Tiny lizards found in Madagascar

Tiny lizards found in Madagascar

Tiny lizards

By Ella Davies, Reporter, BBC Nature

Miniature juveniles can stand on the head of a match

One of the world's tiniest lizards has been discovered by keen-eyed researchers in Madagascar.

The miniature chameleon, Brookesia micra, reaches a maximum length of just 29mm.

German scientists also found a further three new species in the north of the island.

The lizards were limited to very small ranges and scientists are concerned they could be at risk from habitat disturbance.

The discovery is reported in the journal PLoS ONE.

The research team, led by Dr Frank Glaw from the Zoologische Staatssammlung in Munich, have a specialist knowledge of Madagascar's dwarf chameleons having described other species in the past.

They conducted fieldwork at night during the wet season in order to find the easily overlooked animals.

"They mostly live in the leaf litter in the day... But at night they climb up and then you can spot them," said Dr Glaw, explaining that the animals moved up into branches to sleep.

The scientists carefully scanned the most likely habitats with torches and headlamps to find roosting sites.

They found the smallest species on a remote limestone islet and believe it may represent an extreme case of island dwarfism.

This phenomenon occurs when a species becomes smaller over evolutionary time in order to adapt to a restricted habitat such as an island.

According to Dr Glaw there could have been a "two-island effect" in the case of B. micra.

"It is possible that the big island of Madagascar has produced the general group of dwarf chameleons and the very small island has produced the tiny species," he told BBC Nature.Varied but vulnerable,Because the chameleons looked similar in appearance, researchers conducted a genetic analysis to confirm that they were indeed four distinct species.The genetic differences between the species were described as "remarkable" by team member Miguel Vences from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany."This indicates that they separated from each other millions of years ago - even earlier than many other chameleon species," he said.Each of the new species was restricted to a very small territory, just a single square kilometre for the smallest.In Madagascar many species are restricted to small habitats and that makes it important to conserve them" said Dr Glaw.Scientists believe the small ranges of the species make them especially sensitive to habitat disturbance.B. tristis, named after the French word "triste" meaning sad, was found in an isolated patch of forest close to an expanding city.The team chose thought-provoking names as an expression of their concern for the future of the island's micro-endemic species.

PLoS ONE, miniature chameleon, Brookesia micra, 29mm, Miniature juveniles, Ella Davies, Reporter, BBC Nature, lizards, lizard, Tiny lizards, Madagascar

Source: BBC

Facebook to Launch Subscribe Button for Websites

In its latest move to colonize areas of the web currently outside its orbit, Facebook is planning to roll out a “Subscribe” button for websites.
Joanna Shields, VP and managing director for Facebook Europe, Middle East and Africa announced the program at Le Web in Paris on Wednesday, according to TechCrunch. Such a plug-in would let visitors hit a button to subscribe to that site’s updates on Facebook.

“Subscribe” button for websites

Facebook began offering the option to subscribe to public figures and journalists, among others, in September. Meanwhile, users who are interested in getting updates from organizations, like for instance The New York Times, can do so by “Liking” it.
In practice, the Subscribe button will act very much like Twitter’s Follow button does for websites. If you want to get all the latest news from, for instance, The Washtington Post, via Facebook, then you can just hit the Subscribe button.
It’s not currently known which organizations will use the button or when it will launch. Reps from Facebook could not be reached at press time.

Facebook subscriptions are about to blow up! At Le Web, Joanna Shields, VP and Managing Director for Facebook Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), announced that the company is planning to roll out a “Subscribe” plugin for all websites. The plugin will allow a website’s visitors a one-click way to begin following all of the news from an individual reporter, public figure, politician, celebrity, or anyone else who wants to post public updates via their Facebook user profile.

You may recall that Facebook launched its “subscriptions” feature earlier this fall at its annual f8 conference. The button, available as an optional addition to your Facebook user profile, introduced a Twitter-like functionality to the social networking service. It introduced one-way friendships (at last!) where a user could follow someone, like a public figure, celebrity, politician, journalist, etc., without that person having to “friend” the subscriber in return. This benefits both parties – the subscriber who wants to use Facebook to receive the news, and the public figure who wants to reach their audience on Facebook, but isn’t a brand or company deserving of their own Facebook Fan Page.

Now this same one-way follow option is going to become easier to access through the new subscribe plugin. Publishers will be able to add the button to their websites, much like they do with the Twitter “follow” button today, allowing users one-click access to a person’s public updates. The updates from that person will then begin appearing in the subscriber’s News Feed, alongside updates from friends and the pages the user had previously “liked.”

While the introduction of a website button is typically relatively minor news, for Facebook, this is huge. It means that the company is directly attacking the entire Twitter model head-on, by allowing for these one-way subscription buttons to be as easy to use and as ubiquitous as they are for Twitter.

There is one downside to posting publicly on Facebook, however. If you’re a public figure who begins sharing your news at Twitter’s same pace, you’re sure to annoy your real Facebook friends.

Facebook’s subscribe button is coming “soon,” but Facebook isn’t confirming the launch date or time.

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