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Giants once roamed the earth, meaning many species of animals that are familiar to us have enormous extinct ancestors. Cracked looks at seven of them, some of which have been previously featured individually at Neatorama. Take a look at Argentavis magnificens.
As if answering the dare to make us feel more inadequate, the world gave us Argentavis magnificens, the largest flying bird in recorded history. These beasts possessed a wingspan between 19- and 26-feet, and a wing area of 75-feet, which you may notice is only slightly smaller than a Lear Jet. In addition to its staggering size and 240-pound weight, the bird is believed to have swallowed prey as large as cattle in one fell swoop.
Link -via Gorilla Mask
How did whales manage to grow so big? And is there a limit to how big they can get? Scientists looked at the mechanics of how whales feed, especially those species that consume tiny krill. They call what they discovered “lunge-feeding”, which is detailed in an article at Discover Magazine.
In order to make lunge-feeding work, you have to have a really big mouth to capture enough water in one gulp. But in order to have a big mouth, you need a big body. And in order to keep that big body running, you need to get a lot of food. And in the very act of getting that food–diving deep, lunging open-mouthed, and then pushing a school-bus-sized volume of water forwards–requires a lot of energy on its own.
This type of feeding might explain the size of whales.
If the scientists are right, they may have discovered one of the big ironies in evolution. Lunge-feeding may have allowed whales to become the biggest animals ever to roam the planet. But this was not an open-ended invitation.r. Once whales got large enough, lunge feeding itself became so costly it prevented them from getting any bigger.
A tree snail found in the tropical forest near Cairns, Australia has been named after the late Steve Irwin. Dr. John Stanisic of the Queensland Museum named it Crikey steveirwini.
The scientist described Crikey steveirwini as “a colourful snail, with swirling bands of creamy yellow, orange-brown and chocolate giving the shell an overall khaki appearance”.
“It was the khaki colour that immediately drew the connection to the late Crocodile Hunter,” Dr Stanisic said.
Enjoy this piece on Scienceray about the wonderful Giraffe-Necked Antelope of East Africa. Just as their taller friends have evolved to get to the higher branches of green in a barren landscape, this unique species also took to the higher branches of smaller flora.
It’s also obvious, but worth pointing out ~ they’re as cute as all getout.
They will use their forelegs to pull down branches that are even higher than they are and can get to tender new leaves that other animals cannot. As a plus, the GNA does not need to drink water at all – it gets all the moisture it needs from the plants they devour.
Link |Image by Flickr user nonisense.
The BBC’s natural history unit sent an expedition to Mount Bosavi, a volcano in Papua New Guinea. Scientists on the team identified 40 new species of wildlife which have called the crater home since its last eruption 200,000 years ago. These include the 3-pound Bosavi Woolly Rat which can grow up to 32 inches long! They also found colorful new birds, beetles, spiders, marsupials, and frogs, such as the Litoria sauroni pictured.
The habitat in the area is currently regarded as pristine, but less than 20 miles to the south of Mount Bosavi extensive logging operations are happening.
The mountain acts like an island in the vast sea of jungle, trapping different species on it.
(image credit: BBC)
Scientists have announced the top ten new species first described in 2008.
On the list are a pea-sized seahorse, caffeine-free coffee and bacteria that live in hairspray. The top 10 new species also include the very tiny (a snake just a slither longer than 4 inches or 104 millimeters), the very long (an insect from Malaysia with an overall length of 22.3 inches or 56.7 centimeters) the very old (a fossilized specimen of the oldest known live-bearing vertebrate) and the very twisted (a snail whose shell twists around four axes). Rounding out this year’s list are a palm that flowers itself to death, a ghost slug from Wales and a deep blue damselfish.
Shown is Opisthostoma vermiculum, a tiny land snail that curls on four different axes. Link -via the Presurfer
(image credit: Reuben Clements)
Knowledge on evolution fills many books, which can be intimidating to someone just beginning to learn about it. Geeks are Sexy has a post explaining in layman’s terms how evolution works and the reason why the theory is so important as a tool when examining the world. The basics boil down to four statements:
* Variation, which arises through mutation, exists within and between populations for every trait.
* More individuals are born into a population than can survive (usually because of the scarcity of resources).
* Traits are passed down from parents to their offspring.
* Individuals most fit to survive in their environment generally do (Natural Selection).
Of course, there’s a lot more which is easier to absorb once you have the basics. Link
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Geeksaresexy.
A newfound frog species in the Boophis genus, photo: Miguel Vences
After finding more than a hundred new frog species in Madagascar over the past 15 years, scientists thought that they’d found everything – but a new study done by a team of international scientists had found up to 221 new species in the island country:
The work suggests that tropical amphibian diversity has been underestimated at an "unprecedented level" worldwide, the study authors write in the May 4 online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"People think that we know which plant and animal species live on this planet," team member Miguel Vences, of the Technical University of Braunschweig in Germany, said in a statement.
"But the century of discoveries has only just begun—the majority of life-forms on Earth is still awaiting scientific recognition."
Which brings us to the obligatory statement from the President of Madagascar:
With apologies to the scientists
The Bubal Hartebeest was a magnificent, tough beast which was once domesticated by the ancient Egyptians as a food source and for sacrificial purposes. The creature was even mentioned in the Old Testament.
Although it once roamed throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, the deep-rooted mythology which surrounded the animal was not enough to save it from European hunters who began hunting them for recreation and meat. The last Bubal Hartebeest was probably a female which died in the Paris Zoo in 1923.
Animals are going extinct at a much higher rate now than through most of the earth’s history. Many species have disappeared since the development of photography. Take a good look, because this is all you’ll see of these eleven species as they were. Link -via Digg
Previously at Neatorama: Video of a Thylacine and an attempt to resurrect the Quagga.
Scientists have just discovered a new species of iguana that has pink scales and lives on one volcano in the Galapagos Islands:
… scientists have discovered that the "rosada" – or pink – iguana is a species in its own right after comparing its genes with other land iguanas on the Galapagos.
There were also physical differences, besides the striking pink and black-striped colouring. Pink iguanas had flat head scales, unlike other land iguanas, and a thick fatty crest on the back of the neck with small conical scales.
This infographic, titled Species-scape, purports to show various species at sizes relative to the number of known species in that group. Insects, represented by the fly, is the largest (at about 900,000 known species). If you’re wondering where we are, humans (and other mammals) are represented by the reindeer underneath the mushroom.
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