plants benefit from the seed dispersal. In contrast to well-studied fleshy-fruited plants, the dry-fruited Balanophora species has adopted an avian seed dispersal mutualism through its fleshy bracts, which act as both visual attractants and nutritional rewards. These findings were published on 19 August, 2020 in Ecology. View the full article

Some birds lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species and let the host parents raise their young. A new study finds that in times of environmental flux, these brood parasites "diversify their portfolios," minimizing the risks of their unorthodox lifestyle by increasing the number and variety of hosts they select as adoptive parents. View the full article

If you've ever been woken up before sunrise by the trilling and chirping of birds outside your window, you may have wondered: why do birds sing so loud, so early in the morning? View the full article

Plastic waste in the ocean is an increasing problem for wildlife, including seabirds who frequently mistake it for food. However, ingested plastic does not just pose physical risks for such birds. A new study in open-access journal Frontiers in Environmental Science is the first to show that plastic waste can release chemicals into the stomach oil of seabirds over time, potentially posing a threat to their health. The findings highlight the importance of reducing plastic pollution in our oceans and dealing with our waste responsibly. View the full article

From emus to woodpeckers, modern birds show remarkable diversity in skull shape and size, often hypothesized to be the result of a sudden hastening of evolution following the mass extinction that killed their non-avian dinosaur cousins at the end of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago. But this is not the case according to a study by Ryan Nicholas Felice at University College London, publishing August 18, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. In the most detailed study yet of bird skull morphology, Felice and an international team of researchers show that the rate of evolution actually slowed in birds compared to non-avian dinosaurs. View the full article

A new study shows how differentiation of a single gene changes behavior in a wild songbird, determining whether the white-throated sparrow displays more, or less, aggression. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published the research, led by neuroscientists at Emory University. View the full article

From the four-foot-tall emperor penguin to the aptly named foot-long little penguin, these unique flightless birds have invaded habitats from Antarctica to the equator, not to mention the hearts of the public. View the full article

New research shows one of the world's rarest birds, the orange-bellied parrot, remains at severe risk of extinction despite decades of intensive conservation work in their Tasmanian breeding range. View the full article

Generators hum loudly in the background as a tour boat bobs past a towering vessel filled with ship fuel, anchored in Algoa Bay, a stone's throw away from the world's largest breeding colony of African penguins. View the full article

A new study led by the Department of Biosciences at Durham University, UK, is the first large-scale assessment of how recent changes in both climate and land cover have impacted populations of migrating birds. View the full article

It was spring 2017. I was in the middle of my master's program and was rapidly running out of time to find the perfect thesis research project. My ideas had ranged from the unrealistic—a canopy camera-trapping project in Ecuador, to the extreme—abseiling down Saint Lucia's Petit Piton mountain to investigate a threatened juniper tree. I was profoundly relieved when I found a suitable project. The plan was to travel to Tajikistan, a country that I would previously have struggled to place on a map, to study the state of its fertile forested valleys. View the full article

Bird and reptile tears aren't so unlike our own, shows a new study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. But the differences could provide insights into better ophthalmic treatments for humans and animals, as well as a clues into the evolution of tears across different species. View the full article

A team of researchers from New Zealand and the U.S. is reporting on the discovery of unearthed 3.36-million-year-old crested penguin fossils found on New Zealand's North Island. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes the find and why they believe it could provide a link with modern penguins. View the full article

Saving endangered species from extinction is a challenging job that requires creative, affordable and effective interventions. In a rare good news story for conservation, we came up with one such method. View the full article

Many nocturnal animal species use light from the moon and stars to migrate at night in search of food, shelter or mates. But in our recent study we uncovered how artificial light is disrupting these nightly migrations. View the full article

Researchers led by Manfred Gahr of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen have investigated the relationship of bird families. For the first time, they have been able to clarify the relationship of all families of non-passerine birds and almost all families of passerine birds. The new family tree is based on gene sections that do not code for proteins, but contain sequences that are specific to the families and their genera. View the full article