New plants from Western Ghats

In just four months, nine new plants have been discovered in the Western Ghats, according to papers published in journals. Apart from the discoveries of the world’s smallest land fern and two shrubs of the rattlepod family reported in The Hindu, six species including two balsams, two shrubs belonging to the mint family (Lamiaceae), a herb of the coffee family (Rubiaceae) and 10-cm-tall Sonerila, a flowering plant commonly found in the tropics, have been discovered.

Their stunning pink blooms make some Sonerilas well known as ornamental plants. Sonerila lateritica however, is a rock-loving wild herb that researcher S. Resmi at the University of Calicut and her colleagues discovered in the laterite hills of Ponkunnu in Kerala's Kozhikkode district. Only two populations of the plant were found in the area, write the researchers in their study in the journal Phytotaxa.=read more

New tick species found in US

 An exotic tick variety has been discovered in New Jersey, the state confirmed.

"It has the potential to infect multiple North American wildlife species," the New Jersey Department of Agriculture said in a news release last week.

An East Asian tick (Haemaphsalis longicornis) was found on a farm in Hunterdon County, the first known instance of the tick in the U.S.

The tick also was found on a white-tail deer at the Watchung Reservation, 40 miles away from the farm where it was originally spotted, agriculture officials reported on Wednesday.

Local officials and the Center for Vector Biology at Rutgers University first identified the critter on the Hunterdon County farm, and the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, IA, confirmed the finding in November 2017.

The pest wasn’t carrying any diseases, the health officials said.

Despite steps taken to eradicate the tick from the property and animals around it, surveillance by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory revealed that the tick "successfully overwintered in =read more

New frog species takes historical name of Goa

In the highland plateaus of the Western Ghats parts of Goa, scientists have identified a new species of frog called Fejervarya goemchi.

The new species is named after the historical name of the state of Goa where the species is discovered, Nirmal Kulkarni, a senior herpetologist told The Hindu on Thursday.

Come monsoons and many of these are large-sized terrestrial frogs sit next to water bodies making calls to attract females for mating and breeding. Although most of these frogs are terrestrial, they need water bodies to continue for survival.=read more

New species among rare treasure trove of fossils found in California

Finding fossils can be a fact of life for construction crews excavating in California. That's what happened when crews broke ground to begin the new Bay Area Calaveras Dam in 2013. They just didn't expect to find so many.

The existing 93-year-old Calaveras Dam stands only about a thousand feet from the Calaveras Fault, a proximity that prompted earthquake safety concerns.

The dam impounds the Calaveras Reservoir, which holds 40% of the area's water supply capacity. It's the largest Bay Area reservoir, said Betsy Lauppe Rhodes, regional communications manager for the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System.

With 2.7 million Bay Area customers relying on its water, the stability of the dam is critical. After careful study, a decision was made to rebuild the dam completely next to its existing location, Rhodes said in an email.

The dam's excavation required moving 10 million cubic yards of rock and soil. During initial project planning, shell fossils were noticed at the site, she said.=read more

New Species of Bat Discovered in Gorongosa

Maputo — A species of bat, previously unknown to science, has been discovered in Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, in the central province of Sofala.

A study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society describes three new species of bats from southern Africa. One, with the scientific name Rhinolophus Gorongosae, is believed to occur only in Gorongosa National Park, and possibly on nearby Mount Mecula.

It is a horseshoe bat, but found to be genetically and morphologically distinct from neighbouring horseshoe bat populations. Weighing just five grams it is the smallest horseshoe bat known in Africa.

The other two new species are also found in Mozambique. Rhinolophus Rhodesiae has been confirmed to be a distinct species found in northern Mozambique and elsewhere in southern Africa.

The third species, Rhinolophus lobatus, is not exactly new. It was once believed to be identical to the west African bat R. Landeri, but further research has revealed that it is a separate species unique to Mozambique and South Africa. It now replaces R. Landeri on the species list for Mozambique.

One of the co-authors of the study, Jen Guyton, who is a Princeton =READ MORE

New species among rare treasure trove of fossils found in California

Finding fossils can be a fact of life for construction crews excavating in California. That's what happened when crews broke ground to begin the new Bay Area Calaveras Dam in 2013. They just didn't expect to find so many.

The existing 93-year-old Calaveras Dam stands only about a thousand feet from the Calaveras Fault, a proximity that prompted earthquake safety concerns.

The dam impounds the Calaveras Reservoir, which holds 40% of the area's water supply capacity. It's the largest Bay Area reservoir, said Betsy Lauppe Rhodes, regional communications manager for the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System.

With 2.7 million Bay Area customers relying on its water, the stability of the dam is critical. After careful study, a decision was made to rebuild the dam completely next to its existing location, Rhodes said in an email.=read more

New Species of ‘Exploding Ant’ Discovered in Borneo

When confronted by an enemy, Southeast Asian “exploding ants” do exactly what their name implies: they explode. Ignored for decades, researchers have completed a detailed survey of these enigmatic ants, discovering over a dozen species that fit into this group, including one that’s completely new to science.

Ants are capable of amazing prosocial behaviors, such as creating bridges and life rafts out of their bodies, collecting wounded comrades from the battlefield, and even administering medical care. But in terms of self-sacrifice, there’s nothing quite like the tree-dwelling “exploding ants” of Southeast Asia, who are willing to give up their lives to protect their colony.

Confronted by a threat, such as a predatory insect, a minor worker can deliberately rupture its abdominal wall. The ant doesn’t literally explode in a Michael Bay sort of way, but the desperate measure causes a sticky and toxic liquid to pour out from its bloated glands—a noxious substance that’s capable of killing the intruder. It’s a final fatal act for our exploding protagonist, but the ant is truly going out in a blaze of glory; by deploying this form of chemical warfare, the ant does its part to protect the colony.=read more

Amphibian fossil in Ishikawa recognized as new species

• 

HAKUSAN, Ishikawa Prefecture--A fossilized amphibian found here has been identified as a new species of the Albanerpetontidae family, which was wiped out an estimated 3 million years ago, city officials said.

The fossil was discovered in the Kuwajima fossil cliff, a central government-designated “natural monument” datable to the early Cretaceous period around 130 million years ago.

It is the first albanerpetontid fossil found in Japan and represents the earliest record of the extinct amphibian family in Asia, officials of the Hakusan board of education said April 6.

The fossil was studied by Susan Evans, a professor of vertebrate morphology and paleontology with University College London, and Ryoko Matsumoto, a curator with the Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History.

The scientists said albanerpetontids are land-living amphibians that are believed to have emerged between 160 million and 65 million years ago and gone extinct 3 million years ago.

Resembling the salamander, they have been found in fossil form in North America, Europe and Uzbekistan.

A CT scan of the specimen found in the Kuwajima fossil cliff showed 43 pieces of bones, including those of the head, the spine and a hind limb. The fossil was attributed to an albanerpetontid based on the shape of the lower jaw and other features.

The fossilized animal has an estimated body length of 60 millimeters,-read more

New Bird of Paradise Species Has Smooth Dance Moves

It's hard to find a more superb bird than the superb bird of paradise.

Males have an elaborate courtship ritual, during which they spread out their black cape until only a bright blue breast plate and blue eyes are visible in an all-absorbing blackness.

Then he puts on a dance, moving around a female in semi-circle motions until she's wooed.

Until recently, scientists thought the superb bird was unique among the 43 birds of paradise that comprise the family Paradisaeidae. But in a new paper in the journal PeerJ , ornithologist Edwin Scholes and photographer Tim Laman detail a new addition: the Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise.=read more

New ancestor of modern sea turtles found in Alabama

A sea turtle discovered in Alabama is a new species from the Late Cretaceous epoch, according to a study published April 18, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Drew Gentry from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama, USA, and colleagues.

Modern day sea turtles were previously thought to have had a single ancestor of the of the Peritresius clade during the Late Cretaceous epoch, from about 100 to 66 million years ago. This ancestral species, Peritresius ornatus, lived exclusively in North America, but few Peritresius fossils from this epoch had been found in what is now the southeastern U.S., an area known for producing large numbers of Late Cretaceous marine turtle fossils. In this study, the research team analyzed sea turtle fossils collected from marine sediments in Alabama and Mississippi, dating from about 83 to 66 million years ago.

The researchers identified some of the Alabama fossils as representing a new Peritresius species, which they named =read more

27.5-Million-Year-Old Species Of Baleen Whale Found In New Zealand Is One Of Oldest

A 27.5 million-year-old fossil that was discovered on the South Island of New Zealand is now described as one of the oldest known species of baleen whales.

Toipahautea Waitaki

Researchers named the new species Toipahautea waitaki, which roughly translates to "baleen whale from the Waitaki region". The fossil had been found in January 1988 about 30 years ago, but researchers were only able to conduct more in-depth study recently.

The creature lived during the Oligocene epoch about 33.9 million to 23 million years ago when New Zealand was an island archipelago surrounded by shallow waters.

Ewan Fordyce, from the University of Otago's Department of Geology, and colleagues who studied the fossil said that the whale is a relatively old one, hailing back nearly halfway back to the age of the dinosaurs.

Relatively Small Compared With Their Modern Kin

The species was small when compared with modern baleen whales. It measured just 19 feet in length, which is just about half the size of a modern minke whale.

"People look at the fossil record and think the early history of many animals is filled with giants, but not for whales. It's only in recent geological times that whales have achieved really large sizes," said Fordyce.

Baleen Whales

Modern baleen whales are filter-feeding marine giants and include many of the largest known cetaceans such as the humpback, bowhead, and minke whales.=

: Deep sea Java expedition uncovers bizarre new species

A deep sea expedition to unexplored depths of the Indian Ocean has unveiled a dozen monstrous new species, including a crab with blood-red eyes and a foot long cockroach.

The freakish crustaceans are among 800 species identified during the first such scientific expedition to the southern coast of West Java, Indonesia.=read more

Lost species of Ganges river shark thought to be extinct is seen for the first time in a decade…in a Mumbai FISH MARKET

One of the world's rarest species of shark has turned up in a fish market in Mumbai - after not being seen since 2006.  

A university student browsing the market saw the critically endangered Ganges river shark and took pictures of the cadaver before it was gutted, chopped up and sold to the highest bidder.

Classified as critically endangered and believed to be extinct, this animal could even be the last of this elusive species.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5637769/Lost-mysterious-species-Ganges-shark-seen-decade-Mumbai-FISH-MARKET.html#ixzz5DP3kIrj7
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

New sea anemone species resembling tempura found

— A Japanese research team has discovered a new species of sea anemone that resembles shrimp tempura when the creature puts out its tentacles from inside the sea sponge it lives with.

The new species was named Tempuractis rinkai, or tempura isoginchaku (anemone) in Japanese, Takato Izumi, a University of Tokyo doctoral student, and other members of the team said.

The members found many tiny anemones living inside homosclerophorid sponges they collected at a rocky shore near the university’s Misaki Marine Biological Station in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Because of their small size — 3 to 4 millimeters in length per adult specimen — and other distinguishing bodily features as well as their peculiar symbiotic ecology with the sponges, the researchers concluded that the anemones are a new species assigned to family Edwardsiidae, they said in an article published by the Japanese journal Zoological Science.=read more

New specimen of one of world's rarest turtle species found in Vietnam

) -- Turtle experts said they have identified a fourth specimen of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei), one of the world's largest known freshwater turtle species, also one of the world's rarest, in Vietnam's Hanoi capital, local media reported on Saturday.

The Hanoi-based Asian Turtle Program of Indo-Myanmar Conservation (ATP/IMC), a Britain-based conservation charity, said they have identified the fourth specimen of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle in Xuan Khanh Lake in Hanoi's outskirts, daily newspaper Vietnam News reported.

ATP/IMC researchers and an ecologist at Washington State University matched environmental DNA collected from water samples from the lake to known samples from the species, and then confirmed the presence of at least one giant turtle living in the lake.

The finding helps to raise the number of these turtles living around the world to four and =read more

Discovery of new species of sea slugs in the Indo-Pacific excites scientists

They may not everyone's favourite creature, but scientists have discovered 18 new species of bright and colourful sea slugs in the Indo-Pacific.

Lead researcher Kara Layton has been studying the molluscs in depth for almost four years, and describes them as "beautiful and diverse".

But she said there was still much to learn.

"They've been understudied, compared to other things," Ms Layton said.

"They are tiny little slugs that are found on shallow subtidal areas, and a lot of people don't know about them if you're not in the underwater community.=read more

New frog species found in Venezuela and Colombia

Venezuelan and Colombian scientists have identified a new species of frog in the Perija mountain range shared by both countries that is home to unusual species like this small amphibian.

With multi-colored skin and a distinctive song, the Hyloscirtus japreria was discovered during expeditions over the past decade living in rivers and cascades at altitudes above 1,000 meters (3,280 feet).

It was named in honor of the Japreria, a disappearing indigenous ethnic group in the Perija in the northwestern Venezuelan state of Zulia.

The frog's discovery—published in February in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Zootaxa—brings to 37 the number of species identified as belonging to the Hyloscirtus genus.

Small in size, the males measure between 2.8 and 3.2 centimeters (up to 1.25 inches) in length and the females from 3.5 to 3.9 centimeters.

The journey that led to their discovery began in 2008.

"Several years went by before we found enough evidence that it was a new species," biologist Fernando Rojas-Runjaic, the coordinator of the study, told AFP.

Once they determined it was a "stream frog, we had to verify that it wasn't a Hyloscirtus platydactylus, another species found in the Perija in 1994," he added,

The scientists recorded the find with cameras and high-definition sound recorders to capture its distinctive coloring and analyze its song.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-03-frog-species-venezuela-colombia.html#jCp

Species hitch a ride on birds and the wind to join green roof communities

New research suggests that species that live on green roofs arrived by hitching lifts on birds or by riding air currents.

While green roofs are seen as being great for biodiversity, adding habitat to what would otherwise be a bare roof, they can be harsh environments with high winds and extremes of temperature that make them vulnerable to drought. Because they are high, they can also be inaccessible to species that can't fly, in particular soil organisms which are crucial for nutrient cycling and sustainable plant growth.

Yet previous research shows that these species do live on roofs. So how do they get there?

The study, by Dr Heather Rumble, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Geography at the University of Portsmouth and Dr Paul Finch and Professor Alan Gange from Royal Holloway, =read more