It looks like after the Chernobyl disaster, local birds that didn’t use antioxidants to make pigments fared better than birds who were brighter colored.

Dull birds fared better after Chernobyl: study

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) – Birds with bright feathers suffered worse from contamination after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a study into the impact of radiation on different species showed on Wednesday.

Four groups of birds in the forests around Chernobyl — the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 — declined more than others, researchers examining 1,570 birds from 57 different species at varying distances found.

Birds with red, yellow and orange feathers, birds that laid the biggest eggs and those that migrated the farthest were hardest-hit, possibly because they use up more of a natural chemical that forms a remedy against radiation.

“These are the species that seem to be missing or depressed in numbers,” said Timothy Mousseau, an ecologist at the University of South Carolina.

The results bolster an earlier study of barn swallows in Ukraine indicating that impact from radiation varies among species, said Mousseau, who worked with Anders Moller of the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie.

Survival seems to stem from antioxidants — natural chemicals usually obtained through diet that help fight the negative effects of oxygen free radicals generated by DNA-damaging radiation, Mousseau said.

Activities like producing pigments for feathers, migrating long distances and laying large eggs all use up crucial antioxidants and put these groups of birds at greater risk from radiation following the 1986 disaster, he said.

The study, which the team said was the first linking the effects of radiation on population size of different species to antioxidant defense, also shows that reports of species rebounding in the area may be off the mark.

The results could help scientists better understand the implications for animals elsewhere, particularly in mountain regions that tend to have higher levels of natural radiation.

“There are no studies of the biological consequences of such variation in natural levels of radioactivity, but we suggest that some of the consequences can be predicted from the present study,” the researchers said in the study in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology.

Lord Howe Island stick insect
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Phasmatodea
Family: Phasmatidae
Dryococelus australis

The Lord Howe Island stick insect (Dryococelus australis) was thought to be extinct by 1930, only to be rediscovered in 2001 (this phenomenon is known as the “Lazarus effect”). It is extinct in its largest habitat, Lord Howe Island. It has been called “the rarest insect in the world”, as the rediscovered population consisted of fewer than 20 individuals living on the small islet of Ball’s Pyramid. Adult Lord Howe Island stick insects can measure up to 15 cm in length and weigh 25 g with females bigger than males

More biology news

Prehistoric ‘Big Bird’ hit limits of flight
At 150 pounds, Argentavis relied on updrafts to stay aloft, scientists say

By Randolph E. Schmid
Updated: 11:20 p.m. PT July 2, 2007

WASHINGTON – Weighing in at 150 pounds (70 kilograms) or more, the all-time biggest bird couldn’t just hop into the air and fly away, researchers say.

A team led by Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University used computer programs originally designed for aircraft to analyze the probable flight characteristics of Argentavis magnificens, a giant bird that lived in South America 6 million years ago.

Like today’s condors and other large birds, Argentavis would have had to rely on updrafts to remain in the air.
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Doing so, it could have soared for long distances, they conclude in a paper in Tuesday’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Remains of Argentavis have been found both in the plains of northern Argentina, called pampas, and also in the foothills of the Andes.

With a wingspan of about 23 feet (7 meters), Argentavis is the largest-known flying bird, the researchers said.

By measuring the size of the bones they determined how large its flight muscles would have been, and calculated that it would not have been capable of takeoff or of sustained flight just by flapping its wings.

“Gliding would not be a problem. It would be the takeoff. That is the main limiting factor,” Chatterjee said in a telephone interview. “In the mountains, takeoff was not a problem, but sooner or later it would come to the plain.”

As far as getting airborne there, Chatterjee suggested the birds could launch from a high point in the foothills. In addition, with a slight headwind and as little as a 10-degree downhill slope they would probably have been able to take off in a running start, the researchers said.

But it looks as if this was just about the size limit for a flying bird, he said.

A steady east wind blowing from the Atlantic Ocean and rising in the foothills of the mountains would have created ideal conditions for soaring flight, in which they estimated the giant hunter could reach 40 mph (64 kilometers per hour).

“Large broad-winged landbirds, such as eagles, buzzards, storks and vultures with slotted wings are masters of thermals and travel cross-country by gliding in circles,” they researchers said.

Thermals are areas of rising warm air and can often be easily determined from a distance because cumulus clouds develop above them when the moisture in that air cools and condenses.

In every culture there are tales of large birds, whether local Indians, Hindus or others, Chatterjee observed.

“Now we can show that they actually existed,” he said, though this bird lived millions of years before humans walked the planet.

And with a skull nearly 2 feet (60 centimeters) long, Argentavis “was catching sizable prey with its formidable beak.”

The research was funded by the National Geographic Society and Texas Tech University.

Ancient penguins waddled, swam in warm locales

By Will Dunham Mon Jun 25, 8:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Penguins were waddling and swimming in warm locales tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought, according to scientists who described on Monday fossils of two previously unknown types found in Peru.

One of the two, named Icadyptes salasi, lived about 36 million years ago, possessed a long, spear-like beak, and stood 5 feet tall.

“This one had a beak you had to reckon with,” North Carolina State University paleontologist Julia Clarke, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.

It was bigger than any penguin alive today and the third-largest penguin known to have lived, Clarke said.

The earliest known fossil of these aquatic flightless birds, found in New Zealand, dates to about 61 million years ago, not long after the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other life forms 65 million years ago.

The largest penguin around today is the Emperor Penguin, which stands almost 4 feet tall.

The second newly discovered species was smaller and slightly older than Icadyptes.

Perudyptes devriesi lived about 42 million years ago and was about the size of today’s King Penguin, about 2-1/2 to 3 feet tall. It is thought to represent an early part of penguin evolutionary history.

Both of these ancient penguins lived on Peru’s southern coast and were found relatively close to one another in a coastal Peruvian desert in 2005. Penguins still live on Peru’s coast.

These remains are among the most complete ever found of extinct penguins and throw into doubt existing notions about the timing and pattern of penguin evolution and expansion.

Many scientists had believed that penguins did not leave cold-weather regions like Antarctica and New Zealand for warmer, more equatorial regions until perhaps 4 million to 8 million years ago, but these two newly discovered species indicate this took place tens of millions of years earlier.

Penguins, denizens of the Southern Hemisphere, populate cold climates such as Antarctica, but also inhabit warmer regions closer to the Equator like the Galapagos Islands.

They are beautifully adapted to life in the ocean, with wings that have evolved into flippers, allowing them to swim gracefully through the water, catching fish, squid and other food.

The research, which also included scientists from Peru and Argentina, was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This illustration shows two newly discovered extinct penguins, both found in Peru, along with an existing Peruvian penguin. On the right is Icadyptes salasi, which lived about 36 million years ago and stood five feet (1.5 meters) tall. It was bigger than any penguin alive today and the third largest penguin known to have lived. On the left is Perudyptes devriesi, which lived about 42 million years ago, was about 2-1/2 to 3 feet tall (0.76 to 0.91 meters). In the middle is the only penguin inhabiting Peru today, Spheniscus humbolti. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (KristinLamm/Handout/Reuters)

This undated handout photo provided by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows two fossils recently discovered in Peru reveal that early penguins responded differently to natural climate change than scientists would have predicted. The smaller of the two, Perudyptes devriesi, was comparable in size to the living king penguin. The larger, Icadyptes salasi, would have been fearsome to encounter at over five feet tall, with a seven-inch beak, and is one of the largest penguins ever described. (AP Photo, PNAS, Daniel Ksepka)

These penguins don’t march, they stomp!