Animal of the Week -- March 10, 2008

Where the hell has the time gone? March is half way over already. But the rapid passing of a few months is nothing for this week's animal of the week Pseudobulweria becki (Beck's petrel), which has been missing, presumed extinct, for the past 80 years.

Petrels are sea birds related to fulmars and albatrosses, collectively known as the tubenoses due to the structure of their nostrils atop their bills. Some petrels are among the most numerous species of sea birds. But not Beck's petrel -- known from two specimens collected in the 1920s, it had not been reliably spotted since 1929. Repeated unconfirmed sitings kept alive the hopes that a population of this species was clinging on in the western Pacific, but the similarity of Beck's and the closely related Tahiti petrel made many ornithologists sceptical of their survival.

Last week, however, Hadoram Shirihai -- an Israeli ornithologist with a rep for discovering new species and the only person to have visited all sub-Antarctic islands to see all the species of albatross -- reported photographing 30 or so birds feeding alongside Tahiti petrels in the Bismark Archipelago northeast of New Guinea. Smaller in size than their companions, he recognised them as the errant Beck's petrel. The group contained adults and juvenile birds, showing that a breeding population is hanging on somewhere in the region. The discoverer of the species, Rollo Beck, suggested that this species bred in low lying atolls in Melanesia. Secretive birds, most petrels return to breeding grounds at night making them especially difficult to track.

Petrels have a habit of hovering above the surface of the sea, their feet just touching the water as they pick off surface dwelling plankton and small fish. This habit is the origin of their name, which is derived from St Peter who was said to have walked on water, his feelings towards plankton, however, are lost to hagiography.

The exciting news about the rediscovery of the Beck's petrel resurrects hope for other missing species such as the Newcastle Brown Whale, the Guiness Black Stoat, the Famous Grouse and the Kronenbourg sixteen-sixty-doormouse.

Sorry!

Animal of the Week -- March 03, 2008

Hello All!

I apologise if any of you chaps had nightmares about the snakeheads slithering their way to your doors with the limb-like fins and toothy jaws. I dare say that the majority of you living in the UK had any piscine pursuers shaken from your dreams as you were shaken from your beds. It is a curious coincidence that shortly before Britain's biggest earthquake in nearly 20 years, I was reading a passage in Darwin's peerless journal The Voyage of the Beagle that described an enormous earthquake in Chile. On February 20, 1835, the edge of Chile was shifted nearly a foot upwards by tectonic activity. Fortunately for Darwin, at that time visiting the Chiloe archipelago, he experienced only tremors of the earthquake. Concepcion, the city above the epicentre was utterly ruined when Darwin arrived a few days later, the devestation too harrowing for Darwin to put into words.

Also present on the Chiloe archipelago on February 20, 1835 were representatives of this week's animal of the week Pseudalopex fulvipes (Darwin's fox or Darwin's zorro). This small fox-like dog, dark grey with rufous trim, is related to other South American grey foxes on the mainland, but is proportionately longer in body and shorter in limb. Until the 1970s, the species was thought confined to Chiloe, but a small population was discovered some 600 km away on the mainland, at the other end of the now submerged land bridge that linked Chiloe to the mainland until sea-levels rose at the end of the last ice age.

Darwin's fox is critically endangered with fewer than 100 in the mainland population and around 250–500 on Chiloe. Charles Darwin was the first European scientist to observe the fox, specifically one fox watching curiously the officers of The Beagle work on the ship, at which point he made his own contribution to the endangerment of the canine that would come to bear his name as this, typically dry yet amusing, passage from The Voyage shows:

A fox (Canis fulvipes), of a kind said to be peculiar to the island and very rare in it, and which is a new species, was sitting on the rocks. He was so intently absorbed in watching the work of the officers that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the head with my geological hammer. This fox, more curious or more scientific, but less wise, than the generality of his brethren, is now mounted in the museum of the Zoological Society.

Genius!

Animal of the Week -- February 25, 2008

Morning/Afternoon/Evening all,

As the days lengthen and the sun makes itself felt, thoughts might turn to long summer days whiled away on the banks of a river...especially if a friend of your posts photos of your teenage selves enjoying such a halcyon day on Facebook. But how keen would we have been launch ourselves from the overhanging tree into the turbid stream had we suspected the presence of Channa argus (northern snakehead) or C micropeltus (giant snakehead) in the slow-moving muddy-bottomed river?

Last week, a Lincolnshire angler fishing for pike got a surprise when his sprat attracted the attention of a more exotic fresh water predator 60 cm long and with a mouth crammed with nasty sharp pointy teeth. The fish was later identified as a giant snakehead, a voracious predator from southeast Asia. Capable of growing 2 m long, giant snakeheads are valued as sports fish and food fish, but treated with caution as mothers have been known to attack people to protect their young. Snakeheads breath air rather than extract oxygen from water with their gills as most other fish do, and they can survive several days out of water, and rather terrifyingly these toothy monsters can crawl overland from pool to pool, from one water catchment to another. If you are terrified by the idea of a 2 m giant snakehead crawling into your front room in Lincoln, fear not. These fish need warm water to survive, and the one caught in Lincolnshire had likely been released only very recently by a tropical fish enthusiast whose tanks had been outgrown.

Phew! Right? The more attentive of you will note that this week's animal is also the northern snakehead as well as the giant. The former is similar to the latter in size, habits, ferocity, and ability to crawl over land, but what makes it more terrifying for those of us in temperate latitudes, is that, living in northern China and Russia, these fish can very happily survive in colder climes. Already across the USA, northern snakeheads have invaded lakes and rivers, wreaking destruction to fisheries and wildlife in their wake. One population in Maryland was thought to have become established after a man purchased a pair from a Chinese food shop to make his sick sister a traditional remedy.

Fortunately for us Europeans, trade in these leviathans is banned for both aquarists and enthusiasts of Chinese gastronomic remedies. So we are protected from the northerns for now... but what if that giant snakehead wasn't a recent escapee, it's been a mild winter after all, and what with global warming, perhaps they are breeding in the UK!! Perhaps there's a giant snakehead slithering to your door right now!!!

Thank god I live on the third floor; although I may have to rethink my summer swims in Hampstead ponds. Dammit!

Animal of the Week -- January 11, 2008

Hello and apologies for slackness,

I so enjoyed the mole the other week that I wanted to give it plenty of time to be AOTW... or I just spent the last week drunk... one of the two, let's go with the mole story.

This week's animal of the week is kind of one animal used as a representative of a whole species. For this week's animal of the week is Electra the golden eagle who has become the first eagle recipient of successful cataract removal. Golden eagles (Aquila chriseatos) are widely regarded as some of the best hunters among the birds of prey. Soaring high over highlands and wild spaces across the entire northern hemisphere from Kamchatka to Kinross in either direction, they are able to spot a mountain hair loping through the furze from two miles away.

Electra of Greek myth was complicit in the murder of her mother Clytemnestra and step father Aegisthus to avenge their murder of her father Agamemnon. Electra the eagle was named after her failure to spot -- eagle eyed indeed -- an electricity pylon in Mull. The collision resulted in severe burns. Apparently the eagle's slack judgement was not due to already poor eyesight but actually caused the traumatic cataracts, leaving poor Electra as blind as a bat -- though presumably not as blind as a spectacled bat (Pteropus conspicillatus).

Fortunately Electra was rescued and taken to Wings Over Mull, a centre for sick and injured birds in the highlands and islands. Staff noticed Electra's problem sight and ordered the first ever operation to remove cataracts from a golden Eagle. A short surgery later and Electra now has good eyesight in one eye. Though not a clean bill of health, because her eyesight is not fully recovered in both eyes she will not be able to return to the wild, but she has been housed with a male golden eagle with a broken wing.

Such pioneering operations offer hope for other animals with poor eyesight: such as the spectacled bear, the monocled fox, and the astigmatism weevil (some or none of which may be fictional).

On January 30th, the day I eventually sent the last animal of the week, by pure coincidence, the rare genius that is Howard Hardiman did a mole in his excellent when pigeons weep web cartoon series, Do have a browse, but be warned, some of the entries are a little, er, racey.

All the best!

Animal of the Week -- January 28, 2008

Hello Ani-freaks!

Go see a wonderful post-it comic featuring animals (and other things) called When Pigeons Weep, on Jan 16 there is a troglobyte!

This week's animal of the week is a bane of the lives those two guardian-occupations of the UK landscape: farmers and gardeners. Although these two groups of people are renowned for their compassion and tolerance towards wildlife, nothing gets their backs up so much as this week's animal Talpa europaea (European mole) -- well, except maybe mice, rats, mealy bugs, birds of prey, slugs, deer, pigeons, badgers, rooks, aphids, pheasants, cats, and vine weevils. And foxes.

Their habit of digging extensive underground tunnels terminating in small mounds of earth has pitted moles the world over against lawn-proud gardeners. But actually the moles' toils not only aerate and break up soil, but their prodigious consumption of leatherjackets and other pests of crops and garden plants are actually a benefit to people who work the land. And while they may eat those other great processors of soil, earthworms, they cannot consume enough to affect the latter's benefit to gardeners and farmers.

Immortalised in Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows as home-loving, timid fellows, moles may be nearly blind but they are voracious predators, consuming nearly two-thirds their own body weight a day in grubs and worms. They have toxic saliva that paralyses their invertebrate prey enabling them to build up a larder for lean times. It was a pondering about the nature of toxic mammals that started animal of the week some3 and a bit years ago, turns out loads of insectivorous mammals have toxic saliva.

Among all the crocodiles, mosquitoes, tigers, sharks, tyrannosaurs, and snakes that have been animal of the week, European moles are only the second to be blamed for the death of an English king. William III, of Orange, was out riding in the early 18th century when his horse trod in a mole tunnel and threw its rider. The resulting broken collarbone led to pneumonia (ED: can that happen? PH: ED, who is ED?), and the pneumonia led to the accession of Queen Anne, prior to which the Jacobites, hoping to seize the opportunity to reinstate a Scottish monarch, were commonly heard to toast "the little man in his velvet jacket". The other regicidal AOTW is, of course, the lamprey

Want to help people find out about moles? Join the People's Trust for Endangered Species in their MOLEWATCH. Report sighting of moles or more likely molehills here: http://www.ptes.org/molewatch/. Though not endangered, changing land use and increasing floods may threaten moles. When I was a kiddywink on the farm, if the river flooded the moles would gather on the small patches of unsubmerged ground, the dogs -- Goldie, Shelly, and Bella -- would like nothing more than unearthing the stranded moles. The carnage was a horrific sight. I am sorry moles. I couldn't stop it!

All the best!

Animal of the Week -- January 21, 2008

Word!

I am again amazed by the early appearance of a harbinger of spring, but I fear that I bang on about this every year, so I'll skirt around the issue by not mentioning the full name of the animal -- despite it being mid January, I saw five or six "Bs" this weekend just gone! But anyway, this sign of climate change has nothing to do with this week's animal of the week, or does it? This week's animal is Boulengerula niedeni (the Sagalla caecilian).

This limbless animal has been picked as one of ten amphibians to be the focus of conservation efforts in the next wave of the EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct & Globally Endangered) programme, which is run by the Zoological Society of London to protect the most vulnerable and evolutionary isolated animals, drawing attention to some of the less glamorous species. Caecilians may look like earthworms, but they are actually a highly specialised offshoot of the amphibian family tree inhabiting the leaf litter and top soil of equatorial forests.

Sagalla caecilians are found in a 30 km square region of southern Kenya, and while they might be quite numerous in that small area, being found nowhere else, they are incredibly sensitive to changes in or degradation of that environment. In a marvellous coincidence with last week's animal, Sagalla caecilians have tentacles beneath their eyes, or rather below where their eyes should be, for they, like many other caecilians are blind. A close relative of the Sagalla caecilian, Boulengerula taitanus, has a bizarre maternal habit -- females brooding a clutch of eggs develop a thick layer of skin on which the young, unable to eat other foods, nourish themselves without apparent detriment to their mother's wellbeing.

Turns out AOTW has featured EDGE species since the start, the first edition was one of their highlighted mammals, the solenodon (http://animal-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2004/10/animal-of-week-october-25-2004-first.html), and several others flop, slither or flounder around my backfiles in the webzoo (the baiji http://animal-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2004/10/animal-of-week-october-25-2004-first.html; and the giant salamander http://animal-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2005/05/animal-of-week-may-30-2005-giant.html).

Let's just hope that the Sagalla caecilian fares better than the baiji, which is now presumed extinct. I suppose this amphibian has family on its side. You don't want to mess with caecilians, you do and you'll wake up with a horse's head in your bed.

Animal of the Week -- January 21, 2008

Word!

I am again amazed by the early appearance of a harbinger of spring, but I fear that I bang on about this every year, so I'll skirt around the issue by not mentioning the full name of the animal -- despite it being mid January, I saw five or six "Bs" this weekend just gone! But anyway, this sign of climate change has nothing to do with this week's animal of the week, or does it? This week's animal is Boulengerula niedeni (the Sagalla caecilian).

This limbless animal has been picked as one of ten amphibians to be the focus of conservation efforts in the next wave of the EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct & Globally Endangered) programme, which is run by the Zoological Society of London to protect the most vulnerable and evolutionary isolated animals, drawing attention to some of the less glamorous species. Caecilians may look like earthworms, but they are actually a highly specialised offshoot of the amphibian family tree inhabiting the leaf litter and top soil of equatorial forests.

Sagalla caecilians are found in a 30 km square region of southern Kenya, and while they might be quite numerous in that small area, being found nowhere else, they are incredibly sensitive to changes in or degradation of that environment. In a marvellous coincidence with last week's animal, Sagalla caecilians have tentacles beneath their eyes, or rather below where their eyes should be, for they, like many other caecilians are blind. A close relative of the Sagalla caecilian, Boulengerula taitanus, has a bizarre maternal habit -- females brooding a clutch of eggs develop a thick layer of skin on which the young, unable to eat other foods, nourish themselves without apparent detriment to their mother's wellbeing.

Turns out AOTW has featured EDGE species since the start, the first edition was one of their highlighted mammals, the solenodon (http://animal-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2004/10/animal-of-week-october-25-2004-first.html), and several others flop, slither or flounder around my backfiles in the webzoo (the baiji http://animal-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2004/10/animal-of-week-october-25-2004-first.html; and the giant salamander http://animal-of-the-week.blogspot.com/2005/05/animal-of-week-may-30-2005-giant.html).

Let's just hope that the Sagalla caecilian fares better than the baiji, which is now presumed extinct. I suppose this amphibian has family on its side. You don't want to mess with caecilians, you do and you'll wake up with a horse's head in your bed.