Wild Watch

Natural genki drink fuels aerial pollinators

May 2, 2000 For most of our planet’s mind-numbingly long history of around 4.6 billion years, the most complex life form on Earth was the prokaryotic cell. The ghostly signatures of these simple cells without nuclei first appear in rocks dated to about 3.75 billion years ago. The length of their nearly 2-billion-year reign on Earth, though not their comp...

Too harsh for humans, perfect for birds

Apr 19, 2000 Think of the automobile and which country comes to mind first? America, of course. ...

Nemuro rolling down a road to nowhere

Apr 5, 2000 We may think of America as the land of the automobile, but for a place that both produces them and is constantly involved in road works for them, we need look no further than Japan. ...

Built to last long winters of discontent

Dec 1, 1999 One of the most fascinating crossroads on earth lies to the northeast of Japan. The ancient Bering land bridge used to span the current Bering Straits, connecting the land masses of Siberia and Alaska into one vast continent and enabling a traffic of plants, animals and even people to exchange across the low-lying ground between Eurasia and North A...

On the mystery of the mooses, or meese

Nov 17, 1999 One of the basic rules of biodiversity is that species diversity increases toward the tropics and decreases toward the poles. ...

How to read a bird's lifestyle in its feet

Nov 3, 1999 A reflexologist will tell you that feet reveal a great deal about a person’s physical state, and that cures can be administered via the feet. ...

Ducking out for a nature moment

Oct 20, 1999 Among the smaller waterfowl, there are basically two types: There are ducks that dive, and there are those that dabble. Diving ducks, such as the tufted duck, scaup, scoter, harlequin and long-tailed duck, are birds of open, deep water, birds of lakes, coasts and the open ocean. Dabbling ducks, on the other hand, are birds of ponds and streams, sha...

When trappers outfoxed the Bering islands

Oct 6, 1999 The red fox is a familiar creature here in Japan, but travel northward and it is soon replaced by another species. At higher latitudes, the arctic or polar fox is the ubiquitous hardy scavenger and predator. It is better adapted to the colder conditions, with a shorter muzzle, smaller ears and a thicker, denser coat than the red fox. It is about th...

Roaming the world's watery dunes

Sep 15, 1999 As the typhoon season cuts between summer and autumn, many species are on the move. This is the season of migration for land birds and seabirds. While the land birds island-hop between Northeast and Southeast Asia, some of the seabirds are embarking on journeys that may span entire oceans. Streaked shearwaters around Japan, for example, will be hea...

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er

Sep 1, 1999 The mammals of the Nansei Shoto may be inconspicuous and difficult to observe, but their distribution, and the relationships between the different species and populations in these islands, provides insight into the past history of the archipelago. This interesting mixture of animals has links in the north to Honshu and in the south to Taiwan and th...

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