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Disturb a frog's vernal pool habitat: Pay $300. Alter a marsh, meadow, bog, bank, or pond of any size: See you in court. The potential fine and enforcement actions are some of the teeth in a proposed wetlands protection bylaw that would give the Belmont Conservation Commission greater authority over what happens in or around wetlands. The proposal, which voters will decide at Town Meeting on April 24, would reinforce a state law that more than half of the communities in Massachusetts have found lacking in some way. Belmont would join at least 180 others with a new wetlands bylaw,...

OTTAWA (AFP) - The tiny Rufous hummingbird is able to recall where and when it last dined on the sweet nectar of flowers, according to new research, proving bird brains are smarter than first thought. The study found the bird, with a brain no bigger than a grain of rice and which feeds on hundreds of flowers each day, could pinpoint the location of flowers it had visited and when the bit of nectar in each would be replenished. Such episodic memory was previously thought to be exclusive to humans. "This shows that animals have better memories than we thought...

Dubbed “North America’s Loch Ness Monster,” the purported leviathan of Lake Champlain, “Champ,” has just resurfaced. On Feb. 22, 2006, Good Morning America aired exclusive video footage of “something” just below the surface of the water, possibly the lake’s fabled creature. A pair of Vermont men, Dick Affolter and his 34-year-old stepson, Pete Bodette, had made the digital recordings the previous summer while salmon fishing. ABC consulted two retired FBI forensic image analysts, who concluded that the video appeared authentic, although they could not say what it depicted. The incident added to a long list of Champ sightings, which...

Mysterious and seemingly monstrous beasts stalk the gloomy depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the so-called midnight zone where virtually no sunlight reaches. Temperatures are near freezing and the space between one creature and another can be vast. Scientists know very little about the species that inhabit this uninviting world more than a mile below the ocean's surface. For years it was believed that many of these fish nomadically wandered the ocean, munching on the organic debris that sinks from shallower waters. Now, a massive marine expedition has uncovered the secret sex lives of these fish, revealing that they may gather...

Dodo birds are famous for two things: being dumb and being dead. So when Randy Olson calls fellow biologists "dodos" in his new documentary "Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus," it's not meant as a compliment. Dodos were flightless, odd-looking birds discovered by Portuguese sailors in the early 1500s on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, just east of Madagascar. The birds were named after the Portuguese word for "fool" because they were fearless of humans and would walk up to hungry hunters who simply clubbed them to death and ate them. The birds were extinct by the...

ST. LOUIS—Parasites from cat feces are causing deadly brain damage in California sea otters. A combination of toxic chemicals and herpes virus is killing off California sea lions. And toxic algae blooms are contributing to record manatee deaths in Florida. All of these animals live near coastlines, spending a majority of their lives in the same waters people swim and surf in. Their daily cuisines consist of the same foods we serve up in clam shacks and fine seafood restaurants. The difference between humans and these animals, says NOAA spokesperson Paul Sandifer, is that the animals deal with the ocean...

Chicken will grow teeth when pigs can fly. Well, better start searching the skies for flying pork—scientists have discovered a mutant chicken with a full set of crocodile-like chompers. The mutant chick, called Talpid, also had severe limb defects and died before hatching. It was discovered 50 years ago, but no one had ever examined its mouth until now. The researchers recently created more Talpids by tweaking the genes of normal chickens to grow teeth. "What we discovered were teeth similar to those of crocodiles—not surprising as birds are the closest living relatives of the reptile," said Mark Ferguson of...

Bjorn Carey LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Wed Feb 22, 12:00 PM ET A cave so huge helicopters can fly into it has just been discovered deep in the hills of a South American jungle paradise. ADVERTISEMENT Actually, "Cueva del Fantasma"—Spanish for "Cave of the Ghost"—is so vast that two helicopters can comfortably fly into it and land next to a towering waterfall. It was found in the slopes of Aprada tepui in southern Venezuela, one of the most inaccessible and unexplored regions of the world. The area, known as the Venezuelan Guayana, is one of the most biologically rich, geologically...

EARLY EVOLUTION OF THE VENOM SYSTEM IN LIZARDS AND SNAKES 2006 Nature 439: 584-588 Bryan G. Fry, Nicolas Vidal, Janette A. Norman, Freek J. Vonk, Holger Scheib, S. F. Ryan Ramjan, Sanjaya Kuruppu, Kim Fung, S. Blair Hedges, Michael K. Richardson, Wayne. C. Hodgson, Vera Ignjatovic, Robyn Summerhayes, & Elazar Kochva Abstract: Among extant reptiles only two lineages are known to have evolved venom delivery systems, the advanced snakes and helodermatid lizards (Gila Monster and Beaded Lizard) 1. Evolution of the venom system is thought to underlie the impressive radiation of the advanced snakes (2,500 of 3,000 snake species) 2–5....

Administration seeks $2.27 million for Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge NASSAWADOX, Va. – The Nature Conservancy today applauded President Bush’s request to fund the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge with $2.27 million from the Land and Water Conservation Fund in Fiscal Year 2007. The Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge and much of the surrounding area in southern Northampton County, are widely recognized as globally important habitat for millions of migratory birds. The Nature Conservancy works with the refuge staff, state agencies and private landowners on the Eastern Shore to protect these vital natural areas...

There is a general consensus that most of today’s nonvenomous snakes are descendants of venomous snakes that lost their venomous capabilities secondarily. This implies that the evolutionary history of venomous snakes and their venom apparatus should be older than the current evidence from the fossil record. We compared some of the oldest-known fossil snake fangs from the Lower Miocene of Germany with those of modern viperids and elapids and found their morphology to be indistinguishable from the modern forms. The primary function of recent elapid and viperid snake fangs is to facilitate the extremely rapid, stablike application of highly toxic...

Rising temperatures are responsible for pushing dozens of frog species over the brink of extinction in the past three decades, according to findings being reported today by a team of Latin American and U.S. scientists. The study, published in the journal Nature, provides compelling evidence that climate change has already helped wipe out a slew of species and could spur more extinctions and the spread of diseases worldwide. It also helps solve the international mystery of why amphibians around the globe have been vanishing from their usual habitats over the past quarter-century -- as many as 112 species have disappeared...

An outbreak of waterborne fungal disease in western Panama has eliminated eight families of Panamanian amphibians and is spreading, scientists report in this week's issue of the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" (PNAS). An outbreak of the infectious disease chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is spreading into the El Cope region, researchers have found. The disease is moving from northwest to southeast from Costa Rica toward Colombia, leaving entire species of dead frogs and salamanders behind. The rockhopper frog, for example, which lived along El Cope riverbanks, disappeared completely within one month. Central American frog Eleutherodactylus...

Town of Mukwonago - The Town Board has begun laying the groundwork for a likely referendum on whether farm land and open space should be preserved by using tax money to purchase development rights. Last week, the board hired a consultant to conduct a public education campaign to explain the goals of a purchase of development rights program, how it is paid for and how it works. Town Chairman David Dubey said much depends on the public response to the educational campaign, but that "a referendum is likely what we'll get to" either this November or the spring of 2007....

From barely visible fairy shrimp to highly visible black bears, we share our Napa Valley home with a rich diversity of animals, birds, fish, insects and plants. Some of them are listed as threatened or endangered. As our houses and vineyards press outward from the valley floor, we are moving deeper into our wild neighbors' spaces, and discovering that sharing habitats is not always easy. The recent killing of four black bears at a Pope Valley vineyard drew attention to a critical question: How do we balance the need for protecting our agricultural land and crops while also preserving critical...

Viking warriors filed deep grooves in their teeth, and they likely had to smile broadly to show them off, according to new finds in four major Viking Age cemeteries in Sweden. Caroline Arcini of Sweden's National Heritage Board analyzed 557 skeletons of men, women and children from between 800 and 1050 A.D. They discovered that 22 of the men bore deep, horizontal grooves across the upper front teeth. "The marks are traces of deliberate dental modifications ... they are so well-made that most likely they were filed by a person of great skill," Arcini wrote in the current issue of...

Madison: The shy, retiring, and threatened Wood Turtle [Glyptemys insculpta], easily overlooked and facing an uncertain future as its habitat is developed, appears to have driven a stake into the heart of plans by Chatham Borough and Chatham Township to develop two playing fields on the Woodland Park property off Woodland Road, adjacent to the Independence Court neighborhood in Madison. In a long-awaited decision released Monday, December 12th, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) classified a portion of the site as "exceptional" wetlands for their habitat value, requiring a 150-foot buffer from any development, and effectively blocking the plan...

A shipment of hairy crabs imported from China, some of which have already been sold and eaten, was found to contain residues of the pesticide DDT, the Department of Health said on Wednesday. This was discovered during a random DOH inspection of aquatic products sold in markets throughout the island. The department began the inspections in September in an effort to determine whether residues of drugs or pesticides were retained in such products, and also to assess the level of metals they might contain. According to the DOH, the hairy crabs sold in three supermarkets -- Carrefour, Hsi-Mei and Hsing-Loong,...

WASHINGTON -- Toxic chemical concentrations in the Great Lakes remain a threat to humans, animals and fish, and not enough people know of the hazards, a new report concludes. The draft report was completed by the Scientific Advisory Board to the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canada agency that oversees boundary water issues, and will be officially released next month. Every two years, the panel of scientists reviews the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the two countries, analyzing the state of the Great Lakes and recommending changes. Environmentalists say the report could be a starting point for negotiations not only...

BAUMHOLDER, Germany – If you want to increase biodiversity and protect endangered species, bring in tanks and soldiers. Not to shoot hunters and poachers, but simply to maneuver and train. That’s the finding of a new environmental study done for U.S. Army Installation Management Agency—Europe (IMA-E) by researchers at the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo. Those researchers reached a surprising conclusion — certain threatened and endangered species fare far better in the huge Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels military training areas in Bavaria, where thousands of troops train, firing tanks and...