Pink-Hippo Pictures: Rare Youngster Spotted in Kenya

A young, rosy-huedhippopotamus(pictured) was spotted in September along the banks ofKenya's Mara River—and the discovery has two photographers tickled, well, pink.

"Just as we started to tuck into our breakfast, we looked up and gawked, open-mouthed, as a pink hippopotamus emerged from the river!"English brothersWill and Matt Burrard-Lucas wrote on their blogon September 28.

The brothers were in theMasai Mara National Reserve (map)to photograph the annualwildebeestmigration when they spotted the rare youngster. (Related:Great Migrations TV miniserieson the National Geographic Channel.)

The odd-looking animal has a condition called leucism, which occurs when the skin produces less pigment than usual, according to Joshua Charlton, assistant curator of mammals at theBronx Zooin New York City.

"It never ceases to amaze me how often nature reveals something unexpected,"Will Burrard-Lucas wrote on the blog.

—Christine Dell'Amore

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Drug-filled Mice Airdropped Over Guam to Kill Snakes

Dead mice packed with drugs were recently airdropped into Guam's dense jungle canopy—part of a new effort to kill aninvasive speciesof snake on the U.S. Pacific island territory.

In the U.S. government-funded project, tablets of concentrated acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, are placed in dead thumb-size mice, which are then used as bait for brown tree snakes.

In humans, acetaminophen helps soothe aches, pains, and fevers. But when ingested by brown tree snakes, the drug disrupts the oxygen-carrying ability of the snakes' hemoglobin blood proteins.

"They go into a coma, and then death,"said Peter Savarie, a researcher with theU.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services, which has been developing the technique since 1995 through grants from the U.S. Departments of Defense and Interior.

Only about 80 milligrams of acetaminophen—equal to a child's dose of Tylenol—are needed to kill an adult brown tree snake. Once ingested via a dead mouse, it typically takes about 60 hours for the drug to kill a snake.

"There are very few snakes that will consume something that they haven't killed themselves,"added Dan Vice, assistant state director of USDA Wildlife Services in Hawaii, Guam, and the Pacific Islands.

But brown tree snakes will scavenge as well as hunt, he said, and that's the"chink in the brown tree snake's armor."

Snakes Pests Decimated"Naïve"Wildlife

The brown tree snake is an arboreal species native to Australia, Papua New Guinea, and several Pacific islands. The snake preys on birds, lizards, bats, and small mammals.

Inadvertently introduced toGuam (map)from the Solomon Islands after World War II, brown tree snakes are responsible for the extinction or severe reduction of several of the island's native species.

The brown tree snake"is a nocturnal, arboreal predator. There's just nothing like it here. It arrived here and found an island full of very naïve native wildlife,"Vice said. (See"Snake Plague on Guam Impacts Trees.")

Over the years, scientists have developed several strategies to fight thereptilepest, including traps, snake-detecting dogs, and nighttime spotlight searches along airport and seaport fence lines.

Most of these strategies have focused on keeping the snake species from leaving Guam and sneaking onto ships headed for other islands, such asHawaii, where scientists fear the predators could wreak similar havoc.

(See"Alien Giant Snakes Threaten to Invade Up to 1/3 of U.S.")

By contrast, this latest approach aims to take the fight into Guam's jungles, where most of the invasive snakes reside.

A popular misconception about Guam, Vice said, is that the entire island is overrun by brown tree snakes. In reality, most of the snakes are concentrated in the island's jungles, where it is difficult for humans to reach.

"You don't walk out the front door and bump into a snake every morning,"Vice said.

Radio-tagged Bait to Help Track Effectiveness

Before the laced mice are airdropped, they are attached to"flotation devices"that each consist of two pieces of cardboard joined by a 4-foot-long (1.2-meter-long) paper streamer.

The flotation device was designed to get the bait stuck in upper tree branches, where the brown tree snakes reside, instead of falling to the jungle floor, where the drug-laden mice might inadvertently get eaten by nontarget species, such as monitor lizards.

There are few other species on Guam that could be tempted by the mouse bait, USDA's Savarie said, because the brown tree snakes have eaten most of them.

(Related:"World's Biggest Snake Ate New Prehistoric Croc Species.")

On September 1 USDA researchers performed a small-scale airdrop of about 200 baited mice onto 20 acres (8 hectares) of jungle around the U.S. Naval Base in Guam. USDA personnel flying low over Guam's jungles in helicopters dropped the baited devices one at a time, to ensure even coverage.

The drop was only the second in the project's history, and was done to help refine the technique before a larger field test is conducted in late 2010 or early 2011.

A small subset of mice in the latest drop was equipped with radio transmitters, which the team will use to determine the baits' efficiency.

"If we go out tomorrow and the radio signal from the bait has moved, it's very likely that {it was eaten by} a snake,"Savarie said.

(Also see:"USDA Fights Invasive Fire Ants With Flies.")

Tree Snakes Have a Chink in Their Armor

The baited mice could prove to be an effective tool against Guam's brown tree snakes, especially medium- and large-size adults, saidHaldre Rogers, a biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who researches the effects of bird loss on Guam's native forests.

"The development of more tools like this is very important for restoring Guam's forests in the long run,"said Rogers, who was not involved in the USDA project.

But all the tools currently at scientists' disposal, including the drug-filled mice, will at best simply control the island's snake population, not eradicate it entirely, she said.

"It's another arrow in our quiver,"she said."Unfortunately, we don't have the silver bullet for brown tree snakes yet."

USDA's Vice agreed:"There are a lot of things out there to control brown tree snakes. They all work, but they don't work completely,"he said."The idea of this aerial delivery of oral toxicants is that we now have a control tool that we can apply across a larger landscape."

(Related:"Are Birds Best Hope for Pest-Ridden Coffee Crops?")

Longer term, USDA researchers hope to create a nonbiological substitute for dead mice in the bait, something that the snakes will eat but that won't rot or attract flies, ants, and maggots in the jungle.

forNational Geographic News

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Photos: Poison Crab, Glass Shrimp, More Found in Korea

Tiny freckled shrimp hang out on a Korean pen shell—a type of saltwater clam—in an undated picture.

Called pen shell shrimps, the tiny crustaceans—previously known in Japan and Australia—were only recently observed inSouth Korea, scientists announced in early September.

Pen shell shrimps live in symbiotic, or dependent, relationships with clams, explained Kim Min-Ha, manager of the Korean indigenous-species project at the South KoreanNational Institute of Biological Resources.

"We think that the clam provides shelter for a shrimp,"Min-Ha said in an email interview.

The institute's ongoing project to catalog animal and plant diversity on theKorean Peninsula (map)began in 2006 and will run until 2014. In the latest round of expeditions, scientists discovered 117 new species and documented 15 that had never before been found in South Korea.

(See pictures of a"glass"crustacean and other new speciesfound recently on the Korean Peninsula.)

—Ker Than

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Pictures:"Extinct" Frogs, Salamander Found

This gallery is part of aspecial news serieson theglobal water crisis.

Long thought to be extinct, the Mount Nimba reed frog(Hyperolius nimbae)has been found in the swamps of West Africa'sCôte d'Ivoire, conservationists announced yesterday. The frog is among the first three"lost"species rediscovered during an unprecedented global search for"extinct"amphibianslaunched August 10.

Missing for more than 40 years, the 1.3-inch-long (3.3-centimeter-long) frog species was rediscovered in a swampy field near the Liberia border.

The new project—led by Conservation International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature'sAmphibian Specialist Group—will seek out a hundred allegedly extinct species but will focus mainly on ten species of high scientific and aesthetic value. (Seepictures of the ten most wanted"extinct"amphibians.)

The effort comes amid a steady decline in worldwide amphibian species, in part due to freshwater habitat loss, and the usually fatalchytrid fungus. Nearly 30 percent of known amphibian species are threatened with extinction, according to Conservation International. (Read aboutvanishing amphibiansinNational Geographicmagazine.)

—Christine Dell'Amore

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Hybrid Panthers Helping Rare Cat Rebound in Florida

Breeding rare Florida panthers with Texascougarscreated tough hybrids that one scientist calls the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of cougars.

And, like action heroes, these vigorous offspring may well rescue theFloridasubspecies from extinction, according toStephen O'Brien, an animal geneticist who co-authored new research on the North American big cat.

(Seebig cats photosandlearn how to help the at-risk animals.)

Florida panthers are considered a subspecies of cougar, big cats found across the Americas that are also called pumas or mountain lions, depending on the region.

In the 1900s people hunted the Florida panther out of most of its southeastern U.S. range, driving the few remaining animals into rugged South Florida swamps.

Inbreeding within this tiny population caused heart problems and reproductive defects that would have killed off the Florida panther—deemed endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—by the early 21st century.

As a last-ditch effort,in 1995 the U.S. government released eight female cougars from a wild Texas population into Florida.

This cougar infusion increased the number of Florida panthers threefold, to about a hundred, said O'Brien, chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland.

In addition, the offspring produced were genetically diverse animals that were stronger and lived longer, the 30-year study revealed.

Texas Cougars Shuffled Genetic Deck

Since the early 1980s, O'Brien and colleagues have closely monitored several Florida panthers via radio transmitters and microchips, occasionally anesthetizing animals to take blood samples. Those samples revealed a"marked increase"in DNA diversity after the Texan animals were introduced.

The team also measured survival rates of kitten litters and adult cats. (Seepictures of Florida panther kittens.)

For instance, 23 out of 29 Florida panthers surveyed that were older than a year died between 2002 and 2004, compared with just 22 out of 47 hybrids, according to the study, published today in the journalScience.

The scientists also measured the animals' fitness, or ability to survive. One unusual measure of fitness, O'Brien noted, involved recording how a cougar reacted when the animal attempted to escape scientists' capture by climbing up a tree.

Most Florida panthers would cower in the tree. But trapped hybrids were more than twice as likely than Florida panthers to leap out of the tree and sail over the scientists' heads to safety, he said.

"Virtually every measure,"he said,"showed the animals that had the mixed ancestry did better."

In a sense, releasing the Texan cougars restored the genetic flow that humans had interrupted, O'Brien added. In the 19th century, Florida panthers would sometimes mate with western cougars, naturally"shuffling the deck"genetically, he said.

"We don't feel like we've fiddled so much with nature, like making a hybrid between a lion and a tiger."(Seepictures of real-life"ligers.")

Florida Panthers Not Out of the Woods

In general, the research shows that bringing in new genes to aid a failing population"can be deliriously successful,"O'Brien said.

"It's really not rocket science—if you have enough habitat and don't inbreed much, millions of years of evolution have given these species what it takes to survive and to prosper."

Even so, conservationists can't yet sayhasta la vistato the Florida panther's problems.

"It was a very bold experiment and it has clearly paid off,"saidElizabeth Fleming, Florida representative for the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife.

But"now is the biggest challenge of all: We need to conserve existing habitat for these animals, as well as allow them to expand into some areas of their former range."

A hundred animals do not make up a truly viable population—for the subspecies to make it, their range needs to be expanded into other parts of Florida, Fleming said.

To that end, her organization is working with landowners to buy conservation easements, which would allow the predators to move onto land dedicated solely as wildlife habitat.

Meanwhile, some male Florida panthers are already striking out into new territory themselves, Fleming noted. (See"Cougar Reports on the Rise in Eastern U.S.")

"One made it all the way to Georgia,"she said,"only to be shot by a deer hunter."

National Geographic News

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Whale Sharks Killed, Displaced Due to Gulf Oil?

SPECIAL SERIES | DEEP IMPACT
Deciphering the unseen, underwater effects of the Gulf oil spill.

TheGulf oil spillfouled a vital stretch of feeding habitat forwhale sharks, possibly killing some of the world's largest fish, new research suggests.

An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil (one barrel equals 42 gallons, or 159 liters) flowed into an area south of the Mississippi River Delta, where of one-third of all northernGulf of Mexico (map)whale shark sightings have occurred in recent years, scientists say.

The 45-foot-long (14-meter-long) fish, still largely a mystery to scientists, is considered a vulnerable species by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature.

(See"World's Largest Shark Species at Risk, Expert Says.")

"This spill's impact came at the worst possible time and in the worst possible location for whale sharks,"said biologist Eric Hoffmayer, who studies whale sharks at the University of Southern Mississippi'sGulf Coast Research Laboratory.

Sightings confirmed that the animals were unable to avoid the slick at the surface, where the giant fish may feed for seven to eight hours a day. The oil may have clogged the fish's gills, suffocating them, or it might have contaminated their prey—though no dead whale sharks have been found, Hoffmayer noted.

"We've seen aerial photos with animals within a few miles of the wellhead and swimming in thick oil,"said Hoffmayer, aNational Geographic Society Waitt grantee. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)

"At the end of the day, if these animals were feeding in an area where there was surface oil, and if they ingested oil, there is a good possibility that they died and sank to the bottom. At this point we have no idea how many animals have been impacted."

Oil Toxic to Filter-Feeding Sharks?

Though much of the Gulf oil has disappeared from the surface,the spill isn't going away—and scientists are still trying to uncover the extent of its invisible effects on Gulf wildlife.

(Read about theGulf oil spill in the October issue ofNational Geographicmagazine.)

For instance, certain toxic ingredients of oil—and even the chemical dispersants used during the cleanup—could potentially cause long-term problems for whale sharks and many other species. Those may include compromised endocrine or immune response systems, scientists note. (See relatedblog:"Gulf Seafood With a Side of Oil Dispersant?")

Whale sharks filter a lot of water through their mouths and gills—almost 160,000 gallons (605,000 liters) of water an hour—as they feed on tiny plankton and fish.

These sharks swim with their wide mouths open to suck in plankton-rich waters, which they then force back out their gills, retaining only tiny morsels of food.

"They would no doubt absorb contaminants even in dispersed form. Does that build up in their tissues and affect their health?"said biologistBob Hueter, director of theCenter for Shark Researchat Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.

To answer that question, many scientists are now searching for the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and other oil contaminants in the blood and tissues of Gulf whale sharks.

"It will probably take years to see what the signature of this oil does to the health and physiology of these animals,"Hueter said.

Oil Driving Sharks to New Territories

Scientists hope that tagging animals can help them learn if the spill impacts whale shark behavior in the years ahead.

But some observations have already suggested the whale sharks have changed some of their habits.

Sightings of sharks near Florida's Gulf coast have led to speculation that the sharks and other large marine species may have been displaced by the oil and moved on to a more pristine neighborhood.

During the summer months following the oil spill, Mote scientists began chronicling repeated near-shore observations of large marine animals, such as whale sharks, that are typically found in far deeper waters out near the eastern Gulf's continental shelf.

(Seepictures of ten animals at risk from the Gulf oil spill.)

"This summer unusually high numbers and species of sharks were here on the West Florida Shelf, and that includes whale sharks in much larger numbers than we are accustomed to seeing,"Hueter said.

Those animals may have headed east to escape the oil, though no one can say for sure.

The team tagged several fish to track their future movements in oiled waters and see whether the disaster causes lifestyle changes in the whales.

(Learn more about Mote's shark tracking project.)

Oil Still Unknown Threat

One problem is that no one is exactly sure where the bulk of dispersed oil has gone, or in what form it exists. For example, preliminary results suggest it's settled on the seafloor or is still suspended in remnant undersea plumes.

(Related:"Much Gulf Oil Remains, Deeply Hidden and Under Beaches.")

What's more, whale sharks can be found everywhere in the water column, from the surface to the depths, so pinpointing their possible exposure to oil can be difficult.

"In some form or fashion, 60 to a hundred million gallons of oil are still out there, and all we know is it's not at the surface,"the University of Southern Mississippi's Hoffmayer said."With this idea of submerged oil out there, we don't know what threats exist to the animals."

For instance, no one knows if the sharks will start to avoid the rich feeding grounds to which the migratory animals have returned regularly so far.

"In coming years we'll hopefully be able to say something about the sightings, either that whale sharks appear to be impacted heavily, or, we were lucky here and they haven't missed a beat,"University of Southern Mississippi's Hoffmayer said.

Whale Sharks Undertake Great Migrations

As scientists learn more about the elusive whale shark, they've already discovered that the impacts of the oil spill disaster could stretch farther than anyone would have suspected just a few years ago. (Read about whale shark migrations on National Geographic Channel's website.)

That's because seemingly disparate whale shark populations ranging from the Caribbean and Central America to the Gulf of Mexico are actually deeply connected, according to Rachel Graham, lead shark scientist with theWildlife Conservation Society's Ocean Giants Program.

Graham, who has beentracking whale sharks for 13 years, snapped a picture of a shark inBelizethat later turned up near Tampa,Florida. Another animal acoustically tagged inMexicowas recorded by an underwater receiver on Bright Bank in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Sixteen sharks that Graham recently fitted with satellite-location tags are dispersing into the Gulf from Mexico—and could move into the spill zone.

(Related picture:"Smallest Whale Shark Discovered—On a Leash.")

"One of the concerns that I have is that anything that happens to animals in the northern Gulf, where the spill occurred, will have an impact on the larger population in the entire region,"she said.

"It's one large population. And it's at risk because we're only talking about hundreds or perhaps a few thousands of animals in the region—not hundreds of thousands of animals. Due to their size, whale sharks require a lot of food to survive, and preferred food such as fish eggs is seasonal and concentrated in a small area—the seas certainly can't sustain millions of these huge animals."

Even so, there's one bright spot: Multiple sightings of whale sharks suggest there are greater numbers of the animals than were once thought possible in the northern Gulf of Mexico, according to the University of Southern Mississippi's Hoffmayer.

"Up to this point it's been a real success,"Hoffmayer said."But as for the impacts of this oil spill, we just don't know yet."

forNational Geographic News

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Photos: Fiery Sea Slug Discovered, Lays Lacy Egg Case

Pictured"knitting"a doily-like egg mass in a lab in 2008, a new species of fiery-colorednudibranch, or sea slug, has been found in shallow tide pools near a southernCaliforniacampground, a new study says.

Marine biologist Jeff Goddard stumbled across the carnivorous 1.2-inch (3-centimeter) creature—later dubbedFlabellina goddardi—while searching for another sea slug inCarpinteria State Park (map)in 2008. Not long afterward, in the lab, the hermaphroditic critter laid a lacy egg mass, which hatched into tiny, snail-like babies.

"That was a treat,"said Goddard, of the University of California, Santa Barbara'sMarine Science Institute—though not necessarily a surprise.

Sea slugs are often transparent—"you can see the gonads through the body,"for example—and Goddard knew the animal was expecting. (Seepictures of colorful sea slugs inNational Geographicmagazine.)

The elaborate latticework of the egg mass is a"trick of arrangement"to make sure all the embryos get enough oxygen, he added."That whole string is packed with thousands of egg capsules."

Finding a new slug"right there under our noses"is a reminder that"there are still many species, especially in the oceans—even ones in our backyard—that haven't been described,"he said. (See apicture of a bug-eating sea slugfound recently in Thailand.)

Plus, they're just plain stunning:"People are interested in butterflies and birds and brightly colored {animals},"he said."This is the marine equivalent of butterflies."

The new sea slug species is formally described in the September 15 issue of the journalProceedings of the California Academy of Sciences.

—Christine Dell'Amore

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Two New Horned Dinosaurs Found in Utah

Two newly discovered horned dinosaur species from an ancient"lost continent"are some of the most surprising and ornate yet found, paleontologists say.

The new dinosaurs are members of the ceratopsids, the group of dinosaurs that includesTriceratops.The animals were generally four-legged herbivores with horns and bony frills rising from the backs of their heads.

The larger of the two dinosaurs,Utahceratops gettyi,had a 7-foot-long (2.3-meter-long) skull, prompting study co-author Mark Loewen of theUniversity of Utahto compare the animal to"a giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head."

(Also see"Huge New Dinosaur Found via 'Mind-boggling' Skulls.")

The other new dinosaur,Kosmoceratops richardsoni,is"one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles,"study leaderScott Sampson, also of the University of Utah, said in a statement.

Kosmoceratops'head is covered in horns: one on the nose, one over each eye, one at the tip of each cheek, and several running along the dinosaur's head frill. (Seepictures of other"extreme"dinosaurs.)

"Most of these bizarre features would have made lousy weapons to fend off predators,"Sampson said. Instead, the horns were likely a sexual display to attract mates or intimidate rivals.

(Related:"Bizarre Dinosaur Lured Mates With Bony Adornments.")

New Utah Dinosaurs"Icing on the Cake"

Several partial fossils of bothUtahceratopsandKosmoceratopswere unearthed in Utah'sGrand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, home of what was once the"lost continent"of Laramidia.

During the Cretaceous, the central region of North America flooded, separating the eastern and western portions of the continent for about 30 million years. The western side effectively became its own distinct landmass. (See aprehistoric time line.)

"If you were a time traveler and you went back to the late Cretaceous, you could take a boat from the Gulf of Mexico and sail all the way up to the Arctic Ocean and you wouldn't see land,"Thomas Holtz, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland, told National Geographic News.

The region that was once Laramidia is now a hot bed of fossil discoveries, in part because of geological activity going on at the time, said Holtz, who was not affiliated with the present study.

"The Rocky Mountains were actively forming. We had mountains being pushed up and torn apart. ... Sediment {was} washing downhill and providing what would eventually be sedimentary rock that could entomb all these fossils."

(Related:"'Amazing' Dinosaur Trove Discovered in Utah.")

In general,UtahceratopsandKosmoceratopsare only the two most recent in a series of horned dinosaur discoveries from around the world, and the study authors believe that more new horned fossils will soon be unearthed.

"The new Utah creatures,"said study co-authorAndrew Farkeof the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology,"are the icing on the cake."

The new-dinosaur paper was published online this week in the journalPLoS One.

forNational Geographic News

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Pictures: New Armored, Wood-Eating Catfish Found in Amazon

A new species of armored, wood-eating catfish (pictured underwater) found in the Amazon rain forest feeds on a fallen tree in the Santa Ana River inPeruin 2006.

Other so-called suckermouth armored catfish species use their unique teeth to scrape organic material from the surfaces of submerged wood. But the new, as yet unnamed, species is among the dozen or so catfish species known to actually ingest wood.

Still, wood-eating catfish are largely unable to digest wood. Only associated organic material—such as algae, microscopic plants, animals, and other debris—gets absorbed into their bodies. The wood itself passes through the fish and is expelled as waste.

"The fish pass wood through their guts in less than four hours, which is incredibly fast for an animal that supposedly digests wood,"saidDonovan German, a biologist at the University of California, Irvine, who is researching the digestion of wood-eating catfish.

"People think they must have an amazing consortium of microbes in their guts to help the fish digest wood, but that isn't really what I've found,"he added."The amazing microbes are in the river, on the wood itself."

(Related:"World's Largest Catfish Species Threatened by Dam.")

—Ker Than

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New Species of Giant Elephant Shrew Discovered?

Sporting dark red thighs and a black behind, a two-foot-long (0.6-meter-long) elephant shrew recently spotted inKenyamay be a new species, scientists say.

If confirmed, the colorful creature would be the 18th known species of elephant shrew, all of which are native to Africa.

BiologistGrace Wambuistumbled across the odd animal while searching for the rare golden-rumped elephant shrew in the mostly inaccessible Boni-Dodori coastal forest in northeastern Kenya.

Wambui, a fellow at the Zoological Society of London's EDGE of Existence program, didn't recognize the new elephant shrew's markings.

After observing the mystery animal, Wambui and colleagues set up a network of camera traps, which were triggered by the elephant shrews' heat and movement. To date, the cameras have snapped more than 20 pictures of the elusive beasts, which appear to be active during daylight hours.

(Seecamera-trap pictures of a giant armadillo and other rare animals snapped in the Amazon.)

"The new animal has grizzled, yellow-brown sides, shoulders, and back; maroon thighs; and a jet-black lower rump,"said team member Raj Amin, a conservation biologist at the zoological society.

Elephant shrews are divided into two categories: giant elephant shrews and small, soft furred elephant shrews. The newfound creature is similar in size to the other four known giant elephant shrews. (Related:"Largest Elephant Shrew Discovered in Africa.")

The animal has big ears and eyes, thin legs, and a long, wiry tail. The mammals most likely live on a diet of insects, foraging under the leaf litter of the forest floor with their long noses.

The scientists also think they may have seen nests belonging to the species.

"The nests were usually well hidden beneath trees and shrubs, and {were} comprised of shallow depressions layered with dead leaves to make a small raised bump on the forest floor,"Wambui said.

"New"Elephant Shrew Already at Risk?

First described formally by scientists in the 19th century, elephant shrews were originally thought to be relatives of shrews, small, insect-eating mammals that resemble mice but are not true rodents.

Research later revealed that elephant shrews have more in common genetically with a group of African mammals that includeselephants,aardvarks, and golden moles. (Related:"Ancient Elephant Ancestor Lived in Water, Study Finds.")

To confirm that the newfound elephant shrew is a new species, the scientists will need to collect DNA samples and carry out genetic analysis.

The odd animal likely went undetected until now because little research has occurred in the Boni-Dodori forest due to its proximity to war-tornSomalia(see amap of the region).

But improved security has opened up the region, and Wambui and Amin are now concerned that the possibly new elephant shrew's habitat will be threatened by forest clearance and illegal logging activities.

"Protection is crucial,"Amin said,"and a management plan needs to be developed with all the key stakeholders."

forNational Geographic News

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Photos: World's Biggest, Strongest Spider Webs Found

A river-spanning spider web dwarfs a park ranger inMadagascarin 2008. Made of the world's strongest known biological material, the web is the product of a new species, the Darwin's bark spider, which makes the world's largest webs of any single spider, new studies say.

Zoologist Ingi Agnarsson and colleagues have found Darwin's bark spider webs as wide as 82 feet (25 meters)—about as long as two city buses.

In Andasibe-Mantadia National Park (pictured),"the park rangers knew about them, and I think they've shown them to tourists for a while,"said Agnarsson, of theUniversity of Puerto Rico.

But the Darwin's bark spider and its record-breaking webs were unknown to science until they were documented by the team, whose findings appear this week in theJournal of ArachnologyandPLoS ONE.

(Related:"Largest Web-Spinning Spider Found.")

—Ker Than

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Pictures: Giant Fossil Bird Found With Spiky"Teeth"

Boasting a 17-foot (5.2-meter) wingspan and sharp, spiny"pseudoteeth,"this ancient seabird is one of the largest flyingbirdsknown, according to a study released Wednesday.

Soaring above the oceans and mountains of what's nowChilebetween five and ten million years ago, the newly discovered species, namedPelagornis chilensis,was part of a prehistoric group known as the bony-toothed birds. The hollow spikes on the birds' beaks allowed the predators to grab slippery squid and fish from the ocean.

P. chilensiswas identified based on an"exquisitely and exceptionally preserved"fossil skeleton that was found to be 70 percent complete, said study co-author David Rubilar of theMuseo Nacional de Historia Naturalin Chile.

The specimen includes the largest and most complete fossil bird wing yet excavated. Previous bony-toothed bird fossils included wings dug up in pieces, if it all, making it harder to accurately establish wingspan.

—Rachel Kaufman

New giant bird species study appears in theJournal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

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Hunchback Dinosaur Found: Carnivorous"Camel"

The Cretaceous period's carnivorous answer to acamelhas been unearthed in Europe after 130 million years, a new study says (prehistoric time line).

The new, hunchbacked species ofdinosaursprouted spiky, featherlike shafts on its arms; was probably a powerful runner; and likelyatesmall dinosaurs, crocodiles, and early mammals, researchers say.

Discovered via a finely preserved, nearly complete skeleton found in centralSpain, the 20-foot-long (6-meter-long)Concavenator corcovatus—"the hunchback hunter from Cuenca"—had two raised backbones, each 1.3 feet (40 centimeters) taller than the dinosaurs' other vertebrae.

C. corcovatus's hump possibly supported a mound of fleshy tissue storing fat, as on a camel, according to the study team, led by paleontologist Francisco Ortega of theUniversidad Nacional de Educacíon a Distanciain Madrid.

Alternatively, the hump might have had a display role—for example, attracting a mate or intimidating rivals—or may have helped diffuse heat and regulate body temperature, Ortega said.

(See"Giant Toucan Bills Help Birds Keep Their Cool.")

Hunchback Dinosaur Had"Feathers,"Not Flight

C. corcovatus's oddity extended beyond a hump to bumps—so-called quill knobs on the dinosaur's forearms. In certain birds, the same structures hold the bases of large wing feathers.

In nonavian dinosaurs, feather-like structures could have helped the animals display, control body temperature, or attack faster—perhaps by gliding very short distances—scientists say.

But given the new dinosaur's one-ton weight, it's unlikely the few"protofeathers"—likely short, rigid filaments—would have been any help with dissipating heat or providing locomotion.

"The only useful explanation that we have is display,"Ortega said.

(Related:"First Dinosaur Feathers for Show, Not Flight?")

Hunchback Dinosaur Was European Colonist?

C. corcovatuswas an early member of the carcharodontosaurids ("shark-toothed lizards"), a dinosaur group that later gave rise to massive, fanged predators outsideEurope—for example, ameat-eating carcharodontosaurid dinosaur with"steak knife"teeth.

"Ten or 12 years ago everybody thought that carcharodontosaurids were a group that was exclusive toSouth AmericaandAfrica,"Ortega said.

With the discovery ofC. corcovatusand other primitive carcharodontosaurids outside those areas,"now we are thinking the early evolution of this group was in Europe."

The hunchback-dinosaur study is to be published in Thursday's edition of the journalNature.

forNational Geographic News

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Cockroach Brains May Hold New Antibiotics?

Cockroaches may make your skin crawl, but the insects—or, to be exact, theirbrains—could one day save your life.

That's because the central nervous systems of American cockroaches produce natural antibiotics that can kill off bacteria often deadly to humans, such as methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus(MRSA) and toxic strains ofEscherichia coli,scientists said this week.

Three species oflocusttested so far also have the same bacteria-killing molecules in their tiny heads.

The findings suggest that theinsect world—which makes up 80 percent of all animals on Earth—may be teeming with new antibiotics, said study co-author Simon Lee of theUniversity of Nottinghamin the U.K.

Such a discovery is crucial, because scientists are scrambling to combat strains of several infectious diseases, including MRSA andE. coli, that are resistant to traditional antibiotics, Lee said.

(Related:"Sharks Carrying Drug-Resistant 'Bacterial Monsters.'")

"It's a promising new lead. We are looking in an unusual place, and to my knowledge no one else is looking there,"Lee said.

"That's what we need in terms of {finding new} antibiotics, because all the usual places"—such as soil microbes, fungi, and purely synthetic molecules—"have been exhausted."

(Also see:"Blockbuster Ocean Drugs on the Horizon?")

Insect Brains Have"Clever Defense"Against Bacteria

Lee and colleagues dissected the tissues and brains of cockroaches—which"smell as bad as they look,"Lee said—and locusts in the lab.

(Read more abouthow locust brains switch on swarming behavior.)

The team tested nine separate types of antibacterial molecules found in the insects' brains and discovered that each molecule is specialized to kill a different type of bacteria.

This"very clever defense mechanism"allows the bugs to survive in the most dirty of domains, Lee said.

The scientists found the bugs had antibiotics only in their brain tissue, the most essential part of the body, he added.

A bug might live with an infected leg, for instance, but a brain infection would almost certainly be fatal.

Insect-brain drugs for humans are still years away, Lee said, but there's one hopeful glimmer: When the team added the insect antibiotics to human cells in the lab, there were no toxic effects.

Preliminary findings on antibiotics in bug brains were presented at theSociety for General Microbiologymeeting held this week at the University of Nottingham.

National Geographic News

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"Lost" Fox Subspecies Found via Saliva Analysis

Long seen as regionally extinct, the Sierra Nevadared foxhas been rediscovered in the mountains of centralCalifornia, thanks to a remote camera, a bag of chicken, and saliva analysis.

The discovery gives conservationists hope that the fox—listed as threatened by California—may just outfox extinction overall, scientists say.

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 theLassen Peak region (see map).

ButU.S. Forest Serviceofficials 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,"saidBen Sacks, director of the Canid Diversity and Conservation Unit of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory.

"We thought they were gone,"Sacks added."We were wrong."

(Also see"'Extinct' Booby Exposed—Found 'Masked,' Using Alias.")

Knowing there are two holdout populations of the subspecies"multiplies our reasons for optimism,"Sacks added.

It"tells us not only are they not extinct, but now we're hedged,"he said."If something were to happen to one of those {populations}, we have another to draw from."

Sly Fox Little Studied

Since 2006, Sacks has been studying red foxes in California—often joining the hunt for the Sierra Nevada fox. Even when he's hiking,"if I find fox-size feces at the right elevation, I pick it up and do the analysis,"he said.

His genetic research, for instance, has revealed that many of the red foxes in the western U.S. are actually descendants of native Alaska and eastern U.S. foxes that were introduced in the 20th century.

But still, very little is known about the elusive Sierra Nevada subspecies—so little, in fact, that no one knows its exact population or why it's declining, Sacks said.

Sacks suspects the animals have escaped human detection in part because biologists' surveys are done at lower elevations—Sierra Nevada red foxes generally keep to the hig mountains.

The new discovery"tells us we need to take them seriously,"he said.

"We need some resources to study these guys and to find out how many are out there"and to"figure out how to protect them and ensure their persistence into the future."

forNational Geographic News

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"Whispering" Bat Evolved to Trick Prey

Meet the barbastelle bat, the world's first known moth whisperer.

The European bat has lowered its voice to evade detection by some moth species, allowing the mammal to swoop in for the kill, new research shows.

To help"see"in the dark, most bats echolocate, sending out sound waves and listening for echoes bouncing off objects, including prey.

(Related:"Early Bats Flew First, Developed 'Sonar' Later.")

Moths with ears—a feature that evolved independently in several moth species—can hear the bat calls and avoid the predators. Some species, such as tiger moths, evenuse ultrasonic clicks to"jam"a bat's sonar.

Yet one species of bat, the barbastelle, has evolved a whispering counterstrategy to outwit the eared moths—an unusual occurrence in nature, said study leader Holger Goerlitz, a biologist at theUniversity of Bristolin the United Kingdom.

"Evolution is putting larger pressure on prey to evolve adaptations to win against the predator,"Goerlitz said,"so therefore it's rare when you find cases in nature when a predator is winning in the arms race."

Unlocking the Bat Whisper

Before the study, the researchers had noticed that barbastelle bats are particularly proficient hunters. To find out why, the scientists would need to find out what exactly the bats hunt, so Goerlitz's team ran a genetic analysis of barbastelle feces.

The results showed the bat ate mostly moths with ears, such as the large yellow underwing moth.

The scientists then went out into the night to find out how well eared moths can detect the barbastelle bat's sonar.

At a site in southern England, the team attached a small electrode to the auditory nerve of a captured yellow underwing moth kept on the ground. The electrode recorded when the nerve was activated by a passing bat's echolocation call.

Simultaneously, the researchers recorded with microphones the echolocation calls of several flying barbastelles, which allowed the team to calculate where in space the sound had originated. For comparison, the team also recorded echolocation calls of a related bat species, Leisler's bat.

(Related:"Bats Use Magnetic 'Compasses' to Navigate, Study Says.")

Later, in the lab, the scientists pieced together when the moth's auditory nerve had been firing in relation to an incoming echolocation call.

The results showed the barbastelle can get as close as 11 feet (3.5 meters) to the grounded moth without being detected—most eared other moths can hear bats as far away as 100 feet (30 meters), according to the study.

Further analysis of the echolocation calls revealed that the barbastelle's calls are up to a hundred times fainter than those of other bats. (Interactive:Hear tropical bat calls.)

Bat Whispers Provide Exclusive Food Source

The bats' whispering is something of a disadvantage, since it effectively limits their"vision,"Goerlitz noted.

"All of the other bats have a large call that travels far, {like} a bright torch,"he said, but the barbastelle bats' sonar is like"a candle, only 'illuminating' the area just around them."

Yet this specialized ability also means the barbastelle has a corner on the eared-moth market, since non-whispering bats generally can't catch the insects.

Will the moth develop a counter-counterstrategy to the whispering? Unlikely, Goerlitz said. If the moth becomes even more sensitive to noises, the fragile insect might become too disturbed by innocuous sounds, such as wind and rustling leaves, he said.

So for now it's bat 1, moth 0.

The bat-"whispering"study will appear September 14 in the journalCurrent Biology.

National Geographic News

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Pictures: Crab Swarms Overtake Island—Mystery Solved

Migrating Christmas Island red crabs congregate on a beach in theAustralianterritory ofChristmas Island (map)in an undated picture.

A new study solves a longstanding mystery surrounding the crabs: how the the normally sedentary species has the stamina to"undergo one of the most arduous migrations on Earth,"in the words of study co-author Lucy Turner. 

When the wet season blows into Christmas Island (map)each year, millions of Christmas Island red crabs hike for several days, from a high rain forest plateau down to Indian Ocean beaches, where the crabs mate in burrows.

"It's an amazing feat—going from not being able to exercise for more than ten minutes to walking for several miles,"said Turner, a biologist at theUniversity of Bristolin the United Kingdom. 

But by sampling circulatory fluid—the equivalent of blood—from migrating crabs, Turner and colleagues discovered that a surge in the crustacean hyperglycemic hormone works with glucose, an energy-producing sugar, to fuel the epic trek. 

(See"World's Longest Migration Found—Two Times Longer Than Thought.")

The crab's endocrine system also stockpiles enough sugar to allow the crabs to return to their forest homes, Turner added.

Study published in the September issue of theJournal of Experimental Biology.

—Christine Dell'Amore

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Tarzan Chameleon Found in Tarzan Forest, Near Tarzanville

There's a new, scalier lord of the jungle: Tarzan the chameleon.

Five-inch-long (13-centimeter-long)Calumma tarzanwas found recently in a tiny patch of forest on the vast African island ofMadagascar, a new study says.

The new species' name has multiple roots. For one thing, the chameleon's habitat—in what locals call the Tarzan Forest—is near the village formerly known as Tarzanville (recently renamed Ambodimeloka).

For another, the team thought naming the new species after the vine-swinging"ape man"might be a good way to"promote the conservation of this species and of course of the forest that it's living in,"according to study leader Philip-Sebastian Gehring, an evolutionary biologist at theTechnical University of Braunschweigin Germany. (SeeMadagascar pictures.)

After all,"Tarzan stands for a jungle hero and fighting for protecting the forest,"Gehring said.

(Related:"Lemur Forests Pillaged by 'Gangs' as Madagascar Reels.")

Unique Snout Gave Tarzan Chameleon Away

The Tarzan chameleon was found on a 2009 night survey in eastern Madgascar, which lies off the east coast of mainland Africa.

Scientists immediately recognized thereptileas unique from other chameleons, due to its flat, spadelike snout, Gehring said.

Though the species' numbers are unknown, Gehring and colleagues suspect the Tarzan chameleon will be added to the ranks of critically endangered species on theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.

(See relatedpictures:"Over 200 New Amphibians Found in Madagascar.")

Tarzan Forest Fragmented

Rampant deforestation—which has accelerated throughout Madagascar since a 2009 political coup—has turned the chameleon's habitat into a patchwork of isolated forest fragments, some no bigger than a soccer field. (See"Madagascar's Logging Crisis: Separating Myth From Fact.")

Combined, the fragments account for just about four square miles (ten square kilometers), Gehring said.

Even so, the team found up to 60 chameleons in one fragment alone, suggesting the new species can survive in the remaining pockets—and that the Tarzan chameleon could still come out swinging.

Tarzan-chameleon study published August 20 in the journalSalamandra.

National Geographic News

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Evolution in Action: Lizard Moving From Eggs to Live Birth

Evolution has been caught in the act, according to scientists who are decoding how a species ofAustralianlizard is abandoning egg-laying in favor of live birth.

Along the warm coastal lowlands ofNew South Wales (map), the yellow-bellied three-toed skink lays eggs to reproduce. But individuals of the same species living in the state's higher, colder mountains are almost all giving birth to live young.

Only two other modernreptiles—another skink species and a European lizard—use both types of reproduction. (Related:"Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas—By Komodo Dragon.")

Evolutionary records shows that nearly a hundred reptile lineages have independently made the transition from egg-laying to live birth in the past, and today about 20 percent of all living snakes and lizards give birth to live young only.

(See"Oldest Live-Birth Fossil Found; Fish Had Umbilical Cord.")

But modern reptiles that have live young provide only a single snapshot on a long evolutionary time line, said study co-authorJames Stewart, a biologist at East Tennessee State University. The dual behavior of the yellow-bellied three-toed skink therefore offers scientists a rare opportunity.

"By studying differences among populations that are in different stages of this process, you can begin to put together what looks like the transition from one {birth style} to the other."

Eggs-to-Baby Switch Creates Nutrient Problem

One of the mysteries of how reptiles switch from eggs to live babies is how the young get their nourishment before birth.

Inmammalsa highly specialized placenta connects the fetus to the ovary wall, allowing the baby to take up oxygen and nutrients from the mother's blood and pass back waste. (See relatedpictures of"extreme"animals in the womb.)

In egg-laying species, the embryo gets nourishment from the yolk, but calcium absorbed from the porous shell is also an important nutrient source.

Some fish and reptiles, meanwhile, use a mix of both birthing styles. The mother forms eggs, but then retains them inside her body until the very last stages of embryonic development. (Related:"Dinosaur Eggs Discovered Inside Mother—A First.")

The shells of these eggs thin dramatically so that the embryos can breathe, until live babies are born covered with only thin membranes—all that remains of the shells.

This adaptation presents a potential nourishment problem: A thinner shell has less calcium, which could cause deficiencies for the young reptiles.

Stewart and colleagues, who have studied skinks for years, decided to look for clues to the nutrient problem in the structure and chemistry of the yellow-bellied three-toed skink's uterus.

"Now we can see that the uterus secretes calcium that becomes incorporated into the embryo—it's basically the early stages of the evolution of a placenta in reptiles,"Stewart explained.

Evolutionary Transition Surprisingly Simple

Both birthing styles come with evolutionary tradeoffs: Eggs are more vulnerable to external threats, such as extreme weather and predators, but internal fetuses can be more taxing for the mother.

(Related:"Human Sperm Gene Traced to Dawn of Animal Evolution.")

For the skinks, moms in balmier climates may opt to conserve their own bodies' resources by depositing eggs on the ground for the final week or so of development. Moms in harsh mountain climates, by contrast, might find that it's more efficient to protect their young by keeping them longer inside their bodies.

In general, the results suggest the move from egg-laying to live birth in reptiles is fairly common—at least in historic terms—because it's relatively easy to make the switch, Stewart said.

"We tend to think of this as a very complex transition,"he said,"but it's looking like it might be much simpler in some cases than we thought."

The skink-evolution research was published online August 16 by theJournal of Morphology.

forNational Geographic News

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New Deep-Sea Pictures: Chimaera, Ten-armed Starfish, More

Asea anemonehitches a ride on a hermit crab in one of the"rare and exciting"new pictures released last week by a joint Indonesian-U.S.oceanexpedition.

Taken near theIndonesianisland ofSulawesi (map), the high-definition,"never-before-seen views of seascapes and colorful, fascinating marine animals"were captured by a remotely operated vehicle aboard the expedition's U.S. shipOkeanos Explorer.

The ROV conducted 27 dives between 800 feet (240 meters) and 2 miles (3.2 kilometers), spotting at least 40 species that might be unknown to science, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

(Seepictures of a giant undersea volcano released by the project team in June.)

The first in a multiyear partnership between NOAA and theIndonesian Ministry for Marine Affairs and Fisheries, the approximately two-month expedition was meant to document Indonesia's sea life and to learn more about resolving ocean problems, such asacidificationandoverfishing. (Read aboutten things you do can do save the ocean.)

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