The Giant Panda Habitat will be partially closed to keep a quiet area around female giant panda Mei Xiang’s den. Although keepers are not able to confirm if she is pregnant, Mei Xiang is exhibiting expected, normal behaviors after the secondary hormone rise that are in line with both a pregnancy and...
Veterinarians are giving Mei Xiang weekly ultrasounds to track changes in her uterus. Though it's too early to see a possible cub on an ultrasound, SCBI scientists detected a rise in hormones, indicating Mei Xiang will either give birth or experience the end of a pseudopregnancy in 30 to 50 days.
An endangered brown kiwi chick kicked her way out of her egg at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia, between Saturday, July 29, and Sunday, July 30.
All across the world, scientists are tracking the movements of animals, collecting considerable data to better understand how animals migrate, what paths they take and what threats they may face along the way. A new statistical model from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and...
Ever since 42-year-old Asian elephant Kamala arrived at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in May 2014, keeper Amanda Bobyack has helped her settle into her habitat. Part of that adjustment included learning husbandry and medical training behaviors that help Bobyack, her fellow keepers and the vet team...
For Asian elephant keepers, working among the giants of the animal kingdom entails training, enriching and caring for the Zoo's multi-generational herd, as well as contributing to research and educating visitors about the conservation of this endangered species.
Behavior can tell the giant panda team quite a bit about the pandas, but the behaviors they exhibit are only half the story. When it comes to predicting when Mei Xiang will give birth, or when she is in the final stages of a pseudopregnancy, scientists rely on a few different factors. They monitor...
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The Kirtland's warbler is an endangered migratory songbird that breeds almost exclusively in Michigan and winters primarily in the Bahamas. The species nests on the ground and will only breed in young Jack Pine forests. Decades of fire suppression prevented the formation of new breeding habitat for...
As the world prepares to celebrate Global Tiger Day this Saturday, July 29, Great Cats keepers have some big news to share about the 2-week-old Sumatran tiger cub in their care: it appears to be a boy!
Activity at the giant panda habitat has slowed since the flurry of breeding season in May. Keepers, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists and veterinarians were monitoring Mei Xiang very closely to determine when she would ovulate. Her chance to conceive a cub arrived May 25. Now...
On July 11, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center scientist Autumn-Lynn Harrison set out to deploy GPS tags on the Chesapeake Bay’s brown pelicans to track their migrations and better understand the iconic birds.
About 100 kilometers south of Lima on the coast of Peru, an expansive community of marine invertebrates, fish and seabirds has taken up residency in a seemingly unlikely place: in the hard-bottom space created by a barrier, called a breakwater, protecting South America’s first Liquefied Natural Gas...
A new cryopreservation study has sweeping implications for wildlife conservation and human health. In a paper published July 13 in ACS Nano, the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and University of Minnesota provide the first-ever reproducible evidence for the successful cryopreservation of...
In a shell of a paternity test story, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) scientists found that male desert tortoises that had been relocated from a threatened habitat to a new nearby home are reproducing at a much, much lower rate than resident males. Genetic paternity testing of 92...
The island scrub-jay, a songbird endemic to Santa Cruz Island off the coast of southern California, has made headlines in recent years for bucking evolutionary and biological trends—and is at it again this year.
In June, SCBI scientists and partners fitted the ossicones of 11 reticulated giraffes with GPS collars that send hourly data to researchers via satellite.
