Earth

Six more lions speared to death by Kenyan herders

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News Desk : dhakamirror.com

Credit: Gibson G. Wairagu/Pexels

Six lions have been killed by herders in a national park in southern Kenya, in a blow to conservation efforts and the tourism industry which is a key pillar of the nation’s economy.

The killings, which took place close to the Amboseli National Park, came just days after a wild lion, believed to be one of the world’s oldest, was killed in the same national park by herders.

Male Loonkiito, 19, was speared after preying on livestock in the village of Olkelunyiet in Kenya, which borders Amboseli National Park.

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Wild lion Loonkiito, ‘one of the world’s oldest’, killed by humans in Kenya

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News Desk : dhakamirror.com

Lion Guardians/Facebook

A wild male lion believed to be one of the world’s oldest has died after being speared by herders, authorities in Kenya have said.

The 19-year-old lion had lived in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, but died when he went alone to a nearby village in search of food and attacked livestock.

According to The National, the old lion was speared to death by herders in the village of Olkelunyiet after Loonkito attacked their livestock.

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Tiger populations are expected to increase

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News Desk : dhakamirror.com

The number of tigers in the Sundarbans is expected to increase due to successful conservation efforts in the world’s largest mangrove forest, officials said.

Forest Department officials involved in the ongoing tiger census said they found evidence of tigers using camera traps in areas where a previous investigation found none.

According to the preliminary data obtained from the cameras installed inside the forest, the number of tigers in the Khulna and Satkhira ranges has increased, they said.

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Gazipur Safari Park welcomes a newborn zebra

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News Desk : dhakamirror.com

Photo: collected

A zebra foal was born at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Safari Park in Gazipur in the middle of the month.

With the latest one, the number of the Zebra stands at 26, our Gazipur correspondent reports quoting the park’s in-charge Assistant Conservator of Forest Rafiqul Islam.

However, the sex of the baby zebra could not be ascertained yet, according to the authorities.

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Egypt finds 2,000 mummified ram heads in an ancient temple

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Mummified ram heads found in Ramses II Temple in ancient city of Abydos

News Desk : dhakamirror.com

An American archaeological mission has unearthed over 2,000 mummified ram heads, at the temple of Ramses II in the ancient city of Abydos in southern Egypt. In addition to this remarkable find, the team also uncovered a much older palatial structure, dating back approximately 4,000 years.

The temple is one of several across the country that are dedicated to Rameses II, whose reign from 1279BC to 1213BC is regarded by many as the height of Egypt’s power and glory.

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Giant sunfish spotted last year believed to be world’s largest bony fish

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Fishermen and boaters saw the huge creature floating near the Azores islands last December

News Desk: dhakamirror.com

Photo courtesy: Atlantic Naturalistic Association

In last December, Portuguese scientists learned that fishermen and boaters noticed a dead sunfish in the central North Atlantic. When researchers saw the carcass near Faial Island in the Azores, they nearly couldn’t believe it.

Scientists say the bump-head sunfish (Mola alexandrini) is the biggest bony fish ever found. The fish weighed 6,050 pounds, 882 pounds more than the previous record-holder, a 5,070 pound sunfish off the coast of Japan in 1996.

A new publication in the Journal of Fish Biology provides more facts about the enormous sunfish found in the Azores last year.

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Excavated 1.4M-year-old bones in northern Spain have the potential to alter human prehistory

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News Desk : dhakamirror.com

Photo: caves in Atapuerca. Courtesy: Google maps – Paco Puche

The oldest human fossils ever discovered on the European continent are 1.4-million-year-old facial bones, which could change the course of human prehistory, according to the researchers involved in the historic discovery.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Aurora Martin, the archaeologist and general coordinator of the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, said: “We do not yet know to which first human species the fragments found belonged”.

The bones, found at the end of June at the caves of the Sierra de Atapuerca excavation site near Burgos, constitute “a breakthrough that will help rewrite the history of human evolution,” she added.

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Amazing Planet: Elephants can hear with their feet and understand different languages

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Beatrice Christofaro

Elephants can pick up low frequency vibrations with their feet

Elephants are skilled communicators with memories that could give humans a run for their money. But culling and habitat loss is making it harder for them to pass on this expertise.

They’re known as gentle giants. Elephants, found across Africa and Asia, are the largest mammals on land. And their massive bodies — from their sensitive feet to their complicated brains — are perfectly attuned to these regions’ savannas and forests.

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Tigers in the Sundarbans survive hardship

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News Desk : dhakamirror.com

Tigers in the Sundarbans are in imminent danger of being hungry due to the rising spotted deer poaching.

The big cats, well-known as the Royal Bengal Tiger in the southern mangrove forest of the country hunt spotted deer, monkey, and wild boar.

According to a review study by the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Department on the Bengal Tiger Conservation Activity project, spotted deer is the staple diet of the tiger.

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No country for elephants

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Mostafa Yousuf
As if it wasn’t hard enough for elephants to survive in this country, in a tragic development, it was discovered that they are not just dying by electrocution. Shooting down the animals straight up has become seemingly rampant to protect encroached forest lands.
In Cox’s Bazar, 18 elephants were shot down in the span of three years, from 2019 to 2021. The Daily Star found this grim picture after piecing together the three years’ data. During this time, nine elephants were

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Snakes help monitor Fukushima Fallout

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Researchers have equipped snakes with tracking devices and dosimeters to measure the radiation levels in the vicinity of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Japan, in which there were three core meltdowns in March 2011 – one of the largest anthropogenic releases of radioactive contamination in history.
Radiation leaks forced tens of thousands of people to flee the area. Many have returned in the 10 years since but

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Cheetah the best sprinter on earth

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The fastest cheetah on Earth has done it again, breaking her previous world record for the 100-meter dash and setting a new best time of 5.95 seconds.
This feat surpasses the fastest of all human 100-meter sprinters by almost four seconds.
Usain Bolt, a Jamaican sprinter now competing at the 2012 London Olympics, holds the human world record at 9.58 seconds in the

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Western black rhino declared extinct

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No wild black rhinos remain in West Africa, according to the latest global assessment of threatened species, the Red List, drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The IUCN reports that despite conservation efforts, 25% of the world’s mammals are at risk of extinction. As part of its latest work it has reassessed several rhinoceros groups.
As well as declaring the western black rhino

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The Jurassic cheetah

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Supercheetah
The Jurassic cheetah
Obaidur Rahman
Paleontologist from Senckenberg Research Institute, Weimar, Germany, recently unearthed the remains of a cheetah which might just have been the bloodiest killers of the ancient times wandering at one of the oldest known habitat of human beings. It is well known that the only remaining species of cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, is the fasted animal on Earth with the capability of running up to 70 mile-per-hour. But the

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Unique pig-nosed turtle is over-harvested in New Guinea

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Numbers of pig-nosed turtles have declined steeply over the past 30 years, researchers have discovered.
The unique reptile has become an international conservation icon, due to it having no close relatives and being considered the turtle most adapted to life underwater in freshwater ponds and rivers.
Yet demand for its eggs and meat in Papua New Guinea, one of the turtle’s main

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‘Ants can identify their worst enemy’

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A study of the ant species Temnothorax longispinosus has revealed that it can spot its worst enemy and react with appropriate aggression.
The ant colonies are often invaded by slavemaker ants, which steal their pupae. So when the ants spot a slavemaker, they attempt to kill it by biting and stinging.
But the insects do not waste their energy on less threatening intruders

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Birds eavesdrop on predator chipmunks

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Ground-nesting birds eavesdrop on chipmunks in order to protect their nests, according to scientists.
Ovenbirds and veeries live alongside egg-eating chipmunks in the Hudson Valley, New York, US.
Researchers have found that when simulated chipmunk calls are played, the birds nest up to 20 metres further away.
The study is the first to show that birds heed the chatter of non-avian species

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Wildlife in jeopardy

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Hunger, death on offer as forests vanish fast
The number of phone calls we receive every day is amazing. People call to say fishing cats have been killed or captured. Jungle cat kittens found. Vultures lying sick. And of course, tigers have been killed.
If we put together all these pieces of information, we get a terrifying bigger picture of what has been happening to our wildlife.
One thing is quite clear now. Our forests, or for that matter whatever is left, can no longer give food and shelter to wildlife. The animals are coming out of the little green cover that is left

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12,000km in 357 days

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Sea turtle routes tracked
The first turtle that was tagged in Bangladesh with a satellite chip to track its journey last year has travelled over 12,000 kilometres in 357 days and is now coming back to Bangladesh coast from Sri Lanka.
Urmee, the name of the turtle, has crossed the path until March 23, 2011. It is now in the middle of the Bay of Bengal, 780 km east of the Chennai coast of India, 977 km northeast of the Sri Lankan coast, 662 km west of

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Bay the global hotspot

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More than 10,000 endangered whales and dolphins of six species have made the Bay of Bengal and the Sundarbans estuary a safe home, a month long survey reveals.
A group of Bangladeshi wildlife scientists headed by Dr Anisuzzaman Khan carried out the survey and recently revealed that the Bay is still a good abode of aquatic animals like whales, and dolphins commonly

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