The patient at the centre of this almost-otherworldly image is a rhino named Oz who was brought to the facility after animal monitors looking after him at the Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary reported an unusual swelling on his face. After consultations with wildlife veterinarians, a decision was made to carry out a groundbreaking procedure to assess the issue.

While CT scans are a common, noninvasive way for healthcare workers to diagnose a variety of conditions in humans, the challenges of performing the examination on an animal as large as a rhino are substantial. “The logistics about [sic] moving a one-tonne animal in and out of the CT scanner are quite significant,” Professor Gerhard Steenkamp, veterinary dentistry specialist and maxillofacial surgeon at the Faculty of Veterinary Science told a local news outlet, perhaps downplaying just how tricky the task was.

Although CT scans have been used in the past to examine baby rhinos, this was the first time an adult rhino had undergone the procedure in South Africa making it a milestone in veterinary healthcare and diagnostic imaging.

After sedating Oz and hoisting him onto a massive gurney, he was moved into the CT scan room where 3D images of his jaw were generated revealing a tooth root abscess. Accurate diagnosis is critical in cases like this as tooth removals can lead to further complications, Steenkamp explained. Teeth on either side of the extracted tooth can shift and this can lead to food impaction and other problems that may require further veterinary procedures, so it's important that teeth are not removed unnecessarily.

In Oz's case, extraction was the only option and appropriate treatment was carried out. 

"The collaboration catalysed a landmark moment in veterinary healthcare as well as rhino care and rehabilitation with the first ever CT scan on a live rhino in South Africa," Care for Wild Rhino Sanctuary wrote on Facebook. "The logistical experience, information and knowledge gained from this is phenomenal progress in the fight to save a keystone species from extinction."

"We cannot save a species alone but together we can achieve remarkable things. In acknowledgement of the team of specialists who came together, we thank them for their passion, dedication and immense commitment," added Petronel Nieuwoudt, the Care for Wild founder and CEO.

Oz was orphaned in 2015 following a poaching incident and is one of many rhinos that are looked after at the sanctuary which focuses on the rescue, rehabilitation and ultimate release of these animals back into the wild. Although the latest statistics indicate that rhino deaths due to poaching are decreasing, conservationists are concerned that this may be the result of the overall decline of rhino populations which has left fewer of the animals in the wild for poachers to target. 

Thankfully for Oz, he is recovering well after the procedure and is happily grazing with the rest of his crash at the sanctuary:

Top header image: Matthew Rogers, Flickr

Imagine driving through a lush, green landscape in France or Germany and spotting a herd of elephants roaming freely. As absurd as that might seem, it was only 10,000 years ago that creatures the size of elephants populated continents like Europe. That’s a blip in evolutionary terms.

In the last 10,000 to 60,000 years, humans have almost single-handedly eliminated around 80% of the world’s herbivore species that weigh over a tonne – known as “megaherbivores”. The last living mammoth, for instance, was wandering around Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia as recently as 3,700 years ago.

This massive loss of megaherbivores in such a relatively short period has had effects on vegetation that we can still see today, like promoting different types and sizes of plants. By eating trees, shrubs, grasses and herbs – like elephants and giraffes in Africa – these giants play a crucial role in maintaining a diverse and healthy landscape, with a balance between woodlands and grasslands.

For instance, elephants knock over trees, giving more space for grasses to grow and helping savannah ecosystems to flourish. They are also critical for dispersing seeds across landscapes and helping to recycle nutrients in the soil.

To restore balance to ecosystems damaged by factors including the loss of larger creatures, some have proposed bringing back lost species – which could include megaherbivores. This is already being promoted in Africa by organisations such as Space for Giants and African Parks. The problem is that we know very little about how reintroducing these giants could affect smaller species, some of which are facing extinction themselves.

In a study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, we shed light on the consequences of reintroducing such species into ecosystems that have lost them, by looking at how they affect life in a Kenyan savannah.

Our study

By excluding elephants and giraffes from an area in the savannah using electric fences, we studied how other animals in the area would respond to their absence. Our methods were simple, but smelly: over 12 years, we counted the dung piles of 12 species of smaller herbivores such as impalas, zebras, gazelles and buffaloes. This enabled us to assess whether these animals preferred to hang out in areas with or without elephants and giraffes.

We found that most animals, particularly the smallest ones, preferred the elephant and giraffe-free zones. In fact, zebras were the only animals that preferred the areas with these megaherbivores, perhaps due to zebras’ preference for wide open spaces with fewer trees and more grass (neither elephants nor giraffes eat much grass).

Our findings suggest that restoring megaherbivore populations will reduce habitats that smaller herbivores prefer. This is particularly important to consider in areas where smaller species are already endangered. But this doesn’t mean we should discount the value of reintroducing megaherbivores altogether.

Next steps

In Denmark, researchers have proposed introducing Asian elephants to a site near Copenhagen. They are the closest living relatives of mammoths, which we’ve not yet been able to resurrect. Similarly, there are already over 100 captive Asian elephants in the United States, which could be allowed to roam freely in larger enclosures.

Plans like these would increase the habitat and population of larger endangered species. They would also provide valuable opportunities to observe megaherbivores’ impacts on native plants and animals before larger-scale releases are considered, while improving the welfare of captive elephants.

Another example can be found in Australia, where researchers have suggested that introducing wild elephants and rhinos could help to control wildfires. By eating lots of plants that, when dry, fuel more frequent and hotter fires, the large animals could mimic the ecological role of species like the now-extinct 1.5 tonne wombat.

However, until such experiments actually take place in Europe, North America or Australia, we must rely on what is known about similar species in other ecosystems to have an idea of what to expect.

It’s important to point out that, just as elephants and giraffes reduce tree densities that have increased in their absence, their effects on other herbivores are likely a sign of the ecosystem and food supply returning to their more natural, healthiest states. This shouldn’t be an issue as long as we ensure, through careful planning and monitoring, that other plant and animal species aren’t being threatened with extinction due to rewilding interventions.

Whether we introduce ecological replacements for extinct giants or return existing megaherbivores to their former stomping grounds, the potential ecological impacts of reintroducing such large creatures on native plants and animals should not be overlooked as we ramp up rewilding efforts globally.

Harry Wells, Research Ecologist, University of Leeds; Nora Ward, Lecturer in Philosophy, National University of Ireland Galway, and Ramiro D. Crego, Postdoctoral Researcher, National Zoo and Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Such was the situation for a woman in Northern California at the start of this month. Having seen rattlesnakes slithering under her house – set in the northeastern part of the town of Santa Rosa, edging into the Mayacamas Mountains – she called the non-profit Sonoma County Reptile Rescue for assistance.

Its director, Al Wolf, found several rattlesnsnakes on his first foray below the woman’s home. Returning with a pair of buckets, safety gloves, and a snake-grabbing tool, he soon discovered that those initial serpents were but the tip of the rattler iceberg, if you will.

“I kept finding snakes for the next almost four hours,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

He ultimately ended up extracting 92–yes, 92–northern Pacific rattlers from below the floorboards: 22 adults and 59 babies in the first go, then 11 more on a return crawl-about. A memorable day on the job, to say the least, given that the magnitude far exceeded anything Wolf had seen at a home before, though he’s found dozens of rattlesnakes congregated at single sites in the wild.

“I was tickled pink,” Wolf, who founded Sonoma County Reptile Rescue in 1989, explained to the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s what I like to do, and I generally get a call and find one, maybe two rattlesnakes. But when you start finding stuff like this, I think, ‘Oh good, this is a really worthwhile call.’”

That many rattlesnakes piled under a house is unusual, but the aggregation itself isn’t. Gravid female Pacific rattlers often give birth at communal sites called rookeries, which are commonly rocky settings offering ready access to both sun-basking vantages and cool, shady hideaways. Thermoregulation is a top priority for these pregnant snakes, which, research suggests, may need to maintain a higher body temperature than non-gravid females or males. Wolf speculated that plentiful rocks left around the Santa Rosa house’s foundation probably made it particularly attractive to rattlesnakes.

Speaking to Live Science, herpetologist Emily Taylor of California Polytechnic State University noted that, for reasons not entirely understood, some female rattlers give birth alone in holes, while others congregate in rookeries. She said those rookeries in California tend to be situated at higher-elevation sites, which – along with the specific context – made the big clutch of rattlers in Santa Rosa noteworthy. “It’s not typical in California at low elevations to have that many snakes, and it’s definitely not typical for them to be under a home,” she told Live Science.

The ins-and-outs of rattlesnake rookeries – often, like the communally occupied “hibernacula” dens where rattlers overwinter, used year after year – aren’t fully known. A study in Wyoming on the prairie rattlesnake (a close relative of the northern Pacific species, with which it was once lumped) suggested that, while males and non-pregnant females often made fairly lengthy journeys from hibernacula to warm-season foraging areas, gravid females traveled much shorter distances to rookeries. The authors proposed that rookeries might boost reproductive success by allowing pregnant rattlers to more effectively maintain an ideal body temperature (including by huddling together), plus provide protection from predators and set young rattlers up auspiciously for denning and finding prey.

In the Live Science article, Taylor said it was also possible that female rattlesnakes gathering in rookeries might be related, with research indicating some version of babysitting goes on within them.

Like the rest of their clan, northern Pacific rattlesnakes – while unaggressive – are venomous. It’s understandable, therefore, why a homeowner might balk at the idea of hosting 90-odd of them underfoot. Wolf relocated the Santa Rosa rattlesnakes at various regional locations that Sonoma County Reptile Rescue uses for the purpose, including dozens of known snake-denning areas and ranches and other properties whose owners desire some natural rodent control. According to media reports, he planned to make a followup visit to the house in question this month to check for stragglers, and also return in the spring in case freshly emerged rattlers were again beelining for the home’s nether regions.

(Oh, and bonus, at least as far as the homeowner was concerned: The San Francisco Chronicle reported that, in his quest to round up all of those subsurface rattlesnakes, Wolf also found and removed some long-expired opossum and cat remains. All in day’s work.)

Header image: Ken-ichi Ueda

"This year's Grand Title winner reveals a hidden underwater world, a fleeting moment of fascinating animal behaviour that very few have witnessed," said Doug Gurr, the museum's director, in a statement. "In what could be a pivotal year for the planet, with vital discussions taking place at COP15 and COP26, Laurent Ballesta's Creation is a compelling reminder of what we stand to lose if we do not address humanity's impact on our planet."

The contest, recognised as the world's longest-running and most renowned nature photography competition, drew over 50,000 entries from 95 countries this year, making things difficult for the expert judging panel.

Ten-year-old photographer Vidyun R Hebbar of Bengaluru, India scooped up the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year accolade for his image of a tent spider upside down in a web, illuminated by the bright colors of a passing tuk-tuk. "The jury loved this photo from the beginning of the judging process," Natalie Cooper, a jury member and National History Museum researcher, said in a statement. "It is a great reminder to look more closely at the small animals we live with every day, and to take your camera with you everywhere. You never know where that award-winning image is going to come from."

The winning images, along with 98 others from the competition, are currently on display at London's Natural History Museum. In the coming months the exhibit will travel to venues in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany and the US.

Here's a look at some of the commended photos:

Header image: Martin Gregus / Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021

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In a remarkable sighting, photographers and tour guides recently came across a caiman on the banks of Brazil's Cuiabá River with a girthy anaconda coiled around its upper body like an ultra-authentic snakeskin scarf. It's unclear how the two reptiles became entwined, but it's most likely the caiman fancied a snake snack and the anaconda was having none of it. According to reports, the battle lasted some 40 minutes with the constrictor tightening its grip and the caiman intermittently chomping on the snake's body. Eventually, the crocodilian fled to the water where it's presumed the snake released its grip in order to come up for air (although crocs can't breathe under water they can survive submerged for lengthy periods of time, which is more than most snakes can handle). 

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The caiman returned to the riverbank and the anaconda was later spotted exiting the water and retreating to a burrow. Though outsized by their relative the green anaconda (the world's largest snake), yellow anacondas are plenty big, reaching lengths of 4.6 metres (15 feet). Small antelope such as brocket deer top the size chart when it comes to prey choice for these snakes, so an adult caiman is too big a challenge. 

Caiman are generalist feeders and will dine on snakes if the opportunity presents itself (although a rotund anaconda is perhaps more effort than it's worth). The crocodilians are themselves not immune from periodic predation and jaguars in the Pantanal have made a habit of dispatching the reptiles in often-dramatic fashion: 

Top header image: Tuomo Lindfors/Flickr

The attempted pumpkin heist was captured on a surveillance camera set up on a porch in Sudbury, Ontario. After snacking on several of the pumpkins that local resident Ashley Larose had placed around her property as decorations for autumn, the bear set its sights on the biggest of the bunch. "We found [the pumpkin] a few metres away still intact – it must have just been too much work on a full tummy," Larose told Storyful, adding that the bear appeared to be young and was likely taught by its mother to visit the neighbourhood which is often a fruitful source of snacks for opportunistic omnivores.

As bears prepare for their lengthy winter slumber, they can hardly afford to be fussy eaters and will scoff down just about anything they can stomach (giant pumpkins included). When winter sets in, bears must survive for several months purely on fat reserves they have stored up during a pre-hibernation phase of excessive eating and drinking called hyperphagia. It's this lust for nutrients that often brings the animals into conflict with humans as they seek out any readily available food sources. 

Further south in Evergreen, Colorado, a doorbell cam captured an early morning visit from a prowling bruin, while a homeowner living near the woods of Northern Alberta had the unique challenge of trying to usher a bear out of his house when it clambered in through an open window. 

Evicting the intruder required setting up a barricade inside the house and "guiding" the bear back to the window where it first entered. "Fun times living in the woods of Northern Alberta!" Sean Reddy, the homeowner and 'chief bear remover', quipped on Facebook. In this instance, the bear may have entered the house after it was spooked by Reddy's dogs – something that has led to unwanted attention from bears in the past.

While bears are unlikely to launch into unprovoked attacks,  their ramped up foraging behaviour during this time of year can lead to an increase in encounters. Those in bear country are warned to stay vigilant, keep your dogs on leads, and make sure your garbage is tightly secured and inaccessible. Also, get some back-up, inedible Halloween decorations.

Top header image: Dan Hutcheson, Flickr

It's a lesson that was quickly learnt by two tourists last month who nearly found themselves on the pointy end of an elephant matriarch in South Africa's Kruger National Park. 

The pair had sauntered some distance from their parked vehicle to take a closer look at a statue of Paul Kruger – president of the South African Republic at the time the area was proclaimed a national reserve – when a herd of elephants unexpectedly emerged and made a beeline for the monument. "The matriarch was extremely aware of the people out their car, and she seemed quite unhappy with two tourists walking right along their path," Andre Schwab, the tourist who captured the hair-raising clip, explained to Latest Sightings.

Realising their predicament, the duo made a hasty retreat and managed to take a wide enough berth around the pachyderms to avoid a more dramatic outcome. "It was the women's lucky day and they made it to safety by the skin of their teeth," Schwab recalls.

Park rules outline that guests are not allowed to alight from their vehicles while in the reserve, however, this incident took place at the Paul Kruger entrance/exit gate where it is permissible to explore on foot (within a reasonable distance and assuming it's safe to do so, of course). The western side of Kruger is fringed with private reserves, many of which do not have fences separating them from the iconic national park. So, although the gate itself (which can be seen behind the elephant at the start of the clip) marks the official point at which guests enter and exit the park, wild animals can still freely roam on either side of it, hence the importance of staying extra vigilant when on foot in this area.

"The sighting ended with everyone laughing at how quickly this could have gone south," says Schwab. When elephants go on the offensive it's certainly no laughing matter. Earlier this year, a delivery driver making his way through Klaserie Private Game Reserve was lucky to escape unscathed when an elephant charged his vehicle crumpling the hood as though it were made of paper. And back in 2014, a similar scenario played out, only this time the vehicle was flipped and rolled leaving at least one of the occupants with injuries worthy of a trip to the hospital.

So what should you do when faced with a wild animal? "Stay calm and move out of the way," says Isaac Phaahla, general manager of communication and marketing at the Kruger Park. Animals "will not intentionally go after humans but seek to move away to safety." Phaahla also stresses the importance of staying vigilant, respecting the bush and adhering to park rules.

Top header image: Brittany H., Flickr

That’s about what we can imagine one male cottonmouth saying to another in late summer to early fall in the American Southeast, primetime among these rather notorious serpents for mating – and for associated competitive skirmishes over access to females.

Just such a skirmish, which does indeed look more like a choreographed dance routine than a no-holds-barred brawl, was caught on film early last month in a swamp on southeastern Georgia’s coastal plain. This kind of sodden stage is typical for cottonmouths, semiaquatic pit vipers also commonly called “water moccasins” which haunt bottomland forests, wetlands, lakes, and sluggish rivers.

The showdown was filmed in Bulloch County by Matthew Moore, a wildlife technician with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR). According to a bulletin published by the agency, this was the third such mating-season cottonmouth battle Moore’s witnessed, and involved a minimum of three rounds.

The bout Moore filmed and posted to YouTube begins almost beneath his feet. The male snake that had come out on top in an earlier tussle, according to the DNR bulletin, rediscovered his opponent around the base of a bald-cypress tree where Moore was positioned. The water moccasins resume their battle, an extended one that moves from the tree out into the waterway as the serpents rear upwards while coiling and shoving. The contest plays out in silence, aside from the occasional slosh of water.

“Although these snakes are venomous,” Moore explains in his YouTube post, “they never bite each other while engaged in these wrestling matches. They simply vigorously entwine around each other and try to physically outmatch the other by pushing their opponent down to establish dominance.”

He noted that, more often than not and unsurprisingly, the bigger contestant usually triumphs in these fights. Although the snakes he observed were fairly similar in size, the slightly larger one once again seemed to win this unfriendly dance-off. “The dominant male chases the slightly smaller snake away,” the Georgia DNR bulletin reads, “then seems to lay claim to the creekbank cypress.”

Moore suspects a female cottonmouth may have been hidden somewhere in the vicinity of the tree, as he saw the victor at the same site the following day.

The writhing, rearing shove-fest these two Georgia water moccasins engaged in is a widespread male-versus-male combat routine among snakes, seen in one form or another in many species across multiple families.

Writing for Earth Touch News about a 2017 cottonmouth wrestling match filmed in Virginia, David Moscato noted that human observers can easily confuse these fights with mating coils, but those amorous male/female encounters aren’t so violent and high-energy, and involve more (ahem) intertwining of tails.

It’s a rare treat to actually get to witness two male water moccasins duking it out. Most swamp-sloggers, paddlers, and others roaming cottonmouth country spot these snakes going about more languid business: basking on banksides or logs, swimming with upraised heads through blackwater channels, sprawled on backroads.

In the same genus as the geographically overlapping copperhead (which is sometimes distinguished in old-school regional parlance as the “highland moccasin”), the cottonmouth definitely has a potent bite, but its dangerous reputation is overblown. It’s overall an unassuming and unaggressive snake, though when approached the species may hold its ground in a defensive coil, wiggling its tail and gaping with the whitish mouth that explains its common name. (Cottonmouths share their wet haunts with nonvenomous water snakes, with which they’re often confused; although water snakes are more liable to swiftly flee from a person, they actually may be quite a bit more “bitey” than a moccasin if they feel forced to defend themselves. Cottonmouths show a distinctive eye stripe and a bulkier build than water snakes, which, furthermore, don’t do the whole tail-wiggling and mouth-gaping routine.)

In a 2017 Georgia DNR bulletin, Moore wrote that his public outreach in the state had convinced him that “cottonmouths are the most misunderstood and maligned of Georgia’s six native species of venomous snakes.” They don’t chase people around, as popular lore sometimes insists, and they don’t (intentionally, anyway) drop into boats from overhanging trees. That article is worth checking out for some healthy moccasin myth-busting, showing how inoffensive a cottonmouth left unmolested can be.

Header image: Alan Schmierer

In celebration of the bears’ ample girth, each year the National Park Service hosts an online, March-Madness-style competition in which one bruin is voted champion of the chonk. Before and after photos taken by park rangers are used to pit the tubbiest bears against each other in head-to-head playoffs, with the winner decided by public vote.

Fat Bear Week began as a single-day event on the Katmai National Park Facebook page in 2014, but has since bulged into a global phenomenon. Around 55,000 bear-lovers took part in the competition in 2018 and that number increased nearly five-fold the following year. Last year’s contest attracted a cool 650,000 voters, proving that it's tough to resist the lure of a portly bear.

“It’s celebrating something we normally don’t get to celebrate, which is fatness, and fatness as something good and positive, because the bears survive on their fat,” Katmai National Park’s media ranger Naomi Boak told Mental Floss. As the weather grows colder, bears prepare for their annual hibernation. Once fattened up, they will hide out in dens where they will survive entirely on their fat reserves until spring. It’s a challenge that requires some significant binge-eating.

While the competition serves as a joyous distraction from pandemics and politics, it’s about more than just chortling at beefy bears. “Fat Bear Week is a celebration of success and survival. It is a way to celebrate the resilience, adaptability and strength of Katmai’s brown bears,” the Katmai National Park Service website explains. It’s also an excellent example of how national parks can raise awareness and engage online audiences through technology.

Katmai’s sockeye salmon run – although a little late this year – is one of the largest and healthiest left on the planet, and the nutrient-rich fish are a main source of food for the region’s massive brown bear population. “The phenomenon we enjoy at Brooks Falls of bears fishing there is completely dependent on a healthy salmon run,” Mike Fitz, naturalist for Explore.org and founder of Fat Bear Week, explained to Mental Floss. “And with climate change and other threats to salmon, like large-scale development and mining, I think the more people that are aware of this healthy, productive ecosystem, the better.”

And what better way to spread awareness than with big-bootied bears.

Monumental girth is not everything though, as veterans of the competition will tell you. Some voters consider a host of factors when sizing up their chosen victor. Age, life history, photogenicity and even coat colour could all play a role. Maybe you’ve got your eye on a junior competitor still working its way up the ranks? Subadult bears may not have the heft of their fully grown rivals, but proportionally the youngsters can pack on the pounds at a faster rate. This year’s competition stars a fresh-faced chubby cub – the offspring of Bear 132 – who was voted in following a pre-week contest to introduce new talent to the pool. Maybe this newbie has the chops to go all the way.

Or perhaps a meaty backstory is more appealing to you than a meaty backside. Mother bears usually have their work cut out for them in the weight-gain game as they must care for their youngsters before filling their own bellies. Katmai is home to some truly dedicated bear moms that have proven their strength against the rough-and-tough males of the Brooks River. Bear 402 – a big-boned supermom who has weaned more cubs than any other known female at Brooks Falls – is a skilled angler and scavenger and looks in fine shape to raise another litter. Could this be her year for the title?

And then there are the stalwarts. The old guard. The giants of the game who have paid their dues, but may now be relegated to less favourable fishing spots as younger, stronger bears push them aside. Your vote can put one of them back on top.

You can dive into the contestant’s histories on the Fat Bear Week website or study up on their form at the Explore.org live stream (embedded above). The competition kicked off on September 29, and concludes on Fat Bear Tuesday, October 5. Best you get voting.

As the National Park Service. points out: “All bears are winners but only one true champion will emerge.”

Header image: NPS Photo/L. Law

Ranger Pieter van Wyk captured the action while on a recent game drive in MalaMala – a private conservancy on the fringes of the Kruger National Park. Lions are one of the few predators capable of taking down an adult buffalo and prides will sometimes trail the herd, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. As the buffaloes marched en masse across a mostly dry riverbed, a pride of lions looked to single out a weak herd member in the hopes of securing a meal. The big cats succeeded in surprising and pinning down a young calf, but a "cavalry" of male buffaloes stormed to the rescue and the youngster made a lucky escape.

The cats were given a second chance at a potential kill when one of the older members of the herd became stuck on a steep bank as the buffaloes retreated out of the riverbed. The struggling bull found itself trapped in an awkward position and the lions sensed an opportunity. As they flanked the bull, the rest of the herd rushed to its aid, charging the cats repeatedly until the battling buffalo was able to regain his footing and clamber up the incline.

"It was an extremely captivating and adrenaline-pumping sighting and one of my best," van Wyk told Latest Sightings.

Buffalo hunting is risky business for lions. A successful hunt can provide a sizeable meal that will satiate the appetites of the entire pride, but tackling buffaloes can be dangerous. If lions are able to avoid getting spiked by the buffalo's impressive horns during the hunt, distress calls often draw the rest of the herd to the scene. 

Battles between lions and buffalos play out quite often in the African wilds, and this isn't the first time we've seen these massive herbivores taking on their feline rivals. Footage from South Africa’s Timbavati Private Nature Reserve captured in 2017 shows a buffalo herd successfully protecting a calf from a pride of lions on the hunt, and the well-known Battle at Kruger clip is a perfect example of a herd working as a cohesive unit to defend their own.

Greater one-horned rhinos

Let's start with the good news. India's greater one-horned rhinos – those armoured, single-horned beasts that roam pockets of grassland and forest on the subcontinent – are gradually making a comeback. Numbering fewer than 100 individuals in the early 1900s, the species has made a substantial recovery and current estimates put the latest population figures at around 3,700. This is largely thanks to strict protection by government and strong enforcement by forestry officials in India and Nepal. Last year saw just two rhinos lost to poaching in the state of Assam – an area that's home to the largest population of Indian rhinos. 

“The continued growth of the greater one-horned rhino population is encouraging and the result of tremendous collaboration between the governments of India and Nepal, local and international organizations and the local communities that value their rhinos and other wildlife as national treasures,” said Nina Fascione, executive director of IRF. “With ongoing combined efforts, we can expect to see continued growth of existing populations as well as the potential to introduce rhinos to additional habitats they once called home.”

Sumatran rhinos

With fewer than 80 individuals living in fragmented habitat in Southeast Asia, the Sumatran rhino is one of the rarest mammals on earth. Although few poaching incidents have been reported in recent years, demand for Sumatran rhino horn has played a large role in the decline of the species, leaving significant challenges to their recovery. The global pandemic has further hampered efforts by conservationists working on vital operations to save the species.

Teams from Sumatran Rhino Rescue hope to capture wild rhinos from the dense forests in which they dwell and relocate them to breeding facilities where they can get to work creating a source population from which animals can eventually be reintroduced into the wild. It's a monumental task made more difficult by mounting economic and health challenges resulting from COVID-19. Currently, populations are continuing to decline.

Javan Rhinos

Hiding out in the almost-impenetrable forest thickets of Ujung Kulon National Park on Indonesia's Java island, a fragmented population of Javan rhinos cling to a precarious existence. The latest estimates put the number of Javan rhinos left in the wild at just 75. While the figure is frighteningly low, it has increased from fewer than 50 individuals ten years ago. In the first half of this year,  Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry announced four Javan rhino births, showing an encouraging upward trend that conservationists hope will continue into the future. 

“IRF [International Rhino Foundation] welcomes and celebrates these new Javan rhino calves,” said Fascione. “The new births and continued population increase of this critically endangered species are the result of the commitment of the Government of Indonesia and Ujung Kulon National Park officials to the protection of the Javan rhino and its habitat.”

White Rhinos

And now for the not-so-good news. Africa's white rhino population continues to suffer declines as a result of rampant poaching. Southern white rhino numbers have dropped by around 12% in the past decade with South Africa's Kruger National Park taking the biggest hit. After a brief respite in the number of rhinos killed last year – a decline attributed to border closures and lockdowns as a result of the pandemic – poaching appears to be on the rise again. In South Africa, poaching stats from the first half of the year are certainly higher than last year, however the numbers are still lower than those seen over the same period in 2019. Any decline in poaching in the Kruger Park is cause for celebration, but these reduced levels of poaching may actually have a worrisome explanation: rhinos are becoming harder for poachers to come by.

Thankfully, it's not all grim news. The Skukuza Court located in the Kruger National Park was reopened in April this year allowing rangers to testify against suspected poachers without having to travel far from their posts in the field where they are desperately needed. This bodes well for future convictions for those found guilty of rhino poaching.

As for northern white rhinos, their potential future rests in the hands of reproductive scientists who are working to bring the subspecies back from the brink using eggs harvested from the last remaining females and semen samples collected from now-deceased male rhinos. It's a long shot and this sort of science is still in its infancy when it comes to rhinos, but conservationists are hopeful that the animals can one day be returned to the wild.

Black rhinos

Black rhinos – the smaller, less common but more aggressive cousins of the white rhino – have shown a population increase of 16-17% in the last decade raising hope for the critically endangered species. A recent rhino relocation initiative has seen the return of the species to Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park for the first time in 30 years, while Namibia remains a stronghold for the southwestern subspecies of black rhinos where numbers are steadily increasing. Although Namibia has suffered fewer poaching incidents than neighbouring South Africa, illegal killing still remains a significant threat and the rhino's future depends on maintaining high standards of protection.

In Kenya, where all black rhinos live in protected, fenced sanctuaries on government and private land, no rhino poaching incidents were reported during 2020 – the first zero-poaching year the country has seen in 21 years. Despite this, Kenya's rhino still remain at risk. “The global pandemic has led to a loss in tourism revenue and corresponding budget cuts for the Kenya Wildlife Service and its partners, resulting in growing threats to wildlife,” said Dean. “It is our hope that Kenya can weather these challenges and continue the progress it has made for rhinos.”

Top header image: Baron Reznik, Flickr

A case in point is a squat little bugger whose piglike mug has popped up all over social media lately. The beastie in question is an angular roughshark found floating, expired, off the Italian island of Elba and plucked ashore by some naval officers, who posted pics of the creature to Facebook and thereby assured it a viral afterlife.

The angular roughshark, also known as the flatiron shark or the “pig fish,” looks way off the great-white blueprint. For starters, it’s on the stubby side of things, usually running a metre or less in length. Its upturned snout and heavy nostrils, meanwhile, aren’t the only features summoning a barnyard hog to mind: Note the pudgy, pink-tinged body as well.

The shark has other distinctive characteristics, too, including the big, friendly-looking eyes, which get a lidded look from pronounced ridges, and the proportionately large, tall dorsal fins, both of which come spined.

It’s a pretty cute package, all things considering, but it’s worth noting that this lesser-known shark, like so many of its kin, isn’t looking at the cheeriest conservation prognosis.

Angular roughsharks inhabit not only the Mediterranean Sea but also quite the north-south spread in the eastern Atlantic, from Norway all the way down to South Africa. They prowl the continental shelf and the upper continental slope, mainly at depths below 100 metres, where they’re thought to munch on marine worms as well as crustaceans, small fish, and the eggcases of their fellow elasmobranches (sharks and rays).

Exploited to some degree for food, fishmeal, and liver oil, the angular roughshark is mainly caught in bottom trawls as bycatch. Its morphology may contribute to its vulnerability: As the Shark Trust notes, “Its large dorsal fins and spines make it susceptible to capture in nets whilst its depth range lies entirely within reach of fisheries across much of its range.”

While comprehensive information is lacking on the angular roughshark’s status, the IUCN – which classifies the species as “Vulnerable” globally and as “Critically Endangered” in the Mediterranean due to significant declines – suggests its overall population may have decreased by 50 to 79 percent over the past 60 years or so.

This trend is, unfortunately, not at all unique across the angular roughshark’s family tree. A new assessment published in Current Biology suggests more than a third of cartilaginous fishes are imperilled to the point of near-extinction from overfishing (mainly as bycatch), which more broadly serves as the major threat to sharks, rays, and chimaeras alongside such compounding, interrelated problems as habitat loss/degradation, pollution, and climate change. “Sharks and rays are the canary in the coal mine of overfishing,” the study’s lead author, Nicholas Dulvy of Simon Fraser University, told Wired earlier this month.

And that distressing survey only adds to the grim picture painted by a Nature study from January, which indicated oceanic shark and ray numbers have dropped by more than 70 percent over the past half-century.

Header image: Isola d'Elba App

Each year, a selection of apparently weird and pointless scientific experiments receive the Ig Nobel Prize. Awarded by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research, the prize honours projects that “first make people laugh, and then make them think”.

A recent study that suspended rhinos upside-down by their ankles from a helicopter must have been a shoe-in for the award’s judges, securing the 2021 Ig Nobel Transportation Prize. But while hanging rhinos produce spectacularly absurd photographs, behind the award and the study lies a serious business.

Rhinos are in trouble. There are five species of rhino, and all are endangered. The three-tonne white rhino is the least endangered, yet there are still only an estimated 20,000 of them left in the wild. The species hung upside-down in the study is the black rhino, weighing in at 1.5 tonnes and with an estimated population of just 5,000.

In attempts to protect rhino populations, conservationists have tried dehorning (to try to make rhinos less desirable to poachers), translocation (moving rhinos, including upside-down via helicopter), and even resurrection (creating embryos from the eggs and sperm, or even the DNA, of dead individuals).

We translocate rhinos because they live within guarded, fenced areas to keep them monitored – and protected, in theory, from poaching for rhino horn, their main threat. But this prevents animals from colonising new areas, recolonising vacant areas, or mixing genes between areas.

So conservationists have to lend a helping hand – or helicopter – to place rhinos into new regions. But until the Ig Nobel Prize-winning study, we weren’t entirely sure whether this upside-down transportation was actually safe for the rhinos involved.

Hanging herbivores

The capture and translocation of large mammals can be dangerous and disruptive to the welfare of the animals concerned. Big African mammals, including elephants, giraffes, and rhinos, are physiologically sensitive. The entire capture and translocation process can result in psychological and physiological stress. If such animals are given too great a tranquiliser drug dose, or are left in the wrong position under tranquilisation, they can die.

Historically, wildlife translocation methods were informal and experimental, with successful methods spreading by word of mouth. Increasingly, this ad-hoc approach has been replaced by formal scientific research, either supporting perceived wisdom, or providing novel innovations.

So it’s important, for animal health and welfare reasons alone, for the procedures applied to catch and move big animals to be as safe and non-disruptive as possible.

For a number of years, African rhinos have been translocated by hanging them upside-down suspended from a helicopter, blindfolded and under tranquilisation. As well as enabling the capture and short-distance transfer of rhinos from areas inaccessible by road, transport by helicopter can mean shorter journey times, so it can be preferable for the rhino where it’s practical to do so.

But no one had ever established whether hanging upside-down is harmful to rhinos. Sure, rhinos appear fine when woken up at their final destination – but are they really OK thereafter?

This is where science comes in. It might sound funny to deliberately hang 12 black rhinos upside-down for 10 minutes just to monitor their physiology. But if nobody does the research, nobody knows whether it’s a safe way to transport an endangered animal.

The Ig Noble Prize-winning study compared the respiratory function and metabolic effects of rhinos when they were hung by their ankles to when the same animals were lying on their sides. The researchers found that the respiratory efficiency of rhinos hung upside-down is, if anything, slightly better than when rhinos are laid on their side during tranquilisation. So, the process is affirmed as at least as good as traditional methods of transport.

Rhino relocation

I have been involved in numerous white rhino capture and translocation operations in South Africa for my own research: collecting blood and saliva samples to evaluate physiological stress associated with capture.

The teams that I worked with also used helicopters, but only to dart the rhino with a tranquiliser from the air. The rhinos were then woken up as soon as possible before walking them, blindfolded and ear muffed, onto crates for road transportation by truck to locations many hours away. During long-distance rhino transportation, it’s neither economical nor healthy for the rhino to remain tranquilised – so road transport is preferred.

While being up close to such impressive beasts is humbling, and the capture experience somewhat exciting, my motivation for being there was the science: collecting data on the effects of capture, to ultimately inform and improve wildlife conservation.

Nevertheless, I always felt a sadness that we have to put these sensitive and gentle giants through such an unnatural process in the first place. But unfortunately we have no choice.

If we’re to effectively save endangered species, we can’t simply leave them alone. They need to be managed, and often that means moving them to where they’re safer from poaching, or to new areas to try to spread the population and diversify locally inbred populations.

We want such animals to survive the capture and translocation procedure, and to have as strong and healthy immune and reproductive systems as possible on their release.

Achieving that needs science. And if that science involves hanging rhinos upside-down, or other apparently weird and amusing research, let’s do it. The extinction of wildlife is no laughing matter, even if it throws up the odd opportunity to laugh as we learn.

Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Top header image: Matthew Rogers, Flickr

But a grey wolf in Yellowstone National Park recently demonstrated that sometimes grizzly-butt-biting is not only apparently called for, but also possible to pull off without bodily dismantlement. There’s footage to prove it:

The video was taken along Crystal Creek by Gary Gaston on the morning of September 4th. This is on the legendary Northern Range of Yellowstone, famed for its herds of bison, elk, pronghorn, and other ungulates and excellent wolf- and bear-watching opportunities.

The presence of the dark-coloured wolf, the grizzly, and a whole squad of ravens suggested to Gaston that a carcass was nearby – most likely, he told For the Win/USA Today, the remains of an elk.

Whether wolf-killed, bear-killed, or felled by some other cause, dead animals are classic scenes of wolf/grizzly encounters. As the great field biologist Adolph Murie, who studied both carnivores for many years in Alaska’s Denali National Park, put it in The Grizzlies of Mount McKinley: “Both the grizzly and wolf are fond of carrion; consequently the two species renew acquaintanceship occasionally at a carcass.”

Gaston captured further footage of wolf-inflicted butt-biting a week or so later when he came across a yearling canine chomping on a bear's rear end in Yellowstone's Lamar Valley:

It's unclear if a carcass played a role in this second instance of backside nibbling – it's possible the wolf was simply trying to see off the bear in order to eliminate any competition for food and resources.

On the whole, both in Denali and Yellowstone and likely other corners of their shared North American range, grizzlies – perhaps the most hot-tempered of the world’s brown-bear subspecies – tend to have the upper hand/paw over wolves when the species clash. That’s especially true of large male grizzlies (“boars”), which are confident enough in their size, power, and swagger to shove even whole packs of wolves off kills:

But even female grizzlies (“sows”) with cubs sometimes attempt to drive wolves away from carcasses, though such behaviour may put the young bears at risk of being killed.

Wolves are no pushovers. Whether they’re defending or trying to commandeer a carcass, or – in another of the common situations that bring the species together – protecting pups at a den or rendezvous site from a too-close-for-comfort bear, they use speed, agility, and, frequently, teamwork to harass grizzlies. Last year, Yellowstone’s Wapiti Lake Pack was filmed running off a good-sized grizzly that quickly tired of being surrounded and charged on all sides.

Gaston’s footage shows that wolf/grizzly encounters are (a) sometimes one-on-one and (b) not always particularly tense or high-octane affairs. The grizzly’s defence from the wolf’s posterior nips is not a furious counterattack but rather the decidedly low-key, but pretty effective, tactic of ... sitting down.

It calls to mind yet another Yellowstone incident from 2020, when a huge boar grizzly killed a bull elk in the Yellowstone River near the park road and then proceeded to wow onlookers by feasting on it in full view for days afterward. Wolves showed up, surely with scavenging on the mind, and the grizzly – who seemed to ascribe to the credo of “work smarter, not harder” – mainly defended the carcass by lying on top of it and looking big and bad:

This kangaroo is basically all of us trying to get into a hammock ...

South Australian resident Karen Wishart recently captured footage of a particularly pugnacious kangaroo 'sparring' with a hammock in her backyard. The young marsupial can be seen dancing around the hanging fabric, dishing out vicious jabs and kicks (and getting its feet tangling up in the process).

"I'm not entirely sure if this roo was playing, practising fighting or thought the swing was a threat," Wishart quipped on Facebook. Backyard trampolines and swings can be a problem for wild animals, so we're glad to see that this roo walked away without injury (except for perhaps a bruised ego at having lost a fight with a hammock).

Male kangaroos will readily take one another on in punch-ups for territory or mating rights, so it's possible that this youngster is honing his skills for the real deal. A bit more practice may be required.

Top header image: Darcy Moore, Flickr

A round of golf in South Africa's Kruger National Park comes with uniquely challenging hazards ... 

While on a recent, early morning inspection of the golf course at Skukuza rest camp – the largest camp and also administrative headquarters of South Africa's Kruger Park – greenskeeper Jean Rossouw filmed a leopard 'teeing off' in an altogether feline fashion. The young cat couldn't resist stalking and pouncing on the tee markers much like a playful house cat, before eventually bounding off into the surrounding bushveld.

"I was inspecting the course to see what damage the animals had caused on Wednesday [September 8, 2021] night," Roussouw told a local news outlet. "Upon arrival at the second tee box, I came across this usually skittish, but on this day very playful, female leopard." The big cat is known to roam the area and this was not the greenskeeper's first encounter with the leopard. "Fear not, golfers can still enjoy a round," he insisted. "She [the leopard] poses little to danger to humans. That is, if you respect her in her natural habitat," he added. 

The Skukuza golf course – constructed in the early 1970s as a recreational facility for camp staff, but later made accessible to all visitors to the Kruger Park – is unfenced and it's not uncommon for uninvited spectators to stroll onto the fairways. The second tee seems to be particularly popular with predators having played host to a clan of hyenas earlier this year:

If it's a wild, close-to-nature round of golf you're after, nine holes at Skukuza should do the trick.

Top header image: Mihael Hercog/Flickr

A couple of recent videos out of the U.S. show some harrowingly close encounters with these towering ungulates, though thankfully both human and moose ended up unscathed in the two incidents.

In one, a 12-year-old mountain biker filming his ride in the Government Peak Recreation Area in southern Alaska’s Talkeetna Mountains nearly collided with a cow moose that suddenly dashed across the trail:

And in the other, thousands of miles away in the Southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado, a person had a bit of an edgier interaction with a bull moose. Colorado Parks and Wildlife posted the footage to social media last month as a warning:

This video is an example of being too close to a bull moose and how quickly they can decide to charge on you.

It is from Clear Creek County. The individual just by chance came upon the bull walking along a willow bottom heading towards a lake. pic.twitter.com/Z2usuHpPit

— CPW NE Region (@CPW_NE) August 8, 2021

“The individual just by chance came upon the bull walking along a willow bottom heading towards a lake,” the state wildlife agency noted. The resulting footage shows the person filming in risky proximity to the moose, which was sporting a hefty pair of antlers still in summer velvet. The bull sways, tips, and lowers its huge head before abruptly charging the person at close quarters. Fortunately, a tree in between the two parties shielded the person from what could have been a big-time clobbering.

Moose evolved in Eurasia (where they're more widely called “elk”) and colonised North America with the retreat of Pleistocene continental glaciers. They are ungainly-looking beasts: humped, swollen-nosed, and perched on magnificently stilt-like legs. If the oversized deer are observed knee-deep in a beaver pond or wading through a lake scarfing aquatic greens, they may give off a sluggish, mild-mannered vibe.

Nothing could be further from the truth, really. Moose are notoriously volatile browsers that can turn into terrifying defensive assailants on a dime. More people are injured by them in Alaska every year than by bears.

This aggression is a survival strategy. Moose often use those stalk legs of theirs to outpace their primary North American predator, the grey wolf; they can canter right through brush, deadfall, and snowdrifts that slow down pursuing wolves. But sometimes flight isn’t as ready an option. In deep snowpack, or in the spring and early summer when a cow tends to a single calf that's vulnerable not only to wolves but also black and grizzly bears, moose may instead need to stand their ground and meet a potential predator face-to-face.

Head lowered, ears flattened, mane bristling, and both front and hind hooves kicking out, a moose defending itself or its young is something to behold. The late Valerius Geist, a noted authority on ungulates, wrote in his Deer of the World: “Because in winter moose must stand and fight predators, their threat [to humans] is carnivorelike. The harsh roar of a confronted moose is bone chilling; an attacking moose is a thoroughly frightening sight.”

While a cow defending her calf is the most nightmarish version of Moose-in-Beast-Mode, any moose whose personal space is violated may attack. Given the animals aren’t at all opposed to wandering through towns and suburbs (ala those classic Northern Exposure title credits), that personal space may include sidewalks and backyards.

And this time of year we’re beginning to slide into the season of the rut, when bull moose keen on cows – and on besting rivals – become especially unpredictable and cantankerous. (Two bull moose going at it in the fall – which, among well-matched contestants, can get plenty violent – is another sobering demonstration of the animal’s power and pugnaciousness.)

Dogs can also, unsurprisingly, set off a moose, to which they surely appear as less-classy, more-boneheaded wolves. Hiking with unleashed dogs in moose country is a risky proposition, not least because you may find your pooch fleeing to your protection with something giant and angry close in pursuit. (Moose riled up by dogteams are notorious challenges on the famous Iditarod sled-dog race.)

Given moose aren’t inherently bloodthirsty – they’d just as soon go their way and let you go yours – avoiding unpleasant run-ins is (outside of nighttime mushing through the Alaskan bush) usually pretty straightforward. So let’s wrap up with a little Moose Safety 101, distilled from the highly moose-aware Alaska Department of Fish & Game.

Enjoy and photograph moose from afar. If you encounter one on or near a trail, back away slowly to a safe distance. Watch closely for signs of moose annoyance or apprehension, including raised hackles, lowered ears, and snout-licking.

As with grizzly bears, most moose charges are bluffs. But do you really want to play the odds? Unlike with bears, the best course of action if charged by a moose is simple and instinctive: run the heck away! Moose rarely chase people very far, and though they’re impressively fast you’ve got a good chance of out-manoeuvring one. Get something big and solid in between you and the moose as quickly as possible.

In the event a moose does get to you before you're able to flee, get on the ground (you may not have a choice) and curl into a ball, protecting your head. Try not to move. After a few kicks or stomps, the animal’s likely to break things off; stay motionless until it moves out of the vicinity. Getting up prematurely may invite another defensive attack.

For more information on keeping the peace with the heavyweight champ of the deer clan, check out this Colorado Parks & Wildlife video:

Top header image: Nate Hughes Flickr

"We were overwhelmed with the number and quality of entries we received this year, with well over 7,000 photos submitted from every corner of the globe," Paul Joynson-Hicks MBE, co-founder of the popular awards, stated in a press release. "It was an amazing turnout, especially given the impact of the pandemic. The huge number of images we receive every year illustrates the appetite there is to engage with conservation and reminds us that wildlife truly is incredible and hilarious and we must do all we can to protect it." 

This year's mix of entries – the greatest diversity of species seen in the competition to date – include a 'laughing' vine snake from India, a trio of 'singing' mudskippers from Taiwan, and a kangaroo performing a picture-perfect Pavarotti impersonation in Australia. 

Founded by professional photographers Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, the contest showcases the lighter side of the natural world and aims to promote wildlife conservation through humour. This year, 10% of the total net revenue from the competition will be donated to Save Wild Orangutans – an initiative that safeguards orangutans in and around Gunung Palung National Park in Borneo.

The public also have a chance to pick the snap they find most amusing in the People's Choice Awards – a hotly contested accolade decided upon by public vote (you can make your selection on the Comedy Wildlife Awards website). "Whittling down the list of photographs was harder than ever this year," Tom Sullam said in a statement. "It was great to see a range of animals, from the incredibly rare to the humble pigeon. We can’t wait to see what the public choose as their favourite."

Here are a few of our top picks from this year's contest:

We tend to think of tortoises – those terrestrial, stalk-necked members of the turtle order – as placid vegetarians: munching cacti in the North American desert, grazing cow-like on the close-cropped Aldabran “tortoise turf,” feasting on lettuce in home terraria. The combination of a superlatively sluggish gait and herbivorous preferences paints a picture of altogether placid, inoffensive reptiles.

And, thanks to a certain tale concerning a race with a way-overconfident hare, we all learn early on that tortoises are not exactly speed demons. That’s all the more true when it comes to giant tortoises, the supersized, elephantine representatives of the clan once widely found on many isolated tropical island groups but now restricted to the Seychelles and Galapagos archipelagos. They’re truly lumbering heavyweights, sometimes tipping the scales at north of 250 kilograms (550 pounds).

But a new report from the Seychelles documents a surprising case not just of tortoises engaging in meat-eating, but all-out (if sort of slow-motion) bloodlust. A paper published in August in Current Biology details a 2020 observation of a Seychelles giant tortoise on the island of Frégate killing and gulping down a tern chick: a baby lesser noddy, to be specific, which had fallen from its nest.

The event was caught on video by Anna Zora of the Frégate Island Foundation. She co-wrote the Current Biology paper with Dr. Justin Gerlach, a University of Cambridge biologist who, amid work on island evolutionary patterns and conservation, has done much research on Indian Ocean giant tortoises.

The grounded noddy chick, perched on a log, attracted the attention of a female giant tortoise, which approached it directly. The chick tried to peck at its enormous persecutor while retreating down to the end of the log. That’s where its fate was sealed. The tortoise, which had tried to snatch the bird with open jaws several times, finally managed to chomp the chick’s head. The killed chick fell from the log, and the tortoise clambered after and swallowed its prey whole.

Gerlach and Zora note that a variety of tortoise species have been seen scavenging meat and munching on bones and snail shells, presumably for the calcium, and that captive Asian forest tortoises have chowed down on frogs. There have also been anecdotal reports of giant tortoises killing other critters – crushing finches in the Galapagos and crabs on Aldabra – though how intentional the acts have been isn’t clear. But the filmed Frégate Island incident “is the first documentation of deliberate hunting in any tortoise species,” they write.

However, they also emphasize it may not have been an isolated phenomenon. Giant tortoises on Frégate have been seen eating dead seabirds, and there are accounts of other potential hunting behaviour aimed at lesser-noddy and fairy-tern chicks – just not, until now, with actual confirmed observation of a tortoise killing and consuming one. Coupled with these other clues, the focused, aggressive approach of the female tortoise when attacking the noddy chick – with, the authors note, her tongue retracted, quite unlike when tortoises are browsing or grazing – suggests some individual giant tortoises on Frégate have learned to hunt fallen nestlings.

Given a giant tortoise’s (ahem) limited speed and agility, it would seem only a select few animals could fall within its potential prey spectrum. Frégate, part of the Inner Islands of the Seychelles, may provide a unique setup for tortoise predation on seabird chicks. Mostly cleared for agriculture in the 1800s, the privately owned island has been subject to intensive ecological restoration. Reintroductions returned Aldabra-Seychelles giant tortoises – which constitute a confusing and somewhat disputed taxonomy – to Frégate. And the restored habitat has seen seabirds return in large numbers as well; a colony of some 265,000 noddies now nests on the isle.

Chicks of the tree-nesting lesser noddy, Gerlach and Zora note, are probably more inherently vulnerable to predation than those of ground-nesting seabirds, likely more adept at out-manoeuvring a tortoise and also more actively defended by parents. “Predation by tortoises has not been reported from the islands where such species and tortoises overlap,” they write in the paper.

In a Science News article documenting the finding, Gerlach suggested the doomed little lesser noddy in the video could probably have tottered away to safety, but may have clung to the log because of its familiarity with a tree-canopy environment.

Speaking to Jason Bittel for the New York Times, longtime Galapagos-tortoise researcher James Gibbs – who described the Frégate tortoise’s hunting method as “a very interesting combination of diligence and incompetence” – suggested that the animal’s sex may be significant: The female tortoise may have been capitalising on a precious source of calcium – essential in the production of eggshells – in the form of the unlucky tern chick.

On his website, Gerlach indicates that further research will seek to clarify how widespread this kind of chick-hunting is among Frégate’s tortoises. “Similarly,” he writes, “we don’t know if this is a totally new behaviour that has developed or something that tortoises used to do hundreds of years ago, before humans disrupted island ecosystems and decimated the tern and tortoise populations. Restoration of islands like Frégate may also be restoring ancient species interactions, and so changing our preconceptions.”

Gerlach recently tweeted that since publication of the Current Biology paper he’s received numerous reports of tortoise meat-eating, including a few other potential cases of active predation. “I’ll compile these into a review of carnivory in different tortoise species,” he posted, “so please do keep them coming.”

Header image: Joachim S. Müller

The leopard-porcupine showdown took place earlier this month and lasted over an hour and a half – the action spilling onto the tarmac of a popular self-drive road much to the surprise and delight of tourists in the area at the time. The leopard makes several attempts to swat its prey into submission, but the porcupine remains steadfast and repeatedly turns its back on its attacker presenting the cat with a quiver of sharp spikes.

Cape porcupines -- Africa's largest rodents -- are equipped with a mass of quills that extend across much of their backs. It's a myth that the animals can shoot their spines like arrows, instead, when threatened, they will see off predators by shaking their hollow tail spikes to create an intimidating rattling sound. If the shaking doesn't deter any would-be attackers, they'll charge backwards at pace, skewering anything that gets in the way (leopards very much included).

The tactic seems to have worked for this rodent as the leopard clearly picked up a few injuries, and reports from those at the scene indicate that the porcupine bought itself enough time to scuttle into a burrow. Research suggests, however, that it's usually the leopards that come out victorious in these showdowns.

These altercations can be risky for both species. Some cats have learned how to breach the rodents' prickly defences by clawing their way underneath the sharp spines or by securing the porcupine's head. Its a tactic that takes some time to master, and this young cat has much to learn.