Trawlermen have landed an albino ray thought to be the first found in British waters.
The 80cm-long fish was caught in the Solent and is now being cared for at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Portsmouth.
Experts are surprised that the ray survived so long without camouflage to hide from predators.
Animals
Alberta's environment minister said the provincial government's efforts to allay environmental concerns about its booming oil sands industry will be hurt by the deaths of hundreds of ducks that landed on a pond filled with toxic waste.
Environment Minister Rob Renner concedes the deaths have put a dent in Alberta's efforts to counter the message being spread by environmental groups that Canada's oil sands projects are taking a toll on the environment.
Environment Minister Rob Renner concedes the deaths have put a dent in Alberta's efforts to counter the message being spread by environmental groups that Canada's oil sands projects are taking a toll on the environment.
The Fruit Bat is under threat of extinction on the island, the Forestry Department said yesterday. Forestry Officer Harris Nicolaou told the Mail that numbers have been rapidly declining, with only an estimated 3,500 remaining.
"We can say that numbers were far greater in the past and it is now an endangered species," he said.
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| ©Unknown |
| Fruit Bat |
"We can say that numbers were far greater in the past and it is now an endangered species," he said.
An alarming number of dead sea mammals, apparently killed on purpose by humans rather than dying of natural causes, have washed up on Greek shores in the last few weeks, marine experts said yesterday.
Researchers discovered a legless lizard and a tiny woodpecker along with 12 other suspected new species in Brazil's Cerrado, one of the world's 34 biodiversity conservation hotspots.
The Cerrado's wooded grassland once covered an area half the size of Europe, but is now being converted to cropland and ranchland at twice the rate of the neighboring Amazon rainforest, resulting in the loss of native vegetation and unique species.
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| ©CI/Cristiano Nogueira |
| This species of lizard of the genus Bachia is one of the new species discovered during the expedition. Although there are other species of the genus in the Cerrado (almost all discovered and described only recently), this new species has only been recorded in the Ecological Station. The absence of legs and the sharply pointed snout help in locomotion over the surface layer of sandy soil, predominating in all the Jalapao, formed by the natural erosion of the escarpments of the Serra Geral plateaus. |
The Cerrado's wooded grassland once covered an area half the size of Europe, but is now being converted to cropland and ranchland at twice the rate of the neighboring Amazon rainforest, resulting in the loss of native vegetation and unique species.
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| ©Bruce Wannan (left) and Paul Forster (right), courtesy Queensland Herbarium, Environmental Protection Agency. |
| Two supposedly extinct plants - the pink-flowered mint Teucrium ajugaceum, (left) and Rhaphidospora cavernarum, (right) - have been rediscovered on a peninsula in northern Australia, scientists announced recently. |
Two woodland plants long thought extinct have reappeared in far northern Australia, experts announced recently.
Teucrium ajugaceum, a pink-flowered mint that lives in eucalypt woodlands, had not been seen since 1891 and was listed as extinct in 1992.
Rhaphidospora cavernarum, not seen since 1873, also frequents eucalypt forests. Though it grows to almost 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall and boasts white and purple flowers, the plant had somehow evaded surveyors until now.
Mountain pine beetles that are destroying forests along much of the Rocky Mountain range are doing so much damage that they may affect climate change, Canadian researchers reported on Wednesday.
The damage is nearly equivalent to the polluting effects of forest fires, they report in the journal Nature.
"In the worst year, the impacts resulting from the beetle outbreak in British Columbia were equivalent to 75 percent of the average annual direct forest fire emissions from all of Canada during 1959-1999," Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, British Columbia and colleagues wrote.
The damage is nearly equivalent to the polluting effects of forest fires, they report in the journal Nature.
"In the worst year, the impacts resulting from the beetle outbreak in British Columbia were equivalent to 75 percent of the average annual direct forest fire emissions from all of Canada during 1959-1999," Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, British Columbia and colleagues wrote.
The Sudden oak death epidemic that has killed more than a million trees throughout coastal California started in two sites: Scotts Valley and on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, a new genetic analysis reveals.
Through genetic detective wok, scientists found that pathogens at both locations - separated by 62 miles - share identical DNA footprints, indicating that they are related, probably through the nursery trade, said lead investigator Matteo Garbelotto of the University of California Berkeley.
"Our study reconstructs the Sudden oak death epidemic," Garbelotto said."Having multiple introductions explains why it is so extensive."
Through genetic detective wok, scientists found that pathogens at both locations - separated by 62 miles - share identical DNA footprints, indicating that they are related, probably through the nursery trade, said lead investigator Matteo Garbelotto of the University of California Berkeley.
"Our study reconstructs the Sudden oak death epidemic," Garbelotto said."Having multiple introductions explains why it is so extensive."
Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing once again, much to the surprise of scientists.
American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny island (a part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific) on March 1, 1954, and about 20 other nuclear tests were carried out on the atoll between 1946 and 1958.
Many of the natives were moved to Kili Island and today are compensated by the United States government.
American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny island (a part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific) on March 1, 1954, and about 20 other nuclear tests were carried out on the atoll between 1946 and 1958.
Many of the natives were moved to Kili Island and today are compensated by the United States government.
Many of the birds that migrate to Britain and Europe from Africa every spring, from the willow warbler to the cuckoo, are undergoing alarming declines, new research shows.
The falls in numbers are so sharp and widespread that ornithologists are waking up to a major new environmental problem - the possibility that the whole system of bird migration between Africa and Europe is running into trouble.
The falls in numbers are so sharp and widespread that ornithologists are waking up to a major new environmental problem - the possibility that the whole system of bird migration between Africa and Europe is running into trouble.
