Earth

Double-crested cormorant during breeding season

The beginning of the article.

Scientists in Hawaii have discovered a new, rare and bizarre species of carnivorous, bone-collecting caterpillars. After hatching, the tiny insects live almost their entire lives in the web of a single spider, eating any weakened or recently deceased insects that have been caught by their host – all while adorned in a grisly collection of body parts.

"They'll also find bits of dry bug jerky stuck to the web and eat that," said Daniel Rubinoff, a professor and entomology chair at the University of Hawaii Manoa. They're not just meat-eating but also cannibalistic. If they come across another, smaller caterpillar they will happily consume it. "That's why we never find more than one caterpillar per web," Rubinoff said.

Beavers, which were hunted to extinction in Britain in the 16th century, are making a comeback and in the process are helping to restore valuable wetland ecosystems. Known as nature's engineers they restore wetland habitats through dam-building and felling trees, slowing, storing and filtering water in their habitat, which attracts other wildlife and reduces flooding downstream.

In the UK, 90% of wetland habitats have been lost over the last 100 hundred years. These waterlogged environments are rich in biodiversity and the loss has led to a drastic decline of wildlife. They are also important in countering the effects of extreme weather conditions, storing and absorbing the water flow during floods and storms.

Guy Henderson heads to Devon to see beavers flourishing in English rivers. Derek Gow, a key figure in rewilding beavers, shows the difference they have made to his land. As the former farm was being transformed, Gow also introduced a number of other lost British species, turning it into a biodiversity hotspot. Recent changes to legislation mean the beaver now has protected status in England as it does in Scotland and elsewhere in Europe.

the animal proletariat

Decades of neglect have left rivers and streams across the world in crisis. It’s a complex problem but years of relentless modification has left many unnaturally straight and separated from their floodplains. Rivers naturally should curve and meander, cleaning the water and providing vital habitats for plants and animals.

One solution gaining popularity in Britain is “re-wiggling” a river, or restoring it to have meanders and curves.

RAZOR’s Gabrielle Lawrence visits Norfolk in England, to see how one “re-wiggled” river has transformed biodiversity in the area and why rivers and waterways need to become valued spaces again.

Welcome to Wild Woodbury in Dorset, where an extraordinary transformation is underway. Once an intensive farm, this 170-hectare site is now one of the UK’s most ambitious rewilding experiments, led by Dorset Wildlife Trust.

As the rains have poured in, a new river has emerged—spanning up to 100 metres wide. Hidden watercourses are resurfacing, lapwings and nightjars are nesting once more, and adders slip through the grasslands. Even the nearby village is helping shape the future of this recovering landscape.

But rewilding isn't just about letting water back in—some ideas worked, others didn’t. So how exactly did this land change so dramatically?

Sword-billed hummingbird

The sword-billed hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera), also known as the swordbill, is a neotropical species of hummingbird from the Andean regions of South America. It is the only member in the genus Ensifera. Among the largest species of hummingbird, it is characterized by its unusually long bill, being the only bird to have a beak longer than the rest of its body, excluding the tail. It uses its bill to drink nectar from flowers with long corollas and has coevolved with the species Passiflora mixta. While most hummingbirds preen using their bills, the sword-billed hummingbird uses its feet to scratch and preen due to its bill being so long.

In the months after Hurricane Helene leveled thousands of acres in Pisgah National Forest, John Beaudet and other volunteers cleared downed trees from the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Chopping them up and moving them aside was back-breaking work, but essential to ensuring safe passage for hikers. So he was dismayed to learn that a section of the trail in western North Carolina could remain closed for more than a year because the National Forest Service wants that timber left alone so logging companies can clear it.

Of the nearly 800,000 acres of trees that Helene downed, about 187,000 lie in national forests. Salvage logging is the Forest Service’s primary method of handling such a large disturbance. However, scientists and forest advocates have long questioned whether salvage logging, which brings its own ecological damage, is the best approach and believe it denies nature time to heal. Others argue that such operations are motivated more by profit than safety or environmental concern, and often provide cover for taking healthy trees that still stand.

Timber salvage is a complex process that requires surveying immense tracts of land, much of it remote and occasionally treacherous, to determine the damage, its impact, and how best to clear it. Salvaging is ecologically disruptive. It can cause erosion, introduce fire-prone invasive plants, alter natural habitat, and impact water quality

Full Article

Painted Bat, Kodagu (Coorg), Karnataka | Conservation India

The painted bat (Kerivoula picta), also known as the painted wooly bat, is widely distributed in South and Southeast Asia but uncommon species to see. This image was taken on a banana plantation in Kodagu (Coorg), Karnataka.

Little is known about its ecology but has been recorded from dry deciduous and dipterocarp forests, small woodland patches, floodplains, paddy fields, sugarcane fields, orchards, and mixed plantations. Small groups of these animals (2-4) can be seen roosting inside unusual sites such as suspended nests of weaver birds and sunbirds, banana tree leaves, or under the eaves of huts and buildings. It mainly feeds on small web spiders. The species is listed as ‘Near Threatened’ as per The IUCN Red List.

CHOSEN AS 'PICTURE OF THE WEEK'

The painted bat is found in South and Southeast Asia. Small groups of these animals (2-4) can be seen roosting in unusual sites such as suspended nests of weaver birds and sunbirds, banana tree leaves, or under the eaves of huts and buildings.

Video