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Oct 30, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | David Moscato |Ian Dickinson
Sebastian Stockmaier, University of Tennessee You can probably picture a vampire: Pale, sharply fanged undead sucker of blood, deterred only by sunlight, religious paraphernalia and garlic. They’re gnarly creatures, often favourite subjects for movies or books. Luckily, they’re only imaginary … or are they? There are real vampires in the world of bats. Out of over 1,400 currently described bat species, three are known to feed on blood exclusively.
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Oct 25, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | Ethan Shaw |David Moscato
Across the vast Northern Hemisphere range of the moose, this biggest member of the deer family is just past the rigours of the rut, aka the breeding season. That autumnal stretch of the calendar sees bull moose transform into swaggering, hot-blooded hormone monsters, and sometimes a human being gets caught in the crosshairs of the action. Such was the case in late September with Caleb Lewis, up in Arostook County, the biggest and northernmost county in the US state of Maine.
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Jul 16, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | David Moscato
Considered one of the rarest snake species in North America, the Louisiana pine snake once slithered through longleaf pine ecosystems throughout Louisiana and eastern Texas, but poor land management and extensive logging have decimated their habitat and restricted the snakes to just a few fragments of their former range.
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Jun 21, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | Ashley Braun |David Moscato |Ethan Shaw
Douglas R. Cavener, Penn State Everything in biology ultimately boils down to food and sex. To survive as an individual you need food. To survive as a species you need sex. Not surprisingly then, the age-old question of why giraffes have long necks has centered around food and sex. After debating this question for the past 150 years, biologists still cannot agree on which of these two factors was the most important in the evolution of the giraffe’s neck.
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May 24, 2024 | 
etsu.edu | David Moscato
The 2024 field season is happening now at the Gray Fossil Site and Museum, supported by East Tennessee State University. Every summer, paleontologists at the Gray Fossil Site and Museum dig into the sediments of an ancient pond and uncover the five-million-year-old remains of plants and animals from the deep history of East Tennessee.
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May 9, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | David Moscato
Carla Jacquelyn du Toit, University of Cambridge Hadeda ibises (Bostrychia hagedash) are one of the most familiar species of birds across sub-Saharan Africa. They are large, long-legged birds with long, thin beaks for probing invertebrates out of soil, and though they appear dull brown at a glance, they actually have beautiful iridescent feathers on their wings.
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Jan 30, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | Ethan Shaw |David Moscato
Although the puma – the most widely distributed large cat of the Western Hemisphere – is famously elusive, our era of trail cameras and smartphones has served up more than a few rare records of the lithe beast in predatory action. From British Columbia to California, pumas – also commonly called mountain lions or cougars – have been photographed or filmed taking down deer, overall their most important North American prey.
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Jan 19, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | Maximillian Theo |David Moscato |Ethan Shaw
Snakes occupy a particularly negative position in human consciousness. They are seen as mindless, anti-social, malevolent creatures. Something to be feared and difficult to relate to. A recent finding, however, adds to the growing proof that the lives of snakes are far more complex – and far more social – than we typically give them credit for. Scientists worked with 12 years of data to come to the surprising conclusions that Butler's garter snakes actually form sex- and age-based social networks.
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Jan 16, 2024 | 
earthtouchnews.com | Ethan Shaw |David Moscato |Amy Mathews Amos
Another member of the biggest cat species in the Americas has made an appearance north of the United States-Mexico border. The Arizona Game & Fish Department recently confirmed that trail cam footage captured late last month in the Huachuca Mountains of southeastern Arizona shows a previously undocumented jaguar within the US.
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Dec 30, 2023 | 
earthtouchnews.com | Ethan Shaw |David Moscato
Marcus Lashley, University of FloridaThey go by many names – pigs, hogs, swine, razorbacks – but whatever you call them, wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are one of the most damaging invasive species in North America. They cause millions of dollars in crop damage yearly and harbor dozens of pathogens that threaten humans and pets, as well as meat production systems. Feral hogs’ long snouts and tusks allow them to rip and root their way across the landscape in search of food.
