Scientists capture first-ever video of giant squid in U.S. waters

JUNE 24, 2019

by Joann Adkins, Florida International University

FIU marine scientists Heather Bracken-Grissom and Lori Schweikert were among a team of researchers gathered around a monitor when the tentacle first came into view. It floated in and out of the darkness offering no hint of what was on the other end. Then, in an elegant explosion of arms and tentacles, the creature revealed itself—the phantom of the deep, known simply as the giant squid.

It is the first time the elusive creature has been caught on camera in U.S. waters—about 100 miles southwest of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico. It is only the second time the creature, which can grow up to 40 feet, has ever been captured on camera. The discovery was made toward the end of a 17-day research mission dubbed Journey into Midnight which began June 7.

"It was magical and surreal to see how the animal behaves in nature," Bracken-Grissom said. "To know that I was witnessing something that had only been seen once before in nature filled me with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and respect for what still is to be discovered."

Continued

Viral video of child with 12ft snake sparks online debate – via Herp Digest

Video at

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJJNuq_MQOq46x0vSnkvNWg

The Scottsman, July 10, 2017

An online video on a Harry Potter fan page involving a young girl wrapped in a large snake has sparked an online debate.

The video, titled “Raising a young Slytherin” shows a girl sitting as a snake perches just above her on the couch.

The Harry Potter fan site is clearly linking video to Parseltongue, the language of serpents linked to Slytherin House in Harry Potter.

In the video, as the girl says “do it” the snake opens its mouth in apparent yawn.

However, the post has sparked an online debate over the safety of the child.

Some users have expressed concern while others have praised the parents for making sure the child feels comfortable with snakes

User Emily Parvin wrote: “It’s an albino python. They will stop eating when sizing something up so no need to worry as long as it’s eating the food on offer to it.

“If it stops eating, then you should be concerned. As for not being dangerous, of course it’s dangerous, but so can any animal be. I love snakes though. But I’ll stick to cats for pets.”

Shannon Kerr posted: “Having a snake is just like having a dog or anything else like that, yeh it’s quite unlikely but if it wanted to the dog could snap and bite a child just like a snake could wrap itself around you but honestly, most PET snakes I’ve met are pretty chill.”

Dorothy Locke Mancinelli wrote: “Well this is a news story waiting to happen. I get of it were a little corn snake or something but this is just stupid. Haven’t we seen the stories of snakes that were “gentle” or “harmless” that have strangled kids or the family dog or cat? Stupid stupid stupid!”

A debate has been sparked over the safety concerns with Jordan Pemble writing: “Yeah, no freakin way. That snake is sizing that child up to eat.”

The video has been viewed more than 319,000 times on the page alone.

‘Insane’ camera trap video captures rare battle in the Amazon

Without camera traps we would never be privy to two endangered species sparring in the remote Amazon rainforest.

Jeremy Hance

Tuesday 21 February 2017 08.54 GMT Last modified on Thursday 23 February 2017 15.35 GMT 

As darkness descended over the Peruvian Amazon in 2006, my wife and I listened spellbound while our guide told us the grisly story of the jaguar and giant anteater. 

Eyewitnesses, our guide insisted, had found the two foes dead together, embracing like lovers but in mutual destruction – the jaguar’s jaw still drooped around the anteater’s neck where it had pierced its prey’s artery and the anteater’s ten-centimeter-long claws still embedded in the big cat’s flanks. Later, after the spell – and liquor – wore off, I thought it was probably a tall tale, something to tell tourists after the sun sets over the world’s greatest jungle and you’ve all had a few too many. But an incredible new camera trap video proves I may have been wrong to doubt. 

The video captures 12 hair-raising seconds of a giant anteater going toe-to-toe with a jaguar – a battle rarely, if ever – seen by human eyes. Taken in Gurupi Biological Reserve in the state of Brazilian state of Maranhão as a part of a survey on jaguars, it shows just how agile and deft a giant anteater can be, like a gangly martial arts master. 

“I was in the office, sorting out thousands of camera trap videos, which is really cool but can get a bit boring after the umpteenth time,” Elildo Carvalho Jr., a researcher with the Brazilian National Research Centre for Carnivore Conservation (CENAP). said. “And then, this insane image suddenly jumps out of [the] screen... I felt captured by the incredible [video]. I watched it again and again…Then I called my colleagues, proudly announcing that they would see something [they’d] never seen before.”

In the video we can see the raw physicality – and danger – of such an encounter for both of these threatened and declining species. But, according to Carvalho, we’ll never know how it turned out.

“There were no clues on site, besides we retrieved the camera a month after the event and only saw the footage long after.”

Read on and watch footage 

Creepy Deep-Sea Anglerfish Captured in Rare Video

by Kelly Dickerson, Staff Writer | November 24, 2014 05:07pm ET

An underwater robot exploring the deep seas captured the first video footage ever of a creepy-looking anglerfish — a creature that looks so menacing it is sometimes called the "black seadevil."

MBARI

Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) were using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to explore the Monterey Canyon ocean trench, a steep seafloor canyon in California that extends about 95 miles (153 kilometers) into the Pacific Ocean.

The robotic sub came across the anglerfish around 1,968 feet (600 meters) below the surface. The researchers used the ROV to take pictures and video of the anglerfish, and then captured the deep-sea creature and brought it back to MBARI for closer study. [See photos of the creepy anglerfish]

Continued ...

Three snow leopards caught on film in China

Rare footage of snow leopards

July 2013. An incredibly rare piece of video footage has emerged from China, where a video of three snow leopards together in the same place has been captured. 

The video of the leopards was captured in the mountains of Yushu Autonomous Province on the border of Tibet. To put this in context, the first photo of a snow leopard in the wild wasn't taken until the renowned naturalist George Shaller snapped on in 1970.

There are thought to be a maximum 7000 snow leopards alive in the world, though some estimates go as low as a half of that, spread across and around the Himalayas and nearby mountain ranges in Central Asia.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/snow-leopard-video.html

Snow leopard cubs – A video from Tajikistan

Snow leopards thriving in Tajikistan

December 2012. Known as the ‘Roof of the World,' the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan are situated at the intersection of several of Asia's greatest mountain ranges, and fittingly may represent some of the richest habitat for ‘Asia's Mountain Ghost' - the elusive snow leopard.

300 snow leopards in the Pamirs
Today, as many as 300 of the remaining 3,500-7,000 wild snow leopards are thought to live in the Tajik Pamirs - an area which provides a potentially critical link between the southern and northern regions of the snow leopard's range, and may serve as a vital genetic corridor for the species.

Given the potential of this region as one of the world's last snow leopard strongholds, big cat charity  Panthera recently carried out two extensive camera trap surveys in the Pamir Mountains, including one in Tajikistan's Jartygumbez Istyk River region in collaboration with University of Delaware graduate student Shannon Kachel and the Tajik Academy of Sciences.

While reviewing photos from the survey's 40 camera traps, Panthera field staff recently uncovered incredible new images of a snow leopard mother and her two cubs, which they have made into a video. The playful cubs are shown licking and pawing icicles and attempting to climb a rock. Along with this entertaining footage, also included are stunning images of the snow leopard mother and one of her cubs inspecting the camera trap, their quizzical faces pressed up against the camera lens.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/snow-leopard-tajikistan.html

Snow leopard cubs filmed in den for first time

For the first time ever, researchers in Mongolia have been able to locate and video cubs within a den site belonging to the rare and endangered snow leopard - Scroll down or click here to see video

July 2012. After a month of intensive searching, an international research team has located the den sites of two female snow leopards and captured astonishing videos of a young cub resting inside a den with its mother.

The research team has been tracking snow leopards in Mongolia's South Gobi desert since 2008 using GPS radio collars. In May, two of the study's females began to restrict their daily movements to smaller and smaller areas, which the team interpreted as a signal that both were preparing to give birth. Traveling through steep and rocky mountain outcroppings, the team followed VHF signals transmitted by the collars and finally located the dens on 21 June.

High up in steep canyons
Only six kilometres apart, both dens were high up in steep canyons. The first den was in a big cave with a man-made rock wall blocking most of the entrance. ‘As we stood outside the den we could hear the cub and smell the cats but not see anything inside the den,' noted researcher Orjan Johansson of Sweden. He and his colleagues, Sumbee Tomorsukh of Mongolia, Mattia Colombo of Italy, and Carol Esson of Australia, had to think fast and decided to tape a camera to their VHF antenna. Extending the camera over the wall they were able to film the inside of the cave. Their remarkable footage shows a female snow leopard lying tucked against the wall staring at the entrance with a paw over her tiny cub.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/snow-leopard-video.html#cr

Wolf caught on camera trap in Belgium - Video

Wolf sighted in Belgium
September 2011. After some sheep were killed near the Belgian town of Gedinne in July, a TV camera crew set up an camera trap to see if, as suspected, a lynx had killed the sheep. Much to their, and everyone elses, surprise, what they caught on camera was not a lynx, but appeared to be a wolf (see below to view the video). To read more about this story and to find out about Animals in Trouble, the TV programme that set up the camera trap, click here.

First wolf in Belgium for 100 years
The last known Belgian wolf was seen in 1898, though there was a recent sighting in the Veluwe National Park in Holland of a lone wolf. This could potentially be the same wolf, or one from the same family. Either way, on the assumption that this wolf/wolves originated in Germany, they would have to have crossed several large motorways and rivers.

Veluwe National Park - Holland
De Hoge Veluwe National Park is the largest actively managed conservation area in private hands in the Netherlands. The Park covers 5,400 hectares of woodland, heathland, peat bogs and drift sand. It enjoys a wide variety of plants and animals and provides habitats to extremely rare Red List species.

Originally the Veluwe was surrounded by a string of swamps, heavily populated with game such as deer and wild boars because these areas offered rich vegetation to feed on. Since the 1990s many plans are underway, or have already been implemented, to restore these wetlands by blocking the drainage systems built by farmers during the last 150 years. This results in very dry heathland changing into wetland within a span of just a few hundred meters.

Parts of the Veluwe that have been separated from each other by roads, towns and farmland are being reconnected by returning farmland to nature and creating wildlife crossings over highways. In 2007, three of these overpasses had been built, each one about 50 meters wide and covered with sand and vegetation to encourage animals to use it. Six more will be built in the next five years. Wildlife corridors connecting the Veluwe to other wildlife areas such as the Oostvaardersplassen in the Netherlands and the Klever Reichswald in Germany are being developed. It is hoped that by doing so the genetic diversity of the wildlife population will increase.

Go to the website of the Veluwe National Park

Stillwater Sasquatch video arouses skepticism

A video purporting to show an auburn-haired Sasquatch tromping through the woods north of Stillwater is causing a buzz among those fascinated by the ever-elusive Elvis of the wildlife world.

Like every video claiming to be that of the giant woodland creature also known as Bigfoot, the clip is brief, jiggly and out-of-focus. It was shot, according to the YouTube posting, by an anonymous farmer with his newfangled iPhone while on his usual evening walk with his wife. According to the farmer, the couple thought they'd scared a deer until they heard some "low, odd-sounding grunting" and fired up the gizmo.

The narrator, also anonymous, said the farmer posted the video, but didn't want to pursue it any further when "he realized this was serious." In the narrator's analysis, he says the film shows "a wonderful example of how adept Sasquatch are at hiding and moving through thick brush."

Response is mixed. Some share the narrator's apparent enthusiasm, but even Sasquatch believers (more than 16,000 have viewed the video in two weeks) have voiced skepticism. Several noted that the farmer does not seem particularly alarmed at what he is seeing -- although men of Norwegian extraction have been known to make low, odd-sounding grunts themselves at emotional moments.
And on the Bigfoot Facebook page (was there any doubt?), some wonder why the crafty creature -- not far from the suburbs -- has such a nonchalant attitude in walking past the befuddled couple.

"This would have to be one dumb Bigfoot," says one skeptic.

JIM ANDERSON

http://www.startribune.com/local/east/127799518.html

Rare Otter civet filmed for first time in Borneo

By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

An elusive mammal known as an Otter civet has been filmed in the wild for the first time, experts believe.

Conservationists surveying wildlife in the Deramakot Forest Reserve in the state of Sabah, Borneo took video of a pair crossing a road at night.

Otter civets are a type of civet, small primitive long-bodied cat-like mammals.

The announcement follows the rediscovery of the world's rarest otter in Deramakot Forest Reserve by the same scientific survey.

"I guess nobody can say this with 100% certainty, but as far as I know this is the first video ever taken of this species," says Mr Andreas Wilting, leader of the Conservation of Carnivores in Sabah (ConCaSa) project initiated by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) and performed in collaboration with the Sabah Wildlife Department and Sabah Forestry Department.

"I and my colleagues at least have never seen a video before."

Mr Wilting's team spotted the Otter civets (Cynogale bennettii) along a old logging road, watching as one fed upon an insect.

The Otter civet is thought to be the rarest civet species in southeast Asia.

As part of a two year survey of small carnivore species in the Deramakot Forest Reserve, the ConCaSa survey photographed Otter civets using camera traps on ten occassions.

More surprising, they managed to film the species in the wild on two occasions.

Otter civets are semi-aquatic, living in wet, lowland areas, a habitat that is being destroyed across much of southeast Asia.

Details of the latest finding have been published in the journal Small Carnivore Conservation, a publication of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission.

Rarely seen species

In the same issue, the scientific survey team lists a host of other rarely seen small carnivore species spotted or photographed in the reserve.

Of Borneo's eight vivverid species, the researchers recorded six: the Binturong (Arctictis binturong), Malay civet (Viverra tangaunga), Common Palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphro), Small-toothed Palm civet (Arctogalidia trivirgata), Banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus) and previously mentioned Otter civet.

Other small carnivores caught on camera were the Sunda stink-badger (Mydaus javanensis), and two species of mongoose, the very common Short-tailed mongoose (Herpestes brachyurus) and the Collared mongoose (H. semitorquatus), and all three Bornean otter species, the Smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata), Asian small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinereus) and the extremely elusive Hairy-nosed otter, considered to be the world's rarest otter.

Yesterday, the ConCaSa project released a photograph showing the rediscovery of the Hairy-nosed otter in Borneo by the same scientific survey.

Earlier this year, the same project released the first video to be made public of a wild Sundaland clouded leopard.

Many of these species are classified as globally endangered, threatened or vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Of Borneo's eight vivverid species, the researchers recorded six: the Binturong (Arctictis binturong), Malay civet (Viverra tangaunga), Common Palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphro), Small-toothed Palm civet (Arctogalidia trivirgata), Banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus) and previously mentioned Otter civet.

Other small carnivores caught on camera were the Sunda stink-badger (Mydaus javanensis), and two species of mongoose, the very common Short-tailed mongoose (Herpestes brachyurus) and the Collared mongoose (H. semitorquatus), and all three Bornean otter species, the Smooth-coated otter (Lutrogale perspicillata), Asian small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinereus) and the extremely elusive Hairy-nosed otter, considered to be the world's rarest otter.

Yesterday, the ConCaSa project released a photograph showing the rediscovery of the Hairy-nosed otter in Borneo by the same scientific survey.

Earlier this year, the same project released the first video to be made public of a wild Sundaland clouded leopard.

Many of these species are classified as globally endangered, threatened or vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Further steps to protect Bornean otters and other carnivores will be developed at the Borneo Carnivore Symposium, which will be held in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia in June 2011.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8854000/8854529.stm