Animals
S


Fish

Caribbean resorts threatened by "poisonous" fish invasion


Telegraph (UK)
Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:40 UTC


Image
©AP
Although lionfish are not aggressive towards humans, their sting is very painful

A luridly striped fish with poisonous spikes has invaded the Caribbean where it is quickly spreading - and endangering the beautiful environment so beloved of tourists.

The red lionfish is a native of the Indian and Pacific ocean. But it started appearing in the Caribbean 16 years ago after a tropical storm smashed a private aquarium near Miami.

Now it is colonising the entire sea, feasting on native species of fish and crustaceans and delivering painful stings to divers. A single animal was seen to eat 20 smaller fish in just half an hour.

Until recently, the lionfish invasion was mostly concentrated on the Bahamas, where it infested beaches, reefs and mangrove thickets where baby fish grow. In the past year, its numbers increased tenfold in some parts of the archipelago
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Info

Canada: Hiker dies after being swarmed by bees or wasps near Chemainus

Kim Westad
Times Colonist
Sat, 16 Aug 2008 05:21 UTC
A young hiker died yesterday after he was swarmed and stung by bees, wasps or hornets on Mount Brenton, west of Chemainus. The man's name has not been released, but those at the scene said he appeared to be in his 20s. He was a tourist from Germany hiking with a youth group on the mountain, witnesses said.

"We were called in with a report that a man had been swarmed by what looked like hornets and appeared to be having a severe allergic reaction," said Rick Ruppenthal, the central Vancouver Island superintendent for the B.C. Ambulance Service. "Apparently he had no previous history of allergies."

The call to 9-1-1 came in at 9:30 a.m. yesterday from another hiker with a cellphone.
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Better Earth

Camera spots rare clouded leopard


BBC News
Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:14 UTC


Image
©Unknown
The Bornean clouded leopard was only classified as a distinct species in 2007

Automatic cameras have captured images of a clouded leopard in Borneo's Sebangua National Park, an area where the cats have not been recorded before.
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Butterfly

New Bird Species Discovered In Gabon, Africa


Science Daily
Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:15 UTC
Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution have discovered a new species of bird in Gabon, Africa, that was, until now, unknown to the scientific community.

Image
©Brian Schmidt
A male specimen of the newly-discovered olive-backed forest robin is carefully examined in the hand of Brian Schmidt, the Smithsonian ornithologist who discovered the species.

The newly found olive-backed forest robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) was named by the scientists for its distinctive olive back and rump. Adult birds measure 4.5 inches in length and average 18 grams in weight. Males exhibit a fiery orange throat and breast, yellow belly, olive back and black feathers on the head. Females are similar, but less vibrant. Both sexes have a distinctive white dot on their face in front of each eye.

The bird was first observed by Smithsonian scientists in 2001 during a field expedition of the National Zoo's Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program in southwest Gabon. It was initially thought, however, to be an immature individual of an already-recognized species. Brian Schmidt, a research ornithologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and a member of the MAB program's team, returned to Washington, D.C., from Gabon in 2003 with several specimens to enter into the museum's bird collection. When he compared them with other forest robins of the genus Stiphrornis in the collection, Schmidt immediately noticed differences in color and plumage, and realized the newly collected birds might be unique.
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Fish

Australia Crew films rare species of dolphin


BBC News
Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:35 UTC
[View video]

A camera crew has filmed a rare species of dolphin that has only been known to scientists for three years near Broome, Western Australia.

The recent discovery of the Australian snubfin dolphin has led scientists to search the Australian coastline for the elusive animals.
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X

Dying frogs sign of a biodiversity crisis

Rachel Tompa
UC Berkeley
Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:16 UTC


Image
©Vance Vredenburg
Carcasses of Southern Yellow-legged Frogs in Sixty Lake Basin in Sierra Nevada, California. The frogs died of chytridiomycosis, an amphibian disease caused by a particularly virulent fungus.

Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.

In an article published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers argue that substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet.

"There's no question that we are in a mass extinction spasm right now," said David Wake, professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley. "Amphibians have been around for about 250 million years. They made it through when the dinosaurs didn't. The fact that they're cutting out now should be a lesson for us."
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Info

US: Second bear attack in Anchorage park


Associated Press
Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:00 UTC
Another Anchorage resident has been mauled by a grizzly bear in a city park popular with joggers and bicyclists. The woman was attacked by the bear Friday evening while jogging in Far North Bicentennial Park. She has not been identified. The woman was attacked by a sow with two cubs.

Rick Sinnott, the area's wildlife biologist, believes it is the same bear that chased a mountain biker earlier this summer and came within inches of harming a cross-country runner in late July. Neither of those people was injured.

Anchorage police say this time the bear caused serious injuries. The woman was bitten on her torso, arm and neck.
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Info

Brown Tree Snake Could Mean Guam Will Lose More Than Its Birds


Science Daily
Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:51 UTC
In the last 60 years, brown tree snakes have become the embodiment of the bad things that can happen when invasive species are introduced in places where they have few predators. Unchecked for many years, the snakes caused the extinction of nearly every native bird species on the Pacific island of Guam.

brown tree snake slithers on Guam
©Isaac Chellman
A brown tree snake slithers on Guam.

A variety of other damage has been directly attributed to brown tree snakes, including large population losses among other native animal species in Guam's forests, attacks on children and pets, and electrical power outages.

But new research by University of Washington biologists suggests that indirect impacts might be even farther reaching, possibly changing tree distributions and reducing native tree populations, altering already damaged ecosystems even further.
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Question

Canada: Mysterious disease killing Newfoundland moose

Jeff Ducharme
Telegraph-Journal
Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:30 UTC


Moose
©Warren Harris
Wildlife officials haven't been able to find a cause for a mysterious disease that is killing moose on Newfoundland's northern peninsula.

Saint John - A mysterious disease that has killed a number of moose on Newfoundland's northern peninsula has left provincial wildlife experts in that province scratching their heads. It's unclear how many moose have been lost due to the illness that causes the animals to literally waste away, become walking skeletons and then die.
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Coffee

US: Six Legged Deer - Mysterious Creations Of God

Sharon Supriya
One India
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:32 UTC
God's creations are beyond imagination. They make the mankind awe at its strange, unique and yet beautiful manifestation. On May 2008 a mysterious puppy, green in colour was born in New Orleans. Just after a month Italy was stirred by the birth of a unicorn similar to the fabled unicorn from the age old myths. And then we had the Christian Lion hugging and kissing his former caretakers in a heartwarming reunion, just like a child who meets his parents after many years of separation ( the story is decades old, but it got its major attention now). When we thought the mystery vibes may get stale after all this, yesterday a six legged fawn awestruck North Georgia.

Don't be surprised if you see any animal with wings or a human sized mermaid waggling its tail on the seashore in the coming days. Anything can happen. Its a mysterious world.

So, what is it with this unusual deer? Read on.
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