My Picks From ScienceDaily

Fire Ants Killing Baby Song Birds At High Rates:

Red imported fire ants may be killing as many as a fifth of baby song birds before they leave the nest, according to research recently completed at Texas A&M University.

Ecologist Finds Dire Devastation Of Snake Species Following Floods:

In science, it's best to be good, but sometimes it's better to be lucky.

Fossil Whale Puts Limit On Origin Of Oily, Buoyant Bones In Whales:

A fossilized whale skeleton excavated 20 years ago amid the stench and noise of a seabird and elephant seal rookery on California's Año Nuevo Island turns out to be the youngest example on the Pacific coast of a fossil whale fall and the first in California, according to University of California, Berkeley, paleontologists.

Wild Male Chimpanzees Use Stolen Food To Win Over The Opposite Sex:

They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and the same could be said for female chimpanzees. Researchers studying wild chimps in West Africa have discovered that males pinch desirable fruits from local farms and orchards as a means of attracting female mates.

Predation Linked To Evolution, Study Suggests:

The fossil record seems to indicate that the diversity of marine creatures increased and decreased over hundreds of millions of years in step with predator-prey encounters, Virginia Tech geoscientists report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Coral Reef Fish Harbor An Unexpectedly High Biodiversity Of Parasites:

IRD researchers showed that Epinephilus maculates, a fairly abundant species of grouper off New Caledonia, was parasitized by 12 species of microscopic monogenean worms. This diversity of parasites has just been confirmed also in the malabar grouper, Epinephilus malabaricus, another the coral reef species. If such a level of parasite diversity prevails in all coral-reef fish, tens of thousands of parasite species are in this ecosystem waiting to be discovered.

'Killer Bees' Now Established In New Orleans:

Africanized honeybees have been found in the New Orleans area since July of 2005, but the regularity and frequency of finding them there is new cause for concern.

Ancient Egyptians Mummified Their Cats With Utmost Care:

Examination of Egyptian mummies has shown that animals such as cats and crocodiles were given a far more careful and expensive trip to the afterlife than previously thought.

Extinction Crisis Escalates: Red List Shows Apes, Corals, Vultures, Dolphins All In Danger:

Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken, according to the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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