Misidentification of an ivasive fish-species in Florida :
Fish switch: Identity of mystery invader in Florida waters corrected after 20 years
Fish switch: Identity of mystery invader in Florida waters corrected after 20 years
Interesting/Little Known introduced populations
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The cat is visible so briefly in the video that you really can't tell anything other than that it is small (i.e. not a "black panther") and that the guineafowl were so not frightened by it that they started chasing it.
Domestic cat seems by far the most likely identity.
Insane numbers!
Was browsing through pages on the IUCN and saw something that made me do a double-take. The lowland paca is listed as having an extant and introduced population in Algeria. I couldn't find any other information about this apparent introduction on any other sources.
The IUCN page is included below; curiously only the Cuban introduced range is included on the distribution map:
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
The IUCN page is included below; curiously only the Cuban introduced range is included on the distribution map:
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Interesting, not a species I would have expected for North Africa. Given that IUCN is listing it I assume it's fairly credible, but I'd be very curious about more information on the population!
Another introduced species I hadn't heard of - there is a population of giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus) on Sierra Najasa in Cuba. They were introduced for the purposes of hunting in the 1990s, with at least one reference saying they came from Canada originally. They (or at least signs of them) were observed during a survey in 2001.
The reference I mention above is included below:
Biodiversity and conservation of Cuban mammals: past, present, and invasive species
The reference I mention above is included below:
Biodiversity and conservation of Cuban mammals: past, present, and invasive species
The Mandarin Duck population in southern California is of course well-known - but I just found out there is population around the Great Salt Lake as well!
I'm not sure if this is true or not - I hear this refrenced all the time, but eBird actually has an accepted record:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S62423052
I would think that if this hybrid was impossible Cornell wouldn't bother creating the option.
Accepted or not, it is extremely unlikely. 'Looked more phenotypically Mandarin' -- hardly surprising if it was 100% Mandarin! Mandarin have been bred in captivity in large numbers for two centuries, during which there has been no acceptable record of the species producing a hybrid. All the photographs have shown hormonally compromised Mandarins exhibiting incomplete male plumage. Thus ebird record is likely to refer to such a bird. The suggestion that it might be a back cross is particularly unlikely, given that all Wood Duck hybrids are likely to be infertile.The congeric Carolina Wood Duck has hybridised with many species of both surface feeding and diving ducks.
I reiterate that Aix galericulata has a different number of chromosomes from all other waterfowl, and is therefore incapable of producing a hybrid.
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This will be a typo. The text says the introduced populations are in Cuba and the Lesser Antilles.
I disagree, the Ebird database lists an atrocious amount of waterfowl hybrids, and many have no records to show if you select them. I remember putting in quite a few once out of curiosity, and records in the Ebird database were sorely lacking. Only a few hybrids actually had records, usually only a few.
Yes, I've heard of this. They are actually most common in and around the zoo (according to my field guide).
Give me $15 and I'll bring buckets of bearded dragons to release in Arizona when I visit.
I know earlier on this thread the Chestnut-fronted Macaw was mentioned as being basically gone in Florida - I did some digging and this does not seem to be the case.
I was looking to see if I could find out about any established populations of Feral Chickens in the US (outside of the well-known ones in Florida and Hawaii) and found they are common in one town in Alabama and another in Texas.
I was looking to see if I could find out about any established populations of Feral Chickens in the US (outside of the well-known ones in Florida and Hawaii) and found they are common in one town in Alabama and another in Texas.
There's a small population in Lincoln, CA as well. They're a bit variable in color, but many of them look a good deal like junglefowl in color. I've seen them myself.
Just looked into these some more - apparently the population I thought was in Alabama is actually Fitzgerald, Georgia. And also, they aren't Feral Chickens, they are legitimate wild-type Red Junglefowl.
I have just noticed that around 2012, in order to control the ticks that spread Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, the government of Turkey started to release 'thousands' of helmeted guineafowl.
Apparently, guineafowl are not as good at stopping ticks as sometimes thought and may actually spread the disease further, as an important nursery for tick nymphs. I am not sure if the species has established but if thousands have indeed been released, then it wouldn't surprise me at all if they did.
The abstract to a paper on the release can be found below:
https://www.cell.com/trends/parasitology/pdf/S1471-4922(12)00176-6.pdf
Apparently, guineafowl are not as good at stopping ticks as sometimes thought and may actually spread the disease further, as an important nursery for tick nymphs. I am not sure if the species has established but if thousands have indeed been released, then it wouldn't surprise me at all if they did.
The abstract to a paper on the release can be found below:
https://www.cell.com/trends/parasitology/pdf/S1471-4922(12)00176-6.pdf
The invasive terrestrial planaria found in several European countries has at least been determinated and seems to be an Australian species :
The identity of the invasive yellow-striped terrestrial planarian found recently in Europe: Caenoplana variegata (Fletcher & Hamilton, 1888) or Caenoplana bicolor (Graff, 1899)? | JONES | Zootaxa
The identity of the invasive yellow-striped terrestrial planarian found recently in Europe: Caenoplana variegata (Fletcher & Hamilton, 1888) or Caenoplana bicolor (Graff, 1899)? | JONES | Zootaxa