This ancient dwarf dolphin may have slurped its food like a walrus

By Sid PerkinsAug. 22, 2017 , 7:01 PM

You’d think a “toothed whale” would have teeth. But scientists examining the 30-million-year-old partial skulls of two dwarf dolphins found that not only were they missing their pearly whites, but the snub-nosed cetaceans likely slurped up their prey from the seafloor. The paleontologists who analyzed two partial skulls found in South Carolina—one recently discovered by a diver and the other unearthed from the same formation more than 30 years ago—put the long-extinct creature in a new genus dubbed Inermorostrum, which roughly translated from Latin means “defenseless snout.” 

Larger-than-normal holes that once carried blood vessels and nerves through the bones of the snout suggest the dolphin had enlarged lips needed to feed via suction, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The marine mammal may even have had short, walrus-like whiskers to better sense prey while grubbing through seafloor sediments, the researchers speculate.

Continued 

Scientists discover a new flower of Shetland

By Kenneth MacdonaldBBC Scotland Science Correspondent

16 August 2017

Scientists have discovered a brand new flower in Shetland.

It is a beauty.

A delicate golden bell of a flower, its throat flecked with tiny, blood-red spots - colours echoing the Lion Rampant.

It is a discreet beauty, though. Each flower is only slightly larger than a 50p piece.

Discreet and unique, because this is a new flower of Scotland. Or, more precisely, Shetland.

The flower was discovered by a team from Stirling's department of biological and environmental sciences led by post-doctoral researcher Dr Violeta Simon-Porcar, working with associate professor Dr Mario Vallejo-Marin at Stirling and Dr James Higgins at Leicester University.

It is being referred to as "Shetland's monkeyflower", because it is larger and its flowers are more open than previous monkeyflowers.

Continued

Rare butterfly spotted in Scotland for the first time since 1884

Elusive and endangered white-letter hairstreak discovered in a field in the Scottish borders could become the 34th species to live and breed in the country

Patrick Barkham

Thursday 17 August 2017 16.40 BSTLast modified on Thursday 17 August 2017 22.00 BST

Scotland has a new species of butterfly: the elusive and endangered white-letter hairstreak has been discovered in a field in Berwickshire, 100 metres from the English border.

It is the first time since 1884 that the butterfly has been sighted in Scotland, raising hopes that climate change has helped it become the 34th butterfly species to live and breed in the country.

“Climate change is a double-edged sword but it’s an exciting time to be in the Scottish borders,” said Paul Kirkland of Butterfly Conservation Scotland. “It’s not just butterflies but moths and dragonflies are moving north quite quickly.”

More than a quarter of Britain’s 59 butterfly species are spreading north, with insects such as the comma moving about six miles each year. In recent years, butterflies that were once only found in southern Britain have crossed the border in Scotland, including the comma and the small and Essex skippers. Within Scotland, species such as the ringlet, orange tip and peacock have moved rapidly north and into the Highlands.

continued

Numbers shrinking for Tasmania's weird but much-loved giant freshwater lobster

Federal government calls for more areas to be placed in reserve to protect the huge crayfish, the world’s largest invertebrate

Friday 18 August 2017 23.07 BSTLast modified on Saturday 19 August 2017 00.30 BST

The federal government has called for more areas of north-west Tasmania to be placed in reserve as part of a conservation plan designed to protect the endangered giant freshwater crayfish.

The crayfish, Astacopsis gouldi, can weigh up to 6kg and live for 60 years. Commonly called the giant freshwater lobster, it is the largest invertebrate in the world and endemic to the cool rivers of northern Tasmania, although habitat restriction and poaching have forced it to retract to areas west of Launceston.

There is no official population count but researcher Todd Walsh, who has been studying the species for 20 years, says the numbers are less than 20% of what they would have been pre-colonisation.

Walsh said locals had a deep affection for the weird creatures, which have been known to turn up on the footpaths of country towns and in the middle of paddocks.

“There was a lady that used to open up a gate every year to let a lobster go down to her dam, and then a few months later it would be back, wanting to go the other way,” he said. “It was just sitting there at the gate.”

continued

More than heat determines where wood frogs survive- via Herp Digest

Futurity, by Jeff  Mullhollem -Penn State 8/2/17

Precipitation may be nearly as important as temperature in figuring out which animals are in the most danger of decline or disappearance. That’s especially true for moisture-sensitive frogs and other amphibians, a new study suggests.

Researchers looked at long-term monitoring data from 746 wood frog populations in 27 study areas, from Tennessee to Canada. The data focused on how climatic variation affected population growth rates and how these relationships varied with respect to long-term climate.

Northward shifts in wildlife ranges may be expected in coming years or decades, says lead researcher Staci Amburgey, a doctoral student in ecology at Penn State, but that trend may depend nearly as much on demographic weather patterns as warming temperatures. And in the case of wood frogs, other factors are also at play.

As reported in Global Change Biology, sensitivity to changes in climate cannot be predicted simply by knowing locations within the species’ climate envelope. Many climate processes don’t affect population growth rates as expected, based on range position. Processes such as species interactions, local adaptation, and interactions with the physical landscape likely have an effect on the frogs’ responses.

“Wood frogs are really broadly distributed, so I don’t think the species is going to be declining anytime soon,” Amburgey says. “But having said that, it appears that populations in the southern portion of the wood frog’s range are vulnerable if we have more hot, dry summers. Certainly frogs in the southern part of their range are more sensitive to hot years than frogs farther north, where the conditions will not push their physiological tolerances.”

For the study, researchers did more than just document where wood frogs exist and where they don’t. Instead, they analyzed reproduction rates by counting egg masses in spring pools to determine where the amphibian’s populations were growing or declining—trying to determine how each population was responding to year-to-year differences in climate.

(Credit: Staci Amburgey/Penn State)

Wood frogs are an ideal species to study to develop predictions about how animals will respond to warming conditions, says David Miller, assistant professor of wildlife population ecology.

They are cold-weather frogs with a range that extends farther north than other amphibians. As such, they have evolved with some amazing adaptations, not the least of which is the ability to survive freezing solid in winters.

These frogs are already close to their max heat

“In a warming world, wood frogs at the southern end of their range may be in trouble. By freezing solid, they thrive as far north as Alaska. They spend winters near the surface, and they are one of the first species to come out when things thaw.

“Then they head immediately to small wetlands in the forest that tend to dry out during the summer to breed, and their tadpoles develop really quickly and get out into the woods early. They are an important part of our forested ecosystems in the Northeast and a truly unique species.”

The Amphibian Decline Working Group supported by the US Geological Survey’s John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis supported the work.

Source: Penn State

Original Study DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13817