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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

OUR VERY OWN HARRIET WADHAM ON TV

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/cbbc/episode/b00z19js/Dick_and_Dom_Go_Wild_Episode_19/

ANOTHER EEL VID (Genuine this time)

Following on from the palpably fake video of giant eels that we posted the other day, here is one of several videos showing aggressive eels in New Zealand..

ANOLES AND BIODIVERSITY

Evolutionary assembly of island faunas reverses the classic island-mainland richness difference in Anolis lizards
Adam C. Algar, Jonathan B. Losos
Article first published online: February 3, 2011, Journal of Biogeography


How to Cite
Algar, A. C. and Losos, J. B. , Evolutionary assembly of island faunas reverses the classic island-mainland richness difference in Anolis lizards. Journal of Biogeography, no. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2010.02466.x
Author Information
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
*Correspondence: Adam C. Algar, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. E-mail: aalgar@oeb.harvard.edu

Abstract
Aim  Islands are widely considered to be species depauperate relative to mainlands but, somewhat paradoxically, are also host to many striking adaptive radiations. Here, focusing on Anolis lizards, we investigate if cladogenetic processes can reconcile these observations by determining if in situ speciation can reduce, or even reverse, the classical island-mainland richness discrepancy.
Location  Caribbean islands and the Neotropical mainland.

Methods  We constructed range maps for 203 mainland anoles from museum records and evaluated whether geographical area could account for differences in species richness between island and mainland anole faunas. We compared the island species-area relationship with total mainland anole diversity and with the richness of island-sized mainland areas. We evaluated the role of climate in the observed differences by using Bayesian model averaging to predict island richness based on the mainland climate-richness relationship. Lastly, we used a published phylogeny and stochastic mapping of ancestral states to determine if speciation rate was greater on islands, after accounting for differences in geographical area.

Results  Islands dominated by in situ speciation had, on average, significantly more species than similarly sized mainland regions, but islands where in situ speciation has not occurred were species depauperate relative to mainland areas. Results were similar at the scale of the entire mainland, although marginally non-significant. These findings held even after accounting for climate. Speciation has not been faster on islands; instead, when extinction was assumed to be low, speciation rate varied consistently with geographical area. When extinction was high, there was some evidence that mainland speciation was faster than expected based on area.

Main conclusions  Our results indicate that evolutionary assembly of island faunas can reverse the general pattern of reduced species richness on islands relative to mainlands.

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday's News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/

On this day in 1966 Tea Leoni was born. She was in Jurassic Park 3 and is married to David Duchovny who was Fox Mulder in The X-Files.
And now the news:

LOSS OF TURTLE POPULATIONS (Via Herp Digest)
Physics of Burrowing Sandfish Revealed (via Herp D...
Florida Sea Turtles and The Impact of the Deepwate...
Tick Population Plummets in Absence of Lizard Host...
SHELLSHOCK: New Report Lists 25 Most Endangered Tu...
Sterility in Frogs Caused by Environmental Pharmac...
OUT OF PLACE LIZARD IN HAWAII (Via Herp Digest)

Today's vaguely related video is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVlaE99t8TM