Severe Python Damage to Native Everglades Animals
Precipitous declines in formerly common mammals in Everglades National Park have been linked to the presence of invasive Burmese pythons, according to a study by Davidson Associate Professor of Biology Michael Dorcas and colleagues published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study, the first to document the ecological impacts of this invasive species, strongly supports that animal communities in the 1.5-million-acre park have been markedly altered by the introduction of pythons within 11 years of their establishment as an invasive species. Mid-sized mammals are the most dramatically affected, but some Everglades pythons are as large as 16 feet long, and their prey have included animals as large as deer and alligators.
“The magnitude of these declines underscores the apparent incredible density of pythons in Everglades National Park and justifies the argument for more intensive investigation into their ecological effects, as well as the development of effective control methods,” said Dorcas, lead author of the study and author of the 2010 book Invasive Pythons in the United States.
He continued, “Such severe declines in easily seen mammals bode poorly for the many species of conservation concern that are more difficult to sample but that may also be vulnerable to python predation.”
The most severe declines, including a nearly complete disappearance of raccoons, rabbits and opossums, have occurred in the remote southernmost regions of the park, where pythons have been established the longest. In this area, populations of raccoons dropped 99.3 percent, opossums 98.9 percent and bobcats 87.5 percent. Marsh and cottontail rabbits, as well as foxes, were not seen at all.
In a comparison of ecological devastation by invasive exotic species scientist Robert Reed noted that it took 30 years for the brown treesnake, an introduced species, to be implicated in the complete extinction of mammals and birds on the island of Guam. While it appears that it has only taken 11 years since biologists noted the increased presence of pythons to see their link with severe mammal declines. While there is little chance that raccoons will become extinct, the snakes show a real threat to the opossum – America’s only marsupial and to foxes and bob cats. The snakes have the advantage of what could be called native animal naivete. These same animals are aware of and avoid native snakes and other predators well enough to maintain their numbers. They are not aware of how to deal with pythons.
Cheap, Sustainable Water Filter Made from Seeds and Sand
“The idea is that as long as people have [ordinary] sand and Moringa seeds, they can clean water,” said Stephanie Velegol, a chemical engineer who is leading the Penn State research. Moringa trees are common in many water-stressed regions of Asia, Africa and South America, and one mature tree can produce as many as 15,000 seeds. “We always wanted a sustainable approach,” Velegol told InnovationNewsDaily. She and her colleagues published their research in November, in the journal Langmuir.
To make the antibacterial sand, Velegol’s team crushed Moringa seeds and mixed them with water. After an hour, the team members poured off the water onto some ordinary sand, discarding the solid bits of Moringa. After another hour, they rinsed the sand and found its grains now had active, antibacterial protein from Moringa seeds tightly stuck on their surfaces.
They also found the Moringa-ed sand could now kill E. coli bacteria in water.
Some hurdles remain in working out the bugs of this promising system. They need to test for effectiveness in filtering out other bacteria besides E.coli and the old seed residue itself starts to grow bacteria after 24 hours.
In 1832, a hill collapsed on the Arkansas property of Judge H. Bry and exposed a long sequence of 28 of the circular bones. He thought they might be of scientific interest and sent a package to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. No one quite knew what to make of them. Some of the sediment attached to the bone contained small shells that showed that the large creature had once lived in an ancient sea, but little more could be said with any certainty.
Bry’s donation was soon matched, and even exceeded, by that of Judge John Creagh from Alabama. He had found vertebrae and other fragments while blasting on his property and also sent off a few samples to the Philadelphia society. Richard Harlan reviewed the fossils, which were unlike any he had seen before. He asked for more bones, and Creagh soon sent parts of the skull, jaws, limbs, ribs, and backbone of the enigmatic creature. Given that both Creagh and Bry said they had seen intact vertebral columns in excess of 100 feet in length, the living creature must have been one of the largest vertebrates to have ever lived. But what kind of animal was it?
An illustration of German-born fossil collector Albert Koch's "Hydrarchos" as it appeared on display. From Fowler, O.S. 1846. The American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, Vol. 8. New York: Fowler & Wells
It was not uncommon at the time of these inland whale fossil discoveries to be thought of as dinosaurs or reptiles. In 1839 paleontologist Richard Owen, in a very careful examination of the unique teeth showed that they had to belong to some kind of mammal.
A startling discovery made in the arid sands of Pakistan announced by University of Michigan paleontologists Philip Gingerich and Donald Russell in 1981 finally delivered the transitional form scientists had been hoping for. In freshwater sediments dating to about 53 million years ago, the researchers recovered the fossils of an animal they called Pakicetus inachus. Little more than the back of the animal’s skull had been recovered, but it possessed a feature that unmistakably connected it to cetaceans.
Cetaceans, like many other mammals, have ear bones enclosed in a dome of bone on the underside of their skulls called the auditory bulla. Where whales differ is that the margin of the dome closest to the midline of the skull, called the involucrum, is extremely thick, dense, and highly mineralized. This condition is called pachyosteosclerosis, and whales are the only mammals known to have such a heavily thickened involucrum. The skull of Pakicetus exhibited just this condition.
Colored Scanning Electron Micro- graph (SEM) of mitochondria and smooth endoplasmic reticulum in an ovarian granulosa – lutein cell.
Via here Flying People Spotted Over New York City…Film At Nine
In a recent publicity venture for their new movie “Chronicle”, 20th Century Fox enlisted the help of viral marketing agency Thinkmodo to design and execute a rather unique campaign element that surely caused several doubletakes over the New York City skyline.
Who knows if this stunt will help sell movie tickets. The reaction to the flying “people” is an interesting study in mass psychology.
