Tag: Australia

Beutelwolf-Genom-Rekonstruktion
Scientists discovered a well-preserved thylacine head with tissue in a museum in Melbourne, Australia. This museum find could help revive the extinct thylacine using genetic methods. (© Westell, William Percival, 1874-1937, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
News

Putrid Museum Find Reveals 99.9% of Thylacine Genome

Researchers recently found a long-overlooked bucket in the back of a Melbourne Museum cabinet, containing a well-preserved thylacine head stored in ethanol for over 110 years. Andrew Pask, head of the Tigrr Lab at the University of Melbourne, described the sight as “gruesome” in an interview with The Guardian, noting

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Nachtsittich oder Höhlensittich (Pezoporus occidentalis)
The endangered night parrot reaches a body length of up to 25 centimeters. It occurs in small subpopulations in different regions of inland Australia. (© Elizabeth Gould (1804–1841), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
News

Australia: Largest Known Population of the Extremely Rare Night Parrot Discovered

An article published in September 2024 in the Journal of Wildlife Research reports the discovery of the largest known population of the night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) in the eastern Pilbara region of Western Australia. A team of Indigenous rangers and scientists tracked down a colony of about 50 birds –

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Huia-Paar (Heteralocha acutirostris)
A taxidermied huia pair (female right, male left) at the Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum. This specimen is not up for auction. (© Dr Mirko Junge, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
News

Taxidermied Huia Pair Expected to Fetch Up to NZ$128,000 at London Auction

A rare taxidermied pair of huia birds could fetch up to NZ$128,000 at an auction in London. Organized by Roseberys London, the auction is scheduled for October 2024. The huia pair, consisting of a male and a female, dates back to the late 19th century and is considered extremely rare.

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Haast eagle attacks moas
A Haast's eagle attacks already extinct New Zealand moas. The largest moas were the female South Island giant moas. They could reach a weight of up to 300 kilograms. (© John Megahan, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons)
Birds

Haast’s Eagle

The largest bird of prey in modern times Before humans settled New Zealand about 700 years ago and introduced invasive species like cats and rats, there were no land-dwelling mammals on the islands – aside from three species of bats. Instead, the ecosystem was dominated by approximately 250 bird species.

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Mecodema oconnori, verwandter des stephens-island-laufkäfer
Images of the Stephens Island Weevil are rare; the picture shows the ground beetle Mecodema oconnori, which belongs to the same genus. (© S.E. Thorpe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Insects

Stephens Island Weevil

From isolated paradise to endangered habitat Stephens Island, a small rocky island in the Cook Strait, is renowned for its unique wildlife. Despite covering only 1.5 square kilometers, the island boasts a remarkable ecosystem that was once home to numerous endemic species, including many land and seabirds. Among its notable

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traversia lyalli
The flightless Lyall's wren was a relatively small bird, with a total length of about ten centimeters. (© Avenue, GFDL 1.2, via Wikimedia Commons)
Birds

Lyall’s wren

The tragic story of Lyall’s wren Like the dodo, Lyall’s wren is one of the best-known examples of the extinction of bird species, because the circumstances of its disappearance are as striking as they are tragic. The story of Lyall’s wren is often told with dramatic simplicity: a cat, brought

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tasmanischer beutelwolf Thylacinus cynocephalus
Male and female thylacine, photographed around 1904 at the Washington, D.C., National Zoo. Between 1850 and 1936, 68 thylacines are documented to have lived in zoos. (© Baker; E.J. Keller., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Mammals

Thylacine

Tasmanian wolf or Tasmanian tiger: Neither wolf nor tiger Dutch seafarer Abel Tasman, who in 1642 was the first European to reach the island of Tasmania, reported “footprints, not unlike the claws of a tiger”. In doing so he had discovered the island’s top predator, which later became known under

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Jagd auf Moas
New Zealand’s unique bird life evolved in isolation over millions of years. The image, created at the end of the 19th century, shows a hunting scene of moas. (© Joseph Smit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
News

In the Footsteps of Moas: Where New Zealand’s Flightless Birds Find Refuge

The settlement of the Pacific Islands by humans led to rapid waves of extinction for many animal species, whose dynamics are difficult to reconstruct. Among the affected species were the wingless moas, which were only found in New Zealand. These often massive birds went extinct in the 14th or 15th

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gigarcanum
Replica of Delcourt's giant gecko or Kawekaweau gecko from the Lille Natural History Museum in France. (© Musée d'Histoire Naturelle de Lille, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Reptiles

Delcourt’s Giant Gecko

The largest gecko in the world … In the early 1980s, French museum employee Alain Delcourt discovered a forgotten specimen of a single stuffed giant gecko in the basement of the Natural History Museum of Marseille, which had previously been on public display for years. This species was previously unknown

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Buschmoa-Genom rekonstruiert (Anomaloptery didiformis)
The bush moa is the smallest moa species known to date. It was only slightly larger than today’s turkeys and weighed around 30 kilograms. The flightless bird went extinct about 500 to 600 years ago with the settlement of New Zealand. (© Auckland Museum, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
News

Deciphered Bush Moa genome provides insights into New Zealand’s extinct avian world

A team of evolutionary biologists has reconstructed the nearly complete genome of the bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis), a flightless bird from New Zealand that went extinct 500 to 600 years ago. Researchers from Harvard University, East Carolina University, Osaka University, and the University of Toronto sequenced ancient DNA from a

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