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☆ Foxes were once humans’ best friends, study says
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Mindy Weisberger | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Archaeologists originally uncovered the near-complete D. avus skeleton buried alongside a human at Cañada Seca, a site in northern Patagonia, in 1991. Parts of the D. avus specimen were buried alongside a human at Cañada Seca, a site in northern Patagonia. D. avus lived from the Pleistocene Epoch (around 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago) into the Holocene, becoming extinct about 500 years ago. With a similar diet to D. avus, dogs may have helped speed the foxes’ extinction by outcompeting them. Dogs could also have carried and transmitted diseases that sickened the foxes, Lebrasseur added.

Persons: wasn’t, Ophélie, avus, Francisco Prevosti “, Dusicyon avus, ”, Lebrasseur, Cinthia, ” Lebrasseur, Dr, Aurora, d’Anglade, ‘, Francisco Prevosti, it’s, ” Mindy Weisberger Organizations: CNN, Wellcome Trust, Archaeology Research, University of Oxford’s School of Archaeology, Royal Society Open Science, Argentina’s, Technical Research, Universidade, Oxford, Scientific Locations: what’s, Argentina, South America, Cañada Seca, Patagonia, United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Spain, Patagonia . Hunter

☆ Ancient Foxes Lived and Died Alongside Humans
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-09 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But dogs were not the only ancient canines to become companions. Archaeologists have found traces of foxes living among early communities throughout South America. A team of researchers recently examined the fox’s bones, which were unearthed among the remains of dozens of hunter-gatherers. The team’s findings, published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, posit that this fox lived alongside the humans it was buried with. “It’s a practice that had been suggested before, but to actually find it is a nice surprise.”

Persons: ”, Ophélie Lebrasseur, “ Organizations: Royal Society Open Science, University of Oxford Locations: South America, Patagonia

☆ All Orcas Are Classified as a Single Species. Should They Be?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Emily Anthes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Killer whales are some of the most cosmopolitan creatures on the planet, swimming through every one of the world’s oceans. Although their habitats and habits vary widely, all killer whales are considered part of a single, global species: Orcinus orca. (Despite their common name, killer whales are actually part of a family of marine mammals known as oceanic dolphins.) In a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science on Tuesday, the scientists proposed giving new species designations to two groups of animals, one known as resident killer whales and the other often called Bigg’s killer whales. Although both types live in the eastern North Pacific, they have different diets: the resident orcas eat fish, with a particular predilection for salmon, while the Bigg’s orcas hunt marine mammals such as seals and sea lions.

Organizations: Royal Society, Science Locations: Africa, Hawaii, Coast, United States, Canada, North Pacific

☆ Not All Heroes Wear Capes, but These Termites Did for Science
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Their findings, published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, reveal that while the spiders quickly spotted the termites in the striped capes, they rarely attacked the striped termites, providing an explanation for why myriad other species use striking stripes to scare off predators. That’s where jumping spiders come in. With more than 6,500 species found worldwide, jumping spiders are voracious arachnids that feed on just about any invertebrate they come across. Dr. Taylor and her team studied two species of jumping spiders commonly found in Florida — the regal jumping spider, or Phidippus regius, and Habronattus trimaculatus. The researchers placed two termites of each cape variety in a petri dish with a jumping spider and recorded which termite the spiders looked at and which they ended up attacking.

Persons: Taylor, Habronattus, trimaculatus Organizations: Royal Society Open Science Locations: Florida

☆ Some Whales May Have Been Wiped Out by Medieval Europeans
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Kate Golembiewski | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Industrial-scale whaling in the 19th and 20th centuries nearly drove many whale species into extinction. But it turns out that whaling’s effects on where whales live go back much deeper into human history. As early as 8,000 years ago, humans carved their attempts to capture whales into South Korean cliffs. More recently, medieval texts described the whaling preferences of Europeans. So he and his colleagues examined 719 pieces of whale bones collected at archaeological sites from Norway to Portugal.

Persons: Moby, Dick, ”, Ahab, Ishmael, van den Organizations: Royal Society Open Science, Norwegian University of Science, Technology Locations: Norway, Portugal

☆ What Goes Up a Tree Must Evolve the Ability to Climb Down
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Miriam Fauzia | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Millions of years ago, a simian ancestor of humanity decided to climb a tree. It may have been looking for a meal, escaping a predator or seeking a shady place to rest. Later, like anyone who has ascended high into a forest’s canopy, our relative discovered that getting down in one piece is less simple than it seems. Any human can relate to this, like climbing up a fireman’s pole, for example, is challenging,” said Nathaniel Dominy, an evolutionary biologist at Dartmouth. The researchers posit that this adaptation persisted even as early humans swapped out trees for grassland habitats, their versatile upper limbs now making it possible to forage, hunt and defend.

Persons: ”, Nathaniel Dominy, “, Dominy Organizations: Dartmouth, Royal Society Open Science

☆ The Prize for the Longest Pregnancy in Mammals May Go to This Whale
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Miriam Fauzia | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For animals that humans almost drove into extinction, there’s a lot about whales we still don’t know. Consider the bowhead whale in particular. “But even today, we’re still learning very basic things about the reproductive cycle of animals like these. That would edge out elephant pregnancies — the longest known within the mammalian kingdom — by a month. Their findings, published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, illuminate the complexities underlying the whale’s population growth, which Dr. Lysiak hopes can guide conservation efforts, especially as an inhospitable climate looms.

Persons: ”, Nadine Lysiak, Lysiak Organizations: Royal Society Open Science

☆ How a 3.2-million-year-old human relative named Lucy walked
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Lucy's fossil includes 40% of her skeleton, one of the most complete Australopith fossils found to date. Edwin Remsberg/Alamy Stock PhotoAnalysis of Lucy’s fossil over the past 20 years has suggested that she and others of her species walked upright. Then, she used scans of Lucy’s fossil to determine how her joints were articulated and moved in life. Muscle modeling of Lucy, dubbed "AL 288-1," is compared side by side with human muscle maps. “Lucy likely walked and moved in a way that we do not see in any living species today,” Wiseman said.

Persons: “ Lucy, ”, Lucy, Edwin Remsberg, Dr, Ashleigh L.A, Wiseman, didn’t, Isaac Newton, waddle, Dr Ashleigh Wiseman, ” Wiseman, “ Organizations: CNN, Sky, Royal Society Open Science, University of Cambridge, Leverhulme, Isaac, Isaac Newton Trust, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Locations: Ethiopia, United Kingdom

☆ Tigers have personality traits similar to human extroverts and introverts, researchers say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Tigers have personality traits similar to extroversion and introversion in humans, researchers have found. Tigers that score higher on "majesty" eat more, have higher group status and mate more often. Tigers that scored for "majesty" were highly rated on words such as dignified, confident, and fierce and placed low on terms like withdrawn oterms feeble. "Steadiness" in tigers was associated with high ratings for words like friendly, gentle, and loving but ranked low for words such as aggressive or cruel. Abdellaoui told The Guardian that the words were all initially Chinese, and some of their meanings might be harder to translate.

Pericolul la care sunt expuşi urşii polari din cauza încălzirii globale, ale cărei efecte sunt cu precădere resimţite în Arctica, zonă în care aceştia trăiesc, este real și cunoscut la nivel global. Iar retragerea tot mai semnificativă a gheţii marine are o consecinţă directă asupra alimentaţiei acestor animale, prin limitarea posibilităţilor de vânătoare a focilor, prada lor predilectă, se mai arată în analiza oamenilor de știință. Însă, într-o perioadă de unsprezece zile, pe măsură ce numărul ouălor rămase a scăzut, urşii au revenit la cuiburile goale în speranţa că vor găsi hrană. În timp ce urşii obţin calorii semnificative din ouă, această alimentaţie nu poate oferi sursă durabilă de hrană pentru Ursus maritimus, o specie clasificată ca ''vulnerabilă'' în situația dată. Populaţia de urşi polari ar putea să dispară din cauza lipsei hraneiPopulaţia din sălbăticie de urşi polari este estimată la 25.000 de indivizi, distribuiţi în Alaska, Canada, Groenlanda, Norvegia şi Rusia.

Organizations: Agerpres, canadieni, Royal Society Open, Nature, Global Locations: Arctica, Nunavut, Alaska, Canada, Groenlanda, Norvegia, Rusia

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