african wildlife Archives - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
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Lisa S. French

Community Conservation: Love and Hope in Action

2.5-minute read

And just like that, it’s December…

Before we give Wild & Wondrous a holiday rest, we’d like to dedicate one of the last posts of the year to one of our favorite topics: community conservation—local communities working together to restore nature and protect wildlife. This rights-based, bottom-up approach to preserving global biodiversity is one of the most effective strategies for healing our planet. What makes it work? It’s low cost, it’s flexible, and it benefits both people and endangered species. What’s not to love?

From the Florida Keys to the Amazon rainforest to the savannahs of East Africa, innovative conservation organizations are empowering local communities to protect the land and seascapes that sustain them and native wildlife and support the healthy functioning of ecosystems.

One of the most impactful community-based conservation organizations operating today and an all-around, results-oriented top pick that inspires us throughout the year is Big Life Foundation. Whether you’re new to their work or already a fan and can spare a moment to be re-enthused, we’d like to share some highlights about how they do what they do so well.

Big Life’s team of 500-plus rangers protects and secures wildlife and critical habitat across 1.6 million acres across the Greater Amboseli Ecosystem in East Africa. Home to an amazing variety of wildlife like African bush elephants, impalas, lions, cheetahs, Masai giraffes, Grant’s zebras, and eastern black rhinos, Big Life’s area of operation is one of the most important habitats left in Africa.

The secret to Big Life’s effectiveness is they understand that the only way to protect wildlife and wildlands is to win the hearts and minds of local communities and provide a mutual benefit through conservation—win-win. By including people in the decision-making processes that affect their livelihoods and offering income-generating opportunities, healthcare, education, school lunches, sustainable farming projects, land leases, and other critical community support, Big Life has been incredibly successful in helping to protect one of the world’s few remaining natural treasures.

One of their most important initiatives is preserving corridors for migrating wildlife—like Africa’s last tusker elephants. You can read about the challenges of saving space for these giants and other endangered wildlife here. And if you’d like to join us in supporting Big Life’s holistic, community-based conservation programs, you can put your love and hope into action here. Because when people come together to heal the Earth, amazing things can happen!

ICYMI Nature News: Resilience, Beauty and Brilliance.

These Penguins Take a Thousand Naps a Day
When it comes to power napping, it’s hard to beat the micro-sleeping skills of chinstrap penguins. To keep a watchful eye on nests and chicks while also managing to snooze, the Antarctic birds only sleep for seconds up to a thousand times a day. Talk about dedicated parenting!

Redwoods Recovering from Fire Sprout 1000-Year-Old Buds
In an amazing testament to the resilience of nature, scientists have discovered that northern California redwoods affected by a 2020 wildfire mobilized sugar energy to sprout centuries-old buds. Who’s a clever ancient tree!

Starfish Arms Are Actually Head Extensions
They might look like arms, but according to new research, the five appendages forming the star of a starfish are not arms but a part of the creature’s head. That explains why the sea animals have eyes on the ends of their arms—because their arms are not arms but head. Okay.

Preventing Sea Life Entanglement in Advance
What if we could plan to avoid sea animal entanglement a year in advance? Well, thanks to the brilliant work of marine ecologists in Australia, it’s now possible to forecast when whales and turtles are most likely to get caught in fishing gear and keep them out of harm’s way. That’s what we’re talking about.

Has the Time Come for Flatworm Emojis?
If you feel that the current library of animal emojis doesn’t quite represent your full spectrum of emotions or the natural world, scientists agree. To help increase awareness and enthusiasm for all the amazing biodiversity on the planet, they’re calling for an expanded collection of creatures, including invertebrates. Perfect for when a text leaves you feeling… flatworm.

The Beauty of Northern Lights
The travel and photography blog Capture the Atlas has announced the winning photographers of northern lights for 2023. You can enjoy the splendor of nature as captured by artists around the world here.

A Murmuration in Italy
You can read about the mechanics of a starling murmuration here, and you can watch the sheer magnificence of the sound-shapes of birds in flight here, courtesy of everyone’s favorite positive Twitter (X) purveyor, Buitengebieden.

A Celebrity Owl in Central Park
If you’ve not seen news of zoo escapee Flaco, the Eurasian Eagle Owl who has graced NYC’s Central Park with his magnificent presence for the past year, you can read about his fan club here and follow his escapades here. He’s a FWP neighborhood regular, and there is no more hauntingly beautiful sound in this city than listening to Flaco speak at night.

And A Brilliant Podcast on Animal Perception
Science writer Ed Yong’s book, An Immense World, winner of the 2023 Royal Society book prize, is one of the best books we’ve read on the functioning of creature features this year. You can listen to Ed talk about the fascinating world of animal senses right here.

And that’s our final nature news picks for 2023. Thank you so much for reading!

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Lisa S. French December 16, 2023

Darwin’s Bark Spider: Ultimate Webmaster

2-minute read

We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.

Albert Einstein

If you spent 400 million years practicing a skill, chances are you would become pretty good at it. So, it’s not surprising that many of the 44,000 species of spiders on Earth have perfected the craft of silk spinning over the course of a few hundred thousand millennia. Now, scientists are working to unravel how and why one hairy little arachnid in Madagascar has evolved to spin the toughest threads on the planet—silks that outperform fibers produced by both eight-legged and human competition.

Just one-fifth to three-quarters of an inch long, Darwin’s bark spider can spool out silk threads up to 82 feet long and ten times tougher than Kevlar. The industrious orb weavers anchor these exceptionally strong bridge lines across rivers, lakes, and streams from which they suspend massive, super-sticky, ten-by-ten wheel-shaped webs to capture prey.

Researchers studying the spider’s weaving techniques believe the ability to spin such remarkably sturdy and stretchy silk developed as a gene-level adaptation to the animal’s habitat. Constructing giant webs that hang in flyways over water traveled by insects, birds, and bats expanded the bark spider’s menu options. The bigger, stronger, and stickier the web, the greater the catch.

The discovery of this little African webmaster is inspiring material scientists around the world, hoping to replicate fiber with the strength and flexibility of the bark spider’s silk in applications ranging from artificial tendons and ligaments to structural materials for bridges and vehicles.

Even if you’re a card-carrying arachnophobe and can’t imagine cozying up to these multi-legged creepy crawlies, there is no doubt they have much to teach us. That’s why protecting wild places and the creatures that inhabit them is critically important. Beyond contributing to the amazing diversity of life on Earth, newly and yet-to-be-discovered animal species may hold the key to addressing some of our greatest challenges.

ICYMI Nature News

Remember the Earth Angels
It’s been a heartrending couple of weeks for the good people struggling to save the world’s third-largest coral reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Extremely high ocean temperatures are bleaching and killing off newly transplanted corals before they have a chance to get established. How to lend your support? Here are ten actions you can take to help cool the planet—take a look. Because to quote the IPCC, “Every action matters. Every bit of warming matters. Every year matters. Every choice matters.” Remember the Earth angels.

Bearers of Bad News Birds
For two decades, the seasonal migration patterns of the veery thrush have helped scientists predict the intensity of the Atlantic hurricane season. What do these little fliers know that we don’t know? You can find out here.

Eavesdropping on Dolphins with AI
Scientists are using artificial intelligence to identify the unique clicks and whistles of two endangered species of pink dolphins in the Amazon River. The AI application was designed to help track the movements of the rare animals to aid in conservation. Can you hear us now?

Wild Horse Fire Brigade
Could grazing wild horses hold the key to managing the overgrowth of dried vegetation that provides fuel for wildfires in the Western United States? Read about one man’s mission to find out here.

A Brand-New Batch of Octo-babies
Researchers have discovered a rare deep-sea octopus nursery 10,000 feet down in the Pacific. You can find a video of the octo-moms and their adorable babies here.

Bees Leave No Pollen Behind
To expand their floral menu options, honeybees can turn their tongues into spoons or straws to accommodate the varying shapes and structures of flowers. See how the tiny tongue twisters do it here.

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Lisa S. French August 5, 2023

Desert Elephants’ Quest for Clean Water

1.5-minute read

You can lead an elephant to water, but you can’t make it drink.

The desert-dwelling elephants of Namibia live in one of the harshest, driest landscapes on Earth. The average annual rainfall in the Namib Desert, where the mega-mammals make their home, is just 2mm, and permanent bodies of water are few and very far between.

Conservation researchers studying the survival strategies of the water-dependent herbivores were surprised to learn that despite having traveled hundreds of miles across inhospitable drylands, the intrepid trekkers weren’t overwhelmingly slurp-happy to quench their thirst at human-made drinking pools. Rather than rehydrate with readily available water, the elephants would use their feet and trunks to dig their own wells in adjacent dry riverbeds.

You Don’t Expect Us to Drink This, Do You?
So, what compelled the parched pachyderms to take a pass on the life-sustaining fluid from pre-dug pools? A quest for clean water. After comparing samples from the two water sources, researchers discovered that the multi-user boreholes were contaminated with bacteria that made drinking from them a non-starter for the discerning animals.

Although elephants have an extraordinarily sensitive olfactory system, it’s unclear whether the bacteria were detected through taste or scent, or both. One thing is certain, continuing to study how megafauna adapt to changes in water availability in a warming world will be critical to their survival.

ICYMI Nature News

Easy Ways to Stop Extinction
As scientists scramble to conserve our planet’s remaining biodiversity, FWP’s favorite cartoonist, First Dog on the Moon, recommends three easy steps to stop extinction. Most importantly, we have to want to. Count us in!

Want to Live Longer? Plant Trees
Good news for city dwellers. According to new research from the U.S. Forest Service, planting trees in urban neighborhoods can increase longevity. Another great reason to dig in and green your block!

New Designs for Robo-Planting
Speaking of planting, scientists are developing new solutions for planting trees and crops and fertilizing soil that mimic natural seed dispersal. Good to know. Until further notice, we’re still planting the old-fashioned way.

Meet the DIY Cockatoos
These brainy handy-birds know just what tools to use to solve a puzzle box. Ooh, can they unclog a sink?

Nat Geo’s Photos of the Year
Don’t forget to feast your eyes on National Geographic’s award-winning photographs of the natural world. Enjoy the splendor!

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Lisa S. French February 20, 2023

Big Love for Big Life

1.5-minute read

Coexistence is about care, not control. It is about reciprocity, not retribution.

Peter S. Algona from The Accidental Ecosystem.

Over the course of the past year, we’ve written about creature life, the beauty, benefits, and science of nature, and some of the people and organizations working tirelessly to protect and preserve the living world that we love. In the spirit of the giving season, we dedicate this year-end blog to one of our favorite conservation non-profits in the hope that they will become one of yours.

Big Life Foundation: Conservation Supports People. People Support Conservation.
Protecting 1.6 million acres of wilderness in the Amboseli ecosystem in East Africa, Big Life has partnered with local communities for over a decade to safeguard nature, benefiting both people and wildlife.

Across alpine meadows, mountain forests, savannas, and wetlands, the holistic conservation organization secures habitat and migratory corridors for elephants, giraffes, zebras, wildebeest, gazelles, hartebeests, and other native species by creating economic opportunities for native people to participate in protecting the ecosystem they depend on to survive.

And that collaborative approach to preserving nature has been incredibly effective. Thanks to Big Life’s community-based conservation and anti-poaching campaign, wildlife numbers in the Amboseli are on the rebound—giraffes have quadrupled, and there are ten times more lions and more elephants roaming the ecosystem in the past year than any time in the last half-century—much-needed hopeful news as global wildlife numbers continue to plummet.

Devastating Drought: A Call to Action
Following years of success implementing strategic interventions to sustain East Africa’s wildlife and wildlands, Big Life and their conservation partners are now facing a heart-wrenching climate-based crisis. The fourth year of the worst drought in decades across the Horn of Africa has devastated the region.

Prioritizing vulnerable communities and children, Big Life is providing school lunches across the Amboseli ecosystem and environmental work for women to help feed their families. Until the rains return, they are also pumping water into remote areas for migrating wildlife and providing hay and food pellets to prevent starvation. The effects of this environmental crisis will likely last for months. Right now, the conservation organization is in critical need of assistance. If you would like to pitch in to help save Africa’s iconic animal species and provide relief for drought-impacted communities, please visit BigLife.org to learn more about their life-sustaining work—for the love of the living world.

ICYMI Nature News

A Big Plan for the Entire Planet
This week’s really big news is that international negotiations are underway in Montreal to develop a roadmap to protect biodiversity and keep our home planet’s ecosystems chugging along, providing life essentials and soul-soothing extras. What’s at stake? Oceans, rivers, lakes, wetlands, forests, prairies, woodlands, the climate, all creatures great and small—life on Earth. Here’s an explainer. And here are the biodiversity numbers. And here is a visual tour of nature in crisis.

Glow-in-the-Dark Crustaceans
Described as “the most spectacular natural wonder most people will never see”, tiny Caribbean male crustaceans light up their underwater world. Actually, you lucky people can see it here.

Honeybee Half-Life
According to scientists at the University of Maryland, the life span of honeybees is 50% shorter than it was 50 years ago. Fifty percent! We need to bee better.

City Cougar Quadruplets
The world’s largest wildlife crossing is about to get more big cat traffic. A cougar in the Santa Monica mountains near Los Angeles has delivered four healthy cubs, and the mother and adorable babies are doing fine. You can have a peek at the new arrivals here.

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Lisa S. French December 12, 2022

Planet-Protecting Pachyderms

2-minute read

Could protecting Earth’s largest mammals help tackle the two most critical items on our planetary to-do list: reducing the impacts of both climate change and biodiversity loss? According to new research from Oxford University, by virtue of their size, the most mega of megafauna may have a role to play in maintaining the healthy functioning of ecosystems negatively impacted by global heating.

One of the greatest hazards we face in a warming world is more frequent and intense wildfires. Between 2002 and 2016, 10.45 million acres a year were destroyed by fire globally—67% of the loss was in Africa. As the planet becomes hotter, drier, and more fire-prone, scientists are examining how protecting and increasing populations of endangered species of megafauna like elephants might help lower the temperature and limit the damage.

Beloved for their oversized ears, twisty trunks, keen intelligence, and exceptional empathy, elephants are also prolific stompers, chompers, and seed dispersers; those daily activities can reduce both CO2 in the atmosphere and the threat of wildfires. How so? It’s complicated, but the short story is that by consuming potentially flammable vegetation (and lots of it, up to 375 pounds a day), creating natural fire breaks by trampling soil, and dispersing seeds of trees with high capacity to store CO2, elephants, and other large herbivores, could limit the spread of fires and reduce the conditions that create them.

Elephants aren’t alone in their ability to influence the health of wild places. Conservation projects aimed at protecting ecosystem-engineering wildlife like whales, bison, sea otters, and wolves can help increase the resilience of natural environments under intense pressure from global heating. By continuing to examine the interdependence of wildlife and Earth systems and by creating conditions that allow nature to heal and flourish, amazing things can happen—like this.

ICYMI Nature News

Mighty Forest Mice
Even mini mammals can have a mega impact on the health of ecosystems. According to The New York Times, mice scurrying around forest floors are also important seed dispersers that help ensure the survival of trees exposed to environmental stressors.

Remember the Manatees
Pollution and habitat loss continue to take their toll on the Florida megafauna–over 2,000 manatees have perished in the last two years. It’s well past time to re-classify the charismatic creatures as endangered before they disappear.

NYC’s New Old Tree
In the spring of 2023, visitors to NYC’s High Line Park will be seeing red. A new rosy-hued sculpture installation, Old Tree, by Swiss artist Pamela Rosenkranz, will explore the indivisible connection between human and plant life. Have a look at the preview and swing by in the spring!

Christmas Bird Count
Okay, citizen scientists, if you need a good reason to tear yourself away from the fireplace and holiday cookie pile, Audubon’s 123rd annual Christmas Bird Count runs from December 14th through January 5th. Grab your binoculars and get those cookies to go. You can sign up here.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
We believe trees make a big difference in the health and well-being of people, wildlife, and the planet, and that’s why we keep planting them with the help of our partners at Tree-Nation. The trees that we’ve planted from April through November bring our carbon capture to 2,200 tons of CO2. That is equivalent to 2,235,456 pounds of coal burned, 247,604 gallons of gasoline consumed, and 267,669,777 smartphones charged. Oh, yeah, treeing is believing!

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Lisa S. French December 2, 2022

The Gesture Life of Gorillas

1-minute read

Somersaults, pirouettes, and disco-arms shake.

Body drumming, water splashing, and ice skating.

What may sound like new-fangled cross-training combos are actually some of the dozens of body movements that gorillas use to make themselves understood.

According to researchers at the University of St. Andrews, although gorillas are only capable of a fixed number of vocalizations, when it comes to communicating through gestures, they have a flexible and extensive repertoire of voluntary moves. And those gestures aren’t random; they’re intentional acts of communication aimed at achieving gorilla life goals.

Does This Gorilla Get Me?
Studying three groups of the primates in captivity and one group in the wild, researchers recorded 102 different gestures. Which gestures these movers and shakers used as invitations to travel, play, and cuddle, or requests to calm down, or back off depended on who they were communicating with and how they were responded to. If it was clear that a message was understood, a gorilla would continue the same gestures with the same partner for the same purpose; if not, the persistent primate would switch to a different combination of communication signals to get a point across. They don’t call the clever creatures great apes for nothing!

ICYMI Nature News

A Universal Language
Speaking of creature communications: this chimp mama’s loving gestures towards her newborn are universally understood.

Primates Share Cool Things
And scientists can add another great ape gesture to the list. A wild chimpanzee in Uganda was filmed by Universities of York and Warwick researchers showing an interesting leaf to her mother for no other reason than sharing something cool. Look, mom, beauty!

Rats Get Their Groove On
University of Tokyo researchers have discovered that rats have an innate ability to bop their heads to a good beat. And what’s on these rhythmic rodents’ playlist? Queen, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, and Mozart. Eclectic!

Octopuses Are Mad Flingers
Australian researchers have discovered another way that octopuses put those plentiful arms to good use: throwing objects—at each other. Whether they’re playing or fighting, only the octopuses know for sure. Either way—”Take that, balloon head!”

Have a lovely weekend, everyone. Stay safe and warm, Upstate New Yorkers.

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Lisa S. French November 18, 2022

A shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) stork standing surrounded by plants and waiting

Say Hello to the Shoebill Stork—If You Dare

2-minute read

If you happened upon a shoebill stork in your travels, your first thought after you stopped shaking in your wading boots would most likely be, “Whoa, that is one super-sized, scarily pre-historic looking bird… dino-bird… bird-o-saur…” Standing five feet tall with a saucer-eyed, do-you-see-how-I-see-you stare and a bone-crusher of a hooked bill, this fearsome swamp dweller is not an escapee from Jurassic Park but a distinctive African wading bird considered one of the most extraordinary feathered creatures on Earth. Let’s dig in to find out what makes the shoebill stork stand out in a flock:

What’s in a Name?
Dubbed Balaeniceps rex, “King Whalehead” or whale-headed stork by British ornithologist John Gould in 1851, the bird was known as abu markub, “father of the shoe” by the Arab people, and schuhschnabel or “shoebill” by the Germans. With a bill shaped like a shoe large enough to hold a human foot, shoebill became the favored moniker. But what kind of shoe? Sneaker? Nope. Stiletto? No. Sandal? Unh-uh. The consensus is that this wading bird’s bill looks like a Dutch clog. Originally grouped with storks, herons, and ibis, scientists have concluded that the shoebill is more closely related to pelicans.

Creature Features
In addition to a powerful 12-inch bill with a piercing nail-like hook on the end, the shoebill has extra-long toes for swamp-stomping and a remarkable eight-foot wingspan.

The Swamp It Calls Home
Found only in the freshwater wetlands of eastern central tropical Africa, the shoebill occupies some of the most inaccessible habitats in the world. The tall, leggy water bird prefers swamps and marshes with lots of reeds and floating vegetation, where it constructs raft-sized nests that can measure up to eight feet across—which, as an aside, is only slightly smaller than a Manhattan studio. Shoebills lay one to three eggs, and it takes about five months for a baby shoebill to mature, leave the nest and stand on its own big bird feet.

Hobbies and Interests
Despite its menacing appearance, the shoebill is no avian warrior. The low-energy, solitary bird spends about 85% of its time standing, preening, and sitting on platforms of vegetation. The sluggish species stands motionless for hours, waiting for a tasty meal to swim by and then collapses on its prey hooked-bill first in a frenzy of wing-flapping. Although the shoebill is capable of flying long distances, it’s not migratory, spends only 0.9% of its time in the air, and only occasionally perches in trees.

Favorite Foods
Most partial to carp and lungfish, the patient fisher-bird is also keen on turtles, water snakes, lizards, and baby crocodiles—also known as the wetlands buffet.

Communication Style
You won’t hear energetic chitter-chattering or soul-stirring swamp songs from the shoebill. The rat-a-tat-tat sound of machine-gun fire it produces is known as bill clattering, and it’s used to both delight lady birds and deter predators. When not on high alert for love or danger, the otherwise quiet bird may offer a gentle nod in greeting. And if you see a shoebill shake its head from side to side, it’s not a judgy sign of disapproval but an attempt to dislodge weedy debris or leftover lungfish.

Shoebill Stressors
Like so many amazing animal species globally, shoebill populations across Africa are declining. Habitat loss, climate change, and illegal capture for the bird trade are taking their toll on the avian wonders. The IUCN estimates that only 3,300 to 5,300 shoebills are left in the wild. As our home planet continues to undergo rapid environmental change, vulnerable animals like the shoebill need all the help they can get to survive. If you’d like to join an international community of people working to create a better world for wondrous wildlife like the shoebill, head on over to Birdlife.org—nature needs more followers!

ICYMI Nature News

Styrofoam Eating Superworms
Move over plastic-eating bacterium, scientists from the University of Queensland have discovered that the larvae of the darkling beetle can survive solely on Styrofoam. Apparently, the little wrigglers prefer a light meal. By all means, dig in!

Turtle-y Not Extinct
Princeton scientists have announced big news for a big tortoise. The Galápagos “fantastic giant tortoise” believed to be extinct for the past 100 years is thankfully still with us. Researchers have located a fifty-year-old female tortoise, which they’ve named Fernanda, and transported her to a rescue and breeding facility for safekeeping. After a half century of keeping herself to herself, we’re glad Fernanda finally came out of her shell.

Polar Bear Work Around
Polar bears in Greenland have come up with a new hunting strategy to compensate for climate change-induced loss of sea ice. It seems these arctic dwellers are smarter than the average bear—although the average bear is smarter than you thought.

You Could Even Say It Glows
Photographer Callie Chee has captured sparkling images of nature’s night lights in a gallery series on bioluminescent lifeforms. Eerily beautiful!

“If Not Now, Then When?”
And the winner of the 2022 Environmental Music Prize is Australian rock artists King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for their call-to-action track If Not Now, Then When? When indeed.

That’s all for now Earthlings. Happy summer solstice. Have a super week!

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Lisa S. French June 20, 2022

Herd of Elephants in Africa walking through the grass in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania

African Elephants Walk this Way

1.5-minute read

As you chart your course for 2022, whether you choose the road less traveled or the path of least resistance, to get to your best there from wherever your current here is may require a few rounds of trial and error. For many of our friends in the animal kingdom, when it comes to fulfilling their creature-life destiny, picking the right path comes naturally. They instinctively follow patterns that meet their needs for food, water, space, family, and safety. So, when conservationists working in Kenya set out to pinpoint and protect the most critical habitat and travel corridors to help ensure the survival of African elephants, they let the perceptive pachyderms lead the way.

The accelerating loss of roaming room is one of the greatest threats to the iconic, endangered mega-mammals. To determine which areas and pathways are vital to supporting the species, from 2001 to 2019, researchers from the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory and Save the Elephants used GPS tracking to monitor the movements of 138 elephants whose environment was under pressure from rapid infrastructure development. They mapped the nearly two decades of movement information using Artificial Intelligence to identify the elephants’ preferred pathways and habitat—dubbed the movescape.

Like most living beings, African elephants can’t survive in just any old place. The AI-enhanced elephant expertise can help determine conservation area carve-outs based on what the elephants have shown us they need to exist in the natural world. Preserving wildlife habitat is not just essential to saving endangered species; protecting and restoring the wild also helps keep humanity on the right path by providing valuable environmental, social, educational, and economic benefits—free of charge.

Exercise Your Grey Cells
FYI, today, January 14th is World Logic Day. Exciting! What are we celebrating? Logic and reason! Why are we celebrating? We’ll let you draw your own conclusions—or you can read about the thought behind the commemoration here.

If you’re keen to give your grey cells a workout in between bouts of COVID dodging, you can take a crack at the hardest logic puzzle ever—no peeking at the solution. Or here are some kinder, gentler nature riddles for you and your budding in-house brainiacs. If you don’t have the energy to tackle any of those, how about some soothing animal cams from the Bronx Zoo—no active thought required. From our perspective, logically speaking, leaping lemurs equals blissful brain!

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Lisa S. French January 14, 2022

Traveling Wildebeest Alert

1.5-minute read

One of the most spectacular events in the natural world is taking place now in the African Serengeti—the awe-inspiring, seasonal wildebeest migration. In late spring through fall, up to 1.5 million wildebeest and thousands of zebra and Thomson’s gazelles embark on the long trek from the treeless plains of the southern Serengeti in Tanzania, north to the savannas and woodlands of Kenya.

Navigating Mara River rapids and dodging the hungry lions, cheetahs, and hyenas that trail the herd is no small feat, so what motivates these high plains drifters to travel so far in such massive numbers? Survival.

Like many migrating species, wildebeests are on a mission to find food. These bearded relatives of antelopes can weigh up to 600 muscle-packed pounds. Maintaining almost a billion pounds of wildebeest-i-ness across the herd requires a tremendous amount of grass and water. When the dry season begins in May and food and water are in short supply, wildebeests head west and north, following a route determined by rainfall, grass growth, and access to prime grazing real estate. In early winter, they complete the 300-mile migration loop, tracking the rain and grass back down to the southern plains. Every February, approximately 8,000 calves a day are born in transit and are up on their hooves toddling along with the herd in just three hours—the great migration and life cycle of the wildebeest continues uninterrupted.

The remarkable journey of these African ungulates has now inspired scientists to create algorithms that mimic the highly efficient swarm-like movement of the herd, which instinctually finds the shortest route to the greenest pastures. Intelligent algorithms based on these natural patterns of wildebeest herd migration could be used in cutting-edge applications ranging from unmanned vehicles and planetary mapping to nanobots that can target and destroy cancer cells—because nature is the most intelligent system of all.

Wherever you are in the world, you can keep tabs on the amazing traveling wildebeests courtesy of HerdTracker. Compared to the congestion of mega-migration, this summer’s bumper-to-bumper beach-bound traffic doesn’t seem so bad after all…

If you’d like to learn more about the megafauna of the Serengeti, we highly recommend Animals of the Masai Mara (Wildlife Explorer Guides), by Adam Scott Kennedy and Vicki Kennedy.

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Lisa S. French July 30, 2021

Zebras: Snazzy-Suited Insect Repellers

1.5-minute read

It would be understandable if the zebra’s fellow savanna dwellers experienced pelt envy. The wild horses’ intricate black and white coat patterning is an extraordinary sight to behold. According to researchers at the University of California at Davis, there is more to the snazzy fur of the African equine than meets the eye. After a century of stripe speculation, scientists studying how differences in color and pattern help species adapt to their natural environment have concluded that the zebra’s markings aren’t just good-looking—they’re functional, signaling pesky biting flies to bug off.

So how do zebra stripes repel insects? As it turns out, dreaded blood-sucking, disease-carrying tsetse, stable, and horse flies are fairly picky when it comes to landing sites. They are far less likely to land on black and white striped surfaces than either all white or all black surfaces. And the greater the number and the narrower the stripes, the fewer the insect attacks. Researchers discovered that zebras in regions of Africa with more flies had more and thinner stripes, especially on the vulnerable face and legs where flies bite while the animals graze.

You may be wondering why zebras, in particular, evolved to develop insect-repelling markings. Biologists believe that because zebras have shorter and thinner fur than many other horse species, nature may have equipped the African equine with the extra protection of stripes to help increase its odds of survival on the savannas.

Even with built-in bug protection, zebras will need ongoing assistance from their friends to keep prettifying the planet. There are currently three species of stripey-suited wild horses roaming the African continent: the plains, mountain, and endangered Grevy’s zebras. As a result of habitat loss, poaching, disease, competition for food, and lack of access to water, Grevy’s populations have declined from 15,000 in the 1970s to only 3,000 across Kenya and Ethiopia. You can find out how conservationists are working to prevent the extinction of one of Africa’s largest remaining land animals and how you can pitch in to help at Grevy’s Zebra Trust and Ol Pejeta Conservancy.

What else this week? June 4th and 5th, 2021, kick off the Virtual Launch Gala for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration—a global rallying cry to heal the planet. Can we get a determined woohoo for getting out there to reimagine, restore, and recreate healthy ecosystems? Generation restoration—heck yeah!

And on the local-to-FWP front, for the very first time, Cornell University scientists have recorded humpbacks singing in the waters off New York City. Have a listen to their haunting whale songs—goosebumps! Happy to have you, big fellas—be careful out there!

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Lisa S. French June 4, 2021