Jake Buehler

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

Articles

Bedbugs may have been one of the first urban pests

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Jake Buehler

The earliest cities may have had plenty of parasitic, six-legged tenants. Common bedbugs (Cimex lectularius) experienced a dramatic jump in population size around the time humans congregated in the first cities. The wee bloodsuckers were probably the first insect pests to flourish in a city environment and possibly one of the first urban pests overall, researchers report May 28 in Biology Letters. Originally, bedbugs fed on bats.
Giant ground sloths evolved three different times for the same reason

2 weeks ago | newscientist.com | Jake Buehler

A cooling, drying climate turned sloths into giants â€“ before humans potentially drove the huge animals to extinction. Todayâ€™s sloths are small, famously sluggish herbivores that move through the tropical canopies of rainforests. But for tens of millions of years, South America was home to a dizzying diversity of sloths. Many were ground-dwelling giants, with some behemoths approaching 5 tonnes in weight.
Some iguanas may have rafted across the Pacific 30 million years ago

3 weeks ago | snexplores.org | Jake Buehler

ancestor: (adj. ancestral) A predecessor. It could be a family forebear, such as a parent, grandparent or great-great-great grandparent. Or it could be a species, genus, family or other order of organisms from which some later one evolved. For instance, ancient dinosaurs are the ancestors of today's birds. (antonym: descendant)biologist: A scientist involved in the study of living things. evolution: (v.
Chimp chatter is a lot more like human language than previously thought

4 weeks 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

1 month 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

1 month 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

1 month 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

2 months 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

2 months 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

2 months 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.