The Hidden World of Insect Flight

Using high-speed video cameras that capture more than a thousand frames per second, Andrew Mountcastle's videos reveal an insect ballet hidden to plain sight.  He and another scientist filmed garden-variety insects in flight, their everyday glory unmasked in slow motion.  See more videos here.

New Aurora Webcam Captures Spectacular Videos, Images

The return of winter darkness and sub-zero temperatures comes with at least one bright side for residents of Northern Canada — the return of aurora borealis displays.  For those of us living in southern latitudes, we too can now watch the show from the relative comfort of warmer climates.

The live webcam, called AuroraMax, was launched by the Canadian Space Agency. The camera, located in Yellowknife, Northern Territories, shoots an 180-degree view of the sky, which produces a circular image.

Original article here.

Cameras on a Peregrine Falcon and a Goshawk

These are two of the fastest maneuvering birds in the world -- the Peregrine falcon and the Goshawk.   Rarely do we get to see them in action, at least to this extent. But, some have decided to take it a step further by attaching cameras on the back of these magnificent creatures. And what was captured on camera for the first time ever, was proof once again, that nature in it’s glory is a sight to behold.

The video includes speeds of nearly 200mph, dives and turns that produce 10+ G's, maneuvering through dense forests at high speed only inches from the ground, and only a fraction of a second from impact.

The fastest Peregrine falcon ever has been clocked at 242 miles per hour.  During flight, the change in direction from a 150 mph dive, then to a sudden lift, would make a human lose consciousness, and that’s only at it’s "playful" speed of 150 mph.  They can dive at unfathomable speeds, and suddenly lift only inches from the ground.

Maneuvering through the dense forests as Goshawks do is something that no computer or human invention has been able to duplicate fully. Their precision and accuracy is flawless.


Original article here.

Rare ‘Asian Unicorn’ Caught in Laos

One of the rarest creatures on the planet has been sighted in Laos. The saola, which has been dubbed the ‘Asian unicorn’ despite being double horned, hasn’t been photographed since 1999. The individual pictured above was captured and taken back to a small village, where it unfortunately died in captivity several days later.

The saola first became known to science in 1992 in Vietnam, near the country’s border with Laos. It lives in very dense forest, and has been rarely seen since. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists the species as critically endangered.

The carcass of the captured saola was preserved, providing the first complete specimen for study and reference.
Original article here.

Native Toad Fights Back Against Yellow Crazy-Ant Invasion

After so many tales of invasive species overwhelming hapless natives, scientists have found a native toad in Indonesia that’s fighting back.

The common Sulawesi toad turns out to be a prodigious eater of ants, even aggressive invading ones.  On the island of Sulawesi, the Ingerophrynus celebensis toads readily feast on yellow crazy ants, which are colonizing the island as well as other tropical locations.

Yellow crazy ants get their name from their color and their zigzag scurrying, and they have crowded out native ants and disrupted ecosystems elsewhere. The invaders meet any foe aggressively, releasing noxious chemicals during battle. The Sulawesi toads eat them nonetheless.

During a week of toad abundance on Sulawesi farms, test plots hopping with toads had as little as one-third of the invasive-ant populations found on plots where fencing kept toads out.  The study could be a first in suggesting that a native toad might control populations of invasive ants.

Read more in the original article here.

Tiger Moths Scare Bats With Ultrasonic Clicks

It’s kinda tough being a moth. Not only do you have to go through the icky process of pupating, but you’re also the favorite food of bats, which use ultrasonic echolocation to swoop down and pounce on you when you’re just trying to have some fun, flapping around a lightbulb.

But one species, Cycnia tenera, which is known to its friends as the Toxic Dogbane Tiger Moth, has evolved special bat-detecting ears that contain neurons sensitive to the frequencies used by the bats for their echolocation clicks. Not only that, but the moth has even worked out how to generate ultrasonic pulses itself, confusing the bat into aborting the attack.

In a recent study, the group put moths in a dark chamber covered with sound insulation, played them the sounds of a bat’s echolocation calls, and recorded their responses with a microphone. The recordings were then analyzed to find out how the moths react to the bats.

Bats issue different types of ultrasonic call when they’re searching for potential prey and when they’ve identified a target and are swooping in for the kill. Both types were played to the moths, which were observed as being able to distinguish between the two. Although initially alarmed by both types of call, the moths habituated to the first relatively quickly compared to the second one.

The moths also emitted their own defensive ultrasonic clicks. These were also produced on hearing both types of bat call, but when the more aggressive calls were played, the clicks increased in intensity and duration.

Original article here.

Scientists find oldest record of life on Earth

Fossils from Australia show life on Earth began at least 650 million years ago, 70 million years earlier than previous estimates, according to a recent report.

Scientists came upon the fossils while researching a massive ice age, known as the “snowball effect,” that left much of the planet covered in ice 635 million years ago. Scientists had thought life could not have survived that ice age. But as they inspected a glacial deposit in south Australia, they found the fossils of the sponge-like ocean reef animals.

The researchers call the animals sponge-like because the fossil record shows them to have a network of internal canals, likely for filtering food from seawater as sponges do. The earliest fossilized record of sponges had been 520 million years ago. The earliest fossils of hard-bodies animals date to 550 million years ago.

The scientists published their findings in the August 17 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Original article here.

Extinct Giant Turtle Found on Pacific Island

A bizarre type of giant land turtle thought to have gone extinct 50,000 years ago survived until recently on at least one small Pacific island.  Dozens of bones found in a 3,000 year old archaeological site on Vanuatu belong to a previously-undescribed species of meiolaniid, a turtle family that evolved 50 million years ago and resembled walking fortresses.

The shell of one early meiolaniid species, known from fossils recovered in South America and named Stupendemys for its size, was 11 feet long and seven feet wide. The more modern Meiolania platyceps, found in Australia and Melanesia, had a relatively small five-foot-diameter shell, and weighed an estimated half-ton. All had armored club tails and horned heads.

The bones of the newly discovered species, named Meiolania damelipi and described August 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tell a clear story. They were found in a mound of animal bones discarded near a village of Lapita, a seafaring culture that 3,500 years ago spread east across Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia people. The bottom layer of the garbage pile, dated to 3,000 years ago, had many meiolaniid bones. The top layer, dated to 2,800 years ago, had none.

The Lapita would have hunted the slow-moving turtles, burned forests to clear cropland, and brought pigs and rats that ate their eggs.  Scientists estimate that Vanuatu could have supported tens of thousands of M. damelipi, but in just 200 years they were gone. And if giant land turtles were on Vanuatu, they were likely found on other Pacific islands, and hunted into oblivion.

This fits a pattern of human-preceded extinction recorded worldwide in large animals — collectively known as Pleistocene megafauna — but especially pronounced in the South Pacific, where every populated island lost betwen 30 and 50 percent of all animal species. These included giant iguanas, terrestrial crocodiles and dozens of birds. Bones of other now-extinct avian species were also found in the Vanuatu heap.

Original article here.

Animal Odd Couple: Elephant and Dog are Best Friends

New Titi Monkey Species Discovered In Amazon

A newly discovered species of titi monkey purrs like a cat and looks like a leprechaun.

Although it was first spotted in 1976 in Caqueta province of Columbia, frequent armed conflict in the region has prevented scientists from being able to confirm its existence until now.

The new species, named the Caqueta titi monkey or Callicebus caquetensis, is one of about 20 species of titi monkeys, which all live in the Amazon basin.

The Caqueta titi monkey is being recommended for classification as Critically Endangered. The population size has been estimated at less than 250 individuals, and its habitat has been fragmented by clearing for agricultural land.

Titi monkeys are one of the only species of primate that are monogamous, gibbons being one of the only other ones.  Scientists say that their monogamous behavior leads them causes them to be endearing.  One of their behaviors is “space saving,” where they encourage the other monkey to get closer to them.  All of the babies purr like cats.  When they feel very content they purr towards each other.

Original article here.


The Callicebus caquetensis is the top right: