.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
592 wildlife cameras running for 31 days make first-of-its-kind sighting in India
Researchers said that in 2018 alone, they had 15,291 chances to spot the small species using camera traps, but it never revealed itself.
Just after 2 a.m. on Feb. 7, a leopard cat was spotted in Pench Tiger Reserve in the Nagpur District of Maharashtra, according to an April 26 study published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa.
Leopard cats — Prionailurus bengalensis — are found throughout southern and eastern Asia, researchers said, and are about the size of a house cat, but with longer legs.
They occupy a wide range of habitats, including 'tropical dipterocarp, evergreen, temperate broadleaf, and coniferous forests,' as well as shrublands and grasslands, according to the study.
While the species is listed as 'Least Concern' on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, it is afforded the highest level of protection in India, where it is often found in protected areas, according to the study.
The sighting 'significantly' expands the known range of the species, researchers said.
It also challenges some research that suggests leopard cats are unlikely to be found in areas where temperatures exceed 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, as temperatures in Pench can reach 113 degrees in the summer, according to the study.
Researchers said 'extensive studies' are needed to devise a conservation strategy for the leopard cat.
The research team included Prabhu Nath Shukla, Bilal Habib, Virendra Kumar Mishra, Sumedh Lomesh Bobade, Eshaan Chaitanya Rao and Kanishka.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
2 days ago
- Time Magazine
Rebecca Young: TIME's Girls of the Year List
In the middle of winter, temperatures in the Scottish city of Glasgow can drop as low as 17 degrees Fahrenheit. For anybody unfortunate enough to be sleeping on the streets, those conditions could quickly become deadly. That fact was on Rebecca Young's mind when the schoolgirl, then 11 years old, was asked during a club at school to come up with an idea focused on helping people. Young's design—a solar-powered backpack with an electric blanket inside—ended up winning an engineering award in a U.K.-wide competition with 70,000 entrants. It wasn't just an idea: Young researched different types of solar panels, wiring, and batteries, and drew up a detailed blueprint. The engineering firm Thales, which sponsored the competition, subsequently manufactured 30 of the blankets which were distributed to a homeless shelter in Glasgow earlier this year, Young says. There are plans to make 120 more. 'I'm very proud,' says her mother Louise. The homelessness problem won't be solved with blankets alone, but for 12-year-old Young, the experience was a first taste of how engineering in practice. 'It helped me see a different aspect of engineering, and how it could actually help people,' she says. 'That definitely helped inspire me.'
Miami Herald
3 days ago
- Miami Herald
Rare and ‘secretive' snake — that can climb trees — found in Vietnam rainforest
In the protected, undisturbed limestone forests of central Vietnam, a 'secretive' creature emerged at nightfall. In a scene framed by the opening of a karst cave, the 20-inch black and cream-colored banded snake targeted an unknowing skink. It is an adept hunter, able to move swiftly over rocky terrain and even climb trees. Researchers have now confirmed the snake, discovered in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in the Northern Annamites, is a new species called Lycodon calcarophilus, or the Limestone wolf snake, according to a study published Aug. 12 in the peer-reviewed journal Zootaxa. The mountainous rainforest region where the limestone wolf snake was found is considered to be one of Vietnam's 'most significant protected areas' in terms of reptile and amphibian diversity, according to the study. 'Numerous studies have emphasised the remarkable species richness' and the large number of species that exist only in the karstic region and nowhere else in the world, researchers said. The new species is described as being relatively small compared to related species. Its blackish-brown body is 'laterally compressed' with between 19 and 25 'pinkish-cream' colored bands, researchers said. The new species has a head that is angular, slightly flattened, and distinct from the rest of its body, according to the study. Researchers said the species is 'likely rare, as suggested by the very limited number of observations.' The team encountered just six during their fieldwork. However, the limestone wolf snake is likely to be found in 'limestone massifs outside the park boundaries, where forest habitats are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities.' The discovery of the new species brings the known number of Lycodon species in Vietnam to 17, according to researchers. Researchers recommend listing the new species as data deficient on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List until more field surveys can determine its threatened status. The research team included Gernot Vogel, Andrey M. Bragin, Nikolay A. Poyarkov and Tan Van Nguyen.
USA Today
3 days ago
- USA Today
A 'glacial outburst' prompted a flooding crisis in Alaska. What is that?
Glacial lake outburst flooding is a flood that's produced by the quick, unexpected release of water from a glacial lake. Water from a melting glacier has caused a river near Alaska's capital city of Juneau to swell to historic levels amid a "glacial outburst" event that has prompted flooding fears and evacuations. On Aug. 13, emergency barriers protecting Juneau appear to be holding, but the risk from summer glacial flooding is on the rise as climate change increases temperatures, causing more ice melt. Glacial lake outburst flooding is a flood that's produced by the quick, unexpected release of water from a glacial lake. These lakes can exist behind unsteady dams made of ice or bedrock, and when these dams fail, the water rushes out, often resulting in catastrophic downstream flooding. A glacial outburst like the one in Alaska this week occurs when an ice dam holding back a lake – in this case Suicide Basin – collapses amid summer heat, releasing the water in a short period of time. Suicide Basin is part of the Mendenhall Glacier. Aaron Jacobs, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service office in Juneau, said that as these events continue to unfold, scientists need to continue to improve their understanding of these glacial systems, especially as the climate continues to change and warm throughout Alaska. Previous studies have tied glacier loss with climate change Thanks to climate change, Earth's glaciers continue to melt away, losing up to 390 billion tons of ice and snow per year, a 2019 study said. The largest losses were glaciers in Alaska. And a 2014 study found that since 1990, humans have been the primary cause of melting glaciers worldwide. In that study, researchers found that, from 1990 to 2010, about two-thirds of the world's glacier loss was due to rising temperatures from the burning of greenhouse gases, along with land-use changes. "In our data we find unambiguous evidence of anthropogenic (human-caused) contribution to glacier mass loss," said study lead author Ben Marzeion, a climate scientist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. A 2023 study also found that millions of people worldwide are at risk of glacial lake outburst flooding, primarily in Asia. Glacial outburst floods on the rise amid climate change These glacial outbursts in Alaska are not a new phenomena and have been occurring annually in the Suicide Basin, sometimes more than once, since 2011. What is new in the last few years is the amount of water being released all at once during these events, which led to back-to-back years of record flooding downstream in Juneau in 2023 and 2024, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Compared to the rest of the country, Alaska has warmed twice as fast over the last several decades, and its average annual temperature has risen 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, according to the federal National Centers for Environmental Information. In other parts of the world, glacial outburst floods are also known as Jökulhlaups (an Icelandic word pronounced yo-KOOL-lahp), according to the National Park Service.
