Coin Sized Frog Found - One of World's Smallest (March 30, 2009)
As the smallest known frog species in the world's second largest mountain range, this new amphibian is easy to miss. But scientists searching the Andes mountains' upper Cosnipata Valley in southern Peru, near Cusco, spotted the coin-size creature--a member of the Noblella genus--in the leaf litter of a cloud forest between 9,925 and 10,466 feet (3,025 and 3,190 meters).
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Source: National Geographic |
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Rare Zoo Cubs Born, Not Killed
(March 27, 2009) Nine lives still intact, two newborn clouded leopard cubs were found Tuesday morning in their mother's enclosure at a Virginia conservation center. Unlike many captive clouded leopard babies, they have not been killed or neglected by their mother.
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Source: National Geographic |
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New Species Photos: Jumping Spiders, Odd Gecko, More
(March 26, 2009) A "large and spectacular"-and possibly new-tree frog species of the Nyctimystes genus squats near a clear mountain river during a 2008 expedition in Papua New Guinea. The frog is one of 50 potential new species discovered during the expedition, Conservation International (CI) announced today.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Lemur Forests Pillaged by "Gangs" as Madagascar Reels (March 25, 2009)
With Madagascar's government paralyzed after a recent coup, looters are invading the African island country's protected wildlife sanctuaries, harvesting trees and threatening critically endangered lemurs and other species, conservationists said this week. Marojejy National Park in northern Madagascar has been closed to tourism. In other parks, rangers are abandoning their posts, according to reports.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Rat Attack in India Set Off by Bamboo Flowering (March 24, 2009)
Throughout Asia, the bamboo plant is revered as a potent symbol of longevity and good fortune. But in northeastern India's Mizoram state, there's one bamboo species, Melocanna baccifera, that causes dread. The plant flowers every 48 to 50 years, and its blooming brings tens of millions of hungry rats. After they devour the bamboo fruit, they consume crops, destroying entire fields - and local livelihoods - in a day or two.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Rare Fuzzy Rodent Found in Peru (March 23, 2009)
It seems even isolated mountain mice like to have a wash before getting their picture taken. This recently bathed rodent is among four unexpected species likely new to science that were found high in the Peruvian Andes, scientists with the nonprofit Conservation International announced Thursday.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Bird "Wives" Ruin Males' Songs When Females Approach
(March 19, 2009) Some female songbirds sweet singing turns downright catty when another chick enters the picture. Peruvian warbling antbird couples harmonize to warn rival couples away from their territories. But put a single female nearby and the duet turns into a musical shouting match.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Woolly Bear Caterpillars Self Medicate - A Bug First
(March 16, 2009) Some caterpillars munch on drug-laced leaves to rid themselves of crippling parasites, a new study finds. The research, which involved furry moth larvae called woolly bears, is the first clear demonstration of self-medication among insects, said lead author Elizabeth Bernays of the University of Arizona.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Monkeys That Floss With Human Hair Learn From Mom?
(March 13, 2009) Long-tailed macaque monkeys teach their babies to clean their teeth, according to a new study that says females slow down and exaggerate their motions when they notice their young watching them floss. Macaques living near a Buddhist shrine in Lopburi, Thailand, are known to pull out hair from visitors to use as floss. Worshipers see the monkeys as divine servants, the researchers said, which helps explain why people let the macaques pull out their hair.
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Source: National Geographic |
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New "Dracula Fish" Discovered (March 12, 2009)
While he may not vant to suck your blood, the male fish seen above does sport spooky-looking fangs that have earned it the name Danionella dracula. Researchers at London's Natural History Museum found several of the new species (bottom) in a tank of aquarium fish. Initially museum staff had thought the 0.7-inch-long (1.7-centimeter-long) creatures, caught in Myanmar (Burma), were part of an already known, related species.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Smallest Whale Shark Discovered - On a Leash (March 11, 2009)
A local whale shark "interaction officer" cradles what is likely the smallest known wild example of the world's biggest fish on Saturday in San Antonio, Philippines (map). (See video below for baby-adult size comparison.) The discovery of the baby whale shark could help protect these rare giants by shedding light on where whale sharks are born.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Baby Blue Whale Caught on Film Underwater (March 09, 2009)
A baby blue whale filmed off Costa Rica may be the first to have been photographed underwater and adds to evidence that a blue whale hot spot in the Pacific Ocean is a birthing ground for the endangered species. During a January 2008 expedition to the "Dome"-a warm-water region that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away-the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Curious Octopus Floods Aquarium (March 04, 2009)
For one dexterous octopus, an attempt at a great escape turned into a great flood Thursday at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California. The female California two-spotted octopus swam to the top of her tank, disassembled a valve with her powerful arm, and released at least 200 gallons (757 liters) of seawater into nearby exhibits and offices.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Giant Stingray: Largest Freshwater Fish? (February 27, 2009)
Fishers and scientists announced this week the catch, and release, of what is likely the world's largest known freshwater giant stingray. The giant stingray, weighing an estimated 550 to 990 pounds (250 to 450 kilograms) was reeled in on January 28, 2009, as part of a National Geographic expedition in Thailand.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Endangered Cats Trapped by Cameras (February 25, 2009)
Its eyes reflecting a flash, an extremely rare male northwest African cheetah triggers one of the first ever Algerian camera-trap pictures of this Saharan subspecies in late summer 2008. Released February 23, the pictures represent a first step toward protecting the elusive cheetahs, which are thought to number only about 250 and are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Fish With Transparent Head, "Barrel" Eyes (February 24, 2009)
With a head like a fighter-plane cockpit, a Pacific barreleye fish shows off its highly sensitive, barrel-like eyes-topped by green, orblike structures-in a picture released today but taken in 2004. The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California's central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact.
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Source: National Geographic |
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How TB Jumps from Humans to Wildlife - Vet Seeks Clues
(February 22, 2009) In ordinary circumstances, Kathleen Alexander would gladly have let her two kids run around the front yard on their own. But during her stint as senior wildlife veterinary officer for Botswana's Department of Wildlife and National Parks from 1995 to 2001, things were not exactly normal. Their front yard was Chobe National Park, a 4,000-square-mile (10,360 square-kilometer) park in northern Botswana with lots of free-ranging wildlife. Alexander always went outside with her children, so they wouldn't get "smushed by an elephant." But one sunny day in June 2000, she encountered a different problem: two banded mongooses, so thin their ribs stuck out, wandering around the sand pit where the children liked to play. These groundhog-sized animals are common through sub-Saharan Africa, but they run away from humans. Alarmingly, these mongooses weren't afraid of her. "It was clear they were sick," she recalled.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Hairy-Tailed Rat is New Species (February 21, 2009)
Say howdy to the Hamiguitan hairy-tailed rat, the newest member of our mammalian family. The yellow-brown rodent was discovered in 2006 in pygmy forests of Mount Hamiguitan on the Philippines' Mindanao island, but was only recently identified as a new species. The mammal was so distinctive that DNA testing was not needed to determine it as a new species.
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Source: National Geographic |
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"Extinct" Bird Seen, Eaten (February 20, 2009)
A rare quail from the Philippines was photographed for the first time before being sold as food at a poultry market, experts say. Found only on the island of Luzon, Worcester's buttonquail was known solely through drawings based on dated museum specimens collected several decades ago.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Bleak Outlook for Bombed Gaza Zoo (February 19, 2009)
Hundreds of Palestinian schoolchildren used to come to the Gaza Zoo every week, but not now. Tanks rolled through the area during the Israeli offensive. Much of the zoo was badly damaged, most of the animals died. Cage after cage lies empty. Ostrich feathers are strewn close to a crater in the ground, beside the mangled steel bars of what was the birds' pen.
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Source: BBC |
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Saving Jaguars, Tigers can Prevent Human Diseases? (February 17, 2009)
Jaguars and other big cats can protect humans from the rise of future pandemics akin to HIV and bird flu. That's the message freshly trained "doctor conservationists" will be taking into the field as part of a new collaboration between a wildlife-protection nonprofit and a teaching hospital.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Migratory Songbird Mystery Solved (February 14, 2009)
For the first time, scientists have tracked entire migration routes of individual songbirds, following them thousands of miles further than in earlier studies and revealing the birds fly two to three times faster than previously known. The new information will aid future conservation efforts.
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Source: National Geographic |
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First Extinct Animal Clone Created (February 11, 2009)
An extinct animal has been resurrected by cloning for the first time-though the clone died minutes after birth. Findings revealed January 23 in the journal Theriogenology describe the use of frozen skin in 2003 to clone a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex, a subspecies of Spanish ibex that went extinct in 2000.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Salamanders "Completely Gone" Due to Global Warming?
(February 10, 2009) Silent and secretive creatures, salamanders are just as quietly falling off the map in tropical forests throughout Central America, a new study says. Two common species surveyed in the 1970s in cloud forests of southern Mexico and Guatemala are extinct, and several others have plummeted in number, researchers say.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Where are all the Migratory Birds Going? (February 08, 2009)
The bobolink, a North American relative of blackbirds, finds its wintering grounds in South America by reading the sun and stars, Earth's landscape and magnetic fields, and polarized light humans can't even see. This songbird travels 6,000 miles (9,656 kilometers) with no guide-and he's only a few months old.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Wolf-Dog Mating Led to Darker Wolves (February 07, 2009)
The black wolves that haunt scary stories would have been mere fiction were it not for domestic dogs. A recent study surprised scientists by revealing that the gene for darker coats in gray wolves, at least in North America, originated in our best furry friends. Although it's well known that dogs descended from wolves, the new finding implies that some genetic material moved backward in the evolutionary chain.
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Source: National Geographic |
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How to Eat Ants without Getting Bitten (February 04, 2009)
Harvester ants are among the most aggressive and venomous stinging insects known. Although their stings, in quantity, can kill, the horned lizard captures harvesters by the dozen - in a typical lizardlike manner. What comes next, however, doesn't conform to typical lizard table manners.
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Source: Live Science |
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Brainy Birds Out-Thought Doomed Dinosaurs?
(February 03, 2009) Birds survived the global catastrophe that wiped out their dinosaur relatives due to superior brainpower, a new study suggests. The idea came from examining a pair of prehistoric seabirds found in southeast England by Victorian-era fossil hunters, according to researchers from the Natural History Museum in London.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Manatees Head South
(February 02, 2009) Each winter, hordes of manatees congregate in the warm waters of the Florida Everglades. And a National Geographic researcher is working to see if the species is recovering.
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Source: National Geographic |
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"Immortal" Jellyfish Swarm World's Oceans (January 31, 2009)
A potentially "immortal" jellyfish species that can age backward-the Benjamin Button of the deep-is silently invading the world's oceans, swarm by swarm, a recent study says. Like the Brad Pitt movie character, the immortal jellyfish transforms from an adult back into a baby, but with an added bonus: Unlike Benjamin Button, the jellyfish can do it over and over again-though apparently only as an emergency measure.
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Source: National Geographic |
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"Grumpy" Reptile Becomes Dad at 111 (January 28, 2009)
A captive reptile in New Zealand has unexpectedly become a father at the ripe old age of 111 after receiving treatment for a cancer that made him hostile toward prospective mates. The centenarian tuatara, named Henry, was thought well past the mating game until he was caught canoodling with a female named Mildred last March-a consummation (pictured above) that resulted in 11 babies being hatched on Monday.
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Source: National Geographic |
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New Climbing Catfish Identified
(January 26, 2009) This fish out of water is a newly identified species from a remote region in Venezuela. The catfish handily inches along rocks using its highly flexible pelvic fins (bottom, the two leg-like appendages) and wide mouth as grasping tools. Such climbing ken may be crucial for the fish, which live in strong, high-flow streams.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Lizards Evolving Rapidly to Survive Deadly Fire Ants
(January 23, 2009) Long legs and skittish behavior are recently evolved traits that allow fence lizards in the southeastern U.S. to co-exist with lethal and invasive fire ants, according to a new study. The new findings could boost hopes for species whose habitats are quickly changing due to climate change, experts say.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Little Dung Beetle is Big Chopper (January 21, 2009)
It was rooted at the rear end of the food chain, but now the humble dung beetle is biting back. A ferocious scarab species has been filmed in Peru attacking and eating millipedes 10 times its length. D. valgum no longer dines on faeces. Instead, the nocturnal predator prefers to decapitate live prey with its armour "teeth" and then devour their insides.
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Source: BBC |
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Submarine Reveals Unknown Species (January 19, 2009)
Australian scientists say they have found new marine life off the country's southern coast. A remote-controlled submarine sent back pictures of deep sea creatures never seen before. Laura Sheeter reports.
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Source: BBC |
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Tags Reveal Birds' Ocean Odyssey (January 17, 2009)
Electronic tags have offered an insight into the mysteries of the 20,000km migration of Manx shearwaters. A team of UK scientists found that the birds made regular "stopovers" lasting up to two weeks, probably to feed and replenish their energy reserves. The data was recovered from logging tags fitted to six breeding pairs of Puffinus puffinus from Skomer Island, off the coast of Wales.
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Source: BBC |
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Death in Filey Bay (January 15, 2009)
For the past three summers, the RSPB has become increasingly concerned about razorbill and guillemot deaths reportedly caused by the birds drowning in fishing nets set for salmon and sea trout in Filey Bay, North Yorkshire. If left unchecked, this has the potential to be a huge conservation issue, particularly considering the dying birds are most likely coming from the nearby, internationally important RSPB Bempton Cliffs seabird colony, so in early 2008 we engaged in discussions with Natural England and the Environment Agency (EA), who license the fishery.
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Source: RSPB |
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Rabbits Devastate Island Wildlife (January 14, 2009)
The removal of cats in 2000 caused "catastrophic" damage to the ecology of a sub-Antarctic island, a study says. Since cats were removed from Macquarie Island, rabbit numbers have soared, and the animals are now devastating plants.
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Source: BBC |
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Hunters Speeding up Evolution of Trophy Prey? (January 13, 2009)
Human hunters are pushing their prey to evolve faster than they would naturally, resulting in smaller and younger individuals over time, according to a new study. Hunters' desire for the largest individuals-the "trophies"-influences plant and animal populations faster than natural selection and even other human impacts, such as pollution and habitat destruction.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Ants Smell Cheaters and Assault Them, Study Finds (January 11, 2009)
If a worker ant dares to reproduce in the presence of the queen, her sisters will smell her attempt and attack, according to a new study. Typically, only queens produce offspring in an ant colony, and males die after mating. The sons and the daughter queens fly away, with hopes of reproducing elsewhere, while the worker daughters stay on to build the colony and care for the next generation.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Male Cheetah Bark Triggers Female Ovulation (January 10, 2009)
Male cheetahs turn females on-literally. That's because a specific bark triggers the female reproductive system to release eggs, researchers have found. Unlike other cat species, female cheetahs ovulate rarely and at unusual times. They also lack a regular reproductive cycle.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Venomous Mammal Caught on Camera (January 09, 2009)
Rare footage of one of the world's most strange and elusive mammals has been captured by scientists. Large, and with a long, thin snout, the Hispaniolan solenodon resembles an overgrown shrew; it can inject passing prey with a venom-loaded bite.
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Source: BBC |
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Pink Iguana Species Discovered
(January 07, 2009) A new species of Galápagos iguana has scientists tickled pink. The pink iguana, named after its salmon-colored skin, lives only on the Wolf volcano on the island of Isabela. Charles Darwin did not visit the volcano on his travels to the Ecuadorian island chains in the 1830s, so the creature remained undiscovered until 1986, when it was spotted by park rangers. Only now has it been recognized as its own species.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Kayakers Escape Shark
(January 05, 2009) Kayakers survive an encounter with a great white shark. Amateur video shows the shark circling the kayakers in the waters near Sydney, Australia.
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Source: National Geographic |
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Top Ten Animal Finds: Most Read of 2008 (January 01, 2009)
A vampire moth, a gremlin-like primate, and an "alien" squid were among the discoveries that haunted the animal kingdom in the most read stories about creatures covered by National Geographic News in 2008.
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Source: National Geographic |
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