Numbering Only 50 in 1996, Niger Subspecies of Giraffe Swells to 200 Today Thanks to Conservation Efforts
A crisp African dawn is breaking overhead, and Zibo Mounkaila is on the back of a pickup truck bounding across a sparse landscape of rocky orange soil.
The tallest animals on earth are here, the guide says, somewhere amid the scant green bush on one side, and the thatched dome villages on the other.
They’re here, but by all accounts, they shouldn’t be.
A hundred years ago, West Africa’s last giraffes numbered in the thousands and their habitat stretched from Senegal’s Atlantic Ocean coast to Chad, in the heart of the continent. By the dawn of the 21st century, their world had shrunk to a tiny zone southeast of the capital, Niamey, stretching barely 150 miles long.
The numbers of the Western subspecies dwindled so low that in 1996, they numbered a mere 50.
Instead of disappearing as many feared, though, the giraffes have bounced miraculously back from the brink of extinction, swelling to more than 200 today.
It’s an unlikely boon experts credit to a combination of concerned conservationists, a government keen for revenue, and a rare harmony with villagers who have accepted their presence - for now.
There are nine subspecies of giraffes in Africa, each distinguished by geographic location and the color, pattern and shape of their spotted coats.
The animals in Niger are known as Giraffa camelopardalis peralta, the most endangered subspecies in Africa. They have large orange-brown spots that fade into pale white legs.
Ten years ago, an estimated 140,000 giraffes inhabited Africa, according to Julian Fennessy, a Nairobi, Kenya-based conservation expert. Today, giraffes number less than 100,000, devastated by poaching, war, advancing deserts and exploding human populations that have destroyed and fragmented their habitats. Around half the giraffes live outside game parks in the wild, where they are more difficult to monitor and protect, Fennessy said.
Giraffe hunting is prohibited in many countries. And some, like Kenya, have taken giraffe meat off the menu of tourist restaurants that once served them up on huge skewers. Even so, Fennessy said the plight of giraffes has largely been overlooked in conservation circles.
“We’re trying to increase awareness, educate people, help governments put conservation practices in place,” said Fennessy, who founded the Giraffe Conservation Foundation to draw attention to the animals’ plight. “If we don’t, giraffe numbers are going to continue to drop.”
(The name Kwak means in Dutch “black-crowned night heron“. Wild birds of this species breed in or near the zoos of Amsterdam and Rotterdam cities).
Robert Kwak’s subject was the situation of birds in urban environments in the Netherlands.
Some species, he said, were doing well, like ring-necked parakeet, goldfinch, and greenfinch.
However, breeding bird numbers of most species are going down in urban environments, compared to the countryside.
More and more buildings are built. Yet, species depending on buildings for their nests, like swift, starling, house sparrow, and black redstart, are not doing well. Because builders often do not take birds’ needs into account.
Also, dunnocks, which nest in bushes, are going down in cities. Because of predation by cats?
This is a video about crested larks near a petrol station in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.
A pioneer species like the crested lark, which likes open sandy spaces where building often starts, is in trouble as well.
So, the situation for most urban breeding birds is not so good. However, as far as wintering birds are concerned, they are doing better in cities and towns than in the countryside. This is especially true for waterbirds (water in cities often does not freeze as soon as in the countryside).
Australia’s average surface temperature has risen more than 1 Fahrenheit degree since 1900. During roughly the same period, the body size of Australian passerine (perching) birds has declined by as much as 3.6 percent. Zoologist Janet L. Gardner of the Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues, who detected the shrinking trend in birds, suspect the two changes are no coincidence: here.
In the history of the first modern mammals (i.e., marsupials and placentals), during the Cretaceous, Europe is almost a Terra incognita. No fossils are known between 125 and 84 million years (my), and very few up to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (65 my). In the Cenomanian (99 my) of Charente-Maritime, the discovery of the scientist team from the Muséum1 (CNRS) and the University of Rennes 12 thus provides important information on the early history of these mammals in Europe. The discovery consists of a few teeth, collected after screenwashing of 5 tons of sediment. They belong to a new tiny mammal, named Arcantiodelphys marchandi, which is one of the oldest and most primitive marsupial known in the world. It is also the oldest known representative of the modern therians in Europe.
This discovery is the result of a research program of the University of Rennes 1 on the vertebrates from the Cretaceous of Charentes, in collaboration with the MNHN.
Arcantiodelphys marchandi improves our knowledge of the earliest stages of the marsupial history, so far known mostly from North American fossils. Its main significance is that the beginning of the marsupial history also involved Europe. Furthermore, it confirms faunal links between North America and Europe during the mid-Cretaceous. It is from these primitive marsupials from the “Euramerican” Cretaceous that the modern marsupials colonized the southern landmasses, South America and mainly Australia where they are nowadays well diversified. Opossums and kangaroos are extant representatives of this very old northern origin of the marsupials.
It was by Kars Veling, about Butterflies and dragonflies in cities: more than food for birds.
There are quite some butterfly species in Dutch cities and towns. For one category of butterflies, that is not surprising. These are the species who are not so selective about environments. Caterpillars of species like red admiral, peacock, and small tortoiseshell are dependent on stinging nettles, plants which grow even in city centres.
With some luck, one may also see more selective butterfly species in urban environments, like the comma, and meadow brown.
There are also some really specialized species in Dutch cities. As far as we know, the white-letter hairstreak in the Netherlands lives only in Heerlen city. The brown hairstreak numbers are going down in the countryside, but are stable in cities like Wageningen and Zwolle.
Kars Veling once saw 700 common blue butterflies in the ancient town Naarden. He had never seen so many together. Their caterpillars eat bird’s-foot trefoil, abundant in Naarden.
Essex skipper butterflies may also flourish in urban environments. Provided that lawns are not mown, destroying the eggs.
Brown argus butterflies also thrive in cities sometimes, especially on temporarily fallow land.
In an oak tree, there may be 50-70 butterfly or moth caterpillar species.
Dragonflies and damselflies in cities, like elsewhere, are dependent on clear water. In muddy water, their larvae will not be able to see far enough, and will die. If you want willow emerald damselflies in your city, you need trees as well as clear water: because the adults deposit their eggs in autumn in trees standing close to water. If the larvae hatch in spring, they drop straight into the water. So, don’t cut down all trees near the water. But also don’t let big trees grow all along the water, for then the water becomes too shady. Try to find a balance.
What’s a city-dweller to do — you want to help fight climate change, but does planting trees in the city really make a difference? Can urban forests help sequester carbon and offset emissions? Here.
Most of Eric’s talk was about bats. Construction should take into account bats’ needs. Sometimes, taking birds’ needs and bats’ needs into account in building go hand in hand. In Tilburg city, there is a plan for both swifts and bats in construction.
November 2009. The first bittern of the season was seen flying over WWT London Wetland Centre on 16 October, earlier than ever. It has now settled amongst the reeds. The bird has been arriving earlier and earlier in the year since it first appeared in 2002. It is not known why this pattern of early arrival seems to be emerging, but speculation at the centre points to weather patterns and winds on the continent, where this individual is believed to come from. The London Wetland Centre in Barnes is one of a very few locations in London to see a bittern, and certainly the closest the bird gets to the City centre.
Excellent predator
Keen birdwatchers at the centre have seen the bird several times in the Wildside of the reserve where it is likely to stay until February or March. Expectation is high for one or two more bitterns to fly into the centre, as there were three visiting the centre in 2008. Bitterns usually take a few weeks to find their winter feeding spot, but once they do they remain in their territory through the winter. The birds are excellent predators, feeding mostly on perch, but also prey on roach, frogs, eels and small birds. Known as shy creatures, they are excellent camouflage artists concealing themselves from larger predators and humans.
“The centre has been attracting high numbers of wintering birds in the past few weeks, and the bittern always brings excitement to the reserve because it is such a rare bird in the UK. Nationally significant duck numbers have already been reached, with hundreds of gadwall and shoveller seen on the main lake,” said Adam Salmon, Reserve Manager. “Other highlights include good counts of arriving redwing and Cetti’s warblers. There are still chiffchaff and blackcap around, some of which may over-winter, siskin and lesser redpoll are feeding now through the birch trees.”
Visitors can take in all the sights of the autumn migrations on self-guided tours through the site, or book a Wildlife Walk for Members tour on 7 November and 5 December. An introductory birdwatching course is being held on 10 January.
This is a video about carrion crows in Japan, using traffic to open nuts.
Yesterday, there was a BirdLife conference about birds in urban environments in the museum. Since very recently, more people live in the world´s cities and towns than in the countryside. This affects birds as well.
In the museum cinema, there was a lecture by urban planner Angelique Mergler on green urban planning; mentioning parks in New York City and Paris.
After her came biologist Marcel van der Tol from Zoetermeer town. His subject was 50 breeding bird species in Oosterheem. Oosterheem is a new neighborhood being built, with a park and ponds. Mr Van der Tol advises Zoetermeer local authorities on how to plan Oosterheem so that there will be at least 50 breeding bird species there.
Van der Tol said 23 species would almost certainly breed in Oosterheem. They include robin, collared dove, wood pigeon, moorhen, coot, mallard, tawny owl, kestrel, dunnock, chiffchaff, willow warbler, long-tailed tit, blackbird, song thrush, starling, wren, house sparrow, short-toed treecreeper, lesser whitethroat, blackcap, blue tit, great tit, magpie, jay, jackdaw, carrion crow, pheasant, and great crested grebe.
Species which might nest in Oosterheem as well, if helped by a little luck and authorities’ effort, include ring-necked parakeet, swift, sparrowhawk, great spotted woodpecker, green woodpecker, whitethroat, greenfinch, reed warbler, garden warbler, cuckoo, mute swan, and Egyptian goose.
Finally, a category of bird species which would be hard to attract to Oosterheem, which would require real luck and/or effort: long-eared owl, barn owl, stock dove, kingfisher (first nest ever in Zoetermeer this year), grey lag goose, oystercatcher, black-headed gull (there is a breeding colony of 500 couples elsewhere in Zoetermeer), common tern, icterine warbler, sedge warbler, black redstart, pied wagtail, bluethroat, reed bunting, linnet, tree sparrow, barn swallow, house martin (one breeding colony elsewhere in Zoetermeer), sand martin, goldfinch, pied flycatcher, spotted flycatcher, grey heron, tufted duck. And the hobby, with one couple nesting in Zoetermeer town centre now.
To get the maximum number of bird species to Oosterheem, authorities need to provide things like a nesting sandy wall for sand martins, and nest boxes for house martins.
Bird Atlas needs your bird records – Especially Ireland, Wales & Scotland: here.
Scorpionflies may have aided plant reproduction long before blossoms evolved
By Sid Perkins
An obscure group of scorpionflies with specialized mouthparts may have pollinated ancient plants millions of years before flowers evolved, a new study suggests.
Fossils indicate that before flowers evolved about 130 million years ago, most plants with seeds were wind-pollinated. Yet the pollen grains of some plants that lived in the prefloral era were too big to be wind-dispersed, say Conrad Labandeira, a paleoentomologist at Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Also, he notes, pollen receptors were hidden deep within some of those plants and wouldn’t have been readily exposed to windborne pollen.
Now, in the Nov. 6 Science, Labandeira and his colleagues propose that an ancient group of scorpionflies might be counted among the missing pollinators of such plants.
The researchers analyzed 21 specimens of scorpionflies representing 11 long-extinct species, with body lengths ranging from 3 to 28 millimeters. Most of these insects were preserved in rocks laid down as fine-grained sediments, but one had been preserved in amber, says Labandeira. The fossil record suggests that these creatures were rare but present in Eurasia throughout a 62-million-year interval that began around 164 million years ago, well before flowers evolved, and stretched into the early evolution of blooms.
All of these scorpionfly specimens have long, siphon-like mouthparts capable of sucking liquids — in one case, the proboscis is about one-third the length of the insect’s body. Because pollen grains could be too large to fit through the slim siphons, the researchers suggest that the pollen stuck to ridges or hairlike structures on the creatures’ mouthparts or face as they fed on nutrient-rich fluids produced by the plants. Then, the insects carried the pollen from plant to plant as they foraged, just as modern-day pollinators do.
Labandeira and his colleagues didn’t find any pollen on or around the fossil insects they analyzed. “That was really disappointing,” Labandeira notes. But, he adds, the pollen may have decomposed or otherwise not been preserved in the sediments for any number of reasons. On the other hand, the amber that entombed one well-preserved scorpionfly didn’t contain any pollen, either — which probably reflects a true absence of pollen in that case, possibly due to entrapment of the insect at a pollen-poor time of year.
Grains of pollen preserved with such specimens would be the missing piece of evidence to definitively link these scorpionflies to the pollination of ancient plants, says Jeff Ollerton, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Northampton in England. But he’s not surprised that pollen hasn’t been found. “Evidence for species interactions rarely fossilizes,” he notes.
Not long ago, this blog blogged about a big pike who tried to eat a big zander, causing both fish to die.
Today, in the museum, another big pike. It is now exhibited in the entrance hall, with a big carp bream which it had tried to eat in Peizermade in Drenthe province, still stuck inside its mouth.
