On remote Greek island, migratory birds offer climate clues

Forest fires, the use of pesticides, and urban expansion are also factors that affect their population.

By AFP
September 27, 2024


Migratory birds offer valuable clues about how a warming planet is affecting wildlife - Copyright AFP Hassan FNEICH

Hélène COLLIOPOULOU

Gently holding a blackcap warbler in his palm, ornithologist Christos Barboutis blew on its feathers to reveal the size of its belly: a good indicator of how far the bird can migrate.

Acutely vulnerable to climate change, migratory birds offer valuable clues to scientists about how our warming planet is affecting wildlife: from their shifting migration patterns to their body weight.

“Observing them warns us if something is changing or going wrong,” said Barboutis, a researcher at the Hellenic Ornithological Society.

Birds “are among the first to be affected by climate change such as drought, which poses a big problem for their distant travel,” he told AFP at an observation station on the small Aegean island of Antikythera.

At the crack of dawn, the researcher and his colleagues lay out nets to capture and ring the birds.

The tiny island in the eastern Mediterranean lies on a popular corridor for birds migrating from northern Europe to Africa in the autumn, and in the opposite direction in springtime.

Barboutis came to the sparsely populated rock between the Peloponnese and the western tip of Crete some 15 years ago.

His team have seen and observed a variety of birds: from turtle doves and warblers to colourful bee-eaters and buzzards.

The rare Eleonora’s falcon with its distinctive, elegant wings often nests on the cliffs of the island. Greece becomes host to around 80 percent of the bird’s population during their breeding season.



– ‘State of nature’ –



At sunrise, volunteers Nefeli Marinou, a 21-year-old biology student, and Jennifer Evans, a 25-year-old environmentalist from Canada, scour the deployed nets for trapped birds and carefully place them in small bags.

A metal ring placed on a bird’s finger bears a unique identification number.

In a book, Marinou notes the species, age, sex, date and time.

“From this number we deduce how long it took the bird to get here, whether the population is declining or stable,” Evans said.

Around 40 birds were ringed in a day’s work.

The bird capturing programme began 20 years ago, Barboutis said, although he cautioned it was a scientifically short period to make long-term conclusions about the impacts of climate change.

From the top of a rock, student volunteer Nikolas Promponas, using a telescope and binoculars, watched for falcons and white-headed vultures, a species whose numbers are declining in Europe.

Many species of birds including birds of prey need coastlines and ridges to gain height before taking off, he said, a resource that is abundant on Antikythera.

Unlike the nearby tourist islands of Kythera and Crete, rugged Antikythera has just two restaurant-cafes and can only handle around forty tourists in summer.

Like other islands in the southern Mediterranean, Antikythera serves as a vital stopover point where migratory birds can replenish ahead of their long journey.

It is part of the EU Natura network of nature protection areas due to its biodiversity.

Declining insect populations have made it harder for some species to find food, while human activity, intense droughts and wildfires worsened by climate change have contributed to the loss of their habitat.

Forest fires, the use of pesticides, and urban expansion are also factors that affect their population.

This year, Greece experienced its warmest winter and warmest summer since detailed records began in 1960.

Less greenery means less food.

“If there are fewer birds feeding on insects, it probably means that insects are also in decline,” Evans said.

“Whatever the case, birds are a very good indicator of the state of nature.”

WAIT, WHAT?!

Rapper Ye’s fans amazed after China’s censors let him perform there

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, will be performing in China on Sept 15. PHOTO: AFP

Sep 15, 2024

BEIJING – When the news broke that Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, would be performing in China on Sept 15, the elation of many of his fans was mixed with another emotion: confusion.

Why would the notoriously prickly Chinese government let in the notoriously provocative Ye? Why was the listening party, as Ye calls his shows, taking place not in Beijing or Shanghai, but in Hainan, an obscure island province?

Under a trending hashtag on social media site Weibo on the subject, one popular comment simply read “How?”, alongside an exploding-head emoji.


The answer may lie in China’s struggling economy. Since China reopened its borders after three years of coronavirus lockdowns, the government has been trying to stimulate consumer spending and promote tourism.

“Vigorously introducing new types of performances desired by young people, and concerts from international singers with super internet traffic, is the outline for future high-quality development,” the government of Haikou, the city hosting the listening party, posted on its website on Sept 12.

But it is unclear whether the appearance by Ye – who would be perhaps the highest-profile Western artist to perform in mainland China since the pandemic – is part of a broader loosening or an exception.


Even before the pandemic, the number of big-name foreign entertainers visiting China had been falling as the authorities tightened controls on speech. Acts such as Bon Jovi and Maroon 5 had shows abruptly cancelled, leading to speculation that band members’ expressions of support for causes like Tibetan independence were to blame. Justin Bieber was barred from China in 2017 over what the Beijing city government, without specifying, called “bad behaviour”.

Ye might have seemed like a no-go, too. The Chinese authorities declared war on hip-hop in 2018, with the state news media saying that artists who insulted women and promoted drug use “don’t deserve a stage”.

But in Ye’s case, objections to hip-hop may have been outweighed by the potential payoff – especially for Hainan.

For years, the Chinese government has sought to turn Hainan, an island roughly the size of Maryland or Belgium, into an international commercial hub. It offers visa-free entry and duty-free shopping, and has pledged to attract more world-class cultural events.


Dr Sheng Zou, a media scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University, said enforcement of censorship was capricious. “When it comes to Ye, I guess his celebrity status may outweigh his identity as a hip-hop artist.”

For Mr Ricardo Shi, 25, an employee of a tech company in Shenzhen, the chance to see Ye was worth spending US$700 (S$900) on plane tickets for a two-day trip to Haikou. “It’s been so long since he last came to China,” he said. (Ye performed in Beijing and Shanghai in 2008.) “It’s a rare opportunity to be there in person.”

Ye, who is touring to promote Vultures, his new album series with singer Ty Dolla Sign, has praised China. He told Forbes in 2020 that the country “changed my life”. He lived in the city of Nanjing as a fifth grader when his mother was teaching English there.

And issues that have led Western brands to cut off collaborations with Ye and alienated many American fans, like his anti-Semitic and homophobic comments, are of less concern to Chinese officials.

Still, no artist can escape political scrutiny altogether.

A photo circulating on Chinese social media showed officials gathered around a conference table, before a screen that read: “Haikou Municipal Bureau of Tourism, Culture, Radio, Television and Sports ‘Kanye West World Tour Audiovisual Concert’ Risk Assessment Meeting.”

Reached by telephone, an employee at the bureau could not confirm the photo’s authenticity but said that similar meetings were routine before large-scale events.

“These things, in my opinion, are a kind of test,” the employee, who gave her surname as Wang, said of the Ye event. “In the future, there will be more foreigners coming to Hainan for similar concerts. As long as they provide positive energy, we’ll do it.”

No one has announced what songs Ye will play. Set lists must be preapproved by censors.

A week before officials announced Ye’s Hainan stop, a listening party planned for Taiwan was abruptly cancelled. The Taiwan organisers cited “unforeseen circumstances”. It is unclear whether the cancellation was related to Ye’s show in China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

A publicist who has worked with Ye on past listening parties did not respond to a request for comment.

Even after Ye passed the Chinese censors, some complained that he should not have. A string of submissions to Haikou’s public complaints website objected to his lyrics and personal behaviour, with one user declaring them “inconsistent with our country’s cultural and social values”.

Some Ye supporters suggested that those complaints were from disgruntled Taylor Swift fans. Swift, with whom Ye has a long and well-documented feud, has yet to announce any China dates for her Eras tour. (Several Shanghai government advisers recently called on the city to loosen its concert approval processes, citing performers like Swift, whom they said were like “walking GDP”, or gross domestic product.)

The anti-Ye comments have since disappeared from the government website.

 NYTIMES

Historians say increased censorship in China makes research hard

September 15, 2024

By Reuters

 A man walks past a sign warning against the sale of illegal publications, underneath which secondhand books, images and statues of Chinese leaders are displayed for sale at the Panjiayuan antique market in Beijing, Aug. 3, 2024.

BEIJING —

At Beijing's largest antiques market, Panjiayuan, among the Mao statues, posters and second-hand books are prominent signs warning against the sale of publications that might have state secrets or "reactionary propaganda."

Some of the signs display a hotline number so that citizens can tip off authorities if they witness an illegal sale.

China's antique and flea markets were once a gold mine of documents for historians, but now the signs are emblematic of the chill that has descended on their ability to do research in the country.

On one hand, Beijing wants to increase academic exchange and President Xi Jinping last November invited 50,000 American students to China over the next five years -- a massive jump from about 800 currently.

How much steam that will gather is very much an open question. But scholars of modern Chinese history in particular -- arguably among the people most interested in China - fear that tightened censorship is extinguishing avenues for independent research into the country's past.

This is especially so for documents relating to the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution -- the most historically sensitive period for the Chinese Communist Party -- when Mao Zedong declared class war and plunged China into chaos and violence.

"I would say the period of going to flea markets and simply finding treasure troves is pretty much over," said Daniel Leese, a modern China historian at the University of Freiburg.

Trawling for documents "has basically gone out of favor because it has simply become too complex, difficult and dangerous," he said, adding that younger foreign scholars are increasingly relying on overseas collections.

The Chinese Communist Party has exerted control over all publications including books, the media and the internet since establishing the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, with the degree of censorship fluctuating over time.

But censorship has only intensified under President Xi Jinping, who came to power in 2012 and has blamed "historic nihilism" or versions of history that differ from the official accounts for causing the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In recent years, a raft of new national security and anti-espionage legislation has made scholars even more wary of citing unofficial Chinese materials.

Some scholars of modern Chinese history who have published studies that either challenged Chinese state narratives or are on sensitive topics say they have been denied visas to China.

James Millward, a historian at Georgetown University, said he had been visa-blocked on several occasions after contributing to the 2004 book Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland but has since received short-term visas a few times albeit after a lengthy process.

The political climate is also shaping how historians choose their research subjects. One historian based in the U.S. said he has chosen to work on non-controversial topics to maintain travel access to China. He declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Busts and statues portraying late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong are seen at the Panjiayuan flea market in Beijing, May 19, 2019.

China's education ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. The foreign ministry said it was unaware of relevant circumstances.

Documentary discoveries

Leese and other foreign historians say they previously found case files of persecuted intellectuals as well as secret Communist Party documents at Chinese flea and antique markets.

These were often donated by relatives of deceased officials or painstakingly rescued by booksellers from recycling centers near government offices disbanded during the mass state sector layoffs of the 1990s.

But the government has, since 2008, cracked down on flea markets and other sources of used books and documents. Buyers have been arrested, sellers have been fined and used book websites have been cleared of politically sensitive items, according to domestic media reports, collectors and four overseas researchers who spoke with Reuters.

In 2019, for example, a Japanese historian was detained for two months on spying charges after buying 1930s books on the Sino-Japanese War from a second-hand bookshop.

Two years later, a hobbyist accused of selling illegal publications from Hong Kong and Taiwan publishers on Kongfuzi, China's biggest website for used books, was fined 280,000 yuan ($39,000) for not having a business license, Chinese media reported.

And this year, two workers at a recycling center were punished for selling confidential military documents, state media said.

Buyers now cultivate personal relationships with merchants who sell through WeChat, said a Beijing-based collector interested in documents from the Cultural Revolution, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Historians also note that access to the vast majority of local government archives has been restricted since 2010 and their digitization has enabled censors to heavily redact them.

Foreign-based historians add that their counterparts in mainland China can only preserve materials for posterity in the current political climate. But not all are downbeat.

"Even under Xi, Chinese scholars continue to seek openings and enlarge the understanding and interpretation of PRC history," said Yi Lu, assistant history professor at Dartmouth College, who has worked extensively with Chinese university collections of 20th-century materials. "All is not lost."

 Middle East

Hypocrisy: The Conflict of Zionist Hawks and Vultures

Tuesday 3 September 2024, by Gilbert Achcar


What is the  conflict within the Zionist power elite about? Do not believe that it is a conflict between hawks and doves as the Western media portrays it. Nay, do not even think that most of the Israeli masses who are demonstrating to demand an agreement leading to a new exchange of captives between their government and Hamas, are seeking to end the tragedy of Gaza and withdraw the occupation army from it. No, as we have repeatedly stressed, the Zionist army will not withdraw from the Strip a second time, since even the “moderates” in its ranks believe that a new withdrawal would mean a repeat of the same mistake.

The Israeli political conflict is not between those who call for a complete withdrawal from the Strip and those who insist on remaining there, but rather between the far right, which calls for annexing the Strip to the Zionist state by expelling most of its residents from most of its territory and replacing them with Jewish settlers, and the Zionist “centre” that realizes that the price of annexation and expulsion is higher than their state can bear, so they prefer to adhere to the framework of the “Allon Plan” of 1967 that governs the situation in the West Bank, where Israel controls strategic sites and roads surrounding areas of Palestinian population concentration.

In other words, the political conflict within the Zionist power elite, as we already said, is not between hawks and doves, but between hawks and vultures. This is the case of the conflict between Benjamin Netanyahu and the Zionist “centre”, which includes the opposition parties to the current government, as well as a minority of the Likud party itself represented in the government by War Minister Yoav Galant. The Israeli press reported on the recent confrontation that took place in a cabinet meeting between Galant and Netanyahu, stressing that the minister was expressing the view of the military and security establishments. What was the confrontation about? The subject of discussion was the ceasefire agreement that Washington, with the help of Cairo and Doha, seeks to conclude between the government and Hamas.

We warned from the beginning against any illusion that this agreement might bring an end to the Israeli occupation of Gaza, stressing that most that is at stake from the Israeli perspective is acceptance of a temporary truce with a limited withdrawal of occupation forces from some areas of the Strip, in order to allow the release of the majority of those held by Hamas, before continuing the aggression and seeking to fully achieve its goals. In this context, we described Netanyahu’s dilemma as follows:

“The latter is caught between two fires in Israeli domestic politics: the fire of those calling for priority to be given to the release of Israelis held in Gaza, naturally led by the families of the detainees, and the fire of those who reject any truce and insist on continuing the war without interruption, led by the most extremist ministers of the Zionist far-right. The greatest pressure that Netanyahu is exposed to is coming from Washington. It coincides with the wishes of the families of the Israeli captives in the quest for a ‘humanitarian’ truce that would last a few weeks and allow the Biden administration to claim that it is eager for peace and concerned about civilians, after it has been and remains fully co-responsible of the genocidal war that Israel is waging, which it would not have been able to wage without US military support in the first place.”

The above was published exactly four months ago (“The Game of Poker between Hamas and Netanyahu,” 7 May 2024) and nothing has changed in the political equation since then. The Biden administration still needs to achieve something that proves its good faith before US and international public opinion, and it has now become a need of Kamala Harris’s electoral campaign after Biden withdrew from the race in her favour. The Zionist “centre” is still keen on creating an opportunity to release the largest possible number of hostages, especially since the popular pressure for this involves its supporters in the main. However, they all agree on maintaining Israeli control over Gaza in the long term. They differ on the form and scope of control, not on its principle.

There is no clearer evidence of the truth of the disagreement between Galant and Netanyahu than what the war minister was reported saying in the Zionist cabinet meeting during which the two men clashed. The discussion focused on Hamas’s demand, supported by Cairo, for the withdrawal of the occupation army from the “Philadelphi corridor” on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. While the Zionist military and security apparatuses are in favour of this withdrawal, the Zionist far right represented in the cabinet categorically rejects it and threatens to dissolve its coalition with Netanyahu if the latter accepts the agreement, which would force new elections that could put a final end to the man’s political career. We therefore saw Netanyahu cling to his position of rejecting the withdrawal from the border corridor with security arguments that no member of the Zionist power elite can refute, as they all know that weapons and tunnel-building equipment entered the Gaza Strip from the Egyptian Sinai and they have no trust in the Egyptian side regarding the oversight of the corridor, or in anyone else for that matter.

Galant and the Zionist opposition’s response was not that there was no need for Israeli control of the corridor. Instead, some of them relied on proposals from the security establishment to conduct electronic oversight of the border without a permanent deployment of Israeli troops, while Galant summarized the disagreement between him and Netanyahu, according to what was reported by the Israeli media, as a choice “between the hostages’ lives or staying in the Philadelphi corridor for six weeks”. In other words, in Galant’s view, the matter is no more than a withdrawal from the corridor for six weeks, to allow the release of most of those held by Hamas, knowing that the occupation army would return to direct control of the borders after the completion of the first stage of the deal that Washington is seeking. Everyone knows that the second hypothetic stage of that deal, which calls for the occupation army to withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip, will never happen. They are all hypocrites.

P.S.

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Attached documents

• hypocrisy-the-conflict-of-zionist-hawks-and-vultures_a8658.pdf (PDF - 908.5 KiB)
  Extraction PDF [->article8658]

• Gilbert Achcar

  Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon. He is currently Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. A regular and historical contributor to the press of the Fourth International, his books include The Clash of Barbarisms. The Making of the New World Disorder (2006), The Arabs and the Shoah. The Arab-Israeli War of Narrations (2012), The People Wants. A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2022). His most recent book – The New Cold War. United States, Russia and China, from Kosovo to Ukraine was published in 2023. He is a member of Anti*Capitalist Resistance in Britain.

International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

 

Hit or miss: Collisions affect raptors on a global scale

Raptor Research Foundation

 

image: 

Crested Caracaras (Caracara cheriway) foraging on a vehicle-struck mammal along a road edge in southern Florida, USA. foraging on a vehicle-struck mammal along a road edge in southern Florida, USA.

view more 

Credit: J. Dwyer

What do windows, vehicles, power lines, fences, communication towers, wind turbines, and airfields all have in common? They block the flight path of raptors — sometimes with fatal consequences. According to a new Conservation Letter published in the Journal of Raptor Research, collisions pose a conservation threat to raptors globally. While there is much to learn about population-level effects, it is clear from rehabilitation and veterinary records that collisions are a common issue for these winged top predators in rural, suburban, and urban settings. Solutions exist, but their efficacy relies on support and innovation across industries.

 

In their letter, “Raptor Collisions in Built Environments,” lead author Heather Bullock and coauthors call these obstacles built environments, and define them as “landscapes modified by humans, including structures and infrastructure systems.” Unfortunately, raptors are drawn to a number of these structures, either for perches, nesting sites, or hunting habitats. Incidents of collision have increased significantly for raptors since the 1900s, as human-driven development has bloomed at staggering scales and altered countless tracts of habitat that birds used to traverse without collision risk.

 

Bullock and her team conducted a literature review to provide a birds-eye-view of how collisions impact raptors, as well as offer potential solutions and directions for future research. In their letter, they identify vehicles, wind turbines, and windows, as consistently problematic obstacles. They also address structures that are confirmed to impact raptors but are far less studied, such as aircraft, powerlines, communication towers, and fences.  

 

However, not all built environments affect raptors the same way. Vehicle collisions are especially detrimental for owls due to temporary blinding by headlights. Soaring raptors like eagles and vultures, which rely on updrafts and thermals for efficient flight, are more susceptible to collision with wind turbines. Quick and agile songbird-hunting raptors, like Sharp-shinned Hawks (Accipiter striatus) and Eurasian Sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus), are at higher risk for window collisions, especially given the widespread stewardship of backyard bird feeders, which are often stationed close to windows.

 

Proposed solutions for vehicle collisions include flight diverters, colored flags, management for less attractive habitats next to roadways, and hedging to redirect raptors away from dangerous zones. Wind farm site managers can build away from raptor hotspots, including migration corridors. For window collisions, bird-friendly products like decals can alert birds to the presence of glass, however, most of these methods have only been tested on songbirds, whose flight behaviors are markedly different from their predatory cousins. One of the key takeaways from this review is that more research is needed to formulate mitigation strategies that are tailored to raptors, and to better understand population-level effects of collision fatalities.

 

Data from rehabilitation centers and veterinary clinics confirm that collisions are responsible for a significant percentage of admitted cases, and those are just the raptors that are discovered prior to death. Those that perish from collisions are rarely reported. Bullock says she hopes this Conservation Letter will help expand public awareness about the scope of these deaths, and “serve as evidence of the need for policies to help protect raptors in increasingly human-dominated landscapes.”

 

She is currently helping lead a more extensive review of raptor rehabilitation admission records with the goal of quantifying the impact of human activities on raptors at a global scale and identifying existing trends across taxonomic groups, regions, and threat statuses. “Such a mammoth undertaking has yet to be done,” she says, “and we are excited about what this study will reveal and its potential impacts on raptor conservation worldwide.”

 

Protecting raptors from built environments requires a cooperative effort by the public, policymakers, industry leaders, and conservationists due to the widespread prevalence of human-made structures that put raptors at risk. This Conservation Letter can be used as a guide to what is known about raptor collisions, action steps to help prevent them, and which topics need further study. As top predators, raptors are key participants in ecosystem health around the world. Collisions are something that, collectively, we can reduce — and this will not only strengthen the environment but also allow an impressive group of birds to remain in the sky where they belong.

 

White-tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) transiting a wind farm in west-central Norway

Credit

T. Katzner

Barred Owl (Strix varia) impact smear on a window in Kansas, USA.

Credit

K. Anton

Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) likely killed by a vehicle collision but lying below a distribution power line, which can also cause collision mortality, in Wyoming, USA.

Credit

E. Fairbank

 

Paper

Heather E. Bullock, Connor T. Panter, and Tricia A. Miller (2024). Conservation Letter: Raptor Collisions in Built Environments. Journal of Raptor Research, 58(3), 1-11. DOI: 10.3356/jrr248

 

Notes to Editor:

1. The Journal of Raptor Research (JRR) is an international scientific journal dedicated entirely to the dissemination of information about birds of prey. Established in 1967, JRR has published peer-reviewed research on raptor ecology, behavior, life history, conservation, and techniques. JRR is available quarterly to members in electronic and paper format.

 

2. The Raptor Research Foundation (RRF) is the world’s largest professional society for raptor researchers and conservationists. Founded in 1966 as a non-profit organization, our primary goal is the accumulation and dissemination of scientific information about raptors. The Foundation organizes annual scientific conferences and provides competitive grants & awards for student researchers & conservationists. The Foundation also provides support & networking opportunities for students & early career raptor researchers.

---

Journal

Journal of Raptor Research

DOI

10.3356/jrr248 

Method of Research

Literature review

Article Title

Conservation Letter: Raptor Collisions in Built Environments

‘Remarkable’ fossils offer clues to perplexing pterosaur question

Did these winged giants soar or flap across prehistoric skies?


By Laura Baisas
Posted on Sep 6, 2024 


Pterosaur species Inabtanin alarabia flaps its winds, while Arambourgiania philadelphiae uses them to soar. Terryl Whitlatch

Among the many hot debates in paleontology is just how winged pterosaurs could fly. Some experts speculate that the largest among them may not have even been able to fly at all, similar to present day ostriches and similar dinosaurs.

Now, we are getting new clues into the different ways that pterosaurs got off the ground and into the sky, thanks to some well-preserved specimens. Two different large-bodied pterosaur species, including one that is new-to-science, indicate that some flew by flapping their wings, while others soared more like modern vultures. The findings are detailed in a study published September 6 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

[Related: We still don’t know how animals evolved to fly.]

“Pterosaurs were the earliest and largest vertebrates to evolve powered flight, but they are the only major volant group that has gone extinct,” study co-author and University of Michigan paleontologist Kierstin Rosenbach said in a statement. “Attempts to-date to understand their flight mechanics have relied on aerodynamic principles and analogy with extant birds and bats.”
Hollow bones

The fossils were first uncovered in 2007 by study co-authors Jeff Wilson Mantilla of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology and Iyad Zalmout from the Saudi Geological Survey. The “remarkable” specimens date back roughly 72 to 66 million years ago to the Late Cretaceous period.

Over time, they were three-dimensionally preserved within two different sites of what was once the nearshore environment on the margin of Afro-Arabia. This ancient landmass that included both Africa and the Arabian Peninsula that broke apart about 30 to 35 million years ago. Using high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scans, the team analyzed the internal structure of the wing bones.

Skeletal remains of Inabtanin alarabia, including cranial material (bottom of the image), one cervical vertebra (bottom center left) and a nearly complete wing (top). CREDIT: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

“Since pterosaur bones are hollow, they are very fragile and are more likely to be found flattened like a pancake, if they are preserved at all,” Rosenbach said. “With 3D preservation being so rare, we do not have a lot of information about what pterosaur bones look like on the inside, so I wanted to CT scan them.

According to Rosenbach, it was “entirely possible” that nothing was preserved inside the bones or that the scanners the team was using weren’t sensitive enough to differentiate fossil bone tissue from the other material that surrounded it. Fortunately, they were able to see the well-preserved internal wing structures.

[Related: Dinosaur Cove reveals a petite pterosaur species.]
Flapping vs. soaring

One of the collected specimens is of the giant pterosaur, Arambourgiania philadelphiae. The new analysis confirms its roughly 32-foot wingspan and gives the first details of its bone structure. The CT images showed that the interior of its humerus is hollow and has a series of ridges that spiral up and down the bone. This is similar to the interior wing bone of modern day vultures. Scientists believe that these spiral ridges resist the loads associated with soaring. When soaring, birds use sustained powered flight that requires launch and some maintenance flapping.

The other specimen was the newly discovered Inabtanin alarabia, with a roughly 6-foot wingspan. According to the team, Inabtanin is one of the most complete pterosaurs ever recovered from Afro-Arabia

.

The pterosaur species Inabtanin alarabia and Arambourgiania philadelphiae. 

CREDIT: Terryl Whitlatch.


The CT scans showed that its flight bones were built completely differently from that of Arambourgiania. The interior of Inabtanin’s flight bones were crisscrossed with struts that match those found in the wing bones of flapping birds alive today. This indicates that it was adapted to resist the bending loads in the bone associated with flapping flight. It was likely that Inabtanin flew this way, but may have also dabbled in other flight styles.

“The struts found in Inabtanin were cool to see, though not unusual,” said Rosenbach. “The ridges in Arambourgiania were completely unexpected, we weren’t sure what we were seeing at first! “Being able to see the full 3D model of Arambourgiania’s humerus lined with helical ridges was just so exciting.”
Was flapping the default?

The team called the discovery of diverse flight styles in differently-sized pterosaurs “exciting,” as it showcases how these animals might have lived. It also poses some questions, including how flight style is correlated with body size and which flight style is more common among pterosaurs.

“There is such limited information on the internal bone structure of pterosaurs across time, it is difficult to say with certainty which flight style came first,” said Rosenbach.

[Related: We were very wrong about birds.]

In flying vertebrate groups, such as birds and bats, flapping is the most common flight behavior. Birds that soar or glide, also require some wing flapping to get airborne and maintain flight

“This leads me to believe that flapping flight is the default condition, and that the behavior of soaring would perhaps evolve later if it were advantageous for the pterosaur population in a specific environment; in this case the open ocean,” said Rosenbach.

In future studies, scientists could continue to investigate the correlation between a pterosaur’s internal bone structure, their flight capacity, and behavior.

Laura Baisas

Staff writer

Laura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology,

 

Like people, vultures get set in their ways and have fewer friends as they age

Older birds tend to have more selective friendships with stronger bonds and may know better where to find food

University of California - Los Angeles

Key takeaways

• Young griffon vultures move frequently between sleeping sites in different locations, interacting with many friends.
• They get set in their ways as they age and roost in the same spots with the same individuals; older vultures follow the same paths.
• Roosts act as information hubs; older vultures may have a more thorough knowledge of where to find food resources and less need to learn about them from other vultures.

If you’d rather be watching TV on your couch than dancing at the club, you might have something in common with aging griffon vultures. New research shows that young griffon vultures move frequently between sleeping sites in different locations and interact with many friends but get set in their ways as they age, roosting in the same spots with the same individuals. As moving between roosts becomes a grind, older vultures follow the same path, establishing movement routines, that are not seen in young vultures.

Younger vultures shy away from the most popular roosts, suggesting they might be intimidated by the older ones or that there’s a vulture equivalent of “Hey you kids, get off my lawn.”

The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that like many people, older vultures tend to have fewer, more selective friendships with stronger bonds. They may also have a more thorough knowledge of where to find food resources.

Eurasian griffon vultures, or Gyps fulvus, are large vultures that live in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and India. With wingspans up to 9 feet, they’re much larger than North American turkey vultures and bigger than bald eagles.

Finding food can be tricky for vultures because it depends on locating animal carcasses — an unpredictable and ephemeral source. When griffon vultures find a carcass, they tend to sleep or roost nearby and feed on it over a period of days. Roosting sites can thus be ‘information hubs,’ where vultures that recently fed signal to others about food sources; they then follow each other to carcasses and form friendships that help them stay in the loop about food.

The researchers wanted to know if an individual griffon vulture’s movement patterns and social behavior changed over the course of its life. They used GPS data from 142 individually tagged birds in Israel gathered over a period of 15 years to cross-reference the vultures’ ages with their movement and social interactions at roost sites.

“What we found was as they age, their loyalty to certain roost sites increases,” said co-author Noa Pinter-Wollman, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “Young vultures check out many different roosts but in middle age, they start going repeatedly to the same places.”

The study showed young vultures sometimes returned to the same roost but usually chose different ones, rarely spending two nights in the same place. From young adulthood at around 5 years old through middle age, they spent about half their nights at the same “home” site and half elsewhere. In old age, they became true homebodies.

“When they are old, from the age of 10 onward, they no longer have the energy to be ‘out and about’ and return consistently to the same site,” said corresponding author Orr Spiegel of Tel Aviv University. “Those who were adventurous at the age of 5 became more sedentary by age 10.”

As the vultures grew older, the strength of their social bonds decreased as well for at least part of the year. The number of individuals they interacted with didn’t change with age — if they had five friends when young, they still had five when older. But the amount of time they spent with vultures outside of their close friend group plummeted. Older vultures spent most of their time with and roosted mostly with these close friends. Their movements also became more routine, eventually following a predictable pattern.

The study is unique because the researchers were able to track the movements and social behaviors of the same vultures for up to 12 nearly consecutive years over a 15-year period.

“We are able to show that the trends of individuals becoming more loyal to the same sites with age is not because the more exploratory individuals die earlier and live shorter lives, and the older, more sedentary individuals live longer lives,” said first author and Tel Aviv University postdoctoral fellow Marta Acácio. “Individuals actually change their behavior with age, and this has rarely been shown in nature for long-lived birds due to the difficulty of tracking individuals for such a long time.”

The research backs up findings from studies in other species that, with age, animals become more faithful to their known sites and routines — and potentially become more selective in their social relationships. These behaviors are commonly attributed to aging in humans and can help improve understanding of how animal populations move about in their environments and relate to other members of their species, as well as identify better ways to protect them from threats. For griffon vultures, this could mean better protection of important roosting sites and using knowledge about their social interactions to reduce the risk of poisoning.

“It looks like they just get set in their ways,” Pinter-Wollman said. “They’ve gathered information over the years, and they might as well use it. Carcasses are hard to come by and roosts are information hubs. Some roosts become popular for a reason; for example, they tend to be closer to reliable food sources and older vultures potentially monopolize these roosts.”

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences