Woolly Mammoth

Extincting the woolly mammoth wasn’t easy, let’s make no bones about that. It took a lot of labor-intensive spear-crafting and man vs. beast showdowns in the snow, plus a pinch of climate change, to push this megafauna species into oblivion. But de-extincting the mammoth? Well, that’s arguably even more of a mega-challenge for humankind. One that we are nevertheless creeping towards conquering.

“We” in this instance is a team of scientists at Harvard University, whose work involves applying modern genetic engineering techniques to prehistoric mammoth DNA. To date, 39 mammoth bodies have been extracted from sites across Eurasia and North America, where mammoths roamed until about 3,600 years ago. By tinkering with genetic material from these remains the researchers have had some big wins.

Woolly Mammoth Revival: The Progress Report

The Harvard team has already successfully spliced woolly mammoth genes into live Asian elephant cells grown in the lab, a task that’s no doubt even more finicky than it sounds. Next on the researchers’ list of things to do is turn these “blank” hybrid cells into specialized cells—including red blood cells, fat cells and ear cells—so they can study the traits that result from expression of the mammoth genes they contain.

Key Woolly Mammoth Adaptations

Despite how it may seem, the blood, fat and ears of mammoths weren’t selected for special investigation at random. The ability of mammoth red blood cells to release more oxygen in cold temperatures, the tendency of mammoth fat cells to form a blubbery layer under the skin, and the relatively small size of mammoth ears were all adaptations that helped these massive mammals dominate in chilly environments, unlike their elephant cousins, who strictly preferred warmer climes.

Introducing the “Elemoth” or “Mammephant”

These days, elephants still don’t mix well with low temperatures, and that’s not expected to change. At least not until they are “reprogrammed” with mammoth genes to do so. See where all this is going? Yes, the Harvard team hopes to engineer elephants able to thrive in the same cold, vast ecosystems as mammoths did, thus improving our ability to conserve elephant species while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions from these areas (it’s a grassland restoration/permafrost insulation thing).

So, technically speaking, we’re on the way to bringing back bits of extinct woolly mammoths rather than these hairy beasts in their entirety. Still, even partially de-extincting a megafauna species is far from easy, as those amongst us who have swapped skills in spear making for those in gene splicing already know very well.

Lichens

A smear of gum will cling to a park bench as if its life (if it had one) depended on it, a little bit like a lichen. Also like lichens, gum smears appear as pastel-colored scabs, which passers-by rarely ever notice, let alone stop to ponder. It’s a sad truth that lichens don’t receive a negative wrap; much worse, they get no wrap at all. They are the unsung heroes of the plant and fungi worlds, and frankly it is hard to see why.

Before we continue let’s set one thing straight; not all lichens are flat like scabs. In fact 2D, crust-like lichens, sensibly known by lichenologists as crustose lichens, make up just a smallish proportion of the more than 20,000 lichen species known. Most other lichens are fruticose (shrubby, bushy or beard-like in structure) or foliose (lobed or leafy-looking) while others still are something in between. Lichens also come in a huge range of colors, including showy yellows and oranges and reds.

Lichens are Composite Organisms

Yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, a lichen isn’t a single organism but contains at least two different kinds of life. Just like many corals—which consist of colonies of tiny animals that have even tinier plants living inside them—every lichen is made up of organisms belonging to different kingdoms; usually a fungus and a plant, or a fungus and a cyanobacteria (a type of bacteria that can photosynthesize). And these very different sorts of organism have found clever, win-win ways to co-exist.

Why Living Together Works for a Lichen’s Components

Within a lichen, the fungus scores some of the sugary food that the plant or cyanobacteria uses sunshine to produce. Meanwhile the plant/cyanobacteria gets a fungus-walled home in which to stay safe and moist, plus nutrients scrounged by the fungus from the surface it’s stuck to. In rarer cases, seemingly greedy ‘lichenized’ fungi receive food from two different photosynthesising sugar daddies. Lichens, whatever their make-up, represent share-housing at its very best.

The Benefits of Being Composite

Basic lichen biology is an absolute head-spin, so take your time in understanding all of this. Know as well that there is a crazy amount of sense in the lichen’s very weird way of life. Because of it many lichens can survive, and indeed thrive, in places where independent plants and fungi fear to tread. They can grow on surfaces ranging from soil, rock, wood and bone to concrete and metal and glass, and they inhabit every non-icy, non-aquatic (and non sand-dune) environment on Earth.

Add to these talents the value of lichens as colonizers of barren surfaces, absorbers of pollutants, winter food for animals like caribou and reindeer, and sources of color for human clothing, and you can see why lichens deserve much more credit than they get. Learning to love lichens means embracing these unassuming fungus-plant/bacterium pairs much like they embrace signposts and pavements.

Zika Virus

Deep in an African jungle, a monkey sits high in the canopy of a lush forest. This is a special monkey; he is called Rhesus 766. Every so often, people come to visit him. They give him food and water, clean his aerial pen, and check that he is healthy.

One day, Rhesus 766 comes down with a fever. His visitors, concerned, bring him back to a building near the forest to run some tests. What they find is striking; a brand new, unknown virus is causing Rhesus 766’s symptoms.

Although this sounds like something from the movies Outbreak or Contagion, it’s actually a true story. The year was 1947, and the people caring for Rhesus 766 were researchers from the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), an institute set up a few years earlier by the Rockefeller Foundation to combat yellow fever. Over time, UVRI branched out and set up a monitoring program to detect what other viruses were circulating within the jungle.

This is where Rhesus 766 came into the picture. He was a sentinel monkey, and by studying what viruses he picked up from his environment, researchers could keep tabs on what viruses were circulating in the area. There were probably many monkeys like him, but Rhesus 766 lived in the Zika forest, hence the name of the new virus.

A year after the Zika virus was found in Rhesus 766, researchers at UVRI found it in a mosquito as well. The rest is history: mosquitoes provided a way for the virus to get from monkey to man. Within four years, antibodies against the Zika virus were found in the blood of several people in nearby areas, indicating that they had been infected with the new Zika virus, too.

For more than 50 years, the Zika virus quietly remained in sparsely populated African areas, never causing any real problems. That all changed, though, when modern aviation allowed vast numbers of people to travel around the world. Suddenly, the Zika virus began showing up in large population centers where people had never been exposed to the disease before and had no protection against it. Where it had previously just been humming quietly in the background, it now was infecting a large enough number of people to really show its devastating effects.

Where do new viruses come from?

The fact that the Zika virus originated in a monkey isn’t unique; most new viruses originally come from other non-human animals. Like the Zika virus, many of these diseases originate in tropical areas. Warm, humid weather often combines with a large abundance and diversity of both mosquitoes and mammals to create a perfect storm of factors favorable to creating new viruses. A greater number of animals gives viruses more opportunities to evolve, and as soon as one does, mosquitoes quickly carry it to other animals.

Another important source of new viruses is agriculture. In these settings, people and animals are often living together in crowded, unsanitary conditions, perfect for viruses to circulate. One example of this is the rinderpest virus (RPV), which caused rinderpest in cattle and was eradicated in 2011, but not before it had evolved to cause a new human disease: measles.

How do new viruses cross from animals into people?

Your body is constantly being bombarded with all kinds of viruses. Luckily, a virus will only be able to infect you if it can get into your cells, and it’s not a simple matter of just floating up to any cell and busting its way in like the Kool-Aid man. The virus needs to find a specific door to the inside of the cell – called a receptor – and latch onto it before it can enter the cell.

If a virus can’t attach to the receptor and get into the cell, it can’t infect the person. This is why some people are immune to certain diseases. HIV, for example, relies on finding CD4/CCR5 receptors, which are normally used by certain white blood cells to communicate with other cells. Some people have mutations that cause these receptors to stay hidden within their cells; the HIV can’t find the doorway to get in, thus making them immune to HIV.

Cells have lots of different types of receptors, and they’re usually species-specific. For example, if a virus is adapted to find specific receptors in a bird, and makes its way into a human, it probably won’t find the right receptors in human cells and thus cannot infect the person. This is why you can’t give the flu to your dog or cat.

This isn’t always the case. Some receptors are the same in other animals as they are in people, and the more closely related two species are, the more similar their cell receptors are likely to be. The more similar that the two receptors are, the easier it will be for the viruses to evolve to take advantage of the new receptor type. This is why many human diseases come from animals like monkeys.

Are more viruses evolving now?

Viruses have existed for as long as their hosts have and will continue to evolve and change in the future. Recently, though, it seems like there are many more new viruses in the news – everything from avian influenza to the Zika virus.

Part of the reason why there are so many new viruses is because the environment is changing at a rapid pace through climate change, deforestation, and many other factors. As a result, there are new opportunities and niches for viruses to exploit. For example, as the climate becomes warmer, disease-bearing mosquitoes thrive and expand their ranges, bringing viruses like dengue and chikungunya with them. Who knows how these viruses will evolve once they make their way into new animals and possibly human populations?

So, the next time you spend time outside in the summer, make sure you bring your bug spray!

American Bison

Imagine a mountain of giant skulls of animals that people had killed. This haunting image is a real result of actions by settlers in the 1800s.

As they began moving westward across North America, settlers encountered huge herds of bison roaming the prairies and used their hides and meat to support a growing population. They would also collect the animals’ skulls and bones and grind them into fertilizer to enrich the new farmland they had created. Thus the iconic photos of piles of bison skulls awaiting grinding.

But this story is not about how bison neared extinction. This story is about how scientists are bringing them back.

What do you get when you cross a bison with a cow? A Beefalo.

Creating new bison populations from scratch is a tricky process. One of the main problems is that most of the existing animals aren’t even pure bison!

When people came to their senses in the settler days and realized that bison were on the brink of extinction, they decided to take drastic measures to save them. One of the things they tried was interbreeding them with cattle to create a hybrid that they called – I kid you not – beefalo.

50/50 beefalo hybrids aren’t especially common these days, but as a result of these early experiments, most bison in captive and wild settings still have tiny amounts of cattle genes. This means that while the bison we see are actually not 100% pure bison, for most intents and purposes, they are still generally considered bison.

Big Problems From Brucellosis-Infected Bison

When looking at reintroduction efforts, though, biologists want to release 100% genetically pure bison, not the ancestors of the beefalo. However, there are only a few remaining vestiges of genetically pure bison scattered in isolated places, including Yellowstone National Park, and these bison come with some excess baggage.

The Yellowstone bison herd is infected with a disease called brucellosis, which causes pregnant bison moms to abort their fetuses. Half of all the bison in Yellowstone are infected with this disease, and there is no cure. This isn’t ideal for reintroduction efforts and rebuilding populations of one of the most iconic species in North America.

Science to the Rescue!

This big problem needed a creative solution, and researchers at Colorado State University’s Animal Reproduction and Biotechnology Lab were up to the task. Their mission: figure out a way to get rid of the disease so that genetically pure bison could be reintroduced to North America, starting in Colorado.

Dr. Jennifer Barfield developed a way to take semen and embryos from Yellowstone bison and physically cleanse and remove the brucellosis bacteria from these microscopic materials. Once they are free of brucellosis, the semen can be used for artificial insemination and the embryos can be implanted in surrogate moms that are the disease-free beefalo ancestors. That way, the scientists created disease-free, genetically pure bison babies that could be reintroduced outside of Yellowstone.

The process worked extremely well. Due to these new methods and help from numerous city, county, and federal agencies, a small herd of 10 genetically pure bison was able to be released in northern Colorado in October 2015.

These bison are the first test in new reintroduction efforts that will hopefully allow herds of genetically pure bison to roam again in North America’s native landscapes, just like they did one hundred and fifty years ago.

Snow Leopard

The Apex Predator of the Himalayas

Often referred to as the “Ghost of the Mountains,” the snow leopard is an elusive big cat that reigns among the peaks of the Himalayas. Snow leopards act as an ambassador of the planet’s highest places and are considered sacred by the people who live there. As an apex predator, the presence of this big cat indicates a healthy ecosystem.

Snow leopards are known for their striking beauty, with smoky-colored coats tinted with cream and yellow shades and patterned with black spots. The spots are called rosettes, and each cat has a pattern that is unique like a fingerprint. This cat is more medium in size when compared to other big cats. They stand to about 60cm at the shoulder and have a body length between 1.8-2.3m. Their tail can be 1m long! Females can weigh around 35-40kg, while males can weigh 99-45-55kg. Unique among other cat species are their pale grey to greenish eyes.

Closest Relatives of the Snow Leopard

Snow leopards belong to the genus Panthera, along with tigers, lions, common leopards, and jaguars. Although their common name suggests that they could be closely related to common leopards, they are actually most genetically related to tigers. Currently, there are 4,000 to 7,000 snow leopards left in the wild. Their elusive nature and high altitude habitat make them very difficult to find and study or to gain a more precise population estimate. China has the largest population of between 2,000 to 2,500 snow leopards; Mongolia comes in second with about 1,000 snow leopards.

Snow Leopard Habits

Snow leopards communicate with one another through territorial marking methods, such as leaving scrape marks, scat, spraying rocks with urine, scratching on trees, and rubbing their face on rock surfaces. Unlike other big cats, snow leopards can’t roar. However, they can growl, hiss, spit, and make chuffing sounds. During breeding season, they will often communicate with loud yowling cries that carry across the mountain range. Outside of breeding season, snow leopards are primarily solitary. Sometimes siblings will stay together for some time after they venture from their mother. This cat is most active around dusk and dawn (crepuscular) and throughout the night (nocturnal), whereas people are active during the day (diurnal). In areas where there are few people, snow leopards may be more diurnal.

Snow Leopard Reproduction

Breeding season occurs once a year between January and mid-March. Intense vocalizations and marking activity takes place during this time frame. Estrus in females can last anywhere from 2 -12 days, and gestation will last between 90-103 days. The specific mating season ensures that cubs will be born in late spring or early summer and have plenty of time to grow strong enough to keep up with their mother during the winter. Average litter sizes are usually 2-3 cubs. For the first 4-6 weeks, cubs will remain hidden in a den-site. Then they will stay with their mother for 18-22 months before setting off on their own. By age 2 or 3, snow leopards are mature enough to mate. It is estimated that wild snow leopards may live up to 10-12 years.

Snow Leopard Range

The twelve countries that encompass the snow leopard’s range include: China, India, Mongolia, Russia, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. They are generally found at elevations between 3,000-5,400m above sea level. In Russia and Mongolia, they may be found as low as 600m. Patrolling ridge-lines and rocky outcrops, a snow leopard’s home range is dependent on the availability of prey. Home ranges have been recorded at being as small as 60km2 or as large as 1,000km2.

Adaptations: Warmth and Agility

There are several physical features of snow leopards that have aided in their adaptation to a rugged, harsh environment. Snow leopards use their long, thick-furred tails not only for balance as they leap across ledges and boulders, but also to wrap around themselves to keep warm. The hair on their bellies can be up to 12cm thick to protect them from the cold as they walk through deep snow. Short front legs and long back legs enable the cat to more easily climb throughout its habitat. Those legs also allow the cat to be able to jump distances of up to 15m across and 6m high! Wide paws act as snowshoes, keeping the cat from sinking in snow, and allow for a more effective grip on steep rock faces. Compared to other big cats, snow leopards have large nasal cavities, which function to help warm the frigid air before it hits the lungs. Surprisingly, when it comes to being physiologically adapted to breathing at high altitudes, snow leopards’ blood oxygen is no different than a house cat! Researchers are still trying to figure out how they cope. One theory suggests that the cats may just breathe harder.

Snow Leopard Diet: Meat and Veggies

The main prey sources for snow leopards are ibex and blue sheep. In areas where there isn’t as much large prey, smaller animals such as marmots become the food staple. Interestingly enough, snow leopards will also consume quite a bit of vegetation. Entire scats may be made up completely of plant material. Other cat species will also eat some amount of vegetation but not in the same high quantities as snow leopards. Where wild prey is scarce, snow leopards will attack livestock such as goats and sheep more frequently.

The Snow Leopard: Threatened by Climate Change and Poachers

Snow leopards are listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Climate change is one of the environmental concerns for this big cat. Wildlife that is adapted to cooler climates in mountain habitats move higher up as temperatures rise. However, there is less vegetation at higher altitude for wild prey, which means there is less to eat for snow leopards. Due to habitat degradation from too many free-ranging livestock that outcompete wild prey, the cats are more likely to come into contact with human settlements. They are forced to hunt livestock in many regions since they are easy, plentiful prey. This leads to retaliatory killings of the cats when angry herders want to defend their property, which is their sole income. Another major threat is poaching. Wanted for their luxurious pelts, as well as their bones and organs as an alternative to those of tigers for traditional medicine, snow leopards are hunted illegally. A poached snow leopard can provide up to 75% of an average annual wage in the regions where they are hunted!

There is also a lack of awareness about these cats in general and of how human activities and land use are affecting them. Conservation of any species begins with public education. Although the cats are revered, support from many locals to protect them is conflicted since the priority of the herders is to protect their livelihood. If conservation organizations work with herders to prevent livestock losses from snow leopards, they are more willing to participate in predator-friendly livestock husbandry. Organizations such as Snow Leopard Conservancy, Snow Leopard Trust, and Panthera are regularly involved in research as well as conflict mitigation between snow leopards and people. New technologies are being deployed and tested, as is the establishment of alternative income sources to help families earn extra money while participating in coexistence programs to protect the species.

Conservation Agencies Doing Snow Leopard Work

If you want to study snow leopards, it’s important to understand a bit about what it’s like to work in the field. The following researchers have a diverse background and allow for unique perspectives as a snow leopard researcher.

Katey Duffey

Katey is a wildlife biologist and conservationist that has spent both winter and summer seasons in Mongolia researching this large predator. Her primary goal has always been to find ways that these large cats can live in tandem with the people of the area. Read more about Katey here.

Shannon Kachel

Shannon is a PhD student who is leading a research project in Kyrgyzstan aimed at understanding how snow leopards interact with other large carnivores like wolves and bears. His research also deals with traditional herding in the mountains of Tajikistan. Read more about Shannon here.

Jan Janecka

Dr. Jan Janecka is focusing in part on conservation genetics of snow leopards. He has conducted field expeditions, trained biologists, and taught genetics in numerous Asian Countries including Mongolia, China, Nepal, India, and Bhutan. Read more about Jan Janecka here…

bowfin

The order Amiiformes, is a primitive order of ray-finned fishes that contains only one extant species, the predacious bowfin. Bowfin are generally only found in freshwater lakes in the eastern part of North America. When full grown they are top level predators in the lake ecosystem.

Other Names for the Bowfin

Fishermen have several other names for the Bowfin, including “cottonfish”, “swamp bass”, “poisson-castor”, “speckled cat”, “beaverfish”, “cypress trout”, and “lawyer”. The scientific name for the bowfin isAmia calva. The genus name Amia comes from the greek “amia”, which referred to a kind of shark.

Air breathing

Bowfin, like several other ray-finned fishes, are able to gulp air into their swimbladders to obtain oxygen. This is possible because the swim bladder is highly vascularized, meaning it is lined with blood vessels which allow it to act like a lung.

Where are Bowfin Found

Bowfin are found in sluggish lowland waters from the Great lakes and surrounding drainages south to central Texas and east to Florida. Bowfin have been introduced to certain Appalachian streams.

The common microhabitat of the bowfin are clear waters that are abundantly vegetated. Bowfin are often found in weed beds just over the edge of sand bars. In areas where water levels fluctuated, some bowfin will burrow in the mud and reemerge when the water has returned. Bowfin can also survive in waters with low oxygen levels (see air breathing in this article).

Bowfin Reproduction: Non-faithful mating

Bowfin are far from loyal in their reproductive strategy. Males and females will both mate with numerous others. While these fish might be known as primitive fish their mating rituals are fairly complex. Males build circular nests that are about a foot and a half wide by six inches deep. When a female comes into the nest they swim around, touching occasionally and then position themselves side by side. This position allows the males to fertilize the eggs that the females deposit into the nest.

After mating, the males are known as nest guarders. They protect the young in these nests until the young are about four inches long.

Alligator Gar

The alligator gar truly is a monster freshwater fish. It’s a shark sized ancient fish that inhabits the rivers of the Mississippi river valley. It has a fearsome reputation. They can grow to nearly 7 feet long and weigh several hundred pounds. However, despite their sinister reputation, gar fish are not the man-eaters they were once thought to be.

Alligator gars are primitive ray-finned fishes that have been extirpated from much of their historic range due to habitat destruction and uncontrolled fishing. They now survive in the southern US and Mexico in freshwater and brackish-water swamps, estuaries and bays along the Gulf coast.

The Alligator Gar’s Reputation

This snippet from River Monsters shows the fearsome reputation these fish have had in the south.

For nearly a half-century, alligator gars were considered “trash fish”,[1] or a “nuisance species” that were detrimental to sport fisheries, and therefore targeted for elimination by state and federal authorities in the United States, but the last ten years has seen a greater emphasis placed on the importance of alligator gars to the ecosystems they inhabit. As a result, they were afforded protection by restricted licensing. They are also protected under the Lacey Act which makes it illegal to transport fish in interstate commerce when in violation of state law or regulation. Several state and federal resource agencies are monitoring populations in the wild, and have initiated outreach programs to educate the public. Alligator gars are being cultured in ponds, pools, raceways and tanks by federal hatcheries for mitigation stocking, by universities for research purposes, and in Mexico for consumption.[2]

Senegal bichir

If you’re an aquarium fish aficionado, then you probably know about the “dragon fish” or “dinosaur eel.” The more official name is the Senegal bichir (Polypterus sengalus). It also goes by the name of gray bichir or Cuvier’s bichir. This is the prototypical species of fish in the genus. That means that most of it’s features are held by other fish in the genus. They’re also the most widespread species.

Video of the Senegal Bichir

Whale Shark

Fish and school buses have few things in common, and that’s a fact. But, measure a standard school bus against a mature whale shark, and you might be surprised at the closeness of the contest. With confirmed lengths of over 12 meters and unconfirmed lengths of over 17 meters, whale sharks are indisputably impressive in size, and they are second to none in the category of World’s Biggest Fish.

To be clear, whale sharks are not whales but are sharks. And sharks, for the record, are fish. Sharks, rays, skates, and large-eyed creatures called chimaeras belong to a group of fish with a name that’s much easier to pronounce than it looks: Chondrichthyes (Con-drick-these). This class of fish have skeletons made from cartilage instead of bones. And some of them, as we’ve already heard, can grow to be XXXL.

Sharing not only their name and dimensions but their method of feeding with whales, whale sharks are big consumers of small prey. Their wide mouths take in large quantities of water and planktonic critters, like krill, sea jellies and crab larvae, and their gill rakers sieve these goodies for eating. And the purpose of a whale shark’s roughly 3,000 tiny teeth? Take your best guess because no one really knows.

Where do whale sharks live?

What is well known is that whale sharks live in all of the world’s tropical and warm temperate seas and prefer surface water temperatures of 21 to 25 degrees Celsius. They are migratory, with individuals swimming thousands of kilometers to places where food “pulses,” like mass coral spawning events, at the same time every year. You’ll find no couch-potato habits among whale sharks, despite their size.

From Baby to Adult Whale Shark

Of course, it takes many years and many more tons of plankton to transform a baby whale shark into a big one. Born live to mothers who are known to carry up to 300 pups at once, whale sharks are just 40 to 60 centimeters long at birth, and have a very fast growth rate when young. By age 30 they’re about nine meters long and ready to make babies of their own. “Elderly” whale sharks are thought to be able to keep cruising the warm seas of the world until they’re 100 years old.

Not that anyone really knows that either. In fact, the list of things not known about whale sharks is about as long as a whale shark (a big one). Scientists have yet to discover loads about basic whale shark biology, ecology, breeding, migration, and worldwide population size. The more they learn, the better able to protect this vulnerable species they’ll be. So here’s hoping science soon finds answers to questions of every size about the world’s most gentle, school-bus-sized fish.

Swimming with Whale Sharks Video

Arctic tern

The best human athletes who race long distances are often very tall and lanky. If you applied this logic to the bird world, you might think the best long-distance migrants would be cranes, herons, and flamingoes.

In fact, the prize for world’s farthest long-distance migrant belongs to the Arctic tern, a pint-sized little bird that weighs just about a quarter of a pound and has a wingspan of around two feet. This tiny bird migrates from Arctic breeding grounds to Antarctic feeding grounds and back, a round-trip distance of 44,000 miles – every year.

To understand why and how Arctic terns migrate so far, let’s tag along with them on their yearly journey.

Summer Breeding Grounds: May – August

A baby Arctic tern begins life somewhere in the Arctic regions around the world, either in North America, Europe, or Asia. They hatch in nests on the ground with up to two other siblings. While they seem like they’d be easy pickings for predators, Arctic tern parents are actually ferociously protective of their kids and will attack any size animal that comes too close – even people!

The tern’s parents feed it small fish, crustaceans, and zooplankton for the first month of its life before it leaves the nest. After that, they learn how to fly and eventually to dive into the water after their own food. Gradually, they’ll start feeding themselves so that they can grow and gain energy reserves in preparation for their first long migration – one of many to follow, if they’re lucky.

Fall Migration: August – November

Once it starts getting colder in the Arctic, they start making their way south and to the opposite end of the planet. Rather than flying in a straight line, though, they actually follow more of a pinball strategy. They tend to bounce around, even from continent to continent, while still generally heading south. Sometimes they’ll even stop in an area for up to a month to rest and refuel their energy reserves for their long migration.

Winter Feeding Grounds: November – April

Even though Arctic terns are born in Arctic regions, they actually spend the greatest part of the year in Antarctic regions. Here, they spend most of their time flying around the southern polar oceans bordering Antarctica, feasting on food.

Remember, even though it’s the winter season for those of us who live in the Northern hemisphere, it is the summer season for the southern hemisphere. All of the bountiful food that the terns found in the Arctic summer areas is now present here, too, and the terns spend the whole time pigging out on the all-you-can-eat buffet. By migrating, they effectively avoid winter entirely and live in perpetual summer with an endless smorgasbord of food!

Spring Migration: April – May

When it starts getting cold in the Antarctic region, the terns begin heading north again. This time, rather than pretending they’re pinballs, they fly a much more direct route back to the north and arrive within a month’s time.

How are Arctic terns able to migrate so far?

Arctic terns are able to complete these amazing feats thanks to several behavioral and physiological adaptations. Just like Goldilocks and her bed, these birds are just the right size – not too small and not too big. They’re large enough to carry adequate energy reserves to get them through their long migration, but not too big as to be too energetically expensive to fly. They also take advantage of wind currents to blow them the direction they want to go. By doing so, they spend most of their time just gliding on the currents rather than flapping the whole way. They also take advantage of pit stops to rest and refuel, just like long-distance racers.

To date, the oldest Arctic tern found lived to be 34. If it migrated on average 44,000 miles each year, this bird would have flown just shy of 1.5 million miles in its lifetime – enough for three trips to the moon and back! So the next time you get on an airplane and fly somewhere, imagine what it would be like to rack up airline miles as an Arctic tern!