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FLORA AND FAUNA
Endangered Philippine eagle shot dead three years after rescue
by Staff Writers
Manila (AFP) Aug 19, 2015


Scientists discover skydiving spiders in forests of South America
Berkeley, Calif. (UPI) Aug 19, 2015 - It's already well established that spiders and can jump, fly and even sail across water. Apparently, they can skydive, too.

Scientists already knew spiders traveled via air. But these parachute-launching spiders are at the mercy of the wind. Researchers say skydiving spiders in the forests of South American can manipulate their flight.

The nocturnal hunting spider, a member of the genus Selenops, is a tree dweller. Occasionally, the spider is forced to abandon its home or is blown off by a swift breeze. When this happens, the spider doesn't simply fall from the tree like a rock. Instead, it manipulates its wafer-thin, two-inch-wide body to guide its trajectory to the safety of another branch or tree trunk. The spiders are also able to right themselves if they begin to fall upside down.

When researchers in Peru and Panama tested other arachnids, the creatures were unable to steer themselves to safety and simply dropped to the floor.

Scientists believe controlled descent led to the ability to glide, which preceded the evolution of flight.

"My guess is that many animals living in the trees are good at aerial gliding, from snakes and lizards to ants and now spiders," Robert Dudley, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a press release. "If a predator comes along, it frees the animal to jump if it has a time-tested way of gliding to the nearest tree rather than landing in the understory or in a stream."

Dudley and his colleagues in South America documented 59 instances of guided flight by the hunting spiders. On several occasions, the falling spider bounced off the trunk but was then able to redirect its flight, once again, and land back on the trunk on the ricochet.

Dudley's field and lab findings are detailed in the journal Interface.

As usual, the research only marks the beginning of the never-ending process of discovery.

"This study, like the first report of gliding ants, raises many questions that are wide open for further study." said Stephen Yanoviak, a professor of biology at the University of Louisville. "For instance, how acute is the vision of these spiders? How do they target a tree? What is the effect of their hairs or spines on aerodynamic performance?"

A rare giant Philippine eagle has been shot dead two months after being released back into the wild following treatment for another shooting, in a blow to efforts to save the species from extinction, conservationists said Wednesday.

The raptor's remains were found on a forest floor last weekend with a gunshot wound on its right breast, three years after it was rescued and treated, the Philippine Eagle Foundation said.

It was the 30th to be found dead or wounded out of an estimated population of just 400 pairs in the wild, which reside mainly on the large southern island of Mindanao, its executive director Joseph Salvador said.

"Unfortunately, one person with a gun thinks he can shoot anything," Salvador told AFP, adding no one has been arrested in the latest incident.

"The potential to teach people the importance of the eagles to wildlife and biodiversity has been compromised."

Famed for its elongated nape feathers that form into a shaggy crest, the Philippine eagle, one of the world's largest, grows up to a metre (3.3 feet) long with a two-metre wingspan.

The Swiss-based International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists the species as "critically endangered", due to the depletion of its tropical rainforest habitat and hunting.

Philippine eagles kill macaques and other smaller animals for food and need vast tracts of forest as hunting grounds, routinely driving away rivals from their territory.

Gunshots accounted for nine out of every 10 Philippine eagle casualties recorded by the foundation over seven years.

The latest bird to be killed had been rescued as a juvenile three years ago and treated for superficial gunshot wounds.

Returned to the wild in Mindanao's Mount Hamiguitan reserve two months ago, the eagle's carcass was tracked about a kilometre (half a mile) away from where it was released, after a fitted radio transmitter indicated the bird had stopped moving.

Killing critically endangered Philippine species is punishable by up to 12 years in prison and a fine of up to one million pesos ($21,600). Salvador said the foundation would press charges once the eagle's killer was found.

Guarding the bird, also called the "monkey-eating eagle", is compounded by inadequate forest rangers, with just six assigned to the vast Hamiguitan range, Salvador said.


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