Increasingly rare antelope — one of less than 100 — photographed at park in DRC
For two days, a team of scientists flew back and forth across a patch of grassland in central Africa searching for flashes of a tannish brown animal: the Upemba lechwe, an increasingly rare and incredibly skittish antelope.
Their efforts resulted in an encouraging photo — but also led them to a heart-wrenching conclusion.
The Upemba lechwe is 'one of Africa's most endangered and least-known antelopes,' found only in the Upemba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, park officials said in a May 26 news release. Scientists have known about this antelope for decades and, although they debate its exact species classification, agree that it is critically endangered.
'This is a species on the very brink,' Manuel Weber, a ranger with the park, said in the release.
Weber and a team of researchers set out to survey the Upemba lechwe's population in March, flying a four-seater airplane systematically across the antelope's preferred range in the national park, according to a study published May 25 in the African Journal of Ecology.
'I was devastated after the first day, since we did connect with a few Upemba lechwe, but they were running for their life, so no way to capture them on camera,' Weber told The Guardian. 'It was in the morning of the second day, that a single individual stopped for just a few seconds — long enough for me to press the (camera) trigger — before running off like the other individuals we have seen.'
The image, which researchers said is the 'first published photograph' of an Upemba lechwe, shows the tan and white antelope looking up toward the camera.
'We hope this image becomes a rallying cry,' Weber said in the park's release. 'Because this may be our only chance to save this species.'
During their survey, the team only saw 10 Upemba lechwe and estimated that fewer than 100 of these antelope remain, making them 'one of the rarest large mammals on Earth.'
'The fact that only 10 individuals were found — compared to up to 22,000 recorded half a century ago — indicates an alarming risk of extinction,' the study said. The antelopes are threatened by poaching, hunting and human encroachment.
'The fact that they're still hanging on at all is extraordinary,' Weber said in the release, 'but without urgent protection, they'll vanish.'
Researchers concluded that 'without immediate intervention, the Upemba Lechwe faces imminent risk of extinction.'
The research team included Weber, Ruffin Mpanga, Julien Mbulanga and Cameron Dobbie.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
The Trump administration reportedly tightens the reins on Veterans Affairs scientists
Last week, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned that the Trump administration might crack down on government scientists contributing to medical journals and instead create 'in-house' medical publications. And it seems the administration is wasting no time in moving forward. According to The Guardian, the administration essentially tongue-lashed two Department of Veteran Affairs scientists via email after they co-authored a report — published in the New England Journal of Medicine — highlighting how federal cuts could negatively affect patients' health. Basically, the two scientists, Texas-based pulmonologists Pavan Ganapathiraju and Rebecca Traylor, said cuts at their agency could have disastrous effects on veterans' respiratory health. And that didn't go over well with their bosses. The Guardian reported: The edict, laid down in emails on Friday by Curt Cashour, the VA's assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs, and John Bartrum, a senior adviser to VA secretary Doug Collins, came hours after the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a perspective co-authored by two pulmonologists who work for the VA in Texas. 'We have guidance for this,' wrote Cashour, a former Republican congressional aide and campaign consultant, attaching the journal article. 'These people did not follow it.' The Guardian reported further: The article sparked an immediate rebuke from Trump's political appointees, according to internal emails obtained by the Guardian. 'We have noticed a number of academic articles and press articles recently,' Bartrum wrote, attaching a copy of the journal article. 'Please remind the field and academic community that they need to follow the VA policy.' Cashour, the assistant secretary, wrote that approval for publication in national media was delegated to his office. Local and regional directors were to inform Washington 'as soon as possible' when situations exist 'that have the potential for negative national exposure'. The issue here seems obvious. I think Americans should want experts working for them who can offer scientifically based critiques or recommendations on U.S. policy, especially if their work is laid out sanely in a respected medical journal. The idea of such views potentially being suppressed not out of primary concern for public health but rather 'the potential for negative national exposure,' as Bartrum suggested in his email, is worrisome. This kind of restriction seems to fit within the administration's broader attack on scientific expertise, such as its rescission of federal research grants that is driving some scientists out of the country. The VA's press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, said in a statement to MSNBC that requiring approval for contributions to medical journals is 'VA policy that has been in place for several years across both Democrat and Republican administrations' and 'requires VA employees to properly coordinate with public affairs staff prior to speaking with the media.' He added that 'virtually every organization both inside and outside government has similar policies.' That claim was disputed by one of the authors, Ganapathiraju, who said his co-authored article was in full compliance and that VA rules encourage — but don't require — coordination with public affairs professionals at the agency. It certainly looks like the Trump administration is engaging in academic censorship. And the fact that the administration's major 'in-house' health report has been a complete disaster doesn't exactly paint this White House as trustworthy on the matter of scientific research. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
This May Be The World's Oldest Human Fingerprint, And That's Not All
Around 43,000 years ago, a Neanderthal dipped their finger in ocher and stamped the very center of a pebble. This one small marking on this one small stone still exists to this day. It was discovered in 2022 in the San Lázaro rock shelter of Central Spain, and it may be the world's oldest complete human fingerprint. More than that, it could also be one of the oldest known artistic representations of a human face. That latter claim remains controversial, but the red fingerprint does sit in the very middle of the pebble, below two divots and above another – an artistic 'boop' right where a nose should be. On site, the face immediately jumped out to archaeologists, led by David Álvarez-Alonso at the Complutense University of Madrid. If the team is right, this stone was probably carried from the nearby river to the San Lázaro rock shelter. The Neanderthal who selected it must have seen something special in its shape to take it home and paint it with ocher, especially as it seems to serve no functional purpose and no other ocher has been found at the site. "The ocher dot does not appear as a shapeless addition or a mere stain," explain the authors, "rather, it contains a fingerprint that implies the pigment has been applied specifically with the tip of a finger soaked in pigment." There's always a chance the print was made by accident. But Álvarez Alonso and colleagues think it is more likely the marking was an intentional act of imagination and symbolic art – a skill we have only just started giving Neanderthals credit for. "If we had a pebble with a red dot on it that was done 5,000 years ago by Homo sapiens, no one would hesitate to call it portable art," Álvarez Alonso told Sam Jones at The Guardian. "But associating Neanderthals with art generates a lot of debate. I think there's sometimes an unintentional prejudice." The study was published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. Robot Hand Could Help Scientists Decode Why Tickling Makes Us Giggle Earliest Known Whale Bone Tools Discovered in Europe's Museum Collections Are Dogs Replacing Babies in Countries With Declining Birth Rates?
USA Today
6 days ago
- USA Today
A 43,000 year-old work of art? Neanderthals may have painted portraits.
A 43,000 year-old work of art? Neanderthals may have painted portraits. An ancient granite pebble included indentations resembling a face, its nose a red dot. A study says it may have had symbolic significance. Show Caption Hide Caption Tourist climbs sacred Mayan pyramid in Mexico A German tourist was escorted from an archaeological complex when he climbed and attempted to evade security at a Mayan pyramid in Mexico. An eight-inch rock found at an archaeological site in central Spain is the latest indication that Neanderthals were making art long before modern humans, further eroding stereotypes of the extinct species as dull-witted. The July 2022 discovery at San Lázaro rock-shelter in Segovia, described as 'exceptional' by the authors of a paper published May 25 in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, dates back 43,000 years – long before modern humans inhabited the area. The quartz-rich granite pebble included indentations resembling a face, its nose a Rudolph-like red dot visible at center. Significantly, the spot didn't appear to be random, instead bearing evidence indicating it was the product of someone's imagination. 'The ocher dot does not appear as a shapeless addition or a mere stain,' wrote lead author David Álvarez-Alonso of Madrid's Complutense University. 'Rather, it contains a fingerprint that implies the pigment has been applied specifically with the tip of a finger soaked in pigment.' The authors consider the artifact a nonutilitarian visual symbol – in other words, not a tool but an altered or marked object with possible symbolic significance. While its age makes it impossible to draw any definitive conclusions, they wrote, the stone could 'represent one of the oldest known abstractions of a human face in the prehistoric record." 'The fact that the pebble was selected because of its appearance and then marked with ocher shows that there was a human mind capable of symbolizing, imagining, idealizing and projecting his or her thoughts on an object,' they wrote. An expanding Neanderthal portfolio This isn't the first time a Neanderthal fingerprint has been pinpointed, the authors noted. A partial one, likely made by a thumb, was found on resin discovered in Germany in 1963. However, the discovery offers yet another dab of evidence suggesting that Neanderthals made art. In 2018, The Guardian reported archaeological findings in Spain indicating that Neanderthals used red ocher to produce shapes and symbols on cave walls 65,000 years ago. The species flourished from roughly 350,000 to 40,000 years ago, and studies indicate they and modern humans may have gone their separate ways as long as 800,000 years ago. Increasing evidence has indicated that Neanderthals were more advanced than once thought. In 2020, a paper published in the journal Science said evidence found in a coastal cave in Portugal suggested Neanderthals were skilled fishermen who regularly consumed seafood as part of their diet. Until then, only humans (Homo sapiens) had been thought to look to the sea as a food source. Meanwhile, the discovery of 176,000-year-old structures deep within a French cave hinted at Neanderthals' ability to use fire and work in groups. A 2016 article in Nature described strange, circular edifices constructed in an interior space 360 yards removed from daylight; the formations were made from uniform stalagmites, many of them cut to size. With the earliest known human-built structures 40,000 years old, the cave formations not only predate such activity by Homo sapiens but also show Neanderthal utilization of deep caves began much earlier as well. According to the study, the earliest indications of modern humans using deep caves are less than 42,000 years old.
