Observers watching baboons in Namibia were impressed when they saw how the baboons responded to glowing spots shone onto their arms and legs. They poked and scratched at these bright areas with evident curiosity, hinting at a level of awareness about what appeared on their own bodies. 



However, the mood changed when those same spots were placed on baboon body parts that were only visible in a mirror.



Although they sometimes stared at their own reflection, the baboons showed no indication that they knew the marks in the mirror were on themselves.



Dr. Alecia Carter, affiliated with University College London (UCL Anthropology), led a field study tracking these baboons over several months. Her team documented how baboons interacted with laser marks and mirrors while in a wide-open habitat.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-self-recognition-in-animals">Self-recognition in animals</h2>



The mirror test has long been used to examine whether <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/what-animal-will-replace-humans-as-earths-dominant-species-this-scientist-has-an-idea/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">animals</a> recognize a reflected image as their own. 



Psychologist Gordon Gallup was among the first to observe that some great apes touched paint marks on their heads when placed in front of mirrors.



Subsequent efforts revealed that <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC33317" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dolphins</a> and a few <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0608062103" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">elephants</a> also showed behavior suggesting they noticed marks on their bodies through reflection. These findings inspired further research into how different animals handle the challenge of seeing themselves.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-baboons-were-chosen">Why baboons were chosen </h2>



Scientists wanted to see if wild baboons that had never been in captivity, would respond differently than <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/ai-monitoring-will-help-protect-endangered-spider-monkeys/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">animals</a> in controlled environments.



Many earlier studies used limited samples, often involving apes or monkeys that were kept in enclosures where mirrors might not be entirely new.



Chacma baboons flourish in Namibia’s drier areas and do not often encounter reflective surfaces. This made them good candidates for determining whether they would link the moving shapes in a mirror to their own bodies.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-baboons-with-mirrors-and-laser-spots">Baboons with mirrors and laser spots</h2>



Researchers introduced small safety mirrors near spots where baboons congregate. They then used laser pointers to place harmless green or red marks on the baboons’ fur, targeting areas that were visible without a mirror and other places that were only visible when looking at a reflection.



Baboons frequently touched or scratched at marks they could see right away. Yet the animals showed no equivalent reaction to marks that were only apparent in a mirror.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-results-of-the-baboon-mirror-test">Results of the baboon mirror test</h2>



“The Chacma baboons we observed in Tsaobis Nature Park certainly enjoyed using the mirrors as a new toy, but throughout our study they didn’t quite understand that the mirror’s reflection represented their own bodies,” said Dr. Carter.



She and her collaborators believe it confirms a pattern seen in many monkey species that do not show full self-recognition in mirrors.



“Monkeys don’t spontaneously recognize themselves in a mirror,” noted corresponding author Esa A. Ahmad, who helped analyze the data. 



The experts explained that this latest work adds to a broader discussion about which mental abilities are needed to pass mirror tests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-about-other-species">What about other species?</h2>



Some great apes, including <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/great-apes-will-suffer-through-frequent-and-extreme-climate-events/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">chimpanzees</a>, bonobos, and orangutans, have been documented to pass mirror mark tests. 



Researchers also mention bottlenose dolphins, Asian elephants, and certain birds, like <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2517622/">magpies</a>, that appear to notice a mark when seeing it in a reflection.



Domestic cats, dogs, and most monkeys typically fail to show convincing self-recognition. Scientists point out that these animals may rely more on other senses, so a mirror might not be the best measure of how they perceive themselves.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-possible-future-directions">Possible future directions</h2>



Some experts suggest that alternative experiments might capture different kinds of self-awareness in species that depend less on vision. 



Scent-based or social-behavior tasks could reveal that some animals are aware of their identity but do not prove it through mirror-based tests.



Meanwhile, wild baboon research highlights the role of age and temperament. Younger <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/humpback-whale-travels-farther-than-any-mammal-ever-recorded/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">animals</a> showed more interest in new objects or stimuli, while older ones often lost curiosity fast, which might influence how they respond to novel visual scenarios.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-implications-for-human-animal-connections">Implications for human-animal connections</h2>



Understanding how self-awareness varies across species can shift how people view intelligence and cognition in non-human animals. 



These mirror-based observations open deeper questions about whether awareness looks the same in every creature, given that some use their visual sense more than others.



Many anthropologists see such findings as a window into evolutionary processes that shape thinking and perception. Insights from field studies add a fresh dimension, since animals roam and behave naturally, away from the artificial conditions of captivity.



The mirror test has drawn <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/04/fish-mirrors-animal-cognition-self-awareness-science/673718/">criticism</a> for its emphasis on the sense of sight. Yet, it remains a straightforward way to check if an animal perceives the reflection as an extension of itself.



The baboons gave scientists plenty to think about by investigating visible marks but ignoring those that only appeared in the mirror. Researchers plan to refine methods further and explore alternative signals of self-awareness out in the wild.



The study was published in the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.1933" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences</a>.



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Wild baboons fail to recognize themselves in mirrors

Observers watching baboons in Namibia were impressed when they saw how the baboons responded to glowing spots shone onto their arms and legs. They poked and scratched at these bright areas with evident curiosity, hinting at a level of awareness about what appeared on their own bodies. However, the mood changed when those same spots were placed on baboon body parts that were only visible in a mirror. Although they sometimes stared at their own reflection, the baboons showed no indication that they knew the marks in...

Some of the world’s leading primate researchers have investigated the influence of human activities on wild primates. The team found that the natural habitats of primates could decline by up to 78 percent this century across regions where the animals are commonly found.

Land use changes such as deforestation are already forcing many primates out of their natural habitats, while hunting and the bushmeat trade have also led to shocking declines in primate populations. 

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently lists 439 primate species as being endangered, and 60 percent of those are facing the threat of extinction. The situation is particularly troubling in Indonesia and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/toxic-toad-species-madagascar/">Madagascar</a>, where 90 percent of the primate population has vanished and more than three-quarters of species are endangered.

Study co-author Christian Roos is a scientist in the Primate Genetics Laboratory at the <a href="https://www.dpz.eu/en/home.html">German Primate Center</a> (DPZ).

“The destruction of the natural environment through deforestation, the expansion of agricultural land and infrastructure development to transport goods has become a major problem,” said Roos. 

“The main contributors of this development are the industrial nations. There is a high demand for raw materials such as soy, palm oil, rubber, hardwood or fossil fuel. The four primate-rich countries cover 50 percent of these export goods to China, India, the US and Europe.”


The research team analyzed the biggest threats to primates in four countries. In Brazil, Madagascar, and Indonesia they found that habitat loss is the biggest stressor for primates, while the biggest threat in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the bushmeat trade.

The experts also used information from the United Nations and World Bank databases to estimate the spread of agricultural land over the rest of this century.

In the worst-case scenario, 78 percent of the primate habitats in Brazil, 72 percent in Indonesia, 62 percent in Madagascar, and 32 percent in the Congo will be gone by the year 2100.

The authors are calling for the expansion of protected areas, reforestation, and the planting of corridors as critical measures to preserve primate populations. In addition, the governments must work harder to combat illegal hunting, forest destruction, and primate trade.

“Primates are like canaries in a coal mine,” said Roos. “They are invaluable for tropical biodiversity as they are vital for the regeneration of forests and stable ecosystems. Their extinction will serve as an alarm bell for humans and an indication that these habitats will become unusable in the long run.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://peerj.com/">PeerJ</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, Earth.com Staff Writer

Wild primates are under increasing pressure from human activities

Some of the world’s leading primate researchers have investigated the...

When it comes to the primate family, humans aren’t sharing well with their cousins. Now, as the growing human population eats away at chimp, orangutan, and other non-human primate habitats, extinction looms for some species.

The majority of primate species – a full two-thirds – are found in just four countries around the world: Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sixty percent of them are facing the threat of extinction before the end of the century, a new study claims.

And as humans convert wild lands to agriculture, housing developments and other human uses, their habitat is shrinking and fragmenting. As a result, researchers said, non-human primate populations are in decline around the world.

“Many iconic species will be lost unless these countries, international organisations, consumer nations, and global citizens take immediate action to protect primate populations and their habitats,” Dr. Anna Nekaris of <a href="https://www.brookes.ac.uk/">Oxford Brookes University</a> told the <a href="http://dailymail.co.uk/">Daily Mail</a>.

The university, which led the study, used data from the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/">United Nations</a> and the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/">World Bank</a> to predict how non-human primate populations will change in the near future.

They found that if the status quo doesn’t change, by 2100 the habitat for primates will have shrunk dramatically in all four countries – most drastically, by 78 percent in Brazil and 72 percent in Indonesia. 

In short, without changes, extinction looms for humans’ closest cousins in those four countries.

Primate populations are small elsewhere. In Europe, for example, the only native population of wild monkeys is on the rock of Gibraltar. 

Expanding protections of primate habitat in Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and the Congo is vital, but it’s not the only way humans can help their closest relatives on the evolutionary tree.

“People do not realise that in their daily lives, by consuming less and making more ecologically friendly consumer choices, such as reducing use of single use plastic and eating food grown locally, they can have direct impacts on tropical forests and the long-term sustainability of biodiversity,” Nekaris said. 

The research has been published in the journal <a href="https://peerj.com/articles/4869/">Peer J</a>.

—

By Kyla Cathey, <a href="http://www.earth.com">Earth.com</a> staff writer

Possibility of extinction looms for chimps, orangutans

When it comes to the primate family, humans aren’t sharing...

Bees could soon be used to detect explosives, as new research has found bees to be even more efficient than <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dogs-disease-avocado-trees/">trained dogs</a> at finding hazardous landmines.

Researches from <a href="https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/">St. Andrews University</a> recently trained “sniffer bees” to detect TNT, and the bees were then able to find lost landmines in Croatia. 

The study marks the first time that bees have been successful at such a feat even though attempts to train bees to find explosives have been going on since 2014. 

Bees could potentially be used to detect millions of abandoned landmines around the world which are a threat to public safety. It’s estimated that old landmines kill or injure 15,000 to 20,000 people every year, according to the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5843835/Sniffer-BEES-successfully-spotted-explosives-former-Yugoslavian-warzone.html">Daily Mail</a>. 

For this study, the bees found mines that were left over from Croatia’s fight for independence in 1991. 

In order to train the bees to hone in on explosives, the researchers placed drops of sugar water on TNT in an effort to coax bees out of the hive and towards the explosives. 

Apismellis Era Carnica honey bees were trained over two days to sniff out the TNT in hopes of getting the sugar treat. 

“Basically we teach them by a version of reward like you do with dogs,” Ross Gillander, a member of the research team, told the Daily Mail. “The bees fly out of their hive to go about their normal day to day job of finding pollen but instead of finding pollen they find explosives. It's the sugar syrup, which draws them out.”

The bees have to be retrained after three days because they soon lose interest in the TNT. 

Once the bees were sent out to find explosives, Gillander helped design equipment that detected trace explosives on the bees, like pollen, when they returned to the hive. 

When the bees returned, they went through a specialized material similar to canvas which the researchers then exposed to light. The light indicated if the bees had explosives on them when they went through the canvas. 

Drones then followed the bees to find out where the honeybees picked up the trace explosives and a team was dispatched to clear the mine.

Bees can be trained to find explosives much faster than dogs, and even though the bees have to be retrained after three days, they can work longer than sniffer dogs and are able to go places that dogs can’t. 

Given how successful the bees were at finding landmines in a real-world scenario, honeybees could soon be used to save lives and efficiently detect hazardous materials. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Sniffer bees show surprising potential in explosive detection

Bees could soon be used to detect explosives, as new...

Sea urchins are those spiny ball-shaped creatures found on the bottom of the ocean, and sometimes found on the bottom of feet if you’re unlucky enough to step on one. Those famous spine help protect them from predators, which is a useful trait if you are like the sea urchin and have no eyes. But despite their lack of eyes, these animals are still able to detect potential dangers – something that has intrigued researchers for years. In 2011, researchers discovered the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/global-warming-is-proving-deadly-for-tropical-sea-urchins/">sea urchins</a> actually “see” with their feet. And now and new study has tested just how good their vision is.

A study from <a href="https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/">Lund University</a> in Sweden has determined that sea urchins have tentacle ‘tube feet’ that are able to see well enough to fill their basic needs. 

“Sea urchins are currently the only animals that have been shown to see without having eyes,” says researcher John Kirwan. “They see using light-sensitive cells in their tube feet, which resemble tentacles and, like the spines, are all over the body. You could say that the entire sea urchin is one single compound eye.”

The researchers studied long-spined urchins, giving them the equivalent of a human eye exam. This consisted of placing the urchins inside a lit-up cylinder that had dark images on the walls. “'Ordinarily, sea urchins move towards dark areas in order to seek cover,” says Kirwan. “When I notice that they react to certain sizes of images but not to others, I get a measurement of their visual activity.”

By showing the animals different figures against the wall, followed by dark shadows above them that resembled a predator, Kirwan was able to test their “sight.” He noted how large the figures had to be before the sea urchins would defend themselves by pointing their spines towards the looming shadow. The results showed that their vision is actually rather poor. 

An object above the urchin needs to take up between 30 and 70 degrees of the 360 degrees surrounding the urchin in order for the animal to see it. Us humans only need an object to take up roughly 1/60th of a degree in order to detect it. “However, this is still sufficient for the animal’s needs and behavior,” explains Kirwan. “After all, it’s hardly poor eyesight for an animal with no eyes.”

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Sea urchins use their feet to see

Sea urchins are those spiny ball-shaped creatures found on the...

The painted lady butterfly makes the longest known migration of any butterfly to date, according to new research from the <a href="https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/">British Ecological Society</a>.

Each year, painted lady butterflies travel over 7,450 miles and cross the Sahara Desert twice in the process as they migrate from <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/oldest-living-tree-europe/">Europe</a> to Africa and then to the Mediterranean in early spring. 

The Palearctic-African migratory circuit is unprecedented for butterflies, and because insect movement is difficult to track, researchers were unsure exactly how painted lady butterfly offspring made the journey. 

“It is difficult to study the movement of insects by means of observations, marking, or radio tracking, since there are millions of individuals and they are very small,” said Gerard Talavera, leader of the research.

In order to better understand the full scope of painted lady butterfly migration, Talavera and a team of researchers first had to discover where the butterflies first developed as caterpillars. 

The researchers pinpointed the natal origin of the butterflies by analyzing stable hydrogen isotopes from the wings of adult painted lady butterflies. 

Stable hydrogen isotopes are geographic specific and can help researchers locate where the butterflies transformed from caterpillars to butterflies. 


The researchers discovered that the butterflies seemed to stay in the Afrotropics over the winter and their offspring made the migration to the Mediterranean, starting the cycle all over again. 

Painted lady butterflies travel over 12,000 kilometers every year between generations. 

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Painted lady butterflies migrate over 7,400 miles each year

The painted lady butterfly makes the longest known migration of...

Fish species are relocating at a pace that international fishing laws cannot keep up with, as climate change continues to warm the temperature of ocean waters. According to a new study from <a href="https://www.rutgers.edu/">Rutgers University</a>, this will cause increasing international conflict.

Study author Malin Pinsky is an assistant professor of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources in Rutgers-New Brunswick's School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

“Most people may not understand that the right to harvest particular species of fish is often decided by national and regional fisheries management bodies,” said Professor Pinsky. “Those bodies have made the rules based on the notion that particular fish species live in particular waters and don't move much. Well, they're moving now because climate change is warming ocean temperatures.”

The study has demonstrated for the first time that new <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/dolphins-are-being-killed-for-use-as-bait-in-fisheries/">fisheries</a> are likely to appear in more than 70 countries all over the world as a result of global warming. Historically, a large migration of fish species has sparked disagreement among fishing communities.

Such conflict leads to overfishing and subsequently reduces the food, profit, and employment provided by fisheries. Disputes over newly-shared fisheries can also impact international relations beyond the coastline.

In a previous study, Professor Pinsky and Rutgers postdoctoral associate James Morley reported that many major commercial fish species could move their ranges hundreds of miles northward in search of colder water. This migration is already underway, and the results have been highly disruptive for fisheries.

“Consider flounder, which have already shifted their range 250 miles farther north,” said Professor Pinsky. “Federal fisheries rules have allocated many of those fish to fishers in North Carolina, and now they have to steam hundreds of extra miles to catch their flounder.”

The team pointed out examples of international disputes caused by the disruption of fisheries, including the “mackerel war” between Iceland and the European Union (EU).

Lobster fishers from the United States and Canada are clashing over the lobster fishery, which is moving north from New England to the Canadian Maritime Provinces.


The study authors explained that, while the migration of fish is inevitable with changing climate conditions, the conflicts can be avoided.

“We need international agreements for the collaborative monitoring and sharing of fisheries as they move, much as the Antarctic conservation agreement has begun to do,” said Professor Pinsky. 

“We have a chance to avoid conflict over fisheries that could escalate international tensions, threaten our food supply, and reduce profit and employment worldwide. Avoiding fisheries conflicts and overfishing ultimately provides more fish, more food and more jobs for everyone.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/">Science</a>.

--

By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Malin Pinsky/Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Climate change disrupting commercial fish migration and industry

Fish species are relocating at a pace that international fishing...

Biodiversity is a word like sustainability or evolution, a complex concept wrapped into a buzzword few fully understand.  It’s important to understand biodiversity, though, because often it is seen as a measure of success within conservation biology, and conservation biology is one of the most influential arms of the environmental movement.  

Scientists have different measures for <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/biodiversity-loss-extinction-effect/">biodiversity</a>, which yield different results. The most straightforward measure of biodiversity is simply species richness; that is just the number of species present in a certain area.  If you ignore that the concept of species itself is rather complicated, with multiple and sometimes contradictory definitions, species richness is easy to wrap your mind around. 

A professor once explained how species richness is deceptive by equating it to student diversity at my college.  I went to college at a relatively small western Colorado institution, which was almost entirely white and local. The college could brag that it had students from over 100 countries.  My professor pointed out that 100 students from 100 countries and 1000 other students from the US still leaves little diversity. On the other hand, 100 total students from 100 countries is a quite diverse group.  Part of diversity is looking at the structure of the whole not just the individual components, how different each subset is from the whole is important.

There are also different levels of biodiversity.  Ecosystem diversity is for instance the diversity of different ecosystems in a greater landscape.  For instance a desert with a river running through it containing not only aquatic but also riparian habitats is more diverse than just a single desert environment.  Add mountains containing ‘sky islands’ and perhaps small agricultural areas and the ecosystem diversity increases. Large areas of monocrop agriculture are one of the least ecosystem diverse areas because the ecology is all the same and very poor at that.

At the other end of the spectrum from ecosystem diversity is genetic diversity.  Genetic diversity is the diversity within a single species or closely related species.  To a degree genetic diversity can be a measure of genetic health or inbreeding within a species.  Genetic diversity can also show recent speciation, meaning how closely related species evolved from a common species in recent time.    

Even if we can all agree on what biodiversity is in a certain area for our own goals, whether biodiversity is always the most admirable end is a legitimate question.  Biodiversity sounds good if all you’re trying to do is foster the greatest number of plant, animal, fungi, etc. species but that doesn’t always match up with a wild natural environment.  If one were to create a large zoo or aquarium in the Sahara Desert, it would likely have more biodiversity (at least in terms of species richness) than the surrounding sand dunes, but it would also destroy a lot of desert.  

Sometimes grazing livestock can also increase biodiversity in an area.  If all we want is more biodiversity, this is a good thing. If what we want is a more self-organized, wild landscape, encouraging grazing for the sake of biodiversity is deeply unsettling.  Part of the problem here is that livestock sometimes act as replacements to wild herbivores. Bison certainly deeply affected the American landscape, especially out west. Now cows, sheep and other livestock fulfill some of the ecological niche of bison.  As long as the livestock are there, we can’t even consider reintroducing bison to something remotely resembling their former range. In Yellowstone, bison have been culled in response to fear from ranchers that their cattle would contract brucellosis from bison.  This is despite the fact that cattle introduced brucellosis to bison. There is also a lot of political pressure from ranchers to cull or exterminate native wolf populations. Even if cattle help biodiversity in the short term, they hurt landscapes in the long term, especially when ranch politics are involved.  

Diversity in some cases makes sense.  Small scale fires in forests can create patches of different environments, meadows, scrublands.  These patches of different microhabitats increase the biodiversity of the forest as a whole. In this way, fire creates a more natural, self-managed overall environment, a wilder landscape.  On the other hand, biodiversity will always be greater in tropical rainforests and reef systems than in the desert, arctic or alpine environments. Greater biodiversity isn’t always a better thing.

Part of the idea of biodiversity when applied to the Americas in management of wilderness areas is also connected to how we view humans, specifically Native Americans.  As I have noted in previous articles, there is a hypothesis that humans caused mass extinctions of megafauna. Whatever the role of early Native Americans in extinctions in North America, biodiversity dropped with the extinction of megafauna.  If we wanted merely to increase biodiversity, we could perhaps do it by introducing elephants, lions and other species as surrogates for extinct megafauna of North America. We do this with the assumption that perhaps human interaction with landscape, altering it and causing extinctions is an invalid ecological interaction.  We would separate humans from the environment as something ‘other’. Conversely, everything else the same, the introduction of one more species increases biodiversity but most people take exception if that one species is Homo sapiens.  

Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan notes in Cultural Parallax in Viewing North American Habitats, that it takes time for a culture to become truly native to an environment and the relationship between a culture and that environment is always in flux.

Other native animals can be a mixed blessing if we only consider biodiversity.  A study in Victoria, Australia found that grazing by kangaroos and livestock in dry areas decrease diversity of plants while in well-watered, fertile areas diversity of native plants is increased. 

Another study published in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America</a> showed that increases in global temperature are usually followed with an increase in biodiversity.  After the increase in biodiversity there is usually an accompanying extinction event but the increase still outpaces the extinction.  This means that global climate change could potentially boost biodiversity on the earth. The timescale involved in increased biodiversity wouldn’t help species alive today, instead it would shape the future evolution of species.  The rate of climate change may also outpace speciation. No matter the specifics, it becomes clear that the picture is more complex than just biodiversity.

If environmental goals are more like those of a gardener, biodiversity is a fine overall goal.  More species means less extinction. Extinction is a natural process though, no matter how ugly it seems to us, the key is to limit our own unthinking massacre of other species.  The vast majority of animal species once alive on earth are now extinct. There are even estimates of the normal lifespan of a species. 

In a world with limited resources and being a species with limited knowledge we should act only when wisdom permits.  Acting to protect every species from every action is creating a false dichotomy in nature and only works in the pitifully small timescales humans understand, not the long term scales on which the earth moves.  At the heart of using biodiversity measures is the idea that we as humans should be actively trying to create the best environment. The world’s environments fluctuated and maintained themselves before us and they’ve done so with us acting as a part of those environments.  The levels of control we now try to assert earth are unprecedented it may be time to allow the earth its wildness again. 

--

By <a href="mailto:zachfitzner@yahoo.com">Zach Fitzner</a>, <a href="http://earth.com">Earth.com</a> Contributing Writer

Biodiversity is key, but not always the best measure of success

Biodiversity is a word like sustainability or evolution, a complex...

Researchers have discovered how some spiders take flight after gauging wind conditions and spinning out tiny nanoscale fibers. 

Ballooning is the term used to describe how certain <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/spiders-recycle-gene-head/">spiders</a> travel on the wind because they spin out long, thin threads that sail with the direction of whatever breezes are present. 

Ballooning is typically associated with young spiders as it is commonly seen among recently hatched babies who use ballooning to travel away from their birth site.

Spiders also use ballooning to find food, a new home, or a mate and while previous research has examined flying in spiders before, this new study is the first of its kind to make detailed measurements of the silk fibers that ballooning spiders spin out and use to catch the wind. 

The study was conducted by researchers from the <a href="https://www.tu-berlin.de/">Technische Universität</a> in Berlin and published in the journal <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2004405">PLOS Biology</a>. 

Large crab spiders were used for the study, and the researchers conducted a series of field observations as well as wind tunnel experiments to better understand how these spiders prep for their launch and sense meteorological conditions. 

The crab spiders evaluated wind conditions by raising their front legs and orienting to the direction of the wind. 

If conditions were right for the spider, it would spin out multiple strands of silk threads, some up to seven meters long. 

The researchers found that when wind speeds were below seven miles per hour with light updrafts, the spiders spun out up to 60 threads measuring three meters long and launched themselves from an anchoring line that was attached to a blade of grass. 

Ballooning spiders seem to be able to accurately assess wind conditions including speed, direction, and updrafts and only fly when the conditions are just right. Updrafts play a crucial role in the spider’s ability to travel long distances. 

“The pre-flight behaviors we observed suggest that crab spiders are evaluating meteorological conditions before their takeoff,” said  Moonsung Cho, the study’s lead author. “Ballooning is likely not just a random launch into the wind, but one that occurs when conditions most favor a productive journey.”

--

By <a href="mailto:kayvandette@gmail.com">Kay Vandette</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Moonsung Cho, Technical University of Berlin

Flying spiders assess weather conditions before taking flight

Researchers have discovered how some spiders take flight after gauging...

Frogs have existed on Earth for about 200 million years – much longer than our species has been around. But despite their longevity, getting to know how different species of this amphibian have evolved and what their origins may be is rather difficult. Because frogs are generally small and lightly built, they don’t tend to preserve well after their demise. Luckily, one individual juvenile frog that lived 99 million years ago had the misfortune of being trapped in a blob of sap with a beetle – likely it’s intended dinner – and was preserved perfectly for our scientists almost 100 million years later.

The now extinct species (Electrorana limoae) that was preserved in amber – the fossilized version of sap – is one of four fossils that provide the earliest evidence of frogs living in wet, tropical forests. These are the oldest known examples of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/transparent-skin-glass-frogs/">frogs</a> preserved in amber. The study was published in Nature’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/srep/">Scientific Reports</a>.

“It’s almost unheard of to get a fossil frog from this time period that is small, has preservation of small bones and is mostly three-dimensional. This is pretty special,” says David Blackburn, the associate curator of herpetology at the <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/">Florida Museum of Natural History</a> and co-author of the study. “But what’s most exciting about this animal is its context. These frogs were part of a tropical ecosystem that, in some ways, might not have been that different to what we find today – minus the dinosaurs.”

Amber deposits have been a godsend for scientists the world over, preserving species that would have withered away over millennia without its protection. The amber deposits in northern Myanmar especially provide a unique record of ancient forest ecosystems. This discovery of the Electrorana species, the first frogs to be found in these deposits, add to our knowledge of frog species in the Cretaceous period. In particular, they contribute to our understanding that frogs inhabited wet, tropical forests for at least 99 million years.

“Ask any kid what lives in a rainforest, and frogs are on the list,” says Blackburn. “But surprisingly, we have almost nothing from the fossil record to say that’s a longstanding association.” The frog fossil record heavily favors larger species that lived in arid, seasonal environments – even though most frogs today live in tropical forests.

Despite this discovery, Electrorana actually raises more questions than answers, according to Blackburn. Many of the characteristics herpetologists use to determine the details of a frog’s life history – such as the inner ear, top of the backbone, hip bones, and more – are either missing or were not fully developed in the young frog. However, the bones that are visible do provide clues about the species’ possible living relatives. Interestingly, the species that have similar features include fire-bellied toads and midwife toads, which are Eurasian species that live in temperate, not tropical, environments. 

More of these discoveries will need to be made in order to paint a clearer picture of the frog’s evolutionary history in tropical rainforest environments. But in the meantime, we can thank sap for helping preserve this tiny species for almost 100 million years.

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By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Lida Xing/China University of Geosciences

Amber fossil reveals oldest evidence of frogs in tropical forests

Frogs have existed on Earth for about 200 million years...

Human encroachment into animal territory has many negative effects on the species that once called these habitats home. <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/human-activity-cancer-animals/">Our presence</a> generates fear in wild animals, and they can respond by changing their behavior to avoid contact with us. This risk avoidance may have significant effects on their fitness and physiology, trickling down the food chain and negatively impacting the survival of a population.

As further proof of this, a new study led by Kaitlyn Gaynor of the <a href="https://www.berkeley.edu/">University of California, Berkley</a>, has found that human activity is causing many mammals around the world to become more active at night – where they are less likely to encounter humans. 

Gaynor conducted a large-scale review of 76 studies covering 62 species from six continents in order to determine the impact of humans on the daily activity patterns of mammals. The studies monitored animal activity using GPS trackers and motion-activated cameras, allowing researchers to gather data to compare nighttime activity of each species during times of high and low human disturbance.

The results of the study, published in <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6394/1232">Science</a>, showed that higher levels of human disturbance – which can be anything from hunting to hiking to agriculture – resulted in nocturnal mammal activity increasing by a factor of 1.36. This change can result in a major fitness cost to individual animals, as they engage in behavior to avoid predators at the expense of reproduction. 

“Eventually, long-term disturbances may result in lower fitness, lower juvenile survival, or lower reproduction rates, with negative consequences at [the] population level,” says Ana Benítez-López in a related Perspective. 

However, these changes in animal behavior may actually help humans and animals coexist. This study shows that animals at least have the ability to adapt to our presence. Unfortunately, it may ultimately come at a cost of lower reproduction rates and higher stress for some species.

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By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Human activity causing mammals to be nocturnal to avoid people

Human encroachment into animal territory has many negative effects on...

An investigation led by the <a href="https://www.washington.edu/">University of Washington</a> has found that if forage fish continue to be farmed at the current rate, their populations will be overextended by the year 2050 or possibly even sooner. The experts report that this threshold could be avoided with simple changes in aquaculture and agriculture production.

Small forage fish such as anchovies and sardines play a critical role in the marine food web, but are also a major food source for farmed seafood and land-based livestock such as pigs and poultry. 

Furthermore, in order to keep up with a growing demand, aquatic farming now puts the most pressure on forage fish to feed larger farmed fish such as salmon, carp, and tilapia.

“Aquaculture has a lot of potential to keep feeding the future planet, but we do probably need to make some changes for sustainability,” said co-author Tim Essington. “We are in a position to start thinking about different scenarios and how we want to invest in technological advances to shape how the aquaculture field is run.”

The aquaculture industry is growing by around six percent each year, and currently produces 75 million metric tons of seafood worldwide. Schooling fish are caught in the ocean and processed into fishmeal and oil to feed other fishes and crustaceans in aquatic farms, and livestock animals have also been eating these <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/technology-fishermen-conservationists/">fish</a> since the 1960s.

“Aquaculture is the fastest-growing food sector in the world and has already surpassed beef, as well as wild fisheries seafood production. There's a lot of concern about forage fish use and whether or not what we're doing - feeding fish to fish - is sustainable,” said lead author Halley Froehlich.

The team used computer simulations to examine different changes in agriculture and aquaculture practices that could relieve some of the pressure on forage fish. 

The study revealed that eliminating the use of small fish in food for farmed carp and other freshwater fish produced the best results. These fish do not need to eat forage fish for survival, but are fed the fishmeal and oil because it makes them grow faster.

The researchers found that it would also be beneficial to remove forage fish from livestock feed, which is a trend that has already been underway for a few decades.

For some fish, such as farmed salmon and tuna, eliminating forage fish in their diets would be harder to accomplish because these fish rely more on animal protein for survival.


According to the study authors, the biggest unknown is how much fish will be consumed by humans in the future if people begin to favor seafood over other meat. This trend would expand aquaculture even more and place additional strain on forage fish.


“There are very clear steps that can be taken to mitigate the pressure from aquaculture, but if the whole world ate a little more fish, then that degrades the savings you get from these mitigating measures at the levels we assessed,” said Froehlich. “These unknowns really emphasize how important alternative feed sources are for the long-term sustainability of aquaculture.”

The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/natsustain">Nature Sustainability</a>.

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Pressure on important small fish could soon hit a breaking point

An investigation led by the University of Washington has found...

How cool would it be to name a new species of animal? If given the opportunity, what would you name it? Would you name it after yourself, a family member, or maybe an ex if it were a particularly ugly species? Well, if you were present in Ecuador and had the financial means, you might’ve gotten that chance. 

Five new species of snakes with unique eating habits were found in the forests of Ecuador, with three of the five species being discovered during expeditions between 2013 and 2017. These snakes have a particular taste for snails, which are not part of the normal diet for most snakes. But through evolution, these species have specially-sculpted jaws that allows them to actually suck the slimy body of the snail right out of its shell.

Because four of the five new species were already deemed at risk of extinction, the international research team that discovered them decided to auction their naming rights – using the money to buy and save a previously unprotected 178-acre plot of land where some of these species live. Furthermore, <a href="http://www.fjocotoco.org/">Fundación Jocotoco</a> will be adding an additional plot in the Buenaventura reserve, expanding the only protected area where two of the new species are found. 

These fascinating snail-sucking snakes are described by Alejandro Arteaga, an Ecuadorian-Venezuelan PhD student at the <a href="https://www.amnh.org/">American Museum of Natural History</a> and scientific director of <a href="http://www.tropicalherping.com/">Tropical Herping</a> and his team. Their study is published in the open access journal <a href="https://zookeys.pensoft.net/">ZooKeys</a>.

Three of these species were discovered during rainforest expeditions conducted by Arteaga and Dr. Alex Pyron, of <a href="https://www.gwu.edu/">George Washington University</a> and the <a href="https://naturalhistory.si.edu/">National Museum of Natural History</a>. The other two species were found in dry forest habitats by Ecuadorian scientists Dr. Omar Toress-Carvajal, David Salazar-Valenzuela, Diego Cisneros-Heredia, Juan Carlos Sánchez, Mario Yánez-Muñoz, and Peruvian scientist Pablo Venegas. To confirm that these five snakes were indeed new species, the international research team counted scales and gathered measurements from over 200 museum specimens, and extracted DNA from almost 100 individual snakes.

In the auction for naming rights of these new species, the Rainforest Trust and Bob Ridgely made the highest bids at auction, which allowed them to name three of the five new snakes. Now, the species Dipsas georgejetti is officially named, and done so in honor of George Jett, who supported the inception of Fundación Jocotoco’s reserves in Ecuador. The species Dipsas bobridgelyi is named after – you guessed it – Dr. Robert “Bob” Ridgely, who is a leading ornithologist and conservationist. Ridgely also helped establish the Buenaventura reserve. When it was Ridgely’s turn to name his species, he chose Sibon bevridgely (Bev Ridgely’s Snail-Eater) in honor of his father.

The final two species were named Dipsas oswaldobaezi and Dipsas klebbai, after Dr. Oswaldo Báez and Casey Klebba, respectively, as a token of recognition for their passion for Ecuador’s biodiversity and conservation.

“Several companies let you name a star after a loved one, but, generally, such names have no formal validity,” says Arteaga. “Naming an entire species after someone you love or admire is different. With few exceptions, this is the name that both the general public and the whole scientific community will use. So, why not let people choose the name of a species in exchange for a donation that protects its habitat?”

Through the naming of these species, the researcher not only raised awareness and increased the protection for these snakes, but they also recognized and honored the work of the people and institutions fighting to protect these animals. 

“Everybody knows elephants and orangutans,” says Dr. Martin Schaefer of Fundación Jocotoco. “But some reptiles and amphibians are even more threatened. Yet, we still lack even basic information needed to protect them better. This is why the work by scientists is so important; it provides the necessary information to guide our conservation decisions.”

So if you’re looking for the chance to name your own new species, you might want to consider dedicating your life to environmental conservation – or just go out into nature and keep your eyes open, you might get lucky.

--

By <a href="mailto:certz@earth.com">Connor Ertz</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Image Credit: Alejandro Arteaga

Snake species naming rights auctioned to save Ecuadorian forests

How cool would it be to name a new species...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Nushagak Bay, a large estuary in southwest Alaska. Nushagak runs mainly north to south and exits in Bristol Bay, a large body of water in the Bering Sea.



"The bay is primarily fed by the Nushagak River, which begins in the Alaska Range and flows southwest approximately 450 km. The bay is also fed by several additional rivers including the Wood, Igushik, Snake and Weary rivers," says ESA.



"The dark colors of the Nushagak River are most likely due to tannins or lignins (chemical substances found in plants). Tannins and lignins from roots, leaves, seeds, bark and soil can leach into the water and give it a brown or even black colour. The sediments then flow southwards where it is mixed with the bluer waters of the bay."



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Nushagak Bay in southwest Alaska

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> (ACS) reveals that proteins on flu viruses are actually flexible, tilting and waving in a “breath-like” motion. According to the experts, these proteins could be used to better defend against the flu.



"The main antigenic targets of influenza virus are two surface glycoproteins, hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). Whereas the structural and dynamical properties of both glycoproteins have been studied previously, the understanding of their plasticity in the whole-virion context is fragmented," wrote the researchers.



To investigate, the team conducted detailed simulations of the influenza A H1N1 virion, or the swine flu. The experts concluded that the visualizations show many new vulnerable states of flu viruses, which could improve future vaccines and antiviral drugs.



Video/ Image Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Flu viruses are more flexible than expected

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Lake Trasimeno, which is located west of Perugia in central Italy. It is the fourth largest lake in the country. While Trasimeno’s water level varies, it has a maximum depth of approximately six meters.&nbsp;



"In this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image, captured on 6 August 2022, the lake’s emerald green colour is likely due to the presence of phytoplankton. Streaks in the water, particularly visible in the west, indicate the presence of soil and sediments which have been stirred up by winds. Dark colored waters in the southern part of the lake indicate a presence of submerged and floating macrophytes (aquatic plants) as well as algae," says ESA.



"Surrounded by hills on three sides, Trasimeno is subject to heavy storms created by winds, especially from the north and west. There are three islets in the lake: Maggiore, Minore and Polvese (the largest). The lake’s shores are sparsely inhabited with only two popular villages: Castiglione del Lago and Passignano sul Trasimeno."



"Italy is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years which has affected drinking water supplies, hydroelectric power and agricultural production. High temperatures, hot winds and lack of rainfall are the main causes of drought in the Umbrian region which saw Lake Trasimeno’s drop 1.3 m, reaching the limit of the hydrometric zero in July 2022."



Video/Image Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Lake Trasimeno in Central Italy

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> describes a new self-powered nanosensor that can instantly detect mercury contamination with the tap of a finger.&nbsp;



The oxidized form of mercury can be harmful when it is ingested through contaminated water or food. This makes it necessary for experts to develop sensors that can quickly and accurately detect the presence of mercury.&nbsp;



Zong-Hong Lin and colleagues have now created a triboelectric nanosensor (TENS) that can detect mercury by simply by touching a sample. According to the researchers, their TENS could serve as the basis for similar devices to safely and remotely monitor other pollutants.



Video Credit: American Chemical Society&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Detecting mercury contamination with the tap of a finger

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.acs.org/">American Chemical Society</a> explores the ability of salt to transform the way that foods and beverages taste. Salt is known to cover up undesirable flavors, such as bitterness in coffee or beer, but how exactly does sodium chloride change the taste of other compounds?



One previous study showed that, not only does salt suppress bitterness, but also enhances sweetness and sourness. Another study revealed that bitterness reduction by salt seems to be happening at the tongue receptor level as well as in the brain.&nbsp;



While it is known that salt taste is mediated by the presence of sodium channels in the form of taste buds, experts believe that there is also an unknown receptor responsible for how we taste salt that has not yet been identified.&nbsp;



Video Credit: ACS Reactions



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

How does salt makes things taste better?

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Santiago, the capital city of Chile. The city is located in the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which has a population of about eight million people.&nbsp;



'The weather of Santiago resembles the Mediterranean climate with dry and warm summers with temperatures reaching up to 35°C (from October to March) and cool and humid winters that can drop to 0°C (from April to September)."



"The city lies in the centre of the country’s central valley around 80 km from the Pacific Ocean to the west and borders Argentina to the east. A tiny part of Argentina is visible in the top-right corner of the image where the mountain crest of the Andes Mountains acts as a divider between the two countries," says ESA.



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Santiago, Chile in South America

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Spiral,Galaxy,,Illustration,Of,Milky,Way

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Astronomers at <a href="https://www.jhu.edu/">Johns Hopkins University</a> have created an interactive map of the universe, including the actual position and real colors of 200,000 galaxies. The map allows the public to access data that was previously only available to scientists.



The map was developed using data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. For over two decades, a telescope in New Mexico was aimed at slightly different locations to capture the night sky.&nbsp;



"Growing up I was very inspired by astronomy pictures, stars, nebulae and galaxies, and now it's our time to create a new type of picture to inspire people," said map creator Brice Ménard, a professor at Johns Hopkins. "Astrophysicists around the world have been analyzing this data for years, leading to thousands of scientific papers and discoveries. But nobody took the time to create a map that is beautiful, scientifically accurate, and accessible to people who are not scientists. Our goal here is to show everybody what the universe really looks like."



"In this map, we are just a speck at the very bottom, just one pixel. And when I say we, I mean our galaxy, the Milky Way which has billions of stars and planets. We are used to seeing astronomical pictures showing one galaxy here, one galaxy there or perhaps a group of galaxies. But what this map shows is a very, very different scale."



"From this speck at the bottom, we are able to map out galaxies across the entire universe, and that says something about the power of science."



The <a href="https://mapoftheuniverse.net/">interactive map</a> is available online, where it can be downloaded for free.



Video Credit: Johns Hopkins&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Interactive map of the universe includes 200,000 galaxies

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Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky" Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features northwest Lesotho in South Africa.



According to ESA, Lesotho is the only nation in the world that lies completely above 1,000 m in elevation. The country is famous for its tall mountains and narrow valleys, and is known as Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky."



Out of a population of around two million people, about 80 percent live in rural areas. More than 75 percent of these people are engaged in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/climate-change-will-have-a-global-impact-on-agriculture/">agriculture</a>, including rainfed cereal production and animal grazing.&nbsp;



ESA reports that the country’s agricultural system faces a growing number of issues, with climate-related vulnerabilities such as drought, floods and extreme temperatures occurring more frequently. 



Diamonds are amongst the minerals found in the mountains. Indeed, Lesotho can truly be called the Kingdom in the Sky. Beautiful, culturally rich, safe, affordable, and easily accessible from Durban and Johannesburg, mountainous Lesotho is a vastly underrated travel destination. the Kingdom of Lesotho (Sotho: 'Muso oa Lesotho) is an enclaved country in southern Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size and has a population of around 2 million.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer 



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Lesotho: Africa's "Kingdom in the Sky"

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features Dublin, the capital and largest city of Ireland. Beyond its pub culture, Dublin is known as a modern culinary destination and a UNESCO City of Literature.



"Dublin is located near the midpoint of Ireland’s east coast in the province of Leinster. The city, which covers an area of around 115 square kilometers, is bordered by the Dublin Mountains, a low mountain range to the south, and is surrounded by flat farmland to the north and west," says ESA.



"The city straddles the River Liffey, which rises in the Wicklow Mountains and flows around 80 kilometers eastwards through the city of Dublin, in which it is canalised and bordered with quays. It then empties into Dublin Bay, an arm of the Irish Sea."



Dublin has an abundance of green spaces, including one of the largest enclosed public parks in any European capital city. Phoenix Park, which was originally formed as a royal hunting park in the 1660s, includes 707 hectares of green space.



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

The city of Dublin on Ireland's east coast

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain. The image was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.



"Together with the provinces of Huesca and Teruel, Zaragoza formed the old kingdom of Aragon. Its capital, also called Zaragoza (not visible in this image) is home to around half of Aragon’s population," says ESA.



"The Ebro River can be seen winding its way through the province from west to east in this image. Between its source in the Cantabrian Mountains in the northwest and its delta on the Mediterranean coast, the Ebro River is fed by more than 200 tributaries as it flows 910 km across much of northern Spain."



Since rainfall is very scarce in this region, irrigation in the Ebro basin is critically important. In the valleys surrounding the Ebro River, many fields are used for growing crops such as corn, wheat, and barley.



Video/ Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

The province of Zaragoza in northeast Spain

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> reveals the evolution of the Columbia Glacier in southeastern Alaska. Columbia is among the fastest shrinking glaciers in the world, and the video documents its rapid retreat over the years.&nbsp;



Columbia Glacier is a large, multi-branched calving glacier that flows out of the Chugach Mountains to the Prince William Sound.&nbsp;



According to USGS, Columbia had a long history of stability prior to 1980, with a length 41 miles, and small, short-lived advances or retreats.



In the years since 1980, however, satellite images have captured Columbia’s alarming retreat. By using false-color images, scientists can distinguish between snow and ice, open water, vegetation, and rocky debris on the glacier’s surface.



The series of false-color images featured in today's video were acquired over the span of 35 years. You can see that by 2021, the glacier’s main branch had retreated about 15 miles from its initial position.



The Columbia Glacier has also lost more than 50 percent of its volume, mostly due to calving. <a href="https://www.earth.com/video/nasa-reveals-3d-visual-of-an-atmospheric-river/">NASA</a> reports that while climate change likely started the retreat, mechanical processes kept the disintegration going.



The NASA images are provided by Jesse Allen, Robert Simmon, Joshua Stevens, and Lauren Dauphin using data from Landsat satellites, from the U.S. Geological Survey, and data from MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite. The structure of Columbia’s moraine played a large role in the stability of the glacier before 1980. 



Like other tidewater glaciers, the Columbia built up a moraine over time, and the mixture of ice and rock functioned like a dam keeping out the sea. It was supported on one end by the shoreline and by the underwater terminal moraine at the other.



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/&nbsp; NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The rapid retreat of the Columbia Glacier

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Pyrenees Mountains, which form a natural boundary between France and Spain in southwest Europe.



The mountain range is 430 kilometers in length. It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west.



At an elevation of 3404 meters, Pico de Aneto is the highest mountain peak in the Pyrenees, and the third-highest peak in Spain. Pico de Aneto is located in the Posets-Maladeta Natural Park, which spans more than 82,000 acres.&nbsp;



"Geological studies have revealed that the Pyrenees Mountains have been around for longer than the Alps, with their sediments first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras," reports ESA.



"The entire mountain range formed due to the upwelling of large sedimentary rocks by the collision of the Iberian and the Eurasian plate around 100 to 150 million years ago, followed by intense erosion from ice and water."



The western Pyrenees receive more precipitation due to moisture blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. The mountain range contains many lakes, several small glaciers, and some of the highest waterfalls in Europe.



Video &amp; Image Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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The Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe

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Earth,Like,Exoplanet,3d,Render

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes two exoplanets that are orbiting a star 218 light-years away. A team of researchers led by the University of Montreal has found evidence that these planets are "water worlds."



The experts used data from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. They discovered that exoplanets Kepler-138 c and Kepler-138 could be composed largely of water.



"We previously thought that planets that were a bit larger than Earth were big balls of metal and rock, like scaled-up versions of Earth, and that's why we called them super-Earths," explained study co-author Björn Benneke.&nbsp;



"However, we have now shown that these two planets, Kepler-138 c and d, are quite different in nature and that a big fraction of their entire volume is likely composed of water. It is the best evidence yet for water worlds, a type of planet that was theorized by astronomers to exist for a long time."



Video Credit: NASA Goddard



Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Leah Hustak (STScI)



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



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Two distant planets may be "water worlds"

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Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes Earth’s interconnected systems, and how this network is affected by rising temperatures.&nbsp;



During 2020, average global temperatures matched the hottest year on record. The hurricane season was also record-breaking, with many of the storms intensifying at extraordinary speeds. Hot water in the ocean is fuel for hurricanes. The satellite data shows that it's all one interconnected system showing how Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected.



According to NASA, dust swept up from Northern Africa plays a major role in the formation of hurricanes, and is also a key source of fertilization in the Amazon rainforest. As a result of<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/seagrass-wasting-disease-is-fueled-by-climate-change/"> climate</a> change, dust plumes are expected to decline, which will have an effect on vegetation far away.&nbsp;



Images from Earth-observing satellites show how the world’s plant life is affected by natural disasters, fires, and deforestation. Satellites also reveal how widespread changes in vegetation impact waterways,&nbsp; the climate, air quality. Satellites communicate by using radio waves to send signals to the antennas on the Earth. "Earth From Space" is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. 



Video Credit: NASA Goddard&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Satellites reveal how Earth's systems are interconnected

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://welcome.miami.edu/">University of Miami</a> Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science explores how changes in water temperatures have affected tiger shark habitats and movements in the North Atlantic Ocean. The study reveals that rising temperatures have caused the sharks to shift toward the poles over the past 40 years.



“Tiger shark annual migrations have expanded poleward, paralleling rising water temperatures,” explained study lead author Neil Hammerschlag. “These results have consequences for tiger shark conservation, since shifts in their movements outside of marine protected areas may leave them more vulnerable to commercial fishing.”



The researchers analyzed nine years of tracking data from satellite-tagged tiger sharks, combined with four decades of conventional tag and recapture data provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Shark Tagging Program.



The experts found that during the last decade of record heat, for every one-degree Celsius increase in water temperatures, tiger sharks migrated further poleward by over 400 kilometers. They also migrated two weeks earlier than usual to waters off the northeastern coast of the United States.



“Given their role as apex predators, these changes to tiger shark movements may alter predator-prey interactions, leading to ecological imbalances, and more frequent encounters with humans,” concluded Professor Hammerschlag.



Video Credit: University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Tiger sharks are shifting poleward as temperatures rise

Today’s Video of the Day from the University of Miami...

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> is focused on the melt ponds that emerge during the spring and summer on the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is the largest ice mass in the northern hemisphere.



"Melt ponds are vast pools of open water that form on both sea ice and ice sheets and are visible as turquoise-blue pools of water in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image," says ESA.



"When snow and ice melts atop glaciers, water flows in channels and streams and collects in depressions on the surface. These melt ponds can speed up the melting of the surrounding ice since they greatly reduce the ice’s ability to reflect sunlight."



"This can create a positive feedback where an increasing number of melt ponds absorb more heat which causes ice cover to melt even faster."



According to ESA, Greenland has been hit with a late-season heatwave that began in early September. This caused the type of melt event that usually occurs in the middle of summer.



"In a recent paper published in Nature Climate Change, scientists found that major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now ‘inevitable’ even if the burning of fossil fuels were to halt overnight," says ESA. "Using satellite observations of Greenland ice loss and ice cap from 2000 to 2019, the team found the losses will lead to a minimum rise of 27 cm regardless of climate change."



Video Credit: ESA&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Melt ponds on the Greenland Ice Sheet

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes a new map of Mars that is providing insight into the planet’s watery past. The map also reveals where future missions could safely land on Mars.&nbsp;



The map has been created over the last decade using observations of water-rich rocks and mineral deposits. The images were captured by ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.



"A big surprise is the prevalence of these minerals, with the map revealing hundreds of thousands of water-affected locations in the oldest parts of the planet," says ESA. "The new data will help answer exciting questions about Mars’ climate history, whether water was globally persistent or confined to short, intense episodes, and whether the conditions were ever suitable for life."



"Specifically, the map shows the locations and abundances of aqueous minerals. These are from rocks that have been chemically altered by the action of water in the past, and have typically been transformed into clays and salts."



According to John Carter of the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS), our collective understanding of Mars has been oversimplified. He explained that planetary scientists have tended to think that only a few types of clay minerals on Mars were created during its wet period, then as the water gradually dried up, salts were produced across the planet.



The new map shows that the composition of Mars is much more complicated than what we thought. For example, while many salts formed after Martian clays, there are some salts that are presumed to be older than some of the clays.&nbsp;



“The evolution from lots of water to no water is not as clear cut as we thought, the water didn’t just stop overnight. We see a huge diversity of geological contexts, so that no one process or simple timeline can explain the evolution of the mineralogy of Mars. That’s the first result of our study. The second is that if you exclude life processes on Earth, Mars exhibits a diversity of mineralogy in geological settings just as Earth does,” said Carter.



Video Credit: ESA



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

The history of Mars is much more complex than we thought

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.stowers.org/">Stowers Institute for Medical Research</a> describes how cavefish adapted to a sedentary lifestyle over tens of thousands of years. 



The experts found that the muscle metabolism of cavefish has been genetically reprogrammed over time. As a result, the animals have experienced major changes in their morphology and behavior. Despite these changes, however, the cavefish remain healthy and fit.



The research may provide new clues about the evolutionary consequences of prolonged physical inactivity in humans.&nbsp;



“It’s no surprise that people are moving less and less as technology has advanced,” said Rohner. “With cavefish, we have a unique system where we can study what might happen if people remained couch potatoes over very, very long periods of time.”



Video Credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Cavefish are healthy despite their sedentary lifestyle

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Today’s Video of the Day from <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/">NASA Earth Observatory</a> some of the most incredible waves in the world, as seen by Landsat satellites.



"With more than 370,000 miles of coastline on Earth, there are plenty of places where epic waves build up, curl over, and hurtle toward the shore.- much to the thrill of surfers," says NASA. "There are some places where these waves are so magnificent that they can be seen from space."



"With the broad perspective of satellites, we can see how these iconic waves develop into the world’s tallest, longest, fastest, and heaviest."



Video Credit: NASA Earth Observatory&nbsp;



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By <a href="mailto:csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Editor



Check us out on <a href="https://www.earth.com/earthsnap/">EarthSnap</a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

Satellites capture the world's biggest and fastest waves

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Today’s Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes why satellite images and measurements of our planet have become "essential to our survival, offering a new outlook of our world."&nbsp;



Rising sea levels pose one of the biggest societal threats associated with climate change. According to ESA, satellite altimeter missions such as Copernicus Sentinel-6 are essential in monitoring global and regional changes in sea level.



"Unbeknown to many, the island of Crete, Greece, plays an important role in the Copernicus satellite altimetry constellation and on an international stage," reports ESA.



"Satellite altimetry data have to be continuously monitored at the ESA’s Permanent Facility for Altimetry Calibration where different techniques have pioneered the use of transponders to provide the best measurements to validate satellite altimeters in space soon after launch."



Dr. Craig Donlon explains that, by understanding planet Earth through satellite measurements, we are able to find evidence of change.&nbsp;



Video Credit: European Space Agency&nbsp;



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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Satellites have become essential to our survival

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