20th Century - Page 3 of 7

Haplochromis vonlinnei holotyp Buntbarsch Victoriasee

The brownish-gray cichlid Haplochromis vonlinnei reached a length of nearly 16 centimeters. Its snout was relatively pointed and its teeth strongly curved. It is assumed that the species was a specialized piscivore, as remains of smaller cichlid species were found in the intestines of collected specimens. Image: Eelco Kruidenier, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fish

11. March 2024 Doreen Fräßdorf

Haplochromis vonlinnei (Cichlid)

One of 500 furu Haplochromis vonlinnei is a probably extinct cichlid species from Lake Victoria in East Africa. The original scientific description of the species was published in 2008 by Dutch ichthyologist Martien J. P. Van Oijen based on five specimens caught between 1978 and 1980 in the southern part

The newly discovered scarab beetle species Semanopterus kingstoni was named after entomologist Tim Kingston, who had collected the only known specimen in 1979. (© Reid, Chris & TEES, NATALIE. (2023). A new, but possibly extinct, species of Semanopterus Hope, 1847 from Lord Howe Island, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae). Zootaxa. 5306. 563-570. 10.11646/zootaxa.5306.5.4.)

News

5. December 2023 Doreen Fräßdorf

New beetle species with unique trait discovered on island

Australian researchers recently discovered a previously unknown species of scarab beetle (Scarabaeidae) in the insect collection of the Australian Museum in Sydney. The specimen in question, a female, was collected on January 30, 1979 on Lord Howe, a small island of only 14 square kilometers in the southwest Pacific. The

Nördliches Sumatra-Nashorn Begum London Zoo

A photograph taken around 1890 of a female northern Sumatran rhinoceros named Begum at London Zoo. This specimen formed the basis for the first scientific description of the species in 1872. The holotype lived at London Zoo from February 15, 1872, to August 31, 1900. (© Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mammals

3. December 2023 Doreen Fräßdorf

Northern Sumatran Rhinoceros

How the Sumatran rhinoceros came to London In February 1868, some villagers captured a female Sumatran rhinoceros on the Sangu River near the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a mountainous region in southeastern Bangladesh—such a species had never before been reported so far west of Chittagong. The rhinoceros came into the possession

The only known photo of the Badlands bighorn. It shows Jim Hart from South Dakota holding an animal shot by Charley Jones in 1903 into the camera. An adult male could reach a weight of 160 kilograms. (© archived source link, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mammals

18. December 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Badlands Bighorn

Wild sheep east of the Rocky Mountains Bighorn sheep are wild sheep that live mostly in mountains and sometimes in deserts and other dry regions of western North America. Both male and female animals have horns, although those of females are much smaller and do not twist like males, but

For a beetle from the rove beetle family (Staphylinidae), Darwin's rove beetle is large at around two centimeters in body length. Its head and pronotum shine metallic blue-green. The wing covers, mouthparts, legs and abdomen of Darwin's rove beetle are brown. (© Natural History Museum: Coleoptera Section from South Kensingon, London, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Insects

19. November 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Darwin’s Rove Beetle

A chance find gave it its own name On August 24, 1832, the HMS Beagle anchored in Bahía Blanca Province in eastern Argentina. On board the ship: the then 23-year-old British naturalist Charles Darwin. During the voyage he collected rock samples, plants, marine animals and a great many beetles. He

The Texas blind salamander (Eurycea rathbuni) belongs to the same genus as the Blanco blind salamander. Some scientists have occasionally suspected that the Texas and Blanco blind salamanders could be one and the same species. (© Ryan Hagerty/USFWS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Amphibians

31. August 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Blanco Blind Salamander

Missing species have a hard time The last time anyone saw a Blanco blind salamander in the wild was in 1951. At the time, a gravel operation working north of the Texan city of San Marcos excavated a spring in the dry riverbed of the Blanco River. Some water seeped

The American hog-nosed skunk is one of four species of the genus Conepatus. The other three species are Molina's hog-nosed skunk (C. chinga), Humboldt's pig-nosed skunk (C. humboldtii) and the striped hog-nosed skunk (C. semistriatus). (© en:Louis Agassiz Fuertes., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mammals

26. July 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Big-Thicket Hog Nosed Skunk

No other specimen since the first description The American hog-nosed skunk (Conepatus leuconotus) belongs to the family of skunks and stink badgers (Mephitidae) and, thanks to their adaptability, occur in a relatively wide range in different habitats. The IUCN classifies them as not endangered, but two out of three subspecies

Illustration by the Japanese painter Hasegawa Settan showing a Japanese sea lion that washed ashore in 1823 near the city of Karatsu on the island of Kyūshū. (© Hasegawa Settan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mammals

13. June 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Japanese Sea Lion

One of the most recently extinct marine mammals At almost the same time and for the same reasons, two marine mammals were wiped out in different places in the 20th century: the Caribbean monk seal and the Japanese sea lion. Both were hunted commercially: lamp oil was extracted from their

A Barbary lion in Algeria, photographed by Sir Alfred Edward Pease in 1893. The particularly dense, dark mane was striking, but this provides little information about the species; rather, it may represent an adaptation to climatic conditions. (© Alfred Edward Pease (29 June 1857 – 27 April 1939), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mammals

12. June 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Barbary lion

The cultural significance of North Africa’s lions Lions already played a role in early Egyptian art and literature. Archaeologists, for example, found statues and statuettes of lions from Egypt’s Early Dynastic Period (3100 to 2686 BC) in Hierakonpolis, the religious and political centre of Upper Egypt, and in the former

The head-body length of the bubal hartebeest was 150 to 244 centimeters. Its shoulder height ranged between 109 and 150 centimeters. (© Goldfuss, Georg August; Schreber, Johann Christian Daniel; Wagner, Andreas Johann, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Mammals

10. June 2022 Doreen Fräßdorf

Bubal hartebeest

The bubal and ancient civilizations The German zoologist Alfred Brehm writes in the 1911 edition of his world-famous zoological reference work Brehms Tierleben: “Of the various species, the one known the longest is the bubal hartebeest, frequently depicted on Egyptian monuments Bubalis buselaphus.” And indeed: the bubal must once have