Embryonic Sharks Freeze to Avoid Detection

Jane J. Lee

Although shark pups are born with all the equipment they'll ever need to defend themselves and hunt down food, developing embryos still stuck in their egg cases are vulnerable to predators. But a new study finds that even these baby sharks can detect a potential predator, and play possum to avoid being eaten.

Every living thing gives off a weak electrical field. Sharks can sense this with a series of pores—called the ampullae of Lorenzini—on their heads and around their eyes, and some species rely on this electrosensory ability to find food buried in the seafloor. (See pictures of electroreceptive fish.)

Two previous studies on the spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) and the clearnose skate (Raja eglanteria)—a relative of sharks—found similar freezing behavior in their young. But new research by shark biologist and doctoral student Ryan Kempster at the University of Western Australia has given scientists a more thorough understanding of this behavior.

It all started because Kempster wanted to build a better shark repellent. Since he needed to know how sharks respond to electrical fields, Kempster decided to use embryos. "It's very hard to test this in the field because you need to get repeated responses," he said. And you can't always get the same shark to cooperate multiple times. "But we could use embryos because they're contained within an egg case."

Cloaking Themselves

So Kempster got his hands on 11 brownbanded bamboo shark (Chiloscyllium punctatum) embryos and tested their reactions to the simulated weak electrical field of a predator. (Popular pictures: Bamboo shark swallowed whole—by another shark.)

In a study published today in the journal PLoS One, Kempster and his colleagues report that all of the embryonic bamboo sharks, once they reached later stages of development, reacted to the electrical field by ceasing gill movements (essentially, holding their breath), curling their tails around their bodies, and freezing.

A bamboo shark embryo normally beats its tail to move fresh seawater in and out of its egg case. But that generates odor cues and small water currents that can give away its position. The beating of its gills as it breathes also generates an electrical field that predators can use to find it.

"So it cloaks itself," said neuroecologist Joseph Sisneros, at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. "[The embryo] shuts down any odor cues, water movement, and its own electrical signal."

Sisneros, who conducted the previous clearnose skate work, is delighted to see that this shark species also reacts to external electrical fields and said it would be great to see whether this is something all shark, skate, and ray embryos do.

Marine biologist Stephen Kajiura, at Florida Atlantic University, is curious to know how well the simulated electrical fields compare to the bamboo shark's natural predators—the experimental field was on the higher end of the range normally given off.

"[But] they did a good job with [the study]," Kajiura said. "They certainly did a more thorough study than anyone else has done."

Electrifying Protection?

In addition to the freezing behavior he recorded in the bamboo shark embryos, Kempster found that the shark pups remembered the electrical field signal when it was presented again within 40 minutes and that they wouldn't respond as strongly to subsequent exposures as they did initially.

This is important for developing shark repellents, he said, since some of them use electrical fields to ward off the animals. "So if you were using a shark repellent, you would need to change the current over a 20- to 30-minute period so the shark doesn't get used to that field."

Kempster envisions using electrical fields to not only keep humans safe but to protect sharks as well. Shark populations have been on the decline for decades, due partly to ending up as bycatch, or accidental catches, in the nets and on the longlines of fishers targeting other animals.

A 2006 study estimated that as much as 70 percent of landings, by weight, in the Spanish surface longline fleet were sharks, while a 2007 report found that eight million sharks are hooked each year off the coast of southern Africa. (Read about the global fisheries crisis in National Geographic magazine.)

"If we can produce something effective, it could be used in the fishing industry to reduce shark bycatch," Kempster said. "In [America] at the moment, they're doing quite a lot of work trying to produce electromagnetic fish hooks." The eventual hope is that if these hooks repel the sharks, they won't accidentally end up on longlines.

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White House Won't Rule Out $1 Trillion Coin

(United States Mint/Wikimedia Commons)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today flatly ruled out any negotiations with Congress over raising the debt ceiling, but there’s one odd-ball solution he would not rule out:  minting trillion dollars coins to pay off the debt.

“There is no Plan B. There is no backup plan. There is Congress’s responsibility to pay the bills of the United States,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters at the daily White House briefing.

READ: $1-Trillion Coins: The Ultimate Debt Ceiling End-Around?

Asked if the administration would rule out minting trillion dollars coins if Congress fails to act, Carney deflected saying “you could speculate about a lot of things.”

“Nothing needs to come to these kinds of… speculative notions about how to deal with a problem that is easily resolved by Congress doing its job, very simply,” he added.

Pressed further on why they won’t offer a clear yes-or-no answer to the question, Carney referred questions to the Treasury Department.

“I answered it thoroughly,” he later joked. “And I have no coins in my pocket.”

Some have suggested the President could invoke the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution – which states, “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned” – and ignore the debt ceiling altogether.  On that question, Carney has offered a straight answer:  the 14 Amendment does not apply to the debt ceiling.

“We just don’t believe that it provides the authority that some believe it does,” Carney said.

The trillion-dollar-coin idea has been floated by, among others, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute.

Here’s our full Q and A:

KARL: I heard you unequivocally rule out using the 14th Amendment on the debt ceiling. I heard you unequivocally rule out negotiating with Congress. But you did not rule out this trillion-dollar coin idea. So can I ask you just a yes-or-no question? Does the White House rule out the idea of minting trillion-dollar coins as a way of dealing with the debt ceiling?

CARNEY: I would refer you to Treasury for the specifics of this question. I can tell you that the president does not believe that there is a backup plan or a plan B or an off-ramp. The only viable option here is Congress to fulfill its — that Congress fulfills its responsibility and ensures that the United States of America pays its bills, as it has always paid its bills throughout its history.

KARL: But why have we ruled out the 14th Amendment and not ruled out the trillion-dollar coin idea?

CARNEY: Again, I can tell you that there are no back-up plans. There are no plan B’s. I’d refer you to the Treasury.

–

KARL: Jay, the speaker of the House has made it perfectly clear that he is willing to increase the debt ceiling, but the principle is for every dollar the debt ceiling is increased, a dollar of spending must be cut. Given that you’re saying that the White House will not negotiate on raising the debt ceiling, are you willing to accept that principle from the speaker, a dollar in cuts for every dollar increase?

MR. CARNEY: I think the president’s been very clear that his absolute principle is that we need to reduce our deficit in a balanced way that does not shift all the burden, through cuts exclusively, on senior citizens, on families who have disabled children, on families who are trying to send their kids to school. That’s just unacceptable.

You know, one of the things we learned in the process that we just went through late in — late last year is that when it comes to specificity, we never saw any specificity from Republicans in terms of how exactly they would achieve the kind of sweeping cuts that they say they want and out of whose — you know, from whom would they demand that payment.

And what the president has been very clear about is he will not negotiate on Congress’ responsibility to pay its bills. He will negotiate and is willing to compromise, as he has demonstrated repeatedly, when it comes to moving forward in a balanced way to reduce our deficit. We have to deal with the sequester. We have to deal with a variety of budgetary and economic and fiscal challenges.

But he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling. And the threat itself is a problem, as we saw in the summer of 2011. The binary choice that Republicans seem to want to present to the American public is either we gut Medicare and Social Security or we tank the global economy. I’m not a communications director for the speaker of the House or the Senate minority leader, but I would think selling that would be very hard.

KARL: But help me understand how this works. You say you will not negotiate on this issue. They’ve put out a principle, so they produce something — and they say they will — that cuts a dollar for every dollar increase. And you’re saying you won’t negotiate on that?

MR. CARNEY: Have you seen that?

KARL: Well, this is what they say they are going to go forward.

MR. CARNEY: Well, I mean, you know –

KARL: So either –

MR. CARNEY: — words are not actions, and there has been, at — to this date, very little specificity, you know, since we — since the Ryan plan, which itself was lacking in specifics. And if their — if their position is we’re going to voucherize Medicare or tank the global economy, they should say so. That is unacceptable to the American people. It’s certainly unacceptable to the president.

Look, here’s the thing. Congress has the authority to authorize money, right, not the president. Congress racked up these bills. Congress has to pay these bills. We are very interested in a discussion and negotiation about getting our fiscal house in order. This president has already signed into law over $2 trillion in deficit reduction. He is eager to do more in a balanced way.

But it is not appropriate to — in this president’s view — to say that if I don’t get what I want, I’m not going to raise the debt limit. That is basically saying, I will abandon the history of the United States maintaining the full faith and credit of its currency and its — and its treasury by refusing to pay bills because I didn’t get what I want politically.

And that’s just not acceptable to the president.

KARL:  I’m not sure I understand how that works — you’re not going to negotiate at all? –

MR. CARNEY: We’re not going to negotiate. Congress has a — if Congress wants to give the president the responsibility to raise the debt ceiling, he would take it, as we saw when — in 2010 or — I forget, there have been so many of these confrontations — in — when — in 2011 when the so-called McConnell plan was adopted, you know. But they assigned themselves this responsibility. They need to be — the fact that they, you know, assigned it to them is something that they have to deal with. They assigned it to themselves, they need to act, and they need to, without drama or delay, raise the debt ceiling. We still have — there is plenty of opportunity outside of threatening the full faith and credit of the United States to debate fundamental differences over our economic and fiscal policy proposals, but it is not wise to do that around raising the debt ceiling, not wise to do it around the simple principle that we, the United States of America, pay our debts.

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Arianespace says 2012 sales leapt by 30%

PARIS: The European space launch company Arianespace said Tuesday that its 2012 sales rose 30 per cent and forecast that it would dominate Russian and US rivals this year with a market share of more than 60 per cent.

Arianespace sales soared to more than 1.3 billion euros, and the company said that it already covered 60 per cent of the global market last year, bringing its order book to 4.0 billion euros, or three years' worth of activity.

This year, the company plans 12 launches with three different vehicles, the giant Ariane 5 rocket, the smaller Vega, and the Russian rocket Soyuz, up from 10 in 2012, chief executive Jean-Yves Le Gall told a press conference.

He called 2012 a "remarkable" year, noting that the company had launched seven Ariane 5 rockets to mark its 10th consecutive year without a failure, and had put a total of 75 tonnes of satellites into orbit.

Arianespace could even surpass 12 launches this year if one of its rivals is unable to honour their contracts, Le Gall noted, joking: "When they sign contracts we are the one that launches the satellites."

Competitors include the private US firm SpaceX, which developed its own launch vehicle over a period of 10 years and successfully delivered a payload last year to the International Space Station with its reusable Dragon launch vehicle.

The Russian rocket Proton has had a spotty launch record meanwhile, but its successor Angara is set for its first launch this year.

Elsewhere, the US-Russian company Sea Launch is in financial trouble, while Chinese rockets are not yet serious rivals for Arianespace.

The European group still depends on subsidies from countries that have backed it from the beginning, but Le Gall estimated that it needed a little more than 100 million euros last year, down from 125 million a year before, and 250 million 10 years earlier.

Ariane 5 is to be replaced by an Ariane 6 rocket, pending confirmation of that project next year. Arianespace forecasts that it would then be profitable without public aid.

- AFp/jc

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J&K likely to have fifth Kashmiri CS

SRINAGAR: Chief minister Omar Abdullah is learnt to have given his nod to senior-most Kashmiri IAS officer Iqbal Khanday taking over as the new chief secretary of Jammu & Kashmir following the posting of Madhav Lal as secretary, Union government. If appointed, Khanday, a 1978 batch IAS officer, would become fifth Kashmiri chief secretary of the state.

Lal, who has been secretary at the Centre, is likely to join the government by the end of January. Although two other 1978 batch IAS officers, including Anil Goswami and Pankaj Jain, are also in line, the Omar government has tacitly agreed on having a Kashmiri Muslim Iqbal Khanday as the chief secretary. The reasoning is this might help the ruling party in the run-up to the assembly elections in 2014.

If selected, Khanday will follow in the footsteps Vijay Bakaya, Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, Nasrullah and Noor Mohammad. According to sources, the Centre, too, has approved the name of Khanday for the post. Apparently, the tardy bureaucracy has not gone down well with both the Centre and the state government and Khanday's elevation could speed things up for Omar as he braces for tough elections.

Goswami and Jain are in Central deputation. Although Goswami, who is special secretary, home, is from Jammu, the National Conference government considers Khanday more of a key appointment.

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Pictures: Wildfires Scorch Australia Amid Record Heat

Photograph by Jo Giuliani, European Pressphoto Agency

Smoke from a wildfire mushrooms over a beach in Forcett, Tasmania, on January 4. (See more wildfire pictures.)

Wildfires have engulfed southeastern Australia, including the island state of Tasmania, in recent days, fueled by dry conditions and temperatures as high as 113ºF (45ºC), the Associated Press reported. (Read "Australia's Dry Run" inNational Geographic magazine.)

No deaths have been reported, though a hundred people are unaccounted for in the town of Dunalley, where the blazes destroyed 90 homes.

"You don't get conditions worse than this," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the AP.

"We are at the catastrophic level, and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Published January 8, 2013

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Menu Calorie Counts: How Accurate Are They?

They are supposed to help America's obesity problem: calorie counts boldly displayed on restaurant menus across the country and important information, considering Americans now eat one-third of their meals outside the home.

Two states and nine counties require them today, and by the middle of next year, a federal law is expected to force chain restaurants, convenience stores and vending machines nationwide to post calorie counts.

But how accurate are those numbers that so affect your waistline?

A 2011 study by Tufts University sampling food from 42 restaurants says it depends.

Fast food restaurants were the most accurate because of the uniform recipes and portions, but there were wide variations found in sit-down restaurants.

"We found that 20 percent of the foods we tested had 100 calories or more over what was stated on the menu," Lorien Urban, a postdoctoral associate in the energy metabolism lab at Tufts University and first author of the study, told ABC News. "We would consider that to be a considerable amount."

Urban explained that consuming an extra 100 calories per day can lead to an extra 10 pounds in one year.

Most concerning was that a majority of the errors Urban and her colleagues found were made on the diet side of the menu.

"These were the foods that people who are trying to manage their weight would gravitate towards and they may be getting more calories than they expect," she said.

ABC News sent producers in three cities that already require posting menu calories to major chains to do a sampling under the direction of a nationally known lab and found that more than half of the low-cal meals tested had more calories than listed on the menu.

In total 24 food samples from four sit-down restaurants and one McDonald's were collected and the results were surprising.

McDonald's did the best. Its Big Mac Meal (posted: 930) and its Premium Chicken Sandwich (posted: 400) tested 30 calories below the menu posting.

But the sit-down restaurants had results sometimes wildly different than advertised.

In all, only one calorie count was accurate -- a Skinnylicious chicken salad sandwich from the Cheesecake Factory.

Eleven meals had more calories than on the menu and 10 had fewer calories. Some were over by only 40 calories; another was over by as much as 420 calories, again at the Cheesecake Factory: This time an order of the fish and chips dinner.

Urban said that fast food restaurants tended to be more accurate than sit-down because of the formulaic preparation that fast food restaurants use.

"Things are arriving already packaged into the restaurants and it's just a matter of warming it up and serving it to the consumer," she said. "A sit-down restaurant, things are being prepared on [the] spot [and] by chance some extra butter gets into the pan."

That can change the calorie amount.

All the restaurants and their trade association say that most calorie counts are as accurate as possible and tested extensively to make sure.

They conceded that there are variations, mostly due to portion size and individual restaurant preparation, and that the menus warn actual calories may vary.

What can you do? Take control of what is put on top of the entree by asking for everything fattening -- such as cheeses, sauces or dressings -- on the side.

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U.S. may default on its debt a half-month earlier than expected, new analysis shows

The U.S. government may default on its debt as soon as Feb. 15, a half-month earlier than widely expected, according to a new analysis adding urgency to the debate over how to raise the federal debt ceiling.

The analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center says that the government will be unable to pay all its bills starting sometime between Feb. 15 and March 1.

The government hit the $16.4 trillion statutory debt limit on Dec. 31 , but the Treasury Department is able to undertake a number of accounting schemes to delay when the government runs into funding problems.

The Treasury has said that the accounting schemes, known as “extraordinary measures,” ordinarily would forestall default for about the first two months of the year, though officials were clear that they could not pinpoint a precise date because of an unusual amount of uncertainty around federal finances.

“Our numbers show that we have less time to solve this problem than many realize,” Steve Bell, senior director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in a statement. “It will be difficult for Treasury to get beyond the March 1 date in our judgment.”

The fast-approaching deadline to raise the debt limit is likely to be Washington’s next fiscal battleground. Republicans say they plan to use the occasion to demand deep federal spending cuts, with House Speaker John A. Boehner insisting on a dollar reduction in federal spending for every dollar increase in the nation’s borrowing limit.

But the White House says President Obama will not negotiate this point, since the debt ceiling represents a limit to obligations that Congress already has promised to pay.

“What he will not do — as he has made clear — is negotiate with Congress over Congress’s sole responsibility to pay the bills that Congress has already incurred,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Monday. “Nobody forced Congress to rack up the bills that it incurred. And it is an abdication of responsibility to say that we’re going to let the country default and cause global economic calamity simply because we’re not getting what we want in terms of our ideological agenda.”

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s debt-limit deadline is based on several assumptions, two of which conceivably could change the calendar.

One is that the confusion around end-of-year tax policy could lead to delays in the filing of taxes and refunds, throwing a curveball into projections about the nation’s finances.

The other is the overall pace of economic growth; faster growth tends to lift tax receipts.

If Congress does not raise the debt ceiling by the deadline, the White House has said that the nation likely would default. In a previous episode — in the summer of 2011 — officials determined that the best course would be to withhold all of a given day’s federal payments until enough money became available to pay them.

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Samsung tips record Q4 profit of US$8.3b

SEOUL: South Korea's Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it expected to post a record operating profit of 8.8 trillion won ($8.3 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The predicted operating profit for October-December represents an 89 per cent rise from a year earlier, and would beat the record of 8.1 trillion won set in the previous quarter.

Samsung, the world's largest technology firm by revenue, was giving earnings guidance before announcing official results later this month.

Fourth-quarter sales were estimated at 56 trillion won, up 18.4 per cent from a year earlier, according to the company, which did not provide figures for each of its business divisions.

Samsung, also the world's leading smartphone and memory chip maker, did not disclose its net profit estimate.

For Samsung, 2012 was a watershed year that saw it take a giant bite out of Apple Inc as it carved out a dominant position in the global mobile computing market.

Having ended Nokia's 14-year rule as the world's top cell phone manufacturer, Samsung saw its share of the lucrative smartphone market surge to 31.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2012, up from just 3.3 per cent in late 2009.

It extended its lead over main rival Apple as the top maker of smartphones worldwide, according to research firm IHS iSuppli, which gave Samsung 28 per cent of the market in 2012, up from 20 per cent the previous year.

Apple's share rose to 20 per cent in 2012 from 19 per cent, IHS said.

While Apple continues to rely mainly on its iPhone series, Samsung produces dozens of smartphone models every year that address all segments of the market, from the high-end to the low-end.

- AFP/ac

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Activists seek action against Asaram Bapu for his comments on Delhi gang-rape incident

NEW DELHI: Asaram Bapu ran into a hail of protests from his comments on anti-rape laws with activists demanding that religious and political leaders be held accountable for their statements.

Coming amid a statement of what they called "sexist" and "misogynic" remarks from the political class, Asaram's statement infuriated the activists for whom he had so far been a distant figure. The so-called guru, hardly a stranger to controversies, had said that the victim of the Delhi gang-rape could have saved herself by addressing her violators as bhaiyya and beseeching for mercy.

He aggravated the provocation on Monday by claiming that an "anti-men" campaign had taken hold following the Delhi gang-rape incident, and that a new anti-rape law enacted in such a climate will be prone to be similarly misused as anti-dowry laws and SC and ST Act.

AIDWA's Sudha Sundaraman condemned the godman's statement terming it as injustice of the worst kind and advocating strong punishment against leaders making irresponsible statements. " The statements made are highly objectionable, regressive and anti-women. Such people should be called to question. This is further victimization of the victim and deeply insulting to women."

The strong sentiment was echoed by the Centre for Social Research's Ranjana Kumari who said that such "irresponsible and ridiculous statements were responsible for encouraging rapists." "Such people should be socially boycotted. It is these people who are responsible in society for creating misogynist values," she said.

Activist lawyer Vrinda Grover was also ourtaged, contending that Asaram Bapu was far removed from the reality, and represented those who were scared of women empowerment. "What he is saying is that women must beg for her life and not fight back. Reports said that the victim expressed a will to live. That is a huge paradigm shift from those victims of sexual assault who would like to kill themselves out of shame. People like him are scared that women are now asserting themselves," she said.

Social scientist Imitaz Ahmad also reacted angrily to the Asaram's utterances. "The Delhi rape case has become an occasion for whosoever to say whatever they feel like. A rapist is not going to go into the niceties of the act. Nor by calling him brother will stop him in the act. Somewhere deep down there's a moral, ethical and social decay in our society. We need to re-think our moral structures and values if we want to get over this".

Reacting in a similar vein, Ayesha Kidwai, an academic, said : "The statement is appalling. The thing we have to understand about competitive sexism as evident from such statements of religious leaders is that they are uncomfortable with the questions women have raised recently. What he has said goes beyond sexual assault; it is a tawdry attempt at putting the blame back on the victim.

Lawyer Kirti Singh said, " It is obvious the way they treated the victim that the rapists did not have any human consideration. It was a sexual assault of the worst kind with brutal beatings. You do get these kind of statements on a victim's conduct or clothing. But this one is really far-fetched."

Parties close ranks to condemn Asaram Bapu

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Primitive and Peculiar Mammal May Be Hiding Out in Australia

It’d be hard to think of a mammal that’s weirder than the long-beaked, egg-laying echidna. Or harder to find.

Scientists long thought the animal, which has a spine-covered body, a four-headed penis, and a single hole for reproducing, laying eggs, and excreting waste, lived only in New Guinea. The population of about 10,000 is critically endangered. Now there is tantalizing evidence that the echidna, thought to have gone extinct in Australia some 10,000 years ago, lived and reproduced there as recently as the early 1900s and may still be alive on Aussie soil.

The new echidna information comes from zoologist Kristofer Helgen, a National Geographic emerging explorer and curator of mammals at the Smithsonian Institution. Helgen has published a key finding in ZooKeys confirming that a skin and skull collected in 1901 by naturalist John T. Tunney in Australia is in fact the western long-beaked echidna, Zaglossus bruijnii. The specimen, found in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia, was misidentified for many years.

(More about echidnas: Get to know this living link between mammals and reptiles.)

Helgen has long been fascinated by echidnas. He has seen only three in the wild. “Long-beaked echidnas are hard to get your hands on, period,” he said. “They are shy and secretive by nature. You’re lucky if you can find one. And if you do, it will be by chance.” Indeed, chance played a role in his identification of the Australian specimen. In 2009, he visited the Natural History Museum of London, where he wanted to see all of the echidnas he could. He took a good look in the bottom drawer of the echidna cabinet, where the specimens with less identifying information are often stored. From among about a dozen specimens squeezed into the drawer, he grabbed the one at the very bottom.

(Related from National Geographic magazine: “Discovery in the Foja Mountains.”)

“As I pulled it out, I saw a tag that I had seen before,” Helgen said. “I was immediately excited about this label. As a zoologist working in museums you get used to certain tags: It’s a collector’s calling card. I instantly recognized John Tunney’s tag and his handwriting.”

John Tunney was a well-known naturalist in the early 20th century who went on collecting expeditions for museums. During an Australian expedition in 1901 for Lord L. Walter Rothschild’s private museum collection, he found the long-beaked echidna specimen. Though he reported the locality on his tag as “Mt Anderson (W Kimberley)” and marked it as “Rare,” Tunney left the species identification field blank. When he returned home, the specimen was sent to the museum in Perth for identification. It came back to Rothschild’s museum identified as a short-beaked echidna.

With the specimen’s long snout, large size, and three-clawed feet, Helgen knew that it must be a long-beaked echidna. The short-beaked echidna, still alive and thriving in Australia today, has five claws, a smaller beak, and is half the size of the long-beaked echidna, which can weigh up to 36 pounds (16 kilograms).

As Helgen began tracing the history and journey of the specimen over the last century, he crossed the path of another fascinating mind who had also encountered the specimen. Oldfield Thomas was arguably the most brilliant mammalogical taxonomist ever. He named approximately one out of every six mammals known today.

Thomas was working at the Natural History Museum in London when the Tunney echidna specimen arrived, still misidentified as a short-beaked echidna. Thomas realized the specimen was actually a long-beaked echidna and removed the skull and some of the leg bones from the skin to prove that it was an Australian record of a long-beaked echidna, something just as unexpected then as it is now.

No one knows why Thomas did not publish that information. And the echidna went back into the drawer until Helgen came along 80 years later.

As Helgen became convinced that Tunney’s long-beaked echidna specimen indeed came from Australia, he confided in fellow scientist Mark Eldridge of the Australian Museum about the possibility. Eldridge replied, “You’re not the first person who’s told me that there might be long-beaked echidnas in the Kimberley.” (That’s the Kimberley region of northern Australia.) Scientist James Kohen, a co-author on Helgen’s ZooKeys paper, had been conducting fieldwork in the area in 2001 and spoke to an Aboriginal woman who told him how “her grandmothers used to hunt” large echidnas.

This is “the first evidence of the survival into modern times of any long-beaked echidna in Australia,” said Tim Flannery, professor at Macquarie University in Sydney. “This is a truly significant finding that should spark a re-evaluation of echidna identifications from across northern Australia.”

Helgen has “a small optimism” about finding a long-beaked echidna in the wild in Australia and hopes to undertake an expedition and to interview Aboriginal communities, with their intimate knowledge of the Australian bush.

Though the chances may be small, Helgen says, finding one in the wild “would be the beautiful end to the story.”

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