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For circa 50 years the New Guinea singing dog was known only by the severely inbred population of specimens conservationists had collected. In 2016 it was determined that singing dogs seemed to be still living in the wild. In 2018 further research established the wild population is at least far more genetically pure than the inbred captive population.


FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/31/asia/singing-dog-found-in-wild-scn-trnd/index.html

Bet they do Bowie songs.
 
I was thinking they'd prefer The Baha Men. Or "Jingle Bells".
 
'Ghost' frog not seen for 80 years rediscovered in desert hot spring


https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/24/americas/chile-ghost-frog-scli-intl-scn/index.html

"Chilean scientists have rediscovered a species of frog last seen more than 80 years ago, prompting new calls for the conservation of its habitat in the far-flung Chilean desert.

Scientists relocated the diminutive Hall's water frog, named for the American researcher and collector Frank Gregory Hall who discovered the species in 1935, in a tiny hot spring oasis near Ollagüe in Chile's Atacama desert."
 
A species of chameleon unseen for over a century has been re-discovered and studied in Madagascar.
Scientists find Madagascar chameleon last seen 100 years ago

Scientists say they have found an elusive chameleon species that was last spotted in Madagascar 100 years ago.

Researchers from Madagascar and Germany said Friday that they discovered several living specimens of Voeltzkow’s chameleon during an expedition to the northwest of the African island nation.

In a report published in the journal Salamandra, the team led by scientists from the Bavarian Natural History Collections ZSM said genetic analysis determined that the species is closely related to Labord’s chameleon. ...

Researchers believe that both reptiles only live during the rainy season — hatching from eggs, growing rapidly, sparring with rivals, mating and then dying during a few short months.

“These animals are basically the mayflies among vertebrates,” said Frank Glaw, curator for reptiles and amphibians at the ZSM. ...

FULL STORY:
https://apnews.com/article/africa-madagascar-reptiles-3d70ac4d74fa9d32b86962b9e8b5e2db

ABSTRACT of the published report:
http://www.salamandra-journal.com/i...-ravelojaona-t-glaw-k-glaw-j-forster-m-vences
 
After a quarter century of not being seen, the Great Fox-Spider is confirmed as surviving in the UK.
'Extinct' giant spider rediscovered on army training area

A giant spider which was feared extinct in the UK has been rediscovered at an army training centre after not being spotted for over 25 years. ...

The Great Fox-Spider is Red-listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ and was feared extinct in the UK as it hadn’t been seen since 1993.

It was discovered by an arachnid-obsessed worker at the Surrey Wildlife Trusts, who had been hunting high and low on MoD land with his torch.

For two years, Mike Waite, spider enthusiast at the Trust, walked around for hours at night in the hopes of finding the nocturnal, ground-dwelling arachnid.

Finally he discovered some unidentifiable immature spiderlings, on MOD land managed by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust, and then, at last several mature males and one female Great Fox-Spider, which was 55mm or just over two inches in diameter including its hairy, spiny legs. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.yahoo.com/news/extinct-giant-spider-rediscovered-army-143148736.html
 
After a quarter century of not being seen, the Great Fox-Spider is confirmed as surviving in the UK.


FULL STORY: https://www.yahoo.com/news/extinct-giant-spider-rediscovered-army-143148736.html

Hankley common eh?
That's only a few miles from me.
Will have to check my back garden and shed for the handsome wee beastie:

spider.JPG
 
Hankley common eh?
That's only a few miles from me.
Will have to check my back garden and shed for the handsome wee beastie:

View attachment 31110
Fairly sure there's a whole bunch of rare wee beasties in my Mum's back garden.
I remember seeing some unusual stuff there over the years. Large pink spiders, unusual slugs, herons, foxes, screaming frogs, all there in one garden.
 
World’s smallest possum feared extinct is found alive on Australian island

The world’s smallest possum, which was feared extinct following the Australian wildfires, has been found alive.

The tiny pygmy possum, known scientifically as Cercartetus lepidus, has been discovered alive on a 99-mile long island off the coast of Adelaide.

The wildfires earlier this year destroyed almost half of the island back in January. Two people were killed and the island’s wildlife conservation sites were all extensively damaged.

Many feared the possums were wiped out, but conservation group Kangaroo Island Land for Wildlife found a lone possum last week. The team was carrying out a forest survey to establish the scale of destruction.

Only 113 pygmy possums have ever been recorded on the island, so wildlife experts feared the worst.

Hodgens explained that the possum’s tiny size makes it very hard to track. The average individual weighs just seven grams.

More than 20 other wildlife species have also been discovered alive, including a bibrons toadlet, a southern brown bandicoot and a tammar wallaby.

Little pygmy possum is held as conservation efforts continue following last summer's bushfire on Kangaroo Island, Australia


Little pygmy possum sits on a finger as conservation efforts continue following last summer's bushfire
 
20 new species found, and lost wildlife rediscovered, in the Bolivian Andes

Scientists have announced the discovery of 20 new species in the Bolivian Andes, as well as sightings of plants and animals not seen for decades.

Located near the Bolivian capital of La Paz, Zongo Valley is known as the "heart" of the region. High up steep, rugged mountains are an array of well-preserved habitats, which are thriving with lush biodiversity.

It was among the cloud forests that researchers discovered the "mountain fer-de-lance" viper, "Bolivian flag snake" and "lilliputian frog," as well as glorious orchids and butterfly species.

The findings, revealed in research published today, were made on a 14-day expedition in March 2017, co-led by Trond Larsen of the non-profit environmental group Conservation International.

"[In Zongo] the noises you hear are from nature -- all sorts of insects, frogs and birds calling, wonderful rushing sounds and cascades of waterfalls. Everything is covered in thick layers of moss, orchids and ferns," Larsen tells CNN.

"We didn't expect to find so many new species and to rediscover species that had been thought to be extinct."

Lilliputian frog just 10 millimeters long.
1607959741886.png


Devil-eyed frog.
1607959742061.png
 
A mouse species believed to have been extinguished by Mount Pinatubo's catastrophic eruption 30 years ago is still with us ...
“Extinct” Pinatubo Volcano Mouse Rediscovered on Volcano That Erupted 30 Years Ago

A small mouse rediscovered on a volcano that erupted 30 years ago provides hope for wildlife conservation in the Philippines.

In June 1991, Mount Pinatubo, a volcanic peak on the Philippine Island of Luzon, literally blew its top. It was the second-most powerful volcanic eruption of the 20th century, ten times stronger than Mount Saint Helens, and its effects were devastating. ...

In recent years, scientists returned to the region to survey the surviving mammal populations, and in a new paper in the Philippine Journal of Science, the team announced the rediscovery of a species of mouse that had long been feared to be extinct.

“When Pinatubo blew up, probably the last thing on anyone’s mind was that a little species of mouse was thought to live only on that one mountain, and might well have become extinct as a result. What we’ve learned subsequently really blew us away,” says Larry Heaney, the Negaunee Curator of Mammals at Chicago’s Field Museum and one of the paper’s authors. ...

... the survey of Pinatubo produced some very surprising results-a total of 17 species were documented, including eight bats, seven rodents (five native and two non-native species), and even two large mammals (wild pig and deer). Contrary to expectations, non-native rats were not at all common and were restricted to areas near Aeta croplands where such agricultural pests are often most abundant. Despite the fact that all areas surveyed supported sparse, scrubby second-growth vegetation rather than forest, native rodents were abundant everywhere.

Most surprising of all, the most abundant species, overwhelmingly, was the volcano mouse Apomys sacobianus. Far from being wiped out by the eruption, this species was thriving in this greatly disturbed landscape along with other native species that also have a high tolerance for disturbance. ...

FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/extinct-pi...covered-on-volcano-that-erupted-30-years-ago/
 
But a creature evolved under such conditions would presumably be able to cope with change?
 
Good News: A rare Australian bee not seen in almost a century has been found to still be extant.

Bad News: This bee is quite probably under extreme threat of extinction.
Rare Australian Native Bee Found After 100 Years

A widespread field search for a rare Australian native bee not recorded for almost a century has found it’s been there all along — but is probably under increasing pressure to survive.

Only six individual were ever found, with the last published record of this Australian endemic bee species, Pharohylaeus lactiferus (Colletidae: Hylaeinae), from 1923 in Queensland.

“This is concerning because it is the only Australian species in the Pharohylaeus genus and nothing was known of its biology,” Flinders University researcher James Dorey says in a new scientific paper in the journal Journal of Hymenoptera Research.

The hunt began after fellow bee experts Olivia Davies and Dr. Tobias Smith raised the possibility of the species’ extinction based on the lack of any recent sightings. The ‘rediscovery’ followed extensive sampling of 225 general and 20 targeted sampling sites across New South Wales and Queensland. ...

FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/rare-australian-native-bee-found-after-100-years/

PUBLISHED REPORT:

“Missing for almost 100 years: the rare and potentially threatened bee, Pharohylaeus lactiferus (Hymenoptera, Colletidae)”
JB Dorey
Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 25 February 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.81.59365
 
Caddisfly flies back.

An insect species which was believed to be extinct in the UK has been found in a garden in the Outer Hebrides.

The Limnephilus Pati caddisfly was presumed to have died out with no records of it in Britain for more than 100 years. However, a male was photographed when attracted to a light-trap being run by Robin Sutton on South Uist and has now been confirmed as the species.

Craig Macadam, Buglife’s conservation director, said: “It is really exciting that this species, thought to be extinct, has been rediscovered in the British Isles.

“We don’t know a lot about its requirements, but the discovery of this new population means that we might be a step closer to working out what has driven the declines of this species elsewhere.”

South Uist is described as rich in habitats for caddisflies, with numerous small lochans, clear, low nutrient streams and extensive machair habitats.

Mr Sutton made the find in July. It is among 23 species of caddisfly that he has captured in his garden.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40238513.html
 
'Extinct' bird rediscovered after 170 years

An extremely rare bird that hadn't been seen in almost two centuries has turned up again in Indonesia.

Known as the black-browed babbler, this incredibly elusive resident of Borneo in Indonesia was first described in the late 1840s when a single specimen was collected.

This solitary bird would remain the only known example of the species for almost two centuries.

It wasn't until October of last year, when Muhammad Suranto and Muhammad Rizky Fauzan came across a strange bird in Indonesia's South Kalimantan province, that this would change.

They captured it, took photographs, then released it back into the forest.

Believing the bird to be a perfect match for illustrations of the long lost black-browed babbler, he forwarded the images along to ornithologist Panji Gusti Akbar.

"I had a tear in my eye. This is a really big deal for Indonesian ornithology - as shocking as rediscovering the passenger pigeon or Carolina parakeet, but this is closer to home, a bird from the part of the world I live in."
news-babbler.jpg
 
The Borneo subspecies of the Rajah scops owl was last reported in 1892, and no specimens or photos had ever been obtained. A newly published article documents this owl being observed for the first time in over 125 years.
Rare Owl With Bright Orange Eyes Seen for the First Time in More Than 125 Years

The elusive Bornean Rajah scops owl is inspiring scientists and researchers after its brief rediscovery.

An easy way to find and identify a bird species is to listen for their unique calls. But Otus brookii brookii, a Bornean subspecies of the Rajah scops owl, hasn’t been observed by scientists since 1892, and its song is unknown, making it that much harder to find.

Now, for the first time in more than 125 years, researchers have documented the Rajah scops owl in a study published last month in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smit...ted-first-time-more-than-125-years-180977722/
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract from the published report on the owl's rediscovery.

Rediscovery of Rajah Scops-Owl (Otus brookii brookii) on the island of Borneo
Emily Card, Courtney Check, Andy J. Boyce
The Wilson J. of Ornithology, 132(3):769-773 (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1676/20-50

Abstract
The Bornean subspecies of Rajah Scops-Owl (Otus brookii brookii) has not been documented alive in the wild since its discovery in 1892 and there are no photographs of the bird in life. We report the rediscovery of this subspecies in the montane forests of Mount Kinabalu (Sabah, Malaysia) at an elevation of 1,650 m and provide the first photographs of this subspecies in the wild. Almost all basic elements of this species' ecology remain unknown, including vocalizations, distribution, breeding biology, and population size. Additionally, phylogeographic patterns of montane birds in Borneo and Sumatra, as well as plumage characters, suggest that O. b. brookii may be deserving of species classification. However, the rarity of O. b. brookii has made quantitative phylogenetic analysis impossible. Properly resolving the ecology, distribution, and taxonomic standing of O. b. brookii could have important conservation implications.

SOURCE: https://bioone.org/journals/the-wil...us-brookii-brookii-on-the/10.1676/20-50.short
 

‘A huge surprise’ as giant river otter feared extinct in Argentina pops up

The cause of the excitement was the sighting, last week, of a wild giant river otter – an animal feared extinct in the country due to habitat loss and hunting – on the Bermejo River in Impenetrable national park, in north-east Argentina’s Chaco province. The last sighting of a giant otter in the wild in Argentina was in the 1980s. On the Bermejo, none have been seen for more than a century.

Di Martino captured the otter on his phone while kayaking. “It reared up, so its white chest was visible, which I recognised as the giant river otter [Pteronura brasiliensis]. At this point, your legs go weak and your heart starts beating faster.”

There are two possible explanations for the otter’s return. “The closest known populations of giant otter, which is endangered globally, are in the Paraguayan Pantanal, which could connect with this river from a distance of over 1,000km. That’s the simplest explanation,” said Di Martino. “The other possibility is that there’s a remnant population of the species in Argentina that’s gone undetected. These animals live in family groups, and this was a solitary individual, which we think came from a group.”

Impenetrable national park was created in 2014 with the help of Rewilding Argentina and Tompkins Conservation, the organisation set up by Kristine Tompkins and her late husband, Doug, to restore wild areas of Chile and Argentina using money from their companies, The North Face, Esprit and Patagonia. Tompkins Conservation has helped protect 5.9m hectares (14.5m acres) in South America’s southern cone.

Working with governments and public and private partners, the organisation has helped create 13 national parks, including Corcovado, Pumalin, Yendegaia, Kawésqar and Patagonia in Chile and Monte León and Iberá in Argentina. Impenetrable’s 128,000 hectares (316,000 acres) of native forest and waterways protect remarkable biodiversity in a largely intact section of Gran Chaco forest, one of the world’s most endangered ecosystems. Last year, a lone jaguar, thought to be extinct in the park, was discovered and has since sired cubs.
 

‘A huge surprise’ as giant river otter feared extinct in Argentina pops up

The cause of the excitement was the sighting, last week, of a wild giant river otter – an animal feared extinct in the country due to habitat loss and hunting – on the Bermejo River in Impenetrable national park, in north-east Argentina’s Chaco province. The last sighting of a giant otter in the wild in Argentina was in the 1980s. On the Bermejo, none have been seen for more than a century.
Giant otters are great, i saw some when i stayed in the Peruvian rainforest
 
Giant otters are great, i saw some when i stayed in the Peruvian rainforest
I've seen some very large river otters at the opposite hemisphere northern Canada. The North American river otter is a semiaquatic mammal endemic to the North America found in and along its rivers and coasts. An adult North American river otter can weigh between (11.0 and 31 lb). The river otter is protected and insulated by a thick, water-repellent coat of fur.
 
A species of Galapogos tortoise is not extinct, as previously thought.

"Genetic tests have confirmed that a giant tortoise found on the Galápagos Islands is from a species which scientists thought had died out more than a century ago.

The single female was discovered during a 2019 expedition to Fernandina Island.

To prove the link, scientists took samples from the female to compare to the remains of a male from the species Chelonoidis phantasticus.

The last previous sighting of the species had been in 1906."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57253471
 

Gould's mouse was declared extinct, but DNA shows it still lives on an island in Shark Bay, Western Australia


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Before European settlers set foot on Australian shores, Gould's mouse scurried about the continent.

But land clearing and the introduction of predators decimated native rodent populations, and the little mouse was declared extinct more than a century ago – until now.

A team of researchers, led by Emily Roycroft of the Australian National University, looked at genomes of Australia's extinct and living rodents.

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DNA collected from this Gould's mouse specimen revealed that the species should no longer be considered extinct.
Supplied: C.Ching, Courtesy of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London


Their analysis shows a small population of Gould's mouse (Pseudomys gouldii) lives on an island off the coast of Western Australia.

But this little animal with shaggy fur and large black eyes is known by another name. Gould's mouse is actually the same species as the Shark Bay mouse (Pseudomys fieldi).

Because the species is listed as endangered, it's important to make it a conservation priority, said Euan Ritchie, a wildlife ecologist.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-06-29/extinct-goulds-mouse-alive-shark-bay-wa/100244862

maximus otter
 
A critically endangered antelope has made an amazing comeback in Kazakhstan.

"The population of a rare type of antelope has more than doubled since 2019, in a remarkable turn around in fortunes.

According to the first aerial survey in two years, the number of saiga in their Kazakhstan heartland has risen from 334,000 to 842,000.

There were fears the animal was on the brink of extinction following a mass die-off in 2015.

Distressing images of carcasses strewn over the steppes made world headlines."

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57688320
 
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