Jake Buehler

Science writer, hiker, diver, dad. I'm into reef fish, conifers, & hot peppers. I write about weird lifeforms, natural history, & wildlife conservation. He/him

Articles

Chimp chatter is a lot more like human language than previously thought

6 days ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

Grunts, barks, screams and pants ring through Taï National Park in Cȏte d’Ivoire. Chimpanzees there combine these different calls like linguistic Legos to relay complex meanings when communicating, researchers report May 9 in Science Advances. Chimps can combine and flexibly rearrange pairs of sounds to convey different ideas or meanings, an ability that investigators have not documented in other nonhuman animals.
These crocodile-like beasts reached the Caribbean, outlasting mainland kin

2 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

Athletic, crocodile-like reptiles with bladed teeth made their last stand in the Caribbean as recently as 4.5 million years ago. New fossils unearthed in the Dominican Republic suggest the reptile group went extinct millions of years later than previously thought, researchers report April 30 in Proceedings B of the Royal Society. The findings also help paint an unexpected picture of ancient Caribbean ecosystems.
Ancient, water-loving rhinos gathered in big, hippolike herds

2 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

Millions of years ago in Nebraska, chunky, stumpy-legged rhinoceroses were party animals, crowding together in huge herds at watering holes and rivers. Chemical signatures in the fossilized teeth of the extinct, corgi-shaped beasts suggest they didn’t roam widely, instead forming big, local herds unlike the more solitary rhinos of today, researchers report April 4 in Scientific Reports.
Ancient megareptile gets a revised family tree

3 weeks ago | science.org | Jake Buehler

More than 75 million years ago in the vast, fruitful wetlands of Cretaceous North America, a supersized reptile prowled the murk, likely feeding on large dinosaurs as it grew to immense sizes, possibly as long as 12 meters. Deinosuchus, whose name means the “terrible crocodile,” has long been considered a close relative of modern alligators. But now, a new study presents a revised family tree for Deinosuchus and its relatives, placing the predator outside of the alligator family entirely.
Gila monsters may struggle to survive climate change

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

For Gila monsters that live in the warming Mojave Desert, relocating to beat the heat may not be so simple. While climate change might create some better habitats, the lizards could be left behind in regions that become harder to tolerate, researchers report in the March Ecology and Evolution. Gila monsters (Heloderma suspectum) are icons of North America’s deserts. These chunky, black and pink-orange reptiles are among the world’s few venomous lizards.
Sharks aren’t silent after all

1 month ago | newscientist.com | Jake Buehler

At least one shark species has a bark to go along with its bite. It can make clicking noises, scientists report, a first among an animal group once thought to be totally silent. During her doctoral research at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, Carolin Nieder, now at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, was studying sharks’ hearing.
Some of Sydney's koalas are chlamydia-free, but still at risk

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

Some of Sydney’s koalas are facing an uncompromising dilemma. The koalas living in one corner of Australia’s largest city are perilously inbred, researchers report February 26 in Conservation Genetics. But the solution — interbreeding with neighboring koala populations — risks introducing the koalas to a deadly sexually transmitted disease.
The mystery of how iguanas crossed the Pacific Ocean may be solved

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

Scaly sailors may have made a record-setting oceanic voyage. Tens of millions of years ago, iguanas in North America floated across the Pacific Ocean. Clinging to vegetation washed into the sea, they traveled one-fifth of the way around the world, eventually disembarking and settling in the islands of the South Pacific, researchers report March 17 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The seafaring lizards’ trip may be the longest known transocean emigration among land vertebrates.
Dark coats may have helped the earliest mammals hide from hungry dinosaurs

2 months ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

Zebra stripes? Leopard print? Neither were in vogue among the earliest mammals during the Age of Dinosaurs. Early mammals and their close relatives probably sported dark, drab coats from snout to tail, researchers report in the March 14 Science. The monochrome ensembles may have helped ancient mammals blend into their nighttime surroundings and evade predators. Many dinosaurs — especially birds — showcase a vibrant array of colorful feathers.
Crickets and flies face off in a quiet evolutionary battle

2 months ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

Hawaii’s male crickets can’t hide from their buzzing boogeymen for long. In just a handful of years, cricket-killing parasitic flies have evolved hearing that’s more sensitive to their prey’s new, covert love songs, researchers report February 20 in Current Biology. The nocturnal fly Ormia ochracea lays its eggs on crickets, which hatch into larvae that eventually make a meal of their host.