"Scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of just blood. They compared the genome of common vampire bats to 26 other bat species and identified 13 genes that are missing or no longer work in vampire bats."
"EPA to approve plan for four types of neonicotinoid chemical to be used on US farmland – despite being banned in Europe".
"U.S. wildlife officials reversed their previous finding that a widely used and highly toxic pesticide could jeopardize dozens of plants and animals with extinction, after receiving pledges from chemical manufacturers that they will change product labels for malathion so that it’s used more carefully by gardeners, farmers and other consumers."
"Habitat loss, pesticides and climate change are threatening insect populations worldwide. In 2019, Biological Conservation reported that 40% of all insects species are declining globally and that a third of them are endangered."
"For a few frenzied weeks, beekeepers from around the United States truck billions of honeybees to California to rent them to almond growers who need the insects to pollinate the state's most valuable crop."
"The number of western monarch butterflies overwintering in California rebounded to more than 247,000 a year after fewer than 2,000 appeared, but the tally remained far below the millions that were seen in the 1980s, leaders of an annual count said on Tuesday."
"Rewilding teams are facing a huge task to encourage the return of wildlife after decades of damage by the forestry industry".
"Edward O. Wilson, a biologist and author who conducted pioneering work on biodiversity, insects and human nature — and won two Pulitzer Prizes along the way — died on Sunday in Burlington, Mass. He was 92."
"The loss of marshes, bogs and swamps is driving a rapid, global decline in dragonflies, researchers say.
Their plight has been highlighted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's latest Red List of Threatened Species, following its first comprehensive assessment of this colourful group of insects.
Wetlands loss is due to urbanisation and unsustainable agriculture, it says.
And now, 16% of the world's dragonflies are under threat of extinction. "
"The vital Kansas ecosystem is rapidly shrinking. Its future depends on private landowners like Lorna Harder."
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