Black swans are originally from Australia. However, there are feral birds in Europe as well.
This video is by Aad Niehot from the Netherlands.
Two coots seem a bit apprehensive about the feeding black swan. Maybe it is too close to the coots’ nest?
This video from Australia says about itself:
A Thirsty Koala Returns and Sneezes
Feb 27, 2009
South Australia has had a three-year drought and as a result eucalypt leaves lose much of their moisture. Koalas normally get enough water from eating leaves but lately it’s been too hot so koalas have been coming to homes looking for water. This wild koala first came to our house during an extreme heat wave (see A Thirsty Koala). Three weeks later it got hot again and he came back looking much more lively.
From Queensland University of Technology in Australia:
World-first research will save koalas
The “holy grail” for understanding how and why koalas respond to infectious diseases has been uncovered in an Australian-led, world-first genome mapping project.
The joint undertaking between QUT (Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia) and The Australian Museum has unearthed a wealth of data, including the koala interferon gamma (IFN-g) gene – a chemical messenger that plays a key role in the iconic marsupial’s defence against cancer, viruses and intracellular bacteria.
Professor Peter Timms, from QUT’s Institue of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI), said the IFN-g gene was the key to finding a cure for diseases such as Chlamydia and Koala Retrovirus (KoRV), currently threatening the vulnerable species.
“We know koalas are infected with various strains of Chlamydia, but we do not know why some animals go on to get severe clinical disease and some do not,” Professor Timms said.
“We also know that genes such as IFN-g are very important for controlling chlamydial infections in humans and other animals.
Identifying these in the koala will be a major step forward in understanding and controlling diseases in this species. “
The research team – made up of Professor Timms, Dr Adam Polkinghorne, Dr Ana Pavasovic and Dr Peter Prentis from QUT; The Australian Museum; veterinarians from Australia Zoo and the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital; and bioinformaticians from Ramaciotti Centre and UNSW – have sequenced the complete transcriptome from several koala tissues.
Dr Polkinghorne from QUT’s School of Biomedical Sciences said data sets from immune-related tissues of Birke, a koala who was euthanised following a dog attack, have revealed a wealth of information about the species’ immune system including the sequences of at least 390 immune-related genes.
“Virtually nothing is known about the immune system of the koala and the absence of information has been a major hinderance to our efforts to understand how Chlamydia and KoRV infections lead to such debilitating disease in this native species,” he said.
Since finding the ‘holy grail’ the QUT team has developed a molecular test to measure IFN-g expression in the blood of healthy and diseased koalas, which has already been applied to a small group of wild koalas taken to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital suffering ocular and reproductive tract disease.
The results will allow researchers to pull apart the complex immune response to better understand how to successfully treat and immunise the vulnerable koala population.
The genes, which only represent about 1.8 per cent of the total set identified in the tissues, were involved in B cell and T cell activation and antigen presentation – key components of the adaptive immune response suggesting that koalas have the capability to protect themselves against microbial pathogens, such as Chlamydia.
Professor Timms’ team, who are currently trialling a Chlamydia vaccine for koalas in South East Queensland, said the koala transcriptome data also provided evidence that the KoRV virus’s genes were not just circulating in the blood, but were also fused to some of the animal’s own genes.
“By analysing this information we should be able to determine if KoRV is sitting harmlessly in these koalas or if it’s potentially triggering cancer or resulting in mild Chlamydia infections becoming a serious clinical disease,” Professor Timms said.
The finding will also help researchers understand why Queensland and New South Wales koala populations have been crippled by the spread of Chlamydia while Victorian populations are much less unaffected.
The project will also aid the conservation of other Australian wildlife, with the team of researchers revealing that the majority of koala sequences shared similarities to that of the Tasmanian Devil.
“While this finding alone is not that surprising, it does show that the immune genes of marsupials are fairly closely related,” Dr Polkinghorne said.
“This promises to benefit gene discovery and the development of immunological tools that will help us to fight diseases in our other threatened and endangered wildlife species.”
While the consortium already contains more than 12 scientists, veterinarians and bioinformaticians, Professor Timms said the team had only scratched the “tip of the iceberg”.
“The task is much larger and will require many more people to assist with analysing the data,” he said.
“Funding to date has resulted in a rich koala genetic bank, but it will fall short if we are to use this data to answer key koala survival questions.
“It is planned to expand the consortium and hold a workshop to develop the best approaches to analysing the data and hence ensure the continued survival of this iconic species.”
This music video from Australia says about itself:
Eric Bogle – The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
When I was asked to create this presentation for a Remembrance Day assembly, I didn’t know how I would show an “anti-war” song at an event that is supposed to honour our veterans. At the same time, war and military conflict was such a distant concept for our students, I wanted to somehow make history relevant to them, let alone an “Australian” song that most of our middle school students have never heard.
The more I listened to Bogle’s words, the more I realized that this song was about more than a moment in history. It’s about how history repeats itself and the great sacrifices that are made during war and how futile it all is if we fail to learn from our mistakes.
Making the transition from B/W to full colour to coincide with Bogle’s words “We started all over again,” I wanted to show how war is part of our past, present and (unfortunately) future.
Great sacrifices have been made because of war. Bogle asks “What are they marching for?” I say they are marching to honour those sacrifices. If any veteran is offended by this video, I truly do apologize.
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April 25 – ANZAC Day
November 11 – Remembrance Day“Waltzing Matilda” is a very famous Australian folk song and a “Matilda” was the name given to the pack that Australian farm workers carried on their backs.
To “Waltz Matilda” meant to carry your pack of belongings through the bush.
The song “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Eric Bogle is about Australian soldiers who fought against Turkish troops and died in the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I.
Mixed with pictures from Gallipoli are pictures of past and present Canadian troops because this song and slideshow was played during a Remembrance Day assembly at a Canadian public school.
By Phil Shannon in Australia:
Tale of the neglected ANZAC hero-turned socialist
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
The Price of Valour: The Triumph & Tragedy of a Gallipoli Hero, Hugo Throssell, VC
John Hamilton
Pan Macmillan, 2012
393 pages, $34.99 (pb)Captain Hugo Throssell, one of nine Australian soldiers to win a Victoria Cross for supreme bravery at Gallipoli in 1915, stunned his home-town audience of patriotic Australians in 1919 with his statement that “the war has made me a socialist”.
The declaration, made on the anniversary of the signing of the Allies’ World War I peace treaty with Germany, made headlines. It also made enemies, says John Hamilton in his biography of Throssell.
The civic authorities of the town of Northam in Western Australia listened with increasing disbelief as Northam’s own war hero denounced war for enriching armaments makers, war profiteers and rival national capitalist classes in their competition for territory, markets, resources and profits.
Throssell had been a dashing cavalry officer who, in the first flush of battle, wrote how it was “most glorious” to see a bayonet charge and what a “wonderful thing” it was to see men running through an artillery bombardment. But he became war-weary and disillusioned after seeing his mates killed and after suffering severe mental injury.
With what would now be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, Throssell’s days were filled with nervousness and headaches due to a head wound. His nights were tortured into sleeplessness by what he had seen at Gallipoli and by the death of his brother who had signed up with Throssell in the belief that war was a thrilling adventure.
Throssell, the privileged son of a conservative state premier, married Katherine Susannah Prichard, the journalist and feminist who went on to fame as a novelist and founder of the Communist Party of Australia.
Prichard’s communism, and her profound love for a handsome, vital, selfless man, helped Throssell make sense of his ghastly war experiences.
Reading Engels may not have been easy — “Hell, girl, what the blazes does this mean?” he would holler — but “usually our political discussions ended in love-making,” wrote Prichard.
Throssell, without becoming a party member, accepted Prichard’s political views as his own.
Australia’s political police put Throssell’s radicalisation down to “his wife’s influence”, or “his mind perhaps having been affected” by the cerebro-spinal meningitis he contracted during the war.
Throssell’s biographer hedges his bets, saying it is possible that the brain injury Throssell received from a botched, war-time sinus operation made him “more vulnerable and easily influenced”.
Socialism, apparently, can only be understood as a psychological disorder, the product of a weakened mind.
Throssell, however, knew his own mind — on the back of his will he wrote “I have never recovered from my 1914-18 experiences”, shortly before committing suicide using his army pistol in 1933.
He also added an appeal that “my wife and child get the usual war pension”. Owing £10,000 with just £10 in the bank, Throssell’s financial disasters during the Great Depression had been exacerbated, writes Hamilton, by his “enemies at work within the government”.
These enemies helped ensure his economic projects were costly failures. Conservatives in the Northam Returned Soldiers and Sailors League also got the government to remove Throssell from his job as soldiers’ representative on the government’s Discharged Soldiers’ Settlement Board.
The Repatriation Department added insult to tragedy by disputing the coroner’s finding that Throssell’s war wounds were the cause of his suicide.
Prichard angrily defended her husband who “believed he would be ensuring a pension to me and my son by his last act. I consider that his ‘grateful country’ made it impossible for my husband to live. He thought he had to die to provide for his wife and child.”
It was not until 1999 that a “modest memorial the size of a backyard barbecue” was erected to Throssell in Northam by his “grateful country”.
During the depression, Throssell had been forced to try to pawn his Victoria Cross but was offered only 10 shillings for it — the “price of valour” for a war hero who had, as his son Ric said later when donating Throssell’s medal to People for Nuclear Disarmament, “declared his commitment to peace”.
Throssell has not been well served by official history, nor by his biographer. Hamilton’s conventional war narrative focuses on Throssell the warrior, not the socialist.
Hamiltion’s biography includes a disapproval of Throssell’s decision to choose a patriotic occasion of military celebration to denounce war. “Not the time nor place,” says Hamilton — but what better time or place could there be? It took political courage and Throssell had just as much of that as he had bravery on the battlefield.
From Wildlife Extra:
White, leucistic, Eastern curlew from Australia
White Eastern curlew in Queensland
March 2013. A reader from Australia, Malcolm Macdonald, has sent us some images taken by John Booij of an unusual leucistic Eastern curlew (Numenius madagascariensis). The Eastern curlew is usually a mottled brown bird, but John’s bird is almost uniformaly white. The shots were taken 22 March 2013 at Taylor’s Beach, Queensland, Australia.
Malcolm says “I have seen this bird here for a couple of weeks. Inquiries have so far resulted in no other Australian records of similarly coloured curlews.”
According to Wikipedia, “The Far Eastern Curlew spends its breeding season in northeastern Asia, including Siberia to Kamchatka, and Mongolia. Its breeding habitat is composed of marshy and swampy wetlands and lakeshores. Most individuals winter in coastal Australia, with a few heading to South Korea, Thailand, Philippines and New Zealand, where they stay at estuaries, beaches, and salt marshes. During its migration the Far Eastern Curlew commonly passes the Yellow Sea.”
Leucism (or Leukism)
Leucism is a very unusual condition whereby the pigmentation cells in an animal or bird fail to develop properly. This can result in unusual white patches appearing on the animal, or, more rarely, completely white creatures. Albinism is a different condition. The easiest way to tell the difference between the two is that in albinism the eyes are usually pink or red, and albinism affects the entire animal, not just patches. This occassionaly causes very excited biologists to think they have discovered a new species, when in fact leucism is the cause of the unusual markings they have seen.
Click here to see our gallery of leucistic animals and birds.
From the University of Bristol in England:
Archerfish get an eye test
21-Mar-2013
Dr Shelby Temple, now at the University of Bristol, and his team at the University of Queensland and the University of Western Australia used a modified version of the Landolt C test to discover just how fine a detail the archerfish could resolve.
The researchers first trained the fish to spit at one of two letters – an ‘O’ or a ‘C’ – by rewarding them with food. Then they showed them small versions of both letters together and recorded which letter they spat at.
Dr Temple said: “This modified Landolt C test works because the only difference between the two letters is the gap in the ‘C’ so in order to tell the difference and spit at the right target to get their reward the fish must be able to resolve the gap.”
To test the archerfish’s resolving power, the size of the letters were decreased in steps to see just how small they could go. The scientists then compared these behavioural results to the fishes’ predicted acuity based on measurements of the photoreceptor density in their retinas.
The results, published in the journal Vision Research, show that archerfish are one of the most visually acute freshwater fish, able to resolve approximately 3.5 cycles per degree with the part of their retina that looks up and forwards, which is not surprising given their interesting foraging strategy.
Archerfish have a special way of hunting for food that involves spitting jets of water at aerial insects above the water’s surface. Because sound and smell do not cross the air-water interface, these fish must depend on their visual capabilities to find, identify and accurately spit at their prey.
Previously Dr Temple had found that archerfish have the potential to see colours differently in different parts of their eyes. They have visual pigments tuned to the murky brownish waters of the mangroves in the upper part of their eye that looks downwards, and trichromatic colour vision – much like our own – in the part of the eye that looks up and forwards towards potential targets out of the water. Combined with their higher acuity in this same part of the eye, which looks up and forwards, archerfish eyes are clearly well tuned for their odd method of capturing prey.
To put archerfish vision into context, many other freshwater fish (for example zebrafish, cichlids) have visual acuities of less than 1-2 cycles per degree, whereas marine mammals (seals, whales, dolphins) have acuities ranging from 3.5 – 5.5 cycle per degree. Humans and other primates have acuity of around 60 cycles per degree. The best seem to be birds of prey with the wedge-tailed eagle having visual acuity of over 140 cycles per degree.
Dr Shelby said: “This huge range across animals is mainly because of the optical clarity of the media in which they see and the distances to their targets. While birds and land animals see through air and look for objects at distances of tens to hundreds of metres, fish and other aquatic animals have to see through water which at best gives only tens of metres of clarity.
“In the case of many freshwater fishes visibility of their water may be less than a few centimetres. Accordingly, archerfish have lower acuity in the part of the eye that looks down into the murky water and the highest acuity in the part of the eye that looks up and forwards.”
See also here.
This video is called Giant Squid Caught on Tape for First Time for Discovery Channel’s ‘Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real’.
From Australian Geographic:
Giant squid all one species, study says
By: Joanna Egan
March-21-2013
Scientists shocked to find the world’s giant squid all belong to one species – not 21 species as had been thought.
IN A WORLD FIRST, scientists have studied the DNA of giant squid from across the globe to discover that they all belong to the same species.
The mysterious marine creature, which can reach up to 18m in length, is found deep below the surface of all of the world’s oceans and, until now, has been little studied by scientists.
In a new study, an international research team examined the DNA of giant squid specimens collected from different parts of the world, and discovered that they all share remarkable genetic similarities.
“Researchers have previously suggested that as many as 21 species of Architeuthis were in existence,” says one of the paper’s co-authors Dr Jan Strugnell, from Latrobe University in Melbourne.
All giant squid only one species
“We were very surprised by our findings,” lead researcher Professor Tom Gilbert, from the Natural History Museum of Denmark, told Australian Geographic. “They have less genetic variation than almost any other studied organism on land or in the sea.”
Giant squid
This is particularly striking given that giant squid are distributed throughout the world’s oceans, and individuals are known to vary significantly in physical form.
The research, which was published this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests there is only one species (Architeuthis dux) of giant squid on the planet. Because no geographically isolated sub-species have been identified, it also proposes that squid interact with each other across large distances, as part of a single, global population.
First sighting of a giant squid in 2004
The giant squid was first described in 1857, but a live specimen wasn’t seen until 2004. Most of the information scientists had been able to glean about the elusive invertebrates came from remains that were found in the stomachs of whales, washed ashore or caught in fishing nets.
For this study, the researchers extracted DNA from soft-cell tissue samples collected from 43 individual giant squid. The team then compared the individuals, by sequencing the DNA that is passed down from mother to offspring.
Limited gene pool for underwater giant
Jan says the next step is to investigate the reasons behind the low level of genetic diversity, which may have something to do with the squid’s reproductive cycle. “It is likely to have highly mobile larvae that catch oceanic currents, which transport them around the world’s oceans,” says Jan.
An analysis of the giant squid’s history could also shed light on the species’ evolution. “The giant squid population is likely to have gone through a bottleneck event – meaning that the global population decreased significantly in the past,” says Jan.
“We can’t be sure of the reason for this event. It might be associated with the last ice age,” says Jan. “It is possible that the giant squid’s competitors and predators were also impacted, which allowed squid numbers to then increase again.”
This video from Australia says about itself:
Mar 16, 2013
In a world first, a team of Australian scientists has taken the first major step in bringing the gastric brooding frog back to life.
Sarah Clarke reports.
From Australian Geographic:
Cloning brings extinct frog back from dead
By: Mischa Vickas | March-19-2013
Frozen tissue has allowed the bizarre gastric brooding frog – which gives birth via its mouth – to rise from the dead.
IT’S NOT EXACTLY Jurassic Park – not yet anyway – but Australian researchers have briefly revived an extinct species using frozen tissue and cloning technology to produce a live embryo.
“We are watching Lazarus arise from the dead, step by exciting step,” says Professor Mike Archer, a palaeobiologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the project.
After the accidental discovery of frozen frog tissue several years ago his team were able to attempt cloning to bring the lost species back, says Mike. Though the embryos did not survive to adulthood, this represents the first time an extinct species has been revived.
Bringing extinct animals back from the dead
“The implications for other extinct and declining species are huge,” says Dr Simon Clulow, a biologist at the University of Newcastle who took part in the research. He says the feat opens up avenues for reviving other lost creatures, such as the Tasmanian tiger.
Queensland’s southern gastric-brooding frog, was one of two related species that swallowed its eggs and incubated tadpoles in its stomach, before giving birth to fully formed froglets via its mouth. Along with the northern gastric brooding frog it went extinct in the mid 1980s.
For the project, the experts inserted a dead cell nucleus of the southern gastric-brooding frog (Rheobatrachus silus) into the living donor egg of a related species, the great barred frog. The researchers first ensured that all existing genetic material was removed from the donor egg.
Frog gives birth through its mouth
The researchers managed to produce embryos – clumps of cells that survived for a few days.
“We’re increasingly confident that the hurdles ahead are technological and not biological and that we will succeed,” says Mike. “Importantly, we’ve demonstrated already the great promise this technology has as a conservation tool when hundreds of the world’s amphibian species are in catastrophic decline.”
The reason why the researchers chose the gastric-brooding frog, discovered near Brisbane in 1973, was because of its “unique and amazing evolution,” says Simon, who is an Australian Geographic Society sponsored researcher.
“The gastric-brooding frog evolved some of the most incredible strategies for reproductive success that have ever been observed in Australia, or indeed the world,” he says.
The reversal of extinction?
Simon argues that the research highlights the need for Australia to develop a bank of genetic material so that if the technology proves itself, future species extinctions can be avoided.
Half of all amphibians are in decline and 30 per cent are faced with extinction, largely as a result of human activity, says Simon.
The results of the project were presented in the US on Friday at TED conference for researchers discussing the possibility of bringing other extinct species back, including the woolly mammoth, the moa and the dodo.
Over the last decade other projects have looked at sequencing the genome of the Tasmanian tiger, and even reviving it using tissue from museum specimens, but they have been scuppered by technical or financial hurdles.
See also here.
This video from Australia says about itself:
Shingleback [=sleepy lizard] babies – Tiliqua Rugosa
Five days old shinglebacks taking a sun bath.
From Australian Geographic:
Why sleepy lizards mate for life
By: Rebecca Baker | March-18-2013
An AG Society sponsored researcher is discovering the reasons why sleepy lizards don’t sleep around.
WITH THE HELP OF the AG Society, Dr Stephan Leu is investigating why sleepy lizards form long-term monogamous bonds.
This behaviour is most common in bird species but rare among lizards, and Stephan believes the sleepy lizard’s relationships provide a unique opportunity to gain a better understanding of monogamy in terrestrial animals.
“During the mating season both male and female sleepy lizards actively maintain the pair bond and, after the mating season, pair partners appear to stay in loose contact before reuniting the next spring to mate again,” Stephan says.
“We know of some pairs that have been doing this for more than 25 years.”
Stephan and colleagues at Flinders University, Adelaide, plan to use their observations of undisturbed wild lizards to determine whether long-term lizard pairs have stronger pair bonds than new pairs.
“Although we have very detailed observations of the behaviour during one mating season, we still don’t understand what drives long-term monogamy in this species.”
This video from Australia is called Tasmanian Devil.
From Wildlife Extra:
Hope for threatened Tasmanian devils with scientific breakthrough
Research paves way for the development of a vaccine for the contagious cancer which is driving Tasmanian devils to the brink of extinction.
March 2013. New research paves the way for the development of a vaccine for the Tasmanian devil, currently on the brink of extinction because of a contagious cancer.
100% mortality
It has been less than two decades since scientists discovered the contagious cancer devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) which causes 100 per cent mortality in the endangered marsupials. The facial cancer, which spreads when the devils bite each other’s faces during fighting, kills its victims in a matter of months. As it has already wiped out the majority of the population with sightings of devils reduced by 85 per cent, scientists are desperate to find out more about the mysterious cancer which somehow manages to evade the devils’ immune system.
Complex problem
Until now, scientists have believed that the tumours were able to avoid detection by the immune system because the Tasmanian devils have very little genetic diversity (preventing the immune system from recognising the tumour as foreign). However, a University of Cambridge led collaboration with the Universities of Tasmania, Sydney and South Denmark has discovered that the explanation is more complex.
On the surface of nearly every mammalian cell are major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. These molecules enable the immune system to determine if a cell is friend or foe, triggering an immune response if the cell is foreign and a potential threat. The new research, published in the journal PNAS, reveals that DFTD cancer cells lack these critical molecules, thereby avoiding detection by the devils’ immune system.
Professor Jim Kaufman, from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Pathology, said: “Once it was found that the cancer was escaping from the devils’ immune system, scientists needed to figure out how.”
Cure?
The researchers found that the DFTD cells have lost the expression of MHC molecules, but that the genes that code for these molecules are still intact. This means that these genes could potentially be turned back on. Indeed, the scientists showed that by introducing signalling molecules such as interferon-gamma, a protein which triggers the immune response, the DFTD cells can be forced to express MHC molecules.
Dr Hannah Siddle, lead author of the paper from the University of Cambridge, said: “Developing a vaccine based on our research could tip the balance in the favour of the devil and give them a fighting chance.”
“However, we still face some hurdles. The tumour is evolving over time and any vaccine programme would have to take this into consideration. Also, because of the difficulties of vaccinating a wild population, it may be more efficient to use a vaccine in the context of returning captive devils to the wild.”
Contagious cancer
Although the only other contagious cancer has been found in dogs (canine transmissible venereal cancer), the rapid development of DFTD highlights how quickly they can emerge.
Professor Kaufman added: “Our study has implications beyond the Tasmanian devil. Sooner or later a human strain of contagious cancer will develop, and this work gives us insight into how these diseases emerge and evolve.”
The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Information courtesy of Cambridge University.
Australian Geographic writes about this video:
Ducklings hatch out of eggs
IT WAS THE CHANCE DISCOVERY of a hatching egg by wildlife filmmaker Simon Cherriman that led to this spectacular footage of a musk duck chick’s first breaths.
Simon was thrilled when he returned to a nest he had found in a small wetland in the Perth Hills, WA, and found the eggs about to hatch.
“I had returned only with the intention of getting some better still photos of the nest as it was such a rare opportunity,” says Simon, who shot the footage with Canon 600D and GoPro miniature HD cameras.
Musk duck: largest duck in Australia
The native musk duck (Biziura lobata), found from north-west WA across to the south and east coasts, is Australia’s largest species of duck. The male of the species can grow up to 70cm long. The musk duck is named for the odour it releases from a gland on its rump.
The nest location in the film is typical of the species – hidden within a thick reed bed in a freshwater lagoon. Female ducks lay one clutch of eggs per year in cup-like nests that are lined with feathers and grass.
Musk ducks aren’t often seen on land, as the positioning of their legs make them ungainly walkers. They are, however, expert divers and swimmers, allowing them to easily escape predators and find food.
- Jude Dineley
