h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is an almost extinct frog from Israel ---fortunately they want to restore the wetlands and give it back its habitat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22770959

Thank you Elektra, that is great news and also very interesting! I hope the froggies are fruitful and multiply.

Here is a video of a Capercaillie you might like ... Dmitri ought to be able to translate some of it for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQtl6tuOrVA

Hey that was an amazing video. Do not mess with this bird! Are they always so agressive or was this mating season? I thought that that reporter was very brave as I wouldn't want to confront any critter with a beak like that. That bird could open cans with it.

I think it is only in the mating season that the males are that aggressive Elektra! Glad you liked the video.

Here is an astonishing and pretty sea creature, Willem.

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/nature/post/aquariums-new-critter-packs-a-pulverizing-punch/


It is a shrimp that packs quite a wallop.

Hello Willem and Elektra

Excuse me for jumping randomly but saw this and thought of two of you

this is one big bird



'A Maori legend about a giant, man-eating bird has been confirmed by scientists. Te Hokioi was a huge black-and-white predator with a red crest and yellow-green tinged wingtips, in an account given to Sir George Gray, an early governor of New Zealand.

It was said to be named after its cry and to have "raced the hawk to the heavens".

Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast's eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago, shows their study in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/maori-legend-of-maneating-bird-is-true-1786867.html

and there is a Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, I wonder how sharey they are

Wow that is a scary bird. It takes the prize from onery cassowaries as a threat however. . Thanks for the link. Peanut. Maybe all the cryptozoologists should take heart from this.

Hello Peanut and Elektra! Elektra, sorry for not having responded to the link to the mantis shrimp. Thanks for it, those are great! They're very difficult to keep in aquariums on account of being able to break the glass.

Thanks for the Haast's eagle story, Peanut! I've known about that eagle for long as well as claims it hunted not only moas but humans! Anyways to get the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology you must join the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology which costs $125. Not too bad except if you have no money. Anyways I get lots of paleo news by other means online!