animal
Los Angeles (AFP) - A curious cat that sneaked into an open box was shipped across the United States to an Amazon warehouse after its unknowing owners sealed it inside. Carrie Clark's pet, Galena, vanished from her Utah home on April 10, sparking a furious search that involved plastering "missing" posters around the neighborhood. But a week later, a vet hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Los Angeles got in touch to say the cat had been discovered in a box -- alongside several pairs of boots -- by a warehouse worker at an Amazon center. "I ran to tell my husband that Galena was found and we...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - They're loud. They're sexually aroused. And for one special, cacophonous month up to a trillion of them will engulf suburbs and woodlands across America. Two cicada "broods" are set for a rare double emergence that last occurred in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson was president and the United States purchased Louisiana from France. The prospect of another natural wonder just weeks after a total solar eclipse across much of the country has gripped scientists and the public alike. 'Insects of history' - Cicadas comprise a diverse family of over 3,000 insect species found globally...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Humankind's two closest primate relatives are often said to embody contrasting sides of our nature: peace-loving bonobos versus violence-prone chimpanzees. But a new study out Friday in Current Biology says it's not that simple. Male bonobos in fact fight each other more often than male chimps do -- and the bonobo "bad boys" who have more dust-ups also see greater mating success. Lead author Maud Mouginot of Boston University told AFP she decided to investigate the question of aggression among bonobos after prior research revealed a "reproductive skew" among males, meaning ...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - The Bidens' dogs grabbed headlines with their bad behavior, but "First Feline" Willow is getting a book all to herself. First Lady Jill Biden has written a children's story about the short-haired tabby's journey from a farm in Pennsylvania to the White House in 2022. With a June publication date, "Willow the White House Cat" will come out four months before President Joe Biden faces a bitter political catfight for reelection with Donald Trump. "As Willow bounds from room to room, exploring history in her new home, she learns quickly about all of the incredible people who mak...
AFP
Los Angeles (AFP) - A rare attack by a mountain lion on two brothers in a remote area of California left one dead and the other severely injured over the weekend, with authorities reporting that the cat was subsequently euthanized. The siblings had been out collecting deer antlers when they were approached by the cougar, according to a statement posted Monday on the Facebook page of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office, outside Sacramento. Rather than retreat when the brothers followed protocol for encounters with mountain lions -- raising their hands in the air, yelling at it and even throwi...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - Whether dogs truly understand the words we say -- as opposed to things like tone and context clues -- is a question that has long perplexed owners, and so far science hasn't been able to deliver clear answers. But a new brain wave study published Friday in Current Biology suggests that hearing the names of their favorite toys actually activates dogs' memories of those objects. "It definitely shows us that it's not human-unique to have this type of referential understanding," first author Lilla Magyari of the Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, told AFP, explaining that res...
AFP
Los Angeles (AFP) - A US man who tried to breed enormous hybrid sheep using genetic material from endangered animals so he could sell them to trophy hunting ranches faces jail time after pleading guilty to wildlife crimes on Tuesday. Arthur Schubarth, 80, illegally imported parts of the world's largest species of sheep from Kyrgyzstan, which he used to create cloned embryos in the United States. The resulting fetuses were then implanted in ewes on his Montana ranch, resulting in the birth of a genetically pure Marco Polo argali, an endangered species that can weigh more than 300 pounds (135 ki...
AFP
Paris (AFP) - Baleen whales have evolved a special voice box to help them to sing underwater -- but this could also make them uniquely vulnerable to being drowned out by human noise pollution, according to new research published Wednesday. Complex whale melodies, first recorded some 50 years ago, are known to play a key role in the social and reproductive communication of these massive marine mammals. While toothed whales have a nasal vocal organ, filter-feeding baleen whales use a larynx, although scientists had not figured out exactly how it created the vocalisations. In a new study publish...
AFP
Washington (AFP) - A stingray housed in a small-town aquarium in the United States is expecting offspring without ever having shared a tank with a male of her kind, making her not just a local sensation but a scientific curiosity. Charlotte, who has been at the Aquarium & Shark Lab in Henderson, North Carolina for more than eight years, started showing an unusual growth on her body around late November. Staff were initially worried she might have a tumor. "Her hump just started growing and growing, and we thought that it could be potentially cancer," Kinsley Boyette, the aquarium's assistant ...
AFP
Mexico City (AFP) - Population numbers of endangered monarch butterflies have fallen sharply at their wintering sites in Mexico, experts said Wednesday, blaming the "sobering" drop primarily on climate change and the use of pesticides. The orange, black and white-spotted insects covered 0.90 hectares (2.2 acres) of forest in the 2023-2024 season, Gloria Tavera, conservation director at the National Commission for Natural Protected Areas, said. That marked a decline of 59 percent from the previous year, she told a news conference. "Much has to do with climate change -- drought and high temperat...
AFP
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