Animal World

A completely new lizard species has been found just outside of Perth in Western Australia. The coastal plains skink is around two inches in length and survives in the sand dunes just outside of one of Australia"s busiest cities. It was identified during research in to biological diversity in the area. "To find something as yet undetected, so close to one of the country"s largest cities, demonstrates how much we"ve still got todiscover," said ecologist Geoffrey Kay.News of the find however it bittersweet as the new species is already at risk of being wiped out by encroaching urban sprawl.

"Only a few of these lizards have ever been found in the wild, so while we know numbers are low, we are not sure of the exact size of the remaining population," said Kay. Southwestern Australia is recognised as one of the top 25 biodiversity hot spots in the world, alongside places such as Madagascar, thetropical jungles of West Africa, and Brazil"s Cerrado.  

View: Full article |  Source: Telegraph  

A live shark mysteriously fell from the sky over a golf course located four miles from the sea.Golfers at the San Juan Hills Golf Club in California were left perplexed when a leopard shark plummeted from the heavens and landed somewhere around the 12th tee. Still alive despite its ordeal, the creature was taken to the clubhouse where onlookers keen to help decided to put itin some water with table salt added to simulate the ocean.Fortunately there was a happy ending to the story as a short time later the shark was driven back to the ocean and released, seemingly no worse for wear.

It is believed that it had probably ended up on the golf course after being caught by a seabird and then dropped by accident while it was flying back inland. A shark which fell from the sky on to a golf coursesurvived its journey and has been returned to the ocean.  

View: Full article |  Source: ITV News  

Silvery fish such as sardines can use their silvery skin to camouflage themselves from predators.Certain fish have evolved a reflective skin so effective that it acts almost like an invisibility cloak that helps to hide them from sight regardless of which angle they are being viewed from. Their skin is made up of alternating layers of cytoplasm in addition to guanine crystals that combine tocreate a unique reflective property."What these fish do is get around a fundamental law of reflection," said biologist Nicholas Roberts.

"The polarization happens over a range of angles instead of one, and the end product of having all the layers together is that it creates a polarization-neutral reflector." Silvery fish like sardines and Atlantic herring are masters of camouflage. A new study explains how the fish use their silvery skinto stay invisible to predators from nearly every angle.  

View: Full article |  Source: New York Times  

A teacher in Southwest Florida was injured after being hit by a fish that had fallen from the heavens.Despite being hit on the head by what was later identified as a mackerel the teacher escaped with little more than a headache, it is believed that the fish was most likely dropped by a seabird flying overhead. Given the absurdity of the accident you would be forgiven for thinking that such an occurrence would be aslikely as being struck by lightning, but other similar incidents have been reported in recent years and not all the victims were as lucky.In 2010, a woman kayaking in the Florida keys suffered a punctured lung when a houndfish leapt from the river and struck her in the chest.

Even this summer a woman was knocked unconscious while boating on the Suwannee River when a huge sturgeon jumped from the water and smacked in to her. A Southwest Florida teacher wasinjured supervising the lunch hour when a fish -- yes, a fish -- fell from the sky.  

View: Full article |  Source: Huffington Post