New amphibian species discovered in Colombia

Ten new species of amphibians -- including three kinds of poisonous frogs and three transparent-skinned glass frogs -- have been discovered in the mountains of Colombia, conservationists said.

With amphibians under threat around the globe, the discovery was an encouraging sign and reason to protect the area where they were found, said Robin Moore, an amphibian expert at the environmental group Conservation International.

The nine frog species and one salamander species were found in the mountainous Tacarcuna area of the Darien region near Colombia's border with Panama.

Because amphibians have permeable skin, they are exposed directly to the elements and can offer early warnings about the impact of environmental degradation and climate change, Moore said. As much as one-third of all amphibians in the world are threatened with extinction, he said.

"Amphibians are very sensitive to changes ... in the environment," Moore said in a telephone interview. "Amphibians are kind of a barometer in terms of responding to those changes and are likely to be the first to respond, so climate change ... impacts on amphibians heavily."

Amphibians also help control the spread of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, because they eat the insects that transmit these ailments to people.

The new species discovered in Colombia include three poison frogs, three glass frogs, one harlequin frog, two kinds of rain frogs and one salamander.

The expedition that turned up the new amphibians also recorded the presence of large mammals like Baird's tapir, which is considered endangered in Colombia, four species of monkeys and a population of white-lipped peccary, a pig-like creature.

"Without a doubt this region is a true Noah's Ark," said Jose Vicente Rodriguez-Mahecha, the conservation group's scientific director in Colombia.

"The high number of new amphibian species found is a sign of hope, even with the serious threat of extinction that this animal group faces in many other regions of the country and the world," Rodriguez said in a statement.

The area where the new species were found has traditionally served as a place where plants and animals move between North and South America. While the terrain is relatively undisturbed now, its landscape faces threats from selective logging, cattle ranching, hunting, mining and habitat fragmentation.

Between 25 and 30 percent of the natural vegetation there is being deforested. Moore said protecting the Tacarcuna area where these amphibians were found could also benefit local people by preserving an important watershed.

"We don't go in there and try and tell them to protect the forest for frogs," Moore said. "It's more a case of working with them to find more sustainable long-term solutions that will protect these resources that are ultimately benefiting them."

Bureau Report

Remains of Renowned British Warship Discovered in Channel

Deep-sea explorers who found $500 million in sunken treasure two years ago say they have discovered another prized shipwreck: A notorious British man-of-war that sank in the English Channel 264 years ago.

The wreckage of the HMS Victory, found below about 330 feet of water, may carry an even bigger jackpot. Research indicates the ship was carrying 4 tons of gold coins when it sank in storm, said Greg Stemm, co-founder of Odyssey Marine Exploration, ahead of a news conference today in London.

So far, two brass cannons have been recovered from the wreck, Stemm said. The Florida-based company said it is negotiating with the British government over collaborating on the project.

"This is a big one, just because of the history," Stemm said. "Very rarely do you solve an age-old mystery like this."

Thirty-one brass cannons and other evidence on the wreck allowed definitive identification of the HMS Victory, 175-foot sailing ship that was separated from its fleet and sank in the English Channel on Oct. 4, 1744, with at least 900 men aboard, the company said. The ship was the largest and, with 110 brass cannons, the most heavily armed vessel of its day. It was the inspiration for the HMS Victory famously commanded by Adm. Horatio Nelson decades later.

Odyssey was searching for other valuable shipwrecks in the English Channel when it came across the Victory. Stemm wouldn't say exactly where the ship was found for fear of attracting plunderers, though he said it wasn't close to where it was expected.

"We found this more than 50 miles from where anybody would have thought it went down," Stemm said. Federal court records filed by Odyssey in Tampa seeking the exclusive salvage rights said the site is 25 to 40 miles from the English coast, outside of its territorial waters.

A Ministry of Defense spokesman said Sunday the government was aware of Odyssey's claim to have found the Victory.

"Assuming the wreck is indeed that of a British warship, her remains are sovereign immune," he said on condition of anonymity in keeping with government policy. "This means that no intrusive action may be taken without the express consent of the United Kingdom."

He would not say whether the government had begun talks with Odyssey over the future of the find.

Newspapers of the day and other historical records analyzed by the company indicated that the Victory sank off the Channel Island of Alderney near Cherbourg, France. A 1991 British postage stamp depicts the Victory crashing on the rocks there. Pieces of the ship had washed up in various places, but its resting place was a mystery.

The thinking that the Victory had crashed onto the rocks had marred an otherwise exemplary service record of the ship's commander, Sir John Balchin, and a lighthouse keeper on Alderney was prosecuted for failing to keep the light on. Odyssey thinks the discovery exonerates both men.

"As far as the family is concerned, it is an astonishing revelation," said Robert Balchin, a 66-year-old British university administrator and direct descendant of the commander. "It's as if he's sort of come alive again.

"When I went to see this extraordinary find of the cannon with the coat of arms of the king on the side, it was really a wonderful feeling to know that Sir John Balchin saw that every day, and it brought a very special communion with the past."

The Ledger

Tropical Turtle Fossil Discovered in the High Arctic

A strikingly preserved tropical turtle fossil discovered in the Canadian High Arctic is giving scientists a look into an ancient, carbon-dioxide-warmed world.

The freshwater turtle, dubbed Aurorachelys, was an Asian species that researchers believe migrated across the North Pole 90 million years ago as temperatures were peaking. The find suggests that animals moved into North America via a polar route rather than around Alaska, as was previously believed.

"The fossil record is giving us more and more information about how ancient animals responded to a warming world," geophysicist John Tarduno of the University of Rochester, co-author of a study published Sunday in Geology. "They moved toward the poles."

Ninety million years ago, the Arctic Ocean was warm and ice-free year-round. Runoff from rivers could have created a lake of freshwater that stayed ontop of the dense, salty Arctic ocean, providing a route for freshwater species like the turtle.

Tarduno's team found Aurorachelys on an island just west of Greenland called Axel Heiberg, which is covered with lava flows. An underwater volcanic mountain range exends to the north of the island, and if some peaks of the Alpha Ridge poked above the ocean's surface 90 million years ago, Aurorachelys -- and many other species -- could have island-hopped from Eurasia to Canada.

The same volcanism that created those islands may have combined with massive eruptions around the globe that rapidly pumped carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, warming the earth and creating a tropical climate at the poles.

Models suggest there may have been between eight times and 16 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as there was just before the Industrial Revolution. While we're nowhere near those numbers now --current levels are 40 percent higher than pre-industrial -- the hothouse earth of Aurorachelys yields a glimpse of what runaway warming would look like.

The timing of the volcanism and higher temperatures and the age of the turtle fossil are not likely a coincidence, said co-author Donald Brinkman, a paleontologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta. Though the team has found older turtle fossils in the area, this is the first time the Asian species has turned up.

"Everything we're seeing is pointing to this being the time of their origin in North America," Brinkman said.

Aurorachelys is the latest in a long string of discoveries Tarduno and his team have made at Axel Heiberg, including the fossils of freshwater fish and turtles, as well as the bones of fish-eating crocodile relatives called champsosaurs.

"This paper is actually providing a route of dispersal for some of these animals," said James Parham, a paleontologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, who was not involved in the research. "The story's starting to slowly get pieced together."

These findings, and others from researchers studying plants, dinosaurs, and other vertebrates, helped reveal that the earth was a very different place in Aurorachelys' time. For a long stretch--from about 100 million years ago to 40 million years ago--it was a hothouse, with diverse reptile communities living above the Arctic Circle and ferns, cycads, and palms thriving near the South Pole. The waters around the North Pole were warm enough for a comfortable swim 55 million years ago, and year-round average land temperatures in the tropics may have reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit (today they rarely top the mid-80s).

Blog Wired

Many New Species Discovered In Hidden Mozambique Oasis

Space may be the final frontier, but scientists who recently discovered a hidden forest in Mozambique show the uncharted can still be under our noses. BirdLife were part of a team of scientists who used Google Earth to identify a remote patch of pristine forest. An expedition to the site discovered new species of butterfly and snake, along with seven Globally Threatened birds.

The team were browsing Google Earth – freely available software providing global satellite photography – to search for potential wildlife hotspots. A nearby road provided the first glimpses of a wooded mountain topped by bare rock. However, only by using Google Earth could the scientists observe the extent of woodland on the other side of the peak. This was later discovered to be the locally known, but unmapped, Mount Mabu. Scientific collections and literature also failed to shed light on the area.

“This is potentially the biggest area of medium-altitude forest I’m aware of in southern Africa, yet it was not on the map”, related Jonathan Timberlake from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), who led the expedition. “Most Mozambicans would not even have recognised the name Mount Mabu.”

Following scoping trips, a team of 28 experts from the UK, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Belgium, Ireland, and Switzerland ventured into it last autumn. They included scientists from BirdLife. The group was able to stay in an abandoned tea estate where the road ended, but had to hike the last few kilometres into the forest to set up camp. They had to contend with steep terrain and dense vegetation.

Inside, they found a wealth of wildlife, including three new species of butterfly and an undiscovered species of adder. The scientists believe there are at least two novel species of plant and perhaps more new insects to identify. They took home over 500 samples. “The phenomenal diversity is just mind-boggling”, exclaimed Jonathan Timberlake. Despite civil war from 1975 to 1992 ravaging parts of Mozambique, the landscape was found virtually untouched.

The site also proved to be important for birds, especially Endangered Thyolo Alethe Alethe choloensis, which is common throughout. “This may be the most important population of Thyolo Alethe known”, remarked Dr Lincoln Fishpool, BirdLife’s Global IBA Co-ordinator, who joined the expedition. “At other sites, forest is rapidly being lost or much of the habitat is sub-optimal”. There were six other Globally Threatened birds among the 126 species identified. Of these, Vulnerable Swynnerton's Robin Swynnertonia swynnertoni is particularly significant - bridging a large gap between known populations. Mozambique’s only endemic species, Near Threatened Namuli Apalis Apalis lynesi, was also seen. This was the first record of it away from nearby Mount Namuli.

Conserving Mount Mabu is now a priority. The forest’s value as a refuge to villagers during the war has thus far helped to protect it, along with poor access and ignorance of its existence. However local people are returning to the area and Mozambique’s economy is booming. There is a risk the forest will come under pressure to be cut for wood or burnt for crop space.

RBG Kew is working to protect the forest, as part of ongoing efforts with the Mozambique government. BirdLife has plans to recognise it as an Important Bird Area (IBA), “Mount Mabu effortlessly qualifies as an IBA”, said Dr Fishpool. Ground-level measures could be most effective conservation for the immediate future: “Remoteness is currently its best protection. We hope to work alongside the local tea-estate managers who are conservation-sympathetic and want to maintain the status quo of the forest”.

As for Google Earth, Jonathan Timberlake says the digital imagery has helped scientists realise more about the world. It may reveal further unnoticed pockets of diversity, especially in areas like Mozambique or Papua New Guinea. “We cannot say we have discovered all the biodiversity areas in the world”.

The expedition was led by RBG Kew and involved scientists from the Mozambique Agronomic Research Institute and the Mulanje Mountain Conservation Trust in Malawi, as well as BirdLife International. It was funded by the Darwin Initiative.

Science Daily

Discovered human stone tool 1.8 million years old

Malaysian archaeologists have announced the discovery of stone tools they believe are more than 1.8 million years old and the earliest evidence of human ancestors in South-east Asia.

The stone hand-axes were discovered last year in the historical site of Lenggong in northern Perak state, embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites which was sent to a Japanese lab to be dated.

'We received news from Japan two weeks ago which said it is 1.83 million years old, so this find shows the existence of human beings there 1.83 million years ago,' archaeology team leader Mokhtar Saidin told AFP.

'This is the earliest evidence of Paleolithic culture in the Southeast Asian region,' said Mr Mokhtar from Malaysia's University of Science, who said he believed the hand-axes were used by homo erectus, an extinct early human.

The archaeologist said that the oldest homo erectus fossil discovered in the region is from Java in Indonesia, and dated at 1.7 million years old.

Internationally, the two oldest fossils are from Georgia (1.8 million years old) and China (between 1.7 and 1.8 million years), he said.

'This new find in Malaysia is actually older than those in Georgia and China, but the difference is that what we found was the tool, and we have to continue to look for the human bones,' he said.

The oldest human skeleton ever found in Malaysia is the 11,000-year old Perak man, discovered in 1991.

Straitstimes