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Black Canada Lynx Caught on Camera For The First Time, And There's Video

NATURE20 October 2022

ByDAVID NIELD

A still from the captured footage. (Jung, Mammalia, 2022)

The smartphones in our pockets have changed our lives in a multitude of ways – not least because we always have a camera to hand to capture special occasions, strange events, and perhaps the occasional rare wildlife sighting.

On 29 August 2020, near the town of Whitehorse in Yukon, Canada, Thomas Jung – a wildlife biologist with the Government of Yukon's Department of Environment – saw a sight he knew few had ever witness before.

Luckily for us, he managed to quickly get his phone out and film it, giving the world a good look at a black-coated Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis).

The fur on these big cats is typically silvery gray in the winter, and a darker reddish brown during the summer months. The appearance of a black (or melanistic) Canadian lynx is therefore of great interest to experts.

"There are only a small number of records of coat color polymorphisms in the genus Lynx," writes Jung in his published paper.

"The adaptive significance of melanism in lynx is unknown, but the loss of camouflage when hunting during winter is likely maladaptive."

A black Canada lynx is going to have a much harder time blending in as easily when hunting prey like the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) – which, Jung speculates, might explain, likely explains why there aren't a lot of the cats with this color fur around.

Jung viewed the animal from a distance of around 50 meters (roughly 160 feet), which didn't seem too perturbed by the presence of people nearby. In the 30-second clip you can also hear a dog barking, which might be what eventually caused the big cat to slowly sneak away.

The brevity of the sighting means it hasn't been possible to run any detailed examinations of the lynx's coat color, beyond a few quick observations. Although the footage is rather shaky and pixelated, several experts have confirmed that the creature is indeed a Canada lynx.

"It had a black coat containing whitish gray guard hairs throughout, as well as whitish gray hairs in the facial ruff and the rostrum and dorsal regions," reports Jung.

Bear this in mind the next time that you're out and about with your smartphone: as well as snapping photos of the kids and the pets, you might also get the chance to record footage of an animal that's never been seen before.

While coat color doesn't usually vary much in the case of the Canada lynx, color variations in other species, including bears and wolves, can be incredibly diverse. As with the Canada lynx, it's thought that color ties into how animals hunt for food, or even provide advantages in cooling down or warming up.

Throughout the animal kingdom, camouflage and colors that blend in with the background can help in sneaking up on prey (or avoiding predators). Bright colors that stand out can help in attracting mates (or putting off predators). Sadly, color changes can also come about because of human activity too.

Keeping track of the range of colors possible in a population of mammals could have significance in predicting the way a species might react to changes in their environment.

"Indeed, with increased competition by coyotes (Canis latrans) a concern for Canada lynx encountering increasingly shallow snow as a result of climate change, the added disadvantage of lost camouflage to melanistic lynx hunting hares during winter would likely result in melanism being maladaptive," writes Jung.

The research has been published in Mammalia.

 

Abandoned WWII Shipwreck Has Altered The Ocean's Microbiology For 80 Years

NATURE18 October 2022

ByDAVID NIELD

Torn deck plating of the V-1302 John Mahn shipwreck. (VLIZ)

There's a certain romance and mystique associated with shipwrecks when seen as ancient artifacts hiding in the gloom. Where we might imagine untold treasures locked behind their rusting hulls, in reality it's often a mess of old fuel, corroded bombs, and toxic waste.

A new study analyzing the World War II shipwreck V-1302 John Mahn, in the Belgian part of the North Sea, has found substances leaking from the old wreck are still influencing the surrounding microbiology and geochemistry some 80 years after the ship sank to the sea floor.

Considering there are thousands of similar wrecks in the North Sea alone, the cumulative impact on marine life is potentially huge – especially considering the munitions and hazardous materials that are often stored on military vessels.

"We wanted to see if old shipwrecks in our part of the sea were still shaping the local microbial communities and if they were still affecting the surrounding sediment," says microbial ecologist Josefien Van Landuyt, from Ghent University in Belgium. "This microbial analysis is unique within the project."

The V-1302 John Mahn started out as a German fishing trawler before being converted into a patrol boat during the war. It was sunk close to the Belgian coast in 1942 by the British Royal Air Force, as part of the Channel Dash operation.

Researchers took samples of the steel hull and the sediment at twelve different points close to the wreck and at increasing distances away from it, to see how far any possible contamination might be spreading.

The concentration of toxic pollutants around the vessel varied depending on distance: there was evidence of heavy metals (like nickel and copper), arsenic, explosive compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs (chemicals that occur naturally in coal, crude oil and gasoline).

As might be expected, concentrations of these pollutants increased with proximity to the ship. The highest metal concentrations were found in the sample closest to the ship's coal bunker, for example.

These concentrations impact the surrounding microbial life, the researchers found. Microbes such as Rhodobacteraceae and Chromatiaceae, known to degrade PAHs, were found in the samples that had the highest concentrations of pollutants. Sulfate-reducing bacteria was found on the hull, most likely corroding it.

"Although we don't see these old shipwrecks, and many of us don't know where they are, they can still be polluting our marine ecosystem," says Van Landuyt.

"In fact, their advancing age might increase the environmental risk due to corrosion, which is opening up previously enclosed spaces. As such, their environmental impact is still evolving."

The researchers suggest that there's much more to discover in terms of the influence of shipwrecks on underwater ecosystems – yet another example of how human activity is changing the natural world around us.

Work continues to discover what shipwrecks can teach us about the past and how they're affecting the oceans in the present – and the team behind the current study is keen to use the same techniques on other shipwrecks in the area.

"The general public is often quite interested in shipwrecks because of their historical value, but the potential environmental impact of these wrecks is often overlooked," says Van Landuyt.

"We only investigated one ship, at one depth, in one location. To get a better overview of the total impact of shipwrecks on our North Sea, a large number of shipwrecks in various locations would have to be sampled."

The research has been published in Frontiers in Marine Science.