Sulphur-crested cockatoos observed using bubblers in western Sydney
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Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
That's not a stick it's a branch! New species of supersized stick insect discovered in Australia
A giant new species of stick insect with a supersized wingspan has been discovered in a remote rainforest in Australia. The stick insect, which is around 40cm (15.75 inches) long, was discovered in high-altitude trees in the mountainous Wet Tropics region of North Queensland. The female specimen weighed 44g, less than a golf ball, but significantly heftier than Australia's heaviest insect, the giant wood moth, which gets up to 30g. Footage shows the incredible wingspan of the stick insect, which is a similar length to a small bird. The new species, named Acrophylla alta, is roughly the same size as a barn owl or a wood pigeon. James Cook University's Angus Emmott, who helped identify the species, said the creature's large size could be an evolutionary response to its cool, wet habitat. He said: 'Their body mass likely helps them survive the colder conditions, and that's why they've developed into this large insect over millions of years.' The remote habitat was probably also why it had remained undiscovered for so long, Emmott added. Emmott continued: 'They live high up in the rainforest canopy, and accessing that is almost impossible. 'You've got to wait until, for instance, a bird knocks one down or you get a big storm and they get knocked down. It's very, very hard to find them in situ.' He added that while females have wings, they are 'not really great flyers' because of their 'heavy bodies'. The next step in identifying and eventually naming the species is finding a male, which is proving difficult, and not just because they are as thin as a stick. Male stick insects tend to be significantly smaller and are so visually distinct from females that they have previously been regarded not only as a different species, but as a different genus altogether. Emmott said: 'You really need to find the male copulating with the female. 'You know what it is then, and you collect the eggs and you can actually ascertain that they're one of the same thing.' The eggs of the newly-discovered stick insect were key to its identification, as no two species' eggs are the same. Emmott said: 'Every species of stick insect has their own distinct egg style. 'They've all got different surfaces and different textures and pitting, and they can be different shapes. Even the caps on them are all very unique.' The stick insect specimen, along with another female, are now in the Queensland Museum's collection. Stick insects tend to be quite still in daylight hours to avoid being preyed on by birds, so researchers traipse through the rainforest at night with head torches for the best chance of glimpsing them. Currently, their average lifespan remains uncertain. Emmott said: 'We don't actually don't know that yet, but I imagine only a couple of years maximum. 'Because, yes, there's a lot of pressure on them with birds looking for them and eating them all the time, and I guess that's why they're so cryptic.' The depth and density of life in Queensland's rainforests mean untold numbers of insect species remain undefined or undiscovered. Emmott continued: 'Up here in the tropics, in northern Australia, we've got so many insects that are as yet undescribed. 'For instance, I've got an undescribed cicada in the garden here that a friend of mine is in the process of describing, and I've been working on the moths up here as quite a number of them are undescribed.'
Times
7 hours ago
- Times
Cassowary crossing — how Australia is tackling its roadkill crisis
The cassowary is a big, violent, flightless creature that is widely considered the world's most dangerous bird. It is no match, however, for a more powerful beast: the Australian motorist. Now scientists are racing against time to save the bird's dwindling numbers from a roadkill crisis. Cassowaries draw so many tourists to Australia's north that some estimate their value to the local economy at A$1 million (£488,000) per bird — meaning the fatal running-over of 24 of them last year was costly in more ways than one. A trial using artificial intelligence to alert drivers to the birds, which can grow to 6ft 2in (1.9m) tall, has reduced the number of deaths on a Far North Queensland road by more than a third. Its success has raised hopes the technology can be adapted to recognise other species and cut Australia's annual roadkill death toll, which is estimated at ten million and believed to be the world's highest in relation to the human population.
The Independent
10 hours ago
- The Independent
What medieval skeletons tell us about long-term health and life expectancy
Beneath churchyards in London and Lincolnshire lie the chemical echoes of famine, infection and survival preserved in the teeth of those who lived through some of the most catastrophic periods in English history. In a new study, my colleagues and I examined over 270 medieval skeletons to investigate how early-life malnutrition affected long-term health and life expectancy. We focused on people who lived through the devastating period surrounding the Black Death (1348-1350), which included years of famine during the Little Ice Age and the great bovine pestilence (an epidemic that killed two-thirds of cattle in England and Wales). We found that the biological scars of childhood deprivation during this time left lasting marks on the body. These findings suggest that early nutritional stress, whether in the 14th century or today, can have consequences that endure well beyond childhood. Children's teeth act like tiny time capsules. The hard layer inside each tooth, called dentine, sits beneath the enamel and forms while we're growing up. Once formed, it stays unchanged for life, creating a permanent record of what we ate and experienced. As our teeth develop, they absorb different chemical versions (isotopes) of carbon and nitrogen from our food, and these get locked into the tooth structure. This means scientists can read the story of someone's childhood diet by analysing their teeth. A method of measuring the chemical changes in sequential slices of the teeth is a recent advance used to identify dietary changes in past populations with greater accuracy. When children are starving, their bodies break down their fat stores and muscle to continue growing. This gives a different signature in the newly formed dentine than the isotopes from food. These signatures make centuries-old famines visible today, showing exactly how childhood trauma affected health in medieval times. We identified a distinctive pattern that had been seen before in victims of the great Irish famine. Normally, when people eat a typical diet, the levels of carbon and nitrogen in their teeth move in the same direction. For example, both might rise or fall together if someone eats more plants or animals. This is called 'covariance' because the two markers vary together. But during starvation, nitrogen levels in the teeth rise while carbon levels stay the same or drop. This opposite movement – called 'opposing covariance' – is like a red flag in the teeth that shows when a child was starving. These patterns helped us pinpoint the ages at which people experienced malnutrition. Lifelong legacy Children who survived this period reached adulthood during the plague years, and the effect on their growth was recorded in the chemical signals in their teeth. People with famine markers in their dentine had different mortality rates than those who lacked these markers. Children who are nutritionally deprived have poorer outcomes in later life: studies of modern children have suggested that children of low birth weight or who suffer stresses during the first 1,000 days of life have long-term effects on their health. For example, babies born small, a possible sign of nutritional stress, seem to be more prone to illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes in adulthood than the population at large. These characteristics can also be passed to future offspring through changes in how genes are switched on or off, known as 'epigenetic effects' – which can endure for three generations. In medieval England, early nutritional deprivation may have been beneficial during catastrophic times by producing adults of short stature and the capacity to store fat, but these people were much more likely to die after the age of 30 than their peers with healthy childhood dentine patterns. The patterns for childhood starvation increased in the decades leading up to the Black Death and declined after 1350. This suggests the pandemic may have indirectly improved living conditions by reducing population pressure and increasing access to food. The medieval teeth tell us something urgent about today. Right now, millions of children worldwide are experiencing the same nutritional crises that scarred those long-dead English villagers – whether from wars in Gaza and Ukraine or poverty in countless countries. Their bodies are writing the same chemical stories of survival into their growing bones and teeth, creating biological problems that will emerge decades later as heart disease, diabetes and early death. Our latest findings aren't just historical curiosities; they're an urgent warning that the children we fail to nourish today will carry those failures in their bodies for life and pass them on to their own children. The message from the medieval graves couldn't be clearer: feed the children now or pay the price for generations. Julia Beaumont is a Researcher in Biological Anthropology at the University of Bradford.
