Animals
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Question

The Cookii monster: Huge deadly pink jellyfish rediscovered 100 years after it was last seen off the Australian coast

Sarah Griffiths
The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 11:35 UTC
  • The incredibly rare jellyfish was discovered off the coast of Queensland, Australia, by an aquarist who was releasing a rescued sea turtle at the time
  • The creature, called a Crambione Cookii, was last seen by American scientist Alfred Gainsborough Mayor off the coast of Cookstown, Queensland, in 1910
  • Not much is known about the mysterious creature, which measures more than two feet long and has a powerful sting
A jellyfish with a powerfully toxic sting has been rediscovered more than 100 years after the last recorded sighting of it.

The incredibly rare Crambione Cookii has not been seen since 1910 but has been recently spotted off the coast of Queensland, Australia, where it was captured.

Not much is known about the mysterious species, which measures 50cm long and has a sting so powerful that it can be felt in the water surrounding the creature.

Image
The incredibly rare Crambione Cookii has not been seen since 1910 but has been rediscovered off the coast of Queensland, Australia, where it was captured
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Eye 2

Snake wriggles on windscreen as car travels down highway

Bruce Archer
The Mirror, UK
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 10:57 UTC
The red-bellied black snake managed to get onto the car's windscreen while it was doing 70km/h


Forget I'm a Celebrity and the controlled creepy crawlies contestants come up against in the jungle, here is a video of a snake on the windscreen a car driving along a three-lane road in Australia.

The excited Ben Lehmann posted on his Facebook page: "So went for a game of golf at Carbrook today. Twenty minutes into the drive home, this happens. You wont believe it. Excuse the swearing!"

He posted the video on Youtube with the description: "Driving down a 3 lane road at 70 km/hr, when this little fella pops his head up and says G'day. Excuse the swearing. I got a little excited."

Then uploaded a second video "PART 2 of the video where the snake tries to get into the ute.

"Again, excuse the swearing. Not as much excitement in this one though. Enjoy"

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Fish

Thousands of dead fishes wash up in Maitai River, New Zealand


The Press
Fri, 22 Nov 2013 20:09 UTC
Dead Fishes
© Martin de Ruyter/Fairfax NZSeeking the cause: Nelson City Council environmental team leader Neil Henderson collects dead fish for testing.
Pilchards have been confirmed as the fish which died in their thousands in Nelson's lower Maitai River yesterday and the city council says people shouldn't fish in the area for the next few days.

The deaths are unexplained but seem to have affected just the one species, with Fish & Game field officer Lawson Davey suspecting a chemical spill into Saltwater Creek, which joins the Maitai beside the Queen Elizabeth II Dr bridge.

Nelson City Council communications manager Angela Ricker said yesterday that, based on the good health of other species in the river, the public health risk was "probably low". The council was taking a cautionary approach.
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Smiley

Beaver steals hunter's rifle

John Holyoke
Out There
Tue, 19 Nov 2013 11:23 UTC
Beaver
© Wikimedia CommonsBeaver got a gun? Not this one. Chances are good that the rifle-stealing beaver closely resembles this one.
Odd things happen to Nathan Baron. One of his teachers at Madawaska High School says it's true. Nathan himself admits it.

Like the time he bought a new riding mower ... put in a battery ... cranked it up ... and watched, alarmed, as the battery exploded and his mower burst into flames.

"I thought I was going to die," he said with a chuckle. "I wasn't burnt or anything, but I was afraid I was going to light some trees on fire."

That teacher, Maine hoop legend Matt Rossignol, said that every time he sees Nathan, the teen has another story to tell. The one he told on Monday was particularly memorable, and Rossignol had what you'll shortly agree was an understandable reaction.

"I told him, 'We've got to get this in print,'" Rossignol said.

I agreed (although I expected at first that the story was part of some school project titled "See What Kind of Crazy Story You Can Get a Newspaper to Print.')

So here's Nathan Baron's tale:

Nathan said Saturday didn't start off as an extraordinary day. In fact, it was pretty low-key: He was sitting in a chair in the woods, hunting, watching as a doe crossed in front of him.

After the doe left, he ate his lunch. Then nature called.
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Bug

Spain considers release of genetically modified olive fruit flies

Francie Diep
PopSci
Thu, 21 Nov 2013 09:00 UTC
Fruit Fly
© Joaquim Alves Gaspar on Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 Olive Fruit Fly
A company involved in creating genetically modified mosquitos has another project nearing outdoor testing. The U.K.-based Oxitec has applied to release genetically modified olive fruit flies under netted olive trees in Spain, the BBC reports. The flies are a major pest to olive crops.

The idea is that the flies, all male, will mate with wild olive fruit flies. Any female flies produced from such a union will die as maggots, while any male offspring will carry the deadly gene, just as their fathers did. Over time, this should bring down local olive fruit fly population dramatically.

In a study done in cages, weekly releases of the Oxitec flies crashed the fly population. The added genes are similar to the ones that appear in Oxitec's mosquitos, which the company has tested in Brazil, bringing down one town's dengue-fever-carrying mosquito population by 96 percent.
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Fish

The freak from the deep: Long-nosed fish that lives 3,000ft below the ocean is caught for only the second time ever

Joshua Gardner
The Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 19 Nov 2013 09:16 UTC
  • The long-nosed chimaera was snagged by fishermen in the Davis Strait of Canada's extreme northerly province of Nunavut
  • It is only the second of its kind ever documented in the area near the Hudson Strait
  • Long-nosed chimaeras are believed to live in abyssal depths below 3,000 feet and are distance cousins of sharks and rays
An extremely weird looking fish was snagged recently in the frigid artic waters off northern Canada and after some confused speculation about what it even is, researchers have identified it as the super rare long-nosed chimaera.

'Potentially, if we fish deeper, maybe between 1,000 and 2,000 metres (3,000 to 6,000 feet), we could find that's there's actually quite a lot of them there,' University of Windsor researcher Nigel Hussey told CBC. 'We just don't know.'

The spooky, deep sea fish has a long nose, menacing mouth, and a venomous spine atop its gelatinous grey body and was caught near the northernmost province of Nunavut in Davis Straight.

Researchers, who at first believed the odd fish was the similarly freakish goblin shark, say the long-nosed chimaera likely makes its home at depths not often visited by humans.


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Snagged: This rare and bizarre fish-called a long-nosed chimaera--was caught in the chilly waters off the northern coast of Canada by Nunavut fishermen in the Davis Strait
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Question

Lion kills lioness as Dallas zoo visitors watch


Sky News
Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:43 UTC
Lion Kills Lioness
© WFAA
A lion at Dallas Zoo in the US has turned on a lioness it shared its enclosure with and killed her in front of horrified visitors.

The male wrapped his jaws around the neck of five-year-old Johari and within minutes she was dead. The Texas zoo said the pride of five - two brothers and three sisters - had lived together "peacefully" for years without incident and they have no idea what caused the attack.

"Johari was a remarkable animal, as are all of our lions," said Lynn Kramer, vice president of animal operations and welfare at the Dallas Zoo.

"This is a very rare and unfortunate occurrence. In my 35 years as a veterinarian in zoos, I've never seen this happen."

It is not rare for male lions to kill cubs in the wild. Families who had been watching the lions were moved away and a restaurant overlooking the enclosure was closed. Visitor Michael Henshaw described the shocking scene:
"At first you think they're playing; then you realise he's killing her ... and you're watching it," he told WFAA News. "You just can't believe your eyes."
Dallas Zoo tweeted that the remaining lions have been separated while the attack is investigated. A spokesperson added that it will "absolutely not" euthanise the killer lion.

It said: "Thank you, friends. It's a difficult day for us, but we're humbled by the outpouring of support."
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Brick Wall

Glass deathtrap kills flock of 80 Swedish birds

Solveig Rundquist
thelocal.se
Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:54 UTC
Eighty birds flew into a glass sound barrier in western Sweden on Sunday, in a mishap that proved fatal for the vast majority of the flock.

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Nearly 80 birds died after flying into a glass wall
"It was awful and tragic," Kirsten Ekholm of the Bird Center in Partille told The Local. "It's sad because it's so unnecessary. We know how to avoid this."

Ekholm was at the Bird Center, an organisation near Gothenburg which rehabilitates injured wild birds, when a couple came in with several shaken Bohemian Waxwings. Ekholm accompanied them back to a glass sound barrier near a highway, where she was shocked to see nearly eighty bird bodies strewn about.

"We have never seen so many at one time," Ekholm recounted. "And most of them were very young birds. It was a terrible sight."

Ekholm spent her Sunday gathering the bodies and examining the dead. Seventy-two of the birds were already dead when she arrived, and one died of its injuries during the night. Seven were still alive on Monday morning, but she said there was no guarantee they would make it.

"It's difficult to say if they will live. Many of them have internal bleeding, and one had its eye completely smashed," Ekholm told The Local.
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Wolf

3-year-old Chicago boy attacked by a coyote


huffingtonpost.com
Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:08 UTC
Image
A 3-year-old boy is recovering after he was bit in the face by a coyote roaming in a city park on Chicago's West Side.

Family says Emeil Hawkins was bit Oct. 27 near Columbus Park after he and his mother mistook the animal for a German Shepherd. Thinking the coyote was a dog, Emeil tried to feed it before the animal bit him in the face, WGN reports.

"You can see how close it is to the neck, to the eye, to the mouth, to the nose," said Bryce Kyle, the boyfriend of Emeil's mother, describing the wounds. "It could have been a lot worse, but at the same time it was tragic. It's been horrible."
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Eye 2

Snake smuggler foiled in Shanghai airport - 121 snakes stuffed into suitcase


The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:20 UTC
Custom officials at a Shanghai airport uncover a snakes on a plane situation after they uncover 121 endangered snakes stuffed into a traveller's suitcase


Customs officials at a Shanghai airport noticed the unnamed man was carrying something suspicious as his luggage was passed through a scanner.

Opening up his bags, they found 121 snakes wrapped in black stockings and stuffed inside 21 plastic boxes.

The animals were later indentified as endangered ball pythons. The man may face up to life imprisonment for trafficking rare animals.

Source: ITN
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