Scienceblogtwo

According to new research from the University of Bristol Vet School, Namibian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, and Save the Rhino Trust, there are no statistically significant differences in the breeding, birth, survival, life span, and death rates between horned and dehorned black rhinos. The poaching of black rhinos is just one of the many risks to the survival of this critically endangered animal. In an effort to prevent poaching, many reserves throughout several African nations, including Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, now dehorn their rhinos. However, few research have examined the effects of dehorning, particularly in black rhinos. The goal of the study was to add to the body of knowledge regarding the productivity of populations of horned and hornless black rhinoceros (of the subspecies Diceros bicornis bicornis) in four subpopulations in Namibia. One of the populations had never been dehorned, whereas three of the populations had undergone some kind of dehor...

Researchers from the University of Vienna studied the cries of Asian elephants using an acoustic camera that shows sound pressure. Elephants rarely used their mouths alone to create their low frequency "rumbles," preferring instead to use their trunk or their mouth and trunk together. This is the first study to unequivocally show that a non-human animal can emit calls using both its mouth and its nose. The study was just released in the publication "Animals." The world's longest nasal elongation is found in elephants. Unsurprisingly, when they release their low-frequency, partially infrasonic rumbles via the lengthy trunk, they resound even deeper. Veronika Beeck and Angela Stoeger's team of cognitive biologists from the University of Vienna have recently demonstrated that these vocal tract resonances, commonly known as a nasal pronunciation in human language, are essential for animal communication. The researchers hypothesize that Asian elephants may be abl...