Ecuador Throw Up New Surprises

A team of scientists working for Reptile & Amphibian Ecology International, in a ­threatened rain forest around Cerro Pata de Pájaro in Ecuador have discovered a gecko so small it can perch on top of a pencil. Other fascinating discoveries include a species of snail sucking snake, 30 varieties of frog, four previously unseen types of stick insect and salamanders that have dispensed with lungs and breathe entirely through their skin. Some of the frogs lay their eggs in trees, rather than in water

The sad part of the story is that the area is being rapidly deforested. About 95% of the trees have been felled. Mans’ avarice know no bounds.

Breeding area of the Large-billed reed warbler, the world's least known bird species, discovered in Afghanistan

Amidst the grim scenario in Afghanistan here comes something to cheer about. Researchers of the Wildlife Conservation Society have discovered for the first time the breeding area of the large-billed reed warbler in the remote Wakhan Corridor of the Pamir Mountains of north-eastern Afghanistan. Large-billed reed warbler was rated in 2007 by ‘BirdLife International’ as "the world's least known bird species”. Practically nothing is known about this species. The first specimen was discovered in India in 1867. It was more than a century later that a second discovery of a single bird was made in Thailand in 2006.

Ornithologists around the world are excited about the discovery. Details appear in the latest issue of BirdingASIA. The authors include: Robert Timmins, Naqeebullah Mostafawi, Ali Madad Rajabi, Hafizullah Noori, Stephane Ostrowski and Colin Poole, of the Wildlife Conservation Society; Urban Olsson of Göteborg University, Sweden; and Lars Svensson.

Grasshoppers and their relatives that pollinates plants

Here is a surprise. Grasshoppers and crickets like most members of the insect order Orthoptera are notorious for eating plants rather than helping them. Scientists have discovered that Grasshoppers and their relatives can pollinate plants like bees. The finding has come from the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, where a cricket was observed pollinating an orchid. Till now the process of pollinating was the preserve of honey bees, ants, beetles, hoverflies, butterflies, moths, birds and bats.

The pollination by cricket was recorded on a camera trap set up by orchid researcher Claire Micheneau in a Réunion forest. The species involved was an orchid called Angraecum cadetii.

Dr Micheneau's discovery has been published in the latest issue of journal Annals of Botany.