Saturday 27 August 2016

New species of ancient Arctic river-dwelling dolphin discovered in halls of Smithsonian

It happens more often than you'd think: Research scientists go digging around the dusty collections of your local natural history museum and find species hitherto unknown to science. Whatever sits on display when you visit — ancient human art, towering dinosaurs, slightly off-putting taxidermy — is just the tip of the iceberg. Countless specimens remain unseen, not just by museum patrons but often by staff as well.
"There's all this stuff that no one has ever had time to go through," Alexandra Boersma, who studies fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian, told The Washington Post. So, to find new species, all you have to do is wander around the museum's dustiest corridors. Along with her lab's principal investigator, Nicholas D. Pyenson, Boersma went hunting for interesting projects.
"Some of it has been sitting there for decades," Boersma said. "No one has gotten around to describing it."
On Tuesday, she and Pyenson introduced their latest find to the scientific community: a 25 million-year-old river dolphin they've dubbed Arktocara yakataga. The species, described for the -read more

Two new species of glowing spook fish discovered

  • Barreleyes, with their large transparent heads, are one of the rarest and "most peculiar and unknown fish groups in the deep-sea pelagic realm", researchers say.
  • Some barreleyes have special organs on their bellies called "soles", covered with pigmented scales, that reflect light emitted from luminous organs inside their bellies.
  • By comparing the pigment patterns on the soles of barreleyes fish collected near American Samoa and New Zealand with long-preserved specimens previously caught near the mid-Atlantic ridge and Australia, researchers found that two species are new to science.Scientists have discovered two new species of bioluminescent deep-sea fish off New Zealand.
    Both species belong to the family Opisthoproctidae, also known as spook fish or “barreleyes”, named for the protruding cylindrical eyes that point upwards to detect the silhouette of prey, according to a study published in PLoS ONE.
    Barreleyes, with their large transparent heads, are one of the rarest and “most peculiar and unknown fish groups in the deep-sea pelagic realm”, researchers write in the paper. Only 19 species are currently thought to be a part of this family of fish.
    Some barreleyes also have special organs on their bellies called “soles”, which are covered with pigmented scales. These soles act as reflectors, deflecting the light emitted from luminous organs inside their bellies. Scientists believe that in the slightly sunlit depths of water, where barreleyes are typically caught, the fish might be using the light reflected by the soles for counter-illumination to camouflage themselves, and possibly for communication. The Barreleyes are sometimes referred to as mirrorbelly tube-eyes because of their reflecting bellies.-read more

BioBlitz finds new species of slime molds, fungi and lichen

The New Brunswick Museum's annual BioBlitz revealed several new species of lichens, fungi and slime molds in the province during its two-week data collection tour. 
Dozens of researchers and biologists spent two weeks in the Nepisiquit protected natural area near Mount Carleton Provincial Park collecting data on new or undescribed species.
Don McAlpine, research curator of the zoology department and head of the natural science at the museum, said they found lichens that are new to New Brunswick.
They also found fungi and several species of slime molds that haven't been reported in the province before. 
"We won't know in its entirety what we found for probably — it could be six months up to three years if it takes that long to work up the material," he said. read more

New species of eel found in Bay of Bengal


The one-foot long fish, which has 194 vertebrae, is likely to be called Indian unpatterned moray

Scientists have discovered a new species of eel, a snake-like fish, from the northern Bay of Bengal along the West Bengal coast.
The species Gymnothorax indicus is slender-bodied, about one feet-long and edible.
The eel was studied by the scientists at Sankarpur fishing harbour in West Bengal’s Purba Medinipur district, after it was collected in a trawl net by fishermen in northern Bay of Bengal, about 70 km off the coast.
“When fresh, the body is uniformly pale brown without spots or patterns and the eye rim is pale. We have proposed that the newly discovered species be called Indian unpatterened moray,” Anil Mohapatra, scientist from Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) told The Hindu.
The scientist said that the eel has 194 vertebrae. Its dorsal fin has a black margin.
The paper by Mr. Mohapatra, Dipanjan Ray, David G. Smith and Subhendu Sekhar Mishra was published in an international journal, Zootaxa, earlier this week.
Eaten in coastal areas
Eels are found mostly at the bottom of rivers and seas. This species was found at a depth of 35 metres in the sea.
Globally, about 1,000 species of eels have been identified and, in India, the number is around 125. Though considered a delicacy in many countries like Japan, the consumption of eels in India is limited to coastal areas.-read more

New trapdoor spider species found in Queensland

One of the new species, found in the Border Ranges National Park, is yet to be named.A Queensland scientist has discovered 11 new species of trapdoor spider lurking on mountains and in forests around the state.
Griffith University PhD student Jeremy Wilson, in conjunction with the Queensland Museum, tracked down new types of golden trapdoor spiders from remote parts of Cape York in the state's far north to Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast Hinterland.
"Some of the bigger species I've found are about the size of your palm," he said.
"Some have fangs about one centimetre long, so if they bite you they can do serious damage."
Mr Wilson said some of the new species could be deadly.
"No-one's been bitten by a lot of these species, so we don't know, but they could have venom that can have serious consequences for humans."
He said the burrow of one new species, that lives near Gympie on the Sunshine Coast, was particularly interesting.read more

Saturday 20 August 2016

Rare Tyrannosaurus rex skull arrives at Seattle museum

FILE - In this April 15, 2014 file photo, a cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex discovered in Montana greets visitors as they enter the Smithsonian Museum of Natural...Paleontologists with Seattle's Burke Museum have unearthed the bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex that lived more than 66 million years ago, including a rare nearly complete 4-foot long skull.
The remarkable discovery includes the dinosaur's vertebrae, ribs, hips and lower jaw bones, and represents about 20 percent of the meat-eating predator.
Several dozen scientists, volunteers, students and others worked over the summer to excavate the bones in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, a site well known for fossil finds.The team later encased the massive skull in a protective plaster cast, lifted the 2,500-pound load onto a flatbed truck with the help of local Montana ranchers and drove it to Seattle. The skull was unloaded at the Burke Museum Thursday.
The plaster-covered skull will be on display to the public for several weeks starting Saturday. Over the next year, paleontologists will painstakingly work on removing the rock around the skull.
Scientists estimate the dinosaur is 85 percent the size of the largest T. rex discovered and, based on the size of its skull, lived about 15 years. They believe this T. rex roamed the earth in the late Cretaceous period.
There are only 14 other nearly complete T. rex skulls that have been found, the museum said.
"We think the Tufts-Love Rex is going to be an iconic specimen for the Burke Museum and the state of Washington and will be a must-see for dinosaur researchers as well," Gregory Wilson, a University of Washington biology professor and adjunct curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum, said in a statement. He led the expedition team.
The T. rex is named after two museum paleontology volunteers, Jason Love and Luke Tufts, who were combing for fossils when they came across large fossilized vertebrae sticking out of a rocky hillside last summer.
The two were with a team collecting fossils as part of the Hell Creek Project, currently led by-read more

Sea potatoes wash up en masse on Cornish beach

‘They are quite common at the lower end of the right type of sandy beach,’ said Martin Attrill, marine biologist.With their biomechanical, other-worldly appearance, these orbs look like baseballs reprocessed through the imagination of HR Giger. So their appearance en masse on a beach near Penzance this week left locals uneasy.
“I took one home with me, then panicked and put it in the bin in case it attacked,” said one dog walker who found hundreds on the beach at Long Rock, between Penzance and Marazion. His spaniel refused to go near them, he said.
Others reported finding the objects from Coverack to Looe. Jess Arnieson, 27, who was holidaying in the area, said people were baffled by the orbs. “There were hundreds of them stretching away as far as you could see along the shoreline,” she said. “The ones I saw were a bit smaller than a football but it’s possible there were some that were bigger ... I didn’t want to go any further along the beach.”
But there is no need to napalm the beaches of the west coast just yet. According to a marine biologist, the unsettling spheroids are not the vanguard of an invasion ofXenomorphs. They are a common species of urchin, known as sea potatoes orEchinocardium cordatum.
“They are quite common at the lower end of the right type of sandy beach, living below the sand in burrows,” said Martin Attrill, director of the marine institute at Plymouth University. “You get lots of them on Torbay main beach, for example. “They are related to starfish and usually covered with little spines.-read more

Water voles: National Trust releasing 100 in Yorkshire Dales

Water voleAbout 100 water voles are to be released in the Yorkshire Dales.
Ecologists from the National Trust plan to release the new colony into Malham Tarn, England's highest freshwater lake.
It will be the first time voles have been in high Yorkshire Dales in 50 years.
Vole numbers have dropped by almost 90% in recent decades, and they have become one of the UK's most threatened mammals.
The animals being released have been bred in captivity and will be introduced in batches over five days.
They will spend two days in cages along the banks of the lake, before the cage doors are opened on the third day.

'Perfect habitat'

Ecologists will place apples and carrots on floating rafts near the cages to tempt the voles out into their new environment.-read more

Saturday 13 August 2016

Newfound Galapagos Bird Species Already Went Extinct

Newfound Galapagos Bird Species Already Went ExtinctA newly discovered species of brilliant red songbird has almost certainly already vanished from its home in the GalƔpagos Islands, in what is the first known songbird extinction on the island chain in modern times.
Using genetic techniques, researchers recently learned that the GalĆ”pagos vermilion flycatcher was once at least two species: Pyrocephalus nanus, which is still found across most of the island chain, and Pyrocephalus dubius, which hasn't been seen since 1987 but used to live only on San CristĆ³bal Island. That island lends the extinct bird its common name, the San CristĆ³bal Island vermilion flycatcher.
Unfortunately, P. nanus, still known as the GalĆ”pagos vermilion flycatcher, is now also in decline, said study researcher Jack Dumbacher, the curator of ornithology and mammalogy at the California Academy of Sciences -read more

new species of snail found at bottom of falls

A NEW species of snail has been discovered in an exciting development that may be housed at the bottom of Lesmurdie Falls.
Shire of Kalamunda and the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council recently held a Bush Skills for The Hills Frogs, Spiders and Snails workshop, and in the process identified something quite different.
Participants who were walking through the Lower Lesmurdie Falls, investigating wildlife found numerous birds, two frogs, a legless lizard, a mygalomorph trapdoor spider and some native snails were observed.
Shire President Andrew Waddell said the workshop was special because council had been working with an expert from the WA Museum to correctly identify a particular snail, which had been found in the region near Lower Lesmurdie Falls.
The WA Museum’s Corey Whisson, who is currently researching the snails, is investigating taxonomy of this snail and other species in the genus.-read more

Rain frog that turned into a Sleeping beauty is a new species from the Peruvian Andes

A new species of rain frog was discovered in the premontane forests of the Peruvian central Andes. Referring to the mountain chain's local name, the amphibian's name translates to 'Sleeping beauty'. Another striking thing about the new frog is the contrasting bright red that coats its groins, shanks and thighs.
Discovered and described by Drs GermĆ”n ChĆ”vez, Centro de OrnitologĆ­a y Biodiversidad (CORBIDI), and Alessandro Catenazzi, affiliated with both CORBIDI and Southern Illinois University, the frog is now published in the open access journal ZooKeys.
Like many new species, the new amphibian is also named after the place where it has been found. However, in this case the name is no ordinary one, since the mountain is locally known as Sleeping beauty, reflecting what the local population saw in its panoramic view -- a reclined sleeping woman. Therefore, the scientists suggest its common English name to be Sleeping beauty rain frog.
The rain frog's colouration is no less impressive. Its bright-red groins, shanks and thighs, set against a predominantly yellowish-brown body, distinguish it from other related frogs at a glimpse.-read more

New Snake Species Found in Mexico

theaztectreaBiologists have identified a new species of earth snake that has eluded detection so far by burrowing and keeping to a restricted ecosystem, according to a new study in the journal ZooKeys.
Researchers discovered the new snake through a reptile specimen collection program in east-central Mexico. The program’s primary objective was to study rarely-seen reptiles in this part of the country.
One particular specimen displayed a unique pair of traits for earth snakes, a remarkable orange and black color banding motif. The biologist came to realize these snakes were the manifestation of a whole new species and proceeded to describe it within the new paper.
"Most of these snakes have notably small geographic ranges and sometimes are only found in one type of vegetation. This makes them particularly vulnerable to the destruction of their habitat. It is important to know them before it gets too late," the study said.

Finding a New Snake Species

The study team further investigated their specimens with genetic and anatomical analyses.
"These snakes are remarkably similar to each other and it has been only through molecular analyses and rigorous specimen examination that we have come close to understand how diverse they are," the authors wrote in their report.
The area involving the species is discovered is yet to be thoroughly explored, and the scientists said it seems probable the region could yield future discoveries. Furthermore, scientists' work indicated the existence of other undescribed varieties of earth snake.-read more

TWO NEW SPECIES OF GLOWING FISH UNIQUE PIGMENT PATTERNS SET THE DEEP-SEA DWELLERS APART FROM RELATIVES

deep-sea barreleye fishScientists have discovered two new species of pop-eyed, bioluminescent fish in depths of the Pacific Ocean. The fish bear unique pigment patterns on their bellies, and until now were thought to be variations of the same species in preserved specimens.
The new fish belong to the barreleye family (Opisthoproctidae), which the scientists describe as “one of the most peculiar looking and unknown deep-sea fish groups.” Named for their large, tube-shaped eyes, these fish are both rare and fragile, making them difficult to study. Previously, the family was thought to have 19 members.
In the new study, scientists observed three distinctive pigmentation patterns on the fishes’ bellies. One belonged to a previously identified species found in the Atlantic Ocean. But a DNA analysis indicates that the two other patterns, found in specimens collected from the Pacific Ocean, actually mark distinct species.
These pigment patterns determine the light patterns that shine out from the fishes' rectal bulbs. It’s thought that barreleyes use these patterns as a form of camouflage from predators swimming beneath them. By producing light, the fish conceal their silhouette, which would otherwise be highlighted by the small amounts of sunlight that reach thousands of feet below the ocean’s -read more

Tooth in poo suggests ancient shark ate its young

illustration of prehistoric sharkScientists have discovered a baby tooth in the fossilised faeces of a prehistoric shark, and concluded that the animals ate their own young.
This rare evidence of "filial cannibalism" was only revealed because the shark's corkscrew-shaped rectum produced dung in a distinctive spiral.
One such dropping, collected in Canada, holds a tiny tooth of the same species.
These Orthacanthus sharks lived in coastal swamps and may have resorted to cannibalism as they expanded inland.

Swampy sharks

The macabre sample was gathered by University of Bristol masters student Aodhan Ɠ GogĆ”in, now studying for a PhD at Trinity College Dublin, as part of a wider investigation into prehistoric fish on the coast of New Brunswick.
Like much of North America and Europe, this land used to sit near the equator and was thick with tropical jungles.-read more

400-year-old Greenland shark ‘longest-living vertebrate’

sharkGreenland sharks are now the longest-living vertebrates known on Earth, scientists say.
Researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine the ages of 28 of the animals, and estimated that one female was about 400 years old.
The team found that the sharks grow at just 1cm a year, and reach sexual maturity at about the age of 150.
The research is published in the journal Science.
Lead author Julius Nielsen, a marine biologist from the University of Copenhagen, said: "We had our expectations that we were dealing with an unusual animal, but I think everyone doing this research was very surprised to learn the sharks were as old as they were."
The former vertebrate record-holder was a bowhead whale estimated to be 211 years old.
But if invertebrates are brought into the longevity competition, a 507-year-old clam called Ming holds the title of most aged animal.

Slow swimmers

Greenland sharks are huge beasts, that can grow up to 5m in length.
They can be found, swimming slowly, throughout the cold, deep waters of the North Atlantic.-read more

Hundreds of tiny Montserrat tarantulas hatch in zoo

Montserrat tarantulas matingA clutch of about 200 Montserrat tarantulas has hatched at Chester Zoo - the first time this rare spider has been bred in captivity.
Very little is known about the species, found on just the one Caribbean island.
A dozen of the hairy brown animals were brought back by a zoo keeper in 2013, after observing them in the wild on multiple field trips.
Three years later, after much study and behavioural management, one female has produced 200 British-born baby spiders.
"It's kind of a race against time, whether you can synchronise the sexual maturity between individuals," said Chester Zoo's curator of lower vertebrates, Gerardo Garcia.

'Popping out of the earth'

Part of the problem is that male Montserrat tarantulas live for about 2.5 years at the most, whereas the females live much longer and develop much more slowly.
The few males Dr Garcia had collected, therefore, were a precious resource. There were nervous moments for the team when they started match-making.
As with many other invertebrates, those encounters were risky for the males.
"The female can take it as a prey, rather than a partner," Dr Garcia told the BBC. "There were a lot of sweaty moments."-read more

Saturday 6 August 2016

Has a new form of life been discovered at the bottom of the ocean?

Mysterious: Live-stream footage from the underwater explorer Nautilus captures a strange purple orbĀ A mysterious purple orb sucked off the sea bed during a live-streamed Nautilus exploration has stumped scientists, and naturally the internet too.
Inquisitive viewers of the YouTube video have made multiple guesses as to its origins, ranging from an 'alien egg' to a brand new species of Pokemon.
In fact it is more likely the bright orb, found by the Channel Islands of California, is a type of marine mollusc.-read more

New Species Of Bat Found In Minnesota

(credit: DNR) A new species of bat may be calling Minnesota home.
The Department of Natural Resources announced Monday that an evening bat was caught last month at a National Guard site in Arden Hills.
Researchers conducting a three-year bat survey concluded that the captured bat was different from the seven species found in Minnesota’s woods, and genetic testing showed it was indeed an evening bat.
“It’s very exciting to discover a new bat species in the state,” DNR endangered species coordinator Rich Baker said in a statement. “The evening bat’s historic range is limited to central Iowa. As our project proceeds, we’ll be keeping an eye out for more evening bats.”
Baker added that researchers aren’t sure if the species has expanded its range north, or if it was blown into Minnesota during a summer storm.-read more

2 new scorpion species found in Arizona

As if there weren’t enough scorpions in the world, two new species has been found in southeastern Arizona by those who leave no stone unturned-over in their ongoing quest to find venomous creatures.
One of the critters was discovered in the Santa Catalina Mountains, and the other in Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains, according to an article published in Euscorpius, a scientific journal dedicated to the study of creatures most people want to avoid.-read more

New, rarely seen whale discovered

Genetic tests confirm that a mysterious, unnamed species of beaked whale only seen alive by Japanese fishermen roams the northern Pacific Ocean, according to research published this week.
The testing shows the black whales, with bulbous heads and beaks like porpoises, are not dwarf varieties of more common Baird’s beaked whales, a slate-gray animal.
Japanese researchers sampled three black beaked whales that washed up on the north coast of Hokkaido, the country’s most northern island, and wrote about them in a 2013 paper. The challenge to confirm the existence of the new animal was finding enough specimens from a wider area for testing and matching genetic samples, said Phillip Morin, a National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration research molecular biologist.
He and his team uncovered five other whales, all found in Alaska, that matched the species found in Japan.
“Clearly this species is very rare and reminds us how much we have to learn about the ocean and even some of its largest inhabitants,” he said in an announcement.
The largest beaked whale varieties can reach 40 feet and spend up to 90 minutes underwater hunting for squid in deep water. They are hard to research because they may spend only a few minutes at the surface, Morin said by phone last Thursday. They rarely breach, travel in small numbers and blend into their surroundings.
Japanese fishermen reported occasionally seeing a smaller, black beaked whale that they called “karasu,” the Japanese word for raven, or “kuru tsuchi,” black Baird’s beaked whale.
The Japanese researchers in 2013 were limited in declaring that they had found a new species because their three samples were from one location, said Morin, who works at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Research Center.
“My first idea was to go to our collection, where we have the largest collection of cetacean samples in the world,” he said.
In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Marine Mammal Science, Morin and fellow authors describe analyzing 178 beaked whale specimens from around the Pacific Rim. They found five that matched with the Japanese whales.-read more