earth

I am a fan of Ed Yong. For example - his covid reportage was excellent. And he was one of the few journos who understood the hows and whys of things.

His post on Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/edyong209.bsky.social/post/3kow7wd27qq2v

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Bluesky follow up comment

One thing I forgot to mention in this piece about why birding has changed my life: It is truly wonderful and gently radical to spend large chunks of your day looking up. My neck lifts; so, too, my spirits.

The wolf (Canis lupus;[b] pl.: wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gray wolves, as popularly understood, only comprise naturally-occurring wild subspecies. The wolf is the largest extant member of the family Canidae, and is further distinguished from other Canis species by its less pointed ears and muzzle, as well as a shorter torso and a longer tail. The wolf is nonetheless related closely enough to smaller Canis species, such as the coyote and the golden jackal, to produce fertile hybrids with them. The wolf's fur is usually mottled white, brown, gray, and black, although subspecies in the arctic region may be nearly all white.

Of all members of the genus Canis, the wolf is most specialized for cooperative game hunting as demonstrated by its physical adaptations to tackling large prey, its more social nature, and its highly advanced expressive behaviour, including individual or group howling. It travels in nuclear families consisting of a mated pair accompanied by their offspring. Offspring may leave to form their own packs on the onset of sexual maturity and in response to competition for food within the pack. Wolves are also territorial, and fights over territory are among the principal causes of mortality. The wolf is mainly a carnivore and feeds on large wild hooved mammals as well as smaller animals, livestock, carrion, and garbage. Single wolves or mated pairs typically have higher success rates in hunting than do large packs. Pathogens and parasites, notably the rabies virus, may infect wolves.

The global wild wolf population was estimated to be 300,000 in 2003 and is considered to be of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Wolves have a long history of interactions with humans, having been despised and hunted in most pastoral communities because of their attacks on livestock, while conversely being respected in some agrarian and hunter-gatherer societies. Although the fear of wolves exists in many human societies, the majority of recorded attacks on people have been attributed to animals suffering from rabies. Wolf attacks on humans are rare because wolves are relatively few, live away from people, and have developed a fear of humans because of their experiences with hunters, farmers, ranchers, and shepherds.

Etymology

The English "wolf" stems from the Old English wulf, which is itself thought to be derived from the Proto-Germanic *wulfaz. The Proto-Indo-European root *wĺ̥kʷos may also be the source of the Latin word for the animal lupus (*lúkʷos).

Evolution

The earliest fossils of C. lupus were found in what was once eastern Beringia at Old Crow, Yukon, Canada, and at Cripple Creek Sump, Fairbanks, Alaska. The age is not agreed upon but could date to one million years ago. Considerable morphological diversity existed among wolves by the Late Pleistocene. They had more robust skulls and teeth than modern wolves, often with a shortened snout, a pronounced development of the temporalis muscle, and robust premolars. It is proposed that these features were specialized adaptations for the processing of carcass and bone associated with the hunting and scavenging of Pleistocene megafauna. Compared with modern wolves, some Pleistocene wolves showed an increase in tooth breakage similar to that seen in the extinct dire wolf. This suggests they either often processed carcasses, or that they competed with other carnivores and needed to consume their prey quickly. Compared with those found in the modern spotted hyena, the frequency and location of tooth fractures in these wolves indicates they were habitual bone crackers.

Description

The wolf is the largest extant member of the Canidae family, and is further distinguished from coyotes and jackals by a broader snout, shorter ears, a shorter torso and a longer tail. It is slender and powerfully built, with a large, deeply descending rib cage, a sloping back, and a heavily muscled neck. The wolf's legs are moderately longer than those of other canids, which enables the animal to move swiftly, and to overcome the deep snow that covers most of its geographical range in winter. The ears are relatively small and triangular. The wolf's head is large and heavy, with a wide forehead, strong jaws and a long, blunt muzzle.

The wolf has very dense and fluffy winter fur, with a short undercoat and long, coarse guard hairs. Most of the undercoat and some guard hairs are shed in spring and grow back in autumn. The longest hairs occur on the back, particularly on the front quarters and neck. Especially long hairs grow on the shoulders and almost form a crest on the upper part of the neck.

A wolf's coat colour is determined by its guard hairs. Wolves usually have some hairs that are white, brown, gray and black.

Distribution and habitat

Wolves occur across Eurasia and North America. However, deliberate human persecution because of livestock predation and fear of attacks on humans has reduced the wolf's range to about one-third of its historic range; the wolf is now extirpated (locally extinct) from much of its range in Western Europe, the United States and Mexico, and completely in the British Isles and Japan. In modern times, the wolf occurs mostly in wilderness and remote areas. The wolf can be found between sea level and 3,000 m (9,800 ft). Wolves live in forests, inland wetlands, shrublands, grasslands (including Arctic tundra), pastures, deserts, and rocky peaks on mountains. Habitat use by wolves depends on the abundance of prey, snow conditions, livestock densities, road densities, human presence and topography.

Diet

Like all land mammals that are pack hunters, the wolf feeds predominantly on ungulates that can be divided into large size 240–650 kg (530–1,430 lb) and medium size 23–130 kg (51–287 lb), and have a body mass similar to that of the combined mass of the pack members. The wolf specializes in preying on the vulnerable individuals of large prey, with a pack of 15 able to bring down an adult moose. The variation in diet between wolves living on different continents is based on the variety of hoofed mammals and of available smaller and domesticated prey

Nonetheless, wolves are not fussy eaters. Smaller-sized animals that may supplement their diet include rodents, hares, insectivores and smaller carnivores. They frequently eat waterfowl and their eggs. When such foods are insufficient, they prey on lizards, snakes, frogs, and large insects when available. Wolves in some areas may consume fish and even marine life. Wolves also consume some plant material.

Interactions with other predators

Wolves typically dominate other canid species in areas where they both occur. In North America, incidents of wolves killing coyotes are common, particularly in winter, when coyotes feed on wolf kills. Wolves may attack coyote den sites, digging out and killing their pups, though rarely eating them. There are no records of coyotes killing wolves, though coyotes may chase wolves if they outnumber them.

Brown bears typically dominate wolf packs in disputes over carcasses, while wolf packs mostly prevail against bears when defending their den sites. Both species kill each other's young.

Wolves encounter cougars along portions of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent mountain ranges. Wolves and cougars typically avoid encountering each other by hunting at different elevations for different prey (niche partitioning). This is more difficult during winter.

Wolf and Siberian tiger interactions are well-documented in the Russian Far East, where tigers significantly depress wolf numbers, sometimes to the point of localized extinction.

Status and conservation

The global wild wolf population in 2003 was estimated at 300,000. Wolf population declines have been arrested since the 1970s. This has fostered recolonization and reintroduction in parts of its former range as a result of legal protection, changes in land use, and rural human population shifts to cities. Competition with humans for livestock and game species, concerns over the danger posed by wolves to people, and habitat fragmentation pose a continued threat to the wolf. Despite these threats, the IUCN classifies the wolf as Least Concern on its Red List due to its relatively widespread range and stable population. The species is listed under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), meaning international trade in the species (including parts and derivatives) is regulated. However, populations of Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan are listed in Appendix I which prohibits commercial international trade in wild-sourced specimens.

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This is the first story in a three-part miniseries on Nepal’s development plans around protected areas. Read Part Two and Part Three.

by Abhaya Raj Joshi on 29 March 2024

• Nepal’s Ministry of Forest and Environment is working new regulations to permit hotels to operate within national parks like Chitwan, a draft of the document seen by Mongabay suggests.
• The decision follows the closure of seven hotels in Chitwan National Park in 2009 due to ecological concerns and alleged involvement in poaching, with the last of them shutting down in 2012.
• Despite opposition from conservationists and local communities, the government has shown interest in allowing commercial activities, including large-scale hydropower plants, within national parks, raising concerns about environmental degradation.

KATHMANDU — Nepal’s Ministry of Forest and Environment is preparing fresh regulations to allow hotels to return to national parks such as Chitwan, a decade after they were shut down based on environmental concerns.

Although rumors were doing the rounds in the corridors of the ministry and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation in Kathmandu for a long time, with officials neither confirming nor denying the preparation, Ministry Secretary Deepak Kumar Kharal and department chief Sindhu Dhungana spilled the beans at a program organized by the World Bank in Kathmandu recently.

Kharal, addressing the program, said the government is working on a new regulation that will “open up an avenue” for private sector investment in Nepal conservation. Dhungana went a step further to say the new regulation will address policy barriers to allow the private sector, which has so far “shied away” from investing in projects inside protected areas, to do so.

full article

oh my god my partner found a bat napping in some blossoms oh my god

https://bsky.app/profile/katesheridanart.bsky.social/post/3koox6lauku2f

Apparently it's an eastern red bat.

The article is about twice as long as what I'm quoting.

Bronx Zoo veterinary pathologists determined that in addition to the traumatic injuries, Flaco had two significant underlying conditions. He had a severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons that had become part of his diet, and exposure to four different anticoagulant rodenticides that are commonly used for rat control in New York City. These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building.

The identified herpesvirus can be carried by healthy pigeons but may cause fatal disease in birds of prey including owls infected by eating pigeons. This virus has been previously found in New York City pigeons and owls. In Flaco’s case, the viral infection caused severe tissue damage and inflammation in many organs, including the spleen, liver, gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow, and brain.

No other contributing factors were identified through the extensive testing that was performed.

Megalania

Megalania (Varanus priscus) is an extinct species of giant monitor lizard, part of the megafaunal assemblage that inhabited Australia during the Pleistocene. [...] Megalania is the largest terrestrial lizard known to have existed.

[...]

The youngest fossil remains of giant monitor lizards in Australia date to around 50,000 years ago. The first indigenous settlers of Australia might have encountered megalania, and been a factor in megalania's extinction.

[...]

Size

The lack of complete or nearly complete fossil skeletons has made it difficult to determine the exact dimensions of megalania. Early estimates placed the length of the largest individuals at 7 m (23 ft), with a maximum weight of approximately 600–620 kg (1,320–1,370 lb). In 2002, Stephen Wroe considerably downsized megalania, suggesting a maximum length of 4.5 m (15 ft) and a weight of 331 kg (730 lb) with averages of 3.5 m (11 ft) and 97–158 kg (214–348 lb), decrying the earlier maximum length estimate of 7 m (23 ft) as exaggerations based on flawed methods. In 2009, however Wroe joined other researchers in raising the estimate to at least 5.5 m (18 ft) and 575 kg (1,268 lb).

In a book published in 2004, Ralph Molnar determined a range of potential sizes for megalania, made by scaling up from dorsal vertebrae, after he determined a relationship between dorsal vertebrae width and total body length. If it had a long, thin tail like the lace monitor, then it would have reached a length of 7.9 m (26 ft), while if its tail-to-body proportions were more similar to that of the Komodo dragon, then a length around 7 m (23 ft) is more likely. Taking the maximal 7 m (23 ft) length, he estimated a weight of 1,940 kg (4,280 lb), with a leaner 320 kg (710 lb) being average.

Modern day dino

by Liz Kimbrough on 20 March 2024

• Paleontologists discovered a fossilized skull of a newly described species of giant freshwater dolphin in the Peruvian Amazon, which lived around 16 million years ago and is considered the largest-known river dolphin ever found.
• The ancient creature, measuring 3-3.5 meters (9.8-11.5 feet), was surprisingly related to South Asian river dolphins rather than the local, living Amazon river pink dolphin and shared highly developed facial crests used for echolocation.
• The discovery comes at a time when the six existing species of modern river dolphins face unprecedented threats, with their combined populations decreasing by 73% since the 1980s due to unsustainable fishing practices, climate change, pollution, illegal mining and infrastructure development.
• Conservation efforts are underway, including the signing of the Global Declaration for River Dolphins by nine countries and successful initiatives in China and Indonesia, highlighting the importance of protecting these critical species that serve as indicators of river ecosystem health.

A team of paleontologists found a giant fossilized skull along the shore of the Napo River in the Peruvian Amazon. To their surprise, the relic belonged to a newly described species of giant freshwater dolphin.

This colossal creature swam in the rivers of the Amazon around 16 million years ago and is considered the largest-known species of river dolphin to have ever lived, measuring 3-3.5 meters (9.8-11.5 feet).

full article

No... no. fuck off. that can't be

THEY HAVE FUCKING EYES?!?!

HUNDREDS OF EYES?!?

EXCUSE ME?!?!?!