The town of Hilario Ascasubi near Argentina's eastern Atlantic coast has a parrot problem. Thousands of the green-yellow-red birds have invaded, driven by deforestation in the surrounding hills, according to biologists. They bite on the town's electric cables, causing outages, and are driving residents around the bend with their incessant screeching and deposits everywhere of parrot poo. Parrots stand on power lines in the town of Hilario Ascasubi, which they invaded driven by deforestation in the surrounding hills, according to biologists, in Argentina, September 23, 2024. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian "The hillsides are disappearing, and this is causing them to come closer to the cities to find food, shelter and water," biologist Daiana Lera said, explaining that much of Argentina'...
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Lionel Messi has been immortalized in Argentina in tributes ranging from tattoos to murals after leading the national team to win the soccer World Cup. Now his face can be seen from the heavens too - on a specially designed corn field. The field in Los Condores in central Cordoba province was sown using an algorithm that calculated where seeds would need to be planted so that when the corn grew it created a huge visual image of Messi's bearded visage. The face of Argentine football star Lionel Messi is depicted in a corn field sown with a special algorithm to plant seeds in a certain pattern to create a huge visual image when the corn plants grow, in Los Condores, on the outskirts of Cordoba, Argentina January 15, 2023. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian "For me Messi is unbeatable," said...
Read MorePaleontologists on Thursday heralded the discovery of a previously unknown small armored dinosaur in southern Argentina, a creature that likely walked upright on its back legs roaming a then-steamy landscape about 100 million years ago. The Cretaceous Period dinosaur, named Jakapil kaniukura, would have been well-protected with rows of bony disk-shaped armor along its neck and back and down to its tail, they said. It measured about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weighed only 9 to 15 pounds (4-7 kg), similar to an average house cat. Palaeontologists work on the excavation of bones and fossils that belonged to a newly discovered species of bipedal armoured dinosaur, Jakapil kaniukura, in Rio Negro, Argentina February 2, 2016. Sebastian Apesteguia/Handout via REUTERS Its fossilized re...
Read MoreArgentine scientists discovered a new species of a huge flying reptile dubbed "The Dragon of Death" that lived 86 millions of years ago alongside dinosaurs, in a find shedding fresh insight on a predator whose body was as long as a yellow school bus. The new specimen of ancient flying reptile, or pterosaur, measured around 30 feet (9 meters) long and researchers say it predated birds as among the first creatures on Earth to use wings to hunt its prey from prehistoric skies. A palaeontologist works on excavation of bones and fossils that belonged to a newly discovered species of pterosaurs, Thanatosdrakon Amaru, in Aguada del Padrillo, Mendoza, Argentina August 9, 2012. Leonardo Ortiz David - Universidad de Cuyo/Handout via REUTERS The team of paleontologists discovered the fossil...
Read MoreSeismic study reveals how newly unburdened earth rebounds and rises The icefields that stretch for hundreds of miles atop the Andes mountain range in Chile and Argentina are melting at some of the fastest rates on the planet. The ground that was beneath this ice is also shifting and rising as these glaciers disappear. Geologists have discovered a link between recent ice mass loss, rapid rock uplift and a gap between tectonic plates that underlie Patagonia. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, led by seismologist Douglas Wiens, the Robert S. Brookings Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, recently completed one of the first seismic studies of the Patagonian Andes. In a new publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, they describe and map out local...
Read MoreWildfires in Argentina's north are forcing local species of wildlife including capybaras, marsh deer and anteaters to attempt to flee ahead of the flames, with many animals killed or injured while trying to escape as the fires spread. The blazes in Corrientes province, which borders Paraguay, have burned through nearly 900,000 hectares of forest and pasture land, some 12% of the region, including destroying habitats in the biodiverse Iberá Park wetlands. A capybara injured during a wildfire receives treatment by a veterinary at the Aguara Conservation Center in Paso de la Patria, province of Corrientes, Argentina February 23, 2022. REUTERS/Matias Baglietto "There are sectors of the Iberá where animals have been trapped," said Sofía Heinonen, executive director of Rewilding Argent...
Read MoreWildfires in Argentina's north have continued to spread through the province of Corrientes, burning more than 600,000 hectares, scarring farmlands and killing protected animals and plants in the major Ibera National Park, an important wetland area. Local authorities have sent firefighters, police and volunteers to fight some 15 blazes that have ripped through the region near the border with Paraguay, burning over 6% of the entire province, which has been hit by drought and high temperatures since late last year. Local residents and firefighters battle a wildfire that has spread to cover more than 500,000 hectares underscoring the impact of dry weather due to the Nina weather pattern, in Corrientes, Argentina, February 15, 2022. REUTERS/Sebastian Toba "More than 600,000 hectares h...
Read MoreIn June 2021, an unprecedented heat wave hit the Pacific Northwest and Canada, killing an estimated 1,400 people. On June 28, Seattle reached 108 F — an all-time high — while the village of Lytton in British Columbia recorded Canada’s highest-ever temperature of 121.3 F on June 29, the day before it was destroyed by a heat-triggered wildfire. Climate change is expected to bring more such extreme heat events globally, with far-reaching consequences not just for humans, but for wildlife and ecosystems. In 2019, University of Washington researchers witnessed this in Argentina at one of the world’s largest breeding colonies for Magellanic penguins. On Jan. 19, temperatures at the site in Punta Tombo, on Argentina’s southern coast, spiked to 44 C, or 111.2 F, and that was in the shade. A...
Read MoreMighty river to muddy trickle: South America’s Parana rings climate alarm
# Parana has retreated to lowest level in 77 years# River is vital for commercial shipping and fishing# Grain transport snarled in Argentina and Paraguay Gustavo Alcides Diaz, an Argentine fisherman and hunter from a river island community, is at home on the water. The Parana River once lapped the banks near his wooden stilt home that he could reach by boat. Fish gave him food and income. He purified river water to drink. Now the 40-year-old looks out on a trickle of muddy water. The Parana, South America's second-largest river behind only the Amazon, has retreated this year to its lowest level since its record low in 1944, hit by cyclical droughts and dwindling rainfall upriver in Brazil. Climate change only worsens those trends. The decline of the waterway, which knits t...
Read MoreOpposites attract: Wild and captive jaguars mate in Argentina to save species
Conservationists are taking an unorthodox approach to save jaguars from dying out in Argentina’s northern forests: matchmaking a captive female with a wild male. The unusual courtship of Tania, brought up in a zoo, and Qaramta, meaning “The One Who Cannot Be Destroyed” in the regional Qom language, began last year around a specially constructed enclosure in the dense forests of Argentina’s Impenetrable National Park. Tania, a female jaguar brought up in a zoo, is seen in her enclosure at the Impenetrable National Park, in the Chaco Province, Argentina. Rewilding Argentina/Handout via REUTERS With jaguars all but wiped out from the area, conservationists were thrilled in late 2019 to detect a young male, first by a pawprint in a muddy river bed, then using camera traps. Seeking a ...
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