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CygnusRex

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Jan 4, 2002
Messages
537
Back from the brink...

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,7359855%5E1702,00.html

'Extinct' mammal found in Cuba
From correspondents in Havana
September 24, 2003

AN insect-eating mammal native to Cuba that was for years believed to be extinct has been found in the island's eastern mountains, a Cuban news agency reported.

The discovery of the male insectivore known as an almiqui (pronounced ahl-mee-KEE) raised hopes "that it will not wind up in the catalogue of the irretrievable animals disappearing from the face of the Earth", Prensa Latina said in reporting the discovery.

The creature looked like a brownish woolly badger with a long, pink-tipped snout, and could measure up to 50cm, according to Prensa Latina's dispatch yesterday.

The nocturnal animal burrowed underground during the daytime, which why it was rarely seen by people. After the sun went down, it emerged to root out worms, larvae, and insects.

Named Alejandrito by the farmer who found it, the living almiqui weighed 688g.

Veterinarians declared the animal to be in perfect health.

Alejandrito was held in captivity for two days of study and medical tests, then marked and let free in the same general area where it had been found, Prensa Latina said.

The almiqui was described for the first time in 1861 by German naturalist Wilham Peters, who wrote about the difference between the Cuban animal and a similar one found in neighbouring Haiti.

Since then, only 37 of the animals known by the scientific name solenodon cubanus have been captured, including Alejandrito.

The last reported sightings of the creatures were in 1972, in the eastern province of Guantanamo, and 27 years later in 1999, in the eastern province of Holguin.



seite24.JPG
 
Hee, hee! Its kind of cute.

I like to hear stories of animals that have reappeared after being thought to be extinct. Doesn't happen very often though:(

Thanks Swan
 
In littleblackduck's link, the pic sort of looks like a tiny woolly mammoth with a mean attitude! Maybe they stuffed the poor thing that way so it would look scarier and more impressive...
 
Ancient creatures found in firth

A species of what is thought to be one of the oldest living creatures on the planet has been discovered in the Solway Firth.

A small colony of tadpole shrimps has been identified in a pool at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust nature reserve at Caerlaverock near Dumfries.

The crustaceans, which were found in a pool on the reserve, were thought to have been extinct in Scotland.

They were last seen north of the border over 50 years ago.

The last Scottish colony, further along the Solway from Caerlaverock, was thought to have been lost through sea encroachment just after the Second World War.

Older than dinosaurs

The only known UK population has been in the New Forest in England until the new discovery, which was made by a researcher, Larry Griffin, looking for natterjack toads.

Mr Griffin told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme: "When I dipped my net in I pulled out some of these beasties which I hadn't seen before.

"They look like a small form of the little horseshoe crabs, so I knew I was onto something different, but I didn't know at that time that they were this living fossil."

It is not yet known where the creatures came from or how long they have been at Caerlaverock.

They were thought to have been extinct in Scotland since the middle of the last century, so it's a major discovery
Brian Morell

Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust
But experts say it is possible that eggs have been dormant in the mud for decades, waiting for the right conditions to come to life.

Fossilised remains prove tadpole shrimps were around 220 million years ago in the Triassic period - pre-dating the dinosaurs.

Experts say they do not appear to have changed in appearance since that time.

Brian Morell, of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Caerlaverock, said: "They were thought to have been extinct in Scotland since the middle of the last century, so it's a major discovery.

"We'll have to do some DNA analysis just to see if they are linked to that population."

Samples of the find will now be sent to the British Museum for study.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3714524.stm

Published: 2004/10/05 09:16:48 GMT
 
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Martens Not extinct

'Extinct' pine marten in comeback

'Credible' sightings have prompted efforts to track the pine marten

The pine marten - declared extinct in England a decade ago - is making a comeback in North Yorkshire, wildlife experts believe.
New sightings on the edge of the North York Moors have prompted the Forestry Commission to set out feeding tubes to collect hair samples for DNA analysis.

They hope that bait - including the mammal's favourite jam sandwiches - will lure the animals into the tubes.

Once common in England, the animals were driven away by Victorian trappers.

The Forestry Commission has teamed up with the Moors National Park, Hull University and local conservationists to find conclusive evidence that pine martens have ventured south from their refuge in the Scottish highlands.

Brian Walker, Forestry Commission biodiversity officer, said: "My gut feeling is that we do have pine martens in this part of North Yorkshire.

"Over the years we've had many sightings, some cases of mistaken identity, but others very convincing.

"One of these came in July when an experienced ornithologist and wildlife photographer saw a creature matching the description of a pine marten."

If their presence in Yorkshire is confirmed, forestry workers will attempt to manage woodland to suit the ferret-like animals' needs.

Clearly numbers are small and the creature may be clinging onto existence

Wildlife trust spokesman Johnny Birks

As well as 100 feeding tubes, they have erected 10 den boxes in an area of forest near Osmotherley to encourage breeding.

The efforts have been prompted by what the Forestry Commission say are "highly credible recent sightings" by local wildlife experts.

It is believed the animals have returned because large areas of forest planted after the First World War have now reached maturity, providing new habitats which had been lost.

Johnny Birks, of the Vincent Wildlife Trust, said: "I'm reasonably confident we do have martens in the Moors, but it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"Clearly numbers are small and the creature may be clinging onto existence."

Source

For more about pine martens see:

Pine Martens
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/pine-martens.69852/
 
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Researcher tries to thrash out story of bird's fate

By TOM AVRIL

Philadelphia Inquirer


PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - For a 1971 movie about 16th-century Spanish explorers in the Caribbean, filmmakers brought a few boa constrictors to the Mexican island of Cozumel to add some exotic flavor.

But according to biologists at Villanova University and in Mexico, they may have brought something else instead: environmental calamity.

Boas multiplied out of control on the small island off the Yucatan peninsula, biologists say, and are accused of decimating a bird found nowhere else in the world: the Cozumel thrasher.

A cousin of the mockingbird, the thrasher has not been documented since 1995 and was thought by some to be extinct - until now.

In June, a team led by Villanova's Robert L. Curry finally saw the brownish, long-billed creature in the forest after three unsuccessful missions during the previous year.

The bird's saga is only the latest illustration of the role that islands can play in the rise of new species - a phenomenon first described by Charles Darwin in the Galapagos - and in their demise.

Curry has not proved that the boa wiped out the bird, but research leads him to call it his "primary hypothesis." Others had pointed the finger at Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, but most species have bounced back from that storm. Not the thrasher, whose population has crashed from thousands to probably less than 100, Curry said.

"Something is very wrong," he said.

When a bird is blown onto an island from the mainland, it can take as little as 10,000 years before the creature evolves into a distinct species. Yet the very isolation that gives rise to new species can play a role in their downfall.

Island species are particularly vulnerable to introduced predators for two reasons, said Princeton University ecology professor David Wilcove. They can evolve to lose their natural defenses because they are not needed - unless predators arrive. And islands are often small places, meaning there are no "backup populations," said Wilcove, who has been following the work on Cozumel.

The allegation that boas were released on the island after their use in a movie was made in 1999 by Mexican biologist Alfredo Cuaron, whose team interviewed islanders. The constrictors were blamed for eating rare raccoons and coatis, as well as household pets. Additional research last year prompted Curry to tie the snakes to the bird's downfall.

Felipe Cazals - who directed "El Jardin de Tia Isabel," the 1971 film with the boas - declined to be interviewed. In a statement e-mailed by an intermediary, he said the allegation that boas were released was "a legend."

"There were snakes involved, but they were handled by professional wranglers," Cazals said.

Curry, an associate biology professor whose bird-hunting tools range from basic nets to his iPod music player, aims to learn the truth.

Three times he traveled to the island - a hunk of limestone that draws more than two million tourists a year - in search of the birds, and failed to find one. But in June, his Mexican graduate student, Juan Martinez Gomez, finally saw the bird four times. The trip was sponsored by American Bird Conservancy and Conservation International.

Curry plans to return to Cozumel next year in hopes of capturing, tagging and releasing the bird. He also wants to record its call on his iPod, and use the recording to locate other birds.

If he finds a nest, he will station a video camera nearby in hopes of proving the boa theory, as the snakes would be likely to eat eggs or fledglings. Other researchers already have proved that boas eat a related bird on the island of St. Lucia.

Curry's ultimate dream: to put tourism dollars to work. He proposes a 25-cent tax per visitor to pay for bird conservation. A similar program exists in the Galapagos.

"The idea of a species going extinct right in front of everyone's face, with all this money floating around, that's just horrifying," Curry said. "If we can't do that, we might as well just give up and pave over the rest of the planet."

Another example of nonnative snakes posing a threat to birds occurred on the island of Guam, where brown tree snakes wiped out several species before zoos, including Philadelphia's, began an effort to save other species at risk.

Doug Wechsler, an ornithologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences, said the loss of species has the potential to send shocks up and down the food chain. And at the very least, a little bit of history is lost forever.

"The world is a poorer place each time we wipe out some little jewel," Wechsler said. "The world will go on, but we'll be slightly more impoverished as a result."


Source
 
Back from the dead, the mountain mouse not seen for 40 years

Hi

Back from the dead, the mountain mouse not seen for 40 years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1367986,00.html
Luke Harding in Berlin
Tuesday December 7, 2004
The Guardian

It was last seen 42 years ago and was believed to be extinct. But the Bavarian short-eared mouse - a unique species of rodent that lives in a remote part of the Alps - has made a surprise comeback.

A German zoologist last spotted the extremely rare mouse in 1962, after discovering the species in Bavaria. Zoologists have been fruitlessly searching for the mouse, known as Microtus bavaricus, ever since.

Yesterday, however, it emerged that the species was not extinct after all but was still alive and well and living in the Austrian mountains. An Austrian scientist, Friederike Spitzenberger, stumbled upon the species in one of her "living traps".

Yesterday Dr Spitzenberger, who works at Vienna's Natural History Museum, said the mammal looked very similar to other rival kinds of mouse. But it was, in fact, a unique species that had evolved 10,000 years ago at the time of the last ice age, after becoming stranded in the Rofan mountains, just across the border from the German Alps.

"Technically it's not a mouse at all but a vole," Dr Spitzenberger explained.

"All the voles look like sausages with four legs. They all have tiny ears and short tails. You have to look at their teeth to tell them apart. But the only real way to tell is to examine the genetics."

She added: "The mouse is extremely rare. Probably only a few hundred of them exist. We now have to make sure that they don't die out."

Dr Spitzenberger said she found the mouse in August in an isolated spruce forest full of brooks. But it was only after examining its chromosomes and comparing its DNA with that of a stuffed museum specimen that she was able to identify it as the lost species.

There were only a handful of indigenous species living in central Europe, most of them "remnant" populations that got separated from the evolutionary mainstream.

"We have a very diverse number of mammals and birds," the scientist said. "But because of the intense management of forests, several of them are in danger."

What were the mouse's prospects now? "I'm optimistic," she said.

Mal
 
Return of the wren-babbler

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/env ... ory=617565

"For nearly 60 years it has been the world's least-known bird - until now. The rusty-throated wren-babbler, a small stub-tailed ball of feathers the size of a mouse, has been seen only once, when a specimen was captured in the Mishmi Hills of north-east India in 1947.

But now two American ornithologists have found and photographed a new example ofSpelaeornis badeigularis - by playing its own call back to it."
 
What else could be out there??? I hope the Carolina Paroquet might still be around as it inhabited similar range as the Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

History: The Carolina Paroquet is now generally believed to be as extinct as the Great Auk and the Labrador Duck. It is still possible, however, that a few remain in remote and little-known areas in the swamps and hammocks of the southeastern United States. Sprunt is acquainted with a venerable ornithologist who still stoutly maintains that the species yet lives, but he refuses to say anything about the locality except that it is in Florida.

Of the many reports which have been received in recent years, one deserves special attention. In 1933-34, George M. Melamphy, who was working in the Santee Swamp, Georgetown County, on a Wild Turkey project, talked to Sprunt and authorities of the Charleston Museum on several occasions regarding observations he had made on both the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and the Carolina Paroquet. Those on the Ivory-bill were fully substantiated later, as will be noted in the account of that species in this volume. Melamphy gave detailed accounts of watching paroquets from turkey blinds. He saw as many as nine at one time, feeding on sunflower seeds which were part of the bait used to attract turkeys. He succeeded once in obtaining a photograph of a small flock, but the print was poor and the birds appeared simply as dark spot

There is almost no hope that the Paroquet is still around....but hey just a few days ago that was said of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker....and a few years ago the Cougar in North Carolina.
 
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The carolina paroquet is certainly no#1 on the search list now that the IBW may have been found. The passenger pigeon is better known, but the likelyhood of any surviving are pretty slim. The chances can't be good that any paroquets have survived...but after this discovery ( if it pans out), there has to be at least a glimmer of hope.
 
Yes and no, re: the Carolina Parakeet, IMHO. IIRC, it's (was) a rather noisy, conspicuous bird that travelled, fed, roosted in flocks and had a special fondness for farmer's crops (one of the reasons it was persecuted so mercilessly.) Of course, with so many populations of non-native psittacines (spelling?) in North America these days it's (barely) possible someone could look right at one and assume they were looking at someone's escaped pet. But I think it being a social, gregarious bird, as opposed to the shy, lives-in-cypress-swamps Ivorybill makes it a remote candidate for having been overlooked the last 80 years.
 
a possibility, yes.

Unlike the Passenger pigeon, which required big flocks in order to breed.

(and wouldnt ten million pink pigeons make an exciting biological weapon?)
 
source
Three Snails Thought Extinct Discovered
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Three snails listed as extinct have been rediscovered in the Coosa and Cahaba rivers, the Nature Conservancy announced Tuesday.

Jeff Garner, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' mollusk biologist, rediscovered the cobble elimia and the nodulose Coosa River snail on a dive in the Coosa River.

Stephanie Clark, a University of Alabama postdoctoral student from Australia, stumbled onto a Cahaba pebblesnail on a trip to the Cahaba River in Bibb County.

The findings, being announced by the Nature Conservancy, were reported Tuesday by The Birmingham News.

Alabama is known to be the nation's top spot for extinct and imperiled mollusks, the snails and mussels in river beds. Many were lost as dams were built along the Coosa River from 1917 to 1967, when it became a series of reservoirs.

In recent years, scientists have discovered some species hiding in the streams between reservoirs where the Coosa retains some of its original habitat.

Garner went diving below Lake Logan Martin and found two species that had not been spotted since the dams changed the river. Clark was accompanying a graduate student to the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge when she found the Cahaba pebblesnail that had not been spotted since 1965.

Garner, who has found several other species believed to be extinct, knew what he had immediately.

"One of these I found is pretty distinctive," Garner told the News. "I've always said it was my favorite snail — I hated it was extinct. It sort of has teardrops around the periphery."

Clark, who began postdoctoral research at the University of Alabama last year, didn't know what she had found at first.

"Behold, there was this oddball snail under a rock," Clark said. "I didn't know that I'd found an extinct one straightaway, but I knew I'd found something that I hadn't seen before."

The Cahaba pebblesnail — round, yellow, only about a quarter of an inch long — had not been spotted since 1965.


edited by TheQuixote: created hyperlink
 
As for the passenger pigeons...well it is certain they are gone forever,,,barring some futuristic cloning program. There is abundant genic material available if something along these lines is possible.

Meanwhile other species are filling the vacant niche. A few years ago I was in eastern North Carolina and watched each evening as super flocks of Longtailed Blackbirds flew by each evening. These were a half mile wide and many miles long...it took more than an hour for the superflock to pass.

I recalled the discription of the huge Passenger pigeon flocks.
 
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AC Rider said:
Exactly. There are other animals in the world that we have yet to find. Im sure not many any more though.

The giant squid?
 
Somewhere along the line, Loren Coleman noted that even east of the MIssissippi River, there are huge tracts of land that no one ever sees except from the air. Anything could be there.

FWIT, there have been reports of macaque monkeys in parts or western Tennesee. These were seen in the river bottoms (wooded flood plains) by deer hunters. Naturally, the reports were dismissed by authorities. Until one day a few years ago when a hunter shot one of the monkeys and dropped it off at the local wildlife office. No one seems to know where they came from, but they are there.
 
Back around 65-66 I was hunting ducks with a couple of my buddies in the bottomlands along the Catawaba river in North Carolina.

We ran across a badly decomposed body that we at first took to be a human child.

But it was much too hairy and besides that...had a long tail to boot. Thought maybe a raccoon ..but noway....face wasn't right including the ears. It could only be a primate of some species. We left it there without reporting it...no excuse for that.... :oops:

Where did it come from????...why was it there????...like the man said who knows what is out there.

And back to the the original point in this thread...these woods are like I said before mere woodlots compared to the great Northwest forest tracts...where Bigfoot...if there is such a creature...could easily avoid detection.
 
Most-Legged Millipede Reappears After 80 Years

World's leggiest animal makes rare reappearance

Thu Jun 8, 2006 10:14 AM BST14

LONDON (Reuters) - An extremely rare species of millipede, and the one that comes closest to having 1,000 legs, has made its first appearance in 80 years.

The Illacme plenipes species had not been seen since it was first spotted in a biodiversity hotspot in California in 1926.

But Paul Marek and Professor Jason Bond of East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina recently discovered 12 of the elusive thread-like creatures that measure about 33 mm (1.3 inch) in length.

"It has the most number of legs of any animal on the planet," Marek said in an interview. "It is also an extremely rare species that has not been seen for 80 years."

The scientists found the millipedes during trips to California. Another quirky characteristic of the creatures is that they only live in a moist, wooded area measuring less than 1 sq km (0.6 sq miles) in San Benito County, California.

Marek and Bond, who were funded by the National Science Foundation, found four males, three females and five juveniles. The females had up to 666 legs, slightly fewer than the known record holder, according to the research published in the journal Nature.

The males had between 318 and 402 legs. Scientists do not know why, despite their name which means 1,000 feet, the maximum number of known appendages on a millipede is 750.

Marek said the discovery of the rare creatures highlighted the need to preserve biological diversity.

© Reuters 2006.
 
Traces of Okapi Found For First Time Since 1959

Rare giraffe-like animal "rediscovered" in Congo park

Fri Jun 9, 2006 1:08 AM BST

By Ed Stoddard


JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Delighted conservationists said on Friday that they had found conclusive proof of the existence of a rare giraffe-like creature in Congo's Virunga National Park that has defied the odds of survival in a region battered by savage conflict.

First discovered in what is now Virunga in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1901, the shy forest-dwelling okapi had not been found in the park since 1959.

It was known to be present elsewhere in the Congo, but there were concerns it had gone extinct in the place of its discovery because of violence and lawlessness.

But a recent survey of the area by conservation group WWF and the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) found 17 okapi tracks and other evidence of its presence.

No sightings of the elusive animal, which resembles a cross between a giraffe and a zebra with a striped behind and legs and a long neck, were made but its tracks were taken as absolute proof of the creature's recent activity in the park.

It is only found in the secluded forests of eastern Congo and is considered the giraffe's closest living relative.

"The rediscovery of okapis in Virunga National Park is a positive sign," said Marc Languy, of WWF's Eastern Africa Regional Program.

"As the country is returning to peace, it shows that the protected areas in this troubled region are now havens for rare wildlife once more," he said.

The animal's eastern Congo home has been the scene of incessant conflict including a brutal civil war that erupted in 1998 and then escalated to engulf several other African states at a cost of millions of lives.

The Congo hopes to put the bloodshed and chaos behind when it holds its first free elections in four decades next month, but marauding rebels and militia continue to fight on in the remote east.

"Except for mountain gorillas, which have shown an increase in population due to important conservation efforts, most wildlife in the park (Virunga) have heavily suffered from poaching," said WWF.

"The population of hippopotamus, for example, has dropped from 29,000 in the mid-1970s to less than 1,000 today," it said.

© Reuters 2006.
 
The Times June 29, 2006

Alien giant that crept out of the woodwork
By Simon de Bruxelles

::nobreak::A GIANT beetle thought to have died out in Britain has been discovered crawling round a carpenter’s workshop.

The 16.5cm (6½in) giant capricorn beetle was at first mistaken for a toy by the man who found it, Ben Perrot.

“I thought someone had left it there to give me a fright,” he said. “It looked like something you would get from a toy shop but then it started to move.”

Mr Perrot called in colleagues who helped him to put the beetle into a glass jar.

Experts have confirmed that the beetle is a giant capricorn, which was believed to have disappeared in this country in the early 18th century. Cerambyx cerdo is still found in France and other parts of the Continent, but it is classified as extremely rare across its range.

The body of the adult, which lives for only a few weeks, measures 5cm, but its antennae stretch a further 11cm. These are used by males to detect the pheromone scent emitted by females.

The beetles make a screeching noise by rubbing their legs together to warn off predators and have large, powerful jaws capable of biting through wood. They can give a nasty nip if handled.

The giant capricorn was thought to have died out in Britain when the demand for timber meant that fallen oak trees were cut up and used rather than left to rot. The beetles spend two years as larvae burrowing through wood until they emerge to look for a mate.

Mr Perrot, from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, spotted the beetle on a plank of wood as he was making a piece of furniture. “I’d never seen anything like it before,” he said. “It looks like something out of a science fiction film or like a monster from Doctor Who. I wasn’t too worried about it because it was a beetle, but I wouldn’t have liked it if it had been a spider.”

The creature was being studied yesterday by Ian Morgan, an entomologist, who said that it was an exciting discovery. “This is the first time in centuries that it has been seen here in Wales,” he said. “It is a male and he was found in timber labelled English oak. I realised it was something special as soon as I saw it. It is very rare and is the largest long-horned beetle in Europe.

“This type of long-horn beetle was supposed to have been extinct in the

UK since 1700. The beetle depends on very large oaks for its grubs to feed on over a long period. It is illegal to kill it anywhere.”

Workers at the furniture factory have set up a tank for the beetle to live in and plan to donate its body to the National Museum of Wales when it dies.

The wood from which the beetle emerged was a piece of English oak that had been supplied by Barrett timber merchants in Carmarthen.

Tony Giles, manager of the furniture workshop, said: “It tried to run off across the table but we popped him in a jar. We didn’t have a clue what it was at first so we looked him up on the internet and called in an expert.

“We found more than one so some breeding seems to have taken place. The origin of the wood is difficult to pinpoint because recycled oak gets mixed with fresh stuff.

“The experts say that these beetles have not been around for a long time, but it’s hard for a layman to understand how they can know that. Who can say what is crawling around out there?”

Maxwell Barclay, curator of beetles at the Natural History Museum in London, believes that the beetle — or its parents — originally hitched a ride on imported timber.

There has been no conclusive evidence of the presence of the capricorn beetle living in wood in Britain more recently than the Bronze Age.

He said: “It’s an extremely exciting find. The fact that it is a fully grown beetle means that will have lived most of its entire life in the UK, although it is doubtful that it is a native species.

“It was probably imported in with a batch of Hungarian oak and moved to the native oak in the timber yard. The fact that it was found alive at such a mature stage of it’s growth may be an indicator of climatic change. Its presence raises the exciting prospect of it becoming a native beetle once more.”

CREEPIEST CRAWLIES

A giant capricorn was found in Warwickshire last year but is thought to have come in on imported timber

Britain’s largest beetle is the stag at 7.5cm

There are 350,000 known species of beetle, 20 per cent of all animals

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 86,00.html
 
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'Extinct' quail sighted in India

A quail believed to have been extinct for nearly 80 years has been seen by a prominent ornithologist in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam.


The Manipur Bush-Quail was seen earlier this month by Anwaruddin Choudhury, a wildlife specialist.

Bird experts say that Mr Choudhury is highly respected and that they believe he saw the quail even though he was unable to photograph it.

Experts say the sighting is one of the most exciting in India in recent years.

"This creature has almost literally returned from the dead," the Wildlife Trust of India's conservation director, Rahul Kaul, told the BBC.

"Although there was always a chance that such a bird could be seen again because of the large expanse of territory it could inhabit in the north-east of India, it's still a very exciting development.

"Now I hope other 'extinct birds' may re-appear, such as the Himalayan Quail - thought to be extinct for 125 years - and the Pink Headed Duck which also had not been seen for a long time," Dr Kaul said.

The grey-and-black streaked quail was spotted by Mr Choudhury in Assam's Manas national park.

It used to reside extensively in eastern India and what is now Bangladesh.

Correspondents say it was last seen in 1932 in what is now the north-east Indian state of Manipur.

"I'm thrilled to be part of history by sighting this shy little bird after 74 years. It's a rare privilege," Mr Choudhury told the AFP news agency.

"The bird appeared like a flash in front of our jeep and after some time it slowly moved inside the thick undergrowth.

"I knew the moment I saw the bird it was the Manipur Bush-Quail. I've been on the lookout for this species for a very long time."

The 25cm (10-inch) bird was formally identified in Manipur by British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume in 1880 when Britain ruled India.

The bird bred in grassland areas, and was usually seen in small groups of four to 12.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2006/06/28 14:29:53 GMT

© BBC MMVI
 
Photo in the News: Extinct Dwarf Buffalo Discovered


061017-dwarf-buffalo_big.jpg


October 17, 2006—An extinct species of pygmy water buffalo that once lived in the Philippines has been discovered—thanks to people's need to do household chores.

Filipino mining engineer Michael Armas found an unusual set of fossils about 40 years ago as he was excavating a hillside on the island of Cebu (Philippines map) looking for phosphate, a naturally occurring compound used in detergents and fertilizers. He took the fossils home with him, where they sat in a jar for several years.

Eventually the bones were delivered to the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. People often bring bones to the museum hoping they've made a rare find, museum curator Lawrence Heaney told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"Most of the time it's pork chops from somebody's dinner, that sort of thing," Heaney said. But this time the delivery bore fruit.

The bones, the scientists found, belonged to a species of water buffalo that probably lived between 10,000 and 100,000 years ago. The tiny bovine, seen in color in this artist's conception, stood up to 2.5 feet (0.7 meter) tall and weighed about 350 pounds (160 kilograms).

The extinct creatures were similar to a modern species of small water buffalo that lives on the nearby Philippines island of Mindoro. That animal—the middle outline in the drawing—reaches about 3 feet (0.9 meter) tall. It is related to the Asian water buffalo—the topmost outline—an even larger modern species that stands about 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall and can weigh up to a ton.

"Finding this new species is a great event in the Philippines," Angel Bautista, of the National Museum of the Philippines, said in a press release. "Only a few fossils of elephants, rhinos, pig, and deer have been found here previously. We have wonderful living biodiversity, but we have known very little about our extinct species from long ago."

And the find carries special significance, the Field Museum's experts suggest, because it could offer insight into a phenomenon called island dwarfing, a process in which large species confined to isolated islands tend to grow smaller due to fewer resources.

Island dwarfing is one of the competing explanations for the famous "hobbit" human fossils found in 2003 on the Philippines island of Flores. The fossils represent a distinct species of human that stood only 3.3 feet (1 meter) tall and lived at the same time as modern humans, some 13,000 years ago, the hobbits' discoverers say.

—Victoria Gilman


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ffalo.html
 
That is a mighty small cow.

Do you think it will fit in my rabbit hutch?
 
From the Hawkesbury (New South Wales) Gazette.
link

"Extinct" marsupial may be alive and well - NSW
Rebecca Lang

A HAWKESBURY resident may have stumbled upon one of the most exciting zoological finds of the decade - a small marsupial previously thought to be extinct on Australia's mainland.

East Kurrajong resident and Hawkesbury Gazette newspaper employee Nicole Palmer was driving along Roberts Creek Road recently when she spotted a couple of unusual-looking animals.

"There was two of them. One was smaller. I pulled up and the larger one kept hopping towards the car so I strated rolling back down the hill and honking my horn," she said.

"They were both dark brown with white spots around its jowl and neck area, 3-4 inches of the tip of its tail was white and it didn't look like a tiger quoll, it was much smaller and less heavy."

From her description, NPWS ranger Vickii Lett and University of Western Sydney biologist Professor Rob Close believe Ms Palmer may have spotted two Eastern quolls.

Eastern quolls are about the size of domestic cats with pointed noses and soft fawn, brown or black-coloured fur broken up by white spots, and a bushy tail with a white tip.

They are much smaller than their cousins, the endangered Spotted-tail or 'Tiger' quoll, which has a coarse, reddy-brown coat with white spots and is half as big again as the eastern quoll.

The eastern quoll was last sighted on the mainland in the 1960s in the Sydney suburb of Vaucluse.

Since that time dogs, cats and people have encroached on the small marsupial's habitat to the extent that they are now believed to be extinct on the mainland.

However, Eastern quolls remain prolific in Tasmania, preferring to live in dry grassland and forest bordering farm paddocks.

Ms Lett said National Parks would be acting on the sighting of the protected species.

"We'll talk to Dr Rob Close at UWS and see what we can do," she said.

"In the meantime, we'd like residents to keep an eye out and if they see something unusual, take a picture of it with their camera or mobile phone.

"We'd also like people in the area to be careful about letting their dogs and cats roam around."

Dr Close, who recently urged residents to keep an eye out for signs of rare wildlife, said he was thrilled about the sighting.

"If it is in fact a true sighting, it's very exciting," Dr Close said.

"There's been a few sightings over the past few years, unverified, so it raises hopes that they are still around.

"If they can live in Vaucluse until the '60s, you'd think there would be a chance they could survive in these more isolated places.

"Nobody knows what knocked the eastern quolls off. Disease was a possibility, and if that's all over now, their numbers could be building up again."

The finding was made in late October.
 
I saw a mother and baby pair of spotted tail quolls in Wilsons Promontory National Park (in south eastern Victoria) in the Tidal River campground in 2002, just sauntering through at dusk, not bothered by my presence at all. They're not extinct on the mainland but are very rare, and the last sighting at the Prom was in the 70s. I didn't even know what they were when I saw them. They are an extremely odd animal. I hope they weren't caught in the Prom's bushfires of last summer (was it last summer or the one before?)
 
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