Lions Increase Kills After a Full Moon

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Moon phases influence the behavior of all living things, including humans. Lunar power is due to two primary forces: gravity and light changes.
Lions and other predators attack more during the week after a full moon. “The first hours of the night are darkest during the week following a full moon, and the lions are hungriest at that time because of the low predation success during full moon nights,” according to Noga Kronfeld-Schor, who led a study on moonlight’s affect on various species. The paper is published in the latest Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Sea Lampreys Have Hot Sex

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Male sea lampreys need to be pretty hot to attract females — thermally hot, that is.

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DCL Biologists from Michigan State University have discovered a ridge of fat cells near the anterior dorsal fins of sexually mature male lampreys that heats up when females approach. Until now, scientists had thought this "fat bump" was just ornamental.

In addition, this is the first such thermogenic, or heat-producing, tissue identified in a cold-blooded species, the team reported last week in The Journal of Experimental Biology. (See Video of Lampreys' Hot Sex)

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"In bears, when they come out of hibernation, this type of brown fat helps them become active again," said Yu-Wen Chung-Davidson, a biologist at Michigan State University and a co-author of the paper. "This fish also has this fat cell that generates heat. It's beyond my imagination."

Producing heat is energy-intensive and burns a lot of calories, especially in cold-blooded animals. But sea lampreys die once they spawn, so it's in their best interest to use up whatever energy they have to secure a mate, Chung-Davidson told LiveScience.Undo editsAlpha

Nuclear Fallout May Help Track Illegal Ivory

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Nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s may at last have a silver lining, because researchers can now measure radiocarbon levels to tell when animals (including humans) were born and when they died, critical information in helping to track poachers of elephants, hippos, rhinos and other wildlife. 

The technique, outlined in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, measures radiocarbon-14 deposited in tissue, such as horns, hooves, nails, tusks, hair and teeth. It then uses that information to determine the animal’s birth and death data.

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The testing method could help curb the illegal ivory trade, which is wiping African elephants off the planet.

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“Ivory seizures and illegal trade of animals is on the scale of many billions of dollars each year,” senior author Thure Cerling, a University of Utah geochemist, told Discovery News. “Where did this material come from? Is it from recently poached animals? Is it from some government stockpile? These are important questions that can serve as a starting point for further investigative work.”

National Zoo Finds 'Rusty,' Missing Red Panda

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At around 2:15 p.m., the zoo reported that the panda was back, safe and sound, after what must have been a scary experience for a little guy.

Rusty, a red panda who turns one in July, was introduced to the zoo on June 10 from the Lincoln Children’s Zoo in Nebraska. And Monday morning, just two weeks later, the zoo tweeted out that the animal was missing, having last been seen at 6 p.m. Sunday evening. The zoo requested the public’s help in tracking him down.

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After almost a day missing, Rusty is back, the zoo said, having been found in Adams Morgan, a nearby neighborhood in Northwest Washington D.C.

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"Rusty the red panda has been recovered, crated and is headed safely back to the National Zoo! Thank you to everyone who helped us look for and find him!," the zoo wrote on its Facebook page.

National Zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson told the Associated Press Monday morning that Rusty couldn't have gotten very far.

"Unless he was very motivated, he would not wander far from his habitat," Baker-Masson said. "This red panda is not down on the (National) Mall."

Red pandas are arboreal, territorial animals, the zoo’s Twitter feed added, so it would be unusual for Rusty to wander far from his home range -- in his case his exhibit at the zoo.