Laquintasaura Venezuelae: Bird-Hipped Dinosaur is First to Be Discovered in Venezuela

A new dinosaur species has been discovered in Venezuela – the first ever to have been found in the South American country.

Laquintasaura venezuelae was a dog-sized 'bird-hipped' dinosaur that lived shortly after the major extinction at the end of the Triassic Period, 201 million years ago.
Identified by scientists at the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Zürich, bones from four L. venezuelae were found together in the La Quinta Formation in Venezuela.
The creatures found ranged from 3 to 12 years old. Scientists believe they lived in small groups, making it the earliest example of social behaviour among ornithischians, or bird-hipped dinosaurs, which includes species like the stegosaurus and iguanodon.
Marcelo Sánchez-Villagra, co-author and palaeontologist at University of Zürich, said the known history of bird-hipped dinosaurs has many gaps as few specimens have been found: "This early -READ MORE

Palaeeudyptes klekowskii-The mega penguin that was taller than a MAN: 40-million-year-old 'colossus' was more than SIX FEET long

The find was made at Seymour Island, part of a chain of islands off the Antarctic peninsula.

Bones belonging to a giant penguin that existed 37 to 40 million years ago have been unearthed by palaeontologists.

The latest findings have enabled researchers to conclude that the so-called 'colossus penguin' was bigger than any penguin that came before or after it.

The species known as measured a staggering 6.63 feet (2.02 metres) from the tip of its beak to its toes, making it bigger even than the modern emperor pENGIUN.

THE LANGUAGE OF PENGUINS

Researchers, led by Dr Livio Favaro from the University of Turin, collected, categorised, and acoustically analysed hundreds of audio and video vocal recordings from penguins.

All were taken from a captive colony of 48 African penguins at the Zoom zoo in Torino, Italy.

This group was made up of 15 males, 17 females, eight juveniles aged between three and 12 months, and eight nesting chicks.

The results revealed that all the penguins have four essential vocalisations: a contact call emitted by isolated birds, an agonistic call used to signal aggression, an ecstatic display song uttered by single birds during the breeding season, and a mutual display song made by pairs at their nests.

The authors also identified two distinct vocalisations interpreted as begging calls by chicks, in the form of a begging ‘peep’, and a begging moan.

According to Dr Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche of the La Plata Museum in Argentina this region was much warmer 37 to 40 million years ago.

It was ‘a wonderful time for penguins, when 10 to 14 species lived together along the Antarctic coast,’ she told New ScientiSTS.

Dr Hospitaleche found the most complete skeleton of the colossus penguin earlier this year, but these latest finds include part of a wing, the humerus, and the joint between the ankle and foot bone, known as the tarsometatarsus.

Although the humerus cannot be used to make estimates of a penguin’s size and mass, the tarsometatarsus is usable in this regard.

At 3.6 inches (9.1 centimetres) in length, this tarsometatarsus set a record for penguins and led Dr Hospitaleche to conclude that the penguin stood 5.25 feet (1.6 metres) tall from head to toe - and 6.63 feet (2.02 metres) tall if its beak was extended upwards.

This makes it larger than any penguin known to exist, even the emperor penguin that exists today.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2715550/The-mega-penguin-taller-MAN-40-million-year-old-colossus-stood-SIX-FEET-high.html#ixzz39tuIoitP

UK's deep sea mountain life filmed

Scientists have sent a remotely operated vehicle to film one of the UK's three undersea mountains, known as seamounts.

The Hebrides Terrace Seamount, off the west coast of Scotland, is higher than Ben Nevis, but its peak is 1,000m beneath the surface.
Prof J Murray Roberts, from Heriot-Watt University, and his colleagues filmed more than 100 species on its slopes.
They published their findings in the open access journal Scientific Reports.

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Corals will be exposed to more acidic seawater and their skeletons will dissolve away”

Prof J Murray Roberts Heriot-Watt University

Prof Roberts has now shared the footage from the dive exclusively with the BBC.

He and his team used a remotely operated submersible vehicle to explore and film the aquatic mountain slopes.
"These are vast structures in the ocean," Prof Roberts explained to the BBC.
"They're exciting because they grow up through the ocean and have steep sloping sides. [When] the currents hit the sides of the seamount and they stir up nutrients, they become really productive areas."
Prof Roberts and his colleagues watched from a ship-based laboratory while their rover explored the depths. READ MORE AND WATCH VIDEO LINK

New jellyfish discovered: giant venomous species found off Australia

READ MORE-WA specimen of new Irukandji jellyfish sparks particular scientific interest because it has no

An example of the Keesingia gigas jellyfish. Photograph: John Totterdell/MIRG Australia

A giant and extremely venomous jellyfish found off Western Australia’s north-west coast has researchers stumped because it appears to have no tentacles.
Keesingia gigas is one of two new species of Irukandji jellyfish recently discovered by the director of Marine Stinger Advisory Services, Lisa-ann Gershwin.
While Irukandji jellyfish are normally only the size of a fingernail, Keesingia gigas is the length of an arm and believed to cause the potentially deadly Irukandji syndrome.
The condition can cause pain, nausea, vomiting and in extreme cases, stroke and heart failure.
Gershwin said Keesingia gigas was first photographed in the 1980s, but a specimen was not captured until 2013, near Shark Bay by the marine scientist John Keesing, after whom the jellyfish is named.
Gershwin said in all of the photos the jellyfish did not appear to have tentacles and that the specimen was also captured without them.
“Jellyfish always have tentacles ... that’s how they catch their food,” she said. “The tentacles are where they concentrate their stinging cells.
“Some of the people working with it through the years actually got stung by it and experienced rather distressing Irukandji syndrome.”

Bolivia’s golden bat: one of six new species found by the Smithsonian’s Bat Detective

If you love new animal species and have an Internet connection, chances are you have already seen the beautiful new golden bat species, Myotis midastactus. What you may not know is that the striking, newly described bat species is just one of more than six species being described by Ricardo Moratelli, a scientist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Brazil) and post-doctoral fellow at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
Smithsonian Science asks Moratelli what it’s like to be a bat detective searching for new species.

Q: Is it difficult finding new bat species?

Moratelli: It can be. I have been working for the last 10 years on the taxonomy of bats of the genus Myotis, which is the most diverse genus of bats in the world. The genus is distributed worldwide and there are more than 110 species. However, my research is focused on the Neotropical (Latin American) species.READ MORE

Theropods were the Birds’ Ancestors, Says a New Study

Over a period of 50 million years the dinosaurs consistently reduced in size to give rise to the small modern birds. An international group of researchers has concluded after drawing an all-inclusive dinosaur family tree with the giants at the top and the small birds as the descendants.
According to Darren Naish, co-author of the study and a paleontologist at the University of Southampton, a group of the dinosaurs known as the theropods evolved faster than members of other groups. Through evolution, they developed features such as wishbones to enable them adapt to changing conditions.read more

Huge Whale Shark Caught by Chinese Fishermen in Fujian Province

chinese fisherman Cai Chengzu claims he didn't know the 16-foot-long monster was endangered, and was planning to sell it at market. While on a fishing trip Cai pulled in his net on Friday to discover a giant fish weighting two tonnes thrashing around, trying to escape.
The fisherman from Xianghzhi in the far-eastern province of Fujian, said that he and his colleagues were lifting the net out of the ocean when they realised that something had caused a huge rip in it.
In an interview with News 163 the fisherman said: "It's believed that the giant creature broke the net and got inside to eat the fish we caught."
Chengzu claims that the whale shark frantically to escape the net but died soon afterwards, and he decided to take it to the fishing harbour with the rest of his catch.
He reportedly planned to sell the huge fish for around 20,000 yuan (£2,000) at the wholesale market in Xiangzhi. However, his plan was thwarted when officials from the Fujian fisheries department halted the sale.read more