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
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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

New Patagonian predator sheds light on mysterious meat-eating dinosaur group

The new predatory dinosaur Tratayenia rosalesi crosses a stream in what is now Patagonia, Argentina roughly 85 million years ago.

Although many new dinosaur species have been discovered over the past few decades, entire groups of these animals remain shrouded in mystery. One of these is the Megaraptoridae, a shadowy pack of predators that terrorized South America and Australia during the middle and late stages of the Cretaceous Period – the third and final time period of the Age of Dinosaurs. Today, paleontologists announced the discovery of a never-before-seen member of this motley crew that casts light on the skeletal structure of megaraptorids and the roles they played in their long-vanished environments. Named Tratayenia rosalesi, the new species is based on fossil bones collected in Neuquén Province, Argentina – located in the northern part of the wild, windswept region of South America known as Patagonia. A study of the new creature—named after the locality where it was found, Tratayén, and its discoverer, Argentine fossil hunter Diego Rosales—was recently published in the scientific journal Cretaceous Research.

According to study leader Juan Porfiri of the Museo de Ciencias Naturales of the Universidad Nacional del Comahue in Neuquén, "When Diego told us about his find, we quickly got permission from the Dirección Provincial de Patrimonio Cultural

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-03-patagonian-predator-mysterious-meat-eating-dinosaur.html#jCp