giant octopus sighting part 1

New species of spider discovered 'next door' at the the borders of cereal fields in Spain

The image that comes to mind when we think of new species being discovered is that of scientists sampling in remote tropical forests, where humans have barely set foot in. However, new species waiting to be discovered can in fact be very close to us, even if we live in a strongly humanized continent like Europe.

Scientists Eduardo Morano, University of Castilla-La Mancha, and Dr Raul Bonal, University of Extremadura, have discovered a new species of spider, formally called Cheiracanthium ilicis, in an area which does not match the image of a pristine habitat at all.

The new species was found in a strongly humanized area in central Spain, specifically, in isolated trees at the borders of cereal fields. These trees, mainly Holm oaks (Quercus ilex), are those remaining of the former oak woodlands that once covered the Iberian Peninsula and which have been cleared for centuries.

The systematic sampling revealed the newly discovered spider had a an exclusive preference for Holm Oaks, as all individuals were collected from the trunks and branches of these trees. Therefore, it was named after this tree's scientific name "ilicis".

While adults measure about a centimetre in body length, juveniles are smaller and have greenish colouration that mimics new oak shoots.

The mouthparts are proportionally large, as in the case of other species of the genus, like closely related C. mildei. In the case of the latter, the mouthparts are large enough to penetrate human skin, although the effects of the poison appear mild.

From a conservation perspective, the present study puts forward the need to preserve isolated trees in agricultural landscapes. They are not only a refuge to common forest organisms but to novel species yet to be discovered as well.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-06-species-spider-door-borders-cereal.html#jCp

Humans are driving the evolution of new species — and that could be just as bad as causing extinctions

The London Underground mosquitoes were first noticed during World War II, when tens of thousands of people took shelter in the subway system's tunnels while their city was bombed. The sunless, concrete passageways were different from the mosquitoes' natural habitat — and their normal food source, the blood of birds, was hard to come by. But there were plenty of humans to bite, and abundant standing water to breed in, so the bugs persisted. After seven decades isolated from the outside world, they developed their own feeding and breeding habits and distinct DNA; they can no longer breed with their aboveground kin. The subterranean mosquitoes, known to science as Culex pipiens molestus, are an entirely new species. And their existence is wholly thanks to humans.-read more

new-species-bacteria-found-cause-lyme-disease

A new species of bacteria is causing Lyme disease, adding to worries that the infection will continue its relentless escalation across the United States. Lyme is already the most common tick-borne disease in North America, with new cases peaking every June and July.

“In summary, the news is largely bad,” Paul Mead of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said June 19 at a joint meeting of the American Society for Microbiology and the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. Not only is the prevalence of Lyme disease increasing, another tick-borne illness — Rocky Mountain spotted fever — is cutting a deadly path through Mexico.

Public health officials began collecting data on Lyme disease in 1991. Since then, it has spread in all directions from two U.S. epicenters, one in the Northeast and one in the Upper Midwest, according to data Mead presented at the meeting and published last year in Emerging Infectious Diseases. In the early 1990s, 43 Northeast counties had a high incidence of the disease. Today, 182 do. About 30,000 to 35,000Lyme disease cases are reported each year in the United States, up from around 11,000 cases in 1995, the CDC reports.

Until recently, only one bacterium in North America was known to cause the disease: Borrelia burgdorferi. (In Europe, two other species are more common.)This year, researchers at Mayo Clinic testing blood and synovial fluid samples from people infected with Lyme disease discovered six infections that did not trace to B. burgdorferi. In addition to a rash, fever and other classic Lyme symptoms, those patients also experienced confusion, nausea and vomiting. “Not so typical for Lyme disease,” Mead observed.-read more

first amphibious centipede found

Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water—look out for giant, swimming centipedes!

Scientists have recently described the world’s first known amphibious centipede. It belongs to a group of giant centipedes called Scolopendraand grows up to 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) long.

Like all centipedes, it is venomous and carnivorous. Thankfully, this new water-loving species appears to live only in Southeast Asia. The creature’s description was published last month in the journal ZooKeys.

Centipede Serendipity

George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum in London was on his honeymoon in Thailand in 2001. And like any good entomologist, he was looking for bugs.-read more

First Photo of Intact Giant Squid, 1874

I

n Portugal Cove, Newfoundland, a small fishing boat was attacked in the fall of 1873. One of the boat’s occupants—so the story goes—saw vast tentacles rising up from the water and, in an act of heroism, hacked a couple off. Boat freed, the fishermen headed back to shore.

The anglers fed one tentacle to a dog, according to some accounts; the other, measuring 19 feet in length, they carried to nearby St. John’s, to the home of minister and amateur naturalist Moses Harvey. “Harvey was Presbyterian Irish, incredibly homesick for Ireland, and had lost himself in all things natural,” says Matthew Gavin Frank, who explored Harvey’s life and essays on Newfoundland’s flora and fauna in his 2014 bookPreparing the Ghost. “He was known in St. John’s in the mid- and late 1800s as just being crazy after all things from the land and the sea.” Harvey bought the tentacle for $10, says Frank, and estimated the creature it came from to be 72 feet long.

A subject of cautionary tales rather than scientific inquiry, the giant squid was still very much considered part of mythology, Frank says. But the following year, another group of fisherman in Logy Bay near St. John’s port brought Harvey something unequivocally convincing: a whole giant squid that had died thrashing in their nets. “These fisherman had obviously heard that Harvey had paid $10 for a tentacle and thought, ‘Well, goodness, what will -read more

Ancient birds' wings preserved in amber

Two wings from birds that lived alongside the dinosaurs have been found preserved in amber.

The "spectacular" finds from Myanmar are from baby birds that got trapped in the sticky sap of a tropical forest 99 million years ago.

Exquisite detail has been preserved in the feathers, including traces of colour in spots and stripes.

The wings had sharp little claws, allowing the juvenile birds to clamber about in the trees.

The tiny fossils, which are between two and three centimetres long, could shed further light on the evolution of birds from their dinosaur ancestors.-read more