Animals

19-month-old toddler killed by family dog in Brooklyn, New York

JAMES BICKERTON
Daily Express
Wed, 11 Aug 2021 13:28 UTC

An 19-month-old child was killed in New York by the family dog, while his father was at work.

The attack happened in Flatbush, Brooklyn, at around 10.45pm EST (3.45am BST). According to New York Daily News, the boy had been left at home while his father went to work.

He was being watched over by two older brothers, aged 11 and nine.

Whilst the father was out the family's rottweiler launched a brutal assault in the ground floor apartment.

After the dog attacked the child, his siblings ran out into the street to seek help.

They managed to flag down a passing car, with an occupant then rescuing the toddler from the apartment.

Thousands of human and animal bones hoarded by hyenas in Saudi Arabian lava tube system

Heritage Daily
Sun, 08 Aug 2021 18:44 UTC

© Stewart et al. / Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2021
Images of Umm Jirsan. A Entrance to the western passage and surrounding area. B Entrance to the western passage. Note the team members on the right hand wall for scale. C The back chamber in which the excavation was carried out. D Plotted sampling square before surface collection and excavation. Location of the site shown in the inset.

Archaeologists conducting research in Arabia's longest lava tube system, has found thousands of bones deposited by hyenas.

The Umm Jirsan lava tube system is located in the Harrat Khaybar Lava Field, 130 km north of Medina in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Taphonomic studies of fossil bone accumulations as part of the 'Palaeodeserts Project' to track human and animal migration across the Arabian Peninsula, has identified hundreds of thousands of bone accumulations consisting of over 40 different species, including horses, asses, cattle, camels, rodents, caprids, and even humans.

Although the lava-tube was discovered in the mid-2000s, only recently did researchers venture deeper into the tube system, where the bone accumulations were found.

Researchers find a 'fearsome dragon' that soared over Australian outback

The University of Queensland
Mon, 09 Aug 2021 20:45 UTC

Australia's largest flying reptile has been uncovered, a pterosaur with an estimated seven-metre wingspan that soared like a dragon above the ancient, vast inland sea once covering much of outback Queensland.

University of Queensland PhD candidate Tim Richards, from the Dinosaur Lab in UQ's School of Biological Sciences, led a research team that analysed a fossil of the creature's jaw, discovered on Wanamara Country, near Richmond in North West Queensland.

"It's the closest thing we have to a real-life dragon," Mr Richards said.

"The new pterosaur, which we named Thapunngaka shawi, would have been a fearsome beast, with a spear-like mouth and a wingspan around seven metres.

"It was essentially just a skull with a long neck, bolted on a pair of long wings.

"This thing would have been quite savage.

"It would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaurs who wouldn't have heard them coming until it was too late."

Mr Richards said the skull alone would have been just over one metre long, containing around 40 teeth, perfectly suited to grasping the large predatory fishes known to inhabit Queensland's no-longer-existent Eromanga Sea.

"Even though pterosaurs could fly, they were nothing like birds, or even bats," he said.

"Pterosaurs were a successful and diverse group of reptiles - the very first back-boned animals to take a stab at powered flight."

The new species belonged to a group of pterosaurs known as anhanguerians, which inhabited every continent during the latter part of the Age of Dinosaurs.

Dead emaciated seabirds wash up on shores of western Alaska

Diana Haecker
The Nome Nugget
Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:38 UTC

Starting last week, regional residents reported numerous dead seabirds washing up on regional beaches. UAF Alaska Sea Grant Agent Gay Sheffield said the uptick in washed up sea bird carcasses on beaches started last week, July 28. Different species of sea birds were washed on to beaches at Golovin, Solomon, Nome and a dead murre was reportedly found on a beach at Little Diomede.

On Monday, August 2, a Nome resident found 15 dead birds on a 7.2 mile-stretch at Nome's West Beach. The birds were one horned puffin, six murres, seven shearwaters and one kittiwake.

Sheffield said multiple species were found dead and that preliminary analysis found them in a severely emaciated state. Bird carcasses will be shipped to the federal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which will then send the bodies to the USGS National Wildlife Health Center Lab in Madison, Wisconsin. There, the birds will be examined for disease or harmful algal biotoxins. Sheffield urges the public to report sightings of dead sea birds, to take photos, to note the location and if possible, to bag any freshly dead bird and bring it in for analysis. Report the strandings to Gay Sheffield, UAF Sea Grant Alaska, 907-434-1149 or to Kawerak Subsistence Director Brandon Ahmasuk at 907-443- 4265 or 907-434-2951.

Light pollution is making it harder for animals to navigate at night

Scott Alan Johnston
Universe Today
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 19:01 UTC

Ah, the majestic dung beetle. The pinnacle of evolution. In all seriousness, these little critters are incredibly sophisticated navigators who have, for millennia, used the night sky to guide them about their business. But light pollution is making their lives more difficult by limiting their ability to navigate by the stars. Other nocturnal creatures, including some birds and moths, may be facing similar challenges.

Dung beetles are known for their penchant for rolling dung into balls, then pushing their prize away from competing beetles as quickly as possible. To swiftly escape the competition, they need to be able to travel in straight lines away from a dung pile, putting as much distance as they can between them and their rivals. The stars provide these rushing beetles with a compass, acting as directional cues in the sky with which the beetles are able to orient themselves. When they reach a safe distance, the beetles then bury the dung and proceed to consume it in relative safety.

Researchers at the University of Würzburg in Germany, Lund University in Sweden, and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa set out to examine how light pollution affects the beetles' ability to travel by starlight.

Their results, published in the journal Current Biology, show that the beetles become disoriented in different lighting conditions. For example, in the presence of bright city lights, the beetles have a tendency to travel directly towards the nearest, brightest light source. Instead of dispersing away from a dung pile, the beetles are all drawn in one direction. This makes conflict and competition more likely as individuals encounter each other more frequently.

Signs and Portents: Rare double-headed snake born in Germany

Daily Sabah
Fri, 06 Aug 2021 12:10 UTC

Two headed-snake eats two mice simultaneously

A boa constrictor born with two heads is causing a stir in the southwestern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The snake was born three months ago at the home of reptile breeder Stefan Broghammer in the town of Villingen-Schwenningen.

A snake with two heads is very rare. According to the breeder, the male is healthy and already a YouTube star.

In a video, Broghammer shows how both heads eat as they are each fed a white mouse.

For many people, the two-headed snake is reminiscent of Hydra, a many-headed snake-like monster in Greek mythology.

The boa species originally comes from South America.

Woman killed by pit bulls she was watching in Perry County, Pennsylvania

Samantha York
cbsaustin.com
Thu, 05 Aug 2021 11:13 UTC

A family is mourning the loss of a mother, a sister and a best friend after a dog mauling incident in Perry County.

"Rhoda was a special person that would do anything for anybody and she loved her animals," Carla Mae Snow, the victim's best friend, tells CBS 21 News' Samantha York. "She loved her animals."

The Pennsylvania State Police Newport Station reports 60-year-old Rhoda Wagner was found dead on the front lawn of her Miller Township home in Perry County with three Pit Bull Terriers running in the yard. Officials' investigation determined Wagner was alone at the time. The report continues to say she was attacked by the dogs for an unknown reason.

"We are actually under the impression the two dogs got into a fight and she was trying to break them up," Snow continues. "I just want the whole world to know what she was and who she was, I just want everybody to know that she was a really, really heartfelt, special person."

Giraffes have complex social systems says study

University of Bristol,
Tue, 03 Aug 2021 22:11 UTC

Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered evidence that giraffes are a highly socially complex species.

© Zoe Muller
A mother Rothschild's giraffe tending to her baby. The photo was taken in Soysambu Conservancy, in the Rift Valley region of Kenya. Giraffes are attentive mothers to their offspring, and all female adults in a group are invested in each others' offspring.

Traditionally, giraffes were thought to have little or no social structure, and only fleeting, weak relationships. However in the last ten years, research has shown that giraffe social organisation is much more advanced than once thought.

In a paper published in today in the journal Mammal Review, Zoe Muller, of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, has demonstrated that giraffes spend up to 30% of their lives in a post-reproductive state. This is comparable to other species with highly complex social structures and cooperative care, such as elephants and killer-whales which spend 23% and 35% of their lives in a post-reproductive state respectively. In these species, it has been demonstrated that the presence of post-menopausal females offers survival benefits for related offspring. In mammals - and -ncluding humans - this is known as the 'Grandmother hypothesis' which suggests that females live long past menopause so that they can help raise successive generations of offspring, thereby ensuring the preservation of their genes. Researchers propose that the presence of post-reproductive adult female giraffes could also function in the same way, and supports the author's assertion that giraffes are likely to engage in cooperative parenting, along matrilines, and contribute to the shared parental care of related kin.

Brown bear attacks group of campers, killing and eating one in southern central Russia

Bethany Dawson
Insider
Sat, 31 Jul 2021 11:45 UTC

As a group of hikers on a camping trip unpacked their belongings, one was attacked and killed by a brown bear in Russia.

The group was hiking in the popular Ergaki national park in southern central Russia when the tragedy occurred on July 27.

Krasnoyarsk regional news service reports that the men scaled a wall of rocks once they saw the "drooling" bear - but one man, Yevenggny Starkov, 42, lagged behind.

One of the survivors told the local news that they watched their friend get devoured before fleeing further into the forest after the bear caught sight of them.

Woman killed in bear attack in northern Alberta

Kellen Taniguchi
Edmonton Sun
Mon, 02 Aug 2021 11:33 UTC

The witness at the scene said she believes it was a black bear that attacked her co-worker.

A 26-year-old Alberta women is dead after a reported bear mauling in a wooded area northwest of Swan Hills Saturday.

Swan Hills RCMP said they received a complaint of the bear attack shortly after 3 p.m. The victim was a tree planter from around the hamlet of Peers, working in the Swan Hills area with her co-worker.

"She was evacuated by her co-worker on a helicopter and brought back to the Swan Hills Airport where they met up with an ambulance, emergency crews, and she was subsequently declared deceased at the airport," RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Troy Savinkoff said Monday.

The witness at the scene told RCMP she believed it was a black bear, but RCMP said they have reached out to Alberta Fish and Wildlife who are taking the lead on the investigation to determine what type of bear it was and try to locate it.

Swan Hills is approximately 221 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.