It’s hot and sunny, and the long, flat fields are covered in grasses, with patches of shrubs and trees here and there. In the distance, a large herd of cows is grazing.

“The area was overgrown with junipers and pine trees,” says Annely Esko, project coordinator at the Environmental Board of Estonia. “I think we have created the landscape that was here about 40 years ago.”

I’m on the island of Muhu in the Baltic Sea. Here, one of the largest wildlife restoration projects in Europe – part of the LIFE+ Nature programme – is under way to make 2500 hectares of alvar grasslands great again. Altogether, there are 25 restoration areas: two on the mainland and the rest spread over three islands: Muhu, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa.

Unusually for a conservation project, the work involves cutting down shrubs and trees, which threaten species – including some unique to this habitat. Only one-third of the restored areas will be left with junipers and pine trees.

Estonia used to be home to approximately one-third of the world’s calcareous alvar grasslands, one of the most species-rich plant communities in Europe. However, the total area has plummeted from 43,000 hectares in the 1930s to only 8000 hectares today.

Human-created habitat

Most of these semi-natural habitats were formed and maintained through long-term grazing by sheep, cows and horses.

This meant the 198-square-kilometre island was completely open 100 years ago. “You could actually see the church in the middle from each corner of the island,” says at the University of Tartu.

But some of these grasslands were abandoned – and consequently overgrown by the junipers that had previously been a minor component of the ecosystem. Others were covered in pine plantations.

“When junipers cover up to 30 to 40 per cent, it is beneficial for biodiversity, creating mosaic and heterogeneous habitats suitable for many species, but when their cover exceeds 70 per cent, diversity drops very quickly,” Helm explains to me.

On the other hand, pine trees – although native to Estonia – aren’t naturally found on Muhu. And because most alvars have a thin soil and limestone bedrock, the afforestation process during the Soviet era included furrowing and even blasting planting holes with explosives.

This huge effort was designed to increase the economic value of alvars. Instead, it made the land unproductive and reduced biodiversity, says Helm.

Today, only around 2500 hectares are used for grazing and the rest of the unmanaged alvars are overgrown. Many plant species that used to cover large areas of the grasslands are now threatened. “We need to enlarge the areas and restore these habitats to prevent extinction,” says Helm. Other species, such as butterflies and birds, are also threatened.

Gobbling trees

The huge noisy, shredder in front of us gulps down small junipers, leaving millions of wood chips behind. “Junipers are shredded like this when they are up to 1.5 metres [tall],” says Esko, raising her voice to make herself heard over the machine.

Later on, larger junipers and pines will be removed with different machinery that grabs and cuts the tree entirely from underneath, she tells me.

The result is masses of timber and other wood materials. Some goes to make handicrafts, but most gets used for heating. “We have produced so many wood chips that we have even exported some to Sweden,” says Esko.

Although using wood chips for biomass is not ideal, given the carbon emissions they generate, juniper shrubs have traditionally been used to provide heating on the islands. Additionally, it reduces the need to use shale oil for heating – the largest source of energy in Estonia.

As we walk away from the demonstration area, Esko tells me that the shrubland and pine plantations contain few species and so their removal offers large benefits for biodiversity.

Big bloom

Indeed, species recovery has been astounding after only a year or two, with a big bloom of orchids, including the rare golden lady slipper, and more butterflies and bumblebees.

“We’re very lucky here in Estonia because all these remnant, open patches were preserved in various spots, so they could quickly colonise the sites that we opened,” says Helm.

Already 15 species new to Estonia have been found, including lichens, spiders and wasps. The grasslands are also home to about 40 per cent of the world’s known species of a , says Helm.

Local people have been involved from the beginning, with 600 landowners already participating in the project. The grasslands will be maintained by grazing livestock until at least 2024 under a 10-year contract signed through a scheme supported by the Estonian government.

As I leave the island, I feel hopeful for the future of these grasslands and its locals. Helm’s words have stuck with me: “We can consider this a big conservation success story.”

Read more: My patrol with armed guards to protect Burmese star tortoises

Deterred by noise

Sealnap anyone? Mediterranean monk seals snoozing underwater. Completely motionless, either on their bellies or sides, they seem to fall fast asleep with their eyes and nostrils closed.

“We had never seen Mediterranean monk seals sleeping in the water before,” says of in Athens, Greece. “Until now, we thought that they slept only on land, in remote, inaccessible marine caves.”­

Now it seems this endangered species, Monachus monachus, isn’t obliged to find land and instead can stay at sea to sleep, where it is possibly better protected from humans, says Karamanlidis.

There were six separate observations of seals sleeping at sea from 2011 to 2016, across different Greek coastlines. In most cases, the seals were documented by speargun fishers who happened upon them at depths of approximately 7 metres or shallower.

Up for air

In one case witnessed by the MOm team, the seal slept on the water surface with its head submerged. After its nap – which lasted about three minutes – it woke up and lifted its head to breathe, still with its eyes closed.

Monk seals can normally hold their breath underwater for up to 15 minutes, but they may be able to sleep underwater for longer periods by coming up for air without waking.

Other marine mammals, such as dolphins and whales are known to sleep underwater by putting only half of their brain to sleep. But information is limited for seals.

“Sleeping has been inferred in Hawaiian monk seals and Northern elephant seals, but this is the first scientific reporting of aquatic sleeping in wild Mediterranean monk seals,” Karamanlidis says.

Living on the edge

°Őłó±đĚýMediterranean monk seals is one of the most endangered seal species in the world, with in the wild.

Their habitat has changed over the years, leading them to adapt to life in sea caves – avoiding humans – where they rest and give birth to their young. These caves are usually along remote or rugged coastlines and have underwater entries.

Seals mostly use the marine caves during the breeding season, but it is not clear where they go during the non-breeding season. The team now believes that some seals might lead a predominately aquatic life during the non-breeding season – living and sleeping in the sea.

Knowing these seals can sleep in the water means that the scope of their conservation has to increase and include large parts of the coastal marine areas, rather than just focusing on caves, the team says.

“The fact that Mediterranean monk seals can sleep at sea will automatically redefine our approach to the research and conservation of this endangered species,” says Karamanlidis.

Read more: Sleep and dreaming: Why can’t we stay awake 24/7?

Tailwinds or no?

Need for speed

Species: Thorny devil (Moloch horridus)

Habitat: Arid deserts and scrublands of Australia

What devilry is this? The thorny devil lizard uses its entire skin as a web of drinking straws to soak up water from soggy sand.

This allows it to drink with its feet and skin, which comes in handy in a desert – especially to a lizard with a mouth structure so specialised for eating ants that it cannot drink water directly.

“Thorny devils are one of the most fascinating species that collect and transport water with their skin,” says of RWTH Aachen University in Germany.

Comanns and his team examined six thorny devils (Moloch horridus) from Mount Gibson, Western Australia, in the lab to figure out where they get their water from.

When the researchers placed them in a water puddle, the lizards could drink through their feet: they started opening and closing their mouths within 10 seconds, as their skin channelled water from their feet into their mouths.

“But rain or water puddles rarely occur in their habitat,” says Comanns.

Dew does naturally form in deserts, though, as the temperature drops in the evening. Yet the team found that natural condensation or morning dew that formed on the lizards’ bodies could not provide enough water for them to drink. It did, however, make their skin “superhydrophilic” and ready to soak up water faster from moist sand.

His team found that only 59 per cent of the lizards’ drinking straws were saturated when the animals stood in the wettest sand. So drinking from soaked sand through the feet was not the whole story, either.

Finally, when the researchers placed moist sand on replicas of the skin, the straws fully filled with water.

In nature, these lizards often cover their backs with moist sand, which might allow them to absorb more water than by simply standing in the sand. “Damp sand from dew appears to be a major water source for thorny lizards,” Comanns says.

So how exactly does it drink?

Soaking it up

The thorny devil’s skin is covered in microscopic grooves between their overlapping scales, creating a network of drinking straws. These can take up water from any part of the body through capillary action, whereby water is drawn along a channel, even against the pull of gravity.

The water then travels directly to the lizard’s mouth ready for drinking.

Only when their web of straws is completely filled with water – making up about 3 per cent of their body mass – do these spiky reptiles drink. When they do this, they stand stock-still while rhythmically opening and closing their mouths up to 2500 times an hour.

Other animals, such as Woodhouse’s toad, the file snake, and African and Asian elephants, can also hold water in their skins. However, they lack the ability to transport water towards their mouths. “These animals rather take up the water across their permeable skin,” says Comanns.

Understanding the water-collection mechanism in thorny devils could help conserve them, and might inspire technologies for gathering fresh water in deserts.

“Maybe there will be some sort of water-harvesting machines for deserts in the future,” he says.

Comanns has already used the way that the skin of Texas horned lizards funnel water towards their mouths in one direction as a model to create designs for useful products.

“We have been able to develop designs that could be applied in hygiene products or lubrication in car engines, based on how the skin of Texas horned lizards transports water,” he says. The and a team of collaborators an award last month.

Journal reference: Journal of Experimental Biology, DOI: 

Read more: Desert plant seen drinking fog and mist with its leaves;
First farm to grow veg in a desert using only sun and seawater

Diving spider

It was touch and go for a while. But the elusive pink aquatic salamanders that hatched inside Slovenia’s Postojna Cave about four months ago have survived the most difficult stage of their lives, reaching adolescence.

“This is the first time that the general public has the opportunity to see and follow the development of a creature that lives a really hidden life, in the darkness,” says team member Sašo Weldt at Postojna Cave in south-western Slovenia.

They were once only known from specimens washed out of caves by flooding and legend had it they were baby dragons – the name that stuck.

The olm (Proteus anguinus), or baby dragon, can live to be 100 years old and only lays eggs once or twice a decade. Little is known about their development and their small numbers and polluted underground habitat make them a vulnerable species.

So it was remarkable to see 64 eggs laid by a single individual and then placed in an aquarium within the cave earlier this year. Out of those, 22 eggs hatched, and all are still alive and developing better than expected. “These are the only baby dragons in the world, known to humanity,” says Weldt.

No one knew if they would hatch and survive the early stages of their life as this has never been attempted before.

“After months of trepidation, worries and doubts, the most uncertain development period for newborn olms is over,” says the team at Postojna Cave. “The baby dragons are now 18 weeks old and are ready to enter a new stage of development.”

The olm is found in caves in the Dinaric Alps in the Western Balkans, and the blind amphibians are known locally as “human fish” because of their pinkish skin and aquatic lifestyle. They eat, sleep and breed entirely underwater.

Researchers feared that the newborns would not develop digestive systems and would thus be incapable of feeding on the worms they grew for them, once the yolk was gone. However, they are now about 4 to 4.5 centimetres long and keep growing.

“After more than 18 weeks, all of them are on the worm diet, including the one who gave us a real fright as he was very late in converting to worms – he only switched a few weeks ago,” report the biologists.

At first glance, the babies resemble the adults, but it will take two to three years for skin to cover their eyes and about a year and a half for the dark pigmentation to disappear and for them to turn pink.

Their legs are fully developed and they use them to move around their aquariums. They can also hunt, protect their territory, and occasionally have “brotherly quarrels” or fight for food with the other siblings.

The adolescence period lasts for about 15 years for a female and 11 years for a male, depending on the water temperature. The young olms will then turn into adults and reach sexual maturity, “but will still look like larvae their entire life, even if they reach 100 years.”

The olms in Postojna Cave have gained enormous popularity, which helps protect the waters in the karst. “In Slovenia, all drinking water comes from the karst area, so basically, if we pollute the underworld and the olms go extinct, we then have nothing to drink,” says Weldt. “It’s that simple.”

Read more: Meet the weird amphibian that rules the underworld

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