Found: The Loch Ness monster - that lived in the English Channel and died more than 200million years ago

By Eddie Wrenn
8:46 AM on 1st June 2009
Picture: Dmitry Bogdanov

It roamed the English channel more than 200 million years ago.

And now the prehistoric monster has surfaced once more - in the limestone of Lyme Regis's famous 'Jurassic Coast'.

Excited archaeologists discovered the Loch Ness-style creature on the beach and have spent months piecing together a giant jigsaw composed of dozens of old bones to reveal the 12ft-long plesiosaur.

The marine reptile hunted the oceans with a long thin neck and tail, four large flippers and razor-sharp teeth.

It existed during the Jurassic period about 150 to 200 million years ago when what is now the Channel was a shallow, tropical sea.

The remains were discovered by fossil hunter Tracey Marler under rocks on Monmouth Beach near Lyme Regis, Dorset.

She first found a single bone in limestone. She and partner Chris Moore, an expert in fossils, returned to the scene and they found four more bones.

As experts examined the bones in detail, they were surprised to see teeth marks from where a predator dinosaur would have feasted on the carcass of the 'lake monster'.

After further excavation about 150 vertebrae bones and parts of its skull and jaw, with one tooth remaining, were uncovered.

Mr Moore said: 'It came out in pieces but you could clearly see how it looked.
'The tail bone was in position, and some of the back bones were completely in place where they should be and the neck bone was there as well.

'You could see some of the bones had actually been chewed up a bit.

'There are teeth marks and you can see how the skeleton had been torn apart by some other nasty marine reptile.'

Mr Moore added: 'Their predator would have been the ichthyosaur which was carnivorous.'

Natural England worked closely with the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site team to carefully extract the fossils.

The alternative of leaving it could have led to it being destroyed by ill-informed collectors or eventually being washed away and eroded by the sea.

Richard Edmonds, science manager for the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, said: 'There was a risk that we could have damaged the pavement by the act of removing the fossil.

'Plesiosaur remains are rare. There are only 10 known examples of complete or even partial skeletons of this species.

'I have been doing this for 30-odd years and I have only ever found the odd bone.

'The specimen could not have been in a more sensitive location, in the famous and iconic ammonite pavement.'

It is hoped the skeleton, which is 70 per cent complete, will go on public display at the Lyme Regis Museum.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1189882/Found-The-Loch-Ness-monster--lived-English-Channel-died-200million-years-ago.html

Invasion of the killer caterpillar

A PLAGUE of killer caterpillars is sparking health alerts across Britain.

Brown tail moth caterpillars each have up to two million hairs which can break off, get into the air and cause severe allergic reactions.

Thousands of the moths recently invaded a housing estate near Trowbridge, Wilts, where worried residents came out in itchy rashes.

And a family restaurant near Folkestone, Kent, was forced to close part of its car park over health fears.

Julie Payne, 35, lives on the affected housing estate.

She said: “Every time we went into the garden we found caterpillars everywhere.

“Then we noticed there were thousands of what looked like cobwebs in our cherry tree.

“We now know they are the moths’ nests.

“The children started coming out in spots and they could not stop scratching themselves.”

Inhaling or touching the tiny bristles can also lead to potentially fatal breathing problems, plus headaches and conjunctivitis.

But the caterpillars pose no threat when they turn into moths, which is due to happen in about four weeks.

More info at the Worldview blog: www.worldvieww.blogspot.com

Rare bumblebee coming back to UK

23:26 GMT, Sunday, 31 May 2009 00:26 UK

A bumblebee which is extinct in the UK, is to be reintroduced from New Zealand under plans being announced.

The short-haired bumblebee was exported from the UK to New Zealand on the first refrigerated lamb boats in the late 19th Century to pollinate clover crops.

It was last seen in the UK in 1988, but populations on the other side of the world have survived.

Now Natural England and several other conservation groups have launched a scheme to bring the species home.

International rescue

Poul Christensen, Natural England's acting chairman, said; "Bumblebees are suffering unprecedented international declines and drastic action is required to aid their recovery.

"Bumblebees play a key role in maintaining food supplies - we rely on their ability to pollinate crops and we have to do all we can to provide suitable habitat and to sustain the diversity of bee species.

"This international rescue mission has two aims - to restore habitat in England, thereby giving existing bees a boost; and to bring the short-haired bumblebee home where it can be protected."

As many as 100 of the bees will initially be collected in New Zealand and a captive breeding plan established, with the aim of eventually releasing them at Dungeness, Kent, where they were last seen.

They will be flown back on planes in cool boxes, and will not be disturbed, according to Natural England, as they will be in hibernation during transit.

The scheme's project officer Nikki Gammans said the bumblebee was a "keystone species" which was key to pollinating around 80% of important crops.

"By creating the right habitat for these bumblebees, we are recreating wildflower habitat that has been lost, which will be good for butterflies, water voles and nesting birds."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8076205.stm

Photo: G L Wilson

Loch Ness Monster Obsession Lives On

Photos, Video and Sonar Have Picked Up Unusual Shapes and Movements in Loch Ness

By NICK WATT
March 27, 2009

The first recorded sighting of a "monster" in Loch Ness was nearly 1,500 years ago. Apparently, a huge, ferocious beast leaped out of a lake near Iverness, Scotland, and ate a local farmer. Since then, the lore of Nessie has grown and grown.

A photograph, taken in 1934 by a London doctor, seemed to show a dinosaur-looking creature with a long neck emerging from the water, and it fueled the Nessie obsession.

Then a home movie shot in 1960 showed a family picnicking near the water, but the movie also shows a strange figure swimming nearby .

British intelligence analyzed the film and concluded it was probably "something animate."

Millions of people have peered into this forbidding water, in search of the truth. One-thousand visitors have reported unusual sightings.

One woman named Val who claims to have spotted Nessie said the creature she saw was "very dark gray. Shiny, obviously, because it was wet."

MIT professor Robert Rines was at a Scottish tea party in 1972 when he and the others spotted what they thought was the Loch Ness monster.

"It was a big tremendous thing. Like the back of an elephant," Rines said. "It came back, right in front of us and ... thuuup. Submerged!"

Rines, now 85, has returned to Loch Ness almost every summer since that first sighting, hoping to prove that he did see a monster.

Using sonar technology, he plumbed the vast, vast blackness of Loch Ness -- which is 750 feet deep, 23 miles long, 380 million years old -- and claimed he detected large, moving masses.
In 1975, he captured underwater photos of what appeared to be the body, flipper, neck and head of a large animal.

"This is probably a progenitor of something that should have been dead 65 million years ago," he said.

Since the 1980s, Rines' underwater sonar and photos have not picked up any trace of a creature. Rines' latest theory is that Nessie might now be dead, and he wants to comb the Loch's bottom for bones.

Dinosaur Hiding in the Loch?

A recent video showed suspicious movement in the Loch. But that was actually me swimming in the inhospitable waters, demonstrating that it's easy to fake a sighting.

The water was just a few degrees above freezing the day I went in, and it was murky and dark. There aren't even many fish brave enough to live in here. So what sort of monster would choose to call Loch Ness home?

Some have speculated that Nessie might be a plesiosaur, a type of dinosaur that resembles other lake monsters spotted around the world, and looks a lot like Nessie.

Adrian Shine, head of the Loch Ness Project, has spent 30 years trying to prove Nessie doesn't exist.

"I don't happen to believe that Loch Ness is Jurassic Park. I think it's about the last place on earth a warm water marine reptile of the Jurassic era would actually want to live," Shine said.

Shine said certain natural phenomenon like boat wakes or unusual currents created when warm surface water meets the cold water below.

These kinds of currents can make a floating log look like it's swimming upwind, and create visual illusions, Shine said. For science, eyewitnesses are not proof enough. But for me, they're enough to keep my imagination running wild.

ABCNews' Jonann Brady contributed to this report.

Video and photos at: http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/AroundTheWorld/Story?id=7185124&page=2

'Crazy Turtle Woman' transforms graveyard into maternity ward

May 29, 2009 -- Updated 1144 GMT (1944 HKT)

MATURA, Trinidad (CNN) -- With its white sand and clear, blue water, Trinidad's Matura Beach looks like a postcard. It's a far cry from its recent past, when leatherback sea turtle carcasses littered the ground and kept tourists away.

"Twenty years ago, this was a graveyard," Suzan Lakhan Baptiste said of the six-mile stretch of beach near her home.

"The stench was horrendous. You could smell it for miles," she said.

Saddened and frustrated, Baptiste launched a crusade to help end the slaughter of the gentle giants. Today, she and her group are succeeding: What was once a turtle graveyard is now a maternity ward -- one of the largest leatherback nesting colonies in the world.

It hasn't been an easy fight for Baptiste or the turtles.

For 100 million years, the creatures have traveled the world's oceans, outliving the dinosaurs. Over the last 30 years, they have become critically endangered worldwide because of fishing, pollution and hunting.

For centuries, they've been hunted throughout the Caribbean for their meat and fins, and also for their eggs, which some people prize as aphrodisiacs.

"Turtles are in serious trouble," Baptiste said.

Every year, female leatherbacks make their way onto the beach, laying their eggs deep in the sand. It is a long, complicated ritual during which the enormous, slow-moving animals are easy prey for poachers.

"Leatherbacks [are] very vulnerable," Baptiste said. "They cannot pull their head and flippers back into the shell. They have no sense of defense to actually protect themselves."

By the 1980s, nearly one in three turtles that nested on Matura Beach were killed. When the government asked for volunteers to help protect the endangered creatures, Baptiste and several others answered the call. In 1990, they started Nature Seekers, one of Trinidad's first environmental groups.

'Crazy Turtle Woman'

For years, Baptiste and her group patrolled the beaches every night of turtle nesting season. She often walked alone until sunrise.

Locals mocked her efforts, calling her the "Turtle Police" or "Crazy Turtle Woman," yet her dedication to the unpaid work was fierce; when it conflicted with her day job, she quit and found a new job.

Leatherbacks were a vital source of income for some members of her village, and the poachers who prowled the beaches with machetes could be threatening. When Baptiste's then-husband was injured during a patrol, she became more determined to stand her ground.

"I was very vigilant," she said, adding that at times, she even got into physical fights.

But Baptiste persisted, and a prestigious award from the United Nations Environment Program helped validate her efforts. She and her group also worked hard to convince the villagers that using the turtles for eco-tourism could create a more sustainable income.

"I wanted to show that a turtle is [worth] so much more to us alive than dead," Baptiste said.

Gradually, her message of conservation turned the tide of public opinion, and after nearly two decades under Baptiste's leadership, Nature Seekers has largely won its battle. Today, the leatherbacks' survival rate on Matura Beach is virtually 100 percent.

"Here, turtle slaughter is a thing of the past," Baptiste proclaimed.

Even "Papa George," a village elder who used to hunt leatherbacks with his father, can attest to the cultural shift.

"Suzan brought around the change," he said. "They don't kill the turtles anymore ... because of the visitors."

Nearly 10,000 tourists a year, most of whom are Trinidadian, now visit Matura Beach, and many locals make a living by providing them with accommodations, food and souvenirs.

Since the beach is a prohibited area during the nesting season, Nature Seekers' members act as guides, explaining the turtles' ancient rituals to visitors. In addition, Baptiste and her colleagues gather data on the enormous creatures, tagging and weighing as many leatherbacks as they can.

Watch Baptiste and her group weigh a leatherback turtle at night »

During peak season, they might see between 250 or 300 turtles a night. More than 5,000 leatherbacks nest in the area each year. The group's work is often cited as one of the most successful eco-tourism efforts in the Caribbean.

Still, turtle slaughter persists throughout the region, and Baptiste is working to help other groups learn from her success, most recently on the island of Dominica.

She finds joy in sharing her hard-earned knowledge.

"The passion that I feel, it burns me up," she said. "I have seen the fruits of our labor, and it can happen in every community."

Watch how Baptiste helped end the slaughter of turtles in her community »

Her efforts -- and those of many others around the region -- are making a difference. While leatherbacks are still critically endangered worldwide, the Caribbean population has begun to rebound.

"When I got started, a lot of people thought I was crazy," Baptiste said, and she admits that she sometimes wondered if they were right. Reflecting on what she and her team have accomplished, she now believes it was worth it.

"I love being crazy, you know?" she said, laughing. "Crazy with a passion, crazy with a dream -- totally environmentally crazy."

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/28/cnnheroes.suzan.lakhan.baptiste/index.html?eref=rss_topstories