(University of Veterinary Medicine — Vienna) Winters in the Gobi desert are usually long and very cold but the winter of 2009-2010 was particularly severe. Millions of livestock died in Mongolia and the re-introduced wild Przewalski’s horse population crashed dramatically. Petra Kaczensky and Chris Walzer from the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna have used spatially explicit loss statistics, ranger survey data and GPS telemetry to provide insights into the effect of a catastrophic climate event on wild horses, wild asses and livestock.

(University of California – Riverside) University of California, Riverside scientists released a natural enemy of the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) yesterday in a citrus grove on the UC Riverside campus to help control the spread of the psyllid, an invasive pest that could devastate the state’s $1.1 billion citrus industry. This is the first time the psyllid’s natural enemy, Tamarixia radiata (tiny, stingless parasitic wasps that lay eggs in ACP nymphs), has been released in California.

(University of Exeter) Research shows that some turtles are naturally heat-tolerant. The study focused on green turtles nesting on Ascension Island, a UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. Scientists from the Universities of Exeter and Groningen found that eggs laid by turtles nesting on a naturally hot beach withstand high temperatures better than eggs from turtles nesting on a cooler beach just a few kilometers away.

The ability for some animals to have live births versus eggs can normally be explained by what classification the animal belongs to.

Mammals have live births, birds have eggs, Echidnas (a relative of mammals, think platypus) have eggs (like birds) but also have some characteristics only seen in mammals (fur and milk for their young).

There are some classification of animals that can have either live birth or eggs, such as sharks, fish and some reptiles.

The difference between the whether there are live births versus eggs is usually determined by the environment.