Evidence

First Xenoglaux Seen Alive In Wild

American Bird Conservancy is reporting the first live sighting a few weeks ago of what is “considered a holy grail of South American ornithology,” Xenoglaux loweryi. Commonly called the long-whiskered owlet – alone in its own genus Xenoglaux, meaning “strange owl” – it was first discovered in 1976. Researchers have caught a few specimens in nets after dark but had not seen it in nature, until was spotted in February in a northern Peruvian rainforest. It was encountered three times during the day and its calls recorded at night in the Alto Nieva’s Peruvian reserve, known locally as the Area [...]

Do Cellphones Advance Cryptid Photography?

Remember what people said when little cameras showed up on mobile telephones? The notion was that with so many digital cameras out there on cellphones, there would be more chances to capture cryptids photograhically and visually, thus adding a new level of technology to the quest. Okay, for all those folks that wanted to have more cryptid photo images taken by cellphones, here, above, is what you get! As I walked out the door I thought “hang on a minute”. It looked like a cat but it was a lot bigger. It was definitely a cat. It walked like one [...]

New Bamboo Found in Appalachia

Hill Cane, Iowa State University photo We tend to think that we … know our own biodiversity, and that there isn’t much left to discover in a place like the United States. I think this demonstrates that that’s not true.Lynn Clark, professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, Iowa State University Surprise, surprise! Two known species of North American bamboo discovered 200 years ago have been joined by a brand new one just found in the last year. The “hill cane” was discovered in the Appalachian Mountains. This new species of bamboo (Arundinaria appalachiana) grows only to about 6 feet, [...]

Idaho: New Bird Species Discovered

A male South Hills crossbill using its crossed mandibles to bite between lodgepole pine cone scales to access seeds. The decurved mandibles enable crossbills to exert strong biting forces at the tip of their bill. Credit: (photograph by Craig Benkman) One does not expect to discover a bird species new to science while wandering around the continental United States. Nor does one expect that such a species would provide much insight into how coevolutionary arms races promote speciation. On both fronts a paper to appear in The American Naturalist proves otherwise. Julie Smith, now at Pacific Lutheran University, and her [...]