environmental adaptation 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
Things to do

Lisa S. French

No, They Are Not Going to Suck Your Blood

2-minute read

If you are looking at the animal above and wondering what on Earth it could be, say hello to Vampyroteuthis infernalis, commonly known as the vampire squid of Hell. Pretty scary, right? Don’t worry, despite the squirm-inducing moniker, these multi-limbed denizens of the extreme deep are not befanged blood suckers—but they are extremophiles.

And what is an extremophile? An organism that can survive or even thrive in a habitat that would be intolerable for most living creatures, including environments that are extremely hot or cold, low on oxygen, or contain life-threatening substances we all hope to avoid like toxic waste, organic solvents, or heavy metals. One such hostile environment is the OMZ, or oxygen-minimum zone—the place the vampire squid calls home.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the specially adapted creature features that enable this shape-shifting 12-inch cephalopod to navigate life in the dark depths of temperate and tropical oceans, according to scientists at the Monterey Bay Research Institute:

A unique cloaked body structure (Dracula’s cape or fur-lined umbrella?) that allows the animals to stay submerged 2-3,000 feet below the surface.
Extremely efficient blood cells and metabolism that require less oxygen—must-have items for life in the OMZ.
In addition to the squid’s standard eight arms, two retractable modified arms used to scoop up tiny floating food particles.
Glands that produce giant plumes of bioluminescent mucus to frighten (or disgust) predators.
Extraordinarily large, highly developed eyes that enable the deep ocean dweller to see in very low light.
Specialized light-emitting skin cells that blink “back off” at interlopers.

So… glow-in-the-dark mucus, gigantic eyes, retractable arms, blinking skin, efficient blood cells, and a low-energy lifestyle. That’s what it takes to survive in an extreme, low-oxygen environment, squid-wise. Interestingly, through studying extremophiles like the vampire squid, scientists have discovered that many are closely related to the universal ancestor of all living organisms on our planet. Learning how extremophiles adapt to such inhospitable conditions is also helping to inform theories about the possible existence of extraterrestrial life forms. Squids in space?

ICYMI Nature News

100 New Deep-Sea Species
Speaking of deep-sea species, marine researchers have discovered 100 new to science creatures in waters off the coast of New Zealand. Take a look.

Corals That Shouldn’t Exist
Scientists have announced yet another startling deep-sea discovery—a cold-water coral reef off the West coast of Canada that has been described as a miracle of nature. Read how the colorful creatures have survived in some of the most ancient waters in the world here.

Incredibly Rare Gray Whale Sighting
Extinct in the Atlantic Ocean for more than 200 years, a gray whale has been spotted diving and resurfacing off the Massachusetts coast. Welcome back, big fellow.

Little Fish, Big Noise
Did you know that there is a fish the width of a human thumbnail that can make a noise as loud as a gunshot? Listen here.

Underwater Photographer of the Year
The winners of the 2024 Underwater Photographer of the Year have been announced, and you can see their amazing images right here.

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Lisa S. French March 17, 2024

Murmurations: Starling Sound Shapes

2-minute read

Whirring, thrumming waves and swirls. Pulsing, whooshing twists and twirls.

Murmurations, the mesmerizing sound shapes of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of common starlings, are one of the most spectacular displays of collective animal movement in nature. How and why these feathery shapeshifters gather to perform their synchronized aerial maneuvers has long captured the imagination of both scientists and curious casual observers of evening skies.

From late fall to early spring, these birds of a feather flock together at dusk in continuously morphing configurations before descending in one fell swoop to roost. Are the massive gatherings a safety-in-numbers strategy to confuse predators or a signal to attract more birds to create warmer roosts?

To determine what drives the ebb and flow of these spontaneous avian zoomies, scientists analyzed videos of starlings flying in formation and reconstructed the movements of individual birds, looking for patterns in behavior. The analysis revealed that starlings navigating in a murmuration at up to 20 m.p.h. have an amazing ability to rapidly maneuver in sync with fellow fliers, reacting to changes in direction in under 100 milliseconds. Each bird follows the behavior of the six or seven closest neighbors, and the wave of perpetual movement ripples through the flock forming fluttering sound shapes in the evening sky.

Researchers studying details of over 3,000 murmurations gathered by citizen scientists across 23 European countries believe that starlings form giant catch me if you can bird clouds and descend en masse to roosting sites to avoid being singled out and picked off by aerial predators.

Interestingly, the dynamic rotating shapes formed by the safer together survival strategy seem to follow patterns of collective motion found in other groups of animals, including wildebeests, fish, and ants.

Whirring, thrumming waves and swirls. Pulsing, whooshing twists and twirls. The hypnotizing movements of a gathering of birds at dusk—a reminder of nature’s eternal rhythms.

ICYMI Nature News

Rare Maui Birds Rescued
Out of the heartbreaking tragedy of the Maui wildfires comes a story of nature-sparing heroism. The staff of the Maui Bird Conservation Center, home to some of the world’s rarest birds, rushed in to save the critically endangered animals from the rapidly advancing flames. You can read about the avian heroes here and help support Maui Forest birds here.

Meet the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star
The multi-limbed beasty discovered in the depths of the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean might look like it’s straight out of Alien central casting, but it’s a brand-new Earthly species. Hello there!

Fruit Flies Just Want to Have Fun
Apparently, fruit flies like playing as much as any vertebrate. Scientists have discovered that given the opportunity to go round and round on a simulated carousal, the insects jump at the chance. Whee!

The Creatures Below Your Feet
Did you know that more than half of the Earth’s species live in the soil below your feet? That’s right—ninety percent of fungi, 80% of plants, and 50% of bacteria. Tread carefully out there!

This Kākāpō’s a Trier
If you’re in need of a bit of inspiration in the keep-on-keeping-on department, Steve the kākāpō has some thoughts to share on living your dreams. Because for New Zealand’s earthbound owl parrot, flying is believing.

Little Brown Bat: America’s Next Top Model?
Should a furry little night flyer be America’s Next Top Model? We think it’s about time. You can watch the little brown bat’s audition tape here.

And Bless the Rains Down in Africa
Since this week’s climate news has been, yeah, well, not okay—at all, we’re going to leave you with 18,000 strangers singing a Toto song because that might help you feel a little better between headlines. Hear it here.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
As always, thanks to our lovely readers, we’ve planted another batch of carbon-capturing trees with our pals at Tree-Nation to help give people and the planet a little more breathing space. From April 2022 through July 2023, the trees that we’ve planted across 13 projects in 12 countries bring our carbon capture to 3980 tons of CO2. That’s the equivalent of 4,458,726 pounds of coal burned, 10,204,103 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, and 447,897 gallons of gasoline consumed.

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Lisa S. French August 19, 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

Bees Buzz the Garden Electric

2-minute read

In celebration of World Bee Day, we’re going to look at one of the unexpected ways the planet’s hardest working pollinators go about the business of helping to keep us stocked in essential fruit, flowers, and veg.

Capable of visiting up to 1,000 flowers a day in their quest for pollen, these brainy insects use a variety of sensory capabilities to detect color, pattern, texture, and fragrance to scope out prime floral real estate efficiently.

According to scientists at the University of Bristol, bees have one tool in their pollen-detecting arsenal that may come as a bit of a shock—an electrostatic field. We humans can’t see it or feel it, but honeybees and bumblebees can perceive a weak electric field around flowers, helping them to determine which plants are the best bets for providing floral rewards.

As a bee travels through the air, it accumulates a positive electric charge. When the positively charged pollinator zeroes in on a negatively charged flower, an electric field is created that helps to dislodge and transfer pollen from flower to bee and from bee to flower.

How bees interpret and use information gathered from the floral e-field is species-dependent. Researchers believe that bumblebees perceive the strength of the force of the e-field through sensory hairs on their bodies that communicate by way of their central nervous systems which flowers will provide the best pollen pay-off. Honeybees detect e-field locations through their antennae and carry pollen source information back to the hive, disseminating news of first-rate foraging locations via an intricate waggle dance.

Given that 75 percent of food crops rely on pollinators, we are glad to learn that everybody’s favorite buzzers are equipped with all the necessary capabilities to ensure they can get the job done. Another amazing way that nature’s adaptations provide big benefits.

If you would like to learn how you can help keep these industrious e-field detectives in top form, check in with the Bee Conservancy.

ICYMI Nature News

Pollinating Tree Frogs
Uh oh, look out bumblebees! Scientists believe they may have discovered a new species of pollinator to add to the list of planetary helpers—a tiny, pollen and nectar-feasting Brazilian tree frog.

Touch-Tasting Octopuses
According to scientists at the University of Texas, octopuses use sensory mechanisms in their tentacles to taste potential food sources. So, no long sleeves for these multi-limbed marvels, then?

Extinct Animals Re-Imagined
To help draw attention to the extinction crisis, author Lucas Zellers and the Center for Biological Diversity have created a role-playing game manual inspired by 70 extinct animal species. The book is due later this year, but you can get a preview here.

Video Chatting Parrots
The University of Glasgow researchers have discovered that isolated pet parrots taught to video chat with distant bird pals gained similar social benefits to living in a flock. Polly want a video call?

More Fascinating Bird Behavior
If you think video-chatting parrots are awe-inspiring, check out what these clever winged creatures get up to in the wild as captured by the 2022 Audubon Photo Award winners.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
Happy one-year Tree-Nation tree-versary FWP readers! From April 2022 through April 2023, we are glad to report that the trees we’ve planted across 12 projects bring our carbon capture total to 3459 tons. That’s the equivalent of 8,000 barrels of oil consumed, 389,204 gallons of gasoline consumed, or 3,874,454 pounds of coal burned.

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Lisa S. French May 19, 2023

Do Sleeping Bears Dream of Missions to Mars?

2-minute read

What can we learn from bears about space travel?

Although the earthbound mammals have never achieved liftoff, according to research from the University of Minnesota, studying black and brown bears’ ability to bounce right back to roaming after a long winter’s nap may help scientists to develop strategies that would enable humans to overcome the negative physiological impacts of months-long interplanetary flight.

Every fall, as temperatures begin to drop, the power sleepers pack on the pounds (see Fat Bear week) in preparation for winter hibernation, an extreme state of starvation and dehydration. In the spring, after a half-year of physical inactivity and living off fat reserves, the animals can return to normal bear business within minutes of emerging from their dens, major organs intact and with little or no bone or muscle loss.

Amazingly, after consecutive months of immobility, bears lose only 23 percent of their strength, while humans would lose 90 percent over the same period. So how do they survive the big sleep without any debilitating bodily impacts? According to scientists, the burly omnivores have evolved with adaptations that significantly reduce their body temperature and heart rate to conserve energy. During hibernation, a bear’s temperature can drop by 8 -12 degrees and its heart rate to an average of just 4.3 beats per minute with minimal ill effect.

And what does that mean for the future of manned missions to Mars? Researchers are investigating whether inducing a bear-like state of hibernation would enable humans to endure the long haul of prolonged space travel—another beary good example of how we look to nature to inspire innovation.

ICYMI Nature News

First Bear Out of the Den
The first bear to emerge from winter slumber at Yellowstone has been spotted by a park biologist. It seems dreams of space have taken a backseat to securing a prime spot at the all-you-can-eat post-hibernation buffet.

The Loudest Animal on the Planet
Danish scientists have discovered how whales produce the loudest sounds in the animal kingdom—clicking nose lips. Listen to the nasal chatter here.

Pollinating Dance Instructors
We’ve written previously about how bees communicate food locations through an intricate waggle dance. Now researchers have discovered that newbies learn their honey-making moves from mentors. Swing your pollinating partner!

Fairy Lantern Flower Back from the Dead
Believed to be extinct for the past 30 years, the delicate fairy lantern flower has been rediscovered in Japan. You can see what the photosynthesis-free flower looks like here. Flower? Mushroom? Mushroom-flower?

Good News for the Earth’s Oceans
It took a long time, but the United Nations has announced the passage of a High Seas Treaty to protect marine biodiversity and 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030. Not a moment too soon!

2023 National Wildlife Photo Contest
If you’re a nature-loving photographer anywhere in the world and over the age of 13, you can share your beautiful views to help protect nature in the National Wildlife Federation annual photo contest. Find out how to participate here. Go wild, happy snappers!

Btw, March 14th (3.14) is Pi Day
You can read how the number pi (π) manifests in nature here. And whether you’re into numbers or sweets and savories, you can find some delicious ways to celebrate right here! Strawberry slab, anyone?

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Lisa S. French March 13, 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

Spots, Stripes, and Solids: Wild Cat Camouflage

1.5-minute read

If you were a wild feline trying to creep through the canopy of a rainforest undetected or stalk the tall grasses of a savanna in stealth mode, which pattern and color would you choose for your pelt? Striped, spotted, or solid? Brown, beige, grey, or maybe green? Green might seem like a natural choice, but as you’ve probably noticed, mammal fur doesn’t come in green (and here’s why).

Of course, lions, tigers, and leopards don’t pick their own pelt patterns. Through the process of evolution, nature provides each of the 40 wild cat species with coloring that ensures they don’t stand out in a crowd. According to a University of Bristol study, the differences in patterning relate to how, when, and where the animals hunt. Cats, big and small, are creepers and leapers. Their primary meal acquisition strategy is to stalk their prey until they are close enough to pounce. Blending in with background colors, shapes, and textures makes keeping a low profile a whole lot easier.

Researchers believe that the more complex the animal’s surroundings, the more intricate the pelt pattern. Cats like the fancy-furred clouded leopard that live in dense tropical forests have evolved with dark-spotted, patchy pelts that blend in with shifting patterns of shadow and light compared to solid-colored cats like lions that spend their days prowling wide open, relatively tree-less grassland environments.

It seems that when it comes to surviving in the wild, there’s no such thing as too matchy-matchy for felines—maybe that’s why leopards never change their spots.

ICYMI Nature News

Cancer Detecting Lab Ants
French scientists have trained ants to detect cancer cells through tiny supersensitive receptors in their antennae. This is how they do it.

Bringing Back the Kelp Keepers
The Center for Biological Diversity is on a mission to protect and restore Pacific Coast kelp forests by reintroducing ecosystem engineering otters to Oregon and Northern California. What an otterly good idea!

Bald Eagles in Brooklyn?
For the first time in over 100 years, a pair of bald eagles are trying to build a nest in the Jamaica Bay wetlands. Egg-citing! You can learn more about the new arrivals and NYC’s total raptor mania from the good people helping to restore urban bird habitat right here.

FWP Carbon Capture Report
New Year. More trees. We’re rolling on with Tree-Nation in 2023, planting more community-supporting, habitat-restoring, planet-cooling trees in places where they provide the most benefit. The trees we planted from April 2022 through January 2023 capture carbon equivalent to 6,166,444 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, 2,748,608 pounds of coal burned, or 302,191,960 smartphones charged. We couldn’t do it without you. Thank you for your support!

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Lisa S. French February 10, 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

City Birds Pump Up the Volume

2-minute read

Can you hear me now?

The lilting birdsong that adds beauty to the soundscape of our planet plays an essential role in avian social interaction, mate attraction, and territory protection. But for feathered songsters nesting in urban areas, maintaining bird-to-bird communications above the din of a bustling city is no small tweet. Urban dwellers of all kinds are regularly exposed to the stress of noise levels above 85 decibels (equivalent to a perpetually running food blender) compared to the 30-40 decibels of a wilderness area. So how do city birds make themselves heard over the honking? They’ve learned to pump up the volume.

According to researchers at Ohio State and the University of California at Davis, birds adapting to survive in cities may adjust the volume, pitch, or timing of their chirps, whistles, and warbles to break through the background noise. Sparrows, northern cardinals, American robins, and red-winged blackbirds are some of the species that can modify their songs to improve vocal transmission.

Because belting out birdsong takes more energy, larger birds have a greater capacity to sing over street racket. Some of the clever critters have also adjusted the timing of their dawn chorus so that it starts ahead of rush hour. Not only do early birds catch the worm, but they also know to trill before traffic starts.

With bird populations down by 2.9 billion across North America since 1970, understanding how and if our avian friends can adapt to environmental change and continued habitat loss is critical to their conservation. Perhaps the meaning of those early morning urban tweet storms roughly translated is “C’mon, people, work with us. We’re trying to sing out here!” If you’d like to find out how to keep the birdsong going, the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have lots of innovative ways to help.

ICYMI Nature News

Even More Bird Beauty
The winning photos of the Bird Photographers of the Year for 2022 have been announced, and they are stunning. Have a look! And if you’ve been following along with the Audubon Birdsong Project, Volume IV is now available for your listening pleasure.

Endangered Migration
Like other winged species, monarch butterflies are struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing world. The WWF has released a magical new short film on the threats to monarch migration. You can watch here.

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Land shark.
According to researchers at the University of Florida, a small species of carpet shark found in the South Pacific is adapting to warming seas by learning to fin-walk on land. Time to break out the shin guards.

Shake, Shake, Rattle, and Glow
Meet the Elvis worms. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have discovered four new species of deep-sea worms whose shimmery scales rival the King’s sequined jumpsuits. Iridescent worms? We’re all shook up!

FWP Carbon Capture Report
As scientists continue to discover more ways that trees and forests add to our happiness, we’re glad to have the opportunity to contribute to those positive vibes thanks to our planting pals at Tree-Nation. Since April 2022, the trees we’ve planted across eleven projects bring our carbon capture to 1,562 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 3,878,347 miles driven by a gasoline-powered passenger vehicle, 190,061,769 smartphones charged, or 1,728,720 pounds of coal burned.

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Lisa S. French September 10, 2022

Mountain hare (Lepus timidus) with white fur in snowy landscape

These Feet are Made for Hopping

1.5-minute read

Whales, wolves, and wildebeest do it. Butterflies, bats, and birds do it. What do they do? Migrate—traveling hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles every year to secure food, water, and family-friendly habitat. While some animals have the natural capacity for long-distance movement, Arctic hares are not known to travel far afield. Despite what may seem like a big-footed advantage, the hopping herbivores typically shift their seasonal location by less than six miles. But in the autumn of 2019, one determined female decided to cover new ground and go the distance—and go, go, go she did.

According to Canadian researchers tracking the movements of 25 Arctic hares, the lone ranger known as BBYY traveled 241 miles over 49 days—the longest recorded journey for her species. Because traveling great distances requires a lot of energy, staying local increases the odds of survival in smaller land animals like rabbits and hares. So, what compelled BBYY to thump across the tundra and boldly go where no hare had gone before? Scientists studying the movement of the Arctic animals conjecture that the intrepid hopper may have been motivated to go those extra miles by the slightly warmer microclimate and more abundant plant life at her lakeside destination.

And why on Earth does Arctic hare mobility matter? Like conservationists tracking the movements of elephants in Africa, researchers are keeping tabs on when, where, and why Arctic critters move. Understanding how the animals adapt to environmental change and what it will take to keep northern food webs and ecosystems healthy and functioning will benefit both people and wildlife in a warming world.

In case you were wondering, FYCI (For Your Creature Information), hares and rabbits are two different kinds of hoppers. Rabbits are typically smaller, have shorter ears and legs than hares, and are born without fur. A group of hares is known as a down, a band, a husk, or a warren, and a group of wild rabbits is known as a colony or a… fluffle. No, not making it up—fluffle. And that’s our perfectly soothing word of the week. Fluffle on, fellow travelers!

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Lisa S. French January 24, 2022