Wild Voices

ScienceDaily reports

Scientists have discovered the real reason turtles have shells. While many thought turtle shells were for protection, new findings show that the shells were actually for digging underground to escape the harsh South African environment where these early proto turtles lived.

Read article at Real reason turtles have shells: Burrowing tool: Dr. Tyler Lyson co-authors paper about turtle shells as a burrowing tool, not for protection as previously thought — ScienceDaily

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This video from the USA says about itself:

Restoring Red Spruce in the Southern Appalachians

10 November 2015

Sue Cameron from the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife] Service’s Asheville Field Office recently joined staff from the Southern Highlands Reserve collecting red spruce cones on Pisgah National Forest, near Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the Eastern United States. The cone collection is the first step in a multi-year process to restore red spruce to areas where it was found before the extensive logging and burning at the turn of the 20th century.

The Southern Appalachians are home to the highest peaks in the eastern United States and red spruce is a key part of the forests on those mountain-top areas. Unfortunately, the amount of red spruce found there today is a fraction of what stood 150 years ago. These forests were decimated by logging, which was followed by intensive fires which…

The New York Times  reports

Paleontologists estimate that before the global spread of humankind the average rate of species extinction was one species per million in each one- to 10-million-year interval. Human activity has driven up the average global rate of extinction to 100 to 1,000 times that baseline rate.

The most striking fact about the living environment may be how little we know about it. Even the number of living species can be only roughly calculated. A widely accepted estimate by scientists puts the number at about 10 million. In contrast, those formally described, classified and given two-part Latinized names (Homo sapiens for humans, for example) number slightly more than two million. With only about 20 percent of its species known and 80 percent undiscovered, it is fair to call Earth a little-known planet.

Read full story The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know – The New York Times

constellation of blooms
bees orbit
the purple planet

Black Necked Stilts (BNS) are found from California to as far east as Florida, and as far south as Central America and the Galapagos.

They are waders and have the second longest leg to body proportions of any bird in the world excepting flamingos.

These birds were photographed in The Salton Sea in Southern California.

The Salton Sea is the largest lake in California. It rests directly above The San Andreas Fault, and lies 71.9 meters below sea level.

The Salton Sea is under serious threat, is shrinking, and is highly polluted.

The sea is considered the second most diverse and significant habitat for migrating birds in the US. Over 400 species have been identified here, and it is a critical migratory winter resting stop on The Pacific Flyway.

BNS populations are in decline due to habitat destruction and wetland pollution.

If the sea were to dry up, the millions…

This 30 May 2018 video shows two young roe deer and their mother near Winterswijk in Gelderland province in the Netherlands.

Josien Krosenbrink made the video.

ScienceDaily explores What the first flower looked like more than 100 million years ago 

A new study reconstructs the evolution of flowers over the past 140 million years and sheds new light on what the earliest flowers might have looked lik

via What the first flower looked like more than 100 million years ago — ScienceDaily