A camera-trap study in the reserve forests near Dehradun, which was conducted to develop a new tiger reserve, led to the discovery of one of the world's oldest fossil remains of elephants, dating back to 5 million years.
"During #lockdown, such a rare discovery was a pleasant surprise, we are taking the help of 'van gujjars' (a forest tribe), to discover even more," says Sanjay Kumar, the Commissioner of Saharanpur Division of Uttar Pradesh bordering Dehradun, capital of Uttarakhand.
The rare fossils of elephants suggest that the foothills of the Himalayas, the beautiful lush green Terai region in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, were once inhabited by giant elephants, giraffes, horses and hippopotamus.
The story, which led to the discovery of one of the oldest "habitat" of elephants, started when the government thought of finding a new reserve for the tigers in the Terai area.
The 33,000 hectares of reserve forests of Siwalik range in Saharanpur division, bordering the Rajaji National Park, was once inhabited by tigers. However, poaching and human interventions led to the disappearance of the large cats in the area.
The camera trap study, a powerful tool to investigate the presence of animals in a given area, was conducted with help of forest officials and experts of the World Wildlife Fund (@WWFINDIA) in Siwalik range.
"The scientists at the Wadia Institute have now opined the age of this elephant fossil, ranging from 5 million to 8 million years," said Sanjay Kumar, who now readies to conduct another detailed study of the area.
A team of forest officials and WWF led by Jain claimed that the fossil discovered by them is the first reported sample of an elephant in the region.
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While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.