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FLORA AND FAUNA
Hunter Island penguin species never actually existed, study says
 by Brooks Hays
 Washington (UPI) Aug 16, 2017


Death of baby dolphin triggers outrage in Spain
Madrid (AFP) Aug 16, 2017 - Spanish animal lovers reacted with fury on Wednesday after a baby dolphin approached a holiday beach, where it died as bathers played with it and took pictures.

A whale and dolphin conservation group, Equinac, said the incident occurred Saturday on the tourist beach of Mojacar, in the southeast of the country.

Bathers played with the dolphin in the shallows, inadvertently blocking her breathing hole and pulling her from the water for pictures, probably causing stress that proved fatal, it said.

The baby may have turned up on the beach because it was separated from its mother -- in which case, it could not have survived -- or because it was sick, Equinac suggested.

Twitter users responded with outrage.

"If you go to the beach, leave your stupidity at home," said one.

"Did you take selfies after it died?" asked another.

A Facebook posting by an animal rights party, Pacma, which blamed "harassment by bathers" for the mammal's death, was "liked" more than 4,800 times.

Almost 35 years after the lost "Hunter Island" penguin was discovered, scientists have determined the species never actually existed.

New analysis suggests the specimen, unearthed on Tasmania's Hunter Island in 1983, is comprised of bones from three living penguin species.

The revelation was made possible by new techniques for extracting and analyzing ancient DNA samples. Scientists have previously questioned the scientific legitimacy of the Hunter Island penguin, but the latest DNA analysis confirmed the original mistake.

"In our study, we applied ancient DNA methods to genetically assess every bone that had ever been attributed to this mysterious penguin species -- a rare and remarkable opportunity," Tess Cole, a PhD candidate in the zoology department at the University of Otago in New Zealand, said in a news release. "Using a short DNA barcode region we showed that it was actually a jumbled mixture of three living penguin species, from two genera."

The misidentified bones belong to three penguin species: Fiordland crested penguin, Eudyptes pachyrhynchus; the Snares crested penguin, Eudyptes robustus; and the Australian little penguin or fairy penguin, Eudyptula novaehollandiae.

Both the Fiordland crested and Snares crested penguins are species endemic to New Zealand, which occasionally turn up on Tasmania. The Australian little penguin breeds on Tasmania.

"The presence of three species of penguins in Tasmania's archaeological record can be explained in light of what is now known about the distributions and movement patterns of these species within the Australasian region," Cole said. "This study shows how useful ancient DNA testing can be. Not only does it help us identify new but extinct species, but it can help us rule out previously postulated species which did not exist, as in this case."

Cole and her colleagues published their analysis of the Hunter Island penguin remains this week in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

FLORA AND FAUNA
Bacteria passed from mom to offspring is most beneficial, study shows
 Washington (UPI) Jul 17, 2017
 New research shows bacteria passed directly across generations, from mom to offspring, are more essential than bacteria acquired from the environment. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Communications, offers scientists a better understanding of bacterial symbiosis. Only a small percentage of bacteria is harmful. Most strains and species are harmless. Some bacte ... read more
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