19th century bomb found in whale

Scientists have retrieved a weapon fragment from a whale that suggests it may have swum its first strokes not long after the American Civil War. The fragment is part of a time delay bomb that was introduced in 1879 and manufactured until 1885. Scientists say it is rare to find a whale over 100 years old but believe some may reach 200. The bowhead whale was killed by indigenous hunters off Alaska as part of their subsistence quota. Experts think the wound was inflicted in about 1890. But the BBC's Catherine Utley says that 19th Century hunters would not have been bothered with a young whale, so it could have already been around for some time before that date. She says having the weapon lodged in its shoulder might have been uncomfortable for the whale, but it must have got used to it. The conical fragment, about 9cm (3.5 in) long, was embedded in the shoulder blade.

Full Article | Source: BBC News

Crop circle season starts in Wiltshire

Crop circle season has started early this year but in a familiar setting after this impressive three-dimensional pyramid design was discovered at Milk Hill in Wiltshire. The 175-foot formation was spotted by early morning commuters on the A361 Devises to Alton Barnes road. Just metres from the chalk White Horse on the slope at Milk Hill, the pattern consists of a pyramid shape within a circle, surrounded by four smaller circles. Milk Hill is common ground for crop circles with some of the world's most impressive formations appearing there each year. Crop circle expert Steve Alexander said: "There seems to be a different crop circle at Milk Hill every year but each time they grow more spectacular. "At first glance it looks like a three-dimensional view of a pyramid. Numerogically this formation seems to deal with the relationship between three and five.

"A two-dimensional representation of the pyramid is a triangle and has three points whereas a three-dimensional has five." Traditionally formations tend to appear in July or August but despite the problems of the recent bad weather in Britain enthusiast claim more are developing early on in the year. Steve added: "There have been quite a few appearing as early as April, which is outstanding really. To have this many this soon is unheard of.

Full Article | Source: Daily Mail

Albino mountain goat spotted in Italy

Forest rangers in the northern Italian Alps have confirmed for the first time the existence of an albino mountain goat — and named him "Snowflake." Rangers took photos of the albino capra ibex climbing with its mother Sunday at about 10,000 feet above the Les Laures valley in the northwestern Val d'Aosta region, said Christian Chioso, a regional wildlife official."This is the only one ever documented, the only one ever seen," Chioso said by telephone on Monday. He said albinism is rare in any species and has not been previously documented among the capra ibex, a type of wild mountain goat with large curved horns that lives in mountainous areas.

Chioso estimated the albino animal is about a year old.Hikers had been reporting seeing a white animal at higher elevations for months, and forest rangers have been keeping a lookout, Chioso said.The goat was seen near the boundaries of the Big Paradise National Park, which was established to protect the species. Chiaso said about 4,000 wild mountain goats populate the park.
Full Article | Source: Yahoo! News

Interview with an ape

The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and three orangutans. But if you think Iowa might be a strange place for them to live, don't say it out loud … these apes understand English. You can talk to the apes, and they know what you are saying.The residents of the Great Ape Trust are part of groundbreaking language research where the apes are being taught to communicate with humans by pressing 350 lexigrams -- symbols that appear on a screen and represent thoughts and objects.The superstar is 26-year-old Kanzi, whom Bill Fields has been working with for years. To communicate, Fields speaks to Kanzi, who then points to the lexigrams to respond and demonstrate a level of understanding. "Qualitatively, there is no difference between Kanzi's language and my language," Fields said. "It's a matter of degree." The key to ensuring they grasp the language, the researchers said, is to start teaching them when they are young, just like you would with human babies. "Language is culturally acquired. Its not learned," said Fields. "It's acquired in the immediate postnatal antogyny of the organisms life. The only organism capable of learning language are babies."

They've been communicating with bonobos through the keyboard for almost three years, relying on a technique developed in 1971 and also used at the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University and other facilities. At the Great Ape Trust, researchers said the apes would likely never be able to vocalize words like humans; they are limited by the range of their vocal chords among other things. However, Fields swears he has heard Kanzi try to say "thank you."
Full Article | Source: ABC News

Do animals have emotions ?

In his latest book, Pleasurable Kingdom, ethologist Jonathan Balcombe tells a nice story of two fish crows he observed on Assateague Island off the coast of Virginia. "They first engaged in flight play then, over the next 10 minutes, one bird (always the same one) repeatedly sidled up to the other, leaned over and pointed his/her beak down, exposing the nape. The other bird responded by gently sweeping his/her bill through the feathers as though searching for parasites. There was every indication that they were mates or good buddies, and that their contact was as pleasurable for both giver and receiver as a massage or caress between two humans." All the signs are that many animals can experience pleasure. There is also ample evidence they feel joy, especially during play. I once saw a young elk in Rocky Mountain National Park run across a snowfield, jump in the air and twist his body while in flight, stop, catch his breath, and do it again and again. Buffalo have been seen playfully running onto and sliding across ice, excitedly bellowing as they do so. While watching elephants in the Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya, I noticed one that walked very slowly.

Elephant expert Iain Douglas-Hamilton told me that this female elephant, Babyl, had been crippled for years, but the other members of the herd never left her behind. They would walk a while and then stop and look around to see where she was. Depending on how she was doing, they would either wait or go on. Sometimes the matriarch even fed Babyl. The elephants had nothing to gain by helping her as she could do little for them. The only obvious conclusion was that their kindness and care was unconditional. Out of friendship and empathy they adjusted their behaviour to allow Babyl to remain with the group.

Life confusing for two-headed snakes

The two-headed monsters of myth may have a basis in reality. Two-headed snakes are rare but not unheard of, and one recently found in Spain is giving scientists an opportunity to study how the anomaly affects their ability to hunt and mate. "We hear of one every several years," said Gordon Burghardt, a herpetologist at the University of Tennessee who has studied several two-headed snakes. The snake in Spain, discovered near the village of Pinoso, is a two-month-old non-venomous ladder snake Elaphe scalaris. It is about eight inches (20 centimeters) long. It's probably lucky it was captured—its chances of surviving in the wild are nil, said Burghardt. "Just watching them feed, often fighting over which head will swallow the prey, shows that feeding takes a good deal of time, during which they would be highly vulnerable to predators," said Burghardt.

"They also have a great deal of difficulty deciding which direction to go, and if they had to respond to an attack quickly they would just not be capable of it." And that's assuming that both heads are hungry at the same time, and both are interested in pursuing the same prey. "Having two heads would be a hindrance in the wild," agreed James Badman of Arizona State University. "It would be much harder to catch prey." Arizona State was home to a two-headed king snake that was found as a baby. It lived for nearly 17 years in captivity at the university.
Full Article | Source: National Geographic

New frog species found in Thailand

A new species of mountain frog that changes colour in response to its surroundings has been discovered in northeast Thailand, a biologist said Wednesday. The Odorrana aureola, known locally as the Phu Luang Cliff frog after the national park where it was found, can grow to 80 millimeters (3.5 inches) and has a green body which occasionally turns brown, researchers said."It reflects its surrounds," said Tanya Chan-ard, curator of Bangkok's National Science Museum, who studied the frog with a team of government biologists and researchers.Tanya told AFP it was the world's newest species of mountain frog, and was found only in Phu Luang National Park, which covers parts of the three mountainous northeastern Thai provinces.The frog can only be found at waterfalls and creeks between 1,000 and 1,500 metres (3,300 and 4,900 feet) above sea level, he added.

"We found the frog quite some time ago but we began seriously studying it at the DNA level last year," said Tanya, who presented his findings at a seminar in Bangkok on Tuesday.The team's findings were confirmed by US-based experts with the natural history journal Fieldiana last year, he added.Researchers do not know how many of the Odorrana aureola are in the Thai wild, but Tanya said there were probably not very many as they did not breed very often.