Reptiles in Fresh Water

English: Eonatator sternbergi, a mosasaur from the Late Cretaceous of Kansas. Digital. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Something new... how many more are there undiscovered...?
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The New York Times International Weekly
Science & Technology
FINDINGS


Reptiles in Fresh Water

Mosasaurs were large, ancient relatives of monitor lizards common during the Late Cretaceous period, 66 million to 100 million years ago. They were found near shallow marine areas in salt water. But researchers now say a newly discovered species of mosasaur lived in fresh water river environments. This species probably adapted to fresh water the same way river dolphins in Asia and South America did.

The new mosasaur has been named Pannoniasaurus inexpectatus. Researchers discuss the species and its fossils in the journal PLoS One.

The fossils suggest that the mosasaur had limbs like a terrestrial lizard; a flattened, crocodilian skull; and a long tail about half the length of its body. (The bodies ranged from less than a meter to about six meters, though the average was about three meters.)
“These animals were undulating their tail like a crocodile to propel their movement in water,” said an author of the study, Laszlo Makadi, a palaeontologist at the Hungarian Natural History Museum.”They used their limbs just to brake and steer.”

The fossils were discovered in an open-pit bauxite mine in the Bakony Mountains in Western Hungary.

SINDYA N. BHANOO

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Article taken from TODAY Paper, Saturday Edition, 05-Jan-2013

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Our vanishing link?

Image via Wikipedia

DOZENS OF PRIMATE SPECIES ON THE BRINK: STUDY

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PARIS - Seldom seen species of lemur, monkey and gorilla are among 25 primates facing near-certain extinction unless urgent measures are taken to protect them, according to a report released yesterday.

Close to half of the planet's 634 known primate species are endangered, said the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The figure is up from one third of primates just three years ago. Of the top 25, five are on Madagascar, six on the African continent, three in South America and 11 in Southeast Asia.

The least likely to survive might well be the golden-headed langur of Vietnam. Only 60 to 70 individuals remain. But the most threatened species are not always the rarest. There are more than 6,000 Sumatran orangutans, but poor conservation enforcement has led to plummeting numbers.

By contrast, the Hainan gibbon is the world's rarest primate but the Chinese government has very strict conservation measures so it is not on the list, said Mr Simon Stuart, head of the IUCN's Species Survival Commission.

Globally, habitat destruction has been the main driver toward extinction. AFP

From TODAY, Friday, 19-Feb-2010

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A soaring tale about a grumpy old man

A new movie for the kids, both young and young at heart, educational, entertaining!

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By Mayo Martin, TODAY

Posted: 05 August 2009 1014 hrs

A scene from Pixar's Up

Up is one heck of a breathtaking adventure. It's bloody hilarious. It's tenderly moving and thoroughly entertaining. That's amazing, considering it's an animated movie about a grumpy geriatric who hardly says anything and, for the most part, hobbles around.

In a tale that story- and treatment-wise sits closer to Hayao Miyazaki's wonderous Japanese films like Howl's Moving Castle than to any recent Hollywood cartoon flick, old recluse Carl Fredricksen (voiced by the great Ed Asner) and his accidental sidekick - the pudgy, over-eager Asian boy scout Russell - set out to the wilderness of South America in a flying house.

Up is filled with funny scenarios (it's not "ha-ha" funny, but ponder over the image of an old man dragging along a house when you step out of the cinema) and even funnier characters (a female bird named Kevin, a "talking dog" named Dug, and a vicious Doberman who speaks in a voice that's, well, very un-Doberman-like).

There was apprehension about how a cartoon about such a normal, albeit odd, couple would fare with audiences accustomed to more "out there" characters. And, yes, it's true that Up isn't particularly straight-forward children's fare.

But if its predecessor - Pixar's left-of-centre minimalist gem about a rusty robot named Wall*E - proves anything, it's that in the end, a good old-fashioned story will always prove to be a good story.

And in those terms, Up is, you know, right up there with the best of them.

- TODAY/yb

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From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

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