STRANGE ANIMALS -COMEDY FRIENDLY ZOMBIE PRODUCTION HOLSWORTHY AND AREA CRYPTOZOOLOGY GROUP: 2017

Saturday 30 December 2017

Student Discovers New Species of Giant Octopus

There's a type of octopus called the Giant Pacific. It's pretty big, arguably the biggest on our planet. They can be found in the coastal North Pacific—places like Japan, Korea, Russia, California, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. But it's recently been found out that what we've been calling the Giant Pacific octopus actually includes two different species.

Enter Alaska Pacific University undergraduate student Nathan Hollenbeck, who, while working on his senior thesis on shrimp fishing bycatch, made the discovery. After setting shrimp traps, some giant octopuses, who were probably looking for a good meal, got themselves stuck in the contraption, Earther reports.

Hollenbeck noticed that one of the animals was a Giant Pacific, but realized that a second octopus looked markedly different, with frill on its body and two white spots on its head. To confirm that the frill octopus was different, Hollenbeck took samples. He cut off pieces of the animal's arm (which sounds horrible—and lightweight is—but they do regenerate) and took some skin samples to peep the whole DNA situation.

Malabar sanctuary home to new night frog

Nyctibatrachus mewasinghi is a new species of night frog from Western Ghats

A new frog from Kerala is the latest contribution to the spurt in amphibian discoveries across India: scientists have just discovered the Mewa Singh’s Night frog, belonging to a genus endemic to the Western Ghats, from Kozhikode's Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary.

According to a scientific paper published on December 26 in The Journal of Threatened Taxa (an international journal on conservation and taxonomy), the new night frog Nyctibatrachus mewasinghi is light brown in colour with an off-white underside, and sports faintly wrinkled skin with prominent granular projections.=READ MORE

Gardens under threat from 'game changing' plant disease

A pest that can infect plants from lavender to cherry trees is of real and growing concern in the UK, say experts.

Outbreaks of Xylella fastidiosa have caused widespread problems in Europe, wiping out entire olive groves.

The Royal Horticultural Society says the disease could arrive in the UK on imported stock, threatening gardens.

The European Commission has stepped up protections against the spread of Xylella, which can infect more than 350 different plants.

But RHS head of plant health Gerard Clover warned that it was probably only a matter of time before it spreads to the UK.

"Xylella is a game-changer for gardeners and the horticultural industry and it is vital that we understand its potential impact," he said.=READ MORE

New Species Of Turtle Is Discovered In Alabama

NOEL KING, HOST:

In Alabama, a big discovery was made recently...

PETER SCOTT: People call it the intermediate musk turtle or aliflora (ph) musk turtle.

KING: ...A turtle. That is Peter Scott. He's a postdoc researcher at UCLA, and we talked to him on Skype about his turtle discovery.

SCOTT: It's a small turtle, about 3 or 4 inches long as an adult. They kind of have chocolate-colored shells with darker markings on them. They have a beautifully spotted head and kind of a striped neck. They are kind of puggish-like little turtles.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

I think they sound kind of cute, don't they?

KING: (Laughter).=READ MORE AND LISTEN TO RECORDING

This Sneaky Octopus Species Managed to Bamboozle Scientists for Years

Cephalopods have been quietly plotting their revenge against humanity for years, pranking the people that keep them in captivity, escaping from aquariums, and even forming octopus colonies. While we think we’re onto cephalopods’ games, a newly discovered species of giant octopus shows how little we know about these wonderful weirdos.

On Monday, Earther reported on the octopus in question — a second species of giant Pacific octopus, aptly named the frilled giant Pacific octopus. It took researchers from Alaska Pacific University (APU) several years to actually collect enough evidence to declare they’d discovered species separate from the giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini), though they suspect local fishers have been catching these octopuses for decades.

In order to finally confirm the existence of these elusive octopuses, APU undergrad student Nate Hollenbeck observed shrimp fisher’s catches for his senior thesis. This made sense, considering sometimes, hungry octopuses climb into a fisher’s pot to grab some grub. Sure enough, Hollenbeck was able to make =READ MORE

Friday 29 December 2017

Attenborough and empire of ants

TV Natural World: Attenborough and the Empire of the Ants review – another fascinating insight into the insect world Our greatest naturalist gives the impression he would spend all day watching ants fight, if he could. Plus: Still Open All Hours catches the mood of the post-Christmas lull Tim Dowling Fri 29 Dec ‘17 06.00 GMT The Jura mountains on the Swiss-French border give their name to the Jurassic period, thanks to the limestone strata first identified there. They are also home to a lot of ants, which may not sound that exciting at first; ants are everywhere. In Natural World: Attenborough and the Empire of the Ants (BBC2), Sir David Attenborough kneels in the snow over an ant mound, looking cold. The nest contains hibernating wood ants, waiting out the freezing Jurassic winter, kept warm by the slow decomposition of their spruce needle mound. At the first sign of spring, sentry ants pop out for a look around, but these specific wood ants are more famous for what they don’t do. Generally speaking, wood ants like a fight. The ants from a single colony are all related, thanks to their queen mum, and when they meet other wood ants from a neighbouring nest, they go to war, piercing rivals with their mandibles and squirting formic acid into the wounds to dissolve their enemy’s innards. It is a tremendously costly way of doing business, although the winners get to eat the losers. Attenborough’s ants don’t do that – they are on friendly terms with other nests, and are thus able to form super colonies half a billion ants strong, spread over more than a thousand mounds linked by 100km of trails. Which is not to say these wood ants abjure violence in all its forms. They are quite capable of hunting down a wolf spider, killing it and dragging it back to their nest. The super colony, says Attenborough, “makes hundreds of millions of kills every year”. They will take down caterpillars, beetles, even butterflies. It takes a lot of work to make fascinating television out of what is, essentially, a bunch of ants, but the narrative arc of their breeding habits is indeed extraordinary. Deep in their mounds the queens – up to a million per super colony – start laying. Their first eggs will produce the next breeding generation – a sort of royal household. These ants, males and females both, will sprout wings. After the larvae hatch, the worker ants head out to collect food, hunting more spiders or farming aphids, which excrete a sticky honeydew that ants love. Meanwhile, the identical, but decidedly less cooperative wood ants on the other side of the mountain are still busy killing each other. One gets the impression that if he could, Sir David would spend all day lying on the grass, watching ants fight. Maybe he did. Once the winged royal family hatch, they fly off and mate. The males die almost immediately afterward; the females shed their wings and become queens. At this point, regular wood-ant queens pursue a high risk strategy, infiltrating a field ant colony and keeping a low profile, but the super colony affords plenty of opportunity for queens to start a new life elsewhere, or just stay at home. The ability to film ants going about their business in extreme close-up requires specialist equipment – a one-off contraption called Frankencam – or Frank for short. Frank has come a long way since Attenborough first encountered it 12 years ago, but it is basically still a long mechanical arm with a tiny camera at one end, employing a miniature lens exactly like the one in your phone. As ever, the back end of the programme was a tribute to those tireless operators who endure bad weather, extreme tedium and ants in their pants in order to get these difficult shots. Hats off. Leroy (James Baxter) and Granville (David Jason). Photograph: BBC/Gary Moyes Open All Hours, starring Ronnie Barker and David Jason, ran for 26 episodes between 1973 and 1985. Still Open All Hours (BBC2), a sequel which kicked off with a 2013 Boxing Day special, has now topped this: the latest series will bring it to 27 episodes. In the updated version, Jason’s Granville – spookily channelling Dame Maggie Smith – has inherited his uncle’s shop, although the ghost of the old man still manifests itself as a greedy and uncooperative cash register. This revisit is no doubt intended as a seasonal dose of fuzzy nostalgia, but over several series, the show has developed an airless, claustrophobic quality, even a faintly sinister atmosphere. The plot, such as it is, involves dreams of escape. Mr Newbold wants to be free of the attentions of Mrs Featherstone, and Madge plans to take Mavis to a hotel for Christmas. But these modest ambitions are cruelly thwarted; everything is restored to its default setting of quiet despair. A joke about unopenable Christmas crackers seems positively self-defeating. And everyone has to go to that terrible, terrible shop, because it is Still Open. For my money, this show perfectly catches the mood of the post-Christmas lull, but I imagine small children would find it scary. Topics Television Last night's TV David Attenborough reviews Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Google+ Share on WhatsApp Share on Messenger most viewed tv & radio music film stage books games art & design classical back to top jobs dating become a supporter make a contribution guardian labs about us work for us advertise with us contact us ask for help terms & conditions privacy policy cookie policy securedrop digital newspaper archive complaints & corrections all topics all contributors modern slavery act facebook twitter subscribe © 2017 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Saturday 23 December 2017

Ancient dolphin species Urkudelphis chawpipacha discovered in Ecuador

A new dolphin species likely from the Oligocene was discovered and described in Ecuador, according to a study published December 20, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Yoshihiro Tanaka from the Osaka Museum of Natural History, Japan, and colleagues.

Many marine fossils described in previous research have been from long-recognized temperate regions such as South Carolina, off the coast of Oregon, Hokkaido and New Zealand. Few equatorial and polar fossils are currently known.

While in the tropical region of Santa Elena Province, Ecuador, the authors of this study found a small dolphin skull, which they identified as representing a new species, Urkudelphis chawpipacha, based on facial features. The dolphin skull had a bone crest front and center on its face, above the eye sockets. This species stands apart from other Oligocene dolphins with its shorter and wider frontal bones located near the top of the head and the parallel-sided posterior part of its jaw. The authors also conducted a phylogenetic analysis which revealed that the new species may be the ancestor of the nearly-extinct Platanistoidea=read more

Tiny scorpion packs a punch

Tripura hosts a newly identified species that has large and powerful pincers

Their stings are what they’re most notorious for but India’s scorpions are in the limelight now thanks to the addition of a new species — the Schaller’s wood scorpion from Tripura’s Trishna Wildlife Sanctuary.

A study published in Zootaxa, an international journal devoted to new species descriptions, details the discovery of the eleventh wood scorpion species from India by scientist Zeeshan Mirza (National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore). Also called dwarf scorpions, wood scorpions are unlike the large scorpions we commonly see. Wood scorpions are only about three cm long and live in small burrows on the ground, making them very difficult to spot.

“They also have fairly large and powerful pincers with which they crush their prey, and it was the sight of the pincers protruding from small mud burrows that alerted me,” says Mr. Mirza, who went looking for scorpions at night with a torch in Tripura.

A detailed examination of the arachnids showed they were distinctly different from other recorded wood scorpions — the mid-portion of their pincers was differently-shaped as was the placement of their eyes, and they were far darker (a glossy black).

Mr. Mirza named the new species Liocheles schalleri in honour of celebrated wildlife biologist George Schaller who has studied wildlife across the world, including the snow leopards of the Himalayas and central India’s tigers. Schaller’s wood scorpions are found in low elevations in parts of Tripura, including Trishna and Bison National Park, and is likely to be found in Bangladesh too, which is three km away.

“There are records of wood scorpions from Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana but we do not know what species they are,” says Mr. Mirza. “So there could be many more species yet to discover. I plan to now look at the genetic differences between Liocheles scorpions in more detail.”

India is home to more than 125 species of scorpions. Nine of India’s 11 wood scorpions are endemic to the country.

Newly Discovered Underwater Spider Named 'Desis Bobmarleyi' After Reggae Legend Bob Marley

A new species of spider has been discovered in Australia that has developed its own unique way to breathe while living underwater. Like most animals from the land down under, this one takes survival to the extreme by being a predominantly marine insect. And, that is not all. The spider has been named Desis bobmarleyi after late Reggae singer Bob Marley.

In their paper, published in the open access journal Evolutionary Systematics, the team of researchers from Queensland Museum and the University of Hamburg says that this spider has adapted to living underwater.

Spiders that live under water have been found in Samoa and Western Australia but little is known about these insects.

Unlike the spiders which people are familiar with, the intertidal species of spiders are truly marine. They have adapted to living underwater by finding small pockets of air under barnacle shells, corals or kelp holdfast during high tide.

But the Desis bobmarleyi has developed a unique way to breathe. They use their web to build air chambers from silk. When the sea water recedes, they come out and do usual spider stuff like hunting small invertebrates that roam the surfaces of the nearby rocks, corals and plants=read more

These Deep Sea Worms Without Butts Likely Haven't Evolved For Millions of Years

Long before we were bipedal mammals with skeletons and brains, we were primitive, sack-like sea creatures with no internal organs, no central nervous systems and no butt - and, somehow, there are still creatures like that living today.

They belong to the mysterious Xenoturbella genus, and now researchers have discovered a sixth species of this strange seafloor-dwelling worm - one that may make the creatures much easier to study.

It's called Xenoturbella japonica, and it was discovered by Japanese researchers from the University of Tsukuba on the seafloor in the western Pacific.

They found two specimens - an adult female about 5 centimetres (2 inches) in length, and a juvenile, about 1 centimetre (0.4 inches). They are orange in colour, with an oval mouth and a glandular network on the bottom surface.

The Xenoturbella genus is genuinely peculiar. It was first discovered in 1915, but not described until 1949: a small, sack-like worm with no organs, no circulatory system, no respiratory system, no gonads and no anus (it expels waste through =read more

New study: Snake fungal disease may now be a global threat

The report, published in the online journal Science Advances on Wednesday, December 20, suggests that given the scope of the snake fungal disease caused by Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola, future surveys should operate under the assumption that all species harbor the pathogen.

“This really is the worst-case scenario,” said lead author Frank Burbrink, an associate curator at the American Museum of Natural History. “Our study suggests that first responders shouldn’t just be looking for certain types of snakes that have this disease, but at the whole community. All snakes could become infected, or already are infected.”=read more

Dolphin pod living year-round off coast of England

The first resident pod of bottlenose dolphins has been discovered off the south-west coast of England.

Experts used thousands of sightings and photos to identify a group of 28 individuals living year-round off the coasts of Cornwall, Devon and Dorset.

They were identified using their dorsal fins, which are as unique to dolphins as fingerprints are to humans.

Plymouth University researchers studied 3,843 records to identify 98 dolphins and among them the resident population.

The sightings, recorded between 2007 and 2016, established the group was present in shallow coastal waters, mainly off Cornwall and particularly near St Ives Bay and Mount's Bay.

World's ugliest pig' caught on camera

Scientists have captured the first footage in the wild of one of the world's rarest - and ugliest - pigs.

The Javan warty pig is under such threat from hunting and habitat loss that conservationists surveying its habitat believed it might already have been driven to extinction.

Camera traps have now revealed that small populations survive in Java's increasingly fragmented forests.

The team says its aim now is to protect the rare animals' habitat.

The survey was led by Dr Johanna Rode-Margono from Chester Zoo, who said she and her colleagues were "thrilled" to see that the pigs were still there.=read more and see video

Saturday 16 December 2017

Fossil hunters find bones of human-sized penguin on New Zealand beach

The remnants of an ancient penguin that stood as tall as a human have been found encased in rock on a beach in New Zealand.

Fossil hunters chanced upon the prehistoric bones in sedimentary rock that formed 55m to 60m years ago on what is now Hampden beach in Otago in the country’s South Island.

Measurements of the partial skeleton show that the flightless bird weighed about 100kg and had a body length of 1.77 metres (5ft 10in), equal to the average height of an American man. Emperor penguins, the tallest penguin species alive today, reach only 1.2 metres when fully grown.

Penguins evolved from flying birds tens of millions of years ago, but lost the ability to get airborne and became accomplished swimmers instead. Once grounded, some penguin species became much larger, growing from about 80cm tall to twice the size.

The pieces of the latest skeleton, including wing, spine, breast and leg bones, were first discovered more than a decade ago, but the rock holding the fossilised bones was so hard that it has taken until now for researchers to prepare and study the remains.=READ MORE

Fossils of 75 million-year-old dinosaur that looked like a MUTANT swan with a reptilian tail are found by stunned archaeologists in Mongolia

A bizarre feathered dinosaur resembling a nightmarish mutant swan has been identified by scientists.

The strange creature had a graceful swan-like neck but also scythe-like claws, a reptilian tail, and a beak lined with teeth.

Halszkaraptor escuilliei, which lived 75 million years ago, was about the size of a modern swan and is thought to have been semi-aquatic

Lost and found after 130 years: A bee-mimicking moth

Scientists from Poland have rediscovered a moth which was recorded way back in 1887 and then termed as ‘lost species’. They stumbled upon the moth Heterosphecia tawonoides, known for its mimicry and deceptive appearance. The moth looks like a bee with tufts of hair-like scales on its hind legs.

This is the first time that the moth has been observed and filmed in its natural habitat. During the field visits in 2013, 2016, and 2017 in the rainforests of peninsular Malaysia, the authors from University of Gdansk and ClearWing Foundation for Biodiversity, Poland, noticed the moth with a strong blue sheen on its wings, abdomen, and legs.=READ MORE

Ancient Greece was infested with human parasites: Archaeologists find oldest evidence of parasitic worms described 2,500 years ago by Hippocrates

They were first described in the writings of Hippocrates 2,500 years ago, and now scientists have discovered evidence of parasitic worms in ancient Greece.

Scientists analysed faeces from prehistoric burials on the Greek island of Kea and discovered eggs from two species of parasitic worm dating back to the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods.

This new archaeological evidence identifies beyond doubt some of the species of parasites that infected people in the region.

Dinosaur parasites trapped in 100-million-year-old amber tell blood-sucking story

Fossilised ticks discovered trapped and preserved in amber show that these parasites sucked the blood of feathered dinosaurs almost 100 million years ago, according to a new article published in Nature Communications today.

Sealed inside a piece of 99 million-year-old Burmese amber researchers found a so-called hard tick grasping a feather. The discovery is remarkable because fossils of parasitic, blood-feeding creatures directly associated with remains of their host are exceedingly scarce, and the new specimen is the oldest known to date.

The scenario may echo the famous mosquito-in-amber premise of Jurassic Park, although the newly-discovered tick dates from the Cretaceous period (145-66 million years ago) and will not be yielding any dinosaur-building DNA: all attempts to extract DNA =READ M ORE

Researchers discover ancient shark 'older than SHAKESPEARE' in species that could live until its 600 years old

Scientists have found an ancient shark that could be older than SHAKESPEARE - as research reveals the species could live to 600 years old.

Earlier this year professor Kim Praebel, from the Arctic University of Norway found that Greenland sharks could have a lifespan of up to 400 years.

But now developing research has shown the species could be even older.

Marine biologist Julius Nielsen found that a sixteen-foot female his team had been studying was at least 272 years old, and possibly as much as 512 years old.

Using a mathematical model analysing the lens and the cornea that linked size with age they found a way to predict age.-READ MORE

Tuesday 12 December 2017

Owlman of mawnan with Jonathan downes

https://youtu.be/y3vmr4o0e5g

Saturday 9 December 2017

I read Richard Freeman on Holsworthy mark show

I published my new episode Holsworthy mark show reads execpts of books by Richard Freeman, please check it out http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ze4c5-7eb620

AREA 52 UFO: Big cat hairs in Woolsery Devon Holsworthy mark s...

AREA 52 UFO: Big cat hairs in Woolsery Devon Holsworthy mark s...: I published my new episode Holsworthy mark show episode 42 Woolsery big cat hairs, please check it out http://www.podbean.com/media/share/...

Have we lost an Archaeopteryx but gained a new species of theropod dinosaur?

A paper published earlier this week in BMC Evolutionary biology suggests that one of only 12 known Archaeopteryx fossil skeletons is not in fact an Archaeopteryx at all but a new species of theropod dinosaur, Ostromia crassipes.One Dutch newspaper, perhaps over-egging it slightly, went as far as likening the discovery to finding out that your Monet painting turned out to be a Van Gogh. So what is Archaeopteryx and why has this paper got palaeontologists (a bit) excited?

What is Archaeopteryx?

You will find a cast of Archaeopteryx or two, or a model reconstruction in almost every natural history museum and Archaeopteryx is, quite rightly, described in the new paper as an iconic fossil. However, from personal experience in talking to museum visitors, it is not an extinct animal that many people are familiar with, being not quite on the same tier of recognisability as large dinosaurs.

First described in 1861, Archaeopteryx lithographica was the species name given =read more

NEW SPECIES OF TARANTULA DISCOVERED IN SOUTH AMERICA IS BEAUTIFUL BRIGHT BLUE AND LIVES IN STRANGE TREE HOLES

On an expedition to Guyana, scientists were excited to discover several new animal species, including a handful of beetles and butterflies. However, it was a small, iridescent blue tarantula that really took the prize. The amazing arachnid was found hiding in a hollowed-out tree, and is believed to have been unknown to science.

The spider was found in March 2014 during the second Biodiversity Assessment Team expedition, a month-long survey in which researchers looked for new species in Guyana's Kaieteur National Park. The expedition’s discoveries have been released recently.

Related: Horrifying video shows giant wasp paralyze tarantula so living spider can host eggs for weeks

According to the World Wildlife Foundation, the spider is among dozens of new species found in the untouched part of Guyana, many of which are believed to be endemic to the secluded area. =read more and see video

Fossils of 75 million-year-old dinosaur that looked like a MUTANT swan with a reptilian tail are found by stunned archaeologists in Mongolia

A bizarre feathered dinosaur resembling a nightmarish mutant swan has been identified by scientists.

The strange creature had a graceful swan-like neck but also scythe-like claws, a reptilian tail, and a beak lined with teeth.

Halszkaraptor escuilliei, which lived 75 million years ago, was about the size of a modern swan and is thought to have been semi-aquatic

Fossils of a fearsome lion species with blade-like teeth that has been extinct for at least 18 million years are discovered in the Australian outback

A new species of extinct lion that inhabited lush rainforest more than 18 million years ago has been discovered in the Australian outback.

Like kangaroos and koalas, this fearsome creature was a marsupial but unlike today's descendent it was a meat-eater, armed with a fearsome set of teeth.

The findings are based on the discovery of fossilised remains of an animal's skull, teeth and upper arm bone found in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area of remote north-western Queensland.

Oldest EVER eye discovered in 530-million-year-old fossil

The relic of an extinct sea creature included an early form of the eye seen in many of today’s animals, including crabs bees and dragonflies.

Researches made the “exceptional” find while looking at the well-preserved fossil of a hard-shelled species called a trilobite.

These ancestors of spiders and crabs lived in coastal waters during the Palaeozoic era, between 541-251 million years ago.

The team, which included a researcher from the University of Edinburgh, say their findings suggest compound eyes have changed little over 500 million years.=read more and see video

CRYPTOZOOGIST

CLICK HERE FOR OUR KICKSTARTER!! CRYPTOZOOLOGIST Cryptozoologist is a documentary about the people who search for unknown or undiscovered animals. Fundraising for principal production will begin Sept 2017. Cryptozoologist is a feature-length documentary film about unknown animals and the people whose job it is to find them. Meet the men and women who devote their lives to research, write about, and attempt to find mysterious creatures like Champ the Lake Champlain Lake Monster, Dogmen, Tasmanian Tigers, hairy hominids and legends of the sea. The film takes an intimate look at a group of true believers who have staked their professional fortunes to the practice of Cryptozoology, or the study of unknown animals. SIGN UP FOR OUR EMAIL LIST Name * First Name Last Name Email Address * Message * SUBMIT TEAM CRYPTO DIRECTOR - BRAD ABRAHAMS Brad is a documentary filmmaker and commercial director based in Canada and the USA. He previously worked as a creative director for Digital Kitchen in Seattle and now makes documentaries for a living. Brad's first film, Love and Saucers was just chosen for competition in 15 different film festivals around the world. It was a jury special mention in this years Fantastic Fest and won the Best Feature award at the 2017 Lift Off Los Angeles Film Festival. His all-consuming interests in radical science, cryptozoology, and genereal esoterica inspire his stories. Fruit is his favorite food PRODUCER - MATT RALSTON Matt Ralston is a producer and editor living in Seattle WA. Matt has worked in the production industry for over 15 years as an editor and producer In no particular order he loves horror films, puppets, his cat Scully, his newly built basement tiki bar and his wife Melissa. Cryptozoologist is his 2nd feature length documentary. His first, Love and Saucers garnered critical success and is coming off it's 2017 festival run. It will be available worldwide on most VOD and streaming platforms. UPCOMING EVENTS MORE INFO COMING SOON! NEWS & UPDATES UPCOMING APPEARANCES ON Into the Fray The Overlook Theater Mysterious Universe "New Cryptozoology Documentary being developed" TWITTER Cryptozoologist RT @JoshDestructor: The sixth painting in my Legends Of Boggy Creek portrait series is of Willie E. Smith. #foukemonster… https://t.co/apBwmXIeuE 2 weeks ago Cryptozoologist A nice write up over at @mysteriousuniv about the film and our mission to make the first ever cryptozoology documen… https://t.co/Dr4cpDKR0X 2 weeks ago Cryptozoologist Nice article by the fine folks at The Overlook Theatre about Cryptozoologist and our fundraising efforts! https://t.co/aVjVhjKiDN A month ago BACK TO TOP Powered by Squarespace POWERED BY SQUARESPACE

Tuesday 5 December 2017

DAVID Attenborough AND THE GIANT ELEPHANT

Sunday 10.12 2017 9.00pm-10.00pm BBC ONE NEW David Attenborough investigates the remarkable life and death of Jumbo the elephant - a celebrity animal superstar whose story is said to have inspired the movie Dumbo. Attenborough joins a team of scientists and conservationists to unravel the complex and mysterious story of this large African elephant - an elephant many believed to be the biggest in the world. With unique access to Jumbo’s skeleton at the American Museum of Natural History, the team work together to separate myth from reality. How big was Jumbo really? How was he treated in captivity? And how did he die? Jumbo’s bones may offer vital clues. Arriving in London Zoo in 1865, Jumbo fast became a firm favourite of Queen Victoria and her children, and was nicknamed the Children’s Pet. Yet behind the scenes, this gentle giant was living a double life - smashing his den, breaking his tusks and being pacified by large amounts of alcohol given to him by his keeper Matthew Scott, who had a deep empathy for animals, developing a particularly strong and near mystical bond with Jumbo. Then, quite suddenly, London Zoo caused public outrage by selling Jumbo to PT Barnum’s circus in America where he travelled with his devoted keeper to start a new life. But while his time in America turned him into star with 20 million people coming to see him, his life ended tragically and mysteriously. As well as Jumbo’s skeleton, Attenborough explores the lives of wild elephants to explain Jumbo’s troubled mind, and he discovers how our attitude to captive elephants has changed dramatically in recent years.

Saturday 2 December 2017

Bat cave study finds new clues about SARS virus origin

Chinese researchers who spent 5 years examining SARS-related viruses collected from horseshoe bats in a Yunnan province cave found 11 new strains that have all the genetic building blocks of the strain that has infected humans, hinting that recombination between the bats' viral strains may have produced the ancestor of the deadly outbreak.

Experiments showed that some of the newly identified strains can enter human cells using the same cell receptor as the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus. The team reported its findings yesterday in PLoS Pathogens.

The epidemic began in 2002 in southern China, and over the next year it involved nearly 8,100 cases, 774 of them fatal, in 37 countries. Researchers have traced the source of the virus to horseshoe bats, with palm civets as the intermediate host. However, earlier gene studies have shown that SARS strains in bats are distinct from strain that triggered the human outbreak, obscuring a clear understanding of how the outbreak started.=read more

New creature discovered: Ancient wormlike specimen covered in spikes found in China

A TINY ancient sea creature with a helmet-like shell and cocktail stick-like spikes has been discovered by Chinese scientists.The “mythical beast” was discovered after two specimens of the two centimetre-long creatures were discovered in south-western China.

The creature is thought to have lived more than 500 years ago and has been described as “strange beyond measure”.

The specimens were taken to Durham University to be researched by a joint Chinese and British team.

Study researcher Martin Smith, an assistant professor at Durham University told Live Science: “The creature is like a mythical beast.=read more

Hundreds of Pterosaur Eggs Found in Record-Breaking Fossil Haul

In a world first, paleontologists working in northwestern China have discovered a cache of hundreds of ancient eggs laid by pterosaurs, the flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs. Some of the eggs contain the most detailed pterosaur embryos ever found.

Although scientists have studied pterosaurs for more than two centuries, no eggs were discovered until the early 2000s, and fewer than a dozen turned up in the intervening years. The new haul, discovered by Chinese Academy of Sciences paleontologist Xiaolin Wang, includes at least 215—and perhaps as many as 300— stunningly preserved pterosaur eggs.

His team also found 16 embryos within the eggs, and they suspect that more remain locked away in the stone. Wang and his colleagues announced the finds today in Science.=read more

The other Dodo: Extinct bird that used its wings as clubs

The extinct Dodo had a little-known relative on another island. This fascinating bird ultimately suffered the same fate as its iconic cousin, but we can reconstruct some of its biology thanks to the writings of a French explorer who studied it during his travels of the Indian Ocean.

In the middle of the 18th century, at around the time the US was signing the declaration of independence, a large flightless bird quietly became extinct on an island in the Indian Ocean.

Today this bird is all but forgotten.

Early explorers to the tiny island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean described a "Dodo" living on the forested island. Males were grey-brown, and females sandy, both having strong legs and a long, proud necks... but despite outward similarities to the iconic Mauritian bird, this wasn't in fact a Dodo, but the Rodrigues solitaire.

If you look up Rodrigues in satellite images, you can see a huge ring of submerged land around the central island, over 50% of the original dry land is thought to have been lost under the waves due to sea level rise and the island subsiding into the bedrock. That was the stage for the evolution of the huge bird, over millions of years.=read more

Fossilised eggs shed light on reign of pterosaurs

The largest clutch of pterosaurs eggs ever discovered suggests that the extinct flying reptiles may have gathered together in vast colonies to lay their eggs.

More than 200 eggs were discovered at one location in China.

Little is known about how the pterosaurs reproduced.

The find suggests that hatchlings were probably incapable of flight when they emerged from the egg, and needed some parental care.

Predator attack

Fossilised pterosaur eggs and embryos are extremely rare. Until now only a handful of eggs have been found, in Argentina and north-western China.

The large collection of eggs suggests pterosaurs may have nested in colonies, where they defended their offspring from predator attack.=read more

Wednesday 29 November 2017

Jonathan downes interview guardian newspaper about yeti samples.

DNA sampling exposes nine 'yeti specimens' as eight bears and a dog Although it has not revealed the existence of the abominable snowman, DNA analysis has shed light on the evolutionary ‘family tree’ of bears, scientists say View more sharing options Shares 145 Comments 154 Nicola Davis Wednesday 29 November 2017 07.15 GMT Huge, ape-like and hairy, the yeti has roamed its way into legend, tantalising explorers, mountaineers and locals with curious footprints and fleeting appearances. Now researchers say the elusive inhabitant of the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau has been unmasked. Scientists studying nine samples – including hair and teeth – supposedly from yetis, say the samples are not from a huge hominin but in fact mostly belonged to bears. Yeti DNA: has the mystery really been solved? Read more Just one sample, taken from a curious stuffed “yeti”, bucked the trend – the creature turned out to be a taxidermy mash-up boasting the hair of a bear and the teeth of a dog. Advertisement “It demonstrates that modern science can really try and tackle some of these mysteries and unsolved questions that we have,” said Dr Charlotte Lindqvist, an expert on bear genomics and co-author of the research from the University at Buffalo. The study is not the first time it has been suggest the yeti might be more ursine than abominable. A recent study, based on genetic analysis from samples purportedly from yeti-like creatures the world over, found that while most of the samples came from known animals, two from Bhutan and the Indian Himalayas were more mysterious. The team suggested they might be from an unknown species of bear, or a descendant from a hybrid of a polar and brown bear. A footprint purporting to be that of the abominable snowman, taken near Mount Everest in 1951. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images But Lindqvist was unconvinced, pointing out there was too little data to rule out a more mundane explanation. “I just didn’t trust these claims,” she said. Lindqvist and colleagues examined nine samples gathered by a company shooting a film on the topic. Sources included mummified animals found in monasteries, hair collected by nomadic herdsmen, bone from a spiritual healer and a stuffed “yeti” from the Messner Mountain Museum. The team also analysed 15 other samples from zoos, national parks and museums, the majority of which were known to be from Himalayan brown bears. The analysis, which was based on sequences of DNA from the energy powerhouses of the cell known as mitochondria, involved a comparison of all of the samples with genetic data from a large international database. “Of those nine samples, eight of them matched local bears that are found in the region today,” said Lindqvist, adding that the ninth sample was the dog tooth from the stuffed yeti. “The purported yetis from the Tibetan plateau matched Tibetan brown bears, the ones from the western Himalayan mountains matched the Himalayan brown bear and then, at possibly slightly lower altitude were Asian black bears.” The yeti hunter Read more Lindqvist added that the finding produced mixed emotions. “That was obviously very interesting to me, perhaps slightly disappointing to the film company,” she said, adding that the new samples also helped the team to gain new insights into the evolutionary “family tree” of bears. But Lindqvist says she doubts the study will be the final word on the yeti. “I am sure, though, that the legend and the myth will live on,” she said. “You can never for sure prove that there is nothing out there.” The results, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are likely to disappoint cryptozoologists. Jonathan Downes, director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, said that while he applauded the scientific work and agreed that many samples are obviously from bears, he believes the mystery is not yet solved. “I think there is still a possibility that there are unknown species of higher primate which are still awaiting discovery in what used to be Soviet central Asia,” he said. Since you’re here … … we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too. I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be available for all and not a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to make a contribution so others with less means still have access to information. Thomasine F-R. If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure.

Sunday 26 November 2017

Holsworthy mark show Duncan Jones marine discovery penzance

I published my new episode Holsworthy mark show Duncan Jones marine discovery penzance, please check it out. http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-fmf8u-7d725b

Holsworthy mark show interview with Richard thorns

I published my new episode Holsworthy mark show talks to Richard thorns, please check it out. http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-gd57h-7d71c1

Saturday 25 November 2017

A screen record of my new podcast show Holsworthy mark show please follow ty

https://youtu.be/jb-rlnte5Tg

Holsworthy mark show old interview with Jonathan downes of cfz fame

I published my new episode Holsworthy mark show interview with Jonathan downes of cfz fame, please check it out. http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-jia2y-7d684f

New species can develop in as little as TWO generations, according to a study of Darwin's finches

A new species of bird has arisen on the Galapagos Islands within just two generations of breeding, a new study has found.

In a case of history repeating itself, scientists made the discovery by observing Darwin's finches, named for their influence on the work of the evolutionary biologist.

Researchers discovered a 'newcomer' finch on the small island of Daphne Major 36 years ago, which bred with native birds to result in the new 'big bird' species.

Brilliant blue tarantula among potentially new species discovered in Guyana

n the forests of the Potaro plateau of Guyana, scientists have discovered a bright blue tarantula that is likely new to science.
The discovery was part of a larger biodiversity assessment survey of the Kaieteur Plateau and Upper Potaro area of Guyana, within the Pakaraima Mountains range.
Overall, the team uncovered more than 30 species that are potentially new to science, and found several species that are known only from the Kaieteur Plateau-Upper Potaro region and nowhere else.

While walking through the forests of Guyana’s Potaro Plateau one night in 2014, herpetologist Andrew Snyder noticed a flash of bright cobalt blue peeking out of hole in a rotting tree stump. When Snyder took a closer look, he noticed that his flashlight had illuminated a small tarantula’s blue legs. The tree stump had numerous small holes, and nearly every hole housed a similar blue tarantula.

“I have spent years conducting surveys in Guyana … and I immediately knew that this one was unlike any species I have encountered before,” Snyder wrote recently. “Prior to this, I had only ever encountered individual tarantulas, either outside of a burrow like with the Goliath Bird-eaters, walking through the leaf-litter, or clinging to the =read more