Historical accounts often described the now-extinct California grizzly bears as huge beasts ready to attack humans and livestock at any time. But according to a new paper, scientists say the truth might have been less dramatic: The bears ate a mostly vegetarian diet and were smaller than previously described. California grizzly bears once roamed in the Golden State. But European settlers often hunted, poisoned and trapped the creatures. Over time, because of these human activities, the California grizzly population declined. The last reliable sighting of a California grizzly bear occurred 100 years ago in 1924, and the animals disappeared completely sometime after that.

Researchers wanted to get a better understanding of the factors that accelerated the bears’ extinction. They also hoped to gain more insight into the creatures’ behavior, size and diet. To do so, they turned to documents and California grizzly specimens in natural history collections. They measured the animals’ skulls and teeth and analyzed their bones and pelts. The researchers found that California grizzly bears were much smaller than the 2,000 pounds often reported at the time. Historical accounts might not necessarily have been wrong, but they might have only included the largest bears. In addition, analyses of the animals’ bones and skins suggest the bears were primarily eating plants, which stands in contrast to their fear some hyper carnivorous (超级食肉的) reputation. “The bears likely increased meat consumption due to landscape changes coupled with the arrival of livestock,” says study co-author Alexis Mychajliw. However, researchers found the animals still ate a majority vegetarian diet and killed far less livestock than historical accounts suggested.

By digging beyond the bears’ reputation, the researchers gained a more accurate understanding of the California grizzly’s biology and natural history. And since scientists and land managers often rely on historical accounts when reintroducing animals to their former habitats, the study serves as a reminder that those old newspapers and journals do not tell the whole story.

Back in November 2019, Alessandra Mascaro, a volunteer working at the Ozouga Chimpanzee Project in Loango National Park, Gabon, West Africa, saw something she couldn’t quite believe — one of the apes named Suzee noticed her son Sia had hurt his foot. After seemingly thinking about the best course of action, she then plucked an insect out of the air, licked it and applied it to the wound.

Mascaro captured the whole touching moment on film and showed her tutor, Dr. Tobias Deschner, a zoologist working for Ozouga. The Ozouga team then set about monitoring the chimpanzees in the park and looking for other examples of the behaviour. Over the following 15 months they captured 76 incidences of the apes applying insects to wounds on themselves or other group members. The researchers are uncertain why the chimps use the insects, or even which insects they are, but suspect they might have lenitive properties that could provide pain relief.

However, the finding really proves that the act of applying an insect to treat other’s wounds is a clear example of prosocial behaviour (亲社会行为) that echoes the acts of empathy displayed by human beings. “This is, for me, especially breathtaking because so many people doubt prosocial abilities in other animals. Suddenly we have a species where we really see individuals caring for others,” Deschner said.

The team now aims to identify the insects being used by the chimpanzees and investigate who is applying insects to whom to establish whether the behaviour is based on a social rank. “We need to still put much more effort into studying great apes because it is crucial to shed light on our own cognitive evolution,” said Deschner.

War can be deadly for wildlife, too. A new study reports that war is the biggest threat to Africa’s elephants, rhinoceroses and other animals. Researchers examined how years of conflict in Africa have affected populations of large animals. More than 70 percent of Africa’s protected wildlife areas have been within a war zone at some point in the last 70 years. “The more frequent the fighting, the greater the drop in animal populations,” said Josh Daskin, an ecologist at Yale University. He was the lead author of the study, which was published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“It takes very little conflict, as much as one conflict in about 20 years, for the average wildlife population to be declining,” Daskin said. “Areas with frequent fighting-but not necessarily the bloodiest fighting-lose 35 percent of their large animal populations during each year of war,” he said.

“Some animals get killed by weapons of war. Yet, many also die because of changes in social and economic conditions in an area as a result of war,” said Rob Pringle. He is an ecologist at Princeton University and the study’s co-author. “People in and around war zones are poor and hungry. So they may begin to illegally hunt animals for valuable tusks or hunt protected animals to eat,” Pringle said. “And during wartime, animal conservation programs do not have as much money or power to protect wildlife.”

The new study examined the entire African continent over 65 years. The researchers looked at 10 different factors that could change population numbers. They included war, animal size, protected areas and human population density. The number of wars had the biggest effect on wildlife population. The intensity of the wars-measured in the number of human deaths-had the least effect on animals.