The last new mammal to Minnesota was identified in 1991—a shrew species. Now there is another, the evening bat (Nycticeius humeralis). It was found this summer during a survey of Minnesota’s forest bats, which was focused on their mating habits. DNR Nongame Wildlife Program and Central Lakes College researchers conducted the survey. “It’s very exciting to discover a new bat
MERS coronavirus (National Institutes of Health) The Centers for Disease Control have reported the nation’s second case of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), a coronavirus lethal in approximately 30% of cases. The first US MERS patient was a health care worker in Indiana. He has now been cleared as virus-free and returned home, although his
While most of the northern US was hit with a polar vortex and record cold earlier this month, Australia and New Zealand were hit with a polar opposite record heat wave (see what I did there?). How hot was it? Australian newspaper, the Star, started off its article with the words “Bats are dropping from
We still don’t know how humans acquire Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS, formerly known as “n-coronavirus”). The mortality rate among people treated for MERS is 65%, making it one of the most lethal coronaviruses identified to date. However, scientists from the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia, the Center for Infection and Immunity of Columbia
Is it a bat or flying badger? The yellow stripes on a small black face are reminiscent of a badger, but that is where the resemblance ends. Niumbaha superba is the bat’s name and it didn’t come all that easily, because when it was first discovered the wrong genus was assumed — Glauconycteris superba. DeeAnn Reeder, an
Baseball bats were made out of a strong wood known as hickory when the game came into existence. However, original bats were quite heavy. Players preferred lighter bats for quicker bat speed, so the manufacturers started to use maple and white ash to produce lighter bats. The preferred wood is white ash, and baseball bats
Bat populations in North America are currently being decimated by a fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome. The deadliness of this fungus may greatly depend on how social the bats are during hibernation, according to new research from the University of California, Santa Cruz. “Species that hibernate in dense clusters even as their populations
OK, this is the last cute or funny animal video of the weekend,… I think. This one is truly adorable. My reaction didn’t really out-do Jess Zimmerman’s, though, and I can’t trump her words, so here’s what she had to say about the video: “I am not ashamed to admit that I wept openly at
As it is Earth Day, my natural inclination is to look at the current state of Nature….specifically, the status of certain animal species that are either holding on, currently threatened, or “on the brink”….here are just four such cases (wolves, tigers, bats and penguins)…
Yasuni National Park, located 250 km inland along the Eastern most border of Ecuador, is a world record holder in biodiversity richness: The roughly 10,000 km² forest is home to 139 species of amphibians (besting Columbia’s Leticia Park with its 98 species) and an estimated 100,000 species of insects. This latter figure represents the highest
If you haven’t heard, there have been massive die-offs of bats across the U.S. recently. Scientists have been warning us about the main cause, White-Nose Syndrome (WNS), for years… but who listens to scientists? With WNS, a fungus leaves a white substance all over bats disrupting hibernation patterns, forcing bats to use up all of
[social_buttons] A new species of Samoan fruit bat or ‘flying fox’ was discovered at the Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia by Kristofer M. Helgen, a Research Zoologist and Curator of Mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Helgen, the lead author of the paper published in American Museum Novitates, noticed the bat within
[social_buttons] A colony of giant African bats has made a dramatic return from the brink of exctinction, thanks to a conservation drive discouraging people from eating them as delicacies. As recently as 1989, the Pemba Flying Fox, one of Africa’s largest bat species, was critically endangered, with only a few individuals left on Pemba Island,
