Ernie Morrison (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} modern_poetics) wrote,@ 2005-05-03 12:44:00 |
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Hungry crows may be behind exploding toads
More than 1,000 creatures have puffed up and popped
BERLIN - What’s making toads puff up and explode in northern Europe? More than 1,000 toad corpses have been found at a pond in an upscale neighborhood in Hamburg and over the border in Denmark after bloating and bursting.
It’s left onlookers baffled. The pond water in Hamburg has been tested, but its quality is no better or worse than elsewhere in the city. The toad remains have been checked for a virus or bacterium, but none has been found.
One German scientist studying the splattered amphibian remains has a theory: Hungry crows are pecking out their livers.
“The crows are clever,” said Frank Mutschmann, a Berlin veterinarian who collected and tested specimens at the Hamburg pond. “They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers.”
Based on the wounds, Mutschmann said, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad with its beak between the amphibian’s chest and abdominal cavity, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism.
But, because the liver is missing and there’s a hole in the toad’s body, the blood vessels and lungs burst and the other organs ooze out, he said.
As gruesome as it sounds, it isn’t actually that unusual, he said.
“It’s not unique — it’s in a city area, and that makes it spectacular,” Mutschmann said. “Of course, it’s something very dramatic.”
There have also been reports of exploded toads in a pond near Laasby in central Jutland in Denmark.
Horror scene
Local environmental workers in Hamburg have described it as a scene out of a horror or science fiction movie, with the bloated frogs agonizing and twitching for several minutes, inflating like balloons before they suddenly burst.
“It’s horrible,” biologist Heidi Mayerhoefer was quoted as telling the daily Hamburger Morgenpost.
“The toads burst, the entrails slide out. But the animal isn’t immediately dead — they keep struggling for several minutes.”
Hamburg’s Institute for Hygiene and the Environment regularly tests water quality in the city and has found no evidence the toads were diseased. The institute also ruled out a fungus brought in from South America was infecting the toads.
Other theories have been that horses on a nearby track might have infected the amphibians with a virus, or even that the toads are committing suicide to save others from overpopulation.
Could hungry crows be a reasonable answer?
“We haven’t seen that. It might be, it might not be,” said institute spokeswoman Janne Kloepper. “It’s speculation,” until it’s observed, she added.
In the meantime, officials in Hamburg have advised residents to stay away from the pond, which German tabloids have dubbed “the death pool.”
New dinosaur species found in S. Dakota
Scientists unveil fossil of flat-headed plant eater
CHICAGO - A fossil found in South Dakota is that of a never-before-seen species of dinosaur, a horse-sized plant eater with spikes on its bony flat head, scientists said Monday.
"When my colleagues saw a CAT scan of the new fossil, they tore up their family tree diagrams and said, 'Back to the drawing board!' ... We never suspected such a creature existed," said paleontologist Robert Bakker.
Discovery of the flat-headed member of the pachycephalosaur family changes the view of dinosaur history during the final days of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, showing that family trees were still evolving even as the entire dinosaur world was about to go extinct, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis said in announcing the find.
The nearly complete pachycephalosaur skull was donated to the museum by three amateur fossil hunters from Iowa who found it in 2003 while exploring the Hell Creek Formation in central South Dakota.
The discovery was announced in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums.
The museum said the pachycephalosaur family is marked by dragonlike heads covered with horns, knobs and bumps. The most famous family member, Pachycephalosaurus, had a solid, domed bone helmet up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) thick, used to ram other dinosaurs in their sides, it said.
The new species has a flat head with no bone dome. The only other flat-headed pachycephalosaurs discovered were found in China and Mongolia, but all of those had had short muzzles and no long horns anywhere on the skull, the announcement said.
The pachycephalosaurs in general all had massive necks and could inflict significant "blunt force trauma" on other dinosaurs, Bakker said.
"This new species ... likely pressed their foreheads together and shoved one another really hard," he added.
The museum, billed as the largest of its kind in the United States, said the fossil would become part of its dinosaur exhibit.
2,300-year-old mummy unveiled in Egypt
Complete with golden mask, colored images of gods
SAQQARA, Egypt - A superbly maintained 2,300-year-old mummy bearing a golden mask and covered in brightly colored images of gods and goddesses was unveiled Tuesday at Egypt's Saqqara Pyramids complex south of Cairo.
The unidentified mummy, from the 30th pharaonic dynasty, had been closed in a wooden sarcophagus and buried in sand at the bottom of a 20-foot shaft before being discovered recently by an Egyptian-led archaeological team.
"We have revealed what may be the most beautiful mummy ever found in Egypt," Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said as he helped excavators remove the sarcophagus' lid to show off the find.
Hawass said experts will use CT scanning technology within the next week to reveal more details about the ancient Egyptian's identity and he had lived and died.
Afterward, the mummy will be displayed at Saqqara's museum of Imhotep, the famed architect who designed the Stepped Pyramid — Egypt's oldest.
The mummy, found two months ago, was covered from head to toe in brightly colored cartonage burial material depicting a range of graphic scenes, including the Goddess Maat of balance and truth who was shown with outstretched arms that took the shape of feathered wings.
Also shown were the four children of the falcon-headed god, Horus, and the rituals and processes to mummify the person, who Hawass believed must have been wealthy considering his burial location and fine gold used for the mummy's mask.
"The artists who made this mummy more than 2,000 years ago demonstrated the brilliance of the ancient Egyptians by using stunning colors and depicting his face so graphically," Hawass said.
The mummy had been buried within the necropolis of King Teti, a funerary area containing scores of burial chambers, false doors that ancient Egyptians said the souls of the dead would use to leave their tombs, and temples.
The necropolis is built alongside the collapsed pyramid of Teti, who ruled during ancient Egypt's 6th dynasty, more than 4,300 years ago. Hawass said a "lost" pyramid had been located in the Saqqara area and would be uncovered after two months.
Saqqara, located about 12 miles south of Cairo, is one of Egypt's most popular tourist sites and hosts a collection of temples, tombs and funerary complexes.
