Category Archives: Zoology

Well-preserved 28,000-year-old lion cub found in Siberian permafrost

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Female cave lion cub named Sparta in Russia’s Yakutia region may even have traces of mother’s milk in it

Scientists have said that an astonishingly well-preserved cave lion cub found in Siberia’s permafrost lived 28,000 years ago and may even have traces of its mother’s milk in it.

The female cub, named Sparta, was found at the Semyuelyakh River in Russia’s Yakutia region in 2018 and a second lion cub called Boris was found the year before, according to a study published in the Quaternary journal.

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‘Real’ T rex goes on show in England for first time in over a century

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The skeleton of Titus, discovered in the US in 2018, makes its world debut at Nottingham museum

The first ‘real’ Tyrannosaurus rex to be exhibited in England for more than a century will go on show in Nottingham on Sunday.

The skeleton of Titus, discovered in the US state of Montana in 2018, will make its world debut at the Wollaton Hall Natural History Museum as part of a new exhibition on the dinosaur’s life and environment.

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New oilfield in African wilderness threatens lives of 130,000 elephants

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Exploratory project in Botswana and Namibia is threat to ecosystems, local communities and wildlife, conservationists say

Tens of thousands of African elephants are under threat from plans for a massive new oilfield in one of the continent’s last great wildernesses, experts have warned.

Campaigners and conservationists fear the proposed oilfield stretching across Namibia and Botswana would devastate regional ecosystems and wildlife as well as local communities.

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24,000-year-old organisms found frozen in Siberia can still reproduce

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Russian scientists find bdelloid rotifers deep in remote permafrost

A microscopic worm-like creature, labelled an “evolutionary scandal” by biologists for having thrived for millions of years without having sex, has now been shown to persist for at least 24,000 years in Siberian permafrost and then reproduce, researchers have found.

Multicellular invertebrates that are solely female, bdelloid rotifers are already renowned for their resistance to radiation and ability to withstand rather inhospitable environments: drying, starvation and low oxygen. They’ve also existed for at least 35m years – and can be found today in freshwater lakes, ponds, streams and moist terrestrial habitats such as moss, lichen, tree bark and soil.

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‘That’s a lot of teeth’: 2.5 billion T rex walked the earth, researchers find

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Experts calculate the total number of the dinosaurs that lived over 127,000 generations

One Tyrannosaurus rex seems scary enough. Now picture 2.5 billion of them. That’s how many of the fierce dinosaur king probably roamed Earth over the course of a couple of million years, a new study finds.

Using calculations based on body size, sexual maturity and the creatures’ energy needs, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, figured out just how many T rex lived over 127,000 generations, according to a study in the journal Science on Thursday. It’s a first-of-its-kind number, but just an estimate with a margin of error that is the size of a T rex.

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Researchers rethink life in a cold climate after Antarctic find

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Scientists surprised by marine organisms on boulder on sea floor beneath 900 metres of ice shelf

The accidental discovery of marine organisms on a boulder on the sea floor beneath 900 metres (3,000ft) of Antarctic ice shelf has led scientists to rethink the limits of life on Earth.

Researchers stumbled on the life-bearing rock after sinking a borehole through nearly a kilometre of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf on the south-eastern Weddell Sea to obtain a sediment core from the seabed.

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Siberia permafrost yields well-preserved ice age woolly rhino

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Calf carcass from thawing ground in north-east region of Yakutia found with many internal organs intact

A well-preserved ice age woolly rhino with many of its internal organs still intact has been recovered from the permafrost in Russia’s extreme northern region.

Russian media reported on Wednesday that the carcass was revealed by thawing permafrost in Yakutia in August. Scientists are waiting for ice roads in the Arctic region to become passable to deliver the animal to a laboratory for studies in January.

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Elephant trapped in Indian well rescued in 12-hour crane operation

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Animal fell into well covered with bushes in village in Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri district

Forest officials in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state said they used a crane to pull an elephant from a well after working for more than 12 hours to rescue the animal.

The elephant, which strayed into a village bordering a forest in Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri district, fell into the well that was covered with bushes and did not have a fence or wall around it, Rajkumar, the district forest officer, said.

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Tardigrades’ latest superpower: a fluorescent protective shield

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Scientists identify a species that appears to absorb potentially lethal UV radiation and emit blue light

The might be tiny creatures with a comical appearance, but tardigrades are one of life’s great survivors. Now scientists say they have found a new species boasting an unexpected piece of armour: a protective fluorescent shield.

Related: Tardigrades: Earth’s unlikely beacon of life that can survive a cosmic cataclysm

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Botswana says it has solved mystery of mass elephant die-off

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Elephants may have ingested toxins produced by bacteria found in waterholes

Hundreds of elephants died in Botswana earlier this year from ingesting toxins produced by cyanobacteria, according to government officials who say they will be testing waterholes for algal blooms next rainy season to reduce the risk of another mass die-off.

The mysterious death of 350 elephants in the Okavango delta between May and June baffled conservationists, with leading theories suggesting they were killed by a rodent virus known as EMC (encephalomyocarditis) or toxins from algal blooms.

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Are aliens hiding in plain sight?

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Several missions this year are seeking out life on the red planet. But would we recognise extraterrestrials if we found them?

In July, three unmanned missions blasted off to Mars – from China (Tianwen-1), the US (Nasa’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover) and the United Arab Emirates (Hope). The Chinese and American missions have lander craft that will seek signs of current or past life on Mars. Nasa is also planning to send its Europa Clipper probe to survey Jupiter’s moon Europa, and the robotic lander Dragonfly to Saturn’s moon Titan. Both moons are widely thought to be promising hunting grounds for life in our solar system – as are the underground oceans of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.

Meanwhile, we can now glimpse the chemical makeup of atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars (exoplanets), of which more than 4,000 are now known. Some hope these studies might disclose possible signatures of life.

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Scientists digitally reconstruct skulls of dinosaurs in fossilised eggs

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Research on Massospondylus carinatus embryos sheds new light on animals’ development

The fossilised skulls of dinosaur embryos that died within their eggs about 200m years ago, have been digitally reconstructed by scientists, shedding new light on the animals’ development, and how close they were to hatching.

The rare clutch of seven eggs, some of which contain embryos, was discovered in South Africa in 1976, with the developing young found to be a species of dinosaur called Massospondylus carinatus.

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Tardigrades may have survived spacecraft crashing on moon

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Scientists believe the Beresheet’s unusual cargo may be alive and well on the moon

The odds of finding life on the moon have suddenly rocketed skywards. But rather than elusive alien moonlings, the beings in question came from Earth and were spilled across the landscape when a spacecraft crashed into the surface.

The Israeli Beresheet probe was meant to be the first private lander to touch down on the moon. And all was going smoothly until mission controllers lost contact in April as the robotic craft made its way down. Beyond all the technology that was lost in the crash, Beresheet had an unusual cargo: a few thousand tiny tardigrades, the toughest animals on Earth.

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Why the zebra got its stripes: to deter flies from landing on it

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Pattern seems to confuse flies, researchers who dressed horses up as zebras find

The mystery of how the zebra got its stripes might have been solved: researchers say the pattern appears to confuse flies, discouraging them from touching down for a quick bite.

The study, published in the journal Plos One, involved horses, zebras, and horses dressed as zebras. The team said the research not only supported previous work suggesting stripes might act as an insect deterrent, but helped unpick why, revealing the patterns only produced an effect when the flies got close.

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