Saturday, 8 August 2015

Freaky New Fish Found In Deep Ocean


Freaky New Fish Found In Deep Ocean, Resembles A Hollywood Mutant
Scientists have discovered a freaky new species of fish in deep ocean waters
Scientists have found a “freaky” new species of fish in deep ocean waters where there is no chance of sunlight penetration, according to Tech Times.

Found off the Gulf of Mexico, the bizarre new fish is similar to a Hollywood mutant in appearance, and was found by researchers of the Nova Southeastern University in waters between 3,200 and 4,900 feet deep.

A new scary-looking fish species has been discovered! And it lives in the "midnight zone": http://t.co/LuQsc2EGwa pic.twitter.com/LrP4qQvikJ

— CNN (@CNN) August 6, 2015

Belonging to the ceratioid anglerfish family, these freaky little creatures survive in what is called the ‘midnight zone’, where there is no light source except the occasional bio-luminescence radiated by some species of fish, and the pressure is a crushing 2,220 pounds per square inch.

Researchers found three females, ranging from one to four inches long, living in northern waters of the gulf at about one mile below the ocean’s surface. Carrying a strange ‘fishing pole’ which acts like a transmitter to help navigate the dark depths of the ocean, these fish could probably be classified as one of the oddest creatures to have been found by scientists in recent times.

The appendage or the ‘rod’ attached to the fish has more functions than one. Speaking to journalists after the discovery, ecstatic researchers disclosed how the new species find their food.

“This fish dangles the appendage until an unsuspecting fish swims up thinking they found a meal, only to quickly learn that they are, in fact, a meal themselves.”

Tracey Sutton, an expert on deep sea life, spoke to ABC News about the possible connotations of the discovery. She said this freaky fish could be one among many such creatures inhabiting the depths of the ocean.

“Finding this new species reinforces the notion that our inventory of life in the vast ocean interior is far from complete. Every research trip is an adventure and another opportunity to learn about our planet and the varied creatures who call it home.”

Ever since the discovery of the new fish was announced yesterday, amateur deep ocean enthusiasts as well as professional marine biologists have gone into overdrive, labeling the freaky new fish everything from a “fearsome-looking creature” to a “spiky, snaggletoothed fish, a sea creature from somebody’s nightmares” to “a rotting old shoe with spikes.”

Only time will tell if the discovery of this freaky new species of fish is to become the mainspring of a string of findings in deep-ocean, but there is no doubt that this rather unusual discovery has left people gaping with wide-jawed curiosity.


Urubamba brown titi found

Scientists have found a new species of monkey
Scientists have found a new species of monkey ( and yes, it's just as cute as you'd imagine)
You looking at me? (Picture: Proyecto Mono Tocón)
There’s a reason why this little guy seems so startled.

He’s one of a new species of monkey that have been discovered in Peru, and frankly he’s adorable.

The new species, named the Urubamba brown titi, was discovered during an expedition to the remote Urubamba river in Peru, and raises the number of known species to 34.

‘Its appearance is very distinct from other titis, the entire body and tail are much darker, and the face is all black,’ co-discoverer Jan Vermeer said of the cat sized primate.

But while monkeys are often considered to be an endangered species, the titis face no such threat as a result of their remote

‘So often when a new monkey is discovered it is already threatened with extinction,’ he said.

‘This is a remote area with very little hunting, so for once this is not the case.’

But the area is also known for having two rivers populated with vicious piranhas, so it’s not all plain sailing for the fuzzy-headed primates.

Two new species of chewing lice discovered on stealty songbird

Two New Species of Chewing Lice Discovered on Stealthy Songbird

Ventral view of the new male skin louse Myrsidea bensoni. Photo by Michel Valim.

By Meredith Swett Walker
If you’re desperate to discover a new species of louse, looking for one on a bird is a good start. Looking for lice on one of North America’s most secretive birds, the Swainson’s warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii), is an even better bet. Researchers just discovered two new species of chewing lice on this little songbird, which spends its summers skulking through the thick undergrowth of southeastern U.S. forests.

Meredith Swett Walker
The newly discovered species, Myrsidea bensoni, a skin louse, and Brueelia limnothlypiae, a feather louse, are described in the latest issue of the Journal of Medical Entomology. Michel P. Valim, of the Museu de Zoologia da USP in Brazil, and Bryan M. Reiley, of Arkansas State University and the Illinois Natural History Survey, discovered the lice while working on a larger study of the effects of flooding on Swainson’s warblers in Arkansas.
Currently about 4,000 species of avian lice have been formally described. That is a lot compared to the about 1,000 species of lice that have been found on mammals. One reason for this disparity is that birds are more diverse. There are about 10,000 species of birds in the world compared to about 5,400 species of mammals. Because most species of lice are at least somewhat host-specific, more species of hosts means more species of lice.

Ventral view of the new female feather louse, Brueelia limnothlypiae. Photo by Michel Valim.

But it’s not just the number of bird species that leads to the diversity of avian lice. There are often more louse species found on a given bird species than there are on a given mammal species. Lice tend to specialize in specific types of hair or feathers. For instance, the hair on the human scalp has a different structure than our pubic hair. That’s why crab lice (Pthirus pubis), also known as pubic lice or crabs, are typically found in the pubic area, but head lice (Pediculus humanus capitis) only infest hair on the head. (My apologies if reading that sentence made you itch.)
While mammalian hair is certainly not uniform, the feathers on a bird’s body are more diverse. If you have ever gotten up close and personal with a bird, you can see that the small feathers on its head are very different in structure from the flight feathers of the wing or the fluffy feathers covering the back and belly. From a louse’s perspective, the body of a bird offers more diverse habitats than the body of a mammal. More types of feathers, or habitats, means more species of lice.

A Swainson’s warbler is dusted with insecticide to remove lice. Photo by Bryan Reiley.

So far M. bensoni and B. limnothlypiae have only been found on Swainson’s warblers, but co-author Valim says that now that these species have been described, researchers may recognize them on other species of birds in the area. However it is possible that M. bensoni and B. limnothlypiae are found only on the Swainson’s warbler. Lice are obligate ectoparasites. They don’t travel fast or far from their host, and they don’t live long when separated from their host. According to Valim, the only times that lice typically move between individual birds is during copulation and when birds are in the same nest. Because different bird species rarely copulate with each other or share a nest, the transmission of lice between two different species may be infrequent, and each host species may function as a “distinct island,” said Valim.
Valim and Reiley named the feather louse, B. limnothlypiae, after its host (the Swainson’s warbler), and they named the skin louse, M. bensoni, after Dr. Thomas J. Benson, an ornithologist who has done important research on Swainson’s warblers and who served as Reiley’s graduate advisor. You can find the formal description of the new species, an identification key for lice in the genus Myrsidea, and a detailed description of the nymphal stages for this genus in Valim and Reiley’s paper: “The Chewing Lice (Insecta, Phthiraptera) Fauna of the Swainson’s Warbler, Limnothlypis swainsonii (Aves, Parulidae).”
Read more at:
– The Chewing Lice (Insecta, Phthiraptera) Fauna of the Swainson’s Warbler, Limnothlypis swainsonii (Aves, Parulidae)
Meredith Swett Walker is a former avian endocrinologist who now studies the development and behavior of two juvenile humans in the high desert of western Colorado. When she is not handling her research subjects, she writes about science and nature. You can read her work on her blogs http://picahudsonia.com and https://citizenbiologist.com or follow her on Twitter at @mswettwalker.
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Filed Under: Featured Articles Tagged With: Brueelia limnothlypiae, lice, Limnothlypis swainsonii, Meredith Swett Walker, Myrsidea bensoni, Swainson’s Warbler
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THE MYTHIC CHILD-STEALING THUNDERBIRDS OF ILLINOIS-A POST TO GET YOU CFZ PEOPLE READY FOR WEIRDWEEKEND.

This story was sponsored by the fine folks of Enjoy Illinois. The evening of July 25, 1977 was just like any other hot summer evening for the Lowe family of Lawndale, Illinois. The smell of sizzling beef and grilled vegetables permeated the air as the adults kicked back on lawn chairs, and the kids tussled on the family's expansive yard outside. The following is Ruth Lowe's harrowing eyewitness account of a particularly frightening avian encounter, as written by Jerry D. Coleman of Cryptozoology.com At approximately 8:10 p.m., the Lowes were cleaning up after their al fresco dinner, the kids still playing outside. And that's when it happened. Ruth, the matriarch of the Lowe clan, was cleaning up in the kitchen where she couldn't see her children. She heard a piercing scream, and knew it was none other than her 10-year old son, Marlon. When she ran outside to see what the commotion was, she was stunned. Two massive birds, flying in a tight wingtip to wingtip formation were chasing her son, Marlon, pecking and clawing at his shoulders. As Ruth ran -READ MORE -http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-mythic-child-stealing-thunderbirds-of-illinois

Saturday, 1 August 2015

New carnivorous plant species found on facebook

The meat-eating plant pictured above can grow 5 feet tall and catch insects as big as dragonflies. The species could be older than humanity, but as with many things, nobody knew it existed until someone posted it on Facebook. A photo of the obscure sundew was first uploaded to the social network in 2013 by Reginaldo Vasconcelos, an amateur botanist who spotted it while hiking on a mountain in southeastern Brazil. The photo was then noticed a year later by Paulo Gonella, a plant researcher at the University of São Paulo's Institute of Biosciences who realized it looked distinct from any species he'd ever seen. Gonella and Vasconcelos eventually met up and returned to the mountain, where they tracked down the mysterious plant. Along with researchers from the Botanical State Collection in Munich, Germany, they were able to confirm the species was previously unknown to science. They published their discovery — named Drosera magnifica, or "magnificent sundew" — this month in the journal Phytotaxa. Sundews represent one of the largest groups of carnivorous plants on Earth, with around 200 species discovered so far. They attract and trap insects using sticky, hair-like glands spread across the surface of their leaves, then slowly roll up their Read more: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/blogs/new-carnivorous-plant-species-discovered-facebook#ixzz3hZSuFN6w
Thirteen new species of spider have been discovered on Queensland’s Cape York peninsula – adding to the thousands of known species that give Australian wildlife its fearsome reputation. The new species were found by scientists, teachers and Indigenous rangers during a 10-day journey to the largely unsurveyed area.READ MORE -http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/27/thirteen-new-spider-species-discovered-australia-bush-blitz
Jackals, the tricksters of traditional folklore, have fooled us yet again. The golden jackal, which lives in East Africa and Eurasia, is actually two distantly related species—and one of them is a new species of wolf, a new study says. (Also see "Wolves Identified by Unique Howls, May Help Rare Species.") Dubbed the African golden wolf, it's the first new species of canid—a group that includes wolves, coyotes, and jackals—discovered in 150 years. Africa is also home to two other wolf species, the gray wolf and Ethiopian wolf. (Read "Africa's Last Wolves" in National Geographic magazine.) Though golden jackals look mostly the same—the Eurasian animals are slightly READ MORE-http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150730-jackals-wolves-evolution-new-species-animals-africa/