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Tag: mammals
Understanding How Ancestors Today's Mammals Responded Climate Change
2014-08-20 22:18:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
RedOrbit: About 10 million years into the current Cenozoic Era, or roughly 56 million years ago, during a climate that was hot and wet, two groups of mammals moved from land to water. These were the cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins and porpoises, and the sirenians, with its sea cows, manatees and dugongs. Over time, their bodies began to adapt to their new environment. They lost their hind limbs, and their forelimbs began to resemble flippers. Their nostrils moved higher on their skulls. The cetaceans...
Tags: change
understanding
climate
responded
Is Climate Change Increasing the Disease Risk for Arctic Marine Mammals?
2014-02-14 22:31:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
National Geographic: Climate change is melting Arctic sea ice, leaving animals that depend on it high and dry. Marine mammals like ringed seals have to find new areas to give birth, raise their young, and haul out. And now, experts say, these animals must deal with another woeemerging diseases. Ice-free parts of the Arctic seem to be opening up new areas for more than just shipping companies. A new species of parasite, Sarcocystis pinnipedi, is on the move south, infecting gray seals and killing off as much as 20...
Tags: change
risk
increasing
disease
Arctic Marine Mammals Act as Ecosystem Sentinels Amid Changing Climate
2014-02-14 22:02:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Nature World: Polar bears, walruses, seals and other Arctic marine mammals act as ecosystem sentinels, according to a new study, which suggests that the behaviors of the animals can be used to provide clues about how the ecosystem is responding to a changing climate. The news was presented this week at the 2014 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. NOAA oceanographer Sue Moore presented the findings, highlighting how various Arctic marine mammals are responding to...
Tags: act
changing
marine
climate
Loss of Arctic Sea Ice Eliminates Major Barrier for Parasites in Marine Mammals
2014-02-14 18:12:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Climate News Network: The great Arctic thaw--up to 50 percent of sea ice by area and 75 percent by volume in the summer season--could be offering new opportunities for one of the planets most successful parasites. Toxoplasma gondii, an infection spread by almost all cat species, has been identified for the first time in the western Arctic Beluga whale. Toxoplasma is found almost everywhere that cats settle: domestic pets, ocelots, cougar, wild cats all carry and spread oocysts of the parasite (structures it uses to...
Mass Extinction of Large Ice Age Mammals Linked to Climate-Induced Vegetation Changes
2014-02-06 02:31:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed
Nature World: It is generally accepted that climate change led to the extinction of the mammoth and other large mammals following the last Ice Age, but an international team of researchers behind a new report in the journal Nature claims to have found the smoking gun that pinpoints which of climate change's myriad effects led to the mass extinction of large mammals. By analyzing sediment samples from more than 10,000 years ago and the gut contents of permafrozen woolly rhinos, mammoths and other extinct Ice Age...