Ecology of fear: Cascading impacts of local extinction of large-carnivores in an African savanna ecosystem
A team of Princeton ecologists took advantage of a rare opportunity to study what happens to an ecosystem when large carnivores are wiped out. “Large carnivores play a critical, and disproportionate, role in their ecosystems, and their populations are declining...
A chimpanzee cultural collapse is underway, and it’s driven by humans
Language, music, and art often vary between adjacent groups of people, and help us identify not only ourselves but also others. And in recent years rich debates have emerged and spawned research into culture in non-human animals. Scientists first observed chimpanzees...
400,000 African pangolins are hunted for meat every year – why it’s time to act
Pangolins, a group of unique African and Asian scaly mammals, are considered to be one of the most heavily trafficked wild mammals in the world. They are hunted and traded for their meat, scales, and other body parts, and used as traditional medicines in parts of...
Solving the mystery of Serengeti’s vanishing wild dogs
In 1991, a strange thing happened in the wilds of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. The Serengeti, a World Heritage Site, is home to a spectacular range of carnivores, from lions to cheetahs and more. And with more than 1.5 million zebras, wildebeests and...
The more male gorillas look after young, the more young they’re likely to have
Paternal care – where fathers care for their children – is rare among mammals (that is, animals which give birth to live young). Scientists have identified more than 6,000 mammal species, but paternal care only occurs in 5 to 10% of them. Humans fall into that...
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