Carnivorous Swamp Beast Discovered In Madagascar

crudmonkey writes "Researchers have identified a previously unknown species of carnivore lurking in one of the world's most endangered lakes. Durrell's vontsira, named in honor of the late conservationist and writer Gerald Durrell, was first photographed swimming in Madagascar's Lake Alaotra in 2004. Subsequent surveys confirmed the mongoose-like creature was indeed a new species. Durrell's vontsira is the first new carnivorous mammal discovered in Madagascar in 24 years. Little is known about the species, which is roughly the size of a cat."

Comments

I don't usually complain about summaries

[phantomfive]

I don't usually complain about the summaries (because I know they're all bad) but this one was a real disappointment to me. Carnivorous swamp beast?? I'm looking for this bad boy. But no, it's just a little cute furry guy, a little irate because someone is holding him by the throat. I would be irate too. OK, I know it's news, but such a disappointment.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Kenja]

You're looking for a tin submarine toy and plaster? But we found that years ago...

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Sulphur]

That's no vontsira, that's a water fox.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[syousef]

I don't usually complain about the summaries (because I know they're all bad) but this one was a real disappointment to me. Carnivorous swamp beast?? I'm looking for this bad boy. But no, it's just a little cute furry guy, a little irate because someone is holding him by the throat. I would be irate too. OK, I know it's news, but such a disappointment.

If it was a slashdotter vs that cute little guy, I'd put money on the beaver like thing. You're forgetting what years of living in a basement does to muscle. To most of us that is a BEAST.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't usually complain about the summaries (because I know they're all bad) but this one was a real disappointment to me.

But you aren't even complaining about the summary, you're complaining about the title.

If you'd read the summary you wouldn't have been disappointed by the pictures because of the following.

mongoose-like creature

roughly the size of a cat.

So stop complaining about the summary when you didn't even read the summary.

Also, heh. The captcha was "retorts".

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Hognoxious]

But no, it's just a little cute furry guy

I'd be careful about describing a previously unknown carnivore as cute. It might have been unknown because nobody met one before, but it could be because nobody who met one lived to tell about it.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Anonymous Coward]

...

Have you, uh, looked at the pictures of it in the article?

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[arivanov]

I will give you my mom's siamese to hold.

It is roughly the same size, is very old for a cat (17y), frail, slow and has terminal cancer.

Wanna try? I am happy to call the ambulance afterwards.

Never judgde a creature solely by its size. That is a very fine set of fangs and razorblades I see there...

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Nursie]

That's no vontsira. It's a space station.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Neil Boekend]

Your knowledge of rabbit carnivorous creatures is lacking my friend. Although it looks cute the Rabbit of Caerbannog should not be trifled with!
On a side note: is copy paste somehow destroyed on /.? I was trying to copy the name from Wikipedia but it will not paste.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[MonsterMasher]

But no, it's just a little cute furry guy

I'd be careful about describing a previously unknown carnivore as cute. It might have been unknown because nobody met one before, but it could be because nobody who met one lived to tell about it.

Short book title for you: The Legacy of Heorot (1987)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legacy_of_Heorot

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Anonymous Coward]

Yesterday I went out to buy some groceries. When I came back home my wife commented that the carrots I had bought were very big, so I told her: "If this is what the carrots look like, just imagine the size of the rabbit!"

She did not laugh. She does not share my sense of humor.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[moonbender]

I agree that rabbit should generally not be part of a trifle. That said, it's originally a British dish, so who knows.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting what years of living in a basement does to muscle.

Wait - what does years of a slashdotter living in the basement do to muscle? Oh, so as long as we hold the beastie in our right arms, we'll be fine?

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[agw]

Took them 24 years to find the cute babies. Just wait until they find the first full grown one.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Some1too]

I don't usually complain about the summaries (because I know they're all bad) but this one was a real disappointment to me. Carnivorous swamp beast?? I'm looking for this bad boy. But no, it's just a little cute furry guy, a little irate because someone is holding him by the throat. I would be irate too. OK, I know it's news, but such a disappointment. If it was a slashdotter vs that cute little guy, I'd put money on the beaver like thing. You're forgetting what years of living in a basement does to muscle. To most of us that is a BEAST.

I think the average slahdotter living in his basement would have no problem choking something of the size of a small rodent...

I tried to resist but it was just too easy. I feel like I should also state I live in a basement, post on slashdot and have a girlfriend... ;-)

S.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[oddaddresstrap]

Looks can be deceiving. The beast guarding the Cave of Kyle Banor in The Holy Grail was furry and cute, too.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Hognoxious]

Are there those that call you ... "Tim"?

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[TapeCutter]

"Never judgde a creature solely by its size"

I caught a cute little possum by the tail when I was a kid, it was a mistake I won't make again!

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[darthdavid]

I masturbate left-handed you insensitive clod!

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had that issues with Firefox under windows.

Try tapping the 'windows' key. It usually fixes it (for some reason firefox gets into an odd keys-have-a-different-meaning mode that isn't carrot browsing.) It involves combinations of the windows key and [ctrl], and possibly the multiple-desktops addon.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[shadowfaxcrx]

As long as we're picking nits, it's not new. It's just new to us. It's probably been around as long as, or longer than, we have.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[randizzle3000]

Haha...Palmela Handerson?

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Vexor]

About the size of a cat? Are we talking household "domestic" cat or .....? For science/news "about the size of x" is rather vague.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[cynyr]

copy paste seems to be destroyed for chrome on linux at least for me.

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[MokuMokuRyoushi]

Risking offtopic here, hit me.

Oddly, I've had the same ctrl+c ctrl+v issues. Are you perhaps using Chrome?

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[shadowbearer]

  Indeed. Anyone who considers something the size of a cat not dangerous, has never tried to bathe a cat.

  I tried. Once. He is 23lbs of gentle, loving, lazy tomcat with a permanent dander problem. That was five years and some odd months ago. I still have scars. I have the section of denim jeans I was wearing, that he tore four ragged six inch rips in (and the flesh underneath, 20 stitches). He didn't bite me, wasn't even after me in any serious manner, he just wanted to get the hell out of the bathtub.

  Just because they are small, furry, and cute, does not mean they are harmless. Think of what one of the critters like the one in the article could do if it decided to take you out while you were sleeping...

SB

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[Neil Boekend]

Yes. They try to disable us. The insensitive clods!

Re:I don't usually complain about summaries

[BraksDad]

Just keep it away from water after midnight

R.O.U.S.

[schlesinm]

Obviously it's a Rodent Of Unusual Size.

Re:R.O.U.S.

[The_mad_linguist]

Look, which is a more sensible size for a Carnivorous Swamp Beast? "Roughly the size of a cat", or "roughly the size of a car"?

I can get a poet to testify under oath if necessary.

Re:R.O.U.S.

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Look, which is a more sensible size for a Carnivorous Swamp Beast? "Roughly the size of a cat", or "roughly the size of a car"?

Roughly the size of Cthulhu.

Re:R.O.U.S.

[Arancaytar]

More like a Rodent Of Usual Size. It's not much larger than a rat. :P

Re:R.O.U.S.

[MichaelSmith]

I don't believe they exist.

Re:R.O.U.S.

[Neil Boekend]

Carnivorous swamp beasts often make a very good meal of visiting tourists.

FTFY

Re:R.O.U.S.

[AVryhof]

Carnivorous swamp beasts often make a very good meal of forty visiting tourists.

FTFY

FTFY

Re:R.O.U.S.

[thousandinone]

Roughly the size of Cthulhu.

But Cthulhu can change size at will...

Re:R.O.U.S.

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Obviously it's a Rodent Of Unusual Size.

So is your mom.

Re:R.O.U.S.

[BraksDad]

AMC Gremlin?

and then...

[OnePumpChump]

it went extinct.

Re:and then...

[Fluffeh]

it went extinct.

Oh come on, that's not trolling. The creature in question lives in a single lake. The land around the lake, which used to be heavy forest has been cut down. This now causes all the soil to get dumped into the lake whenever it rains. Even this article itself said that so much soil has been dumped into the lake that during the dry season, the level of water drops to a depth of 2 feet!

The comment there isn't a -Troll. It is merely prematurely +Informative.

Re:and then...

[andr00oo]

The land around the lake, which used to be heavy forest has been cut down.

The land has been cut down? Weird

Re:and then...

[LizardKing]

The uncompacted soil absorbs most of the water which previously remained standing on a thick, compacted and sludgy lake bottom. The soil has also raised the lake bed, which allows the water to drain off more easily into the denuded land surrounding the lake - soil which is less tightly bound together thanks to the increasing absence of deep rooted vegetation.

Re:and then...

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to think that a lake is as simple as a impermeable bathtub or a bowl with a fixed volume of water. It isn't. Water has a constant volume, but we aren't dealing with a constant volume. It's a dynamically flowing system. And the basin in which the water sits isn't fixed either.

Infilling of lakes by sediment happens all the time, and, yes, it does result in shallowing of the lake and its eventual conversion into dry (or at least swampy) land. Lakes rarely deepen. Vegetation and sediment usually fills them up unless some process is regularly cleaning that material out (e.g., river erosion), dissolving the bedrock (e.g., in limestone areas) or the lake bottom is subsiding for some reason (e.g., tectonics or sediment compaction).

Lakes are at a given level because of an equilibrium between inflow and outflow. Inflows can be from direct precipitation, from water on the surface of the land (i.e. runoff) or can be subsurface (i.e. groundwater). Outflows can also be over the surface or into the groundwater, plus evaporation. Independent of the water inflow and outflow, the equilibrium level is often strongly determined by the terrain and the effect it has on those inflow/outflow rates. For example, if the lake level overtops a natural barrier, then the outflow increases greatly and the lake doesn't get significantly higher no matter how much extra water flows in. Think of it like a natural dam with a reservoir behind it. In this circumstance, if "extra dirt" fills to the level of the top of the dam, then guess what? No more lake. All you have is mud-filled plain and maybe a river flowing over it. Change the shape of the terrain (e.g., by dumping sediment on it) and even with the same amount of water passing through the system and no change in climate you can make a lake disappear entirely. The water flow is still there, but it may be largely in the groundwater, not forming a pool on the surface.

In areas where vegetation is stripped away another effect comes into play. Not only will you deliver more sediment into the lake due to increased erosion, but you also change the timing and rates at which water flows over the terrain and into the groundwater. Vegetation acts as a kind of buffer, so that when heavy rains fall, it tends to soak up the water like a sponge and impede its flow. This has three important effects: 1) it increases the amount of infiltration of surface water into the groundwater, 2) it slows down the surface flow and prolongs it, and 3) it decreases the peak amount of surface flow. This means that if you strip away the vegetation more of the water fill flow quickly down the slopes into the lake basin, overtop the natural barriers, and keep on going down the drainage system. Raging river floods will become more common. Whereas if the plants are there, the water will be released more slowly into the lake and there is more groundwater, replenishing the lake in between the rainstorms. This difference in flow amounts and timing can mean the difference between the lake drying out completely between rainfalls and merely being lower, even with the rainfall pattern being exactly the same as it was before.

All other things kept the same, stripping away vegetation around a lake will often have profound effects. It's one of the reasons that it is standard practice in environmentally responsible parts of the world to leave a significant buffer of forest around lakes to try to minimize the effect of human activities.

Re:and then...

[TapeCutter]

When I was 3 or 4 years old I spent a lot of time mixing dirt with water and all I got was mud, but that was back in the early 60's so maybe things have changed?

Re:and then...

[elrous0]

If a species goes extinct in the woods, and some whiny group of hippies never knew it existed, did it really ever exist?

Which is it? Or is it both?

[adamofgreyskull]

Beneath the picture, is this:

Durrell's vontsira is the first new carnivorous mammal discovered in Madagascar in 24 years.

Elsewhere in the article, twice, is this:

The first new carnivorous mammal to be discovered for 24 years

Was the last carnivorous mammal that was discovered, discovered 24 years ago in Madagascar? I don't know about anyone else, but I would infer from the qualifier "in Madagascar" that a carnivorous mammal was discovered less than 24 years ago somewhere else in the world.

Re:Which is it? Or is it both?

[Kilrah_il]

I guess they assume that having written "in Madagascar" once, you would understand the point and they would not need to keep repeating it. OTOH, why pass up an opportunity for being unnecessarily pedantic.

Re:Which is it? Or is it both?

[GoochOwnsYou]

I agree with parent. The latter sentence is implying there hasn't been a carnivorous mammal discovered in 24 years at all and if that is not the case then it should specify "in Madagascar"

Re:Which is it? Or is it both?

[norminator]

Do you agree with the parent of your post, or that parent's parent, that is to say, the grandparent (for you, but the great grandparent to me)?

We're all vulnerable to pedantic jerks, so let's all just start letting some crap slide.

Re:Which is it? Or is it both?

[Dabido]

I discovered my ex-wife around about 24 years ago. She was a swamp beast carnivorous thing. She wasn't from Madagascar though, she was from Sydney, Australia!

First things first

[jamesh]

what does it taste like?

Re:First things first

[fotbr]

Chicken.

Re:First things first

[$RANDOMLUSER]

That's just Western chauvinism. For example, in Japan, parents tell their children that chicken "tastes just like squid".

Re:First things first

[ozmanjusri]

...And in Shunga Japan, squid parents tell their children that fishermen's wives taste just like fish.

Re:First things first

[LearnToSpell]

Doubtful. Carnivorous animals tend to taste awful.

Re:First things first

[PolygamousRanchKid]

what does it taste like?

It probably tastes, like whatever it ate.

Re:First things first

[xaxa]

Had Charles Darwin discovered the animal, he'd probably have tried it. (ref).

Re:First things first

[Beriaru]

You probably wouldn't tell appart cat from rabbit in a stew.

Re:First things first

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> what does it taste like?

A bit like Dodo bird with a hint of Moa.

Re:First things first

[moonbender]

Tuna tastes pretty good to me. Lots of other reasons for not eating it all that often, though.

Re:First things first

[elrous0]

Being someone who is very rich I can tell you that bald eagle tastes a lot like giant panda.

Re:First things first

[RealGrouchy]

I'm not so sure. Some of my vegetarian friends have very bad taste.

- RG>

Re:First things first

[Laxori666]

You begin to eat the fox corpse. This fox corpse tastes terrible!

Re:First things first

[wisdom_brewing]

I quite like the taste of a pig raised on human flesh...

Re:First things first

[CAIMLAS]

I'd not be surprised if it tastes like pork, which tastes like cat, bear, and beaver (of type rodentia - the other kind tastes like fish).

Quite possibly, it has a stringy, dark meat which is bitter unless stewed (and then becomes quite savory).

Re:First things first

[LearnToSpell]

Pigs aren't carnivores. Neither are bears, and beavers don't eat meat at all. I have no idea what cat tastes like... that I know of. :)

Re:First things first

[jamesh]

They've just started playing the Goodies again here in Australia. I'm hanging out for the Dodo episode :)

Re:First things first

[ElderKorean]

Doubtful. Carnivorous animals tend to taste awful.

Many of the fish species that we eat are carnivores though

We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[ParkedStar]

The...'beast'...has most probably NEVER encountered humans before...and I'm sure if I were a small animal who has lived most of my quiet existence never crossing the path of a 20-fingered, land-dwelling giant and suddenly found myself being strangled, dangling in the air in front of 2+ of these foreigners and kidnapped from my perfectly-fine home and family; I'd be questioning who the beast really is.

Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[mister_playboy]

20-fingered

Inbreed much? :)

Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[tokul]

Now, an animal with 20 fingers [wikipedia.org] would be new to science.

In some languages toe uses same noun as finger. 10 fingers + 10 toes = 20.

Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[Anonymous Coward]

The...'beast'...has most probably NEVER encountered humans before...

I wouldn't say so, as this region is quite populated. I bet that this species was already well known amongst local natives, but simply not to our scientists.

Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[Sique]

I mean, the discovery of even 8 digits to a limb would be quite the curiosity.

I hereby present you the Acanthostega, which has eight digits per arm. The number of toes per limb is yet unknown. But the Ichthyostega, which has seven digits per arm, has also seven toes per limb, so I would not be surprised if newly found fossils would show eight toes per limb for the Acanthostega.

Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[CProgrammer98]

8 fingers + 2 thumbs + 10 toes = 20 digits

Fixed.

Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[tokul]

Your point is?

An animal with 20 digits is not new to science. Homo sapiens has 20 digits. Original poster only confused fingers with digits.

Re:We are so quick to label it a 'beast'

[RevWaldo]

Look, do you want a SyFy original movie based on this critter (Swamp Beast!, starring Lucy Lawless and Erik Estrada) or don't you?

.

species

[nxcho]

I hope they name it Jozin.

Re:species

[spineboy]

Maybe they can bomb it with the collectives crop duster.

beast , Any animal other than a human

[Anonymous Coward]

for some reason you're assuming beast has a different meaning

Sjezus Christ!

[santax]

It is coming right for us!

Nessie

[Ron Bakker]

See .... the lochness monster is not that improbable ...

I was hoping....

[Fizzol]

for Mokele-mbembe.

It seems very nervous in the pictures.

[SharpFang]

Did they try wrapping towels around their heads to calm it down?

New film anyone

[dredwerker]

Madagascar 4 the wild beast of the lake - a homecoming story.

Its head looks a bit weasel-like

[Arancaytar]

Minus the ears.

Explanatory You Tube Link

[Liambp]

For those who didn't get the reference above to Jozin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4aqM_wu6Ns

Debianicus Ice Weaselius

[flyingfsck]

To me, it looks like an African Dassie, which like cockroaches, will *never* go extinct. However, maybe it is the illusive Debianicus Ice Weaselius?

Endangered Lake???

[x_IamSpartacus_x]

Ok... what the heck is an endangered lake? Aren't all lakes different and therefore "the last just like it", therefore endangered? If there's only one left of any species of animal that animal would be endangered, so wouldn't you say that every lake is endangered simply because it's the last and only of it's kind? Am I missing something?

Re:Endangered Lake???

[flyingfsck]

Well, you go to be careful. When a lake is in danger, it will curl up into a ball and pee on your foot...

Re:Endangered Lake???

[sznupi]

A critter with only one living individual left isn't endangered, it's functionally extinct.

Is it Old Greg?

[definate]

I imagine that whatever this is, it must be Old Greg.

He doesn't like people playin' in his waters. He's gonna hurt you, he likes you, what do you think of him? Don't lie to him boy!

He knows what you're thinking, he's Old Greg, he's a scaly man fish!

An orange is just a carrot of unusual size

[k2r]

> Obviously it's a Rodent Of Unusual Size.
The most obvious feature defining rodents are their teeth.
The most obvious feature of the newly discovered animal to see in the picture(s) are its teeth which are about as non rodent as an animal's teeth can be.

Re:An orange is just a carrot of unusual size

[captainpanic]

Indeed... it seems closer to an otter (non rodent) than a beaver (rodent).

Re:An orange is just a carrot of unusual size

[Greyfox]

It looks like a mustilid of some sort, though it might also be some offshoot of mongoose (Which I think are not in that family.) I can't see its ears in that photo. It could just be someone's pet badger that got loose...

Re:An orange is just a carrot of unusual size

[Stargoat]

It's not even classified as a Musteloidea. According to the Wikipedia article, the Salanoia durrelli is from a completely different family, endemic to only Madagascar. If you look careful at the teeth, you'll see they don't resemble Musteloidea in the least.

Poor thing looks absolutely terrified.

Re:An orange is just a carrot of unusual size

[smillie]

quote: Poor thing looks absolutely terrified.

It's not scruffed and the person is holding the feet up. If that animal were unhappy (like some of my ferrets get) there would be some serious blood from bites and claw rips.

Re:An orange is just a carrot of unusual size

[CAIMLAS]

The look of this creature is very similar to that of a badger or a wolverine - I'd not be surprised if it were related.

It also has a tail and shares a lot of characteristics with the lemur; I wonder if it might not be related to the lemur and have a marsupial heritage?

Depending on its age, it may be young (ie not full grown). It looks like a younger creature.

Rabbit of Caerbannog

[BrightSpark]

Ni!

Its teh chupacabra!

[xmorg]

You were warned! We told you! You wouldnt listen! how many more time swill you ingore us wen the aliens come!!!!

Durrell

[Anne_Nonymous]

For what it's worth, Durrell wrote a number of fun books about Zoology and his explorations of the natural world. I'd recommend them as good beach reading or for young people interested in animals or natural sciences.

Re:And this is on /. because ...?

[Yamata no Orochi]

Stuff that matters? Are you kidding? What's next? Filing weather forecasts?

...Discovery of new species posted as a Slashdot Science story. And you're complaining? Give me some examples of what YOU think the Science column should post.

New Species?

[bigrockpeltr]

looks like our local mongooses ( which im not sure are unique to our island. )

Size of a cat?

[InsertCleverUsername]

Dang. Reading the summary, I was all excited until they ruined it at the end by revealing that it was only "the size of a cat." Mondays are filled with disappointment.

There are cats and there are cats

[voss]

they are talking about cats overseas which weigh 6 to 10 lbs not those supersize 20 lb cats that live in the usa.
Im not talking about the superfat overfed cats in the US im talking about the generally larger breeds here in the US. The domestic
cat breeds in Africa and asia tend to be quite a bit smaller and slender.

When the article says that animal is as large as a cat, they mean a smaller african domestic cat.

Re:There are cats and there are cats

[sznupi]

One other thing might be contributing greatly - this is an aquatic animal. Cats are furry; they become much slender and smaller when totally soaked.

Good news, everyone!

[paiute]

It lives only in Madagascar, so no matter how nasty it is, it will be extinct in ten years.

Another reason...

[Thelasko]

to support your local cryptozoologist.

Hell...

[dvoecks]

Jimmy Carter was attacked by a scarier-looking swamp beast than that!

And in this slide..

[phrackwulf]

We have a close-up of a feature of the animals jaw we call the "durellitzer" after the late Gerard Durrell. *shudder* poor man.

Re:Looks Tasty.

[phrackwulf]

Chuck Norris

Re:And this is on /. because ...?

[yet-another-lobbyist]

* Quantum Computing
* Bandwidth of Optical Fibers
* Transistors based on Graphene
* New Display Technology
* New Input Devices
* Image Recognitions Techniques
* Encryption Algorithms
* Computer-powered Mathematics
* Computer-powered Physics
* New Processor Designs
* Laser technology (data transmission)
* Integrated Optics
* Magnetic (and optical) storage
* Solar Cells and other alternative energies

... and if I spend ten more minutes, I can probably come up with 50 more items which I believe are more interesting and relevant to geeks and the technology they like use and like to have in the future. Sounds a lot more "sexy" to me than a rodent-like looking little creature.
Sure, I will admit that my point of view is subjective. Everyone is free to disagree; different readers will prefer different topics. But how is my contribution "off-topic"? There are lots of comments every day discussing whether a submission is "worthy". I thought that this would be a valuable kind of feedback.

Amazing

[cloakedpegasus]

I'm still amazed at how we are still discovering new species.

Re:And this is on /. because ...?

[MozeeToby]

Not one of those things should be under the 'Science' heading, which is what the question was in reference to. Besides, just because the only subject you care about is technology doesn't mean that biology isn't interesting science to a lot of other people. Discovering a carnivorous mammal for the first time is quite rare, as the article says, the last time it happened was 24 years ago.

Also dissapointed...

[Ecuador]

"Carnivorous swamp beast"... Oh, come on! I was expecting something close to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal and all I go is a groundhog with better dental hygiene and a temper...

New Carnivorous Beast Discovered?

[UndyingShadow]

New Carnivorous Beast Discovered? In Madagascar? SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!

Re:I don't usually complain about nicks on /.

[phantomfive]

lol Ironically I actually do have a picture of myself looking somewhat like the first one, glowing photoshopped lightsaber and everything.

Re:And this is on /. because ...?

[yet-another-lobbyist]

I respectfully disagree on which of these items would be called science or technology. The Physics Nobel Prize was just awarded for graphene with all its electronic applications. So you do not deem it science. Well, you have your right to your point of view.
And, btw, it was the first time in 24 years in Madagaskar that they found a new carnivore (at least according to the summary). So it may not be as rare an event considering how many countries and islands there are around the globe...

Re:Huge Hands

[sznupi]

Hm, so not only humans in the US are overfed...

Re:And this is on /. because ...?

[sznupi]

All of the listed areas practically didn't exist a mere century ago, most not really even half of that time (and some can be easily looked at more as areas of engineering)

I didn't realize science was such a young thing...

An example of a newfound beast which will be soon extinct, prompting is (perhaps... slightly...) to take a closer look at holocene extinction event - a very transformative thing - is decently notable.