earth

The world's longest track of dinosaur footprints has been hidden in Colorado's mountains. Now, it's public land

The U.S. Forest Service recently purchased several parcels of land from the Charles family in Ouray that contains 134 fossilized dinosaur footprints, the longest continuous trackway in the world.

The family used to hike through the area without knowing the true identity of the oddly shaped craters, which collected water that their dogs would gleefully drink.

The world's largest continuous track of dinosaur footprints is tucked away in the mountains in Ouray County. On April 10, 2024, the U.S. Forest Service purchased land that contains the track and a trail leading to the site, making it accessible to the public for the first time.

Anita McDonald grew up thinking of the land as the spot her dad, Jack Charles, had hoped to strike it rich prospecting for gold. Instead, the property became a place where she and her four siblings spent their summers. Now, it's preserved publicly for generations to come.

"Dad would be real pleased that it's going to be protected," McDonald told the Ouray County Plaindealer.

What her family didn't know was that in the 1960s, a group of local teens had stumbled upon the tracks and thought that maybe they could have been made by dinosaurs. One of those boys grew up to be geologist and famed trail runner Rick Trujillo, who alerted the Charles family to the find in 2021.

The next year, the family approached the Forest Service about acquiring the land.

On April 10, the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forest purchased 27 acres, which include what's known as the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Track site and a trail that gives the public access to the site.

The Forest Service's Jim Pitts said the purchase highlights the agency's dedication to conservation.

"By preserving these fossilized imprints, we are not only safeguarding a valuable scientific resource but also creating an incredible opportunity for the public to connect with the distant past, inspiring curiosity, education, and stewardship," he said.

The public can reach the site via the steep and rugged Silvershield Trail, which is only open to foot traffic and horse travel. The trailhead and parking are accessed from County Road 17 near Ouray, with limited parking in a residential neighborhood.

I know, Texas really does suck most of the time. but right now, its cool in the evenings, the springtime flowers are in bloom and the smell is just about everywhere. Im lucky to live in a place where nature hasnt been completely paved over and lost yet.

for you

The Different Varieties of Cherry Blossoms in Japan

Kikuzakura, or the chrysanthemum cherry, is a type of yaezakura (multi-layered cherry blossom) or cherry blossoms with more than five petals in a flower. The petals of the kikuzakura come in as many as 100 in a single blossom.

https://bsky.app/profile/jocelynanderson.bsky.social/post/3kq2csxcwmx24

Powerful owl

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CW: Nature is metal - TIL that there is an owl species called 'powerful owl' and yes, they are native to Australia, largest owl in the continent... : natureismetal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PwDFddpo4c&t=143s

Chaparral wren

I love the quote.

Baby lobsters nurtured in Northumberland to boost life chances | ITV News Tyne Tees

Thursday 9 November 2017

Baby lobsters are being nurtured in Northumberland to improve their chances of making it to adulthood. Female lobsters are brought to the Northumberland Seafood Centre's Hatchery, where their eggs are carefully packaged and preserved in sea-like conditions. After they've been given time to develop the eggs are taken on board a conservation boat. The boat then takes them out to sea and lays them on the sea bed.

In the wild, about 1 in 20,000 of the eggs make it to be an adult lobster. When we take them through the process in the hatchery, about half of those will make it to be an adult lobster.

"So if I was a lobster I'd be much happier with my chances."

Andrew Gooding, Northumberland Seafood Centre Manager

Their mothers are also set free at sea. Before they're unloaded, conservation officers put a notch in their tail which means fishermen can't land them until the notch has grown out, helping raise lobster numbers and awareness. The baby lobsters disappear into the sea bed for three years until they resurface as fully grown adults. Some may then even return to the lobster hatchery to help breed the next generation.

Wolves are skillful hunters, and large, hoofed ungulates like deer and elk are generally on the menu. But scientists increasingly recognize that these keystone predators have an exceptionally varied diet partaking in everything fish to fruit!

The wolves living in Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota eat blueberries – lots of them! Researchers found that most wolves spend extended periods in July and August, during peak blueberry season, foraging in blueberry patches.

Zephyr, Alawa, and Nikai don't have access to any blueberry patches at the Wolf Conservation Center, so we offered them something really big and juicy - watermelons! After all, what better way to beat the summer heat than with delicious watermelons?

Just like us, a wolf's diet can be highly variable and constantly changing depending on the environment. And perhaps fruit may be more important to the wolves' diet than previously thought!

Looks like an alien demon and it's one inch punch could pierce your skin and possibly break a bone, it's like a .22 bullet. What a fascinating creature.

It's a Bluesky link but he use adult tags as de facto "spoiler" tags. The problem is that content is hidden if you're not logged into Bluesky. Here's a Bluesky mirror site to show the entire thread...

https://subium.com/profile/c0nc0rdance.bsky.social/post/3kpkcq2ecws22

A huge hint...

The dingo is an ancient (basal) lineage of dog found in Australia. Its taxonomic classification is debated as indicated by the variety of scientific names presently applied in different publications. It is variously considered a form of domestic dog not warranting recognition as a subspecies, a subspecies of dog or wolf, or a full species in its own right.

The dingo is a medium-sized canine that possesses a lean, hardy body adapted for speed, agility, and stamina. The dingo's three main coat colourations are light ginger or tan, black and tan, or creamy white. The skull is wedge-shaped and appears large in proportion to the body. The dingo is closely related to the New Guinea singing dog: their lineage split early from the lineage that led to today's domestic dogs, and can be traced back through Maritime Southeast Asia to Asia. The oldest remains of dingoes in Australia are around 3,500 years old.

A dingo pack usually consists of a mated pair, their offspring from the current year, and sometimes offspring from the previous year.

Etymology

The name "dingo" comes from the Dharug language used by the Indigenous Australians of the Sydney area. The first British colonists to arrive in Australia in 1788 established a settlement at Port Jackson and noted "dingoes" living with indigenous Australians. The dingo has different names in different indigenous Australian languages, such as boolomo, dwer-da, joogoong, kal, kurpany, maliki, mirigung, noggum, papa-inura, and wantibirri.

Domestic status

The dingo is regarded as a feral dog because it descended from domesticated ancestors. The dingo's relationship with indigenous Australians is one of commensalism, in which two organisms live in close association, but do not depend on each other for survival. They both hunt and sleep together. The dingo is, therefore, comfortable enough around humans to associate with them, but is still capable of living independently. Any free-ranging, unowned dog can be socialised to become an owned dog, as some dingoes do when they join human families

History

The earliest known dingo remains, found in Western Australia, date to 3,450 years ago. Based on a comparison of modern dingoes with these early remains, dingo morphology has not changed over thousands of years. This suggests that no artificial selection has been applied over this period and that the dingo represents an early form of dog.[40] They have lived, bred, and undergone natural selection in the wild, isolated from other dogs until the arrival of European settlers, resulting in a unique breed.

Hybrids, distribution and habitat

The wolf-like canids are a group of large carnivores that are genetically closely related because their chromosomes number 78, therefore they can potentially interbreed to produce fertile hybrids. In the Australian wild there exist dingoes, feral dogs, and the crossings of these two, which produce dingo–dog hybrids.

Dingoes occurred throughout mainland Australia before European settlement. They are not found in the fossil record of Tasmania, so they apparently arrived in Australia after Tasmania had separated from the mainland due to rising sea levels. The introduction of agriculture reduced dingo distribution, and by the early 1900s, large barrier fences, including the Dingo Fence, excluded them from the sheep-grazing areas. Land clearance, poisoning, and trapping caused the extinction of the dingo and hybrids from most of their former range in southern Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Today, they are absent from most of New South Wales, Victoria, the southeastern third of South Australia, and the southwestern tip of Western Australia. They are sparse in the eastern half of Western Australia and the adjoining areas of the Northern Territory and South Australia. They are regarded as common across the remainder of the continent.

The dingo's present distribution covers a variety of habitats, including the temperate regions of eastern Australia, the alpine moorlands of the eastern highlands, the arid hot deserts of Central Australia, and the tropical forests and wetlands of Northern Australia. The occupation of, and adaption to, these habitats may have been assisted by their relationship with indigenous Australians.

Prey

The study found that these canines prey on 177 species represented by 72.3% mammals (71 species), 18.8% birds (53 species), 3.3% vegetation (seeds), 1.8% reptiles (23 species), and 3.8% insects, fish, crabs, and frogs (28 species). The relative proportions of prey are much the same across Australia, apart from more birds being eaten in the north and south-east coastal regions, and more lizards in Central Australia.

Communication

Compared to most domestic dogs, the bark of a dingo is short and monosyllabic, and is rarely used. Barking was observed to make up only 5% of vocalisations. Dog barking has always been distinct from wolf barking. Australian dingoes bark mainly in swooshing noises or in a mixture of atonal and tonal sounds.

Dingoes have three basic forms of howling (moans, bark-howls, and snuffs) with at least 10 variations. Usually, three kinds of howls are distinguished: long and persistent, rising and ebbing, and short and abrupt.

Additionally, howling seems to have a group function, and is sometimes an expression of joy (for example, greeting-howls).

Behaviour

Dingoes tend to be nocturnal in warmer regions, but less so in cooler areas. Their main period of activity is around dusk and dawn. The periods of activity are short (often less than 1 hour) with short times of resting. Dingoes have two kinds of movement: a searching movement (apparently associated with hunting) and an exploratory movement (probably for contact and communication with other dogs). According to studies in Queensland, the wild dogs (dingo hybrids) there move freely at night through urban areas and cross streets and seem to get along quite well.

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The Lure of Bird Lores | Naturally Curious with Mary Holland

https://bsky.app/profile/seafloorscience.bsky.social/post/3kpek4hwjpt2n

Balistes capriscus - Discover Fishes

In the photo the fin is up. I tried to find a good up/down photo or illustration but I couldn't find one.