Latest Fauna of Asia Stories
NEW YORK, NY (October 24, 2005)-- Scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and their Russian colleagues from the Russian Far East recently fitted three wild 40-day-old Siberian tiger cubs with tiny radio-collars, marking the youngest wild tigers to be tracked by scientists. The elastic collars, which eventually fall off as the tigers grow, weigh just over five ounces and would fit on a large house cat. They give researchers crucial insights into the needs of tiger cubs and may...
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - More than 100,000 protected Olive Ridley sea turtles have lumbered onto a Mexican beach in recent days to lay some 10 million eggs, just weeks after poachers massacred spawning turtles on the same stretch of sand. Mexico's environmental protection agency Profepa said on Monday that the turtles had arrived in the 72 hours to Sunday at Escobilla beach in Oaxaca state, a major nesting ground on the Pacific coast that is also a hunting field for poachers who...
CANBERRA (Reuters) - A saltwater crocodile named Sputnik is being tracked by satellite in the remote heart of Australia in a bid to learn more about the deadly creatures. Researchers from New Zealand's Massey University attached a transmitter to the back of the 4.2m (14 feet) male crocodile, which was caught in the Adelaide River about 100 km (62 miles) southeast of the tropical city of Darwin in Australia's outback Northern Territory. They plan to track Sputnik for a year to learn...
By Robin Pomeroy LAMPEDUSA, Italy (Reuters) - The island hospital is small, sparsely equipped and very often the patients are so large that they have to be tipped sideways to get them to the operating table. Fortunately, the patients are tough enough to withstand being knocked against a doorframe -- they are protected by a solid shell bigger than a manhole cover. It takes more than rough handling to kill off a loggerhead turtle. Tough they may be, but the species is endangered because...
By Alistair Bell MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican poachers bludgeoned and chopped some 80 protected Olive Ridley sea turtles to death for their eggs, believed to be an aphrodisiac, and left their shells scattered on a Pacific beach. The carnage was discovered on Escobilla beach, Mexico's top nesting ground for the animals, in the state of Oaxaca last weekend, the government's environmental protection agency Profepa said on Tuesday. "They killed them with blows to the head and machetes. It is...
NEW YORK -- Sea turtles that receive the highest protection in Costa Rica and other neighboring countries are dying by the thousands at the hands of unregulated - and unsustainable - commercial fishing in Nicaragua, according to a study by the Bronx Zoo based Wildlife Conservation Society. The study, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Herpetologica, found that turtles tagged in Nicaragua have only little more than a 50 percent chance of surviving until the next year. This includes...
NEW YORK (July 18, 2005) -- An extremely rare "royal" turtle narrowly escaped a trip to a Chinese soup-pot, thanks to a tiny microchip implanted in its skin, according to experts from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), who rediscovered the species four years ago in Cambodia. Wildlife inspectors discovered the 33-pound (15 kg) turtle in a crate of confiscated wildlife in Vietnam, where smugglers planned to send the shipment on to China. The inspectors used a...
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese elephants are evolving into an increasingly tuskless breed because poaching is changing the gene pool, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Five to 10 percent of Asian elephants in China now had a gene that prevented the development of tusks, up from the usual 2 to 5 percent, the China Daily said, quoting research from Beijing Normal University. "The larger tusks the male elephant has, the more likely it will be shot by poachers," said researcher Zhang Li, an associate...
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Conservationists want to turn a popular Malaysian beach hit by the tsunami into a protected nesting area for endangered sea turtles, which hatched there for the first time in over a decade - probably because of a drop-off in tourists after the disaster. More than 30 baby Olive Ridley turtles were found Feb. 16 crawling on Tanjung Bungah beach, a popular stretch of resorts and seaside condominiums on northwestern Penang island, said Mashhor Mansor, a professor of...
Latest Fauna of Asia Reference Libraries
This bird of prey is known more as a pigeon hawk. The Merlin is from the Northern Hemisphere with some migrating to subtropical and northern tropical areas during the winter. There has also been a discovery that there are two different, very distinct, species: the North American and the Eurasian. The North American Merlin was first described by a Swede taxonomist, Carl Linnaeus. The Merlin is between 9 and 13 inches long with a wingspan of 20-29 inches. The Merlin is an exceptionally...
The brown bear (Ursus arctos) can be found in North America and northern areas of Eurasia. There are sixteen recognized subspecies of the brown bear. This is the most widely distributed species of bear in the world, although its range is shrinking. Its range includes the Alaska and a few other areas of the United States, areas of Russia, and Romania and other areas of the Carpathian region, as well as Canada, Sweden, Finland, and the Balkans. The brown bear derives its common name from the...
The Asiatic linsang (Prionodon) is a genus that contains two species of linsangs, and it is the only genus in the Prionodontidae family. The two species, the banded linsang and the spotted linsang, were previously classified in the Viverrinae subfamily, but studies have shown that they differed enough to warrant their own distinct classification. Despite their extreme resemblance to members of the Felidae family, they are not as closely related to genets as African linsangs. The term linsang...
The cinnamon bear (Ursus americanus cinnamomum) is a subspecies of the American black bear known as a color phase. It can be found in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and western areas of Canada. This species derives it common name from the reddish fur that occurs throughout its body. It can reach an average weight between 203 and 595 pounds. This species can vary in color from reddish brown to red with cream coloring, and some individuals are even brown. Cubs are...
The flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps) is a species of wildcat that can be found in a fragmented range that includes Borneo, Sumatra, and the Thai-Malay Peninsula. It prefers a habitat within primary and secondary rainforests. It is often found in areas with abundant freshwater near lowland or coastal areas. Vigors and Horsfield, who classified it in the Felis genus, first described this species in 1827. In 1951, the flat-headed cat was merged with the fishing cat, which shares some...
