bioGraphic | Revealing Nature // Inspiring Solutions

Powered by the California Academy of Sciences

Revealing Nature // Inspiring Solutions

City of Glass

Meet the dedicated cadre of experts and volunteers working to protect birds from glass in the window-strike capital of the United States.

New research shows that juvenile beavers master the art of directional tree felling by copying adults in the most advantageous approach to a tree and placement of the initial cut. Here, an adult female and her son from last year alternate in cutting a large Douglas fir near a forested lake in northern Montana in the United States. Cuts at different height on opposite sides of the trunk enable the most efficient and safest tree felling. Still, an adult pauses periodically to assess tree angle and stability. Cameras mounted high in the canopy and fired remotely from about 50 m away, just outside of a tree fall reach, were instrumental in discovering crucial aspects of tree cutting behavior in this beaver colony.

Nature’s Lumberjacks 04.26.2016 Spotlight - Tree-felling is dangerous business, so naturally a mother shows her young kit how it's done.

A pair of grey foxes visit one of the ‘skeleton trees’ in their territory

Skeleton Tree 04.26.2016 Spotlight - Gray foxes climb into the trees to grab a few feet of vertical advantage.

Young Baikal seal (Pusa sibirica) at breathing hole. Lake Baikal, Russia, April.

Ice Seal 04.26.2016 Spotlight - Meet Lake Baikal’s most famous resident, the world’s only freshwater-specific seal.

sea wolves

Sea Wolves 04.26.2016 Spotlight - A pack of wolves along Canada’s Pacific Coast have become seafood specialists.

bumper bees

Lens of Time: Bumper Bees 04.26.2016 Video - See how scientists use high-speed videography to investigate—and learn from—the clumsy flight of the bumblebee.

Biologist Bart Shepherd in An Audacious Plan in the Twilight

An Audacious Plan in the Twilight 04.26.2016 Article - A team of deep-reef explorers attempts to document the unknown biodiversity of Vanuatu’s twilight zone.

ABOUT

CONTACT

bioGraphic is powered by the California Academy of Sciences, a renowned scientific and educational institution dedicated to regenerating the natural world through science, learning, and collaboration.