Another new narrow-mouthed frog species discovered in Coastal Karnataka

After the Microhyla laterite that was described from Manipal in 2016, scientists have found another new narrow-mouthed frog from the city centre of Mangaluru, in coastal Karnataka. 

The coastal city of Mangaluru in Karnataka now has a new feather in its cap with the discovery of a new species of narrow-mouthed frog. Named after Mangaluru, called kodial in the Konkani language, Microhyla kodial was first spotted in Mangaluru. The newly discovered species is the 10th species of Microhyla from India.

A joint effort by a team comprising Vineeth Kumar K, Department of Applied Zoology, Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri, Konaje, Radhakrishna Upadhyaya K, Department of Applied Zoology, Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri, Konaje, Prof. Rajashekhar K Patil , Department of Applied Zoology, Mangalore University, Mangalagangothri, Konaje, Godwin Rodny D’Souza, St. Aloysius Pre University College, Mangalore, Anwesha Saha, Suri Sehgal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and Dr. N. A. Aravind Madhyastha, Suri Sehgal Centre for =read more

ARROW

ANIMALS

Bizarre New Species of Crabs and a Giant Sea Cockroach Discovered in Waters Off Indonesia

BY EMILY PETSKO

 

MAY 14, 2018

One known species of isopod, or "giant sea cockroach"

ISTOCK

A crab with green googly eyes, another with "ears" resembling peanuts, and a species of giant sea cockroach are among the dozen new kinds of crustaceans discovered by scientists in the waters off Indonesia, Channel News Asia reports.

These finds are the result of a two-week expedition by Indonesian and Singaporean scientists with the South Java Deep Sea Biodiversity Expedition (SJADES 2018), which involved exploring deep waters in the Sunda Strait (the waterway separating the islands of Sumatra and Java in Southeast Asia) and the Indian Ocean. Using trawls, dredges, and other tools, researchers brought a huge variety of deep-sea life to the surface—some species for the very first time.

"The world down there is an alien world," Peter Ng, chief scientist of the expedition, told Channel News Asia. "You have waters that go down more than 2000 to 3000 meters [9800 feet], and we do not know … the animal life that's at the bottom.=read more

Is this hairy crab the newest species found in the UK?

A colony of exploding ants, a shrimp that's been named after prog rockers Pink Floyd, four types of miniature night frog and a coconut-cracking giant rat - these are just some of the new species discovered in the past year.

While all of these exotic creatures were found many thousands of miles away from Britain, such discoveries aren't the preserve of scientists in the remotest part of some far-flung wilderness. In fact, it's estimated there are thousands of species yet to be identified in the UK alone - and many millions globally.

The hairy crab that's potentially the latest new-to-science domestic discovery was collected by naturalist and photographer Steve Trewhella on Chesil Beach, near Weymouth, in Dorset.

The 2cm-wide creature was found living inside a polystyrene buoy that washed ashore following a storm and is suspected to have travelled across the Atlantic from the Caribbean.

Mr Trewhella, who has sent the crab to the Natural History Museum for identification, hopes the tiny crustacean could prove to be his greatest success story.=read more

cryptic teeth

• MORE

A baby nile crocodile

Credit: Jeffrey Govender/Shutterstock

For nearly 50 years, researchers have found mysterious, disembodied teeth dating to the dinosaur age in southern Alberta, Canada. The teeth lacked jawbones, so researchers weren't sure what animals these teeth came from, although many suspected the pointy chompers belonged to ancient birds.

Now, new research is turning that idea on its head: These cryptic teeth aren't avian in nature, but likely those of juvenile crocodilians, said Sydney Mohr, a master's student in biological sciences at the University of Alberta, who is rstudying the teeth.

"They've basically always been referred to as bird teeth," Mohr said, "but with not much evidence to back that up." [Images: How the Bird Beak Evolved]=read more

18-Inch Rat Species Discovered

A rare new species of rat — up to four times the size of the rodents that populate American cities — has been identified in the Solomon Islands.

The discovery marks the first time in 80 years that a new rat species has been found in the archipelago in the South Pacific.

In 2010, mammalogist Tyrone Lavery heard rumors about a coconut-cracking giant rat called "vika" that lived in the trees of Vangunu Island. People on the island even had songs and children's rhymes about the rats. But after several surveys, Lavery couldn't find the creature.

"I started to question if it really was a separate species, or if people were just calling regular black rats 'vika,'" Lavery said in a statement from The Field Museum in Chicago, where he is a postdoctoral researcher. [Rats and Lizards and Monkeys, Oh My! 9 Islands Ruled by Animals]

Then, in 2015, a ranger captured one of the rats as it scurried out of a felled tree.=read more

Dinosaur dandduff

A pile of dandruff shed by dinosaurs roughly  125million years ago have been  discovered in Liaoing province in China.The white fry white flecks are almost identical to human dandruff and measure 1 to 2 millimetres and made up of  keratin.It's is believed that their May have come from Microraptor ,Beipiaosaurus and Sinornithosaurus dinosaurs and Confuciusornis Bird.It shows that they shed skin in clumps rather than in one go like modern snakes and lizards.

New species of shrew discovered living on a single remote mountain in the Philippines

Scientists have discovered a new species of shrew living on a single mountain in the Philippines - and it remains a mystery how it got there.

The Palawan moss shrew is one of three species unique to Mount Mantalingahan on Palawan Island. 

It was first spotted in 2007 by the late Danilo 'Danny' Balete. Unlike other shrews, its tail is covered in dense fur rather than visible scales.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5715817/Species-shrew-discovered-mountain-Philippines-no-one-knows-got-there.html#ixzz5FIDO9leq
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Six new peeping frogs discovered in western Mexico

• Scientists have discovered six new species of peeping frog in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacán.
• All six frogs belong to the genus Eleutherodactylus and were described in the journal Mesoamerican Herpetology last month. According to the authors of the article describing the new species, Eleutherodactylus frogs “are among the most diverse and taxonomically challenging groups of amphibians in the New World.”
• The genus Eleutherodactylus consists of five subgenera, four of which are native solely to the West Indies and are relatively well-studied. The six newly discovered frogs belong to the fifth subgenus, Syrrhophus, a group that has received less attention from scientists.

Scientists have discovered six new species of peeping frog in the western Mexican states of Jalisco, Colima, and Michoacán.

All six frogs belong to the genus Eleutherodactylus and were described in the journal Mesoamerican Herpetology last month. According to the authors of the article describing the new species, Eleutherodactylus frogs “are among the most diverse and taxonomically challenging groups of amphibians in the New World.”

The genus Eleutherodactylus consists of five subgenera, four of which are native solely to the West Indies and are relatively well-studied. The six newly discovered frogs belong to the fifth subgenus, Syrrhophus, a group that has received less attention from =read more

New ocean layer discovered

A deep-sea mission in the ocean around Bermuda confirms the existence of a new oceanic zone 

‘You almost pinch yourself and think you’re on some distant planet,’ explains Professor Alex Rogers as he reminisces about his dives into the deep ocean around Bermuda. For him, every trip in the Triton submarine, whose clear dome provides an unprecedented view of the ocean’s inhabitants, is magical. ‘There’s always something novel to see and the landscapes are fantastical. It’s a very humbling experience,’ he adds.

Rogers is a co-founder of Nekton, an organisation exploring the depths of the ocean for the benefit of humankind. In July 2016, Rogers and a team of marine scientists launched Nekton’s ‘Mission I’ to investigate the ocean around Bermuda, the Sargasso Sea and the northwest Atlantic. During the mission, dive teams, manned submarines and remote-controlled vehicles collected thousands of samples from the ocean’s surface down to 1,500 metres. Now, nearly two years later, the results of the mission have been processed and the team has announced some striking finds.=read more

For The First Time, This Asian Tick Species Has Been Found In The US

The tick is called the longhorned or bush tick, and its scientific name is Haemaphysalis longicornis. It is native to China, Japan, and Korea, and it's an invasive species and a major livestock pest in Australia and New Zealand.

Hundreds of the arachnids can attach themselves to a single animal, and in rare cases can consume so much blood it causes anemia or even fatalities in cattle, which is called exsanguination.

The ticks were first seen in the United States in New Jersey on Aug. 1, 2017, when a woman reported to the Hunterdon County Department of Health that her pet sheep was covered in hundreds, maybe thousands of the ticks. The woman, who first noticed them when she was shearing her sheep, also had the ticks on her clothing.

The sheep's paddock was so infested with ticks that they crawled on the health investigators' pants as soon as they stepped inside. The good news is that the woman was not bitten by =read more

Temperature-controlled turtle sex gene found

Scientists have isolated the gene responsible for temperature-controlled sex determination in turtles.

Red eared slider turtles, a common household pet, develop into male or female embryos according to their egg incubation temperature.

This little understood process is also at work in the eggs of crocodiles, alligators and some lizards.

Researchers are now one step closer to solving a mystery which has persisted for over 50 years.

Genetic 'knockout'

An international team from China and the United States used a recently refined process to "knock out" the gene they suspected to be responsible for sex determination in the turtles - known as Kdm6b.

"Knockouts come in several flavours," explained Prof Blanche Capel from Duke University, an author on the study. "It usually means a genetic manipulation that deletes a gene from the genome or blocks its function."=read more

Red squirrels 'may have introduced' leprosy to Britain

Red squirrels may have brought leprosy to Britain more than 1,000 years ago, scientists have said.

Swiss researchers said DNA taken from a fifth-century victim of the disease in Essex revealed the same strain of leprosy carried by red squirrels today.

The discovery supports the theory that the rodents, once prized for their meat and fur, played a role in the spread of the disease throughout medieval Europe.

Grey squirrels were not introduced to the UK until the 19th Century=read more

Origins of amphibian-killing fungus uncovered

A deadly fungus that has ravaged amphibian populations worldwide probably originated in East Asia, new research suggests.

A study in Science journal supports an idea that the pet trade helped spread killer strains of the chytrid fungus around the globe.

The fungus is a major cause of the devastating declines experienced by frogs, toads, newts and salamanders.

There is no known effective measure for controlling the disease.

The authors of the report highlight the need to tighten biosecurity along country borders, including a potential ban on the trade in amphibians as pets.

The chytrid fungus, known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, was first identified as a problem in the 1990s, said co-author Dr Simon O'Hanlon, from Imperial College London.=read more

Cuckoo bee species 'hiding in plain sight'

Scientists have discovered 15 new species of cuckoo bees hidden in North American museum collections and in an ancient thesis.

Like their avian counterparts, cuckoo bees lay their eggs in the nests of other bees, usually solitary dwellers.

When the cuckoos hatch they kill off the usurped bees' larva and are raised by the unsuspecting host.

Researchers say that this type of behaviour is common in bees and up to 15% of species are cuckoos.

While there are many different genera, or types, of cuckoo bees, all the new discoveries relate to one genus, Epeolus. The new findings bring to 43 the total of Epeolus species in North America.

These cuckoos are said to look more like wasps than other bees, with a smoother, less fuzzy look. This is because they don't have the body hairs that other bees u=read more

New beetle species named after Leonardo DiCaprio

A new species of water beetle found clinging to a sandstone rock in a fast-flowing stream that leads to a waterfall in Malaysian Borneo has been named after the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The tiny black insect, which has a partially retractable head and slightly protruding eyes, was named after the star of Titanic and The Revenant for his environmental activism.

Citizen scientists who took part in an expedition to Borneo’s Maliau Basin recovered the first known specimen of Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi from a shallow stream about a kilometre above sea level. The 3mm-long beetle was rather battered and lacked a front leg and antenna.

The field trip to Borneo was arranged by scientists at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and a Dutch firm, Taxon Expeditions, that trains paying members of the public in the scientific techniques used to capture, study and identify new species. The beetle was named after DiCaprio after the citizen scientists and =READ MORE

New species in the North Sea

Experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute and the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam, Germany have confirmed the existence of a new cryptic amphipod species in the North Sea. For the first time for the description of a new species, they used a level of mitogenomic information, which was normally applied in other areas of genetics. The discovery of Epimeria frankei was now published in the journal Scientific Reports. In the future, this level of molecular information could revolutionise biodiversity research.

Reports of "new species" in the North Sea, usually relate to animals or algae that were newly introduced by human activities. =READ MORE

New climate 'feedback loop' discovered in freshwater lakes

Methane emissions from lakes in the northern hemisphere could almost double over the next 50 years because of a novel "feedback loop" say scientists.

Climate change is boosting the proportion of cattail plants growing in and around freshwater lakes they say.

But when debris from these reed beds falls in the water it triggers a major increase in the amount of methane produced.

The gas is at least 25 times more warming than CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Freshwater lakes play an important but relatively unrecognised role in the global carbon cycle, contributing around 16% of the Earth's natural emissions of methane - compared to just 1% from all the world's oceans.

The gas is produced by microbes in the sediment at the bottom of lakes who consume organic matter that falls into the water from plants and trees that live close to the shore.

The amount of methane generated according to this study, varies considerably depending on what enters the lake.

The research team carried out tests in the laboratory that compared the impact of =READ MORE

In Cities, Wildlife Evolves Astonishingly Fast

Most naturalists turn up their noses at cities, regarding them as anti-nature—sterile wastelands of concrete and steel. But evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen, author of Darwin Comes to Town, takes the opposite view: Urban environments are in fact “powerhouses of evolution,” where animals as diverse as blackbirds and bobcats are adapting to their new surroundings, with startling results.

Speaking from his home in Leiden, Netherlands, Schilthuizen explains =READ MORE

New Species of Vanilla Discovered in Costa Rica

A new species of Vanilla flower was discovered in Costa Rica in the country of Corredores in the South Zone of Costa Rica, close to the Panama frontier; the flower was named Vanilla-karen-chistianae in honor of Costa Rican scientist Christiana Figueres Olsen.

The discovery was made by Patricia Lehmann Calderon, student of Management of Natural Resources of the UNED who worked alongside investigator Adam P. Karremans of the Lankester Botanical Garden.

“Vanilla karen-christianae was found in a region of the country that has no protected areas and very little original forest cover. The unexpected discovery highlights the importance of continued and sustainable conservation efforts across all life zones and ecoregions, underlining the importance of the public sector in biodiversity research and protection. The new species belongs to subgenus Xanata, which includes all the fragrant Vanilla species used in commerce. Vanilla karen-christianae is easily distinguished from all other Central American species by the combination of very narrow leaves, with a recurved apex, the green-and-white flowers and the appendages on the lip, a feature found otherwise only in the closely related Vanilla helleri, Vanilla insignis and Vanilla odorata”, states the report by Researchgate.net.

Vanilla is a genre of 110 species and it belongs to the family Orchidaceae that encompasses over 30 thousand species worldwide.