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The “Rodney Dangerfield” of Halloween Icons

While many people will be pursuing the latest pop culture icons as Halloween costumes this year, one of the annual icons of Halloween might be viewed as the Rodney Dangerfield of Halloween symbols. The legendary comedian based his career on the line “I get no respect,” which might also apply to the misunderstood flying mammal known as bats. The animals often carry a negative connotation that doesn’t reflect the respective role bats play in biological ecosystems. Dr. Erin Gillam, a [...]

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Tropical Frog Shouts Climate Change from the Mountaintops

Scientists studying disease and climate change as part of a special multidisciplinary team at Cornell University are heading to the mountains of Puerto Rico – hoping to learn what a struggling frog species can tell us about the danger changing weather patterns present to ecosystems around the globe.

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Biodiversity Photo Of The Day: Usambara Drumming Grasshopper

The Usambara Drumming Grasshopper, Ixalidium transiens, has not yet been officially evaluated for inclusion on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, however, it has a provisional assessment of ‘Vulnerable’. It is endemic to the East Usambara Mountains in Tanzania and is a nocturnal species that dwells in the litter layer of evergreen submontane forests. It drums on the substrate with its hind legs to attract females.

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Listen Up: Ocean Acidification Poses Little Threat to Whales’ Hearing

Contrary to some previous, highly publicized, reports, ocean acidification is not likely to worsen the hearing of whales and other animals, according to a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientist who studies sound propagation in the ocean.

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Sex Beats Cloning (With Change in Scenery)

Rotifers are tiny aquatic creatures with options: They can have sex, or they can simply clone themselves. And this ability to go both ways has made them interesting subjects in the study of the evolution of sex.

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Time to find a second Earth, WWF says

Carbon pollution and over-use of Earth’s natural resources have become so critical that, on current trends, we will need a second planet to meet our needs by 2030, the WWF said on Wednesday.

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Lawsuit Begun to Protect Endangered Fish From Four Corners Coal Pollution

Conservation and citizen groups today filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining for failing to conduct Endangered Species Act consultations prior to authorizing the renewal of an operating permit for the Navajo Coal Mine in northwest New Mexico. The agency was required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to avoid impacts to threatened and endangered species from the mining of coal at Navajo Mine, its combustion [...]

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Biodiversity Photo Of The Day: Chacoan Peccary

The Chacoan Peccary, Catagonus wagneri, is listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The largest peccary species, it is endemic to the dry Chaco of western Paraguay, south-eastern Bolivia and northern Argentina.

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Whale Poop Pumps Up Ocean Health

Whale feces — should you be forced to consider such matters — probably conjures images of, well, whale-scale hunks of crud, heavy lumps that sink to the bottom. But most whales actually deposit waste that floats at the surface of the ocean, “very liquidy, a flocculent plume,” says University of Vermont whale biologist, Joe Roman.

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