Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Tiguar, tiguar, burning bright...
Mickey the Tiguar has proved to be an elusive beast, even though there is some certainty this cute tiger x jaguar hybrid does actually exist - please see Dr. Karl Shuker's current Blogpost The Wonderful Thing about Tiguars.
And while I'm on the subject of new animals, I'm sorry I haven't kept up my roundup of new discoveries as in the past, though I am still keeping track of them. My posts would be redundant soon anyway, as Dr. Karl's essential new book The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals is due shortly...
And while I'm on the subject of new animals, I'm sorry I haven't kept up my roundup of new discoveries as in the past, though I am still keeping track of them. My posts would be redundant soon anyway, as Dr. Karl's essential new book The Encyclopaedia of New and Rediscovered Animals is due shortly...Labels: cryptozoology, new animals, new birds, new species
Monday, March 19, 2007
New and rediscovered species in 2007
Indonesia appears to be the new environmental discovery hotspot. I'd been reading up a bit on the wildlife of Sumatra and Borneo lately anyway (the book The National Parks of Sarawak having piqued my interest).
New Clouded Leopard species
It's funny, but I remember looking at the clouded leopards in Melbourne Zoo and thinking they weren't quite as I remembered from pictures in books. All is explained!
From theBBC news "Clouded leopards found on Sumatra and Borneo represent a new species, research by genetic scientists and the conservation group WWF indicates. Until now it had been thought they belonged to the species that is found on mainland southeast Asia."
"Genetic research results clearly indicate that the clouded leopards of Borneo should be considered a separate species," said Dr Stephen O'Brien, head of the US National Cancer Institute's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity. "DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species."
Apparently, the two species diverged at a similar time to lions and tigers - over a million years ago. Given the evident physical differences in coat markings, there must be quite a few naturalists and scientists having a "Doh!" moment over this one. However, telling the difference between a species and a subspecies isn't always so easy (ask anyone who has studied tree-kangaroos, or even ringtailed possums).
WWF, which maintains a large conservation operation on Borneo, estimates there are between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards on the island, with a further 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra.
"The three governments with territory on the island - Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei - signed an agreement earlier this year pledging to protect the "Heart of Borneo", 200,000 square kilometres of rainforest in the middle of the island thought to be particularly high in biodiversity."
That's a promising commitment on two islands highly troubled by land-clearing, mostly for the expansion of palm oil plantations, and logging for the pulp & paper industry, both legal and illegal. Sumatra and Borneo contain some of the world's richest biodiversity in their rainforests.
Large-billed Reed Warbler
When we used to live down in Aspendale, along the creek there was often beautiful singing in the evening, which was my first real awareness of reed warblers - a widespread but secretive wetlands bird. This one looks a bit like an exaggerated version of the usual reed warbler.
From The Telegraph long thought extinct Large-billed reed-warbler isn't extinct after all: "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. 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."
Sumatran Ground Cuckoo
Back in Sumatra again, Biologists record call of rare Sumatran ground cuckoo for first time - "A team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The bird was captured by a trapper and handed over to WCS biologists, who recorded the bird’s call while it nursed an injured foot.
"Ornithologists believed the bird was extinct until 1997, when a single individual was briefly seen. Until now, however, no one knew the bird’s call - a key field diagnostic ornithologists use to identify birds that live in forest."
The picture (of a different individual) was taken last year with a camera trap set up to search for other critically endangered species such as the rare Sumatran tiger and Sumatran rhinoceros.
Pictures
Mainland clouded leopard, Lynn M. Stone, Maturepl.com
Bornean clouded leopard, Alain Compost, WWF-Canon
Large-billed reed warbler, Philip Round, Getty/AFP
Sumatran ground cuckoo, Wildlife Conservation Society, AP Photo/Birdlife International, from the Discovery Channel site.
New Clouded Leopard species
It's funny, but I remember looking at the clouded leopards in Melbourne Zoo and thinking they weren't quite as I remembered from pictures in books. All is explained!
"Genetic research results clearly indicate that the clouded leopards of Borneo should be considered a separate species," said Dr Stephen O'Brien, head of the US National Cancer Institute's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity. "DNA tests highlighted around 40 differences between the two species."
Apparently, the two species diverged at a similar time to lions and tigers - over a million years ago. Given the evident physical differences in coat markings, there must be quite a few naturalists and scientists having a "Doh!" moment over this one. However, telling the difference between a species and a subspecies isn't always so easy (ask anyone who has studied tree-kangaroos, or even ringtailed possums).
WWF, which maintains a large conservation operation on Borneo, estimates there are between 5,000 and 11,000 clouded leopards on the island, with a further 3,000 to 7,000 on Sumatra.
"The three governments with territory on the island - Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei - signed an agreement earlier this year pledging to protect the "Heart of Borneo", 200,000 square kilometres of rainforest in the middle of the island thought to be particularly high in biodiversity."
That's a promising commitment on two islands highly troubled by land-clearing, mostly for the expansion of palm oil plantations, and logging for the pulp & paper industry, both legal and illegal. Sumatra and Borneo contain some of the world's richest biodiversity in their rainforests.
Large-billed Reed Warbler
From The Telegraph long thought extinct Large-billed reed-warbler isn't extinct after all: "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. 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."
Sumatran Ground Cuckoo
Back in Sumatra again, Biologists record call of rare Sumatran ground cuckoo for first time - "A team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The bird was captured by a trapper and handed over to WCS biologists, who recorded the bird’s call while it nursed an injured foot.
"Ornithologists believed the bird was extinct until 1997, when a single individual was briefly seen. Until now, however, no one knew the bird’s call - a key field diagnostic ornithologists use to identify birds that live in forest."
The picture (of a different individual) was taken last year with a camera trap set up to search for other critically endangered species such as the rare Sumatran tiger and Sumatran rhinoceros.
Pictures
Labels: cryptozoology, Melbourne Zoo, new animals, new birds, new species
Sunday, October 15, 2006
New animals and birds in 2006!
This post has been sitting for a while as I seem to keep needing to add new discoveries to it.
This year has been another fine one for crytozoology, with naturalists batting above the annual average of three new bird species discoveries worldwide - we're already well ahead. Among the mammals there are quite a few new ones, with some from unexpected locations, plus the rediscovery and tagging of a Cuban solenodon (one strange beast, that!), thought extinct. Among mammals last year, there were two new mouse lemurs from Madagascar, and the Australian snubfin dolphin.
12 October 2006
"Big headed 'prehistoric mouse' is alive in Europe"
First off is the Cypriot mouse. (New Scientist)
"A new species of mammal – a mouse with unusually large ears and eyes – has been discovered on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus... In fact, the genetic evidence shows it to be an "ancient relic", closer to its prehistoric ancestor than any modern cousin."
(National Geographic News covers most of the recent bird discoveries, but I've noted sources and linked. Of course, these discoveries are most often a sign that we're exploring the world's last wildernesses, but possibly it's better to do this than log them first (which is a real possibility in many of these areas).
10 October 2006
New bird discovered in Columbia (National Geographic)
"The fist-size bird with punk-rock plumage is a new-and possibly threatened-avian species that makes its home in the last remnants of a remote Colombian cloud forest. Dubbed the Yariguíes brush finch, the small bird was first found in 2004 in an isolated region of the eastern Andes mountain range known as the Serranía de los Yariguíes."
September 30, 2006
Amazon explorers discover 40 new species in a 'lost world' of rainforest (Times Online, pic from Zaxy Wordpress)
"Up to 40 new species of plants and animals, including a bird and a tree rat, have been discovered in an expedition to one of the world’s last unspoilt wildernesses... Besides the rat and the bird, the new species found include seven fish, eight frogs, lizards and snakes, two shrimps and eight plants... The tree rat, from the genus makalata and the size of a large guinea-pig, lives with monkeys in the trees of the Amazonian tropical forest, where it eats only leaves and fruit."
12 September 2006
New bird discovered in India (National Geographic)
"Named Bugun liocichla, the small bird is described as a type of babbler, a diverse family of birds that usually live in tropical forests."
7 February 2006
""Lost World" Found in Indonesia (Foja Mountains, New Guinea) Is Trove of New Species (National Geographic)
"Within minutes of landing, the scientists encountered a bizarre, orange-faced honeyeater bird (see photo). It proved to be a new bird species, the first discovered in New Guinea since 1939. On the second day the lakebed group made another suprising find when a male and female Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise came into the camp to perform a mating dance. Until now the homeland of this "lost" bird had been unknown. It was the first time Western scientists had even seen an adult male." Also found were the rare golden-mantled tree kangaroo and 20 new species of frogs, along with 150 new insects and 550 new plants.
This year has been another fine one for crytozoology, with naturalists batting above the annual average of three new bird species discoveries worldwide - we're already well ahead. Among the mammals there are quite a few new ones, with some from unexpected locations, plus the rediscovery and tagging of a Cuban solenodon (one strange beast, that!), thought extinct. Among mammals last year, there were two new mouse lemurs from Madagascar, and the Australian snubfin dolphin.
12 October 2006
"Big headed 'prehistoric mouse' is alive in Europe"First off is the Cypriot mouse. (New Scientist)
"A new species of mammal – a mouse with unusually large ears and eyes – has been discovered on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus... In fact, the genetic evidence shows it to be an "ancient relic", closer to its prehistoric ancestor than any modern cousin."
(National Geographic News covers most of the recent bird discoveries, but I've noted sources and linked. Of course, these discoveries are most often a sign that we're exploring the world's last wildernesses, but possibly it's better to do this than log them first (which is a real possibility in many of these areas).
10 October 2006
New bird discovered in Columbia (National Geographic)"The fist-size bird with punk-rock plumage is a new-and possibly threatened-avian species that makes its home in the last remnants of a remote Colombian cloud forest. Dubbed the Yariguíes brush finch, the small bird was first found in 2004 in an isolated region of the eastern Andes mountain range known as the Serranía de los Yariguíes."
September 30, 2006
Amazon explorers discover 40 new species in a 'lost world' of rainforest (Times Online, pic from Zaxy Wordpress)"Up to 40 new species of plants and animals, including a bird and a tree rat, have been discovered in an expedition to one of the world’s last unspoilt wildernesses... Besides the rat and the bird, the new species found include seven fish, eight frogs, lizards and snakes, two shrimps and eight plants... The tree rat, from the genus makalata and the size of a large guinea-pig, lives with monkeys in the trees of the Amazonian tropical forest, where it eats only leaves and fruit."
12 September 2006
New bird discovered in India (National Geographic)"Named Bugun liocichla, the small bird is described as a type of babbler, a diverse family of birds that usually live in tropical forests."
7 February 2006
""Lost World" Found in Indonesia (Foja Mountains, New Guinea) Is Trove of New Species (National Geographic)"Within minutes of landing, the scientists encountered a bizarre, orange-faced honeyeater bird (see photo). It proved to be a new bird species, the first discovered in New Guinea since 1939. On the second day the lakebed group made another suprising find when a male and female Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise came into the camp to perform a mating dance. Until now the homeland of this "lost" bird had been unknown. It was the first time Western scientists had even seen an adult male." Also found were the rare golden-mantled tree kangaroo and 20 new species of frogs, along with 150 new insects and 550 new plants.
Labels: cryptozoology, new animals, new birds, new species
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Remote for Illustration Friday
Please click on picture and resize for larger version:
For me, "Remote" really brought up the concept of geographical isolation. Two excellent books have gotten me thinking about island zoology and biodiversity again: David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo and the beautiful photographic book South Sea Islands: a Natural History by Rod Morris and Alison Ballance. I also had a number of Tim Flannery's books in mind while composing this.
This is very much an Illustration (complete with explanatory text) rather than a work of art :). I've wanted to do maps along these lines for a while. This is actually pared down a lot - I took out quite a few, such as the Galapagos Islands, French Polynesia and even The Falkland Islands - just to make it smaller. In a sense it covers a lot of the ground followed by great naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, the other, somewhat forgotten evolutionist whose observations in these regions brought him to the same conclusions (at the same time) as Darwin. The Southeast Asian cutoff is along the Wallace Line.
I remember a long time ago looking at pictures of eastern and western spinebills and noticing how clearly their diversification - different realizations of the same pattern - showed evolution in action. Nowhere is speciation made more clear than on remote, isolated islands. These places have to "make do" with the species that get there, either by being cut off from main landmasses at some point (allowing for the survival of primitive, relict families), or by being reachable only by swimming, flight or floating on vegetation. Following this haphazard species arrival fauna evolves into the available niches, though usually following a pattern of dwarfing of large species and enlarging small ones.
Of course, this all changes when modern people arrive, leading invariably to the high extinction rate among island species. For that reason, quite a few of the creatures shown here are extinct in comparatively recent times. However, many of them do still survive - at least until the Greenhouse Effect gets worse - and these include some of the most bizarre birds and beasties.
There is also inter-relationship between many of these species, such as the dodo and solitaire (and those mourning the dodo might like to look closely at the tooth-billed pigeon of Samoa). These three are clearly pigeon family descendants - other "arrival" species evolved from mainland species include the Fijian banded iguana and the Nene (Hawaiian goose), evidently evolved from the green iguana and Canada goose respectively.
And then there's Australian mainland - which is a study of geographical isolation all on its own - but outside the parameters I set myself here :).
For me, "Remote" really brought up the concept of geographical isolation. Two excellent books have gotten me thinking about island zoology and biodiversity again: David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo and the beautiful photographic book South Sea Islands: a Natural History by Rod Morris and Alison Ballance. I also had a number of Tim Flannery's books in mind while composing this.
This is very much an Illustration (complete with explanatory text) rather than a work of art :). I've wanted to do maps along these lines for a while. This is actually pared down a lot - I took out quite a few, such as the Galapagos Islands, French Polynesia and even The Falkland Islands - just to make it smaller. In a sense it covers a lot of the ground followed by great naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, the other, somewhat forgotten evolutionist whose observations in these regions brought him to the same conclusions (at the same time) as Darwin. The Southeast Asian cutoff is along the Wallace Line.
I remember a long time ago looking at pictures of eastern and western spinebills and noticing how clearly their diversification - different realizations of the same pattern - showed evolution in action. Nowhere is speciation made more clear than on remote, isolated islands. These places have to "make do" with the species that get there, either by being cut off from main landmasses at some point (allowing for the survival of primitive, relict families), or by being reachable only by swimming, flight or floating on vegetation. Following this haphazard species arrival fauna evolves into the available niches, though usually following a pattern of dwarfing of large species and enlarging small ones.
Of course, this all changes when modern people arrive, leading invariably to the high extinction rate among island species. For that reason, quite a few of the creatures shown here are extinct in comparatively recent times. However, many of them do still survive - at least until the Greenhouse Effect gets worse - and these include some of the most bizarre birds and beasties.
There is also inter-relationship between many of these species, such as the dodo and solitaire (and those mourning the dodo might like to look closely at the tooth-billed pigeon of Samoa). These three are clearly pigeon family descendants - other "arrival" species evolved from mainland species include the Fijian banded iguana and the Nene (Hawaiian goose), evidently evolved from the green iguana and Canada goose respectively.
And then there's Australian mainland - which is a study of geographical isolation all on its own - but outside the parameters I set myself here :).
Labels: Australian wildlife, cryptozoology, David Quammen, Illustration Friday, island wildlife, new animals, Tim Flannery
Friday, June 10, 2005
New animals and an old bird!
The much maligned borderline science of cryptozoology is having a bumper year so far, with the discovery of two significant new species of mammal, and the news that the ivory-billed woodpecker also appears to have survived!The ivory-billed woodpecker is a large, iconic American bird that I remember seeing in books of rare (or extinct) creatures when I was a kid. The last confirmed sighting was 40 years ago. It's evidently an elusive species, left now only thinly distributed in the Big Woods region of eastern Arkansas. Previous sightings, which were almost invariably attributed to the pileated woodpecker, it seems, should have been believed.
In May, came the news that a new rodent, the kha-nyou, had been discovered for sale at an Asian food market, by scientist Robert Timmins (Wildlife Conservation Society, New York City). As is usual in these cases, the locals - people of the Khammouan region of Laos - have always been familiar with the animal. It's a large rodent - around 40 cm from nose to tail - and appears to be related to South American rodents, such as guinea pigs and chinchillas, though it's not closely related to any other rodents and has been assigned its own family. As with the Vu Quang ox (a kind of goat-antelope discovered in Vietnam), it seems to be an important member of its order, providing critical information about evolution and spread of its relatives.
Mostly recently (also in May) came the announcement of the discovery of the highland mangabey, a new species of monkey. It's apparently slightly larger than a baboon, with long cheek whiskers and a tall crest on its head (see picture), and it makes a distinctive call. Of course, it's in low numbers, and living in an isolated location - the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania - which is what has enabled it to survive this long. In this case it was apparently so isolated that even the locals were unaware of its existence!Dr. Karl Shuker, author of The Lost Ark and The New Zoo, large books which compile new and rediscovered animals, will have to get busy with a new edition...
I always hope that new discoveries will lead to appropriate conservation efforts, and don't represent cases of animals being found because the last wildernesses are about to disappear!
Images & Sources:
Labels: birds, cryptozoology, new animals, new birds, new species
