The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today the discovery of a new monkey in a remote region of the Amazon in Brazil.
The monkey is related to saddleback tamarins, which include several species of monkeys known for their distinctively marked backs. The newly described distinct subspecies was first seen by scientists on a 2007 expedition into the state of Amazonas in northwestern Brazil.
Researchers have dubbed the monkey Mura’s saddleback tamarin (saguinus fuscicollis mura) named after the Mura Indians, the ethnic group of Amerindians of the Purus and Madeira river basins where the monkey occurs. Historically this tribe was spread through the largest territory of any of the Amazonian Indigenous peoples, extending from the Peruvian frontier today (Rio Yavari) east to the Rio Trombetas.
The monkey is mostly gray and dark brown in color, with a distinctly mottled “saddle.” It weighs 213 grams and is 240 millimeters (9 inches tall) with a 320 millimeter (12.6 inch) tail.
“The Wildlife Conservation Society is extremely proud to be part of this exciting discovery in the Amazon,” said Dr. Avecita Chicchon, Director of WCS’s Latin America Programs. “We hope that the discovery will draw attention to conservation in this very fragile but biodiverse region.”
According to the study’s authors, the monkey is threatened by several planned development projects in the region, particularly a major highway cutting through the Amazon that is currently being paved. Conservationists fear the highway could fuel wider deforestation in the Amazon over the next two decades. Other threats to the region include a proposed gas pipeline and two hydroelectric dams currently in the beginning stages of construction.
“This newly described monkey shows that even today there are still major wildlife discoveries to be made,” said the study’s lead author, Fabio Röhe of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “This discovery should serve as a wake-up call that there is still so much to learn from the world’s wild places, yet humans continue to threaten these areas with destruction.”
The site of Tuna el-Gebel in Middle Egypt was known to the Greeks as Hermopolis. In the southern part of the site there is an animal necropolis. Mummified ibises and baboons, associated with the god Thoth, were buried here in their thousands in subterranean galleries, similar to the burials of the Apis bulls at Saqqara.
The Saqqara plateau served as a burial site to the ancient Egyptians for over three thousand years. It is home to pyramids, private tombs and temples, and is even the burial place of sacred animals. The most famous of the animals buried at Saqqara were the Apis bulls. For over a thousand years these bulls were laid to rest in the darkness of the Serapeum, a massive gallery of tunnels and niches carved into the rock below Saqqara.
John Alva Keel (born Alva John Kiehle) the Fortean author and professional journalist has died aged 79.
John Keel was arguably one of the most widely read and influential ufologists since the early 1970s. Although his own thoughts about UFOs and associated anomalous phenomena have gradually evolved since the mid 1960s, Keel remains one of ufology’s most original and controversial researchers. It was Keel’s second book, UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (1970), that alerted the general public that many aspects of contemporary UFO reports, including humanoid encounters, often paralleled certain ancient folklore and religious encounters. Keel also argues that there is a direct relationship between UFOs and psychic phenomena. He says he does not call himself a ufologist and prefers the term Fortean which encompasses a wide range of paranormal subjects.
Books by John keel
Jadoo (1957)
UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse (1970)
Strange Creatures From Time and Space (1970)
Our Haunted Planet (1971)
The Flying Saucer Subculture (1973)
The Mothman Prophecies (1975)
The Eighth Tower (1975)
Disneyland of the Gods (1988)
The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings (1994)
(revised version of Strange Creatures from Time and Space)
The Best of John Keel (Paperback 2006)
(Collection of Keel’s Fate Magazine articles)
This short horizontal passage in the Pyramid of Teti (Sixth Dynasty) at Saqqara leads to the king’s burial chamber.
Pyramid of Teti
The Pyramid Texts can be seen on the walls on either side of the passage, while stars can be seen on the ceiling. The king’s sarcophagus can be seen at the end of the room.
Pyramid of Teti
The Pyramid complex of Teti is located in the pyramid field at Saqqara, in Egypt. It was originally called Teti’s places are enduring.
The preservation above ground is very poor, and it now resembles a small hill. Below ground the chambers and corridors are very well preserved.
The Maine Warden Service is looking into two sightings of a giant snake in the Rumford canal.
Police told the Sun Journal of Lewiston that two people contacted them Wednesday (1st July 2009) saying they had seen a monster snake, perhaps up to 17 feet long, enter the canal behind a local store.
Snake expert Robbie White told the paper that based on the description, the snake could be a red-tail boa constrictor or even a Burmese python. He said snakes in Maine don’t grow to that size, unless it was a pet that escaped!
A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.
Argentine Ant (Linepithema humile)
Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another.
The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.
What’s more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together.
Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.
These introduced Argentine ants are renowned for forming large colonies, and for becoming a significant pest, attacking native animals and crops.
In Europe, one vast colony of Argentine ants is thought to stretch for 6,000km (3,700 miles) along the Mediterranean coast, while another in the US, known as the “Californian large”, extends over 900km (560 miles) along the coast of California. A third huge colony exists on the west coast of Japan.
While ants are usually highly territorial, those living within each super-colony are tolerant of one another, even if they live tens or hundreds of kilometres apart. Each super-colony, however, was thought to be quite distinct.
But it now appears that billions of Argentine ants around the world all actually belong to one single global mega-colony.
This is an interesting video with several plausible theories for UFOs, both man-made and extraterrestrial!
Video Caption: This video goes over a list of now declassified (and unclassified) Top Secret Military Aircraft, & tries to provide answers to some reported UFO cases.
It may look like a stick - but Oscar's find is one of earth's oldest creatures
An ancient blood-sucking fish has been found in the Thames by a 13-year-old boy.
The sea lamprey, an eel-like creature with a sucker-shaped mouth surrounded by teeth, predates the dinosaurs.
But they only venture into fresh water to breed if it is very clean, which is why experts said Oscar Bridge’s find is significant.
In the 1960s the Thames was so polluted scientists declared it “biologically extinct” after a survey.
Oscar was taking part in a sponsored clear-up of a riverbank near Fulham’s Craven Cottage stadium when he made the discovery.
He said: “All of a sudden I saw this thing and thought, ‘what’s that?’ – “I picked it up and it looked like an eel,” he said. “I did get a shock when I saw the mouth.”
He added: “I really like animals – especially creepy ones like that.”
What Oscar had found proved to be a 15.5in (40cm) long sea lamprey, one of the most ancient creatures on earth.
Like the shark and the crocodile, sea lampreys have barely changed over thousands of millennia.
The Lamprey was dead when found, but this is not necessarily a bad thing – as they usually die immediately after spawning – which would suggest they are breading again in the Thames.
It turns out to be nothing more than Bloodworms (Tubifex tubifex), which are small red worms that live in fresh water! Bit of an anticlimax, but still a weird sight if you ask me!
Tubifex tubifex, also called the sludge worm, sewage worm, or lime snake; is a species of tubificid segmented worm that inhabits the sediments of lakes and rivers on several continents
Scientists find first conclusive signature for uranium on Moon
A team of scientists has found the first conclusive signature for the presence of uranium on the lunar surface, an element not seen in previous Moon-mapping efforts.
The uranium signatures were detected by Robert C Reedy, a senior scientist at the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute, who is mapping the Moon’s surface elements using data gathered by an advanced gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) that rode aboard the Japanese Kaguya spacecraft.
Kaguya was launched in September 2007 and crashed into the Moon at the end of its mission on June 10 of this year.
Earlier gamma-ray spectrometer maps from the Apollo and Lunar Prospector missions show a few of the Moon’s chemical elements.
But, the maps constructed by Reedy and the Kaguya GRS team, using data gathered by state-of-the-art, high-energy-resolution germanium detectors, are extending the earlier results and improving our understanding of the Moon’s surface composition.
In addition to uranium, the Kaguya GRS data also is showing clear signatures for thorium, potassium, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, calcium, titanium and iron.
Researchers have dubbed the monkey Mura’s saddleback tamarin (saguinus fuscicollis mura) named after the Mura Indians, the ethnic group of Amerindians of the Purus and Madeira river basins where the monkey occurs. Historically this tribe was spread through the largest territory of any of the Amazonian Indigenous peoples, extending from the Peruvian frontier today (Rio Yavari) east to the Rio Trombetas.
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