#World's Largest Owl Exposes Health of Russia's Forests The world's largest owl requires equally huge trees a finding that reveals that this salmon-devouring predator could be a key sign of the health of some of the last great forests of Russia
's Far east researchers say. Blakiston's fish owl (Bubo blakistoni) is one of the rarest owls in the world an endangered bird restricted to Russia China Japan and possibly North korea.
This owl is also the largest On earth. These birds stand two -and-a-half feet tall 75 centimeters have 6-foot wingspans 2 meters
and can weigh more than 10 pounds 4. 6 kilograms lead author Jonathan Slaght a wildlife biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society told Livescience.
See Photos of Giant Salmon-Eating Owls The dead of winter Little was known about how this owl used its habitat
because it lives in a region sparsely populated by people with poor road access. To learn more scientists analyzed how this owl foraged
and nested in Primorye Russia over a forested mountainous range more than 7800 square miles (20200 square km).
Images: One-of-a-Kind Places On earth The actual fieldwork only took a year to complete
but the hard part was finding the nest sites and the foraging sites to include in the study that part took years Slaght said.
One of the reasons it's so hard to find fish owl nest trees is that the birds are almost unbelievably shy.
because they're owls they probably do they will flush at distances of about 300 feet 100 m or more.
That means it is very difficult to find nest trees or foraging sites because you almost never see the owls at those locations.
The rivers there often have warm springs that help maintain open water in winter which helps the owls to hunt their prey.
The one thing working in our favor to find where the owls fish in winter is snow Slaght said.
Fish owls will walk up and down the riverbank in their favorite fishing spots jumping in to catch fish here and there
and so even though we might not see the owls themselves they leave their tracks behind in the snow
so we know where they like to hunt. Unfortunately Slaght added the best time to survey for these owls is the dead of winter
when temperatures can dip to the minus mid-20s Fahrenheit (minus mid-30s Celsius). We are often walking along frozen rivers during the day inching up fairly close to the lip of open water patches to look for owl tracks.
Everyone on the field team has fallen through the ice at least once. The rivers are not usually very deep
At night the team settles into a concealed tent near a foraging spot to monitor the owls'hunting behaviors.
and watching a fish owl hunt not more than 100 feet 30 m away completely unaware of my presence.
Giant birds need giant trees The scientists discovered both the owls and their favorite prey salmon rely on giant old-growth trees for breeding and feeding.
The large trees provide nesting cavities big enough for the birds and when these dead massive trees fall into nearby streams they disrupt the water forcing it to flow around over
Blakiston's fish owl is a clear indicator of the health of the forests rivers
and endangered this owl's habitat. The new findings suggest conserving and managing old-growth forests is essential for sustaining this species as well as eight salmon
and trout species that spawn in the rivers there some of the 12 other owl species found in Primorye and mammals such as the endangered Siberian tiger Asiatic black bear and wild boar.
which brings in the fish owls Slaght said. This is an important realization because some policymakers don't care about conservation
In other regions climate change will affect the insect population their stings and bites can provoke fatal allergic reactions in sensitive individuals as well as the proliferation of such vines as poison ivy.
#Worst-Ever Right whale Die off Continues to Puzzle Scientists still don't know why hundreds of baby southern right whales are turning up dead around Patagonia a decade after observers first saw signs of the worst die off on record for the species according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS.
With no evidence of infectious diseases or deadly toxins in whale tissue samples scientists are scrambling to determine a cause of death.
Some are even pointing a finger at blubber-eating birds. The whales come to the peaceful Atlantic bays around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina's Patagonian Coast to give birth
and raise their young. At least 605 dead right whales have been counted in the region since 2003 WCS officials say.
Of those 538 were newborn calves. Last year the mortality event was especially severe with a record-breaking 116 whale deaths 113 of them calves.
Whale Album: Giants of the Deep in 2012 we lost nearly one-third of all calves born at the Peninsula said Mariano Sironi scientific director of the Instituto de Conservacion de Ballenas in Argentina.
Southern right whales have their first calf when they are nine years old on average. This means that it won't be until a decade from
now that we will see a significant reduction in the number of calves born as all of the female calves that died will not be contributing any new offspring to the population Sironi who is also an advisor to the Southern Right whale Health Monitoring program added in a statement.
Sironi and colleague Vicky Rowntree who is co-director of the monitoring program have studied a strange phenomena that could be stressing southern right whales.
They say kelp gulls at Peninsula Valdes land on the backs of the cetaceans to eat their skin and blubber.
The attacks are very painful and cause large deep lesions particularly on the backs of young 2-6 week-old calves the researchers said in a statement from WCS.
As a result right whale mothers and their calves are expending much precious energy during a time of year
The southern right whale population is still only a small fraction of its original size and now we have reason to worry about its recovery Rowntree said.
Though the southern right whale is endangered not listed as conservationists warn that the species'sister populations could go extinct
For instance there are thought to be just about 500 North Atlantic right whales remaining. Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+.
Yosemite s peaceful meadows and wetlands are the best place to spot the park s unique flora and fauna.
Bears deer foxes bald eagles raccoons and more may be seen amidst the wildflowers and lush grasses. The most popular meadows which have boardwalks
while canvas-and hard-sided cabins at Curry Village White wolf Lodge and others provide a back-to-nature feel without the tents.
Symptoms include a runny nose hives trouble breathing and puffiness or swelling around the mouth and lips.
#Butterflies Caught Lapping Up Crocodile Tears Crocodile tears may be drinks for thirsty butterflies and bees new research reveals.
The insects likely rely on croc tears for salt. The discovery was made when aquatic ecologistcarlos de la Rosa was sailing on a slow quiet boat down the Puerto Viejo River in northeastern Costa rica with researchers students
and filmed butterflies and bees fluttering about the corners of the eyes of a spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) a crocodilian that can reach up to 8. 2 feet (2. 5 meters) long that was basking on the riverbank.
The insects were drinking the giant reptile's tears. See Video of Butterflies Drinking Croc Tears
& Tear-Drinking Images It was one of those natural history moments that you long to see up close de la Rosa said in a statement.
Why are these insects tapping into this resource? Although salt is plentiful in the ocean the molecule technically known as sodium chloride is often a rare and valuable resource on land.
Animals sometimes drink salt from sweat urine and even blood de la Rosa said. These new findings support a 2012 report of a bee sipping the tears of a yellow-spotted river turtle in Ecuador's Yasunã National park. Similar findings were seen with butterflies drinking the tears of yellow-spotted river
turtles in the Amazon. When de la Rosa did research online he was surprised to find more evidence of tear-drinking than he expected not only from scientists but also casual tourists wilderness enthusiasts and professional photographers.
This suggests tear-drinking or lachryphagous behavior may not be as rare as biologists had assumed. It remains uncertain
what other kinds of nutrients might be in crocodilian tears in addition to the sodium in salt.
and reproduction of these insects there are also proteins enzymes and micronutrients that could also play a role in the fitness of the insects tapping this resource de la Rosa said.
Not a lot has been published on these topics and all published reports indicate the need for further research.
whether the reptiles somehow benefit from such tear-drinking. The reptiles may allow insects to drink tears simply
because they do not care or cannot easily drive them away. The caiman seemed very tolerant of both the butterfly
and the bee de la Rosa said. However I've seen these bees approach river turtles
and the turtles are not as tolerant or pleased shaking their heads and eventually even jumping back on the water.
The insects definitely seem to benefit but we don't know what if any benefits are received by the caimans.
Future research can explore how common these interactions are what species are involved and how important these interactions are for the survival of the species involved.
What could happen if one species disappears from the location? de la Rosa asked. What could we learn from these and other interactions about the stability and sustainability of ecosystems?
and animals that find early pain and trauma or even chronic stress in utero can reverberate throughout the lifetime.
In both rats and humans for example early painful experiences have been linked to changes in pain sensitivity later
and tail-docking or the practice of removing the tail. To find out if these experiences affect the animals they split a group of 20 ewes into three groups.
One group had a typical tail-docking experience in which an elastic band is wrapped tightly around the tail cutting off blood supply until the tail falls off There is no anesthesia used during this procedure.
The second group had their tails left intact but were injected with a low dose of E coli bacteria to simulate a mild fever and immune response.
The third group of female sheep was left alone. After the sheep grew up and mated the researchers video-recorded each during lambing recording postural changes that might indicate pain number of uterine contractions
and tail-wagging which can also signal pain in farm animals. Generational effects? The scientists found that ewes with an early traumatic experience of tail-docking
or infection changed positions more often wagged their tails more and had more contractions than ewes left alone in their early days.
In humans and rats the hormones and brain circuits that influence the stress response are affected by early life experience Mendl said.
It may make some adaptive sense for an animal who experiences a challenge very early in life to gear up for challenges
and the manure of animals like cows chickens and pigs the researchers said. It's not clear exactly
#Shorebirds Adopt Baby Duckling, Cuteness Ensues A family of long-legged shorebirds adopted a fuzzy baby duckling this month in California's San francisco bay.
U s. Geological Survey (USGS) biologist Jarred Barr discovered the duckling among a brood of downy avocet chicks on July 2.
It was just following right behind the adult avocet and chicks like it was another avocet Barr told Live Science.
The blended family was foraging in wetlands at the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve part of the massive South Bay Salt Ponds Restoration Project.
Barr found four avocet chicks and the mallard duckling each just a few days old plus two avocet parents.
We don't know how the duckling got separated from its family but they were all feeding already
See Adorable Photos of the Baby Shorebirds Avocets have upturned long bills that they skim back and forth in the water to catch food.
The tallest of the world's four avocet species growing up to 20 inches (51 centimeters) tall the avocet is equipped with spindly gray legs designed for wading in fresh or saltwater wetlands.
Bird watchers Barr helps monitor mercury levels in avocets and other shorebirds at marshes and ponds throughout the salt ponds restoration project.
and it's really important for us to monitor these birds and see how they're reacting said Alex Hartman a USGS wildlife biologist at the Western Ecological Research center in Dixon California who helps oversee the shorebird-monitoring project.
Plucking a few feathers from shorebird hatchlings reveals how much mercury was in their eggs before they hatched.
Barr and his colleagues also measure and weigh the chicks. The researchers track the health of American avocets black-necked stilts and Forster's terns among other birds.
The biologists occasionally find eggs from other species such as terns in avocet nests Hartman said.
And it's not uncommon for avocets to adopt chicks from other avocets Hartman said.
Avocets have sat also on stilt eggs and raised the hatchlings as if they were their own chicks.
But this is the first time the USGS biologists have discovered a duck-avocet adoption. Hartman thinks it's likely the duckling was separated from its family after it hatched
and glommed on to the avocets. This is cross-species and it's really cross-order.
It's pretty unique Hartman said. They have different diets and different foraging modes so a duckling would really be raised better off by other ducks Barr felt the same
and after spotting a mallard family a few ponds over from the avocet-duck flock he went back for the duckling
#but it couldn't be found again. Our plans fell through but we didn't want to disturb the birds any further he said.
When in doubt in my mind the best thing is to leave something be. Hartman said he agrees.
The birds got themselves into this situation. For the most part we just let nature take its course
and the birds can sort themselves out. Both ducklings and avocets are resourceful babies however with the capability to feed on their own soon after hatching.
As long as the duckling finds the right food sources and the right habitat it could survive on its own the scientists said.
It's anybody's guess what will happen to it Hartman said. Email Becky Oskin or follow her@beckyoskin. Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.
#Facts About Wolverines Wolverines look something like a mixture of a dog a skunk and a bear with short legs long hair and elongated snouts.
Wolverines also have a distinctive mask of dark fur around their eyes and forehead and a stripe of blond or ivory fur that runs from each shoulder to the base of the animal's tail.
Though wolverines are the biggest of the weasel family according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information system (ITIS) they are still very small.
Their tail adds another 7 to 10 inches (18 to 25 centimeters) to their length.
Typical meals for a wolverine include large game like caribou moose and mountain goats; smaller animals like ground squirrels and rodents;
and even birds'eggs and berries. They like meat best though and will go to great lengths to get it.
They can travel 15 miles (24 kilometers) in a 24-hour period in search of food
and will even eat dead animals they did not kill. Wolverines have a keen sense of smell; they can smell prey 20 feet under the snow.
and kill hibernating animals. Wolverines are sneaky when finding food too. They have strong jaws
Other members of the weasel family include skunks sea otters badgers and ferrets. The wolverine's scientific name Gulo gulo comes from the Latin word gulo
which means glutton. M56 is a wolverine that was fitted with a tracking device near Grand teton national park in Wyoming.
Wolverines are called also skunk bear quickhatch (of Native american origin) carcajou (French for wolverine) glutton and stink-bear.
A 2009 Johns Hopkins study on mice found that broccoli sprouts are especially good at helping in this way.
Mice that were fed broccoli sprouts daily for two months reduced the levels of H. pylori in their stools by more than 40 percent.
#In Africa, Anthrax Lures Animals to Their Death Areas contaminated with anthrax germs lure grazing animals like zebras
and wildebeest and these animals could spread the bacteria leading to new rounds of infections researchers say.
Grazing animals on the other hand are thought to get anthrax by ingesting the microbe. Scientists investigated zebra carcasses over a 115-square-mile 300 square kilometers) area at Etosha National park in Namibia from 2010 to 2013.
The anthrax bacterium is widespread in Namibia and is considered part of the park's natural ecosystem.
Most anthrax cases seen in Etosha are in zebras; the disease can kill grazing herbivores within days after the animal is exposed to a lethal dose.
See Images of the Namibia Zebras and the Carcass Sites I revisited a carcass site in 2007 from a zebra that
I had found dead of anthrax one year previously and saw a patch of lush green grass growing up through the skeleton in an area that was
otherwise a sea of short dry grasses said lead study author Wendy Turner an ecologist at the University of Oslo in Norway.
Would these areas be attractive to herbivores searching for high-quality food? Or would the remains of the carcass repel herbivores?
And for how long might this attraction or avoidance last? Watching the grazers For this study the researchers analyzed 35 sites that tested positive for anthrax
and 13 sites without carcasses to monitor the grazing activity of herbivores such as elephants wildebeest and zebras.
and her colleagues faced several challenges along the way including inquisitive animals knocking down cameras fires raging across the sites a run-in with a pride of lions on foot long hikes to sites in sweltering heat
I was concerned about metal stakes potentially harming animals if they knocked into them so we marked all the sites with PVC polyvinyl chloride pipe.
I returned to the field the next year to start the study only to discover that PVC pipe is an excellent hyena chew toy
Zebra like anthrax grasses The scientists found that the soil fertilized by the carcasses they studied was rich with nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen.
The scientists also discovered that anthrax spores were found on grasses up to two years after the zebras had died.
Initially the grazing animals avoided the carcass sites but over time they became attracted to these corpse-fertilized areas.
Zebra wildebeest and springbok (a small gazelle) were up to four times more likely to graze at a potentially infectious site where a zebra had died within the last year than at a random grassland patch nearby.
Carcass sites became less attractive 1. 5 to 2. 5 years after a zebra had died once the nutrients from the corpses faded away.
and to determine how different grazing animals respond to these infectious anthrax carcass sites. It remains uncertain
whether anthrax carcass sites are more attractive to herbivores than regular carcass sites are. Because anthrax prevents blood from clotting the researchers suspect that the anthrax-ridden carcasses might release more nutrients into the soil than regular carcasses do
thus making them more attractive to herbivores. It's possible Turner said. Whether it would be easy to detect
In addition Turner noted she would like to conduct a parallel study in the United states to see how North american herbivores respond to carcass sites.
For instance researchers on the ground will track where the water flows on the surface examine how it infiltrates the groundwater and monitor vegetation and bird life.
The response of bird populations may also not be evident for a few years. The water agreement remains in effect through 2017.
And keep pets clean to limit the spread of pollen indoors. Rinsing your nose with saline nasal sprays
and from primates called gelada baboons and found that bacteria fed with predigested grass produced a smaller amount of compounds called short-chain fatty acids
although the baboons mainly eat grass they seem to be producing more of these appetite-suppressing products on the potato diet as well Barraclough told Live Science.
To obtain the gut bacteria for the study the researchers took fecal bacterial samples from three human vegetarian volunteers and three gelada baboons
which are the only modern primates that eat mainly grasses. The researchers wanted to imitate the real-life digestion process
and the environment in the human and baboon guts as closely as possible so they fed the bacteria
#Wild Monkeys Learn to Puzzle out Banana Video The wild marmosets living in the Brazilian forest have seen never a television show
When scientists showed the newbies a short flick of a marmoset stranger opening a box to get a banana slice they were likely to copy
The study provides a glimpse into how these new world monkeys learn from each other in the wild said the study's lead researcher Tina Gunhold a cognitive biologist at the University of Vienna.
See Marmosets Watching a Video in the Brazilian Forest (Video) Marmosets are social by nature. They live in small family groups typically ranging from five to 15 monkeys
and they live and forage in a defined home range. But marmosets are territorial and may fight each other
if another group encroaches on their home range. Within the group however marmosets are social creatures.
The whole group will help raise a new infant. This social learning can help young marmosets understand what foods to eat
and how to recognize predators such as snakes birds and wildcats. Learning from watching a video
however is another lesson entirely. Marmosets as well as other monkeys in captivity can learn from watching their peers in videos research suggests.
But Gunhold and her colleagues wanted to see whether common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) living in the wild could also learn from the silver screen.
Gunhold's group designed a clear box that could hold a treat such as a tasty banana.
The marmosets could reach the fruit either by opening a drawer or by pushing a lid upward a difficult feat she said.
and images of unfamiliar marmosets opening the box. The researchers took a miniature movie theater composed of a laptop screen in a box to the home ranges of 12 family groups.
In all 108 marmosets participated. Six of the groups simply watched a still image of a female marmoset opening the drawer
or a male marmoset pushing up the box's lid. The other six groups saw a 5-minute video of the marmosets doing the same thing.
The video presented a double whammy not only was the marmoset in the film a stranger
but the video itself was likely confusing as the marmosets had seen never one before said Lydia Hopper a research scientist at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago who was not involved with the study.
Even young human children take time and need experience with videos and 2d images to learn how to interpret them
and how to understand them Hopper said. However the marmosets that watched the videos tended to interact more with the box
and successfully open it to win the banana prize compared with marmosets that just saw the images.
In all just 13 percent of the marmosets 11 marmosets in the video group and one in the still-image group managed to open the box.
Those that watched the video tended to open it in the same way that the monkey in the video did the study found.
In Photos: Wild Marmosets Watch Videos of Banana Puzzle This emphasizes the importance of them receiving the video demonstration Hopper said adding that it was possible that those that were did successful really learn from the video
because it really was a hard task. The one marmoset that saw the still image and managed to accomplish the task on his own was just simply very excited about the box Gunhold said.
He was trying on his own and interacting with it and through trial and error he figured out how to open the drawer.
Younger monkeys tended to spend more time near the box than older monkeys did likely because of their increased curiosity Gunhold added.
The sex of the marmosets in the video and still image had no bearing on the results.
what the monkeys watching the video were thinking but say it seems unlikely they considered a real monkey was living in the screen.
If they really thought this was an unknown individual at least we would have seen more agonistic
The study paves the way for new research on cognition in wild marmosets Hopper said.
For instance do marmosets copy any monkey or do they tend to selectively copy other individuals that are dominant
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