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Fri, 24 Sep 2021
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Question

Beluga whale from the Arctic, unusual for West Coast, was first spotted in San Diego but now found dead off Baja

Erika I. Ritchie
The Mercury News
Tue, 06 Oct 2020 13:28 UTC
A pure white whale was found dead off Laguna
© Domenic Biagini
A pure white whale was found dead off Laguna Ojo de Liebre, Baja on Saturday, Oct. 3. Marine mammal experts and federal officials were stumped when it was first sighted off Mission Bay near San Diego, CA on Friday, June 26, 2020. The animal which is typically found around the North Pole was far off its range.
When a snow-white whale was spotted in June by a whale watching charter boat captain off San Diego, marine mammal experts were stunned.

Beluga typically thrive near the North Pole or along Russia's northern coast and had never been seen along the West Coast before.

On Monday, Oct. 5, news of the whale surfaced again. This time floating dead off Laguna Ojo de Liebre, according to a Facebook post.

The whale was found Friday, Oct. 2 by a Mexican fisherman halfway down the Baja peninsula.
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Lemon

Snakes disembowel toads and feast on the living animal's organs one by one

Mindy Weisberger
Live Science
Mon, 05 Oct 2020 10:35 UTC
snake toad
© Winai Suthanthangjai
A small-banded kukri snake with its head inserted through the right side of the abdomen of an Asian black-spotted toad, in order to extract and eat the organs. Tissue of a collapsed lung (above, left), and possibly fat tissue, is covered by clear liquid that foams as it mixes with air bubbles from the lung. The upper part of the front leg is likewise covered by foaming blood, mixed with air bubbles from the collapsed lung.
Pity the toads that encounter Asian kukri snakes in Thailand. These snakes use enlarged, knifelike teeth in their upper jaws to slash and disembowel toad prey, plunging their heads into the abdominal cavities and feasting on the organs one at a time while the toads are still alive, leaving the rest of the corpse untouched.

While you're recovering from the horror of that sentence, "perhaps you'd be pleased to know that kukri snakes are, thankfully, harmless to humans," amateur herpetologist and naturalist Henrik Bringsøe, lead author in a new study describing the gruesome technique, said in a statement.

This grisly dining habit was previously unknown in snakes; while some rip chunks from their prey, most snakes gulp down their meals whole. Scientists had never before seen a snake Bury its head inside an animal's body to slurp up organs — sometimes taking hours to do so, Bringsøe and his colleagues reported.

Comment: See also:

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Question

Short-tailed shearwaters fail to arrive at breeding ground for second year running in Victoria, Australia

Daniel Miles
ABC News (Australia)
Sat, 03 Oct 2020 18:42 UTC
The short-tailed shearwater is a prodigious but extremely punctual traveller — but that's not been the case for the past few years.
© Eric Woehler
The short-tailed shearwater is a prodigious but extremely punctual traveller — but that's not been the case for the past few years.
Bird experts are concerned after a migratory shorebird colony failed to arrive in south-east Australia in time for start of the breeding season for the second straight year.

The short-tailed shearwater, or mutton bird, is one of Australia's most common and hardy birds.

Each year the birds clock up more than 32,000 kilometres, following the warm weather between the northern and southern hemispheres as they chase an "eternal summer".

Known for their endurance and accuracy, the birds usually arrive along Victoria's south-east coast to breed within 48 hours of September 22.

But last year only half of the 40,000-strong colony at Port Fairy's Griffiths Island turned up.

This year the island's bird count remains at zero more than a week after they were expected to arrive.
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Info

Newly described rock art images show human-animal relationships

Amelia Nichele
Cosmos Magazine
Thu, 01 Oct 2020 18:25 UTC
Rock Art
© P. Taçon
Maliwawa macropod over 3MFC hand stencil, Namunidjbuk.
Arnhem Land rock art is continuing to provide a window into Australia's past, with scientists describing 572 previously unknown images in a paper in the journal Australian Archaeology.

The Maliwawa Figures, which range in age from 6000 to 9400 years, were documented across 87 sites from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile area) to the Namunidjbuk Estate of the Wellington Range in northwest Arnhem Land.

The researchers suggest they are a missing link between early-style Dynamic Figures, 12,000 years in age, and X-ray figures made in the past 4000 years.

The images were created in various shades of red, with stroke-infill or outline forms and a few red strokes as infill. Some are more than 50-centimetres high.

The scenes depict humans and macropods, including three bilbies and a dugong, and lead researcher Paul Taçon, from Australia's Griffith University, suggests the presence of various forms of headdresses shows they are not just simple depictions of everyday life.

"Maliwawas are depicted as solitary figures and as part of group scenes showing various activities and some may have a ceremonial context," he says.
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Doberman

Woman found dead in South Carolina yard was mauled to death by dogs, coroner says

Leda Reynolds
MSN
Thu, 01 Oct 2020 12:24 UTC
dog attack
A woman who was found dead at a yard in South Carolina was mauled to death by dogs, it has been reported.

Laurens County Deputy Coroner Patti Canupp said an autopsy was performed on Wednesday after the 32-year-old was discovered at an address in Allegra Lane, Gray's Court.

Officials told WYFF News 4 the dead woman, identified as Jacqueline Nicole Robinson, was found by a home health care nurse who had called at the property.

Canupp revealed the cause of her death was "mauled by dogs."

Courtney Snow, spokesperson for Laurens County Sheriff's Office, told the news channel that several dogs were removed from the property.

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Attention

Bear kills woman in Kashmir


KASHMIR NEWS SERVICES
Fri, 25 Sep 2020 11:47 UTC
print
A woman was killed after bear attacked her in Tumberhama village of Tangmarg in North Kashmir's Baramulla district on Thursday afternoon.

According to Kashmir News Service Correspondent the woman was working in her orchards when the bear attacked her and left her critically injured.

However the locals of the area tried hard to save her but they couldn't save.

The deceased has been identified as Zooni Begum Wife of Mohd Akbar Malik from Tumberhama Tangmarg.

Notably, several persons were injured in a bear attack in Tangmarg area earlier.

Meanwhile, a police officer confirmed the incident to KNS

Comment: In addition a man was killed by a group of sloth bears on Sept. 30 in Chhattisgarh, India

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Attention

Nine pilot whales die stranded on Spain's northern coast

Emma Pinedo
Reuters
Tue, 29 Sep 2020 10:47 UTC
File

File photo
Nine stranded pilot whales have died on a beach on Spain's northern coast but local authorities and residents managed to help others back at sea, the regional government said on Tuesday.

The whales were spotted on Monday on the Moris beach, in Carreno, Asturias. Officials and volunteers worked until late at night to help them, the Asturias government said.

"Half a dozen have managed to return to the sea, although they remain close to the coast. Efforts are now focused on keeping them from returning to the beach," it said.

The bodies of the nine dead whales will undergo an autopsy in the nearby town of Gijon.

Images of stranded whales attracted worldwide attention earlier this month in Australia, where hundreds died.

Comment: Beached pilot whales are a sign of the magnetic pole shift and waning magnetosphere

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Attention

6 dolphins found dead in 'historic' stranding in Alabama after Hurricane Sally

Bailey Aldridge
PHYS.ORG
Wed, 30 Sep 2020 10:27 UTC
dead dolphin
Six dolphins were found dead in an Alabama marsh last week in what experts call an "historic mass stranding."

A paddle boarder discovered the Atlantic spotted dolphins Friday in a Dauphin Island marsh, according to a Tuesday news release from the Alabama Marine Mammal Stranding Network. They seemed to have "stranded alive" several days before.

"This is the first mass stranding of its kind in the state of Alabama," the release says.

Atlantic spotted dolphins live in waters along the continental shelf and are also found in "deep, oceanic habitats," according to the ALMMSN. It's rare for the species to strand on the Alabama coast, with the last documented occurrence in January 2018.
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Doberman

Parents face jail after toddler mauled to death by family dog on second birthday in Ukraine

Daisy Lester
Independent (UK)
Wed, 30 Sep 2020 11:32 UTC
dog attack
Toddler died after 10 days in hospitalA two-year-old boy has died as a result of his injuries after he was attacked by the family's German Shepherd dog while celebrating his second birthday.

The incident unfolded on 18 September in Selydove, a small town in eastern Ukraine.

The toddler, Yegor, died after 10 days in hospital where he remained in critical condition on a ventilator and kidney dialysis.

Before the incident, the boy had reportedly walked outside while his parents sat with guests.

The dog broke free of its enclosure and attacked the toddler in a courtyard.
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Info

The Younger Dryas impact research debate update

Dr. Martin Sweatman
Ancient Origins
Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:15 UTC
Ice Age Skeletons
© Jonathan Chen / CC BY-SA 4.0
Ice Age Diorama. From left to right: Equus hemionus, Mammuthus primigenius, Coelodonta antiquitatis, Bison exiguous skeletal mounts at the Tianjin Natural History Museum.
The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis has received considerable attention since its publication in 2007 in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). It suggests the Younger Dryas geological period and mini Ice-Age, from around 10,850 to 9600 BC, along with associated megafaunal extinctions and human societal changes, was triggered by a catastrophic cosmic impact, probably with a fragmented comet from the Taurid meteor stream.

As of now, this paper by Richard Firestone, Allen West and Simon Warwick-Smith and colleagues has amassed over 550 citations in Google Scholar - which is a lot! It is on its way to becoming a classic. But it has also received more than its fair share of criticism, mostly sustained from just a handful of vehement opponents. But has any of their criticism stuck? And what is the status of Firestone et al.'s paper today? Has the dust settled on an outcome? Are we there yet?
Evolution of Temperatures
© Evolution of temperature in the Post-Glacial period according to Greenland ice cores/CC BY-SA 4.0
Evolution of temperatures in the post glacial period, after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), showing very low temperatures for the most part of the Younger Dryas, rapidly rising afterwards to reach the level of the warm Holocene, based on Greenland ice cores.
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