Since mid-November, bird enthusiast Skye Marsh of Las Vegas had been hoping to get the call she received Wednesday afternoon. The lost toucan, appropriately named Sam, had been found.

Birding experts say your outdoor space could be missing several key elements.

Las Vegas is not a good environment for a toucan to be in the wild with its too-hot summers and cold winters, said Donald Price, a professor and biologist at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas who studies how winged animal species adapt to different environments.

Rising temperatures, diminished rainfall and steadily increasing usage have taken a serious toll on the Colorado River and the water it contains. Some question whether the Las Vegas Valley will have enough water to last into the future.

A trio of Nevada professors is working with NASA to investigate what drives life deep underground, hoping to create a better understanding of how ecosystems can thrive miles beneath the surface of Earth— and potentially on other planets.

The Nevada team, which will include researchers from the Desert Research Institute, the University of Nevada, Reno, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will collect samples from underground sites in Nevada and the southwest to study how microbial communities use radiation byproducts to survive.