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Utah’s Red Rocks has world famous attractions
at numerous national parks, monuments and state parks, and until
now they were known only for a few scattered bones and dinosaur
footprints, but recently they have yielded a rare
skeleton of a new species of plant eating dinosaur that lived
185 million years ago and may have been buried alive by a
collapsing sand dune.
This discovery confirms the widespread
success of sauropodomorph dinosaurs during the Early Jurassic
Period. The new dinosaur species is named Seitaad ruessi (SAY-eet-AWD
ROO-ess-EYE) which is derived from the Navajo word “Seitaad”, a
sand-desert monster, from the Navajo creation legend that
swallowed its victims in sand dunes. (The skeleton of Seitaad
had been “swallowed” in a fossilized sand dune when it was
discovered). Ruess, was after the artist, poet, naturalist and
explorer Everett Ruess who mysteriously disappeared in the red
rock country of southern Utah in 1934 at age 20.
 After
months of tests and trials, scientists reveal the World’s
strongest insect to be a
species of Dung Beetle called
Onthopagus taurus.They
found that these
insects could pull an astonishing 1.141 times their own weight,
that’s the equivalent of a 70 kg person lifting 80 tonnes (the
same as six full double-decker buses).
Insects are well known for being able to perform
amazing feats of strength, and in this species it is all on
account of their curious sex lives. Females dig tunnels under a
dung pat, where males mate with them. If a male enters a tunnel
already occupied by a rival they fight by locking horns and try
to pull each other out. The researchers tested the beetles’
ability to resist a rival, by measuring how much weight was
needed to pull the beetle out of the hole.
However the world’s strongest creature for it’s
size is the copepod. It is barely 1 mm long and the world’s
fastest animal and the most abundant multicellular animal on the
planet. Their evolutionary
success should be seen in relation to their
ability to escape from predators. Their escape jump is
incredibly powerful at the rate of half a metre per second, and
it shows that copepods – in relation to their size - are 10
times as strong as has been previously documented for any other
animal or even (human-made) motors.
Researcher, with the aid of high-speed video
recordings, have been able to give a detailed picture of the
copepods escape jump and it has made an incredible impression on
the researchers, for even though the copepod is blind and so
tiny that the water feels as thick as syrup, it has managed to
solve the engineering feat of fleeing quickly and efficiently.
There were 11 reported sightings of
Bottlenose Dolphins during May, largest pod was 10 off St Ives.
5 reports of unidentified dolphins were probably also
Bottlenose. Common Dolphins were seen on 7 occasions, largest
pod 100 plus, and all other pods from 25 to 80 in number. Two
sightings of Risso's Dolphins were off Pendeen and Marazion and
Harbour Porpoises were reported 4 times from Padstow on the
north coast to The Manacles on the south.
The largest number of reports were of Basking
Sharks, with 61 reported sightings from all around the coast
from Newquay on the north coast to Plymouth Breakwater on the
south. The first Ocean Sunfish of the year was seen off Holywell
Bay on the 26th |
