Toxic caterpillars spark health scare across Germany

People suffer rashes and breathing difficulties as warm weather brings infestation

Philip Oltermann

Fri 5 Jul 2019 16.51 BSTLast modified on Fri 5 Jul 2019 18.05 BST

Marauding caterpillars with toxic hairs have brought parts of Germany to a standstill, leading to closures of swimming pools, restaurants, public parks and sections of the motorway.

Oak processionary moth caterpillars, named after the nose-to-tail processions they form to travel between the oak trees they devour, have fine, long hairs with an irritating toxin that can cause blistering rashes, feverish dizzy spells and asthma attacks.

For years, the caterpillar used to be a relatively rare sight in Germany, found only in isolated areas of woodland. But following a this year’s mild spring and warm, dry summer, the oak processionary’s nests have been found in large numbers all over the country.

Cities and towns in Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia have been particularly badly affected.

In the city of Münster, six people had to have eye operations to remove caterpillar hair that got stuck in their corneas. In Mülheim, nine children were taken to a hospital last month after suffering rashes and breathing problems during a sports day.

“It’s terrible everywhere,” Thomas Schwolow, an administrator in the municipality of Issum, where numerous trees have been affected, told Rheinische Post. “It would be great if it would rain so that at least all the hair on the leaves and in the air could be washed away,” he added.

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Butterfly numbers down by two thirds, German scientists find

High-intensity agriculture reduces number of butterfly species in adjacent areas

Date:  March 20, 2019

Source:  Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Meadows adjacent to high-intensity agricultural areas are home to less than half the number of butterfly species than areas in nature preserves. The number of individuals is even down to one-third of that number. These are results of a research team led by Jan Christian Habel at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Thomas Schmitt at the Senckenberg Nature Research Society.

Germany is home to roughly 33,500 species of insects -- but their numbers are decreasing dramatically. Of the 189 species of butterflies currently known from Germany, 99 species are on the Red List, 5 have already become extinct, and 12 additional species are threatened with extinction.

Now a team led by Prof. Jan-Christian Habel of the Department of Terrestrial Ecology of the Technical University of Munich and Prof. Thomas Schmitt, Director of the Senckenberg German Entomological Institute in Muencheberg in Brandenburg, has examined the specific effects of the intensity of agricultural use on the butterfly fauna.

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Build a wall, wild boar will fall: Denmark erects barrier to keep out German pigs

42-mile fence on border with Germany aims to protect pig farms from African swine fever

Emily Schultheisin Berlin

Mon 28 Jan 2019 11.56 GMTLast modified on Tue 29 Jan 2019 17.41 GMT 

The United States isn’t the only country with a border wall controversy these days. However, Denmark’s planned 42-mile (70km) fence along the German border is intended to keep out not people but wild boars, which authorities say threaten to bring disease to Danish pig farms.

Construction on the fence was beginning on Monday along the northern edge of the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Danish lawmakers and the country’s environmental agency approved the project last summer, arguing it would help farmers protect their pigs against African swine fever (ASF).

The disease, lethal for pigs, has not yet been spotted in Denmark or Germany but it is common in eastern Europe and there was a small outbreak in Belgium last autumn.

Though the threat of ASF may not sound alarming on its face, pigs and pork production are no joke in Denmark. The country has nearly twice as many pigs as people – it’s home to more than 12 million pigs across 3,000 farms, compared with a human population of just under 6 million – and pig exports account for billions of pounds annually.

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Germany seeks to fine scientists over monkey experiments

February 20, 2018

In German law, animal cruelty can be punished with a sentence of up to three years in jail

German prosecutors said Tuesday they have asked judges to fine three scientists at the prestigious Max Planck Institutes for animal cruelty over experiments on monkeys' brains.

Investigators in southwestern university town Tuebingen said the three men aged between 49 and 67 were accused of "ending experiments on three monkeys too late and thereby causing the animals ongoing pain for a longer period."

In German law, animal cruelty can be punished with a sentence of up to three years in jail, depending on the seriousness of the crime.

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Hunter dies in Germany after wild boar he was trying to shoot attacked him

Man, 50, was on boar hunt near north-eastern town of Greifswald

He encountered animal in reeds after firing shot, witnesses say

Monday 4 December 2017 19.20 GMTLast modified on Monday 4 December 2017 20.28 GMT

Police in Germany say a hunter has died after being attacked by a wild boar he was trying to shoot.

The 50-year-old man was on a boar hunt with a dozen others near the north-eastern town of Greifswald on Sunday when he was attacked by the male boar.

Witnesses reported that he fired off a shot and then moved into some reeds, where he apparently encountered the pig.

Police say the man suffered serious injuries to his left thigh and fell into nearby water. He died at a hospital and has not been identified.

Police say the boar’s whereabouts are unknown, and it is not clear if the animal was injured.

About 500,000 wild boars are killed each year in Germany. Experts say that is not enough to stop the population from growing.

Source  

Zoo offering swimming with crocodiles ordered to separate them from humans – via Herp Digest

www.rt.times, 11/4/17

Go to https://www.rt.com/news/408808-germany-court-crocodile-zoo/ for photos and video 

Feeding the crocodiles and even swimming with them has been one of the main attractions of a unique German zoo. However, a court ruling says the reptiles must be separated from the visitors.

“Only here you get the opportunity not only to see and observe crocodiles up close, but also to ‘understand’ them,” reads the website of the Crocodile Zoo in the city of Friedberg, Germany. Unique experiences under a guide’s watch include breakfast buffet in the enclosure with the crocodiles, and swimming with them – the latter being for adults only.

To get even closer, “particularly daring” guests can place their heads inside a 3.5-meter crocodile’s mouth.

While these activities are available for those 18 and older, children can also participate by having a birthday party in the crocodile zoo and getting a souvenir photo with the reptiles. 

Climate change threatens domestic bee species

Date: July 6, 2017

Source: Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, JMU

 

Summary:There are around 550 different bee species in Germany. Most of them are solitary bees. They don't live in large beehives like the honeybee, but each female bee often builds multiple nests and feeds her offspring alone. Solitary bees use their short lifespan of a few weeks exclusively to reproduce and to provide food for their brood to develop into adult bees. Bees depend on the availability of pollen which they can frequently collect on specific plant species only. 

  

 

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Fossil of a beetle inside a lizard inside a snake – an ancient food chain – via Herp Digest

Feb 23, 2017, Vintage News

A unique fossil, demonstrating an ancient food chain was discovered by researchers studying the Messel pit on a dig site near Frankfurt, and it is believed to be 48 million years old.

The specimen contains a snake that died shortly after eating a lizard that had recently eaten a beetle.

It is impressive that such a fossil exists in such a well-preserved state, and that each consumed creature is recognizable. The snake was known to be a member of the species Palaeopython fischeri, which is an extinct type of snake once found in what is now Germany. It was a tree-dwelling snake related to modern boas. Growing to a size of up to 2 meters, they could live on the ground or in shallow water near riverbanks. The individual in this fossil, however, was only 103 centimeters in length and so is thought to be a juvenile.

The lizard belongs to the species Geiseltaliellus maarius. It is an extinct lizard of the iguanian lizards that are found in Germany, Belgium, and France. The best-preserved ones are found in the Messel pit in Germany. These lizards had long legs, short arms, and a long tail. The tail was adapted to running and climbing on the ground and in trees. The long toe bones of these lizards, like those of their living cousins, suggest that this species spent most of its time in trees. The probable paleoenvironment of the Messel Pit would have been a dense forest.

Paleoecology is the science of determining ancient environments. Using the evidence found in fossils, it reconstructs the ecosystems these creatures would have lived in. Traces left behind in the fossil record, such as seeds, shells, teeth, and pollen, help scientists infer characteristics of the environment. Therefore, a fossil field like the Messel pit in Germany offers valuable clues to not just the creatures themselves, but to what the plant life would have been like too.

Scientists can tell that the lizard is inside the snake due to the way the snake’s ribs overlap those of the lizard. The lizard had the ability to shed its tail when attacked but did not do so before being eaten, as its complete remains are intact inside the snake. The beetle is not preserved enough to be meaningfully identified.

Also discovered at the same site is the last meal of grapes and leaves inside a fossilized prehistoric horse. Pollen grains found inside fossilized bird and insect remains visible in fish excrement are a testament to the excellent preservation qualities of the area.

Previous fossils of reptiles contained only plant remains due to the speed of the creature’s digestive system. The Messel Pit will likely yield more fascinating finds as digs continue.

More sperm whales found dead - this time on a German beach

The whales were young bulls around the same age as 12 other sperm whales found dead in recent weeks at various North Sea spots

By AFP

12:34PM GMT 02 Feb 2016

Eight dead sperm whales have washed up on a German beach, just weeks after 12 of the giant mammals were found dead at other sites on the North Sea, officials said on Monday.

The eight whales found near the northern town of Friedrichskoog were young bulls, around the same age as the animals discovered three weeks ago at various North Sea spots.

They were lying close to each other in the mudflats of a restricted area of the Wadden Sea national park, the Schleswig-Holstein regional environmental authority said in a statement.

Since the 1990s, a total of 82 sperm wales have been found stranded in the Wadden Sea in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany.

The sperm whale is the largest of the toothed whales, and the largest toothed predator.

It can measure up to 67 feet (20 metres) long and weigh over 50 tonnes.

"The males of this population spend their winters in the north Atlantic," the authority said.

"During their migrations, individual animals mistakenly wind up in the shallow and nutrient-poor North Sea."

The shallow water makes it difficult for them to use their acoustic orientation to navigate and many become beached.

Wildlife protection groups also blame the underwater noise from sea traffic and oil platforms for interfering with acoustic signals.

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Germany may block import of tusks from giant elephant shot by hunter in Zimbabwe

Import of trophy tusks from one of Africa's largest elephants could be illegal, warns Germany, as reward offered for hunter's identity

By Melanie Hall, Berlin, and Peta Thornycroft and Aislinn Laing in Johannesburg

8:28PM BST 16 Oct 2015

Germany will consider blocking the import from Zimbabwe of the tusks ofone of Africa’s biggest elephants killed by one of its nationals, it said on Friday amid growing global outrage over the hunt.

The country’s nature conservation agency said it had in the past refused entry for animals killed in trophy hunts and would not hesitate to do so in this case if the hunt had infringed German wildlife regulations.

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German mass grave records prehistoric warfare

By Jonathan AmosBBC Science Correspondent

17 August 2015 

A mass grave containing at least 26 skeletons is further evidence of the brutal conflict that appears to have beset central Europe 7,000 years ago.

The remains were uncovered at Schöneck-Kilianstädten in central Germany.

Individuals had their heads smashed. Some even had their legs broken, which could indicate they were also tortured.

Scientists tell the PNAS journal that the condition of the burial pit fits an emerging pattern of widespread violence in Early Neolithic times.

Similar mass graves have been unearthed at Talheim, also in Germany, and at Asparn/Schletz in Austria.

The occupants were likely all drawn from agricultural communities whose pottery decoration style has led to them being dubbed the Linear Pottery culture, which translates as Linearbandkeramik (LBK) in German.

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Ancient Footprints Show Dinosaur Duo Strolling Along the Beach

by Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | August 13, 2015 07:26am ET

About 142 million years ago, two carnivorous dinosaurs wandered along a beach and left their large footprints behind in the sand, a new study finds.

These footprints, now fossilized, are helping researchers understand what types of dinosaurs lived in what is now modern-day northern Germany. The tracks show that one dinosaur was large, and the other small. Their prints suggest they walked at a slow, strolling pace — about 3.9 mph (6.3 km/hour) for the large one and about 6 mph (9.7 km/h) for the little one.

At some points, the small dinosaur began trotting, possibly to keep pace with the large one. The footprints also indicate the dinosaurs skid here and there, likely slipping on the wet sand, said study researcher Pernille Troelsen, who earned her master's degree in biology from the University of Southern Denmark in June.

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New Squirrel Virus Strain Suspected in Deaths of 3 in Germany

by Rachael Rettner, Senior Writer | July 08, 2015 05:33pm ET

Three people in Germany who worked as squirrel breeders and who all died from brain inflammation may have contracted a new strain of virus from their squirrels, according to a new report of the cases.

The new virus strain belongs to a group of viruses called bornaviruses, which typically infect animals such as horses, sheep and birds. Researchers have debated whether this group of viruses can cause disease in people.

The new findings suggest such viruses do cause disease, and moreover, raise the question of whether this virus "represents an emerging threat" to people in the area, according to a recent statement from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

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Ancient, Shell-Less Turtle Sported Whiplike Tail

by Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | June 24, 2015 02:00pm ET

An ancestor of modern-day turtles, a shell-less creature with a long tail once puttered around an ancient lake, likely munching on insects and worms with its peglike teeth, a new study finds.

Researchers found the first fossils of the 240-million-year-old creature in 2006, during an excavation of Vellberg Lake, an ancient lakebed in southeastern Germany, said study researcher Hans Sues, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian Museum ofNatural History  in Washington, D.C.

"We now have well over a dozen specimens, including partial skeletons but also some isolated parts of skeletons," Sues told Live Science. "But we have a nice spectrum of sizes, so you can sort of see how the animal grows and changes." 

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Giant deer were still present in Southern Germany after Ice Age

Date:

June 8, 2015

Source:

Universitaet Tübingen

Summary:

Scientists reconstruct the DNA of the Megaloceros from findings in caves in the Swabian Alb and discover possible causes for its later extinction.

The mass extinction at the end of the last Ice Age led to the disappearance of many animal species including the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, cave bears and the Megaloceros, also known as the giant deer or Irish elk, which could weigh as much as 1.5 tons. Scientists still do not fully know the precise reasons for the extinction of many species; it probably took place due to a combination of climate change and hunting by humans. However, some species of animals survived the end of the last glacial period somewhat longer than others. They include the giant deer, which populated huge areas of Eurasia during the Ice Age. These animals were still present in parts of north-western Europe after the Ice Age, before they finally disappeared about 7,000 years ago. Scientists at the University of Tübingen have now managed to isolate mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) from deer bones found in the Swabian Alb that are 12,000 years old which sheds light on how prevalent these animals were in southern Germany.

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Berlin lizards impede Lenin's resurrection

Lenin has lain in a sandpit at the southeastern edge of Berlin since 1991 when the city, desperate to rid itself of the painful reminders of its division, cut the 19-meter (62-foot) statue into more than a hundred pieces and buried them.

Now, after administrative battles with reluctant authorities and grumbling from Berliners who thought they had got rid of the old communist forever, a museum plans to resurrect the 3.5-ton, 1.70-meter head this summer for a planned museum of disgraced monuments from the city's tumultuous history.

There's just one little problem left to solve before it can finally glimpse the light of day: lizards. Sand lizards, to be precise, strictly protected by European wildlife conservation rules.

Approaching the site with the crane, bulldozers and truck that will be needed to shift Lenin would disturb the striped creatures just as they're getting ready for the mating season, during which they turn green. So they must be encouraged to move away before the exhumation can commence. That's the law.

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Rare Case of Conjoined Lizard Twins Reported at Zoo

by Agata Blaszczak-Boxe, Contributing Writer | February 06, 2015 06:14am ET

In a first-of-its-kind case, a pair of conjoined lizards called Quince monitor lizards were discovered at a German zoo, according to a new report. The lizards were dead when they were discovered.

The animals were found in June 2009 in a clutch deposited in a terrarium at the Cologne Zoo, in Germany.Other cases of conjoined twins have been reported in reptiles such as turtles, crocodiles and other lizard species, according to the report.

The parents of the conjoined lizards were siblings that were kept together at the zoo. Another clutch from the same parents, laid in September 2009, included a dead, malformed hatchling.

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Germans protest that modern farming methods damage the environment

Tens of thousands of people recently marched in Berlin for the fifth consecutive year to express their concern that modern farming practices fail to respect the environment, reports Birdlife International. 

“Wir haben es satt!” (“We are fed up!”) was the slogan they were chanting.

Agricultural policy and the loss of biodiversity in German agricultural landscapes were major themes for the demonstration, as the President of NABU ( Birdlife in Germany) Olaf Tschimpke explained in his speech to the participants.

He declared: “Future agricultural policy can no longer just be a policy of farmers for farmers. It should first and foremost satisfy societal needs such as respect for nature and consumer protection.”

He continued: “More and more people are fed up that the billions of Euros coming out of Brussels are simply flowing back into ‘business as’ usual farming.

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47-Million-Year-Old Pregnant Mare Sheds Light on Ancient Horses

by Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | November 07, 2014 03:49pm ET

When a thirsty pregnant horse drank from a freshwater lake 47 million years ago, she was unaware that poisonous volcanic gases might lead to her sudden demise. Now, the fossilized remains of the mare and her tiny, unborn foal are revealing new insights into reproduction in ancient horses, including surprising reproductive similarities with today's horses, according to a new study.

Researchers found the ancient horse (Eurohippus messelensis) in the Messel Pit fossil site in Germany, a location renowned for its well-preserved fossils that date back to the Eocene Epoch, between about 57 million and 36 million years ago, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. 

The reproductive similarities between ancient and modern-day horses might seem surprising, given the differences in the animals' size and anatomy. The ancient mare was small — about the size of a modern fox terrier — and had four toes on her front feet and three on her rear feet.

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Germany deploys drones to protect young deer from combine harvesters

Trial in Bavaria shows great promise in spotting fawns hiding in tall grass and alerting farmers doing spring mowing

Agence France-Presse in Berlin

theguardian.com, Friday 25 April 2014 18.02 BST

A German wildlife rescue project is deploying small aerial drones to find young deer hiding in tall grass and protect them from being shredded by combine harvesters cutting hay in spring.

According to project spokesman Rolf Stockum, the pilot scheme has shown great promise in spotting the young animals. About 100,000 of them fall victim in Germany every year to the large agricultural machines, he said on Friday.

Five small drones fitted with combined digital and infrared sensors that can detect colour patterns and body heat were trialled in the southern state of Bavaria.

When spotted the young deer are fitted with beacons that emit radio signals so that farmers, when they later do the spring mowing, can find and avoid them as they noisily rumble across the grasslands and fields.

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