Is this a cigarette habit with some benefits? A species of urban bird seems to harness the toxic chemicals in cigarette butts in its fight against nest parasites 鈥� although there is a downside to the practice.

Constantino Mac铆as Garcia at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and his colleagues, have spent several years studying the curious cigarette habit in urban house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus). Initial evidence hinted that nicotine and other chemicals in the butts might help deter insect pests from moving into the nests 鈥� nicotine 鈥� but it wasn鈥檛 conclusive.

To firm up the conclusion, Mac铆as Garcia and his team experimented with 32 house finch nests. One day after the eggs in the nest had hatched, the researchers removed the natural nest lining and replaced it with artificial felt, to remove any parasites that might have moved in during brooding. They then added live ticks to 10 of the nests, dead ticks to another 10 and left 12 free of ticks.

They found that the adult finches were significantly more likely to add cigarette butt fibres to the nest if it contained ticks. What鈥檚 more, the weight of cigarette butt material added to nests containing live ticks was, on average, 40 per cent greater than the weight of cigarette butt material added to nests containing dead ticks.

Innovative thinking

The results suggest that the finches are using the cigarette butts to 鈥渕edicate鈥� their nests against the ticks, says Mac铆as Garcia. 鈥樷�楨ctoparasites such as ticks and mites cause damage to finches 鈥� for example, eating their feathers and sucking their blood,鈥� he says.

鈥淚t鈥檚 fascinating, and an exciting example of animals being innovative and making use of the materials available to them,鈥� says at Royal Holloway, University of London.

However, Mac铆as Garcia鈥檚 earlier studies suggest the habit is harmful too. 鈥淭he butts cause [genetic] damage to finches by interfering with cell division, which we assessed by looking at their red blood cells,鈥� he says.

鈥淚 think the anti-parasite effects the cigarette butts provide must outweigh any negative problems they cause,鈥� says Portugal. 鈥淎lternatively, the genotoxic effects take longer to manifest, and the adult birds aren鈥檛 aware of any problem.鈥�

This New 女生小视频 article, usually accessible only to subscribers, is made available for free by the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, Australia

脰tzi the iceman, preserved in ice in the Copper Age, is yielding his prehistoric fashion secrets, and anti-fur groups aren鈥檛 going to be happy. It seems people at the time made their clothes from a wide variety of animals 鈥� some domestic and some wild.

His 5300-year-old body was discovered in 1991 by mountaineers in the Alps, some 100 kilometres north-east of Italy鈥檚 fashion capital, Milan.

Now, his clothes are revealing what was trendy at the time: bear fur for hats, goat and sheep for coats, and cattle leather for shoelaces.

In fact, the clothes come from at least five different species 鈥� cattle, sheep, goats, brown bears and roe deer 鈥� according to an analysis by Niall O鈥橲ullivan of University College Dublin, Ireland, and his colleagues.

The iceman鈥檚 body is so well preserved it provides a great window into life at this time. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a unique find of lots of information,鈥� says O鈥橲ullivan.

DNA of clothes

The team sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of nine fragments of leather from the iceman鈥檚 clothes and quiver. This allowed the group to identify the species of origin for each fragment.

The quiver was made from roe deer and the hat was made from brown bear. This means 脰tzi鈥檚 people might have hunted and trapped wild animals, as well as living their agro-pastoralist lifestyle.

An alternative is that they acquired the wild animal parts by trading with other groups of people.

鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to say if these clothes were hunted and made by himself or if those were traded products,鈥� says Frank Maixner of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano, a member of the team. 鈥淪ince the iceman had some tools it is quite likely that he hunted [the animals] and repaired [the clothes] by himself.鈥�

And the coat was stitched together haphazardly from a combination of at least four hides from two species: goats and sheep. The leggings were made of goat leather, and the loincloth of sheep.

All this supports the idea that Copper Age people looked for specific attributes in their materials when making clothing.

In vogue on the slopes

The fur these people chose is likely to have been dependent on what was around them and what they needed. There is likely to be regional variation and 脰tzi provides a window into what was in vogue in the Alps at the time.

鈥淎pplying forensic techniques and scientific methods can help to solve anthropological mysteries of the past. By identifying where people acquired their resources, we can tell a lot about their lifestyle and behaviour,鈥� says Eric Bartelink, at California State University, Chico.

鈥淔iguring out that clothing is made from specific animals identifies how humans utilised resources from the landscape in order to adapt to different environments,鈥� he says.

Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/srep31279

The decline of England鈥檚 wild bees has been linked for the first time to the use of controversial neonicotinoid pesticides on oilseed rape farms.

Neonicotinoids are applied to the seed prior to planting and can be transported to all tissues of a crop, meaning creatures that feed on the nectar will ingest them.

The various effects such pesticides might have on bees have been documented before, but there was no strong evidence linking them to long-term losses of wild bee species.

Now, Ben Woodcock at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) in Oxfordshire, UK, and his colleagues have studied data on 62 species collected by volunteers from more than 31,818 surveys across more than 4000 square kilometres of land.

They looked at bee populations between 1994 and 2011. In England, farmers first started using neonicotinoids on oilseed rape in 2002.

They found the average decline in populations across all bee species was 7 per cent since 2002. Some species, such the Bronze Furrow bee and the Spined Mason bee declined by 20 per cent or more.

Worse for more species

Species that forage on rapeseed were hit especially hard. On average, the effect on their population was three times as severe as the effect on species that don鈥檛 forage on rapeseed.

鈥淭he worst affected species declined by 30 per cent,鈥� 听says Nicholas Isaac, of the CEH.

鈥淎s a flowering crop, oilseed rape is beneficial for pollinating insects,鈥� says Woodcock. 鈥淭his benefit however, appears to be more than nullified by the effect of neonicotinoid seed treatment.鈥�

The main message is that these pesticides are harmful, and affect far more species than we previously thought, says Isaac.

鈥淭his correlative study has provided the first evidence of negative impacts of neonicotinoid use over the long term and at the national scale for many species of wild bee not previously studied,鈥� says Richard Pywell, also of CEH.

Complex and contentious

Although the study shows a correlation, rather than proving a causation, 鈥渋t鈥檚 really informative and powerful beyond what had previously been found鈥� because it鈥檚 making use of these long-term data sets, says Woodcock.

The results suggest that neonicotinoid use could cause losses of bee biodiversity, the team says, and restrictions on such pesticides may reduce population declines.

There is now an EU moratorium on the use of neonicotinoids, but this could be lifted following a review by the European Food Standards Authority, which is expected to be completed in January.

鈥淭his is a complex and contentious issue. It is therefore important we gather as much evidence as possible on neonicotinoid effects on all facets of the environment,鈥� says Pywell. 鈥淲e should also consider carefully the impacts of alternatives to the use of neonicotinoid for crop protection.鈥� This is because the alternatives may also have negative effects on wildlife.

Woodcock says neonicotinoids should be considered as a contributory factor to wild bee decline, but a complex array of drivers including habitat, climate change and disease are also important.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not a simple case that pesticides are causing declines,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 likely that there鈥檚 a whole series of interacting factors and while people like a one-shot solution, it鈥檚 probably not the case in most situations.鈥�

Read more: Neonicotinoid pesticides are bad news for everything

Species: Wasps of the genus Clistopyga

Habitat: Native to western Finland

Give a wasp a needle, and it鈥檚 only a matter of time until it starts to work with fabric.

Female wasps have a long, needle-like organ called an ovipositor which they use to pierce plant tissues or the exoskeletons of insects and deposit their eggs. But one group of parasitic wasps uses it not only for egg-laying, but also to make a type of felt with which to stitch up spider nests.

In 2015, Niclas Fritz茅n and Ilari S盲盲ksj盲rvi of the University of Turku, Finland, ventured into the west of the country to track evasive Clistopyga wasps, which are poorly studied and easily confused with other wasps.

鈥淭his species is not easy to collect, and is impossible to study in nature,鈥� says Fritz茅n. 鈥淭hey need to be collected and reared from the hosts [on which their eggs have been laid] in the lab.鈥� Those hosts are a kind of jumping spider, which the wasps first paralyse using venom.

The team collected a single larva of the wasp on a paralysed adult jumping spider, along with small pieces of bark that contained spider nests.

They then offered spiders within their silken nests to the wasp and observed what happened. What they found surprised them. 鈥淚 knew this was something new and very special,鈥� says Fritz茅n.

The wasp inserts its ovipositor tip into the jumping spider, preventing it from escaping while the wasp injects the venom. It then reinserts the tip of it into the spider and drags the spider into a favourable egg-laying position.

Having laid its eggs, the wasp uses its ovipositor to poke at and pick up the spider silk of the nest, and closes openings in a zigzag stitching fashion. 鈥淭he needle goes up and down like in a sewing machine,鈥� says Fritz茅n.

The process is very similar to felting, in which needles grab the top layer of fibres and then enter the wool, tangling them with the inner layers. Here, the ovipositor acts as the felting needle, and the process makes the fluffy silk stiffer.

鈥淭he silken nest of the jumping spider is very soft and fluffy, because they consist of parallel layers of silk, apparently with a lot of air between,鈥� says Fritz茅n. 鈥淓ntangling these layers makes the silk more packed and stiffer, apparently also more durable.鈥�

Why go to all this trouble? The team thinks it may be an adaptation that protects the wasp eggs against predation or parasitism. It also creates a stable microclimate inside the spiders鈥� nest, stops awakening spiders from escaping and prevents hatched wasp larvae from accidently leaving the nest.

鈥淭here is a growing interest in how biological systems can inspire nanotechnology in the textile world,鈥� says Jeanette Lim, project manager at , an online catalogue of nature鈥檚 solutions to design challenges humans now face.

鈥淣ow that we鈥檙e learning more about what鈥檚 happening at the [tiny] scale in biological systems I think we鈥檙e then discovering how we can replicate what is going on, or how we can manipulate what鈥檚 going on so that it can serve us better in medicine or making textiles,鈥� says Lim.

It could even lead to new types of felting needles.

鈥淎lthough human needle felting and wasp egg-laying serve different purposes, it would be interesting to see if someone could create needles with recurved notches and find a use for them,鈥� says Fritz茅n. Such needles might allow felt to be made more easily, without having to poke deep into the fabric.

Read more: Parasites brainwash grasshoppers into death dive

Species: Arabian sand cat (Felis margarita harrisoni)

Habitat: Deserts of Arabia, northern Africa and central Asia

Blink and you鈥檒l miss it. The sand cat is a shy and secretive animal only seen in the desert at night.

It鈥檚 a nocturnal hunter perfectly adapted to its desert home. It doesn鈥檛 need to drink water as it can get all it needs from the small birds, reptiles and mammals that are its prey. Special hairs in its ears and on its paws keep the sand out.

Despite its wide distribution across the deserts of North Africa, Arabia and Central Asia, little is known about this elusive species.

鈥淭here鈥檚 an absence of scientists working on sand cats and very few assessments are being made to assess the behaviour, population and status of the species,鈥� says John Newby of the Sahara Conservation Fund.

Lack of records and difficulty in spotting it means we don鈥檛 even know how well it is faring. Sand cats are listed as 鈥渘ear threatened鈥� on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list and as endangered in the United Arab Emirates, where the Al Ain Zoo is a hotspot for captive breeding programmes to try to conserve the species.

鈥淪and cats are naturally rare,鈥� says Newby. On top of that, populations are thought to be declining due to habitat loss and falling numbers of prey species.

In western UAE, the cat has only been documented in the wild anecdotally 鈥� and even such records date to 10 years or more ago.

In 2015, Shakeel Ahmed, an assistant scientist at The Environment Agency 鈥� Abu Dhabi (EAD) led a team studying the animals and plants of the Baynouna 鈥� a protected area in Abu Dhabi. They baited camera traps with cat food over several months and eventually managed to get 46 photos, which the team later identified as being of three individuals. Sightings were usually late on moonlit nights and at cooler times, suggesting the cats prefer medium to low temperatures of between 11 and 28 掳C. Their habitat was in sparsely vegetated sand dunes.

The team also set traps for small animals, and caught Cheeseman鈥檚 gerbils and the lesser jerboa. Other sightings on the camera included the urchin beetle, and reptiles such as Arabian sand skink and gecko. All these mean there is plenty of food available in the region for the sand cat.

The team hopes this information will help inform future conservation strategies. For example, it could be useful for work comparing the relatedness of this population to those in neighbouring Oman and Saudi Arabia.

鈥淚t is clear that field research will all be extremely valuable in putting together conservations plans for the sand cats and their habitat, as well as pin-pointing those areas and their extent that may be turned into protected areas to conserve the cats,鈥� says Newby. 鈥溑∈悠祍 need to be doing more research on how the sand cats live in order to create a suitable protected area.鈥�

Journal reference: European Journal of Wildlife Research, DOI:

Read more: The cat made me do it: Is your pet messing with your mind?; Silver coat lets Saharan ants withstand scorching desert heat

听