KS Biodiversitas-I Missss You….Jalak Lawu!!!

By Wahju gedangmatikenekvirus BBTV St.29

Penampakan jalak lawu Di Pos 4 (2867 m)

Terlepas dari kesan mistis dan angker, Gunung Lawu kaya akan keragaman Flora dan Fauna. Gunung Lawu sebagai kawasan pelarian dari kerusakan yang ada, sangat besar potensi flora yang dimilikinya. Wukir Mahendra itulah namanya, merupakan pegunungan vulkanik tua, secara geografis terletak pada posisi 111°15′ BT dan 7°30′ LS dan meliputi areal luas sekitar 15 ribu hektar. Gunung yang memilki bentuk habitat yang sangat eksotis. Menjadi pembatas antara lingkungan Jawa Timur yang cenderung kering dan gersang dengan Jawa Tengah yang mulai basah yang sebelumnya mencapai Jawa Barat yang basah dan dingin. Sebagai kawasan Peralihan, tempat ini ditumbuhi species-species khas Jawa Timur namun tidak ditemukan di Jawa Barat dan demkian sebaliknya.

Jalak Lawu atau penduduk sekitar menyebutnya Jalak Gading, merupakan species burung endemik yang sering terlihat oleh para pendaki. Perangai burung ini ramah dan jinak, terbang kesana kemari dari pohon satu kepohan lainnya seolah sedang memamerkan keindahnnya melengkapi indah pagi di pos 3 jalur pendakian cemoro sewu. Hampir putus asa saya dan kawan-kawan ketika harus melintasi tangga yang tidak ada habisnya menuju pos 4. Tapi seakan terobati melihat sekumpulan jalak lawu sedang bermain disuatu tebing yang kemungkinan merupakan sarangnya. Sesampainya di pos 4, rasanya saya seperti lepas dari penderitaan hidup ketika harus membawa career batu dari bawah. Kawan-kawan se ekspedisi langsung tepar sesampainya dipos ini. Tidak nampaknya jalak lawu menambah kebosanan team. Sesudah santap siang dan foto-foto teampun tertidur pulas dibawah terik dan beralaskan kasur rumput seperti spring bed kualitas terbaik (mungkin sangking capeknya).

Jalak Gading/Jalak Lawu Turdus Sp.

(PMPA KOMPOS, 2009)

Pemasangan DOM telah selesai dan team pos 5 sudah melanjutkan perjalanan. Tidak terasa waktu sekitar jam setengah lima-an. Dan benar kata mas Balong (seorang gaet yang Amazing), jalak lawu muncul pagi dan sore hari. Tepat dihadapanku, seekor jalak Lawu diatas batu yang bertaburkan mie (memang saya sebar) dan sisa nasi bekas saya serta kawan-kawan makan tadi siang. Burung ini tidak besar hanya sebesar jalak Ungu dan jalak Bali. Bulunya berwarna coklat, bagian dada berwarna kuning emas, paruh dan kakinya kuning, nampak begitu jinak namun begitu saya dekati, ”jpretttt..(suara camdig) “ dia langsung terbang . Tapi tidak apa karena saya sudah mendapatkan foto artis pujaan hati saya.

Hawa dingin mulai terasa menusuk tulang, cahaya surya mulai terlihat tipis, dari arah kanan saya muncul sekelebat penampakan kecil Jalak Lawu dipermukaan tanah sedang menarik-narik ranting. Dalam pikiran saya, pastilah burung ini sedang membuat sarang. Dengan langkah kecil kucoba mendekati, momen seperti inilah yang kucari dengan berusaha sedekat mungkin dengan sosok yang menawan ini. “Dagdigdug…(suara jantung)” jantungku berdegub kencang. Entah mengapa saya sudah sedekat ini dan ingin lebih dekat lagi. Sekujur tubuhku bergetar ketika matanya sedikit-sedikit menoleh kesaya dan tiba-tiba “brrrrrrrrr…(kepakan sayap)” dia terbang hinggap di dahan tepat diatas kepala saya dengan tatapan mata genit seolah berkata “ayo foto saya dengan posisi seperti ini” dan “jprettttttt…”. Akhirnya kudapatkan foto kedua Jalak Lawu yang paling berkesan dan yang paling romantis. Sebuah tanda tanya besar bagiku, apakah burung ini termasuk burung yang pandai membuat sarang….bersambung

 

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How “Zombie” Virus Liquifies Caterpillar Hosts

Single gene allows virus to brainwash caterpillars, turn them to goo, study says.

A monarch caterpillar, most likely killed by a baculovirus.

Photograph courtesy Michael Grove, Science/AAAS

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic News

Published September 8, 2011

Scientists have identified a single gene that allows a caterpillar-brainwashing virus to do its dirty work, a new study says.

The virus forces the “zombie” caterpillars to climb trees, where the invader eventually liquifies its hosts’ bodies into a dripping goo. (See “Caterpillar Fungus Making Tibetan Herders Rich.”) “When gypsy moth caterpillars are healthy and happy, they go up into the trees at night to feed on leaves, and then climb back down in the morning to hide [in bark crevices or soil] from predators during the day,” said study co-author Kelli Hoover, an entomologist at Penn State University. But caterpillars infected with a baculovirus—a type of virus that infects invertebrates—are driven to the treetops and reprogrammed to stay there until they meet a doom worthy of a horror film.”When they are infected, as they get sicker they stay up in the trees and die up there,” Hoover explained. The virus “ends up using just about all of the caterpillar to make more virus, and there are other genes in the virus that then make the caterpillar melt. So it becomes a pool of millions of virus particles that end up dropping onto the foliage below where it can infect other moths that eat those leaves.”

Viruses Are Master Manipulators

Though such zombie-making viruses were previously known, their genetics have been a mystery. So Hoover and colleagues infected gypsy moth caterpillars with half a dozen different types of baculovirus and placed the bugs in tall bottles with food on the bottom. Viruses that the scientists had determined carried a specific gene, called egt, drove caterpillars to climb to the top of the container and stay there to die. (Read “‘Zombie’ Roaches Lose Free Will Due to Wasp Venom.”) Researchers then removed egt from some viruses, reinfected the caterpillars, and found that the zombie behavior stopped. When the team inserted the gene into a virus that previously lacked it, the zombie behavior returned.
“Somehow or other, using this gene, the virus is able to manipulate the behavior of the caterpillar to go to the right location in the tree to enhance transmission to new hosts. It’s really amazing,” Hoover said. The gene may work by deactivating its hosts’ molting hormone, according to the study, published tomorrow in the journal Science. “That would be an advantage to the virus because it keeps the insect in a feeding state, so that they get bigger and bigger and make more and more virus.”

Viruses and Moths-Natural Enemies

There are many different types of baculovirus, Hoover said, and almost all caterpillar species are infected by one or more of them. But the virus, which is naturally occurring, doesn’t greatly impact gypsy moths as a species, Hoover said. Gypsy moth populations are prone to cycles of boom and bust, so when caterpillar numbers are in check, the virus remains so as well. When gypsy moth invasions grow, the virus may go into outbreak mode-serving as a natural control mechanism for caterpillar infestations.”This virus probably came to North America when the caterpillars did,” Hooever explained. “It’s just a natural enemy of the gypsy moth.”

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Ancient Toothy Fish Found in Arctic—Giant Prowled Rivers

Six-foot predator had long fangs, “smiling” face.

A diagram (right) labels the different sections of the newfound Laccognathus embryi fossil.

Photograph by Ted Daeschler/ANSP

Christine Dell’Amore

National Geographic News

Published September 12, 2011

Fossils of a new species of carnivorous fish that prowled ancient rivers have been discovered in the Canadian Arctic, a new study says.

The 6-foot-long (1.8-meter-long) Laccognathus embryi was “the kind of fish that was waiting to lunge out to grab whatever was in front of it,” said study co-author Ted Daeschler, a vertebrate zoologist at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The fish’s 1.5-inch-long (3.8-centimeter-long) fangs would have definitely sunk into flesh, he added. In addition, the 375-million-year-old fish had thick, quarter-size scales; tiny eyes; a flat head; and a wide mouth—sort of like a modern-day grouper. The fossil head “looks like a big, smiling face looking up at you,” added Daeschler, who received funding for his research from the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

An artist’s concept of Laccognathus embryi. Illustration courtesy Jason Poole, ANSP.

Newfound Giant Swam With “Missing Link” Fish

Daeschler and colleagues found the new fish fossils during several excavations in a siltstone flood deposit on Ellesmere Island (see map) in Nunavut, Canada. The name L. embryi is a nod to Canadian geologist Ashton Embry, whose Arctic research helped prepare the scientists for their fieldwork. In 2004 the same “incredibly productive” Arctic site had yielded Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil creature that lived during the same period as L. embryi and is considered to be a crucial link between fish and early limbed animals. Both Tiktaalik and L. embryi were lobe-finned fish, a group with rounded, limb-like fins. The group was beginning to blink out in the Devonian period, 415 to 360 million years ago—its only surviving members are the “living fossil” fish, the coelacanth, and the lungfish. The Devonian “was a fish-eats-fish kind of world,” Daeschler said. “There was a real arms race going. If you [were a smaller fish and] didn’t have good armor on your body, you were very vulnerable.” The period was also “a very watershed time in the history of life on Earth, because you’re seeing the dwindling—the end—of many of the more archaic groups … including many of the lobe-finned fish,” Daeschler said. At the same time, “you’re seeing the beginnings of the groups that go on to dominate the vertebrate fauna for the next 375 million years … the upstarts if you want.” For example, ray-finned fish—the typical body plan we associate with modern fish—had begun to take over the seas.

Devonian World Still a Mystery

Though the Tiktaalik and L. embryi discoveries are valuable in and of themselves, “it’s not just finding the animal—it’s also placing the animal in its evolutionary crucible,” Daeschler added. For instance, finding the “cast of characters” that once occupied the Arctic site may begin to provide clues about who ate who and may help answer a big question: What environmental conditions drove fish onto land, where they eventually evolved into limbed animals, including us? “We want to know,” Daeschler said, “what that world was like.” The new predatory-fish study was published in September in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

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