Latest news with #wildlifeResearch
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Details in satellite photos spark 'worrying' prediction about colony of thousands
Distant images snapped by satellites have revealed emperor penguin numbers have fallen lower than even the most pessimistic estimates. Over 15 years, numbers appear to have fallen by 22 per cent across the Antarctic Peninsula, Weddell Sea and Bellingshausen Sea. The staggering new population estimate was published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications: Earth & Environment by researchers from the British Antarctic Survey. The survey covers 30 per cent of the continent's emperor penguins, so now the team is broadening its focus to examine whether the results are reflective of the situation across the entire continent. Dr Peter Fretwell, an expert in studying wildlife from space, said there can be 'quite a bit of uncertainty' in his line of work. 'This new count isn't necessarily symbolic of the rest of the continent. But if it is, that's worrying because the decline is worse than the worst-case projections we have for emperors this century,' he said. Counting emperor penguins is dangerous on land, so scientists instead estimate numbers by examining large huddles of birds captured in high-resolution satellite images. It's believed there are around 500,000 to 600,000 emperor penguins in the wild, compared to an estimated 8.2 billion people. 🚨 Reason tourists will no longer be able to visit popular holiday islands Globally, the consensus is that emperor penguins declined by 9.5 per cent across Antarctica between 2009 and 2018. This put them on track to be close to extinction in 75 years if the climate continues to warm at current rates, although one study has suggested it could be much sooner. The new data looks at numbers between 2009 to 2024. Melting sea ice, directly caused by the burning of fossil fuels like gas, coal and oil, is believed to be the primary cause of their demise. Emperor penguins need icy platforms at the edge of the ocean to be stable for at least eight months of the year. 🏭 Australia green-lights its biggest fossil fuel project 🛳️ Cruise ships almost kill 'world's oldest animals' 📸 Photos reveal details of 'secret' koala colony discovered in impenetrable forest The problem was highlighted in 2022, when a satellite captured the horror moment thousands of baby emperor penguins died after sea ice collapsed beneath them. The dramatic decline in numbers has led researchers to believe that climate change is contributing to other issues that are challenging the species like changing storm, snow and rainfall patterns. The study's co-author Dr Phil Trathan has warned the only way to ensure there is more than a 'few' emperor penguins by 2100 is to stabilise greenhouse emissions. "The fact that we're moving to a position faster than the computer models project means there must be other factors we need to understand in addition to loss of breeding habitat,' he said. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
This tiny Australian bat is the size of a matchbox. But it flies up to 150km a night in search of food
A tiny, critically endangered bat – roughly the size of a matchbox – can fly about 150km in a single night, new research has found. Southern bent-wing bats roost in caves in south-west Victoria and south-east South Australia. They fly out at night in search of food, eating about half their body weight in insects. Little is known about these foraging flights, so Victoria's Arthur Rylah Institute tracked bats from the Portland maternity cave 350km west of Melbourne, to see where they went. In summer-autumn, some bats flew from Portland to the Naracoorte maternity caves in South Australia or to Victoria's Warrnambool maternity caves – about 156km and 97km away, respectively – in a single night. The bats mostly returned on subsequent nights via a second direct, single-night flight. Those vast distances were 'pretty amazing for a bat that's less than the size of a mouse,' said wildlife ecology scientist Amanda Bush from the Arthur Rylah Institute. To put this in perspective, the average person commutes 16km to work in Australia, usually with the help of a vehicle. To collect the data, researchers fitted miniature GPS trackers on to 39 adult bats in September 2023 and another 69 trackers in February 2024. They managed to retrieve 47 trackers (and their onboard data) by re-trapping bats and searching cave floors for transmitters that had fallen off. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'Once the VHF signal on the trackers died, they were sometimes difficult to find among piles of bat guano, but we'd spot them by seeing their small aerials,' Bush said. The bats flew further from their roosts during summer-autumn, with an average nightly commute of 36km. They often headed inland, moving through forests and open farmland. Bats visited a wide range of habitats, including eucalypt and pine forests, roadsides, windbreaks, open farm land, coastal scrub and urban areas. The distances involved were 'incredible', said University of Melbourne bat expert, associate prof Lisa Godinho, who was not involved in the research. 'We know that their heart beats at about 1,000 beats-a-minute when they're flying,' she said. Southern bent-wing bats are 'quite adorable', Godinho said, measuring about 5cm long, with distinctive puffy brown fur and roundish heads. Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion The species is one of only a few that rely on caves to roost in Australia, she said. But while caves are critical to their survival, it is also important to understand what other parts of the landscape they rely on. Bat flights in spring were shorter, and focused on coastal areas. The largest distance recorded in spring was 78km from their roost, while the average was 12km. Shorter flights likely related to pregnant females, Godinho said. 'It's energetically so expensive to go a long way. If there's enough resources close to the maternity roost, then you would stay in that area.' In summer-autumn, the bats would bulk up before winter, when fewer insects were available, and the mammals relied on 'torpor' – dropping their body temperature and metabolic rate – to conserve energy. 'Realising that they travel this far through the landscape in order to find resources, raises the question – is that normal? Or has the fragmentation and degradation of the landscape meant that they are now having to travel that far in order to find what they need?' Godinho said. Southern bent-wing bats once numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but today there are fewer than 45,000. Protecting maternity sites and key foraging habitat has been identified as a priority action for the critically endangered species. Deakin University research fellow Dr Amanda Lo Cascio agreed the distances travelled were a 'long way for a little bat'. Lo Cascio said southern bent-wing bats were good flyers and flew quite fast, using sound – or echolocation – to navigate, similar to whales and dolphins. Knowing where and how far they travelled at night was especially important for assessing proposed developments in their flight paths and habitats, and considering the threats they might be exposed to, she said.
CBC
16-05-2025
- Science
- CBC
Researchers egg-static to capture 1st footage of this rare snail spawning from its neck
After a dozen years dedicated to studying a rare species of carnivorous snail, Lisa Flanagan was thrilled to finally film the moment that, until recently, had been shrouded in mystery. Flanagan, a ranger at the New Zealand Department of Conservation, was weighing a Powelliphanta augusta snail when she saw what looked like a tiny hen's egg emerging from a small opening beneath its head. "It was just one of those things that was just a fluke," Flanagan told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. "He happened to be laying the egg at that time." Powelliphanta augusta snails take eight years to reach sexual maturity, after which they lay about five eggs a year, through an opening in their neck. But, despite almost two decades of caring for the critters in chilled containers at a facility in Hokitika, N.Z., staff had never witnessed this unfold until that fateful moment on May 7. The whole thing took just under one minute, Flanagan says. N.Z. carnivorous snail filmed for 1st time laying an egg from its neck 4 hours ago Duration 1:03 The footage, she says, confirms certain details about these snails' reproductive cycle, while prompting new ones for those who work with the creatures. In the clip, as the egg emerges, a baffled Flanagan can be heard saying to her colleague: "I wonder if it hurts." Meet one of the world's largest carnivorous snails The dozens of species and subspecies of Powelliphanta snails are only found in New Zealand, mostly in rugged forest and grassland settings, where they are threatened by habitat loss. At roughly nine centimetres in length, the Powelliphanta augusta is one of the largest carnivorous snails in the world, known to slurp up earthworms like noodles. Even observing their eating habits has been a rarity for Flanagan. Although they are fed monthly, in the 12 years of looking after these snails, she and her colleagues had only seen them gulp a worm three or four times. The Powelliphanta augusta was the centre of public uproar and legal proceedings in the early 2000s, when coal mining company Solid Energy threatened to destroy the snails' only habitat on the Mount Augustus ridge line. Some 4,000 were removed from the site and relocated, while 2,000 more were housed in chilled storage in the West Coast town of Hokitika to ensure the preservation of the species, which is slow to breed and doesn't adapt well to new habitats. In 2011, some 800 of the snails accidentally died in a Department of Conservation refrigerator with faulty temperature control. But the species' slow survival continues: In March this year, there were nearly 1,900 snails and nearly 2,200 eggs in captivity, the conservation agency said. Why the neck? While reproducing from the side of the neck may seem odd, it is, in fact, par for the course for snails. That's because they are encased in protective shells that allow them to retreat from predators and poor weather conditions. This evolutionary trait, however, can also cause complications, like how to mate with other snails and successfully reproduce, says Kath Walker, the N.Z. Department of Conservation's senior science advisor,. "Powelliphanta have solved this by having an opening (a genital pore) on the right side of their body just below their head," Walker said in a press release. Like other snails, Powelliphanta augusta are hermaphrodites. So, in order to mate, the invertebrate uses the genital pore to simultaneously exchange sperm with another snail, which is stored until each creates an egg. "The snail only needs to peek out of its shell to do the business," Walker said. While most snails lay eggs, some reproduce through live birth — also via their neck. Last July, the Campbell keeled glass-snail was captured on video as birthing offspring at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia. The video shows a mini snail — shell, tentacles, and all — slipping out of its parent's neck. Flanagan said that it is common for Powelliphanta augusta snail eggs to take, on average, 400 days to hatch. When the day finally arrives, she said it "just hatches out as a little tiny wee snail." She says she hopes her own video out of Hokitika shows others how amazing these snails are. "People sort of tend to think it's not like, you know, a fluffy little kiwi or a penguin or something like that. It's just a snail. But no, they're there for a reason," she said.
