This week in birds - #614

(Note to readers: If you are unable to access the links I provide, I suggest you query the internet about the topic to find a link available to you.)

A roundup of the week's news if birds and the environment: 

It's a bird that can be found walking on mudflats, shorelines, and sandbars and it was the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week last week. It is the inconspicuous but subtly attractive American Pipit.

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And the Bird of the Week for this week is the fearsome American Goshawk.

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We rely on bottled mineral water being safe to drink but "forever chemicals" have been found in mineral water in several European countries.

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It's long been known that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals. Scientists now think they have pinpointed when that happened. 

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At least four million Common Murres have been killed by a marine heat wave in the Pacific Ocean that began ten years ago. Half the population of the birds has been wiped out and it shows no signs of recovering.

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Studies of ancient DNA suggest that syphilis originated in the Americas.

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Officials believe that "murder hornets" that were discovered in Washington State five years ago have now been eradicated from the U.S.

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Hawaiian Crows (ʻAlalās) are being reintroduced to the wild where they had been extinct for at least two decades.

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New research indicates that moths are able to hear sounds of distress made by plants. 

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The Arctic tundra has long been a cooling mechanism for the planet but now it is helping to fuel the heating of Earth. It is emitting more carbon than it absorbs.

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Monarch butterflies have long been imperiled but now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be adding the species to the list of "threatened species" which may provide some additional protection for them.

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Dozens of previously unknown species, including a mouse that swims, have been discovered by an expedition to the Peruvian jungle. 

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A male humpback whale has made a record journey of more than 13,000 kilometers from South America to Africa.

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Why do crocodiles have scaly heads? Scientists think they know the answer.

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As a teenager, I read The Last Days of Pompeii by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and ever since I've been fascinated by the story of that doomed city. Experts now think that Pliny's account of the eruption date was correct.

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You won't often hear of scientists calling for a halt to research but some believe that this particular research could pose an "unprecedented risk" to life on Earth. 

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Invasive Burmese pythons definitely pose an unprecedented risk to other life in the Everglades.

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The Brazilian velvet ant certainly looks like an ant but it is, in fact, a wasp.

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Japanese monkeys in a Tasmanian park will be sterilized and allowed to die out due to fears of inbreeding.

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Customs officials are always on the lookout for exotic insects and sometimes they find them.

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There is hope for the survival of the Mekong giant catfish, a critically endangered species.

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The San Antonio Zoo is celebrating the birth of Tupi, the capybara. He is rather adorable, isn't he?