Researchers stunned after footage reveals bizarre animal activity on remote island: 'Carrying them for days at a time'
Captured on an island off the Panama coast, the footage shows five capuchin monkeys kidnapping at least 11 infant howler monkeys over the course of 15 months. Researchers divulged their findings in a study published in Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (via ScienceDaily), which was then reported on by Outdoors.
"Young male capuchin monkeys have been abducting baby howler monkeys and carrying them for days at a time," the Max Planck Institute wrote on Instagram. "Nobody was on the island to see which capuchin started the behavior and who copied him. But remote cameras were there."
Trail cameras have become valuable research tools for conservationists. They allow researchers to monitor remote areas for long periods of time with remarkable efficiency. And the cameras are often so conspicuous that local wildlife doesn't know they are there, giving an unfiltered look into these creatures' daily lives.
Recently, trail cameras have captured remarkable footage, such as a bird's rare mating ritual in Thailand. They've shown rarely-seen glimpses of endangered species, such as an Arabian lynx, tahr, and wolf in Oman. And they've confirmed the reintroduction of species to certain ecosystems, such as river otters throughout Ohio.
As far as capuchins, these abductions had not been seen before, and researchers believe it began as random behavior that somehow caught on within this specific population.
"The more interesting question is not, 'Why did this tradition arise?' but 'Why here?'" researcher Brendan J. Barrett said in the study.
The capuchins did not play with, eat, or hurt any of the babies, and kept them for just a few days. Researchers do believe, however, that all of the abducted babies ended up dying, as the capuchins couldn't provide them with the milk they needed to survive.
"Witnessing the spread of this behavior had a profound effect on all of us," researcher Meg Crofoot said in the study. "We therefore feel even more responsible to keep learning from this natural population of primates who, to our knowledge, are the only ones on Earth to be practicing this strange tradition."
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CNN
09-07-2025
- CNN
The US is opening a fly factory to breed and dump flies from the sky. Here's why.
Hundreds of millions of flies dropping from planes in the sky might sound like a horrible nightmare, but experts say such a swarm could be the livestock industry's best defense against a flesh-eating threat poised to invade the southwestern border of the United States. An outbreak of New World screwworms — the larval form of a type of fly that's known to nest in the wounds of warm-blooded animals and slowly eat them alive — has been spreading across Central America since early 2023, with infestations recorded in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and El Salvador. Most Central American countries hadn't seen an outbreak in 20 years. The fly reached southern Mexico in November, sparking concern among US agricultural industry officials and triggering the closure of several border-area cattle, horse and bison trading ports. It wouldn't be the first time the US has had to battle these invasive bugs. The nation mostly eradicated the New World screwworm populations in the 1960s and 1970s by breeding sterilized males of the species and dispersing them from planes to mate with wild, female flies. The strategy — essentially fighting flies with flies — slowly degraded the insects' populations by preventing them from laying more eggs. Now, as the insects continue to spread north officials are hoping the approach could work again. However, today only one facility in Panama breeds sterilized New World screwworms for dispersal, and hundreds of millions more sterile flies are needed to slow the outbreak, according to a June 17 letter from 80 US lawmakers. The next day, the US Department of Agriculture announced plans to open a 'fly factory' in a yet to be determined town near the Texas-Mexico border. But the process of defeating the screwworm may not be quick — or inexpensive. New World screwworms are the parasitic larva of a metallic blue blow fly species called Cochliomyia hominivorax. Unlike all other blow flies native to the Western Hemisphere, the New World screwworm feeds on the flesh of living animals, rather than dead ones, said Dr. Phillip Kaufman, a professor and head of the department of entomology at Texas A&M University. The flesh-eating maggots go for most warm-blooded animals, including horses and have also been known to infect domestic pets and even humans in rare cases, Kaufman said. 'After mating, the female fly finds a living host, lands on its wound, and will lay up to 200 to 300 eggs,' Kaufman explained. 'After 12 to 24 hours, those eggs all hatch, and they immediately start burrowing and feeding on the tissue of that animal, causing very, very large wounds to form.' After the larvae feed on the tissue with their sharp mouth hooks for several days, they drop from the animal and burrow into the ground to emerge later as fully grown adult flies, according to Thomas Lansford, the deputy executive director and assistant state veterinarian for the Texas Animal Health Commission. Since the outbreak began in 2023, there have been more than 35,000 New World screwworm infestations reported, according to statistics listed on the Panama–United States Commission for the Eradication and Prevention of Screwworm Infestation in Livestock (COPEG) website. Of those cases, cows make up about 83% of the effected animal species. Treatment for infested cattle often involves cleaning, antiseptic treatment and coverings for the wounds, Lansford said. If left untreated, the flies can kill an animal in a matter of one to two weeks and spread to others, posing a threat to the livelihood of ranchers. 'It's a daily chore to provide those inspections to our livestock, just to make sure they're not infested,' said Stephen Diebel, a rancher and the first vice president of the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. 'We know the incredible economic impact an infestation would cause.' There are no known vaccinations or effective repellant methods to prevent infestation, Diebel said. Instead, during warmer months, ranchers should avoid branding, tagging and other procedures that create potential entry points for the screwworms in livestock, he recommended. The tropical fly is less active in the winter. While regional cattle trading is thought to be a major way the fly populations travel, Diebel said infestations can also affect wildlife such as deer, birds and rodents, making surveillance of the parasite's spread even more challenging. Just like a caterpillar goes into a cocoon before becoming a butterfly, the New World screwworm becomes a black, pill-sized pupa before emerging as an adult fly, Kaufman explained. In a sterile fly production facility, the pupae are subjected to high-energy gamma rays that break down the DNA of the males, damaging their sex chromosomes, according to the USDA. The result: impotent adult flies that cause female mates to lay unfertilized eggs. The amount of radiation the male flies are exposed to does not pose a danger to animals or humans, according to the USDA. But since the female flies only mate one time in their short, 20-day lifespan, once populations are exposed to sterile males, the populations die out over the course of months or years, depending on the size of the outbreak. While it is unclear how dispersal would work in the US in the event of an outbreak, Kaufman said the adult flies are typically loaded into temperature-controlled containers and dropped from planes. However, there's no need to panic about the fly drops coming to a suburb near you, he said — they usually target sparsely populated rural areas, since the flies have no interest in urban environments. At the COPEG facility, about 100 million sterilized flies are produced and dispersed aerially in affected regions each week. Currently, the dispersal efforts have been focused in the southern regions of Mexico and throughout Central America, where cases of infestation have been reported, according to COPEG's website. The new US dispersal facility is expected to be located at the Moore Air Base in Hidalgo County, Texas, and to cost $8.5 million, per the release. The location and price tag of the production facility, or the 'fly factory' itself, has not been revealed, but lawmakers estimate it could cost around $300 million. In addition to the new sterile fly facilities, the USDA also announced $21 million plans to renovate an old fly factory in Mexico by late 2025. While the plans are expensive, it's a price worth paying to save the multibillion-dollar livestock industry, Diebel said. 'When you offset the $300 million to the $10 billion of economic impact these flies would have, it's an easy trade-off to understand,' Diebel said. 'Having (a domestic production facility) here is super important … to control the distribution of those sterile flies more efficiently.' Shortly after the June 18 announcement, the USDA shared plans to begin reopening livestock trading ports in Arizona, Texas and New Mexico that closed last year, citing 'good progress' in surveillance and sterile fly dispersal efforts throughout Mexico. COPEG did not immediately respond to request for comment on further details about the current progress of the US dispersal initiatives.
Miami Herald
08-07-2025
- Miami Herald
‘Cryptic' creature with ‘window' in its eyelid found on rock. It's a new species
In the desert of Saudi Arabia, a 'cryptic' creature with a 'window' in its eyelid climbed along a pile of rocks. Its hard-to-reach home and camouflaged coloring helped it go unnoticed and, when occasionally found, be misidentified — until now. As scientists recently discovered, it turned out to be a new species. A team of researchers spent five years traveling throughout Saudi Arabia and Jordan as part of a project to survey reptile biodiversity, according to a study published July 1 in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Zoology. During the searches, researchers encountered dozens of 'cryptic'-looking lizards, the study said. The lizards sort of looked like a known species, but DNA analysis showed they were genetically distinct. Researchers realized they'd discovered a new species: Mesalina cryptica, or the Arabian small-spotted lizard. Arabian small-spotted lizards are considered 'medium-sized,' reaching up to 6 inches in length, the study said. Their tails are significantly longer than their bodies, and their feet have one longer toe. Their lower eyelids have 'a transparent window made up of two large scales.' Photos show the brown coloring of the new species, which varies from 'beige to dark brown.' Small black and white spots dot the lizards' backs, and their tails have a slight blue tinge. Researchers said they named the new species after the Latin word for ''concealed' or 'hidden'' because it had been 'overlooked' due to its visual similarity to other known species. Arabian small-spotted lizards were 'observed or captured in rocky or gravely habitats,' the study said. They were 'typically encountered in flat areas of hard gravel with sparse shrubby vegetation and scattered rocks of varying sizes, using rock crevices for shelter.' At some sites in Saudi Arabia, the lizards were seen 'climbing steep scree slopes,' researchers said. In Jordan, the lizards lived 'in flat deserts of volcanic black basalt rocks.' Photos shared on MorphoBank by the researchers show the new species in its natural habitat. Much about the lifestyle and behavior of the new species remains unknown. Arabian small-spotted lizards have been found at dozens of sites in Saudi Arabia, a few sites in Jordan and one site in Kuwait, the study said. 'Our understanding of the species' real range is far from complete … It is very likely that the range of the species is continuous all the way from Jordan to Kuwait.' The new species was identified by its size, body proportions, coloring and other subtle physical features, the study said. DNA analysis found the new species had at least 4% genetic divergence from related species. The research team included Jiří Šmíd, Doubravka Velenská, Lukáš Pola, Karin Tamar, Salem Busais, Mohammed Shobrak, Mohammed Almutairi, Al Faqih Ali Salim, Saad Dasman Alsubaie, Raed Hamoud AlGethami, Abdulaziz Raqi AlGethami, Abdulkarim Saleh Alanazi, Ahmed Mohajja Alshammari, Damien Egan, Ricardo Ramalho, David Olson, Josh Smithson, Laurent Chirio, Marius Burger, Ryan van Huyssteen, Melissa Petford and Salvador Carranza.
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Yahoo
Human skin stood up better to the sun before there were sunscreens and parasols – an anthropologist explains why
Human beings have a conflicted relationship with the sun. People love sunshine, but then get hot. Sweat gets in your eyes. Then there are all the protective rituals: the sunscreen, the hats, the sunglasses. If you stay out too long or haven't taken sufficient precautions, your skin lets us you know with an angry sunburn. First the heat, then the pain, then the remorse. Were people always this obsessed with what the sun would do to their bodies? As a biological anthropologist who has studied primates' adaptations to the environment, I can tell you the short answer is 'no,' and they didn't need to be. For eons, skin stood up to the sun. Human beings evolved under the sun. Sunlight was a constant in people's lives, warming and guiding them through the days and seasons. Homo sapiens spent the bulk of our prehistory and history outside, mostly naked. Skin was the primary interface between our ancestors' bodies and the world. Human skin was adapted to whatever conditions it found itself in. People took shelter, when they could find it, in caves and rock shelters, and got pretty good at making portable shelters from wood, animal skins and other gathered materials. At night, they huddled together and probably covered themselves with fur 'blankets.' But during the active daylight hours, people were outdoors and their mostly bare skin was what they had. During a person's lifetime, skin responds to routine exposure to the sun in many ways. The surface layer of the skin – the epidermis – becomes thicker by adding more layers of cells. For most people, the skin becomes gradually darker as specialized cells kick into action to produce a protective pigment called eumelanin. This remarkable molecule absorbs most visible light, causing it to look very dark brown, almost black. Eumelanin also absorbs damaging ultraviolet radiation. Depending on their genetics, people produce different amounts of eumelanin. Some have a lot and are able to produce a lot more when their skin is exposed to sun; others have less to start out with and produce less when their skin is exposed. My research on the evolution of human skin pigmentation has shown that the skin color of people in prehistory was tuned to local environmental conditions, primarily to local levels of ultraviolet light. People who lived under strong UV light – like you'd find near the equator – year in and year out had darkly pigmented and highly tannable skin capable of making a lot of eumelanin. People who lived under weaker and more seasonal UV levels – like you'd find in much of northern Europe and northern Asia – had lighter skin that had only limited abilities to produce protective pigment. With only their feet to carry them, our distant ancestors didn't move around much during their lives. Their skin adapted to subtle, seasonal changes in sunlight and UV conditions by producing more eumelanin and becoming darker in the summer and then losing some pigment in the fall and winter when the sun wasn't so strong. Even for people with lightly pigmented skin, painful sunburns would have been exceedingly rare because there was never a sudden shock of strong sun exposure. Rather, as the sun strengthened during spring, the top layer of their skin would have gotten gradually thicker over weeks and months of sun exposure. This is not to say that the skin would have been undamaged by today's standards: Dermatologists would be appalled by the leathery and wrinkled appearance of the sun-exposed skin of our ancestors. Skin color, like the levels of sun itself, changed with the seasons and skin quickly showed its age. This is still the case for people who live traditional, mostly outdoor, lives in many parts of the world. There is no preserved skin from thousands of years ago for scientists to study, but we can infer from the effects of sun exposure on modern people that the damage was similar. Chronic sun exposure can lead to skin cancer, but rarely of the variety – melanoma – that would cause death during reproductive age. Until around 10,000 years ago – a drop in the bucket of evolutionary history – human beings made their living by gathering foods, hunting and fishing. Humanity's relationship with the sun and sunlight changed a lot after people started to settle down and live in permanent settlements. Farming and food storage were associated with the development of immovable buildings. By around 6000 B.C. many people throughout the world were spending more time in walled settlements, and more time indoors. While most people still spent most of their time outside, some stayed indoors if they could. Many of them started protecting themselves from the sun when they did go out. By at least 3000 B.C., a whole industry of sun protection grew up to create gear of all sorts – parasols, umbrellas, hats, tents and clothing – that would protect people from the discomfort and inevitable darkening of the skin associated with lengthy sun exposure. While some of these were originally reserved for nobility – like the parasols and umbrellas of ancient Egypt and China – these luxury items began to be made and used more widely. In some places, people even developed protective pastes made out of minerals and plant residues – early versions of modern sunscreens – to protect their exposed skin. Some, like the thanaka paste used by people in Myanmar, still persists today. An important consequence of these practices in traditional agricultural societies was that people who spent most of their time indoors considered themselves privileged, and their lighter skin announced their status. A 'farmer's tan' was not glamorous: Sun-darkened skin was a penalty associated with hard outdoor work, not the badge of a leisurely vacation. From Great Britain to China, Japan and India, suntanned skin became associated with a life of toil. As people have moved around more and faster over longer distances in recent centuries, and spend more time indoors, their skin hasn't caught up with their locations and lifestyles. Your levels of eumelanin probably aren't perfectly adapted to the sun conditions where you live and so aren't able to protect you the same way they might have your ancient ancestors. Even if you're naturally darkly pigmented or capable of tanning, everyone is susceptible to damage caused by episodes of sun exposure, especially after long breaks spent completely out of the sun. The 'vacation effect' of sudden strong UV exposure is really bad because a sunburn signals damage to the skin that is never completely repaired. It's like a bad debt that presents itself as prematurely aged or precancerous skin many years later. There is no healthy tan – a tan doesn't protect you from further sun damage, it's the sign of damage itself. People may love the sun, but we're not our ancestors. Humanity's relationship with the sun has changed, and this means changing your behavior to save your skin. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Nina G. Jablonski, Penn State Read more: Old age isn't a modern phenomenon – many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too How do the chemicals in sunscreen protect our skin from damage? It's a myth that sunscreen prevents melanoma in people of color – a dermatologist explains Nina G. Jablonski consults for L'Oreal and has received funding from the National Science Foundation, The Leakey Foundation, The Wenner-Gren Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and The Rockefeller Foundation.
