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What makes the dark shyshark (Haploblepharus pictus) so shy? When threatened, this critter might curl up into a ring and cover its eyes with its tail. Scientists think this defensive posture makes it harder for predators to gulp the dark shyshark down for an easy meal. Found in parts of the southeast Atlantic Ocean, this shark can grow to about 22 in (55.8 cm) long. Its diet includes crustaceans, mollusks, and fish.

Photo: Raoulco, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist

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Conservation good news: Giant anteaters are returning to south Brazil thanks to rewilding efforts

Recent giant anteater sightings in Rio Grande do Sul state indicate the species has returned to southern Brazil, where it had been considere

— Recent giant anteater sightings in Rio Grande do Sul state indicate the species has returned to southern Brazil, where it had been considered extinct for more than a century.

— Experts concluded that the giant anteater ventured across the border from the Iberá Park in northeastern Argentina where a rewilding project has released around 110 individuals back into the habitat.

— The sightings emphasize the importance of rewilding projects, both to restore animal populations in specific regions and help ecosystems farther afield.

— Organizations across Brazil are working to protect and maintain current giant anteater populations, including rallying for safer highways to prevent wildlife-vehicle collisions that cause local extinctions.

Playing back hours of footage from a camera trap set in Espinilho State Park in the south of Brazil in August 2023, Fábio Mazim and his team banked on possible sightings of the maned wolf or the Pantanal deer and had their fingers crossed for a glimpse of a Pampas cat (Leopardus pajeros), one of the most threatened felines in the world.

What they didn’t expect to see was an animal long presumed extinct in the region. To their surprise, the unmistakable long snout and bushy tail of a giant anteater ambled into shot.

"We shouted and cried when we saw it,” the ecologist from the nonprofit Pró-Carnívoros Institute told Mongabay. “It took a few days to grasp the importance of this record. A sighting of a giant anteater was never, ever expected.”

Last seen alive in the southwest of the Rio Grande do Sul state in 1890, the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) has since been spotted 11 times since August 2023, although the scientists are unsure whether it’s the same one or different individuals. However, the sightings confirm one clear fact: The giant anteater is back.

It's a huge win for the environment. Giant anteaters play an important role in their ecosystems, helping to control insect numbers, create watering holes through digging and are prey for big cats such as jaguars and pumas.

The habitat of the giant anteater stretches from Central America toward the south cone of Latin America.

Its conservation status is “vulnerable,” although it is considered extinct in several countries, including El Salvador, Guatemala and Uruguay, as well as specific regions such as the states of Rio de Janeiro, Espirito Santo, Santa Catarina and (until now) Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and the Cordoba and Entre Rios regions in Argentina.

‍In the last six months, the giant anteater was spotted on camera 11 times in the Espinilho State Park in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. It was the first time in 130 years that the species has been seen alive there.

Yet not only is it a triumph for conservationists to see these animals returning to Brazilian biomes, it’s also a surprising mark of success for a rewilding program about 150 kilometers (93 miles) away in neighboring Argentina.

‍Rewilding Argentina’s biomes

‍Iberá National Park in Corrientes province in northeastern Argentina is a 758,000-hectare (1.9 million-acre) expanse of protected land comprising a part of the Iberá wetlands with its swaths of grasslands, marshes, lagoons and forests. The region was once home to just a handful of giant anteaters after habitat loss, hunting and vehicle collisions decimated the population.

Since 2007, the NGO Rewilding Argentina, an offspring of the nonprofit Tompkins Conservation, has been reintroducing the species back to the area, most individuals being orphaned pups rescued from vehicle collisions or poaching.

So far, they have released 110 giant anteaters back into the wild. Nowadays, several generations inhabit the park, transforming it from “a place of massive defaunation to abundance,” Sebastián Di Martino, director of conservation for Rewilding Argentina, was quoted as saying in an official statement.

The project has been so successful that the giant anteaters appear to be venturing farther afield and moving to new territories beyond national borders, such as Espinilho State Park in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul region...

Experts now hope that a giant anteater population can reestablish itself naturally in Espinilho State Park without the need for human intervention.

“The giant anteater returning to Rio Grande do Sul shows the success of the work done in Argentina and how it’s viable, possible and important to do rewilding and fauna reintroduction projects,” Mazim said. “It is also an indication that the management of conservation units and also the agricultural areas of the ecosystems are working,” he added. “Because if large mammals are coming from one region and settling in another, it is because there is a support capacity for them. It is an indication of the health of the environment.”

-via GoodGoodGood, via May 25, 2024

Digenean parasites of frog from Erzurum (a: Diplodiscus subclavatus, b: Dolichosaccus rastellus, c: Gorgoderina vitelliloba, d: Opisthioglyphe ranae, e: Cephalogonimus retusus, f: Gorgodera cygnoides, g: Skrjabinoeces breviansa, h: Haplometra cylindracea, i: Haematoloechus variegatus, j: Skrjabinoeces similis). (Tepe, Yahya & Yilan, Yağmur. (2021). New Records of Trematode and Acanthocephalan Species in Frogs in Erzurum Province, Turkey. Helminthologia. 58. 372-384. 10.2478/helm-2021-0043.)

Deep Sea Brotula

During a dive to the Galapagos Rift Zone in 1988, scientists in Alvin saw this strange purple fish hanging out in the super-hot water gushing from hydrothermal vents at about 8,200 feet (2500 meters) depth. Pilot Ralph Hollis quickly netted the fish and brought it back to the surface for further examination. Scientists determined that it was in the genus Bythites, of which there are three Atlantic species, and promptly named it after Hollis: Bythites hollisi. They also found that it produces live young (as opposed to eggs) and is a relative of the better-known cusk eel. By 2002, more of these fish had been caught, and scientists decided that this Equatorial Eastern Pacific specimen was so different from the three Atlantic species that it warranted a new genus, Gerhardia. But a few years later, scientists wishing to avoid confusion with a beetle with the same moniker proposed another name, Thermichthys hollisi, referring to the fish’s preferred hangout, the hydrothermal vents of the Galapagos Rift Zone. So far, no other fish of this genus have been found.

via: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)

Beetles 🪲🐞

I mean, I’m compelled to share for the image alone

but if you’d like to read the full article: X

I put it to you that Scaphiophryne marmorata is peak frog.

Why?

Well first, it's pretty round, which is key.

Now get a load of those fingers.

Big, expanded discs at the end, ideal for climbing.

But what's happening back there with those toes? No discs there. Those are good for walking and hopping around on the ground.

Now, let's gently turn them over

First, excellent tum, 17 out of 10, no notes.

But what's that at the base of the foot? Those big projections? Yep, those are spades. This climbing, hopping frog is an excellent digger!

I like to think of these Scaphiophryne as all-terrain frogs. They're basically good at everything. They defy our categorical labels of 'arboreal', 'terrestrial', or 'fossorial', and say 'por qué no los tres?'—but in Malagasy, so 'nahoana no tsy izy telo?'