Scientists have discovered several specimens of tiny insects covered with pollen grains in two pieces of amber, revealing the first record of pollen transport and social behavior in this group of animals. [...more]
The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center has created NEMESIS--National Estuarine and Marine Exotic Species Information System--an online public database that provides key information about the non-native marine species throughout the United States. [...more]
The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md., and the Alaska Sea Grant Program of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, were recently identified as the recipients of a $400,000 grant from NOAA’s National Sea Grant College. The money will be used by the two collaborating organizations to create an early detection and rapid response system [...] [...more]
For the first time researchers from the Smithsonian, South Dakota State University and the University of Nebraska described the immature stages of the switchgrass moth, first collected in Denver in 1910. [...more]
A 48 million-year-old fossilized leaf has revealed the oldest known evidence of a macabre part of nature – parasites taking control of their hosts to turn them into zombies. [...more]
Botanists Gerhard Zotz of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Stefan Wester of the University of Oldenburg in Germany decided to take a closer look at these high-wire bromeliads. They were interested to find out how the growth and survival rates of these plants on electrical cables compared to the growth and survival of plants of the same species growing in trees--their natural environment. [...more]
Scientists from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center have found that fledgling catbirds living in the suburbs are extremely vulnerable. Almost 80 percent are killed by predators before they reach adulthood. Nearly half of the deaths are connected to domestic cats. The team studied catbird nests in 3 suburban neighborhoods in Maryland: Spring Park, Opal Daniels Park, and Bethesda. Learn more about this 2011 study by clicking here. (Catbird photo by Gerhard Hofmann)
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