Tag Archives: Rediscovered Species

WEIRD & FASCINATING CREATURES: Rediscovered “tree lobster” saved from extinction by “secret hideaway”

Posted on by
1

Image of Lord Howe stick insects via Rod Morris. Ball’s Pyramid image via

The Lord Howe stick insect, Dryococelus australis, is a critically-endangered species of stick insect that was endemic to Lord Howe Island. The creature’s only-known home during the 20th century was Lord Howe Island. During the 1900s, the island suffered an invasion of black rats after a shipwreck. The rats feasted on the unique stick insects until there were no more to be found on Lord Howe Island. More via NPR:

[O]ne day in 1918, a supply ship, the S.S. Makambo from Britain, ran aground at Lord Howe Island and had to be evacuated. One passenger drowned. The rest were put ashore. It took nine days to repair the Makambo, and during that time, some black rats managed to get from the ship to the island, where they instantly discovered a delicious new rat food: giant stick insects. Two years later, the rats were everywhere and the tree lobsters were gone.

Totally gone. After 1920, there wasn’t a single sighting. By 1960, the Lord Howe stick insect, Dryococelus australis, was presumed extinct.

However, a tiny population of the stick insects was rediscovered on a nearby Jurassic-looking island called Ball’s Pyramid. Due to the topography of the island, it afforded only a diminutive space for the stick insects to cling on to.

Some climbers scaling Ball’s Pyramid in the 1960s said they’d seen a few stick insect corpses lying on the rocks that looked “recently dead.” But the species is nocturnal, and nobody wanted to scale the spire hunting for bugs in the dark.

.       .       .

[T]wo Australian scientists, David Priddel and Nicholas Carlile, with two assistants, decided to take a closer look. From the water, they’d seen a few patches of vegetation that just might support walking sticks. So, they boated over. … They crawled up the vertical rock face to about 500 feet, where they found a few crickets, nothing special. But on their way down, on a precarious, unstable rock surface, they saw a single melaleuca bush peeping out of a crack and, underneath, what looked like fresh droppings of some large insect.

Where, they wondered, did that poop come from?

The only thing to do was to go back up after dark, with flashlights and cameras, to see if the pooper would be out taking a nighttime walk. Nick Carlile and a local ranger, Dean Hiscox, agreed to make the climb. And with flashlights, they scaled the wall till they reached the plant, and there, spread out on the bushy surface, were two enormous, shiny, black-looking bodies. And below those two, slithering into the muck, were more, and more … 24 in all. All gathered near this one plant.

They were alive and, to Nick Carlile’s eye, enormous. Looking at them, he said, “It felt like stepping back into the Jurassic age, when insects ruled the world.”

They were Dryococelus australis. A search the next morning, and two years later, concluded these are the only ones on Ball’s Pyramid, the last ones. They live there, and, as best we know, nowhere else.

How they got there is a mystery. Maybe they hitchhiked on birds, or traveled with fishermen, and how they survived for so long on just a single patch of plants, nobody knows either. The important thing, the scientists thought, was to get a few of these insects protected and into a breeding program.

You can read more at NPR about the challenges that faced conservationists in removing a handful of stick insects for a captive breeding program, the difficulties in getting these remarkable creatures to thrive and breed in captivity, and the challenges associated with reintroducing them to Lord Howe Island.

Video: Lord Howe Island Stick Insect hatching

Video: ABC news story on Lord Howe Island Stick Insect

CAN YOU SEE ME? | ANIMAL CAMOUFLAGE: Colorful toad rediscovered

Posted on by
Reply

Image via Indraneil Das

Despite being colorful, the Sambas stream toad blends into its mossy, arboreal habitat. This species was recently rediscovered after more than 85 years of absence. More via the New York Times:

The Borneo rainbow toad, with its long spindly legs, looks a bit like an Abstract Expressionist canvas splattered in bright green, purple and red. But when this amphibian was last seen, in 1924, the painter Jackson Pollock was just 12, and the only image of the mysterious creature was a black-and-white sketch.

That changed this summer when the toad was rediscovered high in the ridges of the Gunung Penrissen range of Western Sarawak, between Sarawak State in Malaysia and Kalimantan Barat Province in Indonesia. Because of market demand for bright-colored amphibians, which are sold as pets, Indraneil Das, a herpetologist at the University of Malaysia at Sarawak who led the research team that found the toad, declined to be more specific about the location, saying only that it was spotted about six feet up a tree in that region on the night of June 12 by one of his graduate students, Pui Yong Min.

Continue reading this article at the New York Times.

See more animal camouflage here on The Conservation Report.

REDISCOVERED SPECIES: Several species (and one subspecies) thought extinct rediscovered

Posted on by
Reply

  1. A species of skink—the Vosmer’s writhing skink (Lygosoma vosmaerii)—has been rediscovered in India. Apparently, the skink hasn’t been seen since 1839. More via The Hindu:

    Zoologists from Osmania University have rediscovered a species belonging to the lizard family, which was last seen way back in 1839 in the then Bengal province. The species, thought to be extinct till now, has been identified as Lygosoma Vosmaerii and is also known as Vosmer’s Writhing Skink. It was found by the research team at Jaggayyapet, Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh.

    2. Image showing Thyreophora cynophila via Wikipedia

  2. After 160 years, Thyreophora cynophila, a unique species of fly, which specializes on feeding off carcasses at a particular stage of decomposition, has been rediscovered in Spain. More via the BBC:

    Thought to be the first fly driven to extinction by humans, it was also considered one of Europe’s few endemic animals to have disappeared for good.

    The bizarre fly was considered ‘mythical’ due to its orange head, its preference for living on dead animal carcasses, and the fact it was rarely sighted even in the 19th Century.

    .       .       .

    Changes in livestock management in central Europe, improved carrion disposal following the Industrial Revolution, as well as the eradication of wolves and other big bone-crushing carnivores could have helped eliminate the fly.

    Video: Thyreophora cynophila

  3. A flowering plant, Clermontia peleana singuliflora, has been rediscovered on Hawaii after almost 100 years of absence. More via First Post:

    flower thought to be extinct for almost 100 years has been rediscovered in Hawaii. The species of lobelia was found growing on native trees and ferns in rainforests covering the slopes of the Kohala volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.

    The flower, known as ‘oha wai’ in Hawaiian, was last seen on the island in 1909 and last collected on the nearby island of East Maui in 1920. It had never been recorded on the slopes of Kohala before.

    Conservation worker Jon Griffin explained how researchers made the unexpected discovery. “We were surveying a rare tree snail population when we came across a native lobelia plant that we were unable to identify,” he revealed.

    He said they sent photographs of the flower to Dr Thomas Lammers, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, who identified it as Clermontia peleana singuliflora, which had not been seen for 90 years and was believed to have died out.

    4. Image showing the Sierra Nevada red fox by Keith Slausen

  4. The Sierra Nevada red fox has been rediscovered in the central California. This subspecies of red fox hasn’t been seen since the 1990s. More via National Geographic:

    The Sierra Nevada red fox subspecies hadn’t been seen in central California since the 1990s and was considered gone from the area. Only one other population of Sierra Nevada foxes are known, farther north in the Lassen Peak region (see map).

    But U.S. Forest Service officials suspected photographs taken by a trail camera near the Sierra Nevada mountains’ Sonora Pass (see map) in August had captured a Sierra Nevada red fox gnawing on a “bait bag” of chicken scraps.

    Researchers at the University of California, Davis, ran DNA tests on saliva samples from the bag, and sure enough, the spit confirmed the fox as a Sierra Nevada. Testing saliva is “not uncommon,” said Ben Sacks, director of the Canid Diversity and Conservation Unit of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory.

    “We thought they were gone,” Sacks added. “We were wrong.”

    5. Image showing Hyperolius sankuruensis by Jos Kielgast / Conservation International

  5. Three species of amphibians—two species of frogs and one species of salamander—have been rediscovered around the world. More via Wildlife Extra:

    The three animals that have been rediscovered so far include a Mexican salamander not seen since it was discovered in 1941, a frog from the Ivory Coast not seen since 1967 and another frog from Democratic Republic of Congo not seen since 1979.

REDISCOVERED SPECIES: Sibree’s dwarf lemur rediscovered

Posted on by
Reply

This species of lemur was discovered more than a 100 years ago but was thought extinct due to deforestation, which is a big problem in Madagascar. More on the discovery from Scientific American:

Scientists have long believed that the Sibree’s dwarf lemur (Cheirogaleus sibreei) went extinct following the destruction of its only known forest habitat. But a few years ago Mitchell Irwin of McGill University in Montreal and his research team encountered some dwarf lemurs that didn’t quite look the way they expected the species to appear. Two lemurs were caught, their DNA tested, and the Sibree’s dwarf lemur was revealed.

This is actually the first confirmation that the Sibree’s lemur is truly its own species. The species looks almost identical to the Crossley’s dwarf lemur (C. melanotis), with which it shares its habitat. The research proving its morphological uniqueness was published online March 6 in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

More via PhysOrg.com:

The  was first discovered in Madagascar in 1896, but this tiny, nocturnal dwarf lemur was never studied throughout the 20th century. Following the destruction of its only known rainforest habitat, scientists had no idea whether the species still existed in the wild – or even whether it was a .

.       .       .

This work led to the further surprise that two morphologically distinct dwarf lemur species were present, living side-by-side. Further work by geneticist Linn Groeneveld, German Primate Center confirmed the existence of the more common Crossley’s dwarf lemur, and the elusive Sibree’s dwarf lemur.

The new study showed the mystery lemurs to be very similar to the only known specimen of Sibree’s dwarf lemur, now in The Natural History Museum in London, England.  shows the mystery lemurs to be highly distinct from all other known species. In fact, the genetic analyses confirmed that of the four known dwarf lemur species, this is the most genetically unique and probably closely resembles the ancestor that gave rise to the other species.

Image showing historical deforestation rates of Madagascar was found here

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank :: post to facebook

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED SPECIES: Mountain yellow-legged frog population discovered in California

Posted on by
1

Mountain Yellow-Legged FrogCertainly, the discovery of a new population of this critically endangered frog species represents some much needed good news from the amphibian world. According to the U.S. Geological Survey:

For the first time in nearly 50 years, a population of a nearly extinct frog has been rediscovered in the San Bernardino National Forest’s San Jacinto Wilderness. Biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessing suitability of sites to re-establish frogs and scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum retracing a 1908 natural history expedition both rediscovered the rare mountain yellow-legged frog in the San Jacinto Wilderness near Idyllwild, Calif.

.       .       .

Prior to this recent discovery, USGS researchers had estimated there were about 122 adult mountain yellow-legged frogs in the wild.

.       .       .

“Historically, scientists have had great difficulty breeding frogs in captivity,” said Jeff Lemm, an animal research coordinator for the San Diego Zoo. “We are excited by this success and cautiously optimistic we will have more eggs soon.”

In December 2008, researchers at the Institute for Conservation Research discovered a clutch of about 200 eggs in one of its tanks. Researchers were surprised because the frogs were younger than is typical for breeding. Because of the frogs’ young age, only a handful of the eggs were fertile. The one frog to mature is thriving. The next breeding season is expected to be December 2009 to March 2010.

The goal of the breeding program is to return the mountain yellow-legged frog to its native habitat.

The Zoo’s breeding program, in conjunction with its partners, began after the rare frogs were rescued from a drying creek. Anne Poopatanapong, a wildlife biologist for the San Jacinto Ranger District in the San Bernardino National Forest was monitoring declining creek water levels in Dark Canyon on Aug. 23, 2006, when she noticed many pools drying up, including one where frogs had been living. Concerned about losing the tadpoles, she called the Fish and Wildlife Service and the salvage effort started the next day. A USGS team led by Dr. Robert Fisher rescued 82 tadpoles, which were taken to the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research.

The frog recovery effort has been funded by Caltrans in part to mitigate for emergency work to stabilize a slope near the frog’s habitat on state Route 330 in the San Bernadino Mountains.

“The emergency slope reconstruction project had the dual benefit of opening a road that was about to fail as well as helping to ensure that the last known population of the mountain yellow-legged frog in the San Bernardino Mountains had a program in place to aid the frog’s recovery,” said Craig Wentworth, a senior environmental planner/biologist with Caltrans.

Jim Bartel, the field supervisor for the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Carlsbad, said his agency is pleased to participate in the effort to rescue the mountain yellow-legged frog and conserve its remaining riparian habitat.

“We look forward to reintroducing the species to its native habitat,” Bartel said.

Habitat protection and restoration, combined with efforts to reintroduce these frogs to areas where they have been decimated, offers the best hope of returning mountain yellow-legged frogs in Southern California to a healthy, self-sustaining population.

Image by Adam Backlin for the U.S. Geological Survey

add to del.icio.us :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank :: post to facebook