Latest Fauna of Africa Stories
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A recent animated movie franchise introduced children around the world over to an island just off the coast of Africa and its immense biodiversity. Perhaps unknown to those children and even their parents is the fact this diversity continues to increase thanks to the dedication of scientists who continually seek out new species. The mouse lemur, a saucer-eyed, teacup-sized primate is an example of diversity that can only be found...
Michigan State University In the southern Rift Valley of Kenya, the Maasai people, their livestock and a range of carnivores, including striped hyenas, spotted hyenas, lions and bat-eared foxes, are coexisting fairly happily according to a team of coupled human and natural systems researchers. “I wouldn’t call the results surprising,” said Meredith Evans Wagner, a visiting scholar from the University of Florida in the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) at...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study from a large group of international researchers shows African forest elephants are being rapidly pushed toward extinction by illegal poaching and the ivory trade. An extensive meta-analysis of surveys and fieldwork data has shown that 62 percent of forest elephants have been killed for their ivory, according to the study, which appeared in the latest edition of PLOS ONE. "The analysis confirms what conservationists have...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international group of leading environmental scientists are advocating a legal trade in rhino horn as a last ditch effort to save the animals from extinction. The scientists argue that the current global ban on rhino products has failed to protect the animals as death rates among the world's remaining black and white rhinos are soaring. This increased death rate is due to illegal poaching to supply the insatiable demand for these...
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ETH Zurich In their environment, wild animals are exposed to countless threats, be they predators, diseases or natural obstacles to get over, such as gorges or rivers. In the course of evolution, they have developed specific behavioral responses to allow them to deal with these risks. In recent times, numerous man-made threats have been added to the naturally-existing ones, such as dangerous roads to cross. On the evolutionary time scale, it is excluded that the animals have evolved a...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online [ Watch the Video: Meerkat Predator-Scanning Behaviour Is Altruistic ] In studying the behaviors of animals, biologists are often looking to see if a species exhibits more individualistic or collectivist tendencies in their typical habits. When foraging for food, meerkats often stand on their hind legs or climb to a perch in an attempt to scan for predators and, upon spotting a threat, the animals let out a series of warning...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Chimpanzees possess a sense of fairness that scientists previously attributed as being solely human, a new study from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University, and Georgia State University demonstrates. To determine how sensitive chimps are to the reward distribution between two individuals if both need to agree on the outcome, the researchers played the Ultimatum Game with them. The findings of this study,...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online From songbirds to humans, many animals use complex vocalizations to communicate amongst their own species, and a new study from the University of Zurich found that even the monosyllabic calls of the banded mongoose are structured and similar to our own speech. The biologists’ report in the latest edition of the open access journal BMC Biology is the first to show animals communicating with sound units shorter than a syllable....
Watch the video "Studying Hyena Problem Solving Skills" April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Historically, tests on an animal’s ability to problem solve have been conducted on captive animals. Recently, however, a shift has been made among researchers who are now trying to run those tests on animals in their native habitats. A new study from scientists at Michigan State University and the University of California, Berkeley has found vast differences between the...
Latest Fauna of Africa Reference Libraries
The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird belonging to the heron family called Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America as well as the Caribbean and Galapagos Islands. It’s a rare vagrant to Europe, with records from Spain, the Azores, England and the Netherlands. An all-white population found only in the Caribbean and southern Florida was once treated as a separate species and was known as the Great White...
The Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) is a subspecies of the leopard that may be extinct. It is native to Tanzania, with a range that includes Unguja Island in the Zanzibar archipelago. This subspecies is thought to have occurred when African leopards were isolated on the island after the last Ice Age, creating a smaller form with varying fur patterns. Because the Zanzibar leopard is so rare, or possibly extinct, there is not much information regarding its habits and lifestyle. Its...
The common dwarf mongoose (Helogale parvula), also known simply as the dwarf mongoose, is native to Africa. Its range extends from East Africa to Central Africa, south to Transvaal, and from Ethiopia and Eritrea. It prefers a habitat within open forests, arid grasslands, and bushlands at elevations of up to 6,561 feet. It is often seen in areas with termite mounds, where it likes to sleep, and can also be seen in areas with humans. It does not reside in extremely arid habitats or in forests...
The Angolan slender mongoose (Galerella flavescens) is native to southern Africa, specifically in Namibia and Angola. It prefers a habitat within arid savannahs in Namibia, preferring areas with little vegetation, but its preferred habitat in Angola is unknown. It is thought that population numbers are high within its range, although little is known about the species’ habits. This species is slender in appearance and has 38 teeth. These teeth grow in at about twenty-four weeks of age. Young...
The giant cheetah (Acinonyx pardinensis) is an extinct species of cat that is the closest relative of the modern cheetah. This species could be found in Europe during the early and middle years of the Pleistocene. Its range included Germany, France, India, and China, and it shared this range with leopards and jaguars. It is thought that competition with these smaller cats may have caused the giant cheetah’s extinction. The giant cheetah is thought to have been twice the size of modern...
