000 Killer bees A municipal worker who got stung by an estimated 1000 bees while mowing a park lawn on Thursday (July 24) was in stable condition.
Turns out the man's attackers probably Africanized honeybees according to the local fire department are not as deadly as their name may suggest.
The bees also stung two other workers who tried to help the man according to Wichita Falls'News Channel 6.)Not-so-killer bees Africanized honeybees
or killer bees have been in the United states since about 1990 according to May Berenbaum head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois. But despite their dramatic nickname these insects aren't that deadly.
Sting Bite & Destroy: Nature's 10 Biggest Pests An estimated 40 people in the United states die every year from stings by hymenoptera species. That group of insects includes some 150000 species of bees
(and killer bees) wasps ants and other bugs Berenbaum said. It's hard to pin down specific data on the number of people attacked annually in the United states by Africanized honeybees:
As Berenbaum explained this is partly because not all attacks are reported and partly because oftentimes people aren't quite sure
what stung them. Furthermore it's difficult to pin the blame on a particular species of bee in instances of injuries
or deaths caused by insects because some species don t leave any telltale evidence. While honeybee stingers stay behind in the body of the victim many species take their stingers with them after attacking Berenbaum explained.
Fierce defenders Though Africanized honeybees don't always attack when they do the results can be devastating.
While the victim of Thursday's attack in Wichita Falls Texas survived the incident not all killer bee victims have been as lucky.
Last year in Waco Texas about three hours south of Wichita Falls an estimated 40000 Africanized honeybees attacked a local farmer who was mowing a neighbor's pasture with tractor ABC News reported.
Larry Goodwin 62 sustained more than 3000 stings before collapsing to the ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
With honeybees in particular the venom isn't really designed to kill. It's designed to educate basically to drive away an enemy
Unfortunately for the victims of killer bee attacks the insects aren't very good at distinguishing between a true threat
Africanized honeybees are extremely protective of their hive and brood much more so than European honeybees.
About 100 yards (91 meters) or the length of a four-lane highway is usually a safe distance from these insects according to the U s. Department of agriculture.
In addition to number of stings other factors also play roles in determining a person's chances of surviving a killer bee attack.
Allergic to bees or not anyone who encounters a swarm of these defensive insects should run away she said.
Berenbaum also advises killer-bee targets not to jump into a pool or other body of water which you might also have seen in movies.
#Rains Spurred by Climate Change Killing Penguin Chicks Penguin-chick mortality rates have increased in recent years off the coast of Argentina a trend scientists attribute to climate change
From 1983 through 2010 researchers based at the University of Washington in Seattle monitored a colony of roughly 400000 Magellanic penguins living halfway up the coast of Argentina on a peninsula called Punta Tombo.
Each year the researchers visited penguin nests once or twice a day from Mid-september through late February to assess the overall status of the colony
Gallery of Magellanic Penguin Colony The resulting data set provides one of the longest-ever records of a single penguin colony.
Facing extremes Young chicks between 9 and 23 days old were particularly vulnerable to hypothermia as they were too young to have fully grown their waterproof plumage
They have to have waterproof feathers to survive study co-author Dee Boersma told Livescience. If chicks don't have waterproof plumage they are going to die as soon as they end up in the water.
Extreme heat another component of climate change expected to worsen throughout the century also challenged chicks'temperature-regulation systems
David Ainley a senior wildlife ecologist at ecological consulting firm H. T. Harvey & Associates who studies Antarctic penguin colonies says that aside from giving Magellanic chicks the chills rain can also damage the burrows
I think that penguin pairs that have good burrows probably wouldn't suffer much of an effect
Wayne Trivelpiece an Antarctic penguin researcher with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric administration's Southwest Fisheries science Center based in La jolla Calif. agrees that climate change is a serious threat to these and other penguin populations around the world.
He has spent nearly the past 40 years studying penguins in Antarctica and said he has seen also a decline in populations that he feels comfortable attributing to the indirect effects of climate change.
The ivory trade was banned in 1989 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
And yet a large black market for ivory still thrives fueling elephant poaching in Africa. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has estimated that some 96 elephants are killed each day on average mostly for their ivory.
As Hong kong is a major transit point for ivory headed to China conservation groups lauded the decision.
The African Wildlife Foundation's CEO Patrick Bergin also said that by incinerating its stockpile Hong kong will raise awareness that owning ivory has a dark side one that is connected to wholesale elephant slaughter civil unrest terrorism and a complex supply
Many of the rules relate to animal products which are called out in the Torah based on where the animal dwells.
Not only can the meat of these forbidden animals not be eaten but the flesh organs eggs and milk are prohibited also.
Land mammals: In order to be kosher land animals must have cloven hooves and chew their cud.
This means that meat from cows is kosher while that of camels rabbits and pigs is not.
Sea animals: Kosher sea dwellers must be equipped with fins and scales. So while salmon and tuna are fit for consumption lobsters clams
and oysters are not. Flying animals: The Torah provides a list of forbidden birds but does not specify why these particular flying creatures are outlawed.
Permitted birds include chicken geese ducks and turkeys. Even foods that are allowed must be prepared in a particular way to be considered kosher.
This preparation has nothing to do with cooking style or added spices and instead relates to the slaughter and subsequent handling of the animal.
Because the Torah prohibits the consumption of blood the blood of the slaughtered animal must be removed through draining
and boiling out and this must be done within 72 hours of slaughter. Other criteria laid out by Jewish law require no contact utensils.
In other words utensils cannot be used to prepare kosher meats if they have interacted with dairy eggs or nonkosher food.
Prior studies in animals had suggested that environmental influences before conception might lead to epigenetic changes in the offspring.
For instance a 2003 study revealed a female mouse's diet can alter the color of her offspring's coat by permanently modifying DNA methylation.
#Catching Hyenas on Camera (Op-Ed) This article was published originally at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices:
I spent a few years in South africa searching for the elusive brown hyaena. The aim of the study was to assess the differences in the distribution and abundance of brown hyaena between protected and unprotected farmland areas in South africa.
The driving force behind the project designed by researchers at Nottingham Trent University was unprecedented the rate of declining global biodiversity caused by an increasing human population.
Many medium-to large-sized carnivores have come into direct conflict with humans leading to localised extinctions.
One species that is implicated in human wildlife conflict is the brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea. Brown hyaenas are classified as Near Threatened#with an estimated 2500 free ranging animals remaining in South africa.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature suggests that brown hyaenas are under threat from human persecution
and habitat loss and that a greater understanding of its distribution and abundance is needed throughout its geographic range.
The brown hyaena is a solitary and nocturnal carnivore that lives in clans and forages alone often over large distances.
It is predominantly a scavenger and only an opportunistic ineffective hunter. However farmers perceived the brown hyaena to be a livestock killer.
This misconception has lead to the indiscriminate and unjustified persecution of the species. The scavenging brown hyaenas provide an ecosystem service by cleaning up the carcasses as they eat everything including the skin and bones.
These factors mean that of all South africa s large carnivores it has the ecological attributes to allow co-existence with humans within the unprotected farmlands.
My project was tasked with gathering this abundance data and I set up a study area in the north of the country which incorporated Madikwe Game Reserve and Pilanesberg National park South africa.
These two reserves contain the Big five#African lion African elephant Cape buffalo African leopard and White or Black rhinoceros and are viewed as a safe haven for brown hyaena.
Surrounding these two protected areas is unprotected farmland where a mixture of game livestock and agricultural farming take place
and where brown hyaena are persecuted. To gather information on the abundance of brown hyaena I turned to camera traps.
Wildlife surveys have been enhanced greatly by the development of camera traps. A key factor is the capture confirmation
and monitoring of rare and elusive species particularly when the species is located across large remote areas.
or the animals and produces little disturbance to the survey area or individual target animals.
but others animals too providing valuable information on a range of species with no extra surveying effort.
Camera traps are excellent tools that have grown in popularity with conservation ecologists. However every camera trap needs to be set up monitored
and protected areas to reach the designated camera trap sites come rain or shine. In the farmland acquiring permission to gain access to private land was critical.
In order to maximise the capture rate I needed to understand my target species. For example the brown hyaena use roads as territorial boundaries
and mark their territory through latrines at road junctions making these ideal sites for placing camera traps.
and then getting to see which animals if any had been captured. A total of 800 camera trap nights produced nearly 35000 images
of which 10000 were made up of carnivores ranging from the large ones such as lion leopard spotted hyaena brown hyaena wild dog to the medium-sized such as honey badger jackal civet serval caracal
and the small ones such as African wild cat bat eared fox aardwolf common genet slender and banded mongoose.
Using remote camera traps the study found that the relative abundance of brown hyaena was four times lower in farmland areas than in the protected areas.
Another significant finding was that small-and medium-sized carnivores showed higher relative abundances in the farmland areas.
Low levels of brown hyaena abundance means that conservation efforts should be focused in the unprotected farmland areas
so that not only brown hyaenas but all carnivores survive and thrive in the long-term Next read this:
Scientists at work: the ups and downs of getting grumpy bears to have sex Louisa Richmond-Coggan does not work for consult to own shares in
or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article and has no relevant affiliations.
How Koalas Do it With a diet based on eucalyptus leaves that are very fibrous and low in nutrition
and calories koalas live a pretty lazy life spending between 18 and 22 hours a day asleep.
or do koalas maintain an exciting sex life? Found throughout the eucalypt woodlands of Australia koalas are quite solitary animals.
Each individual sets up a home range which can span a few acres to hundreds of acres.
Though these home ranges can overlap a bit the marsupials rarely run into each other. If two territorial males do encounter one another things can get ugly
The fights that the males have are pretty ferocious up in the trees said Bill Ellis a koala researcher with the University of Queensland in Australia.
During the mating season which occurs in the spring and summer interactions between the animals do increase
The bellows researchers have found are produced by a structure in the animal's larynx provide information about the size of the koala
But when Ellis and his colleagues looked at the paternity of newborn joeys in the wild they found that size wasn't everything turns out the female koalas mate with a different male each year.
Like kangaroos and most other marsupials male koalas have headed a double penis and females have two vaginas (a third birthing vagina later forms to bring the new joey into the world
The 7 Weirdest Animal Penises The female then returns to her home range to gestate for a little over a month;
#Pumas, Panthers & Cougars: Facts About America's Big cats The puma is the big cat of The americas.
At one time it ranged from the Yukon in Canada to the Strait of magellan at the tip of South america.
Because these cats were found in so many places local tribes or explorers had their own name for the large felines including cougar mountain lion Florida panther and catamount.
In fact there are more than 80 names for the puma more names than any other animal according to the book Cougar:
The American Lion by Kevin Hansen. It is important to note though that pumas are not bobcats lynxes jaguars cheetahs or leopards.
Typically pumas can be identified by a tan or slightly yellow coat round face long tail and erect ears.
Adult males grow to 6 to 8 feet (1. 8 to 2. 4 meters) long and females average 5 to 7 feet (1. 5 to 2. 1 meters).
Males typically weigh 110 to 180 lbs. 50 to 82 kilograms) and the female 80 to 130 lbs.
36 to 59 kg. A puma's tail is almost as long as its head and body combined.
Habitat & habits Pumas can adapt to a wide variety of climates and habitats. They are found throughout Central and South america.
In North america however hunting has reduced their range to isolated areas in Mexico western U s. wilderness areas southern Florida and southwestern Canada according to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.
Unlike other cats pumas do not live in packs. They live by themselves in large territories which they mark using urine or feces.
Pumas are solitary creatures for good reason. They need hunting room to find enough food to live.
Only a few pumas can live in a 30-square-mile (78 square kilometers) radius. Pumas are crepuscular creatures.
Their excellent night vision gives these predators a distinct advantage during these times of day. Diet Pumas hunt using stealth and strength.
To kill their prey usually deer elk or moose the puma sneaks up behind the other animal and then chomps down on the prey's neck with its powerful jaws.
To make the kill last longer it hides its prey from other animals and eat bits of the carcass for several days.
A puma typically kills a deer every 10 to 14 days according to the Mountain lion Foundation.
Pumas can drag prey several times their weight and given the opportunity will hunt domestic animals such as sheep pigs horses and other livestock.
They will also eat small animals such as porcupines coyotes rabbits armadillos capybaras squirrels and raccoons.
Some pumas hunt more than others. Patagonian pumas kill around 50 percent more prey than their North american counterparts according to cougar biologist Mark Elbroch.
Offspring After mating the female will carry her young for a gestation period of 84 to 106 days according to the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Then she will give birth to a litter of one to six cubs. These cubs are covered typically with spots that can help them blend in with their surroundings.
A female will have a litter once every two years. Classification/taxonomy According to the Integrated Taxonomic Information system ITIS) the taxonomy of pumas is:
Conservation status Pumas once ranged from the Pacific to the Atlantic but they were eliminated from eastern North america within 200 years of colonization according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
During the 20th century large numbers of pumas were killed in the Midwest and Eastern United states by farmers and ranchers who didn't like the puma stealing their livestock.
As a result pumas almost became extinct in those areas. The puma population is not increasing
and more are being killed now than ever before because of habitat destruction trophy hunting poaching poisoning
and being struck by vehicles on roadways (road kill) according to the Mountain lion Foundation. Pumas are listed as Least Concern for extinction
because they are so widespread according to the IUCN. However they are considered to be declining
and the Florida panther is considered endangered and in Brazil pumas are considered Near Threatened. The U s. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the Florida panther the Costa rican puma and the Eastern puma as endangered.
Pumas are protected a species in many areas with hunting prohibited in many South american nations. In the United states hunting is legal in many Western states.
California however banned hunting in a referendum in 1990. Hunting regulations are in place in Canada Mexico and Peru.
Other facts Pumas are extremely athletic. They can run up to 50 mph (80 kph) and jump as high as 15 feet (4. 6 meters.
Pumas don t roar. They use whistles screams squeaks and purrs to communicate. To signal to males that she's ready to mate a female will rub against trees to leave her scent
or will yowl loudly so that the local males can hear her call. Though pumas are problems for ranchers
or farmers they have a very important role in the environment. They keep populations of animals lower down on the food chain in check.
Without them for example those same farmers may have their crops overrun by hungry rabbits. Other resource i
#Alaska's'Hidden'Forests Captured in Unprecedented Detail (Photo) In the middle of Alaska a great expanse of forested land bigger than California has remained quite mysterious until recently.
NASA's Earth Observatory released a new high-resolution image of an Alaskan forest near the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge that has been left off of most maps.
Researchers are now trying to study the area with the help of camera-equipped aircraft.
and are sticky such as fruit snacks and fruit rollups gummy bears and even raisins. These foods stick in between the child s back teeth
two bottom front teeth two top front teeth lateral incisors first/front molars canines and second/back molars.
Saturated fat Saturated fat is found mostly in foods from animals and some plants. Foods from animals include meats and dairy products.
Plant foods that contain saturated fat include coconut oil palm oil and cocoa butter. Saturated fat raises both the bad cholesterol and the goodcholesterol.
#Tree Infesting Insects Love the City Heat (Op-Ed) This article was published originally at The Abstract.
Helpful passers-by with chains and four-wheel drives kindly offered to pull me out but really only made matters worse.
and the insects that live on them. The scales drink tree juices so more scales are bad for trees.
Specifically it ought to make a difference to gloomy scale insects. These little sap-sucking insects seem to like it hot.
My colleague Adam Dale has been studying gloomy scales in the city of Raleigh and he s found that street trees in the hottest parts of the city have far more scales sometimes 200 times more than those in the cooler parts of the city.
if warming gives scales such a powerful boost in the city global warming could do the same thing for scale insects in rural forests.
Unlike birds and butterflies the drab millimeter-long gloomy scale has invited not enthusiastic long-term monitoring.
But perhaps we could scavenge scale-insect information from another source#nd this is why I became extremely grateful to scores of plant biologists like the one who archived a foot-long maple twig from Hill Forest in 1971.
It turns out that many of these old twigs still have stuck scale insects intact firmly but inconspicuously to the spots where they once lived.
During relatively cool historical time periods only 17%of branches had scale insects. But during relatively hot periods 36%were infested.
if scale insects benefit from warming in rural forests as they do in the city. Furthermore the most heavily infested twigs were had ones that grown at temperatures similar to those of modern urban Raleigh.
Although the rural scale insects clearly benefited from warming just as they do in Raleigh they still never got as abundant as the ones we see in town.
Can we do it for functions like pollination and biological control of pests? I hope we can start watching urban ecosystems for problem insects
and using that information to stand forewarned about future ecological changes in natural areas. The experiments we have made by paving our cities
The post first ran on NC State Insect Ecology and Integrated Pest Management blog. This post is based on a new study:
A comparison of herbivore response to urban and global warming. Global Change Biology. doi: 10.1111/gcb. 12692.
when a 600-year-old canoe with a turtle carved on its hull emerged from a sand dune after a harsh storm.
The turtle carving on the boat also seems to link back to the settlers'homeland.
Turtle designs are rare in pre-European carvings in New zealand but widespread in Polynesia where turtles were important in mythology
and could represent humans or even gods in artwork. In many traditional Polynesian societies only the elite were allowed to eat turtles the study's authors noted.
Shifty winds A separate recent study examined the climate conditions that may have made possible the long journeys between the central East Polynesian islands and New zealand.
Researchers have found a virus that typically infects plants has been systemically infecting honeybees in the United states and China.
The detection of this virus (the Tobacco Ringspot Virus or TRSV) could help explain the decline of honeybees
The study results provide the first evidence that honeybees exposed to virus-contaminated pollen can also be infected
Researchers have known for some time that honeybees can transmit TRSV when they move from flower to flower during the pollination process.
and whether such a virus could cause systemic infection in the honeybees. Since CCD was reported first to have wiped out entire hives across the United states in 2006 and 2007 more than 10 million hives in all researchers have linked strongly toxic viral cocktails to the collapse of the honeybee colonies.
Besides TRSV researchers have linked Israel Acute Paralysis Virus Acute Bee Paralysis Virus Chronic Paralysis Virus Kashmir Bee Virus Deformed Wing Bee Virus
Black Queen Cell Virus and Sacbrood Virus to some degree as causes of honeybee viral disease.
but how they systemically infect the bodies of honeybees and lead to the collapse of hives.
or viral infections are overwhelming the honeybees and the hives. Last summer for instance researchers from the University of Maryland and the USDA collected pollen from seven major types of crops along the East Coast where CCD has been especially destructive where bees had been in serious decline and fed
and are for this reason prime suspects as potential sources of host-jumping species (jumping from one species plants to another species honeybees).
because it lacks an internal genomic process that edits out errors in replicated genomes meaning that TRSV can generate all sorts of variant error-filled copies with lots of different infection characteristics that cannot be defended easily once they jump from plants to honeybees and spread throughout the hives.
and Chinese researchers said is that such clouds of viral infections in colonies are likely responsible for the collapse of hives.
and Chinese researchers concluded Nesbit's most recent Op-Ed was Will Grizzly-Polar bear Hybrid Wake People Up to Changing Climate?.
The new volcano animation reveals the plume of ash and steam rising from Sarychev. The plume appears to be capped brown ash with a head of white steam a result of air rising quickly in a strong updraft before cooling and condensing.
The plume was so immense that it cast a large shadow on the island according to NASA Earth Observatory.
See the Sarychev Eruption Animation On the ground denser gray ash known as pyroclastic flows can be seen.
Imagine a pet simulator in which a virtual dog or cat reacts to the player's expressions:
is happy when that player is happy sad when the player is sad upset when the player is angry.
and poisons millions of animals including about 100000 native carnivores ostensibly to resolve conflicts between people and wildlife.
However thousands of these animals are killed unintentionally and many more are killed before any conflict has occurred even.
and non-problem animals and species. The film (which continues its national tour with a screening in Bozeman today!)
and interviews former Wildlife Services agents who explain that inevitably these practices kill many wild animals by mistake.
For example Wildlife Services uses spring-loaded devices called M-44s that shoot cyanide into the mouth of whatever animal happens to tug on the baited head.
According to the agency's data in 2012 alone these devices were used in 16 states to poison more than 14600 animals.
Of these more than 330 were killed unintentionally including wolves foxes skunks opossums raccoons bobcats and black bears.
Wildlife Services agents also use a variety of traps and snares. These devices often capture non-target animals including rare and threatened species such as wolverines lynx and grizzly bears.
According to Wildlife Services'own data in 2012 the agency mistakenly caught and killed more than 520 animals in leghold traps
and more than 850 in neck snares including mountain lions river otters pronghorn antelope deer badgers beavers turtles turkeys ravens ducks geese great blue herons and even a golden eagle.
Frustratingly these non-selective methods continue to be used even though their indiscriminate nature has been known for decades.
Even though I was experienced an professional trapper my trap victims included non-target species such as bald eagles and golden eagles a variety of hawks and other birds rabbits sage grouse pet dogs deer
My trapping records show that for each target animal I trapped about 2 unwanted individuals were caught.
Because of trap injuries these non-target species had to be destroyed. And scientists continue to describethe indiscriminate nature of snares.
While studying the impacts of wolf snares on moose Alaska biologist Craig Gardner reported in the journal Alces:
Wolf snares can be even less selective than snares set for smaller furbearers because cable diameter and loop circumference are larger set height is higher
and the size and strength of a wolf require that minimum breaking forces must be high...
Based on my 15 years of experience releasing nearly 40 moose from snares and discussions with other Alaskan biologists
I concluded that most moose restrained in wolf snares die either at the capture site or from frozen limbs or nose subsequent to release.
Another particularly ugly method employed by Wildlife Services is shooting predators from planes and helicopters sometimes killing them sometimes just catastrophically wounding them.
In 2012 more than 3000 coyotes were killed this way in my home state of Montana alone.
Although it targets specific species this practice is also indiscriminate because it does not differentiate between problem
and non-problem animals (i e. those that are habituated or have preyed on livestock versus those that have not and may never).
to wipe out as many predators in an area as possible in the hopes of artificially inflating big-game populations that humans like to hunt
or in the words of one agency official to clear swaths of land of predators before livestock arrive to graze.
Of course in the absence of large carnivores ungulate populations may grow too large destroy vegetation and more easily transmit diseases.
And scientists such as Robert Crabtree with the Yellowstone Ecological Research center have found evidence that predators like coyotes respond to lethal persecution by producing more pups
(because most depredating coyotes are adults trying to feed pups). Perhaps most egregiously Wildlife Services is funded largely by taxpayer dollars
and destroying thousands of native wild animals year after year animals that are not bothering anyone not causing any harm;
the exact animals we should most want to keep alive. These creatures are more than just mistakes to be chalked up as regrettable tallies on some bureaucratic spreadsheet.
In today's world where selective technologies exist for the occasional problem animal that might need to be removed
That is why NRDC recently supported a ban on body-gripping traps and snares in the City of Los angeles. It's why we've opposed the trapping
and snaring of wolves in the northern Rockies. It's why we've pushed for federal legislation prohibiting the use of poisons to kill wildlife.
And it's why we'll continue to work toward reasonably reforming Wildlife Services particularly its program of predator control by banning the use of indiscriminate poisons requiring prioritization of nonlethal prevention measures
and mandating more transparency about the reasons regions and dollars spent on killing wildlife especially the mistakes.
The author's most recent op-ed was Montana Landowners May Soon Shoot Trap More Wolves.
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