Mother's Day: animal moms with their cute babies

Mother's Day should not  be limited to humans alone. Even animals take care of their youngs with the best they could. 

Red panda and cubs

Cat and kitten

Dolphin and calf

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Big mouth! Super rare megamouth shark caught off Japan sheds light on life of this mysterious creature of the deep

A rare megamouth shark has been caught in waters off the coast of Japan. The animal was caught accidentally by fishermen.

An autopsy was performed on the 1,500 pound female shark, while onlookers watched the proceedings. Biologists believe the animal lived around 2,600 feet underwater.

This is only the 58th time in history members of this rare species has been captured or seen by humans. The first megamouth shark was caught in 1976, near Hawaii. The unfortunate shark was caught by an anchor, belonging to a U.S. Naval vessel. When this first animal was discovered, the find forced marine biologists to develop new classifications for family genus of shark.

Despite their large mouths, the docile animals are filter-feeders who consume vast quantities of krill to survive. Mouths are used to filter large quantities of water, straining out the small, protein-rich organisms. They are believed to grow to about 17 feet in length.

Megamouth sharks are rarely seen by humans, but they are known to inhabit the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. They have only been spotted 13 times in waters off Japan. Sperm whales are their only known predator which can stretch more than 60 feet in length.

A fishing expedition off the coast of the Philippines also accidentally caught one of the rare animals in a fishing net. The 1,100 pound creature died after capture, and was brought to shore. There, the shark was butchered and eaten.

By examining this specimen, biologists hope to uncover information about the species. They also hope to learn about how the reclusive animals behave deep underwater.

"Along the inner lining of its gills are rows of cartilage-cored, finger-like gill rakers, which the animal almost certainly uses to strain food from the surrounding seawater. Known prey of the Megamouth Shark consists entirely of animals [that eat plankton], Yet most plankton is found near the surface, so it is something of a mystery how Megamouth manages to find enough to eat," Elasmo Research, a group dedicated to shark education, wrote on their website.

Just a few days ago, fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico caught an elusive goblin shark, which was the first ever captured in those waters. That animal survived the ordeal, and was released back into its native habitat.

More than 1,500 people gathered to watch the autopsy of the megamouth shark. Now, the remains are on display at the museum.

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"Pinocchio Rex": T. rex's long-snouted cousin discovered

Dead men tell no lies, but perhaps dead dinosaurs do. A new dinosaur species found in China and nicknamed "Pinocchio Rex" was a long-snouted cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex.

The narrow-nosed beast was slightly smaller and more slender than T. rex, but was still a top predator, researchers say. It roamed the Earth more than 66 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period, just before the space-rock impact that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs.

The new creature heralds the existence of a new clade, or group, of dinosaurs, according to the study detailed May 7 in the journal Nature Communications.

"People have a picture of tyrannosaurus apex predators -- the biggest, baddest, meanest dinosaurs," said study researcher Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland.

The new dinosaur fits that image in some ways, but not quite as closely as T. rex does. Although big and at the top of the food chain, the long-nosed dino wouldn't have been able to "crunch through bone" like T. rex, Brusatte told Live Science. [Image Gallery: The Life of T. Rex]

Long-nosed dinos

Researchers previously found the complete skull and parts of the neck, back, hind limbs and tail of the new dinosaur, Qianzhousaurus sinensis, at a construction site in the Nanxiong Formation in southeastern China. Brusatte and his colleagues then analyzed the fossils, which are now housed at the Ganzhou Museum in Ganzhou City, China.

The new specimen had a long snout with many teeth, and horns on its nose. The creature probably weighed a little less than a ton and was probably 25 to 30 feet (7.5 to 9 meters) long, compared with a full-grown T. rex, which weighed about 5 tons and was about 40 feet (12 m) long, the researchers said.

"It really is a beautiful specimen," Brusatte said.

Previously, scientists had discovered two other long-snouted tyrannosaur fossils, from the Alioramus genus, in Mongolia, but researchers had debated whether these represented a new class of dinosaur or merely juveniles of a known tyrannosaur.

'Pinocchio Rex,' which is twice the size of these other dinosaurs and was close to adulthood when it perished, offers "pretty clear evidence" that these long-snouted fossils represent a new group of tyrannosaurs, Brusatte said. The fact that specimens have been found from Mongolia to southeastern China suggests the animals were fairly widespread, he added.

Top predator?

The long-muzzled beast likely lived alongside other tyrannosaurs, such as Tarbosaurus, the Asian equivalent of T. rex. But "Pinnochio Rex" didn't compete with those species directly, because it probably hunted other, smaller prey, researchers said.

"It's a cool specimen," said Thomas Holtz, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland, in College Park, who was not involved in the study but was a reviewer on the paper. "It helps show that tyrannosaurs were pretty diverse and weren't all the big bruisers that Tyrannosaurus or Tarbosaurus were."

Brusatte and colleagues said Pinocchio Rex was a "top predator" in its ecosystem, likely feeding on small, feathered dinosaurs or lizards.

David Burnham, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, said the description of the specimen's long snout and tiny front teeth more resembles a fish-eating creature such as a crocodile than a top predator.

Though that idea is interesting, Brusatte said, there are many anatomical differences between long-snouted, fish-eating crocodiles and the long-snouted tyrannosaurs.

Mark Norell, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, agreed with Brusatte's interpretation. "I think [the new specimen is] fairly closely related to Alioramus," the previously discovered long-snouted dinosaurs, Norell told Live Science.

The study researchers say they expect more specimens from this species and others will be discovered in Asia in the coming years.

"People are finding new species of dinosaur about once a week," Brusatte said. "China is the frontier in paleontology now."

Source: Here

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Acid-spewing beetle inspires hot foam-spewing ATMs to deter thieves

Beetles that spew acid at predators have inspired inventors to create what may be the next wave of security devices for automated teller machines (ATMs). Their new system would eject hot foam at any would-be thieves attempting to rob the machine.

Bombardier beetles use a mixture of hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, along with other chemicals, in a potent chemical defense. This tiny insect has one of the sternest defense mechanisms in the world for an animal of its size.

After the mixture is compounded in the abdomen of the beetle and ejected, the acid is powerful enough to kill ants. Accompanied by a loud popping sound, this spray can even scare off frogs who were hoping for a quick snack.

Researchers at the ETH Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences in Switzerland wanted to develop this unique system into a new security design.

"When you see how elegantly nature solves problems, you [realize] how deadlocked the world of technology often is," Wendelin Jan Stark, a professor from the ETH Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, said.

The new technology is composed of layers of plastic, each of which holds a reactant. When the surface of the machine is damaged during theft or vandalism, the chemicals mix, producing a hot, potent acid.

Each layer is composed of a network of honeycomb structures. Half of these are filled with hydrogen peroxide, and the remainder with manganese dioxide. When the cells are ruptured, the chemicals react, forming water, oxygen, and heat. The chemical product can reach temperatures over 175 degrees Fahrenheit.

Researchers believe their new invention could do more than just protect ATMs. These could be used to protect nearly anything, including rare trees, which could otherwise be damaged by animals.

Current technology to secure ATMs is capable of spraying attackers with chemicals. However, these systems are automated, and will not function when the electricity is shut off. Unlike the new passive system, motor-driven security devices are also expensive.

The new security layers can also incorporate a mixture of dye and DNA encased in nanoparticles. This can mark money, which makes it unusable, and the DNA allows investigators to track cash following a robbery. In addition to defacing the money taken in a heist, the dye will also mark the thieves, making identification easy during an attempted getaway.

Mechanisms like this one are "imitating nature and [realizing] simple ideas with high-tech methods," Stark stated in a press release.

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T. rex claws may have been for digging, not tearing

Therapod dinosaurs—a group made famous by Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor—are generally thought of as dangerous carnivores, with sharp claws on their fingers and toes and equally sharp teeth for chowing down and tearing flesh. But a new look at the claws of other therapods shows that they could have been used for other things aside from cutting into prey.

Dr. Stephan Lautenschlager from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences focused his research on the therizinosaurs, a subgroup of therapods that lived 145 to 66 million years ago. Previous studies on the shape of their teeth and jaws suggested that unlike other therapods, therizinosaurs were herbivores. They were also quite large, reaching up to 7 meters tall and with large claws up to 90 cm long on their fingers. A close relative of modern-day birds, therizinosaurs were covered by a coast of primitive, down-like feathers and had hollow bones.

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Some Wasps Developed Better Vision to Recognize other Wasps’ Faces

In 2011, Elizabeth Tibbetts and Michael Sheehan published a study in the journal Science on how some paper wasps learn and recognize the colorful facial patterns of other wasps in the colony, just as humans recognize others people’s faces.

Now they have published new research in the journal Biology Letters that shows that some paper wasps — those that have variable facial patterns recognized by other wasps in the nest — have more acute vision relative to their size than do wasps without variable facial patterns.

“We found convincing evidence that the wasps evolved better vision for the purpose of telling one another apart,” said Dr. Sheehan, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. “This is consistent with the idea that hearing, smelling, seeing or other sensory capabilities in animals, including humans, may have evolved in response to communication signals like we see in the wasp.”

The paper wasps with variable facial patterns are mostly species in which several queens sometimes cooperate to establish a colony, which would make the ability to discriminate among individuals important, he said. Depending on the species, wasps have evolved facial markings that act either like name tags for individual recognition, or like karate belts that indicate a queen’s strength.

“Larger facets in their compound eyes mean better vision, but we found that as these wasps get smaller, they have larger than expected eyes,” Sheehan said. “This demonstrates that they evolved improved acuity relative to size in order to discriminate among different individuals in the colony.”

Like all insects, paper wasps have compound or faceted eyes, each a cluster of thousands of small, telescope-like omatidia with an outer lens that focuses light onto sensory cells inside the eye.

Compound eyes are great for detecting motion — hence a fly’s ability to dodge a swatter — but they provide poor resolution, though larger diameter lenses collect more light and generally provide sharper vision. Many flying insects have a high-acuity zone within the compound eye outfitted with larger diameter lenses and typically facing forward.

Sheehan reasoned that if patterns on the face were important for wasp social interactions, then natural selection might favor wasps that see better, and the lenses in the high-acuity zone on smaller species would be disproportionately larger.

That is what he found when surveying 19 different species of paper wasp in the genus Polistes, half of which were caught in fields around the East and the Midwest, and half obtained from museum collections, some of which were more than 100 years old. While the largest lenses on the eyes of big wasps were the same size — whether or not the wasps could recognize facial patterns — smaller wasps differed. Those with variable facial patterns had larger lenses in their acute zone than those that do not have variable faces.

“This doesn’t overturn evolutionary dogma, but extends the idea that feedback from the environment — in this case, communication signals among members of the same species — can drive change in our senses,” Sheehan said.

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Snails Are Dissolving in Pacific Ocean

An increasingly acidified Pacific Ocean is dissolving the shells of tiny marine snails that live along North America’s western coast. The broad finding, which has surprised some researchers, suggests that sea life is already being affected by changes in the ocean’s chemistry caused by rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

“It really changes the game” by demonstrating that acidification is having a noticeable impact, says biological oceanographer Jan Newton, co-director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center at the University of Washington, Seattle. Newton was not involved in the study.

The researchers studied one kind of pteropod, common planktonic snails known as sea butterflies for the winglike body parts that help them glide through the water. Like other shellfish, pteropods use dissolved carbonate in seawater to build their shells. But laboratory studies have shown that the process can be disrupted, and shells can dissolve, as seawater becomes more acidic, or lower in pH. (Temperature has an impact, too.) As its concentration rises in the atmosphere, carbon enters the ocean through chemical reactions, causing its pH at the surface to drop by 0.1 units since the preindustrial era. That’s raised fears that marine ecosystems could be affected.

Outside the laboratory, however, just a handful of studies have linked falling pH levels to damaged shells. In 2012, researchers documented damage to oysters in hatchery tanks in Oregon fed with seawater that had become more acidic as a result of offshore upwelling patterns. The same year, researchers reported that pteropods collected at one site in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica showed signs of shell damage.

To gauge how acidification might be affecting the Pacific, biological oceanographer Nina Bednaršek of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Seattle and colleagues collected pteropods at 13 sites during a 2011 research cruise between Washington and southern California. Back at the lab, they used a scanning electron microscope to examine the fragile shells, which are 1 cm in size or smaller. Normally, healthy pteropods have smooth shells. But more than one-half of these shells showed signs of dissolution, they report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The pitted textures made them look like “cauliflower” or “sandpaper,” Bednaršek says.

“I was surprised by the sheer spacial extent of the dissolution,” she says. “This is something we have not predicted before -- the extent of the population that’s already affected.”

What’s not clear from this study is how such damage might be affecting pteropod populations or the broader ecosystem. Previous work has suggested that shell damage can make it harder for the invertebrates to fight infection, maintain metabolic chemistry, defend themselves against predators, and control buoyancy. And while the snails are one of the most abundant organisms on Earth, “their role in ecosystems is generally not all that well known,” writes biological oceanographer Gareth Lawson of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts in an e-mail. But “they can be important prey items at some times and places” for fish and other creatures. For example, the pteropod examined in this study, Limacina helicina, is a key food for fish eaten by pink salmon, an important North Pacific fishery.

If the pteropod shells “are dissolving as fast as the authors claim, the effects on individual physiology, behavior, and fitness, and hence on populations and food webs, are not easy to predict,” Lawson says. But they “could be profound.”

The waters probed during this study, known as the California Current, are a hot spot of ocean acidification because of coastal upwelling, which brings naturally acidic waters to the surface, where they are made even more acidic by greenhouse gas pollution. But Richard Feely of NOAA, a co-author on the study, says that the site serves as a “harbinger” for what global seas will be experiencing decades hence.


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Rare Goblin Shark Caught in Gulf of Mexico

Commercial fisher Carl Moore wasn’t sure what he had netted last week just south of Key West, Florida (map), when he saw the fish’s flat, blade-like snout. Only after the Georgia angler photographed and released his catch was its identity confirmed: It was a goblin shark, a rare deep-sea shark, and it’s believed to be only the second such specimen ever caught in the Gulf of Mexico.

These sharks are so rarely encountered that any information about them is eagerly devoured by researchers, says John Carlson, a research biologist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service. After Moore examined his curious catch and took a series of photos of it, he released it back into the ocean and contacted NOAA. Moore’s photos were referred to Carlson, who specializes in sharks and was excited to get more data on this rare one.

“We don’t know how long they live; we don’t know how often they reproduce, or even how big they are when they reproduce,” Carlson says. “They’re a mystery.”

Moore had told NOAA he thought the shark he released was about 18 feet (5.4 meters) long. When Carlson and colleagues analyzed Moore’s photographs, they gauged the length to be more like 15 feet (4.5 meters) long. And they made an educated guess about the shark’s sex.

Carlson says male sharks have external sexual characteristics called claspers, two fin-like appendages near the tail that males use to hold on to females while mating. “From the photographs, we don’t see those, so we’re suspecting it’s a female,” he says.

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Game of Thrones Dogs in High Demand

Thanks to the hit HBO series ““Game of Thrones”, a certain breed of dog local to the U.K. is receiving a lot of attention and is in very high demand.

The Northern Inuit, which is the breed used for the scenes with the Stark kids and their dire wolves in the first season,   actually resembles a mix between a malamute and a German shepherd. The breed was founded during the 1980’s by Edwina “Eddie” Harrison, a breeder based in the U.K. these huge dogs are commonly mistaken as a wolf hybrid, which caused an uproar when they first became available as pets. However, the breed is actually mixed with a number of different rescue dogs like the Siberian husky, German shepherd and Alaskan malamute.

This resulted with a dog that looks like a wolf. This beautiful breed, thanks to their different genetic bases, makes them good pets. They’re very loyal, affectionate and friendly. They’re grate around kids, which is one of the reasons why they were used for the Game of Thrones scenes.  They don’t make a lot of noise and are pretty docile. They’re intelligent and easy to train. Finally, they can easily get along with other animals, even other dogs.

The down side of owning a Northern Inuit is that they don’t do well when left alone too long. They’re prone to separation anxiety and can stand having to wait for their owners to come back home. They’re very active, so taking them out for exercise frequently is needed.  And they’re diggers, so don’t expect to see flowerbeds survive with these dogs around as pets. 

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ScienceShot: Butterflies Sip Crocodile Tears

Never smile at a crocodile—or sit on its face and drink its tears. Yet that’s exactly what ecologist Carlos de la Rosa spotted a butterfly and a bee doing this past December as he boated down Costa Rica’s Puerto Viejo River.

In one encounter (pictured above and caught on video), the spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) placidly sunbathes on a fallen tree trunk as a Julia butterfly (Dryas iulia) and a solitary bee (Centris sp.) flutter around its face and taste its tears. The brave bugs’ tear-sipping behavior likely provides salts and proteins scarce in the tropics, de la Rosa writes this month in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Scouring online photographs snapped by amateur photographers and other researchers, de la Rosa was surprised to find ample evidence of insects supping tears from crocodiles and other reptiles such as tortoises. He now thinks the practice may be more common than scientists once thought—just rare to witness.

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