Echoes in the Mist

By Alaa Elassar, CNN

Updated 4:30 PM ET, Sat October 19, 2019

Thousands of wild turtles were being captured and sold illegally in Florida.

(CNN)Two men have been charged for poaching thousands of Florida turtles and
selling them illegally, according to the
<https://myfwc.com/news/all-news/turtle-traffic/> Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission.

The “charges represent the state’s largest seizure of turtles in recent
history,” the FWC said in a statement on Friday.

More than 4,000 turtles comprising a range of native species were illegally
captured and sold over six months, the commission said. The turtles were
worth $200,000 on the black market.

“The illegal trade of turtles is having a global impact on many turtle
species and our ecosystems,” said Eric Sutton, the FWC’s executive director.

Two suspects have been charged for smuggling thousands of turtles and
selling them illegally.

After receiving a tip in February 2018, the FWC launched an…

“Due to the large-scale deforestation, there has been a significant drop in the amount of rainfall received.” –  Prof Subimal Ghosh, IIT-Bombay

Deforestation and conversion of forest land to crop land has weakened the monsoon in India, a study by a team from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay has found.

The team from the Interdisciplinary Program in Climate Studies of IIT-B studied recent changes of land use and found that rainfall received in the North-Eastern and North-Central India has reduced owing to the destruction of forests.

“Due to the large-scale deforestation, there has been a significant drop in the amount of rainfall received,” said Subimal Ghosh, a faculty member associated with the study.

“Forests are deep-rooted and have more leaf area index (an indicator of plant canopies). They facilitate more recycled precipitation, a source of rainfall,” he said.

Ghosh said the conversion of forests to crop lands, particularly…

This 3 June 2012 video from Borneo says about itself:

Danum Valley – The Legend of the Spectacled Flowerpecker

The story of the one and so far only sighting of what’s believed to be a new species of bird. With one of the three people who saw it.

From the Smithsonian Institution in the USA:

First scientific description of elusive bird illuminates plight of Borneo’s forests

Scientists document new species with eye toward the fate of a shrinking forest biodiversity hotspot and its inhabitants

October 17, 2019

Scientists with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and collaborators surveying the birdlife of Borneo have discovered a startling surprise: an undescribed species of bird, which has been named the Spectacled Flowerpecker. While scientists and birdwatchers have previously glimpsed the small, gray bird in lowland forests around the island, the Smithsonian team is the first to capture and study it, resulting in…

Purple Honeycreeper (male), Trinidad

Trinidad is not the most popular island in the Caribbean. Many people have never even heard of it. But for those of us who embrace the glory of the natural rainforest and all the creatures who live in it, it is a paradise.

Here are some of my favorite winged creatures, found while spending a week on this small island eight miles (12 km) off the Venezuela coast. Trinidad Wikipedia.

A visit to the Caroni Swamp yielded many thousands of scarlet ibis. They flock to this protected swamp at night to roost. We sat in a boat and waited for them as the sun set.

Scarlet Ibis, Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

In the rainforest, nectar-drinking birds like hummingbirds and honeycreepers were plentiful.

Tufted Coquette hummingbird, male, Trinidad

Green Honeycreeper, male, Trinidad

We were fortunate to see the rare oilbirds. There are only a few…

This video from England is called Excerpts from a month in front of a European Nightjar nest in the Forest of Dean in 2018.

From Lund University in Sweden:

The moon determines when migratory birds head south

October 16, 2019

A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that the presence or absence of moonlight has a considerable bearing on when migratory birds take flight in the autumn.

Together with colleagues at the Department of Biology at Lund University, Gabriel Norevik studied European nightjars (Caprimulgus europaeus) and how the lunar cycle and moonlight affects the departure time when the birds start their three-month-long migration flight to areas south of the Sahara.

Using miniature data loggers, the researchers charted the activity of 39 European nightjars over a one-year period. The results show that the birds are more than twice as active in their hunt for insects during moonlit nights…

This 14 April 2018 video, in English with Greek subtitles, says about itself:

Carter’s Corner #6 – Neanderthals on Naxos!

From McMaster University in Canada:

Scientists find early humans moved through Mediterranean earlier than believed

October 16, 2019

An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

The findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, are based on years of excavations and challenge current thinking about human movement in the region — long thought to have been inaccessible and uninhabitable to anyone but modern humans. The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to…

This June 2017 video from the USA says about itself:

Trilobites are famous not just because they were so beautifully functional, or because they happened to preserve so well. They’re known the world over because they were everywhere!

From the CNRS in France:

Arthropods formed orderly lines 480 million years ago

October 17, 2019

Researchers studied fossilized Moroccan Ampyx trilobites, which lived 480 million years ago and showed that the trilobites had probably been buried in their positions — all oriented in the same direction. Scientists deduced that these Ampyx processions may illustrate a kind of collective behavior adopted in response to cyclic environmental disturbances.

Though our understanding of the anatomy of the earliest animals is growing ever more precise, we know next to nothing about their behaviour. Did group behaviour arise recently or is it primeval? To answer this question, researchers from the CNRS, the University of Poitiers…

Not Just a Pretty Tail – New research has revealed that the Lyrebird, Australia’s iconic songbird, with feet like garden rakes, and an appetite for worms and soil-dwelling insects, reduces the risk of bushfire by spreading dry leaf litter and digging safe havens that help other species survive fires.

China will boost efforts this year to rid itself of a strong addiction to coal in a bid to reduce damaging pollution as well as cut the energy intensity of its economy, which is expected to grow at its lowest rate in 25 years. They will raise wind, solar and natural gas capacity, which will also have an effect on commodities markets for crude oil and iron ore.

Moringa are known as ‘miracle’ treesbecause of their many uses as food and as a source of oil. Seeds from the trees are also used to purify water, and recent research has…