As important as he became as a scientist, he never stopped being the boy who came home for dinner with a frog in one pocket and a crawfish in the other. His love of all marine life was both infectious and inspiring.Paul G. Haaga Jr, museum board member recalls John E. Heyning John Heyning, deputy director of the research and collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, places one of the specimens used to genetically identify a rare-beaked whale on display. John E. Heyning, 50, one of the world’s foremost marine biologist, has died. Heyning’s speciality was [...]
NY Beavers Are Back
North American beavers have returned to New York City for the first time since the animals left the region about 200 years ago.Biologists said the beaver’s return to New York is a testament to both the adaptability of the animals and the success of the cleanup effort at the Bronx River, where the animal’s habitat was discovered, The New York Times reported Friday. Multiple beaver sightings were reported in fall 2006, but biologists said the reports were written off as native muskrats confused for the similarly-sized mammals. However, a group of biologists investigating the claims discovered evidence of a beaver [...]
Hiding In Plain Sight: New Birds and Bats
Reuters is reporting via a report from Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle that new birds and new bats have been discovered through new DNA analyses. It is being widely reprinted in many sources, but this is one of the best summaries I’ve found today, specifically on the bird discoveries: Genetic tests of North American birds show what may be 15 new species including ravens and owls — look alikes that do not interbreed and have wrongly had the same name for centuries, scientists said on Sunday. If the findings from a study of birds’ DNA genetic “barcodes” in the United States [...]
Happy New Year of The Cryptid Pig
Happy Chinese New Year! It is the Year of the Pig. Interestingly, several of the animals of discovery within cryptozoology are pigs and piglike species. One classic example is the giant forest hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni), known today from Liberia to Kenya, Africa. First reported by natives to Europeans back in the 1660s, the world’s largest pig was “discovered” by Western science, in East Africa in 1904, when Lt. Richard Meinertzhagen brought the first one out. The forest hog reaches seven feet in length and more than three feet at the shoulder. At the other extreme, the pygmy hog (Sus salvanius), [...]
New Ugandan Monkey Species
A new monkey species believed to be endangered, has been discovered in Mabira forest reserve in Mukono. According to a report by Prof. Colin Groves of the Australian National University, the monkey species is now one of the 19 primate species in Uganda. He said the primate, known as the gray-cheeked mangabey (scientific name Lophocebus albigena) was being upgraded to a new class to be called Lophocebus ugandae . Groves revealed that when he revised the research he undertook three decades ago, he discovered that the Uganda monkeys were much smaller than similar ones in other parts of the world. [...]
New Hagfish Discovered
A new species, Epatretus strickrotti, is named for the Alvin pilot who captured it. A dorsal view of the captured hagfish Eptatretus strickrotti, a new species of hagfish captured and named after Alvin pilot Bruce Strickrott. (Illustration by Karen Jacobsen, In Situ Science Illustration. Figure 1 from Moller, P.R., and W. J. Jones. 2007. Biol. Bull. 212: 40-54. Reproduced with permission from MBL, Woods Hole, Mass.) The lone specimen of Eptatretus strickrotti has been preserved and stored in the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. (Figure 1 from Moller, P.R., and W. J. Jones. 2007. Biol. Bull. 212: 40-54. [...]
Diving Duck Rediscovered
Thought extinct, with the “last one” reportedly being seen in 1991, the Madagascar pochard (Aythya innotata), was rediscovered last month, according to a BBC News report published in January 2007. This diving duck had been given up as long gone by most ornithologists. A group of conservationists from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust discovered a group of at least 25 pochards while searching for a rare hawk. Glyn Young, of the Durrell Trust, has been searching for the duck, Aythya innotata, since 1989. His passion for the quest is so intense he named his eldest daughter Aythya. The finding is [...]
Extinct Blind Snake Found
What’s pink, ten inches long and as thick as a pencil? That’s right, the newly rediscovered species above that was thought to be extinct. A blind snake that looks like a thin, pink worm has been rediscovered in Madagascar 100 years years after it was last found. The Xenotyphlops mocquardi snake was only known from two other specimens found in 1905. For more information, read a dispatch from China, here.
New Parrot Species A Fake?
The Australian government’s drawing of the extremely rare Coxen’s Fig-parrot (Cyclopsitta diophthalma coxeni). The photograph of the “new” species of fig-parrot is unavailable, but the bird would resemble this species. The Australian newspaper for (tomorrow) Tuesday, February 13, 2007, is reporting the Australian government is withdrawing support for the “reported discovery” of a new species, the so-called blue-browed fig-parrot reported to live in the rainforests of southern Queensland. In November, 2006, John Young, his company, John Young Wildlife Enterprises, and Queensland Environment Minister Lindy Nelson-Carr announced the discovery of the new species, based on a photograph. The bird shown closely [...]
Pink Bird Wonders Sighted
An archival painting of the Pink-footed goose (Anser brachyrhynchus). The legs are stunning. They are bright pink, almost bubble-gum pink. It’s very exciting….They are beautiful geese. Most people had never seen these geese before….What we are looking at is whether the pink-footed geese, with their westward shift [in Greenland] are now migrating with some of the white-fronted geese. It could be theorized that all of these geese have arrived together. It’s an interesting ornithological puzzle.Rachel Farrell, Rhode Island’s leading bird expert, while observing the pair of pinked-foot geese at Hammersmith Farm in Newport. The pink-footed goose, a bird that is [...]
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