Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2022 i BBC Wildlife Magazine

EYES WIDE OPEN The snow-covered granite peaks of the Cuernos del Paine in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park provide a sublime backdrop for these two inquisitive guacanos. The llama-like camelids have to remain alert to predatory pumas, but they put up some resistance, reaching speeds of over 60kph and, in some instances, taking to the water to swim away from danger.…

HUMPBACK WHALES ARE SUPERB SINGERS, with complex vocal performances that last for tens of minutes, often repeated for many hours. An album of their songs gained worldwide fame in the 1970s and is still the best-selling recording of nature sounds ever made. Only male humpbacks sing, and all the singers in a wide sea area deliver the same songs in the same way during each year. But songs vary between populations. North Atlantic humpbacks, for example, sing different ones to those in the North Pacific. Songs also vary annually, sometimes slightly, sometimes with more radical shifts. These song patterns allowed a team from the University of Queensland, Australia to see how precisely humpbacks in different geographical populations can match each other’s songs. Using seven years of recordings, the researchers took…

Come September, hazelnuts are ripening fast and wood mice are hoarding as much of this bounty as they can. Any nuts they polish off now are easy to identify. Look for empty shells with a neat circular hole chiselled in one end (the work of the lower incisors) and a few longer scrapes around the outside (where the upper incisors gripped the nut).…

SEABIRDS ARE ON THE MOVE IN September, with many heading to waters off Portugal or western coasts of Africa. Common terns go as far as the Cape of Good Hope, fishing the Benguela Current and mingling with southern species such as albatrosses. Uniquely among the five tern species found in Britain and Ireland, they breed at gravel pits, lakes and reservoirs (even in some cities), as well as on coastal shingle. On migration, too, they can be encountered at waterbodies inland. So keep your eyes and ears open this month for any streamlined ‘gulls’ with buoyant, superbly graceful flight and shrill cries. Common terns are famously hard to separate from Arctic terns, also migrating this month. Both species have the nickname ‘sea-swallow’ due to their long tails but while adult…

AN ISOLATED, GENETICALLY-DISTINCT population of polar bears has been discovered in southeast Greenland and is thriving despite a lack of summer sea ice – conditions projected for the High Arctic later this century as temperatures rise. The biologists behind the discovery estimate the population to consist of a few hundred individuals that have been cut off for about 200 years from their neighbours by mountains. “I suspect that some founding members of the population were carried south on the sea ice from northeast Greenland,” says Kristin Laidre of the University of Washington, the lead author of the report, published in Science. The discovery raises the number of distinct sub-populations of the iconic carnivore to 20. The biologists believe the bears are able to survive in the absence of summer sea…

1 RSPB ARNE These protected lowland heaths in Dorset are rich in spiders, with over 250 species recorded here, including the very rare ladybird spider. 2 REDGRAVE AND LOPHAM FEN NNR Straddling the River Waveney, which sits between Norfolk and Suffolk, this reserve is home to the fen raft spider, a rare semi-aquatic species that hunts on or just below the surface of the water. 3 WWT LONDON WETLAND CENTRE The grasslands around the reserve in Barnes hold a good population of wasp spiders. This large and recent colonist forms orb webs, with a distinct zig-zagged design. 4 TORQUAY The mild winter climate of the English Riviera makes it one of the best places to look for the much-vilified false widow spider. 5 BBC BRISTOL HEADQUARTERS The low walls around…

Porcelain crabs are gregarious by nature – more often than not, when you find one you’ll find others. It is thought that the planktonic crab larvae that waft around in the water can detect the presence of other crabs by the chemicals they give off, and it is this that encourages them to settle. Another porcelain crab called the short-clawed porcelain crab can also be found on our shores, although, in my experience, never in quite the same numbers. Like their cousins, they are also filter feeders.…

Beech Type: large broadleaf Carbon amassed by 10 years old: 228kg Pollution absorbed per year: 155g Wonderful at absorbing carbon and pollution. Beech trees have vast crowns, which suits shade-dwellers, such as bluebells, on the ground below them. The tallest native tree in the UK is a 45m-high beech which lives in Hagg Wood, along the River Derwent in Derbyshire. Scots pine Type: large conifer Carbon amassed by 10 years old: 213kg Pollution absorbed per year: 98g A common sight in the Caledonian pine forests of the Scottish Highlands, the Scots pine is also found in heathlands. Incredibly, they can live for more than 500 years. Large conifers tend to grow fast and absorb a lot of carbon in their early years, but this diminishes with age. They are less…

Horsfield’s bronze cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of superb fairy wrens, burdening them with the costs of parental care. In response, fairy wrens are evolving ever more sophisticated ways to identify parasitic chicks, such as detecting their begging calls. Fairy wren mothers teach their embryonic chicks a unique vocal password by repeatedly calling to their eggs while incubating – a risky strategy for the mother because it alerts potential predators. Upon hatching, fairy wren chicks produce begging calls that incorporate a single, unique note from their mother’s call, in essence showing that they’re part of the club. Horsfield’s bronze cuckoos lay their eggs too late in the breeding cycle for the chicks to learn the password, meaning that the fairy wren parents can recognise the intruder. As a…

Email your questions to wildquestions@immediate.co.uk How do bees nest in snail shells? NICK UPTON ANSWERS The female two-coloured mason bee nests in empty snail shells (usually of brown- and white-lipped snails), expertly stocking, sealing and camouflaging several of these readymade shelters during her short lifetime of a few weeks. She collects pollen on her furry underside from a range of chalk grassland flowers, deposits it into a selected shell, and then lays a single egg on it. This is then sealed off with a partition made up of chewed-up leaves and, depending on the size of the shell, she adds up to four further pollen-packed egg cells. Next, she closes up the nest with shell fragments, chalky stones and more chewed-up leaves, then uses her back legs to deftly turn…

Does dog poo harm the environment? Picking up after one’s pooch has become the norm in towns and cities, but not so in natural areas. In a Belgian study of four designated nature reserves on the outskirts of Ghent, dog waste was estimated to add about 11kg of nitrogen to each hectare per year, about as much as is contributed by atmospheric pollution. The addition of nutrients allows a few dominant species to prosper at the expense of the rest. SB What is the world’s most expensive plant? David Austin spent 15 years and £3 million developing the Juliet Rose, presenting it to huge acclaim at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2006. But in 2012, the most expensive single plant was an 800-year-old bonsai pine tree, which sold at auction…

What’s your most memorable moment at Blakeney Point? Perhaps surprisingly, it was a wet, grey Monday in September. The combination of heavy mist and south-westerly winds brought hundreds of migrating thrushes to ground. These blackbirds, song thrushes, redwings and ring ouzels had crossed the North Sea overnight. Exhausted, they were literally dropping from the sky all around us, sheltering in bushes, having finally reached dry land. There were dozens of robins and goldcrests too. This was my first experience of a famed ‘autumn fall’ and it was truly magical. Also, I’ll never forget the year we didn’t have running water for three whole months, which left us unable to shower or use the washing machine. I know this is the norm for rangers on places such as the Farne Islands,…

HAVING ALWAYS HAD A KEEN INTEREST in wildlife and having seen the odd red squirrel, Gerard McCaughan decided to join the Glens Red Squirrel Group in the Glens of Antrim, Northern Ireland, in the hope that the occasional sighting would become more frequent. He signed up as a volunteer in 2010 and went on to become a ranger in 2014 to help protect and safeguard the future of this species. His commitment was recognised in 2021 when he received the Red Squirrel Survival Trust’s Volunteer of the Year award. Why do you volunteer? From the moment I saw my first red squirrel, I was smitten. Some would say I’m fanatical about red squirrels. Guilty as charged. I will stand for hours watching them feeding or playing in the woodlands. What…

GET TECHNICAL “I used a tripod, cable release and wide-angle zoom (28–135mm) set at f32 to maximise my depth of field.” KEEP YOUR BALANCE “I used my cloudy white balance setting to add punch and saturation – automatic white balance can diminish natural colours in duller light.” POSITION PATHWAYS “The path is set to the left to emphasise the size and colour of the beech trees sweeping over it.” To read more of Paul’s tips, visit discoverwildlife.com/autumn-photography. Plus, we have plenty more articles and videos offering wildlife photography advice from the experts.…

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA “DESPITE THE FACT IT WAS autumn, the sun was shining, something it hadn’t done much that very cool and wet Sydney summer. I was determined to enjoy every last minute of it, but the birds had different ideas. First, the currawongs started calling louder and with more insistence than usual. That got my attention, but not enough to rip me away from a good coffee and an even better book. It was another matter once the kookaburras started up, giving a throaty, angry sounding laugh. I jumped up and bolted past my husband, screaming back over my shoulder as I did so, “The birds know something!” He jumped straight to his feet and we ran into the street. Across the road from our house is bush or, more…

DEFRA HAS ANNOUNCED NEW legislation that will provide legal protections for beavers in England. Conservation organisations hope it will pave the way for the animals to be released into the wild under licence. So far, there have only been two trial releases into the wild in the River Otter catchment, Devon, and in Knapdale, Scotland. The legislation will make it an offence to deliberately capture, kill, disturb, or injure beavers, or damage their breeding sites or resting places – without holding the appropriate licence. “We’re delighted to see the government give beavers the vital protections they deserve,” says Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts. Chair of Natural England, Tony Juniper, says, “We are working closely with landowners, environmentalists and other stakeholders to develop practical guidance to ensure these…

SPIX’S MACAW HAS BEEN RETURNED to live freely in its native Brazil having been extinct in the wild thanks to a remarkable and pioneering international conservation effort. Named after the German naturalist Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix who first collected a specimen in 1819, the South American parrot’s plight began when its homeland in northeast Brazil was destroyed by overgrazing and clearing. Its fate was then sealed by the fact that its distinctive blue plumage proved irresistible to global bird collectors. By 2000, Spix’s macaw was declared extinct in the wild. The parrot’s predicament was highlighted in the 2011 animated film Rio, which told the story of a caged Spix’s macaw. The film was not only a box-office hit but also provided the impetus to bring the parrot back to…

UNIQUE TO MEMBERS OF THE swallowtail butterfly family, this other-worldly organ is usually stowed away in a pouch behind the caterpillar’s head, but when danger strikes, it is inflated spectacularly to deter predators with a combination of visual and chemical shock and awe. Predators are repelled by its repugnant smell and its resemblance to a snake’s forked tongue.…

1 CHOCOLATE CHIP SEA STAR Has chocolate brown bumps – you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a cookie 2 FRIED EGG JELLYFISH Looks just like a fried egg, albeit with tentacles 3 PINEAPPLE FISH Possesses distinctive scales with black margins and bioluminescent organs near its mouth 4 HONEY BADGER Tough mustelid that raids beehives for larvae and honey 5 BANANA SLUG Its yellow colour camouflages it among the leaf litter 6 TOMATO FROG The brightness of this Madagascan species acts as a warning 7 LEMON SHARK Its yellow-brown hue allows it to remain inconspicuous 8 STRAWBERRY FINCH A bird with bright red plumage, dotted with white spots 9 COCONUT CRAB Named for its ability to crack open coconuts to eat 10 SEA CUCUMBER There are about 1,717 species of…

THINK BACK TO MAY AND JUNE, when elder trees were smothered in cream-coloured, deliciously sweet-scented flowers. The blossom buzzed with all manner of insects, especially hoverflies and pollen beetles – and flavoured many a refreshing cordial. Three months down the line, flowerheads pollinated in spring have become luscious clusters of shiny berries. These often appear black, but are actually dark purple. Don’t be tempted to try a raw elderberry: they’re at best unpalatable, at worst toxic. However, to a bird, they are simply irresistible! Starlings, woodpigeons, blackbirds, thrushes, robins, tits and warblers all tuck in. Researchers have discovered that more species of bird feast on elderberries than any other native British fruit. Given elder is a compact tree, the double whammy of blossom and fruit makes it a brilliant addition…

The colour and smell of red fox scats can vary widely depending on the season and diet. When feeding on small mammals and carrion in the winter, scats are coloured light grey to black. In the summer and autumn when foxes are feeding on berries and insects, the scats can be red and purplish. “Though the scent will vary, scats retain a musky smell due to secretions from the fox’s anal glands,” says Cristian Navarro Waggershauser from the University of Aberdeen. Scat thickness is the most reliable diagnostic.…

Radial webs These webs are often found on old walls around ports in southern England and Wales, and comprise single lines of silk radiating away from a silken tube tucked into a crevice. The lines are tripwires to alert the tube web spider inside to the possibility of prey. The spider then dashes out with its green fangs, ready to bite. Extra features Some orb web spiders, such as the wasp spider, add an extra band of silk called the stabilimentum to their creations. The precise function of this feature is unclear but theories abound, from helping to attract insects to acting as a warning to larger animals to avoid hitting the web. Webless wonder The zebra spider does not have to rely on a web, taking a more proactive…

The hole story An Atlantic puffin on Skomer peers out from the clifftop burrow it’s occupied since early spring and where it lays a single egg in late April. This island off the south-west Pembrokeshire coast, managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, is a breeding stronghold for the species: nearly 39,000 puffins were recorded here this year. Nesting instinct A puffin gathers grass and roots to line its burrow. Its large, vividly coloured bill – prominent in summer, a duller hue in winter – contrasts with the smart black and white of its plumage, said to resemble monastic robes. This look informs the species’ scientific name, Fratercula arctica, ‘little brother of the north’ – a nod to its range in the north Atlantic. Seabird city Skomer,…

LAGO ENRIQUILLO IS A LAKE THAT DEMANDS description in superlatives. Stretching across an arid valley in the south-west corner of the Dominican Republic, near the country’s border with Haiti but far from the holiday hubs of Punta Cana and Puerto Plata, the lake is unique, in the most literal sense of the word. To start with the basics, it is the country’s largest lake. In fact, Lago Enriquillo is the largest lake in the entire Caribbean. The lake’s most extraordinary features, however, are found in its exceptional ecology. Among other distinctions, it is home to the world’s largest population of American crocodiles, themselves one of the largest crocodilian species in existence. The largest males reach 6m in length. American crocodiles are also one of only two crocodilians to thrive in…

SOMETIMES, AN ORANGUTAN mother must step in to stop her progeny from eating poo or poisonous leaves. Baby orangutans, like all youngsters, have a lot to learn about life. The mother is the infant’s primary role model – for up to nine years, the longest dependency period of any non-human primate – and it is from watching and interacting with her that the youngster learns many of its survival skills, including the technical know-how for processing more than 200 food items. The word ‘teaching’ comes to mind. But this is where things get tricky. Because, while the concept of animals ‘teaching’ their young may not seem controversial, it elicits lively discussions in the scientific world. Teaching is so fundamental to how our children learn that historically it was considered a…

Until recently, this record was held by a Mekong giant catfish, but in June this year a Cambodian fisherman caught a female giant freshwater stingray that claimed the title. She measured a remarkable 3.98m in length (tail included) and 2.2m in width, weighing 300kg. She was named Boramy, which means ‘full moon’ in the local Khmer language, and she was tagged and released back into the river.…

PHOTOSYNTHESIS IS ONE OF nature’s most important processes. Powered by sunlight, it uses carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates, the fuel for most life on Earth. The process also releases oxygen, vital for burning carbohydrates to generate energy through aerobic respiration. Which species can photosynthesise? Besides plants and microbes such as cyanobacteria, photosynthetic organisms also include algae – a diverse group that contains everything from single-celled species like Chlorella to the multicellular seaweeds that form kelp forests. In plant cells, photosynthesis occurs inside chloroplasts – descendants of cyanobacteria that were incorporated into plants over 2 billion years ago through endosymbiosis (see my column in the January 2022 issue). Photosynthesis enables an organism to harness solar power to synthesise its own food – carbohydrate molecules – from carbon dioxide (CO2) in the…

HAWS Infuse hawthorn berries in vinegar and add to dressings and sauces, or use them in hedgerow jelly. CRAB APPLES The small, tart fruits can be made into a jelly eaten with a variety of foods, from toast to meat and cream teas. ROSEHIPS During World War II, children were paid to collect rosehips to turn into rosehip syrup as a source of vitamin C.…

A ding in the wing These may be called elegant terns, but they can get into a fierce fight! One tern had caught a fish and came out of the water here in Orange County, California. The other one was jealous and instead of going for the fish he gave a hard ding in the wing of the winner. The chance of a successful dive is low, so no wonder the fight! Jack Zhi, California, USA Strike a pose As a birdwatcher, it’s my regular activity to watch birds across the globe, as well as in my vicinity. In the summer I provide water for the birds in my backyard. One fine day I encountered an Indian white-eye, which came to drink and made this pose for me. Munna Mandalapu,…

NICK BAKER “Porcelain crabs deploy a tactic called autotomy: the deliberate severance and shedding of limbs” P.38 GILLIAN BURKE “In all the filling, cleaning and re-filling of birdfeeders, are we losing sight of the bigger picture?” P.17 MARK CARWARDINE The conservationist hopes Iceland is turning a corner and valuing whale-watching over whale-hunting P.31 LUCY COOKE Discover the fish that is able to change its sex to complement that of its new partner P.27 MIKE DILGER “Mist droplets on dewy mornings elevate spider webs into an obvious autumnal spectacle” P.34…

LONG AGO, THE TUBE-LIKE EGG-LAYING organ of female wasps evolved into a sting. A hundred million years later, this remarkable innovation ruins many a September picnic. But why do these insects suddenly become hell-bent on interrupting al fresco meals and venturing inside our homes at this time of year? See it from their perspective and everything starts to make sense. Queen German, or European, wasps – the main species of social wasp in the British Isles – have stopped laying eggs. And with no new larvae, the end is nigh for the squadrons of female workers, which by this stage in a successful colony’s life-cycle may number several thousand. They’re doomed because, unlike the carnivorous, protein-hungry grubs, adult wasps sip sugars. Earlier, these were provided by the grubs in the…

WITH THE EXPLOSION OF INTEREST IN craft beer, frequently brewed using trendy varieties of hops from New Zealand or the northwest USA, we have rather forgotten the long tradition of growing hops in Britain. The plant has been cultivated here since the late medieval period, after flavouring beer with hops took off in what is now Holland and Belgium. Today, hops grows wild in many areas, though most commonly in southern England. It is a vine, usually seen rambling over other plants in hedgerows and thickets. Hops plants are male or female. In summer, the former produce inconspicuous white flowers, which are wind-pollinated and not hugely important for insects. The flowers on the female plants, best looked for in August and September, are rather unusual – a little like small…

ZOOLOGIST BETH REINKE HAS BEEN interested in herpetology for as long as she can remember. “It started with catching and recording ‘data’ on American toads that would get onto the fire escape at my parents’ house in Indiana,” she says. “Then in the summer, I’d catch turtles in Wisconsin with my cousins. Now I catch some of the same animals for research!” Beth studied zoology at Indiana University. This was followed by a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology before she became a postdoctoral researcher. She is currently assistant professor of biology at Northeastern Illinois University. Her latest research in Science reveals the secrets of ageing in the largest study on longevity and ageing in reptiles and amphibians (herptiles). “We’d hypothesised that being ectotherms [who don’t use metabolic heat to…

THE TERM ‘NYE OF PHEASANTS’ DERIVES either from a ‘nye’ being a corruption of ‘an eye’ (an Old English word for a brood) or from the French ‘nid’ for nest. There are variants in the spelling, including nide, nie and ny. Their other collective nouns include head, nest and nide. For more specific categorisations, a brood is a family of pheasants, a brace a pair of shot birds and a bouquet a general gathering.…

HOW DO YOU FIND A MATE IN THE vast blue desert of the ocean? A fish could swim for months and when they finally stumble upon a member of their species, they turn out to be the same sex. Evolution has endowed more than 500 species of fish with a cunning solution: switch sex to complement your new partner – whatever their sex may be. The most famous of these oceanic hermaphrodites are the anemonefish: the stars of Finding Nemo – a film about a young anemonefish who loses his mum to a barracuda and ends up going on an incredible, ocean-going adventure before being reunited with his dad, Marlin. Needless to say the animated movie takes more than a pinch of artistic licence. These monogamous reef dwellers set up…

HERE WE GO AGAIN. WE WERE on the verge of celebrating a permanent end to the horrors of Iceland’s past – it looked as if it had hung up its harpoons for good – but our cautious optimism was premature. A few months ago, the country’s most obstinate whaler, Kristján Loftsson, suddenly announced that he would resume whaling on 10th June this year, after a four-year lull. His quota? A shocking 161 fin whales. It’s devastating news for the planet’s second largest animal, which is still recovering from the ravages of more than one and a half centuries of commercial whaling. At least 915,000 fin whales have been killed worldwide – and they are still considered ‘vulnerable’ on the IUCN Red List. Iceland is one of three countries continuing to…

DESPITE BEING ONE OF THE WONDERS of the natural world, silk’s transparent nature renders it virtually invisible to the human eye for most of the year. However, mist droplets on dewy mornings – such a distinctive feature of September – have the ability to elevate spiders’ astonishingly accomplished webs into one of our most obvious autumnal spectacles. And as spiders have colonised every terrestrial habitat, web-spotting is an activity that can be conducted virtually anywhere. While fewer than half of Britain’s 37 spider families don’t construct webs to catch their prey, all are capable of producing silk. Constructed from protein, this astonishingly versatile product combines immensely high tensile strength with tremendous elasticity. Furthermore, most spiders have three or four types of silk glands, which in turn produce material with subtly…

THE EARLY MORNING sun filtered through the trees onto parkland in Milton Keynes, where a group of people were sitting chatting on the grass. But this was no summer picnic – the revellers were volunteers, and they were hard at work. Their task? To remove every last leaf from every last branch of a freshly felled London plane tree, and to do so as quickly as possible – all in the name of science. These days we have satellites, drones and laser-scanning technology to unravel the complexities of forests, such as how dense they are and how much carbon they store. But there is one question scientists have not managed to answer, particularly for the trees in our towns and cities: how many leaves do they have? Or, more accurately,…

Laguna de Oviedo Further south, Laguna de Oviedo is the country’s largest lagoon and a birdwatching paradise. It is located within Jaragua National Park, the largest protected area in the Caribbean, home to everything from mangroves and manatees to Bahia de las Aguilas, an 8km beach of white sand and turquoise water. Sierra de Bahoruco National Park Between Jaragua National Park and Lago Enriquillo lies Sierra de Bahoruco National Park, a land of mountainous rainforest home to 30 of Hispaniola’s 32 endemic bird species.…

Many islands around the world were home to myriad seabird species before the invariably disastrous arrival of rodents alongside humans. Seabirds often nest either on the ground or in shallow burrows and their vulnerablity to these determined and hungry predators has resulted in inexorable declines. Unfortunately, removing rodents from an island is far from easy – it’s logistically challenging, it’s expensive, and it can be controversial. Here are five case studies of how we’ve dealt with rodent invasions, with varied success. Shiant Isles It’s thought that black rats arrived on the Shiant Isles, off the west coast of Scotland, following a shipwreck in the 18th century. The Shiants are one of Europe’s most important sites for breeding seabirds and in 2014 the RSPB launched a rat eradication project. By March…

The Unique Life of a Ranger By Ajay Tegala, The History Press, £16.99 THE RANGERS OF OUR NATURE reserves are often overlooked, working hard in the background to preserve and conserve the environment. Fortunately, Ajay Tegala has written this lovely book, which opens up a window into the life of rangers, and the particularly unique life of a ranger at the National Trust’s Blakeney National Nature Reserve in Norfolk, including Blakeney Point. The book begins with a bit of scene-setting and history. We learn how the oystercatcher was lost as a breeding bird here by 1892, thanks to the Victorians’ guns; how a visiting professor recovering from illness recognised the importance of Blakeney’s botanical species; and the National Trust’s purchase of the Point in August 1912 – it’s first coastal nature…

WITH BBC WILDLIFE PICTURE EDITOR TOM GILKS How did you get into photography? Through a love of diving. My dad gave me a disposable underwater camera as a way to practice buoyancy. To get the perfect shot, you need to be still in the water. What shot is most important to you? A photo of a great white off Guadalupe Island. She was just beginning a deep dive, and the way her body is contorted makes it look like she’s bowing. She looks so vulnerable. Any epic fails? I once took a beautiful photo of a lone chinstrap penguin on an iceberg in Antarctica. When I got back home and processed it, I realised there must have been sea spray on the lens, because all these tiny dots appeared. I…

ACROSS 8 ___ beetle, striped insect known as a potato pest (8) 9 Burrow-nesting auk (6) 10 Warty amphibian (6,4) 11 Structure for viewing birds and other wildlife (4) 12 Shrew-like mammal of Madagascar (6) 14 Timber of a dicot tree, such as oak or eucalyptus (8) 15/6 Edible fungus also known as sulphur shelf (7,2,3,5) 17 Marine mammals related to manatees (7) 20 Long-legged pink wading bird (8) 22 Greek island, site of a notable petrified forest (6) 24 Fruit tree in the genus Pyrus (4) 25 Another name for the bonobo (5,5) 27 Ocelot or serval, for example (6) 28 Extinct 27 Across, Panthera spelaea (4,4) DOWN 1 Canine of North America (6) 2 Spring call of the bittern (4) 3 Sessile crustacean in the subclass Cirripedia (8)…