Fish and Amphibians

These mice were two of five babies that were found crawling around our garage. Their mother was probably caught in a Havahart catch-and-release trap. We fed them with an eyedropper for several weeks before they were old enough to be released. By Lega Medcalf Walk into any grocery, hardware, or building supply store and you will come across a large display of rodenticides, a/k/a rodent-killing poisons. Walk around the exterior of many local businesses and even family neighborhoods and you are likely to see innocuous black boxes that contain poisonous bait. "Rodenticide" implies that only rodents are killed, but this word is a misnomer because all animals, including humans, can die from ingesting or inhaling the poison as the body systems of all species work in similar ways. Most brands are touted as “mouse killer” and “resistant to weather and to tampering by children and dogs.” Sounds like a perfect solution to a mouse/rat/mole problem but look at the back side of the ...

Morning Show JACKSONVILLE, Fla – Australian scientists fear “many billions” of animals and insects are dead because of the Australian brush fires, and the environment could suffer for years to come. The fires are still burning and have been for months. Homes have been razed and entire towns wiped out. At least 18 million acres have been blackened, leaving nothing but ash on the land once covered with bushes, forests, national parks, and homes for unique wildlife. The World Wildlife Fund in Australia released an estimate that a billion animals, including koalas, kangaroos and birds, have been killed by the fires. When estimates account for insects, frogs, and small animals, the number could be in the hundreds of billions, according to researchers at one Australian University. Dan Maloney, current Deputy Director of Animal Care & Conservation at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens, visited The Morning Show to offer context and perspective on the raging wildfires in Australia...

Dinosaurs gradually “shrunk” and paved the way for birds to evolve as warm-blooded creatures, new research claims. Scientists believe that as dinosaurs decreased in size over millions of years they developed to have higher metabolism. This evolutionary process allowed the creatures to burn energy from food at a faster rate and regulate their own body temperature. The researchers, from the University of Chile, say their findings may also explain how mammals became warm-blooded, giving them the capability to generate heat by metabolic means. Warm blooded animals, or endotherms, need a lot of energy compared to cold blooded creatures – such reptiles, fish and amphibians – who rely on environmental heat sources. But the researchers say there are many benefits to being warm-blooded, which include being able to live in a wider geographic range as well as having greater mobility, brain power, stamina and tolerance to harsher conditions. Over the years, scientists have struggled to under...

Mendocino National Forest plans to use herbicides and hand tools to remove and control invasive broom plants now sprouting in the footprint of the Ranch fire, which in 2018 scorched about 288,000 acres in the sprawling forest that spans Lake, Glenn and Colusa counties. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the rugged woodlands, says the broom treatment project needs to start in spring to prevent regrowth of Scotch, Spanish and French broom plants, which can form impenetrable thickets and constitute a wildfire hazard, said Punky Moore, a Mendocino National Forest spokeswoman. While the fire destroyed many of those mature broom plants, it also stimulated the germination of seeds in the ground that might otherwise have remained dormant for years or decades. Now those young plants are nearly a year old, she said. By the summer of 2021, they will have matured and begun to drop new seeds. “Herbicide treatment must occur quickly to be effective,” the national forest said in a letter anno...

Mendocino National Forest plans to use herbicides and hand tools to remove and control invasive broom plants now sprouting in the footprint of the Ranch fire, which in 2018 scorched about 288,000 acres in the sprawling forest that spans Lake, Glenn and Colusa counties. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the rugged woodlands, says the broom treatment project needs to start in spring to prevent regrowth of Scotch, Spanish and French broom plants, which can form impenetrable thickets and constitute a wildfire hazard, said Punky Moore, a Mendocino National Forest spokeswoman. While the fire destroyed many of those mature broom plants, it also stimulated the germination of seeds in the ground that might otherwise have remained dormant for years or decades. Now those young plants are nearly a year old, she said. By the summer of 2021, they will have matured and begun to drop new seeds. “Herbicide treatment must occur quickly to be effective,” the national forest said in a letter anno...

3rd January 2020 By Nilima Marshall Bones belonging to two "teenage" Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs provide fresh clues as to how these predators grew up to become "plodding, crushing monsters", according to a new study. The fossil skeletons indicate the juvenile T. Rex dinosaurs were slender, fleet-footed and had knife-like teeth for cutting food, unlike their lumbering, bone-crushing adult counterparts. It was previously believed that the bones, which are preserved at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Illinois, US, belonged to a different dinosaur species, a smaller pygmy relative known as Nanotyrannus. But an examination of the tissue microstructures within the bones revealed they were part of the T. Rex family. Dr Holly Woodward, an associate professor of anatomy at the Oklahoma State University Centre for Health Sciences and lead author on the study, said: "Historically, many museums would collect the biggest, most impressive fossils of a dinosau...

Mendocino National Forest plans to use herbicides and hand tools to remove and control invasive broom plants now sprouting in the footprint of the Ranch fire, which in 2018 scorched about 288,000 acres in the sprawling forest that spans Lake, Glenn and Colusa counties. The U.S. Forest Service, which manages the rugged woodlands, says the broom treatment project needs to start in spring to prevent regrowth of Scotch, Spanish and French broom plants, which can form impenetrable thickets and constitute a wildfire hazard, said Punky Moore, a Mendocino National Forest spokeswoman. While the fire destroyed many of those mature broom plants, it also stimulated the germination of seeds in the ground that might otherwise have remained dormant for years or decades. Now those young plants are nearly a year old, she said. By the summer of 2021, they will have matured and begun to drop new seeds. “Herbicide treatment must occur quickly to be effective,” the national forest said in a letter anno...