New horned dinosaur species identified from museum's fossils

A new species of horned dinosaur has been identified from fossils held in a Canadian museum for 75 years.

The fossils had previously been classified as belonging to a different dinosaur group.

But Nick Longrich, from the University of Bath, found they closely resembled a dinosaur from the south-west US.

He says the remains represent a new species of the dinosaur Pentaceratops - a smaller cousin of the familiar horned plant-eater Triceratops.

Details of the research have been published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

'Undiscovered dinosaurs'

The paper contains a formal description of the animal including its new name - Pentaceratops aquilonius.

It was a buffalo-sized plant eater that lived from about 75 million years ago.

Dr Longrich also studied another horned dinosaur held within the museum's collection.

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No croaking: New frog species groans, coughs

CHERRY HILL, N.J. (AP) — Scientists have discovered a new frog species in southern New Jersey that makes some un-froglike sounds.

The Atlantic Coast leopard frog groans and makes coughing noises rather than croaking sounds. The unfamiliar call attracted the notice of wildlife experts several years ago in Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Morris County.

They photographed the frog and concluded it wasn't the northern leopard frog or southern leopard frog.

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Chinese zoos plundering Zimbabwe’s wildlife

Adam Cruise / 1 hour ago

The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF), a non-profit wildlife organization , has issued a disturbing report claiming that wildlife in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park is being abducted and shipped to Chinese zoos. 

ZCTF first highlighted this issue in April earlier this year when they were tipped that an Australian national in collaboration with a Zimbabwean were looking for elephants in Hwange to earmark for Chinese zoos. Now eye-witness reports from tourists visiting the park are coming in about blatant live captures of baby elephants. The elephants are then taken to Mtshibi Capture Unit about 7 kilometres from Hwange’s Main Camp.

So far 34 baby elephants between the ages of 2 ½ and 5 years old, 7 lions and about 10 sable antelope have been rounded up for shipping but investigators were not allowed to get close enough to the compound to photograph as security there has become extremely tight. It is expected that the animals will be shipped by container trucks to Maputo in Mozambique where they will be transferred to a livestock freighter and sent on an arduous sea passage to China.

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Galápagos Islands wildlife threatened by battle between locals and scientists

Researchers’ souvenir outlet has to close after pressure from local traders and the Ecuador government, denying Darwin group a precious $8,000 a week in sales to tourists

Robin McKie

The Observer, Sunday 30 November 2014

Wildlife on the Galápagos is under a new threat. The scientific group that has helped to preserve the islands’ giant tortoises and other unique creatures is on the brink of closure – because of a row about a gift shop.

Local traders have objected to the Charles Darwin Foundation running a souvenir shop at its research station at Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz island. They claim it was siphoning business from their own shops and in July local officials, backed by the government of Ecuador which owns the Galápagos, ordered the station’s shops to be shut.

The impact for the foundation – which carries out wildlife research in the Galápagos and provides key scientific advice on protecting wildlife there– has been devastating, its executive director Swen Lorenz told theObserver.

“The shop provides us with about $8,000 a week in income from the sale of souvenirs to tourists. Losing that key source of funds was bad enough but it has also affected other donations. People don’t see why they should give us money if the Ecuador government will not support us by letting us run a gift shop.

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Mass extinction led to many new species of bony fish

Today, ray-finned fish, which belong to the bony fish, are by far the most biodiverse fish group in both salt- and freshwater. Their spectacular variety of forms ranges from eels, tuna, flounders and angler fish all the way to seahorses. With around 1,100 species, the second most biodiversegroup is the cartilaginous fish, which are almost exclusively marine and include sharks, rays and chimaeras. Exactly why bony fish managed to prevail in different habitats is the subject of debate: Do they have a better body plan, which is suited to more ecological niches than that of the cartilaginous fish? Or are other factors involved in their successful distribution? Paleontologists from the University of Zurich now reveal that climate catastrophes in the past played a crucial role in the dominance of ray-finned fish today.

Cartilaginous fish greatly depleted by extinction events

The scientists studied the changes in biodiversity among cartilaginous and bony fish during the Permian and Triassic periods around 300 to 200 million years ago – an interval marked by several serious extinction events. They evaluated the global scientific literature on bony and cartilaginous fish from the last 200 years and collected data on diversity and body size, the latter providing an indication of the fish's position in the food chains in the seas and freshwater.

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