Sjorvii

Beelieve it or not, this blue bee is the real deal! 🐝 Meet the blue carpenter bee (Xylocopa caerulea). This large bee can reach lengths of up to 1.1 in (2.8 cm); compare that to a European honey bee which typically grows up to 0.7 in (1.8 cm) long! Unlike honeybees, this critter doesn’t live in large hives, but instead spends most of its time alone. This insect can be found in parts of India, China, and Southeast Asia where it plays an important role in pollinating its habitat. 

You’ve heard of woolly mammoths, but what about woolly tapirs? 🤔Also known as the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque), this species can be found in the cloud forests of South America’s Andes Mountains. Adults can weigh up to 400 lbs (182 kg), and their thick fur coats help insulate them from the cold temperatures of their habitat. Unfortunately, this endangered species is threatened by human activity including hunting and deforestation. 

In the early 2000s, vulture populations in Asia began to crash for no apparent reason. It was eventually discovered that a drug veterinarians used to treat cattle was highly toxic to vultures and poisoning them when they fed on cattle carcasses. The governments of India, Pakistan, and Nepal all worked to ban the toxic drug and support vulture conservation programs.

Inspired by schemes in the wilds of Oregon in north-west US, a stretch of the river was liberated, allowing the water to spill out and find its own way, creating smaller streams, more pools and boggy areas, better for flora and fauna, with the slower water flow making flooding less likely.

Eardley said it had led to a surge in creatures including reptiles, amphibians and insects – which in turn attracted predators.

New research used an AI (note that this is a good use of AI to analyze data for research, not a LLM) to analyze over 45,000 recorded observations of coral reefs with the goal of finding locations where reefs were more likely to survive higher ocean temperatures into the future. Based on over 40 criteria, the AI model predicted at least 64,000 square miles of reef would be able to survive rising ocean temperatures into 2050 and beyond. That's about the size of Wisconsin.

Corals in these "coral refuges" had some combination of a faster rate of recovery, more heat-resistant species, and better protection from heat-related damage.

The study authors hope that their research can help guide more efficient allocation of limited coral conservation resources.

Although coral reefs face immense threat from climate change, our knowledge of coral conservation has increased by leaps and bounds in the last 20 years. Only two decades ago we couldn't breed corals in human care, now we have mobile coral labs that can breed thousands of coral in just a week. We can restore reefs faster and more successfully, and there are scientists working on breeding more heat-resistant coral lineages.

(source)