While dissecting a pygmy right whale at The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, scientists there discovered that the creature possessed ribs unlike those of any other whale. Only one other animal is known to have a similar set: the anteater. The ribs suggest pygmy right whales are stiffer in the water than previously thought, moving more like fast torpedoes than undulating fish. "The international research team that just completed the dissection determined that the whale's ribs were flattened and overlapping," Te Papa museum spokesperson Jane Keig told Discovery News. Sentiel Rommel, a lecturer in oceanography from the University of Maine, participated in the project. He explained that a small amount of flesh between each of the ribs allows the otherwise packed ribcage "to move as the whale breathes and also accommodates changes in volume that occur as the air is compressed by water pressure when the whale dives through deep water." Rommel added that the ribs' wide, flattened structure has only been observed before in certain types of anteaters. Studies on anteaterribs have indicated that the rib arrangement helps to stiffen their bodies as well.
. "So, possibly, a stiffer body has advantages in the way (pygmy right whales) swim, but this is purely speculative at the moment," he said. Keig also mentioned that two ribs from the upper ribcage broke, and then roughly healed, sometime during the 7.5-foot-long infant whale's short life. She suspects they broke when the six-month-old whale was stranded at Spirit's Bay in northern New Zealand, where it eventually died. "We do not know the exact cause of death because our scientists performed a necropsy and not an autopsy," she said. "There are many possible causes for stranding." One possibility, for example, is that the young whale became weakened and disoriented by a bacterial infection. Brian Beatty, an assistant professor of anatomy at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, recently conducted one of the largest ever studies of modern and fossil whalebones.To view the rest of this article, please visit the source [Source]http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/05/14/pygmy-right-whale.html[/Source]
Submitted by Waspie Dwarf: Experts have been baffled by the presence of an unidentified insect in parts of London. The tiny red and black bug first appeared in the Natural History Museum"s Wildlife Garden in March 2007. Since then it has become the most common insect in the garden and has also been spotted in Regent"s Park and Gray"s Inn. The bug appears to be harmless, but there is potential for it to spread throughout the UK, said experts. "It"s not unusual to find something in the middle of a...
They travel from Antarctica to Tahiti, can sound like laughing monkeys, or barking dogs, and some were triggered by the December 2004 tsunami: they are the eerie songs made by some of Antarctica"s largest icebergs. The phenomenon occurs when the huge lumps of ice scrape past each other and produce thousands of tiny "icequakes". These are so similar to earthquakes, researchers say, that icebergs could help to better understand and predict tremors. Massive tabular icebergs break off the Antarctic ...
Some endangered species may face an extinction risk that is up to a hundred times greater than previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday. By overlooking random differences between individuals in a given population, researchers may have badly underestimated the perils confronting threatened wildlife, it said. "Many larger populations previously considered relatively safe would actually be at risk," Brett Melbourne, a professor at the University of Colorado and the study"s lead a...
Wildlife researchers in California said they found the remains of what is likely a rare 25-foot-long giant squid. The damaged carcass of what researchers say is probably a giant squid, was found about 20 miles from the shore of Santa Cruz, Calif., the Santa Cruz (Calif.) Sentinel reported. Researcher Sean Van Sommeran and a number of members of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation found the remains of the squid in the water Wednesday. Crew members said the carcass was being eaten by several sea...
Chimps and orangutans plan for the future just like us. They are capable of exercising self-control to postpone gratification and to imagine future events via "mental time travel," according to new research from Lunds University Cognitive Science in Sweden. The skill of future planning was commonly thought to be exclusive to humans, although some studies of apes and crows have challenged this idea, say researchers Mathias and Helena Osvath. Now, for the first time, there is "conclusive evidence ...
A deer with a single horn in the center of its head -- much like the fabled, mythical unicorn -- has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said Wednesday. "This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, said. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal." The one-year-old Roe Deer -- nicknamed "Unicorn" -- was born in captivity in the research center"s park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said. ...
It’s been well-documented that animals are better than we are at picking up little changes in the surrounding world. Watch your dog lose his marbles 30 minutes before a thunderstorm arrives and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. It only makes sense then, that the pandas at Wolong National Nature Reserve near Chengdu, China, realized that an earthquake was coming long before the ground started shaking up to half an hour before, according to a British tourist who noticed a marked differen...
A TV crew has captured incredible footage of a flying fish off the southern tip of Japan. The fish remains completely airborne for 45 seconds in what could be the longest recorded flight by the species. It manages to stay above the water for so long by occasionally beating the surface with its tail when it starts to lose altitude. The footage was filmed by cameramen from Japanese public broadcaster NHK who were travelling by ferry to Yakushima Island, the BBC reports. The amazing fish managed to...
The discovery of a missing link in the evolution of bizarre flatfishes—each of which has both eyes on the same side of its head—could give intelligent design advocates a sinking feeling. CT scans of 50-million-year-old fossils have revealed an intermediate species between primitive flatfishes (with eyes on both sides of their heads) and the modern, lopsided versions, which include sole, flounder, and halibut. So the change happened gradually, in a way consistent with evolution via natural select...
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer. "From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just anoth...
Could strawberry ice cream disappear from our lives? What about vanilla Swiss almond? The folks at Haagen-Dazs are worried enough that they and others have mounted a campaign to halt the shocking decline of honeybees and other pollinators of strawberry plants, almond trees and the rest of the roughly 90 percent of terrestrial plant life that needs pollination. Officials of the Oakland company told Congress on Thursday that more than 40 percent of its product"s flavors, derived from fruits and nu...
The WA museum has publically unveiled a new species of frog that has existed undiscovered in the Kalbarri area for more than five million years. It is believed the Southern Sandhill Frog has lived in the Kalbarri sandhills since diverging genetically from its cousin, the Northern Sandhill frog. Museum herpetologist Paul Doughty says it was an exciting moment when a PHD researcher discovered the species. "She got the results and went uh-oh, these northern and southern species seem todiverge ...
"Ten years ago I could never have imagined I"d be doing this," says Greg Pal, 33, a former software executive, as he squints into the late afternoon Californian sun. "I mean, this is essentially agriculture, right? But the people I talk to — especially the ones coming out of business school — this is the one hot area everyone wants to get into." He means bugs. To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs — very, very small bacteria — so that when they feed on agricultural waste such as woo...
Matthew, a 26-year-old chimp, is headed to court in Europe as part of a human effort to classify him as a person. Beyond the legal challenges, anthropologists say chimpanzees are not humans, though without a clear definition of what it means to be human, backing that claim up is a challenge perhaps fit for some great courtroom drama. Animal rights activist and teacher Paula Stibbe, along with the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories (AAAF), says she wants the chimpanzee, named Matth...
Fishing trawler skipper Rangi Pene knew he"d netted the catch of the day when he winched his net up from the ocean floor.About halfway down the net was a large mass which, as the net drew closer, Mr Pene knew was not your everyday fish.It was in fact the catch of a lifetime - a six-metre long, 230kg squid, which is now in a freezer in Portland, waiting for collection by Museum Victoria."As soon as we seen it, we (thought) we"ll have to save this," the excited skipper said.The trawler, Zeehaan, w...
Long ago, our ancestors were using caves as shelter from wild animals and the forces of nature. Perhaps, this base necessity however, has always been eclipsed by man"s curiosity and desire to explore the mystical and enigmatic air inside the abyss. In the past, Environmental Graffiti has explored some amazing uses of caves -from discotheques, temples and underground cities to hotels and primary schools. That"s only scratching at the surface however. Today, with all sorts of equipment, caving has...
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While dissecting a pygmy right whale at The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, scientists there discovered that the creature possessed ribs unlike those of any other whale. Only one other animal is known to have a similar set: the anteater. The ribs suggest pygmy right whales are stiffer in the water than previously thought, moving more like fast torpedoes than undulating fish. "The international research team that just completed the dissection determined that the whale's ribs were flattened and overlapping," Te Papa museum spokesperson Jane Keig told Discovery News. Sentiel Rommel, a lecturer in oceanography from the University of Maine, participated in the project. He explained that a small amount of flesh between each of the ribs allows the otherwise packed ribcage "to move as the whale breathes and also accommodates changes in volume that occur as the air is compressed by water pressure when the whale dives through deep water." Rommel added that the ribs' wide, flattened structure has only been observed before in certain types of anteaters. Studies on anteaterribs have indicated that the rib arrangement helps to stiffen their bodies as well. 
