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Animal News
Topic Started: Feb 9 2006, 11:26 PM (1,130 Views)
Oneistheloneliestnumber
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EPITOME OF AWESOME.

Manatees Off Fla. Endangered Species List
Associated Press
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June 13, 2006 — Florida's state wildlife commission has voted to take the manatee off the state's endangered species list, saying manatee populations are on the rebound.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to designate the manatee as a threatened species rather than endangered. It also voted to remove the bald eagle from its list of threatened species.

State officials said the decisions would not affect how the species are protected. Both the bald eagle and manatee remain protected under federal law, including the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers the manatee endangered and the bald eagle threatened.

"There will be no less protection," commission spokesman Henry Cabbage said.

But some environmentalists said the reclassifications could set in motion a downward spiral of state funding and protections.

"As species like the manatee are reclassified to a less imperiled status before their populations have actually recovered, state funding for research, management and law enforcement will likely be directed elsewhere," said attorney Martha Collins.

Collins represents 17 environmental groups who last week filed a petition with the state seeking to revamp the protection classification system.

Florida's classification system consists of three categories: endangered, threatened and special concern. These categories are based on a species' population, how fast it is declining and when extinction is projected, among other factors.

Scientists have said the manatee population is expected to drop 50 percent over the next five decades because of habitat loss, boat collisions and red tide algae. Still, they said the species is not endangered - a classification that indicates a species is on the brink of extinction.

An annual survey released in February found 3,116 manatees in Florida waters, up from 1,267 in 1991, the first year the census was conducted. But state scientists said the increase shown in the survey is partly a result of better techniques for finding the animals.

http://animal.discovery.com/news/ap/20060612/manatee.html
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Oneistheloneliestnumber
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EPITOME OF AWESOME.

Large-billed reed-warbler isn't extinct after all

By Sebastian Berger in Bangkok
Last Updated: 2:03am GMT 08/03/2007

A bird last seen alive in India almost 140 years ago and considered extinct has been rediscovered at a Thai sewage works by a British researcher.

The large-billed reed-warbler, a small, rather plain brown creature, is considered the world's least-known bird.

But the uninspiring nature of its plumage was a direct contrast to the excitement of ornithologists around the world after the find was announced yesterday. Philip Round, assistant biology professor at Mahidol University in Bangkok, made the discovery by chance when he was ringing birds in reed beds at a waste water treatment plant south-west of the Thai capital.

"Although reed-warblers are generally drab and look very similar, one of the birds I caught that morning struck me as very odd. Something about it didn't quite add up," he said.

"It had a long beak and short wings.Then it dawned on me. I was probably holding a large-billed reed-warbler. I was dumbstruck. It felt as if I was holding a living dodo."


The male bird, believed to be around a year old, was less than six inches high and weighed 0.3 ounces.

"Large" in this case is a relative term, with its beak around half an inch long.

Mr Round extracted two of its tail-feathers for DNA tests, which later proved a match with the only other known specimen, collected in 1867 in the Sutlej valley of north-western India.

"I was really, really excited," said Mr Round, a leading authority on Thai birds. "I've known the existence of this bird for many years through reading and old references, but I never, ever expected to find it here.

"We thought it was probably extinct, but now we have proved that the bird still exists."

A few months after Mr Round's discovery last March, a second large-billed reed-warbler was located - although dead - in Tring, Herts.

It was found by an amateur ornithologist in a drawer full of Blyth's warblers at the town's natural history museum, and was collected in 1869 in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. "Finding one large-billed reed-warbler after 139 years was remarkable. Finding a second right under ornithologists' noses is nothing short of a miracle," said Stuart Butchart, of the conservation group BirdLife International.

"Almost nothing is known about this mysterious bird," he added. The species is classed as "data deficient" in the World Conservation Union's Red List of endangered wildlife.

The term covered several possibilities, a BirdLife International spokesman explained. "It could be extinct, we haven't got the data. It could be really prevalent, we haven't got the data. It could be very thinly distributed, we haven't really got the data.

"The fact that this new individual has been found says there is underlying breeding going on, so there's a population of sorts somewhere."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../08/wbird08.xml
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Chess Resources King
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Stokesosaurus

Wow! Let's hope an effort is made to conserve this rediscovered species, and that many similar discoveries soon take place!
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Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit / Liberté, égalité, fraternité / Toţi în unu / Tautos jėga vienybėje / Pravda vítězí! / Out of many, one people
Harambee! Let's work together! Stop racism! If you hate racism, then put those mottoes in your sig!
iPURA VIDA!

This little bit added to satisfy HoD
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Oneistheloneliestnumber
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EPITOME OF AWESOME.

Here's an owl!!

Photo in the News: "Strange Owl" Seen in Wild for First Time

March 23, 2007—A tiny bird so rare and unusual that its scientific name means "strange owl" has been spotted for the first time in the wild, scientists announced yesterday.

Conservationists working in Peru got their first natural glimpse of the long-whiskered owlet last month while working in a private mountain reserve.

The species wasn't even known to exist until 1976, and since then the only known living specimens have been those caught in nets at night.

"Seeing the long-whiskered owlet is a huge thrill," said David Geale of Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos, who was part of the research team, in a press statement.

The American Bird Conservancy, which partnered in the research, described the sighting as "a holy grail" of bird biology.

As few as 250 of the owlets are thought to exist, scientists said, and the birds are as distinctive as they are rare.

With their diminutive size, bright orange eyes, and wild, wispy facial feathers, the dainty birds belong to their own genus, dubbed Xenoglaux, or "strange owl."

The owlets owe much of their survival to the remoteness of their dense mountain habitat, the researchers said. But as human activity encroaches on Peru's northern forests, the birds' future looks dimmer.

"Due to the rapid destruction of its forest habitat and its tiny range, it is inferred that the species is in serious decline," Geale said.

"Until recently, the owlets key habitat was completely unprotected."

—Blake de Pastino

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...wl-picture.html
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Oneistheloneliestnumber
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EPITOME OF AWESOME.

Dinos, Sharks Were Predators and Prey

July 12, 2007 — Sharks and dinosaurs in prehistoric Europe had a taste for each other, suggests a new review of vertebrate fossils found in the Galve region of Northeast Spain.

Diverse findings dating from the late Jurassic to the early Cretaceous reveal that bony fish, salamanders, frogs, 39-foot-long crocodilians, small prehistoric mammals, freshwater turtles, several types of pterosaurs, and various other dinosaurs all once thrived at the Spanish site from around 163 to 145 million years ago.

Teeth from hybodont sharks — extinct, primitive shark-like fish — were found in non-marine rocks. This reveals the hybodonts lived in rivers and lakes right in dinosaur territory. At least one group of dinosaurs, the spinosaurines, was equipped to take on the fish species.

The findings were recently published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

Co-author Darren Naish, a paleontologist at the University of Portsmouth, explained to Discovery News that these theropod dinos, which originated in Europe, had "long skulls, retracted nostrils, and unusual, semi-conical teeth," good for grabbing land prey as well as fish, including small sharks.

Naish emphasized "small," less than 6.5 feet or so long, since hybodonts could defend themselves with their teeth, sharp spines and pointy horns.

For swimming dinos other than spinosaurines, Naish said "hybodonts would presumably have been a hazard that they would have wanted to avoid."

"Dinosaur carcasses washed down rivers and into the sea were often scavenged by sharks," he explained.

Another potential "hazard" would have been the enormous crocodilians, aquatic reptiles related to today's crocodiles and alligators. Teeth, bony plates and bones are all that remain of these creatures, which grew to about the size of a large school bus.

The Galve assemblage resembles that of Wealden, a widely distributed series of rocks over much of Southeast England.

Michael Benton, who worked with Naish and Barbara Sanchez-Hernandez on the study, is a professor of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Bristol.

Benton told Discovery News that Galve is comparable to Wealden because "the climate was probably similar," the rock formations date to about the same age, and the two sites are only a few hundred miles apart.

Unique to Galve, however, are "holdover dinosaurs," mostly sauropods that were already extinct or evolved elsewhere. Benton explained that the dino relicts survived in Spain later than anywhere else "possibly because it was more or less an island," since the Iberian region was then partly surrounded by seas that separated it from England, France and central Europe.

David Martill, a palaeobiologist at the University of Portsmouth, told Discovery News that the new overview on Galve fossils "is an accurate piece of science."

In terms of sharks, Martill said they were "diversifying greatly" around the time of prehistoric Galve.

He described the primitive shark hybodonts as having "an impressive series of spines in front of the dorsal fins, and males had rather fierce-looking horns on their heads, which were used to attach the male to the female for a rather painful looking mating event."

For dinosaurs that encountered them, however, they likely just inflicted pain.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/12/d...=20070712120030

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Biggest Bird Flew Without Flapping
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

July 2, 2007 — The old line, "It's a bird! It's a plane!" could once have applied to the world's largest known bird, Argentavis magnificens, which, with a 23-foot wingspan, was about the same size as a Cessna 152 light aircraft.

A study published in today's Proceedings of the National Academies of Science found that the bird was probably too big to accommodate both wing-flapping in flight and standing takeoff by its own muscle power.

The 159-pound bird, which lived in Argentina six million years ago during the Miocene period, had its own way to taxi down a runway.

"A short run, about 30 feet on a moderate slope, would give enough power — 600 watts — to become airborne," lead author Sankar Chatterjee told Discovery News.

Argentavis then had two lazy means for staying in the air. The first involved soaring over updrafts produced in the Andes foothills, explained Chatterjee, a professor of geosciences and curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University.

In the pampas, or plains, where such updrafts are uncommon, the bird could switch to hitching a ride on thermals — columns of air that rise due to natural, sun-fueled heating.

"Once it entered in a thermal, which should have been plenty in the pampas, like modern eagles and vultures, it would circle and climb vertically within the rising column," Chatterjee explained.

"As it reached the top of the thermal, it could glide straight to the next thermal," he added. "This way, Argentaviscould commute 200 miles from thermal to thermal in one day.

Analysis of ancient climate in the region suggests thermals would have been present on most days. During the day, the hefty bird likely spent much of its time gliding and foraging for prey, such as rabbits and hares, which it would have "gulped down whole" with a "formidable beak."

Chatterjee and his team made the flight determinations by plugging wing span, weight and other information gleaned from Argentavis and related birds', skeletal remains into a software program originally designed for studying helicopters.

Lawrence Witmer, professor of anatomy at Ohio University, previously looked at flight patterns in pterosaurs — ancient flying reptiles related to dinosaurs — with Chatterjee and his team.

"Argentavis was crazy big," Witmer told Discovery News. "The challenge for the scientists here was to tease apart information from the remains of a bird that was so far out of the range of modern experience."

He thinks the new theories "make sense and are quite possible," especially concerning how such a bird could have achieved takeoff.

"The biggest problems faced by both birds and human-designed aircrafts are takeoffs and landings," Witmer said. "Some airplane gliders are towed into the air by other planes. It sounds like Argentavis solved the problem through its running takeoff."

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/02/b...=20070702170030

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Penguin Diet Change Caused by People?
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

July 9, 2007 — Around 200 years ago, a group of Antarctic penguins started a dramatic new diet: they switched from eating mostly big fish to a diet of tiny crustaceans.

And, new research suggests, humans might have forced the change.

Researchers Steven Emslie and William Patterson analyzed more than 220 fossilized penguin eggshells ranging in age from 100 to 38,000 years old. The scientists collected the shells from abandoned Adelie penguin colony sites from three major regions in Antarctica: the Ross Sea, East Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Their findings are published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

After crushing bits of the shells with a mortar and pestle, the scientists measured their carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. The ratios of those basic elements allowed the scientists to determine past and present penguin diets.

"Stable isotopes accurately reflect the diet of living and fossil species because the tissues of the animal absorb the isotope ratios of their prey," Emslie explained to Discovery News.

"Thus you can determine if a species feeds high or low on the food chain based on its isotope composition of its tissues, including eggshell," Emslie, a professor of biology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, added.

At first, the scientists expected to find that the birds' diets shifted with the ever-changing climate. Instead, they discovered a "dramatic shift in penguin prey high on the food chain, such as fish, over most of the past 35,000 years to prey — krill — lower on the food chain occurring very recently, within the past 200 to 300 years."

At precisely that time, humans began an unprecedented killing of seals and whales in Antarctica. Whale oil was then used to burn lamps, and people also consumed whale meat, a practice continued in some countries. Seals have always been targeted for their pelts, as well as for their meat.

Since whales and seals feast upon krill, their disappearance led to a huge "krill surplus" in the Southern Ocean. It was then that the penguins shifted to this salty, crunchy high-energy prey.

Keith Hobson, a scientist at Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service, told Discovery News that he was "truly surprised at the abrupt change... these results indicate for laying females via their eggs."

However, Hobson pointed out, the shift could have been due not only to a surpluss of krill, but also a scarcity of fish.

He hopes "that this work acts as a catalyst for others to examine the ecological interrelationships occurring in the Southern Ocean.

In the meantime, both he and Emslie are concerned about the current penguin food situation, since krill are in steep decline in the Southern Ocean. Emslie attributes this to "global warming and increased krill fisheries." With many fish species also declining, "Adelie penguins face few foraging options in future," he said.

Emslie hopes implementation of a recent proposal calling for protection of the entire Ross Sea region as an ecological reserve might help to prevent humans from indirectly starving penguins there to death.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/09/p...=20070709170030

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Glow-in-the-Dark Sharks at Risk?
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

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July 17, 2007 — One of the first ever detailed studies on deep water lantern sharks, so named for their ability to glow in the dark, has found they are in danger of extinction.

Recent studies have linked declines in shark populations to the collapse of entire marine ecosystems. The loss of lantern sharks could devastate other ocean life globally, as many lantern sharks have wide ranges.

Researchers focused on one species in particular, the smooth lantern shark, commonly caught as by-catch in Portuguese trawling and longline fisheries. Since the bioluminescent shark has little commercial value, the fishermen usually just discard it.

"What we now know is that this species has a vulnerable life cycle characterized by slow growth rates, low fecundity and late maturity," lead author Rui Coelho told Discovery News.

"When fisheries mortality increases, the populations start to decline and cannot compensate for this," added Coelho, a shark researcher at the University of Algarve, Portugal.

He and colleague Karim Erzini analyzed 614 by-catch sharks over a two-year period. Their measurements showed the species grows anywhere from 5 to 19 inches long.

The sharks have special light-producing organs, called photophores, mostly found on their sides.

"These photophores may be used to allow individuals to escape from predators, approach prey without the sharks being detected or for species recognition, such as during the mating season," explained Coelho.

The scientists developed a unique way to determine the age of the sharks: The inner portions of their spines grow continuously. By counting growth bands in this spinal area, similar to counting tree rings, the researchers could estimate each shark's age.

Their findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Fisheries Research.

The oldest male they found was 13 years old, while the oldest females were 17 years old.

Eggs found within females numbered, on average, 10.44. Since this shark's reproductive cycle may last as long as three years, the birthrate is extremely low when compared to most other animals and fishes. The researchers also noticed that many females miscarried — likely due to stress — when they became by-catch.

Prior studies conducted by Coelho and Erzini suggest that a number of strategies can reduce by-catch and help prevent lantern shark populations from declining further.

Since the sharks often swim in very deep water, the researchers suggest that fishermen remove hooks from their gear at these levels. For deep water trawling, rigid grids may help to keep fish out of desired crustacean catches.

Laws, such as one that now prohibits trawling in the Mediterranean at depths deeper than 3280 feet, might also afford some level of protection to the sharks and other deepwater species.

Shark expert Maurice Clarke of the Marine Institute in Ireland told Discovery News that the new study is "very comprehensive" and "is the first paper to validate age estimation for a deepwater shark."

Of the smooth lantern shark, Clarke said, "It is clear that it is a slow-growing species that matures late in its life. It is likely to be vulnerable to exploitation."

Clarke added, "The next step is to quantify the amount of this species being removed from the sea. This information, along with the data from Rui and Karim's study can form the basis of an analysis of the vulnerability of this species being caught and discarded in commercial fisheries."

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/07/17/l...=20070717120030
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EPITOME OF AWESOME.

Seagull becomes crisp shoplifter

Shoplifting seagull
A seagull has turned shoplifter by wandering into a shop and helping itself to crisps.
The bird walks into the RS McColl newsagents in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos.

The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.

Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: "Everyone is amazed by the seagull. For some reason he only takes that one particular kind of crisps."

The bird first swooped in Aberdeen's Castlegate earlier this month and made off with the 55p crisps, and is now a regular.

Once outside, the crisps are ripped open and the seagull is joined by other birds.

'Fine art'

Mr Nagarajan said: "He's got it down to a fine art. He waits until there are no customers around and I'm standing behind the till, then he raids the place.

"At first I didn't believe a seagull was capable of stealing crisps. But I saw it with my own eyes and I was surprised. He's very good at it.

"He's becoming a bit of a celebrity. Seagulls are usually not that popular but Sam is a star because he's so funny."

A spokesman for RSPB Scotland said: "I've never heard of anything like this before.

"Perhaps it tried some crisps in a shiny packet in the street, and was just opportunistic one day at the shop when it saw what was inside.

"As everyone knows, gulls can be very quick and fearless, and clearly this one is no exception."

He added: "We'd discourage people from feeding gulls though, as gulls in towns generate lots of complaints every year, and the availability of food is the only reason they live in urban settings."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotlan...ast/6907994.stm
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