Anyone who follows the daily science news trending on Google News knows it can be divided, in some proportion, between global warming, space, scientific breakthroughs that require future research, and endangered animals. In this University Herald top five, I recap my favorite category of the previous four, animals, and the five stories I most enjoyed covering.
5. The Cocoa Frog: At least hundreds, probably thousands, and maybe even more new species were discovered this year, a startling statistic that seems to be as much based on the incredible diversity of the planet as it is on relatively few research trips designed to discover and describe new creatures. The cocoa frog was easily the most novel find of the year, and probably deserves a higher ranking if it wasn't the first animal story that came to mind. The frog, which physically resembles the chocolate-covered frogs from "Harry Potter" (at least in J.K. Rowling's description), even induced child-like glee within its discoverers.
4. Can Scientists Save Endangered Species By Making Them Sexier?: This experiment was based on rats (boring!), but its implications (I know, you're probably sick of that word) extend to much more exotic animals, including those that are endangered. University of Utah scientists believe their findings could help animals bred in captivity (notoriously reluctant to reproduce) give birth to "sexier offspring" more likely to mate when they come of age -- and eventually proliferate the species.
3. New Species Of Tapir: I enjoyed this story because it demonstrated how even large mammals can slip past the slow and calculating eye of science. Previously, researchers believed there were four species of Tapirs, a boar-like animal with an elephant-eque tusk distantly related to horses and rhinoceroses (wild-looking creatures that deserve to be known as just Tapirs), even though South American villagers had long acknowledged the presence of a fifth variant. With help from those very same villagers, scientists officially described a fifth species.
2. Fish Unexpectedly Thrown Into Underwater Cave And Almost Instantly Adapt: Astyanax mexicanus, as they are less commonly known, were swept into an underwater cave and survived by abandoning their eyes and pigment through a process known as "standing genetic variation." Perhaps even more amazingly, scientists replicated the process in the same species of fish that hadn't been forced to live in caves.
1. Black Rhinoceros Declared Extinct...Again: A sad, but true tale. For some reason, news declaring the rhinoceros' extinction broke in early November, even though the species was actually declared extinct in 2011 -- a fact smartly reported by a nonprofit group that would likely know best, Save The Rhino. I summarized their article, referenced a 2011 BBC article verifying Save The Rhino's pronouncement, and it became my most successful story of the year. That aside, losing an animal as majestic as the black rhinoceros was probably the worst species lost of the year as well as one of the worst in recent history.
