Dlisted's Hot Slut Of The Day! The world's biggest living insect

From Dlisted
by Michael K:

"The world's biggest living insect (that we know of)! With a body like Xtina's shoved in a bandage dress, arms like Posh Beckham's and seductively dead eyes like Courtney Stodden's, a giant weta hypnotized former American park ranger Mark Moffett when he caught her crawling around Little Barrier Island in New Zealand. Don't even bother taking out the RAID, because this bitch can grab it from you and hit you in the face with it.

Mark tells The Telegraph that he lured the lady weta to his hand by waving a carrot at her. He fed her a few bites and then let her go. Mark seems to think that he's found the biggest weta on the planet.

"Three of us walked the trails of this small island for two nights scanning the vegetation for a giant weta. We spent many hours with no luck finding any at all, before we saw her up in a tree.

The giant weta is the largest insect in the world, and this is the biggest one ever found, she weighs the equivalent to three mice. She enjoyed the carrot so much she seemed to ignore the fact she was resting on our hands and carried on munching away. She would have finished the carrot very quickly, but this is an extremely endangered species and we didn't want to risk indigestion. After she had chewed a little I took this picture and we put her right back where we found her."

There's no reason to beg Khloe Kardashian to save us all by battling that weta in a fight to the death, because she looks harmless. That weta is sort of cute. Don't you just want to dress her up in a tutu, throw her in your purse and take her shopping? Just look her at her nom-ing on that carrot. If she can eat a carrot......that means she can eat a finger..... And while you're screaming at your chomped off finger, she can jump down your open mouth, shove herself down into your stomach and eat you from the inside/out. No, she would never do that."

A 2009 Tasmanian Tiger (Thylocine) sighting?

I have had a passing intrest in the tasmanian tiger since i saw a program on trying to clone it and return it to its native habitat (since human hunting was the cause for its extinction). I think it makes for an interesting ethical and conservation debate. Anyway, if it is indeed not extinct, I guess it renders much of the cloning project obsolete...

From Animal Planet.com
The thylacine, also called the "Tasmanian tiger" or "Tasmanian wolf" even though it's not a feline or a canine, was a carnivorous marsupial once native to Australia. Unfortunately, the animal was wiped out by people in its last remaining stronghold, the island of Tasmania. It is now officially considered to be extinct, with the last known living individual dying in the Hobart Zoo in 1936.
But there are some that believe these strange predators still survive in the remote Australian wilderness. There are occasional sighting reports as well as potential tracks, scat and kills, although none can be definitely said to be those of a living thylacine. The video was released this month and the man that shot the footage [Murray McAllister, a physical education teacher at Pembroke Secondary College in Melbourne Victoria] in 2009 claims that it shows a living thylacine.

Social Learning in Dolphins - tail walking just for fun

From the Telegraph.co.uk
Dolphins 'walk' on water
Dolphins in the wild are teaching themselves to "walk" with their tails along the surface of water, biologists have claimed.

if above video doesnt work try this one on youtube

The mammals, which are celebrated for their playful natures, are developing the skill "just for fun", according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) in Australia. Dolphin tail-walking has no known practical function and has been likened to dancing in humans.

WDCS researcher Dr Mike Bossley, who has observed Adelaide's Port River dolphins for the past 24 years, said he had documented spectacular tail walking in two adult female dolphins, known as Billie and Wave. Now four other individuals have been recorded perfecting their walking techniques – Wave's calf Tallula, Bianca and her calf Hope, and calf Bubbles. Tail walking is very rare in the wild and in thousands of hours of observation only one other dolphin has ever been observed tail walking in the Port River, and then only once. The Port Adelaide dolphins are now said to be tail walking many times each day.

It is thought the mammals may have learned the remarkable skill from Billie – who spent a short period at a visitor attraction 22 years ago. Dr Bossley said that the spread of tail walking appeared to be motivated by "fun", but it was also linked to a serious and fascinating cultural aspect previously unseen in the species.

He said: "Culture in the wider sense of the term, defined as 'learned behaviour characteristic of a community', is now frequently on show in the Port River. This cultural behaviour is of great significance for conservation. "Cultural behaviours in animals have been identified in several species, particularly chimpanzees. However, most if not all the cultural behaviours described to-date have been of a utilitarian nature, mainly to do with obtaining food. "A well known chimpanzee example is using a twig to extract termites from a nest in the Gombe Stream reserve. "The only dolphin example seen up to now is in Shark Bay, West Australia, where a small group of dolphins habitually carry a sponge on the end of their jaw while fishing to protect them from fish spines.

"As far as we are aware, tail walking has no practical function and is performed just for fun – akin to human dancing or gymnastics. As such, it represents an internationally important example of the behavioural similarities between humans and dolphins."

Humans drove ancient turtles to extinction 3000 years ago

Fig. 1. Map of southwest Pacific showing locations where meiolaniid remains have been discovered: 1, Lord Howe Island (Australia); 2, Pindai Caves (New Caledonia); 3, Walpole Island (New Caledonia); 4, Tiga Island (New Caledonia); 5, Teouma, Efate Island (Vanuatu); and 6, Viti Levu Island (Fiji).

From Telegraph.co.uk
Ancient turtles 'driven to extinction by humans'
An ancient species of giant turtle was driven to extinction by humans in the Pacific almost 3,000 years ago, scientists have discovered.
By ANDREW HOUGH

Researchers found the last example of supersize animals to roam the earth, a never-before-seen species in the genus Meiolania, were driven to extinction by settlers on an island of Vanuatu. This was despite the turtles, which were more than eight feet in length, outliving most of the other outsized, extinct animals known as megafauna. Experts believe most of the Australian megafauna species, such as the woolly mammoth, died almost 50,000 years ago although debate has raged over what exactly killed them.

But according to scientists at the University of New South Wales the giant turtles were alive when a people known as the Lapita arrived in the area about 3,000 year ago. They found the turtle leg bones, but not shells or skulls, which they said suggested humans helped drive the giant turtles to extinction. The bones, discovered in a graveyard on a site on the island of Efate that was known to be home to a Lapita settlement, date about 300 years after humans' arrival. The majority of the bones, found above an even older human graveyard, were from the creatures' legs, which was their fleshy and edible part. The scientists, reporting Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), concluded this was proof that the turtles were hunted by humans to extinction for their meat.

"It is the first time this family of turtles has been shown to have met with humans and there are many turtle bones in the middens," said Dr Trevor Worthy, from the UNSW. "People arrived on Vanuatu 3100 years ago and the village middens, which are the rubbish dumps that provided these bones, date to 2800 years ago," "So there's essentially a 300-year gap between those first human arrivals and the end of these turtles in these middens."

Dr Arthur Georges, an expert on the evolution of turtles at the University of Canberra, added: "This is a remarkable find, and adds the horned tortoises to the list of charismatic megafauna that has gone extinct in Australasia and the Pacific during the Holocene."

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REFERENCE
White AW, Worthy TH, Kawkins S, Bedford S, Spriggs M (2010) Megafaunal meiolaniid horned turtles survived until early human settlement in Vanuatu, Southwest Pacific. PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1005780107

Abstract
Meiolaniid or horned turtles are members of the extinct Pleistocene megafauna of Australia and the southwest Pacific. The timing and causes of their extinction have remained elusive. Here we report the remains of meiolaniid turtles from cemetery and midden layers dating 3,100/3,000 calibrated years before present to approximately 2,900/2,800 calibrated years before present in the Teouma Lapita archaeological site on Efate in Vanuatu. The remains are mainly leg bones; shell fragments are scant and there are no cranial or caudal elements, attesting to off-site butchering of the turtles. The new taxon differs markedly from other named insular terrestrial horned turtles. It is the only member of the family demonstrated to have survived into the Holocene and the first known to have become extinct after encountering humans.

Double-post: Genetic evidence of illegal whaling linking US, Korea and Japan & Australia takes Japan to court over whaling

Dr. C Scott Baker has many amazing publications on using genetics to identify corruption in the reporting of whales and whale bycatch, his most recent is below but there are many more here (one of my most favorite conservation genetics papers ever), here, here and here -MA

Genetic evidence of illegal trade in protected whales links Japan with the US and South Korea

Baker CS, Steel D, Choi Y, Lee H, Kim KS, Choi SK, Ma Y-U, Hamleton C, Psihoyos L, Brownell RL, Funahashi N (2010) Genetic evidence of illegal trade in protected whales links Japan with the US and South Korea. Biology letters doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0239

Abstract
We report on genetic identification of ‘whale meat’ purchased in sushi restaurants in Los Angeles, CA (USA) in October 2009 and in Seoul, South Korea in June and September 2009. Phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA cytochrome b sequences confirmed that the products included three species of whale currently killed in the controversial scientific whaling programme of Japan, but which are protected from international trade: the fin, sei and Antarctic minke. The DNA profile of the fin whale sold in Seoul established a match to products purchased previously in Japan in September 2007, confirming unauthorized trade between these two countries. Following species identification, these products were handed over to the appropriate national or local authorities for further investigation. The illegal trade of products from protected species of whales, presumably taken under a national permit for scientific research, is a timely reminder of the need for independent, transparent and robust monitoring of any future whaling.

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From Sign on San Diego
Australia takes Japan to court over whaling
By ROD McGUIRK, Associated Press
(Kristen Gelineau in Sydney and Malcolm J. Foster in Tokyo contributed to this report)

Australia said Friday it will challenge Japan's whale hunting in the Antarctic at the International Court of Justice, a major legal escalation in its campaign to ban the practice despite Tokyo's insistence on the right to so-called scientific whaling.

Japan's Foreign Ministry called the action regrettable at a time when 88 member-nations of the International Whaling Commission were discussing a proposal that could allow some limited whaling for the first time in 25 years.

"We will continue to explain that the scientific whaling that we are conducting is lawful in accordance with Article 8 of the international convention for the regulation of whaling," said Japan's Foreign Ministry Deputy Press Secretary Hidenobu Sobashima. "If it goes to the court, we are prepared to explain that."

Japan, Norway and Iceland, which harpoon around 2,000 whales annually, argue that many species are abundant enough to continue hunting them. They are backed by around half of the whaling commission's members.

Australia has declared the southern seas a whale sanctuary and has long lobbied for an end to whaling there. The government says Japan's hunt is in breach of international obligations, but has declined to release any details of how it will argue its case before the court in The Hague.

The whaling commission has proposed a plan that would allow hunting without specifying whether it is for commercial or other purposes - but under strict quotas that are lower than the current number of hunted whales.

Commission Chairman Cristian Maquieira expressed optimism Thursday in Washington that the issue could be resolved at a meeting next month in Morocco. But senior U.S. official Monica Medina said the current proposal would allow the hunting of too many whales, signaling difficult negotiations ahead.

Australia could argue that Japan is abusing its rights under the whaling commission's 1946 Convention, which allows scientific whaling, said Don Anton, an international law professor at The Australian National University in Canberra. It could claim that the number of whales Japan kills each year is far more than necessary, that nonlethal research alternatives exist and that there is a commercial aspect to the scientific program.

Australia could also argue that Japan has failed to conduct an adequate environmental impact assessment before engaging in whaling, Anton said.

A panel of lawyers and conservationists reported to the Australian and New Zealand governments last year that Japanese whaling in the Antarctic could be stopped if Japan were held accountable for dumping waste and for undertaking hazardous refueling at sea. The Canberra Panel claims that activity violates the 46-member Antarctic Treaty System, to which Japan belongs.

Australia will lodge its claim with the court next week. It is likely then to seek an international injunction to stop any Japanese whaling during the 2010-2011 whaling season, said Don Rothwell, an international law professor at ANU who chaired the Canberra Panel. An injunction ruling could take three to six months, and it could be another four to seven years before the case is settled, he said.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully said his government will decide within weeks whether it will also file a case against Japan.

Sobashima and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the dispute should not jeopardize the countries' overall good relations, with both governments treating the matter as an independent legal arbitration.

Australia's move also fulfills a 2007 campaign promise by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's center-left Labor Party.