Latest Megafauna Stories
Watch the Video April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Onlin A new study from Kyoto University shows that human's superior brain size in comparison to chimpanzees can be traced back to the womb. Appearing in the September 25 issue of Current Biology, the study is the first to track and compare brain growth in chimp and human fetuses. "Nobody knew how early these differences between human and chimp brains emerged," said Satoshi Hirata of Kyoto University. Hirata's research...
YARMOUTHPORT, Mass., Sept. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Actress and activist Amber Valletta joins the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW - www.ifaw.org) at the BLUE Ocean Film Festival in Monterey, California, September 26 - 28 to raise awareness of entangled whales in California. "It is upsetting to imagine such a magnificent creature with ropes and other marine debris wrapped around its body," said Ms. Valletta, an IFAW Honorary Board member. "It can cause...
Watch the Video: Killer Whales Near the San Juan Islands April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Killer whale females have the longest period of menopause of any non-human species. A new study, led by the University of Exeter and the University of York, claims this is so the female Orcas can care for their adult sons. The research shows that for a male over 30, the death of his mother means an almost 14-fold increase in the likelihood of his own death within a year....
TSX-V: ORC.A, ORC.B TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands, Sept. 7, 2012 /CNW/ - Orca Exploration Group Inc. ("Orca" or "the Company") announces that the La Tosca-1 exploration well onshore Italy has reached total depth and has been plugged and abandoned having encountered gas shows. La Tosca-1 commenced drilling operations on the 6th August 2012 evaluating the exploration potential of the gas prospect mapped from 3D seismic on the Longastrino permit. Drilling reached total depth of...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In a victory for conservationists, the Humpback Whale Institute near Salvador, Brazil announced that the amount of humpbacks along the country’s coastline has more than tripled over the past ten years. According to the Institute, the 10,000 whales that were counted off the coast this past breeding season shows a robust growth for the local whale population that numbered only 3,000 when the researchers began keeping track in 2002....
Whale watch season is almost over in Alaska as the mountains are getting snow on them again and the days are colder with less than 30 days left in the tour season in Southeast Alaska. Juneau, Alaska (PRWEB) September 03, 2012 Whale watch season is almost over in Alaska once again. There are still nearly 2 months of whale watching left, but in about 4 weeks very few people are going to want to go as the weather really begins to pick up - meaning the mountains are already building snow on...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online In what could only be described as a horrific scene straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, it seems seagulls have taken a particular liking to the flesh of whales off the coast of Argentina. For anyone who can recall the frightful scenes in the movie ‘The Birds’--where Tippi Hedren’s character is ravaged by pecking gulls, ravens and crows--this Argentine phenomenon might be as equally disturbing. Gulls have become a real...
TSX-V: ORC.A, ORC.B TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands, Aug. 28, 2012 /CNW/ - Orca Exploration Group Inc ("Orca Exploration" or the "Company") announces its results for the quarter ended 30 June 2012. Highlights -- Additional Gas sales continued at system capacity up 4% over Q1 to 54.9 MMcfd being an increase of 37% over the prior year (Q2 2011: 40.2 MMcfd). This resulted in operating revenue of US$16.9 million (Q2 2011: US$8.3...
Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A new study by investigators from the University of Turku in Finland, the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, University of Sheffield in United Kingdom, and Stanford University finds that menopause evolved as a way to limit competition between a mother-in-law and her new daughter-in-law. Women normally experience menopause around 45 to 55 years of age and researchers have yet to understand its purpose. With a review of...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Tourists have been coming from around the world to the coast of California to catch a glimpse of whales this year. From Avila Beach on the San Luis Obispo Bay to Monterrey and Santa Cruz on the Monterrey Bay to the great shipping channels of San Francisco Bay, humpback and blue whales have been out in record numbers. Blue and humpback whales are both endangered species that use the California coastline as a spring and summer feeding...
Latest Megafauna Reference Libraries
The Antarctic minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), also known as the southern minke whale, is one of two minke whales within the Mysticeti suborder, which contains baleen and rorqual whales. It can be found in every ocean in the southern hemisphere, residing in Antarctic waters in the summer months and northern waters in the winter months, where its range overlaps that the smaller common minke whale. The Antarctic minke whale was once classified with the common minke whale as a single...
The Baikal seal (Pusa sibirica), also known as the nerpa or the Lake Baikal seal, is a true seal in the Phocidae family that is native to Lake Baikal located in Siberia. This species is one of three seals that reside solely in fresh water areas. It is not known exactly how these seals came to inhabit such an isolated area, but some experts assert that a sea-passage was formed that linked the Arctic Ocean and Lake Baikal. The Baikal seal is one of the smallest of all true seal species,...
Image Caption: Fossil of Feresa Attenuata, Shimonoseki Marine Science Museum KAIKYOUKAN, Japan. Credit: OpenCage/Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.5) The pygmy killer whale is widely distributed in tropical and sub-tropical waters worldwide. Regular sightings of this species occur off the coast of Hawaii and Japan, and also in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka and Lesser Antilles. In the Atlantic the pygmy killer whale has been seen off the coast of South Carolina and Senegal. This species swims in...
The Ross seal (Ommatophoca rossii) is a true seal in the Phocidae family, and can only be found on pack ice in Antarctica. This species was formally described by James Clark Ross in 1841, during his British Antarctic Expedition. It is very uncommon to see in its range and rarely leaves the pack ice, with stray individuals occurring off southeast Australia or sub-Antarctic islands. The Ross seal can reach an average length between 5.5 and 6.9 feet, although some females can reach up to 8.2...
The ribbon seal (Histriophoca fasciata) is a true seal within the family Phocidae that can be found in the North Pacific Sea. It prefers a habitat in arctic and subarctic areas like the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea. As is typical to seal species, it will leave the water during the winter and spring months, where it will remain on pack ice to breed, birth pups, and molt. For the rest of the year these seals will live in open water, although some will occasionally move north as the ice...
