Tag Archive | "biodiversity"

Captive colony of Virginia big-eared bats providing valuable lessons in battle against deadly white-nose syndrome

Captive colony of Virginia big-eared bats providing valuable lessons in battle against deadly white-nose syndrome

Eleven bats remain in the National Zoo’s colony. The initial challenge the team faced was how to feed the animals. Virginia big-eared bats, which are a subspecies of the Townsend’s big-eared bat (Corynorhinuss townsendii), eat while flying. [...more]

Featured, conservation biology, zoology Comments (23)

Researchers compile colorful on-line guide to marine algae of Panama

Researchers compile colorful on-line guide to marine algae of Panama

“Our guide celebrates the beauty of some of the most attractive inhabitants of Panama’s undersea realm and provides an indispensable, easy-to-use tool for their identification,” say the Littlers. [...more]

Book Review, conservation biology Comments (0)

Clouded leopard cubs born at National Zoo’s Front Royal campus on Valentine’s Day

Clouded leopard cubs born at National Zoo’s Front Royal campus on Valentine’s Day

Staff had been on a pregnancy watch focused on the 3 1/2-year-old clouded leopard Jao Chu (JOW-chew) for four days. Jao Chu gave birth to the first cub at 6:04 p.m. and the second cub at 6:20 p.m. [...more]

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Camera traps & radio collars reveal hoarding strategies of the South American agouti

Camera traps & radio collars reveal hoarding strategies of the South American agouti

In a series of ongoing experiments on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal, Kays and other researchers are using camera traps, radio collars and palm nuts with tracking transmitters attached to them to take a closer look at the nut-hoarding strategies of the agouti. [...more]

Featured, zoology Comments (1)

Native bees prove resilient in competition with invasive African honey bees

Native bees prove resilient in competition with invasive African honey bees

The spread of Africanized honey bees across Central America has had a much smaller impact on native tropical bee species than scientists previously predicted... [...more]

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Mangroves research by Candy Feller, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center botanist

Mangroves research by Candy Feller, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center botanist

Follow botanist Candy Feller of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center as she conducts field work on mangrove ecosystems at Carrie Bow Cay, a Smithsonian field research station in the Caribbean. [...more]

Video, conservation biology Comments (0)

A dry spring in Panama means more sulfur butterflies, study reveals

A dry spring in Panama means more sulfur butterflies, study reveals

A new census of tropical sulfur butterflies (Aphrissa statira) migrating across the Panama Canal has revealed the central role that weather plays in determining why populations of these lemon-yellow insects vary from year to year. [...more]

conservation biology Comments (1)

Roads kill rainforests. Stop them now, say Smithsonian biologists

Roads kill rainforests. Stop them now, say Smithsonian biologists

Determining the locations of future highways and roads in countries with tropical rainforests will be the greatest single factor in influencing future forest loss, fragmentation and degradation. In broad terms, roads can be thought of as the enemies of rainforests. By spreading people out across the forest, roads inherently promote rapid and widespread deforestation. [...more]

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Meet our Scientists—Videos!

Caught on camera!

This short video of an ocelot was taken by Smithsonian scientists during a recent camera-trap survey of these animals in the Peruvian Amazon. [...more]

(Courtesy of Joseph Kolowski)

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