New tarantula species from Angola distinct with a one-of-a-kind 'horn' on its back

Date:  February 12, 2019

Source:  Pensoft Publishers

A new to science species of tarantula with a peculiar horn-like protuberance sticking out of its back was recently identified from Angola, a largely underexplored country located at the intersection of several Afrotropical ecoregions.

Collected as part of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, which aims to uncover the undersampled biodiversity in the entire Okavango catchment of Angola, Namibia and Botswana, thereby paving the way for sustainable conservation in the area, the new arachnid is described in a paper published in the open-access journal African Invertebrates by the team of Drs John Midgley and Ian Engelbrecht.

Although the new spider (Ceratogyrus attonitifer sp.n.) belongs to a group known as horned baboon spiders, the peculiar protuberance is not present in all of these species. Moreover, in the other species -- where it is -- the structure is completely sclerotised, whereas the Angolan specimens demonstrate a soft and characteristically longer 'horn'. The function of the curious structure remains unknown.

The new tarantula's extraordinary morphology has also prompted its species name: C. attonitifer, which is derived from the Latin root attonit- ("astonishment" or "fascination"), and the suffix -fer ("bearer of" or "carrier"). It refers to the astonishment of the authors upon the discovery of the remarkable species.

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A new earless pygmy toad discovered on one of Angola's most underexplored mountains

Date:  August 8, 2018

Source:  Pensoft Publishers

Summary:

Due to many years of conflict, the biodiversity of Angola remains one of the least known in Africa. Recently, scientists from Angola, Portugal, and the United States conducted a series of field expeditions to document this country's amphibian and reptile species. One newly discovered species is a pygmy toad from the isolated Serra da Neve, the second highest peak in Angola. It differs from all close relatives in lacking an external and middle ear.

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'Active protection' needed to help Angola's threatened elephants

Elephants Without Borders and UMass Amherst researchers update elephant data

Date:  March 14, 2018

Source:  University of Massachusetts at Amherst

A new study of African savannah elephant populations in Angola by wildlife ecologists from Elephants Without Borders (EWB) and the University of Massachusetts Amherst reports today that though the population seemed to be recovering after the war ended there, that trend has now reversed, underlining "the need to be vigilant against poaching and habitat loss," says first author Scott Schlossberg.

He and colleagues write, "There may be time to reverse the ongoing decline of elephants in Angola and conserve this important population" if the government commits to "active protection." Schlossberg and Chase of the Botswana-based conservation group did this work with co-author Curtice Griffin, professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst. Details appear in PLOS ONE.

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Scientists have found, identified the ‘flying spaghetti monster’

AUGUST 17, 2015

by Chuck Bednar

Not only is the flying spaghetti monster the deity of its own satirical church, but it appears to be a real live creature, as workers at petroleum giant BP recently videotaped one while collecting video footage in the waters off the coast of Angola.

According to Discovery News and Live Science reports, the creatures was filmed by a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) that was collecting footage at depths of nearly 4,000 feet (or 1,220 meters). The creature resembled “a bowl of noodles turned upside down underwater,” thus leading the oil and gas workers to name it in honor of the flying spaghetti monster.

The creature was later identified as a siphonophore, a group of animals that includes corals and jellyfish, by researchers at the at the UK’s National Oceanography Centre. Named B. conifer, it is a colonial animal made up of several different multicellular organisms called zooids.

As the websites explain, zooids attach to other zooids to form more complex organisms. Once a zooid is developed from a fertilized egg, others bud from it until an entire animal is formed. Each of these creatures has a job to do, and in the case of B. conifer, not all of the creatures catch and eat food, and only some reproduce, but combined they ensure mutual survival.

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Angola signs historic agreement to protect its lions

The African lion has been awarded new protection in Angola with the signing of a significant conservation agreement between the government of Angola and Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organisation.

Angola’s Minister of the Environment, Fátima Jardim, presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Panthera’s Senior Lion Program Director, Dr Paul Funston, and the Director General of the Angolan Ministry of the Environment’s National Institute of Biodiversity and Conservation Areas, Dr Helidoro Abambres.

Through this agreement, both parties have committed to collaboratively undertake conservation initiatives to map the presence of lions in Angola and assess the size and condition of the country’s existing lion populations.

“This is a huge milestone for the lions of Angola,” says Dr Funston. “The KAZA (Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area) region is home to one of Africa’s largest lion populations and is therefore crucial in our work to save the lion.

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Full Belly Fossil! 'Sea Monster' Had 3 Others in Its Gut

DENVER — The mosasaur, a fearsome marine reptile that stalked the Cretaceous seas, scavenged its own kin, a new fossil find reveals.

A fossilized mosasaur found in Angola contains the partial remains of three other mosasaurs in its stomach, researchers reported here Tuesday (Oct. 29) at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

"These are three different species of mosasaur inside the belly of a fourth species of mosasaur," said study researcher Louis Jacobs, a vertebrate paleontologist at Southern Methodist University in Texas. 

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Lady Liuwa update – Surviving lions have formed a small pride

Male and young lioness mating regularly

January 2013. After the younger of the 2 new lioness' was killed in a snare in June 2012, the second new lioness left the park and headed towards Angola. She was captured just before she crossed the border, and a decision was taken to put Lady Liuwa and the young lioness in a holding boma for several weeks; The decision proved to have been a wise one, and the two lionesses were released in October having bonded together well.

The lioness' bonded well, and Lady was quick to establish her dominance over the young lioness (who in turn has shown appropriate submission) but has been tolerant, allowing the youngster to share wildebeest carcasses with her. Apart from a few growls at meal times, there has thankfully been no real aggression. 

Wandering males leads to a lion death
On an unfortunate note, the two males (Introduced into Liuwa in 2009) wandered north-west out of the park, with satellite tracking of the one collared male showing that he strayed 40 kilometres into Angola before doing a U-turn and hurrying back to the park. The second male did not return to the park and subsequent reports from local communities indicated that he had been killed in Angola after straying close to a village. The coalition of these two magnificent males was a stirring sight on the Liuwa plain and the loss is tragic.

Mating
Happier news ensued as the remaining male teamed up with Lady Liuwa and the young lioness, and the three have been co-existing as a unit ever since. The male and young lioness have been seen mating in November and there are hopes for cubs in 2013.

Liuwa National Park is managed by African Parks. African Parks is a non-profit organisation that takes total responsibility for the rehabilitation and long-term management of national parks in partnership with governments and local communities. African Parks currently manages seven parks in six African countries - Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Zambia. The total area under management covers 4.1 million hectares, an area as large as The Netherlands.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/liuwa-lady-2013.html

New forest discovery triples rare habitat area in Angola

Forest discovery improves prospects for Angola's endemics -  Courtesy of Birdlife 
July 2012. A large tract of near-pristine Afromontane forest has been found in Angola's Namba Mountains, tripling the amount of this habitat that was thought to survive in Angola. The site meets the criteria for a new Important Bird Area (IBA), holding one globally threatened species, and assemblages of restricted range and biome-restricted bird species.

Afromontane forest is the most localised and threatened habitat type in Angola. By the early 1970s, only 200 hectares was estimated to remain, mainly at the Mount Moco IBA, and perhaps in the Namba Mountains, where most forest was thought to be degraded by logging.

Rare bird habitat
Mount Moco and the Namba Mountains lie within the Western Angola Endemic Bird Area, which includes four restricted-range species associated with Afromontane vegetation. Two Afromontane endemics of global conservation concern, Endangered Swierstra's Francolin and Near Threatened Angola Cave-chat, are found at Mount Moco, but the francolin is now uncommon there. The Data Deficient endemic Grimwood's Longclaw is also found at Moco. Several other Afromontane specialists have been found only there or at one or two other sites in Angola, and face a serious threat of extirpation from the country.

Angola's Afromontane forest and thicket holds 20 species, subspecies or populations of conservation significance, isolated and distinct from other Afromontane "centres of endemism", the nearest of which is over 2000 km away. All 20 were recorded at Moco prior to 1970, but several are now rare or absent.

A team including members of the University of Jos, Nigeria, and Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, South Africa, travelled to the Namba Mountains in July 2010, to establish the extent and condition of forest, and to conduct bird surveys. Due to the difficulty of traversing the terrain (dense undergrowth, steep slopes, an abundance of large boulders, and limited trail access) they were confined to exploring a single forest patch and surrounding grasslands and mountain slopes, an area of 24 ha.

They recorded 89 bird species, 56 of them in or adjacent to forest, including a significant population of Swierstra's Francolin, and the other Afromontane specialists that are now hard to find at Mount Moco.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/angola-forest.html

Possible new species of bird discovered in Angola

Olivebacks in Angola?
October 2011. Rockjumper Birding Tours take serious birders to most corners of the world, and often to places that few other birders go - So occasionally they make some very interesting observations. Rockjumper clients recently made what may be a very important discovery of a new population of Heteromirafra larks in Ethiopia. And now in Angola they have found what may be a new species altogether.

During Rockjumper's recent tour to Angola, their group was birding the Northern Scarp Forests near Uige when tour leader Markus Lilje observed a group of three Olivebacks (Small, colourful finches in the waxbill family, genus Nesocharis) on the forest edge. No records of olivebacks exits for Angola, so this of course led to much ...excitement!

They initially perched on dry leafless twigs affording excellent views and then flew to a more concealed site, but here allowed prolonged views. Markus was able to take a few photos (admittedly not great, but certainly better than none!).

These birds most closely resemble White-collared Oliveback N.ansorgei but differ in having a more slender body shape, longer tail and a white collar running on the back of the neck unlike the white collar on the throat of White-collared Oliveback. Furthermore, White-collared Oliveback is a highly localized bird endemic to the Albertine Rift, a great distance from Angola.

This exciting discovery may well prove to be a new species to science but this can only be verified by further research and observation.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/oliveback-angola.html

Strange animal caught after eight-hour hunt

Angola

Luanda - A strange animal that caused panic among people at Luanda's Hoji-ya-Henda road, district of Rangel for about eight hours was eventually caught at 05 pm by a team from Fire Department, Angop learnt.

The panic started when the animal that had never been seen before was spotted on a Hoji-ya-Henda road tree.Due to its strange characteristics, the animal caused panic and traffic jam.

The animal is under care of the Fire Department.