Research proves what birders likely knew all along. Birding makes people happier. The science shows that living and bird watching in areas with at least 14 different varieties of birds can improve human well-being. The data shows that the happiest people experience numerous different bird species in their daily life.
A summer tanager sings it song Friday, June 17, 2022, in Indian Bayou near Butte La Rose, La.
STAFF PHOTO BY LESLIE WESTBROOK
Leslie Westbrook, photographer for The Acadiana Advocate, is a living testament to the growing body of evidence that birding is an antidote to despair.
Westbrook is relatively…
A branch of the tree of life that includes the time when the propatagium, vital to flight in future birds, came about. Credit: 2023 Yurika Uno and Tatsuya Hirasawa CC-BY
Modern birds capable of flight all have a specialized wing structure called the propatagium without which they could not fly. The evolutionary origin of this structure has remained a mystery, but new research suggests it evolved in nonavian dinosaurs. The findings come from statistical analyzes of arm joints preserved in fossils and help fill some gaps in knowledge about the origin of bird flight.
For a long time now, we…
Artist’s reconstruction of Ignacius dawsonae surviving six months of winter darkness within the hereditary heat temperate ecosystem of Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada. Credit score: Kristen Miller, Biodiversity Institute, College of Kansas
The fossils had been discovered on Ellesmere Island, situated in Nunavut, Canada, inside sedimentary layers related to the early Eocene epoch, doubtlessly offering perception into how ecosystems might evolve within the years to return.
Researchers on the College of Kansas have recognized two sisters[{” attribute=””species of near-primates, referred to as “primatomorphans,” which lived approximately 52 million years ago and are the oldest known to have inhabited areas north…