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Specimen of the Month: The Red Fox
Animals	Natural History	Wildlife Photography Specimen of the month
Emma-Louise Nicholls, our Deputy Keeper of Natural History, tells us all about our foxy neighbours - Vulpes vulpes.
It's a girl! Or is it a boy?
Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes) have very little sexual dimorphism, that is - they are hard to tell apart. If you spot two of them together, ask them to stand side by side and (assuming you're definitely talking to a male and a female), one of them will have a wider and more domed shaped head and look a little heavier-set. That is the male. It is slightly easier in the mating season (though approaching foxes at this time may be impolite), as certain external organs become larger on the male as they fill up with the DNA of future cubs.
Female foxes also go through morphological changes if she breeds. When nursing, the mother's teats will become enlarged and her belly fur, normally white or grey in colour, turns a deep red. If you would like to observe this phenomenon, cubs are born in the spring but won't emerge from their dens until the summer. So your best bet for teat spotting is when the mother and cubs are running around between May and July. If it's a very hot summer, the cubs may venture out sooner however, so keep an eye on the barometer.
Telling a male from a female is difficult if you don't have one of each to compare, like this visitor to our gardens in October., Emma-Louise Nicholls
As tiny balls of dark fluff, newly sprung fox cubs are blind and deaf for the first few days of life. When their eyes eventually open in their fuzzy-furred, stumpy-nosed faces, the irises are slate-blue in colour. As they begin to grow into their delightfully oversized ears the muzzle lengthens into a shape beginning to resemble that of their parents. When the cub reaches between four to eight weeks old, the blue eyes darken to an amber colour, to match those of the adults.
The case on display in the Natural History Gallery houses two adults and four cubs. Those with sharp skills of observation will notice that the adults have brown eyes whilst the cubs have blue eyes, suggesting therefore that the cubs are less than four weeks old - eight weeks at the most. The case is by Rowland Ward historically one of the most prolific suppliers of taxidermy to museums across the world. The fox case came to the Museum all the way back in 1939. So in fact, despite still having blue eyes, the cubs are quite a bit older - more like 78 years and eight weeks, say.
If you look closely, you can see the cubs have blue eyes whereas the adults have brown eyes., Emma-Louise Nicholls
British Wildlife Photography Awards
These beautiful animals are extremely adaptable and have set about world domination with enthusiasm, only avoiding Iceland, the Arctic islands, and a few areas within Siberia. Sadly, experts believe they have become locally extinct in Korea, though it is inconclusive as to why. They even appear absent within the Demilitarised Zone between North and South Korea which is otherwise considered a wildlife haven due to the (relative) lack of human presence.
The UK, however, has a healthy population of around 240,000 according to the Veterinary Association for Wildlife Management, 14% of which live in urban areas. One such individual was caught on camera in the gorgeous image below, on display in our new temporary exhibition of images from the British Wildlife Photography Awards. As you can see the cub's irises are brown, not blue as in our Rowland Ward case. Together with the white and red patches of facial fur coming through, this means that this little cutie pie is at least eight weeks old. The things you learn on blogs.
This beautiful image was selected for the British Wildlife Photographers Award exhibition, and is on display in the Portraits category., Luke Wilkinson
British Wildlife Photography Awards 2017
from 25 Nov 2017
until 14 Jan 2018
Specimen of the month
Specimen of the Month: The Hawfinch
Our latest exhibition has got Emma-Louise Nicholls, our Deputy Keeper of Natural History, twitching as she tells us all about Hawfinches (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) in her latest Specimen of the Month blog post.
New delights at the Horniman
At the Horniman, we currently have the pleasure of playing host to the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. These 87 invariably fetching images were submitted across 13 categories including the intriguingly named 'Hidden', which got imaginations whirring and macro-lenses reeling.
In the 'Habitat' category, a colourful hawfinch sits in a cherry tree, showing off its striking golden eyeshadow and jet black 'beard' in remarkable detail. It also reveals the 'ringing' that is evidently being carried out on this species in the shape of jewellery about both of the finch's ankles. The gifter of these adornments is a brave soul indeed. As much as I too would like to get up close and personal with such a beautiful bird, its incredible biting force makes this comparatively tiny bird capable of cracking open tough nuts such as cherry stones - the human equivalent is a force of 60 tonnes.
This image, taken by Jeremy Moore, shows off the beauty of this bulky but shy finch species.
Twitching is a coincidence
This rather eye-catching bird is not one I've ever had the personal pleasure of seeing in the wild. However, in carrying out research for this article I came across, and am now an avid follower of, @HawfinchesUK on Twitter (there has to be a pun in that alone) which documents hawfinch sightings throughout the UK. The regular images of this beautiful bird popping up in their Twitter feed brighten a dreary autumn day and I've become thoroughly sold on the idea of a becoming a birdwatcher, who I am reliably informed are not to be called twitchers. Fair enough I'd say… as a palaeontologist, I get extremely irritated when someone says- "Oh you mean like archaeology?" (Another blog for another time).
The word 'twitcher' is connected to birdwatchers purely, it seems, due to a gentleman called Howard Medhurst, a British birdwatcher. Depending on your source, his twitching is attributed to either a 'nervous behavioural trait' of his or alternatively his shivering in the cold. Bracing against the English winter (and occasional summer) is not something specific to birding, but I can imagine it gets pretty darn chilly sitting motionless in a hide awaiting the arrival of a bird on its own schedule. I quite like the word twitcher, and it certainly appears a damp and chilly day in this nevertheless stunning image caught by birdwatcher Nick Truby, but it is for birdwatchers to decide on their own noun.
Two hawfinches in a hornbeam tree, taken in Great Hampden, Buckinghamshire. Note the striking patterns on the wings and tail, being kindly displayed by the bird on the right for your appreciation. Image used with kind permission of Nick Truby
In the Hart of our Collection
The Horniman has an alluring case of taxidermy hawfinches that belonged to the esteemed taxidermist and wildfowler Edward Hart (1847-1928). The description of the case on the Museum's database and Hart's original catalogue lists the fine feathered figures as 'two adult males, one immature male, and one adult female'. Those of you who got as far in maths as four will notice that only three hawfinches adorn this case - one is intriguingly absent. The missing male absconded before the case arrived at the Horniman in the 1980s and his original incorporation is only known at all due to Hart's description of the case.
Of the three remaining finches, the doleful-looking one on the left is the female, identifiable by her slightly lighter plumage (or 'much' lighter in the case of certain faded historic specimens). The resplendent young man in flight is an adult male in his summer finery (the missing finch was in winter plumage), and in the bottom right is an immature male, indicated, as in many human teenagers, by the spots on his chest. Hart collected, and subsequently prepared, all three himself between 1873 and 1896 in Christchurch, Dorset*.
It is possible that the female (on the left in the image below) has faded, or perhaps that she was always slightly paler (leucistic) than your average lady hawfinch. Certainly, oddities were a fascination amongst Victorian collectors such as Hart. Thoughts on an electronic postcard (@HornimanMuseum).
*During Hart's lifetime Christchurch was located in Hampshire, but has since been adopted by Dorset.
Edward Hart would collect, prepare and mount the taxidermy specimens himself.
Specimen of the Month: The Giant Squid
Animals	Natural History	Specimen of the month
The good news is that you still have until the 29 October to enjoy our incredibly popular temporary exhibition the Robot Zoo and interact with the larger than life animatronic animals that inhabit the gallery. In even better news, there is still one final species in the exhibition to have not yet been investigated by the Specimen of the Month blog series, hoorah, and that is the Giant Squid (Architeuthis). NB: There is no bad news in the Specimen of the Month blog series.
Squid or Cuttlefish?
Today is International Squid and Cuttlefish Day, so let's start with the difference between a squid and a cuttlefish as let's be honest, probably not everyone has nailed it. Cuttlefish are a type of squid so, that's confusing for a start. What we're really asking is - what's the difference between a cuttlefish-squid and all of the other types of squid that we call squid, 'traditional squid' if you prefer. The answer - Cuttlefish have a lovely fringe that skirts their entire body like a tutu, and a face that looks like it got stuck in a spiralizer. A squid-squid, on the other hand, could be compared to an ice cream cone with an octopus stuck on the top. The tutu is restricted to two triangular 'wings', one on either side of the mantle, that in some species form an arrow-shaped 'tail'.
Unlike their close relative, the octopus, whose anatomy is restricted to just the eight appendages, both squid and cuttlefish have eight arms and two tentacles as well for good measure. The arms are covered in suckers, which in the Giant Squid can measure 5 cm across. Tentacles tend to be much longer than the arms and have sucker-covered 'tentacular clubs' on the tips. The tentacles are used in the same way as rocket-propelled net launchers; they are flung out at prey with great speed in ambush attacks. Once they've got a hold, the tentacles bring the prey in closer to where the arms can get involved and help guide the prey back to the mouth at their base.
Left: A Cuttlefish showing the tutu that surrounds the body (mantle). Right: A common squid showing the triangular wing on either side., (R): © Hans Hillewaert
They don't make it easy
Incredibly, despite extensive efforts by scientists to study them, no Giant Squid had ever been seen alive until 2004 when Japanese scientists managed to get the first photographs of a living animal. It took another two years for scientists to hook one and pull it to the surface, thus making history with the first human (on record) to ever clap eyes on a live Giant Squid. In 2012, scientists used a submersible and both saw and recorded a Giant Squid feeding in its natural habitat.
The story of how they acquired the footage that had scientists around the world drooling over their laptops is quite wonderful. Given how vast the world's oceans are, rather than going in search of a Giant Squid they decided it would be much more efficient to attract a squid to them. The Giant Squid doesn't prey on jellyfish (that we know of) but jellyfish luminesce when predators are nearby, and jellyfish predators are what the Giant Squid eats. So the research team attached a series of bioluminescent lures to the outside of their submersible in an ingenious effort to mimic panicked jellyfish, and, as you can see from this clip beneath, the ingenuity paid off.
There is a lot of misinformation about the Giant Squid, specifically in relation to its size. It doesn't help that what we do know about their dimensions is largely based on carcasses that have washed up on beaches half decayed, with tentacles and arms missing, and often bloated with water. Without a doubt, the Giant and Colossal Squid are the two largest invertebrates on the planet (currently known to science), yet because they are so elusive, and we can't just go out and catch a good sample of specimens, we don't know realistic maximum body lengths.
Putting aside anecdotes from fishermen who report 900 foot monsters far out at sea - the Giant Squid is thought to be responsible for the myth of the Kraken for example - the largest scientifically recorded Giant Squid specimen was 13 metres. That is a massive animal with enough wow-factor to not warrant exaggeration in my book, but exaggeration is human nature I suppose. Measurements for the largest Colossal Squid on record vary greatly but most references seem to acknowledge the Giant Squid as being the larger of the two.
The final thing I want to tell you about the Giant Squid is how they got so big. The best guess scientists have come up with is this species has evolved larger and larger in an eight-arms race with predators. The only (known) predator of an adult Giant Squid is the Sperm Whale, which in itself is a huge beast and imagining epic battles between these two colossal creatures makes one's inner geek salivate.
Although this has never been witnessed (presumably their encounters occur many fathoms below the surface) beak parts of Giant Squid are regularly recovered from the stomachs of Sperm Whales, and in a tit-for-tat scenario that suggests a battle rather than clear-cut predation, many Sperm Whales are found to be covered in scars from giant suckers, duh duh duuuuuh...
A piece of Sperm Whale skin showing signs of a battle with Giant Squid, note the scarring from suckers - In Smithsonian Report 1916 - Bartsch
The Robot Zoo
from 11 Feb 2017
until 29 Oct 2017
Emma-Louise Nicholls
Specimen of the Month: The White Rhino (Ceratotherium simum)
Natural History	Specimen of the month	Conservation
This month, Deputy Keeper of Natural History, Emma-Louise Nicholls, has the pleasure of telling us all about her favourite odd-toed ungulate, the rhinoceros.
Oh my goodness gracious, I get to write a blog about rhinos, my absolute favourite animal. Hold on to your hats and don't go anywhere folks, this is going to be exciting. Not only is this the penultimate Specimen of the Month blog to focus on each of the eight species of animal in our incredible Robot Zoo, it also happens to be World Rhino Day!
A feat of engineering
The rhino robot in our very popular Robot Zoo.
The robotic rhino grazing on the snazzy grey carpet in the Robot Zoo is made largely out of every day and household objects, this ingenious work of engineering manages to pick out all of the White Rhino's most important features. It has a fly swatter hanging off of its rear end for example, as real rhinos flick away irritating insects with a swish of their hair-tipped tails - although only two of the five species of rhino have a particularly tufty tail per se; the White Rhino and the smaller, delightfully furry Sumatran Rhino. Microphones for ears, and large cones they called 'smell-inlets' for nostrils demonstrate the rhinos excellent senses of smell and hearing. Armour plating represents their thick skin and bright purple rubber takes the place of thick grass-gripping lips. It even uses a crane to lift the head, demonstrating how strong their neck muscles are.
A tale of two rhinos
Southern White Rhino at Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park in South Africa. Very few people can tell the difference between a Northern and a Southern White Rhino by eye, in case you were wondering., Pierre Blouch/WikimediaCommons
There are two subspecies of White Rhino; the Southern and the Northern. The wild population numbers of Southern White Rhino is a huge feather in the cap of conservation, and every one of these thick-skinned beasts hoofing about in sub-Saharan Africa is a testament to how humans aren't entirely useless as a species. The White Rhino was down to just 100 individuals in the late 19th Century due to hunting in the colonial era. Due to intensive conservation efforts, the numbers have risen to over 20,000 and subsequently the (Southern) White Rhino is not currently listed as endangered.
In contrast, their friends in the North are not doing so well. There are three Northern White Rhinos in the world. Three. They are called Sudan, who is the only male, and Najin and Fatu who are both females. Unfortunately, Sudan is Najin's father and Fatu's grandfather, making repopulating the earth with Northern White Rhinos an awkward conversation. Further complicating things is that Sudan has to be under armed guard 24 hours a day to protect him from poachers who would target him for his horn, which is as medicinal as the metal cone on our robot.
A sixth rhino?
This is a female Northern White Rhino that used to live at San Diego Zoo., Jeff Keeton/Creative Commons
There has been an argument put forward that the Northern White Rhino is not, in fact, a subspecies of the slightly larger White rhino but a distinct species in its own right. Personally the idea of there being six rather five species of rhino in the world means Christmas has come early in my book, but the proposed name of Nile Rhino may never make it into the history books as the rhino scientists of the world met the proposal with scepticism. Darn it. Still - as exciting as it would be on the one hand if Sudan and his family of two did represent a distinct species, on the other, it would mean we are on the verge of losing a much more genetically distinct animal than previously thought. I could explain in detail why having distinct species is important to the ecosystem (not just rhino enthusiasts), but I'm out of space so you'll have to campaign for the Horniman to allow me more rhino airtime.
Until then - Happy World Rhino Day!
Specimen of the Month: The Chameleon
Natural History	Specimen of the month
This month, Deputy Keeper of Natural History, Emma-Louise Nicholls, gives us the lowdown on Boy George's favourite reptile - the chameleon.
This huge reptile is taller than the average human. Meet it for yourself in Robot Zoo.
If you have visited the Robot Zoo already, you will have seen we are currently home to, among other things, a huge, robotic chameleon. It's about 20 times life size - if you take average chameleon species' sizes into consideration - and it demonstrates perfectly what fascinates us most about chameleons: their ability to change colour, their bulging eyes, and their massive tongues. If you haven't visited yet, I can easily entice you by letting you know that you can interact with this giant reptile, and control all of the above features yourself.
The Real McCoy
Such a cute couple. This chameleon pair are on display in the Natural History Gallery.
The lovely pair of specimens shown here are on display in the Natural History Gallery and are Mediterranean Chameleons (Chamaeleo chamaeleon). They are thought to date back to the 1930s and have maintained their beautiful speckled skin due to a healthy (actually incredibly unhealthy for humans) coating of arsenic.
In life, male Mediterranean Chameleons colour can vary from green, through brown, to grey. The females have an even larger repertoire which includes yellow, orange, and even green spots during the mating season. The ability to change colour is very important to a chameleon as changing colour can help regulate its body temperature, which of course reptiles can't do automatically like mammals can. You'll never find a sweaty chameleon. It can also change colour to make itself stand out if it wants to attract a mate, or ward off a rival. Or if threatened it can, to a certain extent, blend into its surroundings.
Speaking of threats, the Mediterranean Chameleon's primary predators, besides humans capturing them for the pet trade, are domestic cats, snakes, and…each other. They may look like a cute cartoon character but an adult chameleon will eat a juvenile if it catches one.
Huge Assets
The giant tongue, to which I referred earlier, can be twice the length of the body and they project it at such a speed that it can nab a fly right out of the air, just like Mr. Myagi with chopsticks.
For this, they rely on the fact that they have incredible eyesight, but they can also move each eye independently of the other. Personally, I don't get how this doesn't blow their brain. I can play Lego Batman on the XBox whilst watching re-runs of Star Trek, but that's as chameleon as I'll ever get.
All eyes and tongue. A Panther Chameleon from Madagascar (Furcifer pardalis) , John Mather / CC BY-SA 4.0
Specimen of the Month: The Grasshopper (Caelifera)
This month, Deputy Keeper of Natural History, Emma-Louise Nicholls, tells us all about noisy grasshoppers.
'A plague upon both your houses'
Grasshoppers are those cute, colourful, hoppy insects you may have run around in circles trying to catch as a kid. Grasshoppers are also the thing of nightmares, capable of gathering in their billions and swarming across the land, much to the chagrin of Ancient Egyptians and modern farmers alike. It is only a small number of grasshopper species that form these gargantuan, crop-decimating swarms, causing mayhem and bringing dishonour to the good name of grasshoppers worldwide, earning them the alternative name of locust.
A locust is just as much a grasshopper as any other species of grasshopper, but their gregarious phase sees them swarming in groups of up to 50 billion individuals. A swarm of this magnitude can weigh up to 79 tonnes. To give you some context, that's more than 13 adult male African elephants, or if you'd prefer the equivalent of 10 Tyrannosaurus rexes. I'd say everything is better if the unit of measurement is dinosaurs. Locust swarms of this size will decimate the land by consuming around 192,000 tonnes every day until it dissipates. That's 32,000 African elephants worth of crops being eaten. Or 24,000 T. rexes…either way, the take home message is it's a good job they're vegetarians.
This swarm of locusts was photographed in Madagascar in 2014., Iwoelbern / CC BY-SA 3.0
A Rhythmic Symphony
There are lots of insects that look like grasshoppers but only those within the suborder Caelifera are 'true grasshoppers'. They're also known as the short-horned grasshoppers which refers to their antennae length, they don't have actual horns.
Grasshoppers make their chirping sound by rubbing a series of small pegs located on the inside of their hind legs across their forewing. In general, male grasshoppers have evolved to deploy this to greater effect than females as grasshoppers primarily use the sound to attract a mate or repel a rival. Both of which seem to be a 'boy job'. Grasshoppers have a number of different 'songs' depending on what they are doing, their favourite of which, I am sure, is the 'Copulation Song'.
The act of rubbing two body parts together is called stridulation. Whilst this fancy term is primarily used in relation to insects, some spiders and snakes also use stridulation. A few species of grasshopper take a slightly different tack and produce sound by snapping their wings together in flight, akin to the sound my knees make when I stand up after a three-hour board game. The snapping noise made by grasshoppers (and my joints) is referred to as 'crepitation'. Two great words for your next pub quiz.
If true grasshoppers decided to join forces and work out how to alter pitch and coordinate a harmony, they would have the means to rival the best orchestra in the land. It's not particularly likely to happen anytime this side of a lot of evolution as at present, the 21st Century grasshopper can hear intensity and rhythm, but really struggles to differentiate between pitches. So they'd be pretty rubbish in the performance of all scores bar the most basic of percussion segments.
The metal parts in our giant Grasshopper means it does a lot of crepitating. The Robot Zoo exhibition is open until 29th October 2017.
Specimen of the Month: The Giraffe
This month, Deputy Keeper of Natural History, Emma-Louise Nicholls, looks at the world's tallest animal - the Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis).
Microphones; All the better for hearing you with my dear
Giraffe's are a well-known and well represented animal; most zoos, natural history museums, and Duplo animal sets come with a Giraffe or two. Yet no other place I know of has a Giraffe quite like the one we are currently housing. Reaching over five metres high, the Giraffe is the world's tallest animal, which is perhaps why we only have half of one. A half-Giraffe.
Our half-Giraffe is 2m and 70cm high from the base of the neck to the tip of the metal horns (or ossicones to be precise). Metal horns aren't the latest giraffid fashion fad, as far as I know they are only utilised by robot Giraffes, such as ours. It has microphones in its ears which act as 'moveable acoustic receptors' and allow the Giraffe to hear the sweetie packet you are rustling, plus moveable optical receptors to give you side-eye as you shouldn't be eating in the gallery.
The huge flexible tube running the length of its neck lights up to show visitors how food is squeezed down the oesophagus (food pipe) and a parallel, smaller tube shows how valves in the blood vessels help the blood reach the top of that very long neck despite the best efforts of the world's gravitational field trying to yank it back down again.
This friendly chap is waiting for you in The Robot Zoo, open until October.
My my!
Giraffes are very well-endowed… in the tongue department. No less than 45cm in length, the tongue is prehensile, meaning it can be wrapped around a twig on a tree and used to strip the leaves away. This immense tongue is a dramatic purple-black colour which adds a bit of elegant glamour to the already impressive organ.
Giraffes are also horny. The horns aren't huge and obvious like a rhino's, but short with a rounded tip. If you visit our mechanical Giraffe in The Robot Zoo exhibition take a close look at the horns. The normal manner of sexing the Giraffe can't be used as the half of the Giraffe we have is the wrong half for such obvious assets. The horns however, will give it away. Although both sexes have horns in Giraffes, they are fluffy on top in females and bald on top in males. I'm not making any remarks about human men here as that would be rude.
Giraffes use infrasonic sound, which means we can't hear them chatting because our hearing range is set too high. The same sound is used by elephants, though I'm unsure whether they can understand each other. I speak on the same frequency as my dear Glaswegian friend, but I can't understand her most of the time. Giraffes also have a repertoire of bellows, snorts, hisses and a noise that sounds like a flute being played.
The only non-robotic Giraffe specimen we have is this bone fragment, part of the original Horniman Collection, acquired by Frederick Horniman before 1906.
Strange family
The closest living relative to the Giraffe wasn't known to science until 1901. It is called the Okapi and looks like a cross between a Giraffe and a Deer, with Zebra stripes on its bottom and the upper part of all four legs. Given that Okapis are large animals, it feels like scientists at the turn of the last century weren't doing a very thorough job of looking for new animals. However, they live in dense jungles in Africa and their populations are naturally low, the combination of these two elements means they are seldom seen. Of course now there are more humans than atoms in the world*, their habitat is shrinking and their populations are even lower.
Another claim to fame for the Okapi is it has a strong connection to the infamous journalist Sir Henry Morton Stanley. If you're a natural history buff/fan or general know-it-all, you'll know that Stanley was the chap sent to Africa in the early 1870s to locate David Livingstone, which he did, and (is rumoured) to have subsequently uttered the immortal phrase, 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?' Before the Okapi had been 'discovered'**, Stanley was told by indigenous people of a horse, that lived in the forest, which had a long neck and striped legs. It turned out not to be a horse, but the closest living relative of the Giraffe, and an animal completely new to science, now known as the Okapi.
The Okapi is the closest living relative of the Giraffe.
* Slight exaggeration
** By the academic world/Western science
ARKive - Okapi (Okapia johnstoni)
ARKive - Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis)
BBC Historic Figures - Henry Stanley
Robot Zoo, Robot Fact Sheet. Unpublished.
Specimen of the Month: House Fly (Musca domestica)
This month, Deputy Keeper of Natural History, Emma-Louise Nicholls, takes a look at the crime scene investigators of the animal world.
Two Sides to the Coin
It will probably surprise you to hear that the house fly is critically endangered. Just checking you're paying attention… no it won't surprise you to hear that the house fly is actually thought to be the most common animal on the planet. But don't let that make you think they're not special in their own way; humans are also (seemingly) everywhere and we all have at least a few of those we think are pretty great. The house fly may be numerous, and irritating at picnics, and yes, they can carry many disease-causing pathogens including typhoid, cholera, and leprosy, but they have many upsides too.
This housefly specimen on display in the Natural History Gallery is a model approximately 30 x life-size.
The Scientist Fly
If CSI Miami was made into a cartoon with insect characters, it would seem reasonable for a mosquito to play a blood sucking lawyer. The house fly, on the other hand, would definitely be the cool-guy crime scene investigator. In the real world, the discipline of Forensic Entomology uses insects and the stages of their development to glean clues from fatal crime scenes that can aid legal investigations. If the body is found immediately after death, pathology-based methods are used. However, if the body isn't found until a day or more later, insects are one of the most reliable indicators of many aspects of the crime.
The decomposition of a body can be split into five phases. Just in case you're reading this over dinner, I shan't use the precise medical terms, but they are as follows:
• Could be sleeping (1-2 days)
• Resembles a flotation device (2-6 days)
• Nose peg required before approach (7-12 days)
• Starting to become part of the environment (13-23 days)
• Could be in a museum (24 days onwards)
Flies appear at a dead body very quickly. Some particularly well organised and highly motivated species detect the expiration and land within minutes. As different insects arrive at different stages (listed above), a forensic scientist can use a survey of the species present, and the point at which they are within their life cycle, to accurately establish how long ago the unfortunate person began sleeping with the fishes. In our insect cartoon, our humble house fly is never late to dinner. It likes to get there early in the event, and will land at the point the cadaver starts to resemble a flotation device. There is so much to talk about on this subject and it is extremely interesting, but I'm already going to run out of space so I shall leave it to you to investigate further.
Rather than including an image of flies on a cadaver, as would be appropriate for this point in the blog, I thought you would rather see our beautiful housefly robot from our current exhibition Robot Zoo. This fellow is 200 x life-size!
Flies or Armageddon
Entire ecosystems of wildlife live in urban areas because we produce so much rubbish. You just need a bank holiday to realise how much we rely on refuse collectors and their trash squishing trucks, when they haven't been for a week it only takes a strong wind or a couple of foxes for the streets to look like Armageddon overnight.
Whilst bin boys and girls kindly collect our rubbish and hide it away where we can conveniently forget about how much food we ate over the weekend, it takes other much smaller members of the animal kingdom than humans to break it down. The housefly is amongst those that aid the decay of organic matter and with every fly that vomits onto the waste food in order to digest it, these insects elegantly ensure our food waste is re-harnessed by the natural circle of life. Thank you flies.
http://www.arkive.org/house-fly/musca-domestica/
http://bugguide.net/node/view/39559
(Muscidae) typically visit the remains during the bloated stage of decomposition (Joseph et al 2011).
PennState College of Agricultural Sciences
http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/house-flies
The Forensics Library
http://aboutforensics.co.uk/forensic-entomology/
Specimen of the Month: Greater Horseshoe Bat
This month, our Deputy Keeper of Natural History, Dr Emma-Louise Nicholls, takes a look at the greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum).
Pigeonholing
You often hear people talk of the Latin name for an animal to refer to the Genus and Species, such as Homo sapien for a human. However, many of these scientific names actually stem from Greek. The scientific name for the genus of the greater horseshoe bat is Rhinolophus. Rhino comes from Greek, and means nose. Lophus is also Greek, and means crest. If you take a look at the greater horseshoe bat in the image below, you'll see the logic behind a scientific name which means 'nose crest'. Another example is the rhinoceros, which happens to be both the common name and the scientific name for the Genus. The name rhinoceros stems from Greek and means 'nose horn'. It's all very logical.
When referring to the Genus and Species of an animal, the correct term is the 'binomial name', which is Latin (not Greek) for 'two names'. This worked perfectly until we realised evolution had ruined everything by proliferating beyond Genus and Species, at which point we had to introduce a third name for these 'Subspecies'. When referring to a Subspecies, the correct term is trinomial, which is Latin for 'three names'. Subspecies tend to occur when two populations of the same species are separated for a significant period of time by some geographical boundary, and subsequently evolve different traits, yet remain so closely related that they're still considered to be the same species. The greater horseshoe bat has several subspecies (currently thought to be six), only one of which occurs in the UK: Rhinolophus ferrumequinum ferrumequinum.
Scientists, such as myself, are very fond of such semantics. However I'm sure not everyone reading this will be so… let's move on.
Our Greater horseshoe bat came into the Museum in 1937 and is on display in the Natural History Gallery.
Is that a moth I hear before me?
Whilst the binomial name for the greater horseshoe bat is very nice, the bat cares way more about its stomach, for which the nose crest comes in again. As with all Microchiropterans (Microbats), the greater horseshoe bat uses echolocation to find dinner. Echolocation is a system that does exactly what is says on the tin. A bat will emit a series of sounds from its voice box, which echo back when they hit an insect (or anything else), thus allowing the bat to locate it. The nose crest and impressive large satellite dish-esque ears evolved to make the bat extra proficient at picking up the sounds as they echo back in its direction. Beyond location, echolocation also lets the greater horseshoe bat know the size and shape of the object in front of it, meaning it knows, "moth - edible" and "brick wall - inedible".
Trophy wall
Bats are overachievers and as a group claim many wildlife records. An obvious one is that they are the only mammals in the world capable of powered flight. There are other contenders, or should I say pretenders, to the Flying Mammal Throne. The vast majority come from Southeast Asia where being a small gravity-bound mammal appears to be a dangerous past time. These mammals have accomplished gliding, or directional falling at a slow-pace, as it would be called if bats had written the text book rather than humans. The sugar glider hands-down wins Most Gorgeous Thing Ever*, however it is still just a furry glorified glider. The only other animals to have achieved powered flight are birds (crown group dinosaurs) and pterosaurs (not dinosaurs at all).
Having done my research for this blog I can tell you no one seems to know how many species of bat there are for certain; estimates range from 1100 to 1300. However whichever end of the scale it actually is, they still win the award for being the Largest Group of Mammals in the World. Not only that, bats make up around a fifth of the world's mammal species. Some countries will have more non-bat-mammal species than 80% and others will have less, according to the habitats they have available. However the UK, in case you were wondering, is spot on with the world average, i.e. 1 in every 5 mammal species in the UK is a bat.
My personal favourite is that one of their number claims the title Smallest Mammal in the World. The bumblebee bat just about reaches 3 cm in total length and weighs only 2 grams. This means I put the equal weight of two bats in my tea every morning, which makes me think I should start using sweetner.
Incredibly, this entire species was unknown to science until it was first described and given a binomial name (Craseonycteris thonglongyai) in 1974. It is only known to exist in 43 caves, split between Myanmar and Thailand, which means disturbance from over excited wildlife tourists is a problem that local wildlife groups are having to constantly monitor.
The largest bats are called Megabats. These species, such as this Indian flying fox, have large eyes, small ears, and a fox-like face, making them look very different from the Microbats that echolocate., Fritz Geller-Grimm / CC BY-SA 2.5
* Sadly the pet trade has cottoned on to this but I could write an enormous blog on why you should NOT own one in captivity.
ARKive: Greater Horseshoe Bat
ARKive: Lesser Horseshoe Bat
IUCN: Rhinolophus ferrumequinum
IUCN: Craseonycteris thonglongyai
Bat Worlds
Bat Conservation Trust
Specimen of the Month: The Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)
Our Deputy Keeper of Natural History, Dr Emma-Louise Nicholls, gets to know the enigmatic Platypus.
Our Venomous Piece of the Past
We have a number of platypodes (or platypuses if you prefer, but never platypi), however, this one is part of the original Frederick Horniman Collection. That enigmatic accolade means it must have been acquired by our illustrious founder, and prior to the Museum opening in 1906. So in modern social media speak, it's well old.
We don't know what the platypus looked like when it was first acquired by the Museum; it could have been either a skin or a taxidermy mount. Either way, at some time in the past the platypus was 're-set' (wording on record card), by the taxidermist Charles Thorpe, into the swimming position that you can see in the image below. The price for this exquisite demonstration of skill was £0 d7 s6. For those who didn't suffer through the confusing period of decimalisation, £0 d7 s6 means zero pounds, seven pennies, and six shillings, the value of that price today is around £10 (an exact figure is impossible to calculate on the basis we don't know what year the work was carried out).
Our platypus is over 100 years old, and was given a make-over sometime in the early to mid-1900s
We know the specimen is a male as it has a sharp spike, called a spur, on the rear of each thigh. Platypodes* are one of the few mammals that are venomous, and the small amount of venom that can be injected through one of these spurs is potent enough to kill mammals many times their size. I was told by a friend who works in a zoo in Australia that their colleague was once spurred in the arm. Apparently, it was so painful he was pleading with the doctors for his arm to be amputated, ouch! During the mating season the amount of venom a male produces increases, which presumably means one of the main purposes of evolving such potent venom is to fend off rival males and get a girlfriend. In more anthropogenic cases, recent research suggests platypus venom could be used in a treatment for Type 2 diabetes. For which they have frisky platypuses to thank I guess.
They Don't Have Teeth
Platypodes don't have teeth in the traditional sense. Their fossil ancestors had teeth but the modern platypus decided the sound of growing their own enamel was reason for concern, and produced coarse keratin pads instead. A mouth full of hair** sounds disgusting, and it only seems to work 'fairly well' to boot, as according to a number of sources, platypodes will also scoop up coarse gravel to aid mastication. Perhaps they should have planned it out better before embarking on their otherwise admirable attempt to avoid expensive dental bills.
Platypodes are bottom feeders (legit term), which means animals that feed off of the substrate in aquatic environments. In the case of the platypus, it lives in rivers and uses the receptors in its bill to pick up the electrical signals given off by their prey, which are normally found in the form of insects, insect larvae, worms and shellfish.
As platypodes don't have teeth, the keeper was in no danger of being bitten.
They Do Have Teeth
Platypodes don't have teeth… I wasn't lying before. However, platypodes are monotremes which means they lay eggs. One of only two mammals to do so, the other being the echidna. As with more traditional egg breaking youngsters like those belonging to birds and many reptiles, for example, the tiny egg-bound platypus has to break its way out of the egg. For this, its ancestry provided it with an egg-tooth on the top of its bill. This tooth is only a temporary facial addition that, once the baby platypus has broken free of its yolky home, will normally be shed within the next two days. The egg-tooth is not a real tooth as ours are, but a sharp, tooth-shaped structure made of keratin, around 0.3 mm high. That may seem ridiculously small but a freshly hatched platypus is only around the size of a kidney bean so any larger and it would probably get neck ache.
These line drawings show the development of the platypus from the day of hatching to five days post-hatching. The egg-tooth can be seen in the first two columns of sketches. The protuberance on the bill in the two right-hand columns represent the caruncle, or fleshy nub, left behind by the egg-tooth. , Image from Manger et al., 1998
* The more I say it, the more you'll get used to it
** Keratin is the protein that makes up your hair and fingernails
Platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus)
Platypus Facts
Manger, P. R., Hall, L. S., and Pettigrew, J. D. (1998). The development of the external features of the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 353 pp.1115-1125
Old English Money
Tosatto, D., and Zool, W. S. (2016). Feeding and digestive mechanisms of Obdurodon dicksonii and its implications for the modern Platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus. Unpublished. pp.1-12


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Our Most Anticipated Horror Games Of 2019
The horror genre went into hiding in 2018, but is poised to return in a big way this year, beginning with the release of Resident Evil 2 on January 25. The year ahead is chock-full of new intellectual properties that are delivering suspense and gore through unconventional narrative directions. From ancient Nordic horrors to disappearances in Roswell, gamers have plenty of interesting scares coming their way. In assembling this anticipated list, we looked at over 40 horror games slated for 2019, and narrowed it to the nine that we believe look the most promising.
Note: Entries are listed in alphabetical order.
Release: 2019 Platform: PC
The Full Mortal Kombat 11 Roster So Far
The Mortal Kombat 11 reveal event lived up to its name, laying bare a number of new details. The biggest remaining mystery is who's filling out the character roster. NetherRealm has revealed a number of characters, old and new, that will be unleashing a bevy of punches, kicks, and gruesome finishers with. We imagine in the weeks to come we'll find out more as well. We'll update this list with every fighter revealed.
For now, here's who we know will be in Mortal Kombat 11 (and some folks who are probably on the way).
Scorpion Scorpion has been the most recognizable character in the series since its inception. Of course Scorpion's in it.
Ed Boon Talks Mortal Kombat 11's Variations, Changes, And Roster
Today we got to see large chunk of Mortal Kombat 11, including a look at seven of its characters, as well as number of gameplay changes that are moving the game in a new direction based on both the community's reaction to previous Netherrealm games and how the developer itself hopes to change the way players think about the series' flashy, gore-filled fights.
I had the chance to chat with Netherrealm creative director Ed Boon about all the changes taking place. We talked about how variations will work for both the average and competitive players, Netherrealm's overall philosophy when it comes to iterating on an established franchise, and where 11's focus is when it comes to its roster.
Game Informer: I'm a big fan of the custom variations in Mortal Kombat 11. My concern about it was that with Injustice 2's gear, it was very customizable, but the competitive crowd didn't take to it.
Our Most Anticipated Adventure Games Of 2019
about X hours ago from GameInformer FeatureGameInformer News
With 2018 behind us, it's time to look forward to the new titles coming our way this year. From Campo Santo's gorgeous, new story-driven adventure taking place in Egypt to trying to escape Hell with your best friend, it sounds like this year will have some great games with unique premises. Here are our most anticipated adventure games.
Release: 2019 Platform: PC, Mac
Two Simple Reasons To Avoid AC Odyssey's Shadow Heritage DLC
In December, Ubisoft released the first (of three) episodes in Odyssey's Legacy of the First Blade arc. When it launched, I wrote that players should wait before investing any time or money in the DLC; the story had potential, but not enough substance to spark a strong recommendation one way or the other. That isn't true anymore. With the release of the second installment this week, we have a much clearer idea of how this DLC is shaping up – and it isn't an encouraging one.
I've boiled my complaints about this episode (called Shadow Heritage) down to two general points that encapsulate my disappointment. However, I can't really talk about the second point without digging into some spoilers, so:
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Assassin's Creed Odyssey DLC!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2008 > May 10, 2008 > An Immeasurable Tragedy
Mainstream, Vol XLVI, No 21
An Immeasurable Tragedy
Wednesday 14 May 2008, by SC
Beyond all trivialities in the domestic field the tabling in the Rajya Sabha on May 6 of the Constitution (108th Amendment) Bill that guarantees one-third reservation of seats for women in Parliament and State Legislatures is indeed a significant development and that it was made possible due to rare solidarity among different shades of our political spectrum makes it all the more a striking feature on the contemporary scene. One cannot, however, be blind to the challenges the legislation is bound to face, as its predecessors did in Parliament in the not-too-distant past, from opponents of the Women's Reservation Bill. It is now to be seen what novel methods they adopt to stall the latest version of the same legislation once it is subjected to rigorous and comprehensive scrutiny by the parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice.
As far as national security is concerned, of exceptional importance was the flawless flight of Agni-III on May 7; as is quite obvious, with a 3500-km range, the missile assures the Indian strategic forces a striking capability much beyond the immediate neighbourhood. What is more, as has been aptly pointed out in The Hindu, "Agni-III and its future variants... will be the first Indian missiles having the potential to be equipped with Multiple Independently-Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRVs)" that can carry several nuclear warheads. Given the country's long-term commitment to the concept of no-first-strike, there is much strength in the strategic experts' argument that this missile would go a long way towards ensuring peace and security in our region.
Meanwhile the international scenario has been marked by the pillars of the US Administration—President George W. Bush and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice—attributing the rising food prices across the globe to the growing consumption in India and China. This has evoked natural indignation across the board from politicians in India and they have not wasted any time in lambasting the Bush team for such outrageous pronouncements. Howsoever much the US head of state and his foreign policy chief try to explain this phenomenon by pointing to the emergence of the 350 million-strong Indian missile class, the figures speak for themselves: in 2007 the cereal consumption in the US increased from 227 million tonnes in the previous year to 310.4 million tonnes (a rise of 11.8 per cent)—the highest in the world; the US Agricultural Department's data also show that every American consumes 1046 kg of grains per annum as against 178 kg consumed by every Indian. In fact there is no comparison between the two. Thus the natural inference to be drawn from such statements is that the mounting economic problems compelled Bush and Condoleezza to deflect attention from the actual reasons to imaginary causes.
However, such nonsensical remarks from the highest authorities of the US and the virtual end of the road for Hillary Clinton in her quest for the Democratic Party's nomination for the US presidency do not constitute genuine news in the global sphere. What has really jolted sensitive people the world over is the unprecedented and mind-boggling crisis in Myanmar following Cyclone Nargis that devastated the country last weekend. Its hapless people, already groaning under the jackboots of a military junta constituting the most ruthless regime in the current international environment, have suffered untold misery. The Burmese authorities have now been forced to concede that 22,000 people have died and 41,000 are missing. These figures are far higher than what the junta initially admitted, and given its habit of concealing facts one can justifiably presume that the actual death toll and casualties are on a much bigger scale than what the Generals would ever concede. But what is most surprising is their call for outside assistance, something they have scrupulously avoided in the past—an indication of the severity of nature's fury the ever-resilient Burmese had to silently endure. Yet that is precisely why leaving aside all other considerations the world must organise a massive humanitarian assistance for the battered and the bruised there going through hell under abominable conditions of life and livelihood. As humanitarian aid worker Conor Foley, writing in The Guardian, observes while quoting a UN official, "we simply cannot delay providing assistance until a viable political situation evolves. The human costs for the Myanmarese people will be too high."
It is time the Government of India extended solid, concrete assistance on a large scale to the citizens next door, but perhaps it is more appropriate that all of us as a people mobilise massive aid for our unfortunate Burmese brothers and sisters bravely fighting death and destruction with superhuman courage amidst the heaviest of odds. Is it not our bounden duty to help them with all our ability and resources in their hour of trial when natural havoc and man-made atrocities have conspired to heighten their tragedy to a level that remains unsurpassed in the contemporary global scenario, comparable as it is to what nations went through in the Second World War the sixtythird anniversary of whose end we are observing this week?
May 9 S.C.
December 20, 2008 - Annual Number 2008
Mounting Inflation and the Common Man
A Great Force of Peace and Harmony is No More
Significance of Vladimir Putin's Presidency
Central Asia in World Politics
Higher Education : Basic Problems
A Few Unanswered Questions and Inherent Problems of Communist Movement
Socialism : The Terminator of Democracy
Mayhem in Catalonia


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Q: How do I discriminate types on the fly with Jackson I have some json that looks like this:
[
  {"type":"child_obj_1", "message": "blah"},
  {"type":"child_obj_3", "apple": "red"},
  {"type":"child_obj_2", "banana": "fire!"},
  {"type":"doesnt_exist", "message": "blah"}
]

These correspond to types that look like this (the "doesnt_exist" type doesn't exist):
ParentObj
  -> ChildObj1
  -> ChildObj2
  -> ChildObj3

I want to be able to parse the json list into those types. The "doesnt_exist" type can fail silently. How do I do this using Jackson?

A: Did you try @JsonTypeInfo annotation from Jackson ? check its documentation for more details.
Sample Usage:
 // Include Java class name ("com.myempl.ImplClass") as JSON property "class"
  @JsonTypeInfo(use=Id.CLASS, include=As.PROPERTY, property="class")

  // Include logical type name (defined in impl classes) as wrapper; 2 annotations
  @JsonTypeInfo(use=Id.NAME, include=As.WRAPPER_OBJECT)
  @JsonSubTypes({com.myemp.Impl1.class, com.myempl.Impl2.class})

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Canada geese are a rare and shy visitor to the Priory.
But this year a pair have arrived who don't fly off, honking, when I appear.
Introduced from North America and considered a pest by many, I certainly wouldn't want large numbers of them arriving – and the droppings they would produce. These two alone make quite enough.
And the thought of a dozen geese foraging in the borders isn't one that brings an indulgent smile to my face.
But as an occasional visitor they are welcome.
And very watchable. One day last week, the female (obviously) laid an egg on the little island on the east pond. Here she is in flagranti.
I stood watching with Lawrence (who is doing work on the house) and he told me that she would probably be back to lay another. And then another; when she had laid a clutch she would start incubating. Apparently the eggs can be left cold initially; it is incubation that starts the embryos developing, after which they must be kept warm.
Thinking that there might be some more eggs soon, I went off for my tea-break.
But Lawrence, the goose and I hadn't reckoned on the mallard sitting on her own nest in the decrepit old duck house.
When we returned the egg had gone: we think the duck rolled it into the water. She was, after all, there first.
but haven't been back since. They might return but perhaps they've found a less crowded nesting site elsewhere.
It is probably just as well. I really don't want a flock of geese at the Priory. Though some goslings would have been nice.
Hi Lou, Canada geese do have a good, melancholic call and always annouce their arrival – which I like. Since I wrote this post they've been back a few times but always go off again. Something isn't to their liking and I expect it is a certain matronly mallard.
It's fun to watch them but I agree that a garden isn't the place for a flock. Swans maybe.
Canada geese that are "rare and shy" visitors, I thought for a second that yet another species had gone over to Europe for refinement and finishing… and then their true character came through! haha.
Goslings are fun, but my fingers are crossed for plenty of ducklings. At least their mother bothered to build a nest. Maybe the geese were trying to pull a cuckoo trick on the mallard and couldn't quite get in close enough, would have made a nice sortof ugly duckling tale for your pond!
That mallard looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, doesn't she? (Well, actually, she looks like a force to be reckoned with.) Don't get on her bad side, eh?
When I lived in rural New York I was walking Luther one lovely autumn morning by a lake. Luther was off the leash, and when we topped a little hill we saw *thousands* of migrating Canada geese resting in the grass at the water's edge. Luther took off at full-bore and ran barking and wagging right through the middle of that flock and scattered them all to the winds. A good day for us both.
Glad to see such lovely photos.
We are in Devon with a pond. A pair of Canada fly in for a couple of days. Just enough to make their droppings a nuisance and worry the collie, then they leave us and the coots can breathe again. We also have a pair of mallards who come and go. I wonder if they take a while to decide where to breed. Love your photos. Your description of your "walk" is inspiring, the photos nearly convinced me to pack a rucksac!
Great photos! I am rooting for Ms. Mallard. Trust me, if you did have goslings, the parents would have made your life miserable. They are quite boldly aggressive with young to protect. How was your trek?
Interesting story. It sounds like it worked out best for you. I enjoyed your photos too.
Beautiful pictures! You are luckily though where Canada geese goslings fledge, they will come back to nest as adults. Beautiful as they are on the ground and especially in migration flights, you are better off with just visiting geese.
Superb action photos! I would think the droppings on the lawn would have been a problem if they had stayed, wood pigeons are bad enough here, just as well you managed to photograph them when you did.
So, not necessarily the survival of the fittest but the one with their wits about them! You've got some fabulous photos there, but would have been nice if they'd been able to stay a bit longer.
Their presence at the priory may have been a fleeting moment but you managed to capture their short activity there very well!
I think you should be very grateful to the duck! btw I haven't had time to read your post about your walk, I'm sure it will be long and interesting so I'm saving it for when I have more time.
Great to see the Canada Geese on your pond – at least they would have got rid of any excess duck weed for you. It made me chuckle that the Mallard got rid of her neighbour's egg – good for her. Shame they have gone though – I am sure they would have provided lots more post for you.


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Live+Well
Coronavirus Can Damage Heart, Experts Warn
Since coronavirus is a respiratory illness, much of the focus has been on how the virus impacts patients' lung function, but COVID-19 is also taking a toll on their tickers, experts say.
While hypertensive heart disease has proven to be the underlying medical condition with the highest mortality rate among coronavirus patients in New York State, studies show COVID-19 is also causing damage to cardiovascular systems in patients without preexisting cardiac conditions.
"There seems to be a significant impact on the cardiac system due to multiple factors, such as hypoxia and immune response … causing significant inflammation, inflaming the wall of arteries, and heart failure," says Dr. Thierry Duchatellier, section chief of the cardiology department at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre.
The cardiologist pointed to a March study published in JAMA Cardiology by experts at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston that found even in the absence of heart disease, the heart can be affected by coronavirus. Past viral pandemics have been documented to have similar coronary effects, the authors noted.
"Overall, injury to heart muscle can happen in any patient with or without heart disease, but the risk is higher in those who already have heart disease," said Dr. Mohammad Madjid, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of cardiology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth.
Dr. Duchatellier is especially concerned, having been at the forefront of the pandemic on Long Island. A part-time staffer at his hospital became LI's first confirmed coronavirus patient on March 5. Since then, the doctor's been part of a team working overtime in the midst of an unprecedented test of the region's healthcare system.
His advice? People diagnosed with hypertension, coronary disease, or irregular heart rhythm should keep up with their medications and be especially cautious about heeding the social-distancing mandates. He urges taking advantage of telehealth to avoid infection at a medical center. And to look on the bright side.
"We are facing the greatest challenge that we've had so far from a healthcare system," he says, "but we will come out of it and we will learn a great deal from it … We will make the best out of this lousy situation."
Sign up for Long Island Press' email newsletters here. Sign up for home delivery of Long Island Press here.
For more coronavirus coverage visit longislandpress.com/coronavirus
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Creative Fitness Programs on Long Island to Challenge Yourself in 2022
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"That was a big-time shot," Manning said to him, floating his right hand to the sky before pointing to the north goal.
"I had to," Ellis said with a smile, before turning to give his buddy a bro hug.
A few seconds later, Ellis was called over by the TV crew.
"Not many can guard him," Manning said, shaking his head. "He's fun to watch."
That all played out one final time at home, one of KU's greats providing a signature moment when his team needed it the most.
With KU leading 74-71 with 1:53 remaining, coach Bill Self pushed four fingers up to the air, signaling "4-up" — the play that might as well be called, "Try to guard Perry Ellis in space."
After Ellis faked a high ball screen and received a pass, he went right to work. He drove left on Iowa State's Georges Niang then spun back right, putting in a soft layup high off the glass.
"I just wanted it to go in," Perry's mother, Fonda, said of her view from behind Iowa State's bench in Section R at Allen Fieldhouse. "I was so happy it went in."
Ellis, a Wichitan, scored 22 points in his final home game as he puts the last touches on a career where he ranks top 13 in school history in both points and rebounds, with the potential to get into the top 10 with a deep postseason run.
The fact he made plays down the stretch — that included a final four minutes where he "locked in and guarded" Niang defensively, according to Self — had to be considered more impressive considering the circumstances.
Just before a postgame radio interview, Ellis walked by KU assistant coach Kurtis Townsend, who pointed toward the southwest side of the Fieldhouse.
"You had about 50 people up there," Townsend said with a smile.
The guess was close. Thirty people in Ellis' family had made it, coming from Florida and South Carolina, South Dakota, Michigan and Iowa.
The reality of his final home game also had been weighing on Ellis' mind.
On Friday, he was shooting free throws with teammate Devonte' Graham when the conversation turned to senior night. Graham, a sophomore, talked about how he only had two years left, saying that time was already going by quickly.
"Yeah," Graham remembers Ellis telling him. "It went by fast."
Saturday's pregame locker room also had its share of reflection. The four seniors — that included Jamari Traylor, Hunter Mickelson and Manning — gathered in a group to repeat a simple message: "We've just got to get the win."
"It was an emotional game and everything," Traylor said, "but the win was more important."
KU, which trailed 63-59 with 8:44 left, was able to come through with help from Ellis' strong play late. He went 9 for 19 from the floor with seven rebounds while also making his final three shots.
"I just knew he could do it," Fonda said. "I just had faith that we were going to pull through. It just was a little scary."
KU, which won its 33rd straight home finale dating back to 1983, also picked up its 40th consecutive win at Allen Fieldhouse.
Afterward, Self asked his seniors if they were tired in the locker room. They responded that they were, mostly because of stress.
KU coach Bill Self talks about win over Iowa State on senior day.
The postgame talk wasn't the end of Ellis' day, of course. Following one final interview with a reporter on the court, Ellis headed back through the northwest tunnel, high-fiving KU fans before grabbing a Sharpie to begin his work on an autograph line more than 100 feet long.
KU (27-4, 15-3 Big 12) had accomplished about all it could in the regular season.
Ellis, however, had made the decision to return for his senior season with another goal in mind.
"He wants to play in the Final Four," Fonda said, "and I just would love for him to do that."
Jesse Newell: @jessenewell
Related stories from Wichita Eagle
university-of-kansas
Photo gallery: Kansas 85, Iowa State 78
Kansas coach Les Miles on his grass-eating history
Les Miles explains how he will evaluate success at KU
KU's Bill Self honored as 2019 Kansan of the Year at banquet in Washington, D.C.
By Gary Bedore
KU basketball coach Bill Self was honored as 2019 Kansan of the Year at a banquet of the Kansas Society of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night.
MORE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
KU offers basketball scholarships to Nos. 16- and 20-ranked players in Class of 2021
Dajuan Harris, latest player to commit to KU, has bond with Jayhawk Christian Braun
Les Miles explains the origins of his grass-eating habit; it started in the 1960s
KU will sell beer, wine at home football games starting this fall
KU offers scholarship to another MOKAN Elite player: Kennedy Chandler of Tennessee
Former KU fan favorite Julian Wright returns to Sprint Center on Saturday


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Press Release: Securing a World of Climate Resilience, Prosperity and Peace. World leaders identify solutions and call for immediate action
September 16, 2019 /in Food Security, News, Press Releases, Press Releases, WFC, WFC /by Anna_Media
World leaders identify solutions and call for immediate action
Hamburg / Cairo, 16.9.2019.
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Press Release: Solutions for scaling up agroecology exist
September 12, 2019 /in Press Releases, Press Releases, Press Releases, Rights of Children, Rights of Children, WFC, WFC /by Nico Scagliarini
Impactful policies empowering young people for a fair and sustainable future shortlisted for international award. Candidates come from Estonia, Europe, Nepal, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, United Kingdom and United States.
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FPA 2019: 67 policies from 36 countries for Future Policy Award received
September 10, 2019 /in Future Policy Award, Rights of Children, Rights of Children, WFC /by Anna_Media
67 policies from 36 countries contest for Future Policy Award received
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Ghana on its way to its enhanced child protection system for survivors of child violence
December 6, 2018 /in Child Protection, News, News, Rights of Children /by Miriam Petersen
For majority of children in Ghana, violence is an unfortunate part of their everyday life. According to official statistical reports, 9 out of 10 children are exposed to mental or physical violence, and physical punishment is a common phenomenon. More shocking are the figures for sexual violence: one out of five girls is sexually abused. There is an urgent need for action to protect children from violence! For girls and boys who experience and survive violence or abuse, a central, child-friendly centre providing the most essential services under one roof would be established from the first quarter of 2019, where trained personnel from the Social Welfare, Domestic Violence Unit of the Police Service (DOVVSU) and Ghana Health Service are available to offer prompt, secured and confidential service to victims. Our team conducted a technical workshop with representatives of Ministries and other key stakeholders responsible for child protection in Ho, South-East Ghana together with experts from Zanzibar to discuss and develop a roadmap to establish a pilot in Accra. These are the main results at a glance.
Samia Kassid – opening remarks
In November 2017, the World Future Council Foundation invited political decision-makers from 12 African and Asian countries to Zanzibar to acquaint themselves with the country's comprehensive Children's Act and its implementation. Zanzibar won the Gold Award of the "Political Oscar" Future Policy Award in 2015.
The Ghanaian delegation, consisting of representatives from the Department of Children of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare and the Law Faculty of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration were inspired by the one-stop-center model that Zanzibar has currently implemented in 6 out of 11 districts.
What is a one stop center?
One-Stop-Center (OSC) are central contact points for children and their families affected by (sexualised) violence. Here survivors can find psycho-social support, a police office to initiate criminal investigation as well as medical treatment including collection of forensic evidence under one roof. Ideally, legal help is part of the centre. The graphic illustrates the model:
As an important element of a strong national child protection system, the one-stop-centres provide survivors (girls and boys, women and men) with various initial services under one roof. As a result, the affected person does not have to go through the trauma of narrating the incident several times and also receives quick help. It helps parents stay focused on treating their child and persecuting the perpetrator. In cases without the OSC, survivors mostly have to visit different institutions – that costs money and time and often parents lose the momentum to persue the case. The later a case is reported, the harder it is to gather evidence of abuse on a child's body.
Ideally, a one-stop center provides four services and is usually docted at a hospital:
Psycho-social support – this is where the first interview takes place and the social worker decides which further steps are required. If there is an abuse / violence, the child will be escorted to the next room, where a police officer in civilian clothes and trained in child-friendly behaviour will fill in the form to follow up the case.
Medical examination: in a third room, a medical doctor takes care of the child. Here the first medical and forensic examinations take place. If the child needs further special treatment, it will be treated immediately in the hospital.
The employees of the one-stop-center are provided by the relevant ministries (Health, Interior, Family Affairs) and the Centre is (at best) coordinated by the Ministry of Health. All employees receive same training so they can better collaborate and follow same procedures and guidelines in writing the reports. This makes it easier for the police and the courts to track and prosecute cases.
Support for counseling and legal aid is ideally offered in the fourth room.
Ghana on the way to pilot a one stop centre
A member of the Zanzibar team sharing her experience at the workshop
The Director of the Department of Children, speaking at Workshop
After intensive discussions with the Department of Children from April 2018, the World Future Council Foundation organised a technical workshop to fully introduce the state agencies in the establishment and management of a one-stop-center model in Ghana from the 25-27 November 2018. We invited experts from Zanzibar to Ghana: Deputy Chairwoman Halima Abdallah, who spearheaded the establishment of the One-Stop-Center in the Ministry of Family and Health, Dr. Marijani, who has been responsible for medical and forensic investigations since its implementation in 2011, and Farshuu Khalfa, head of a one-stop center in Stone Town. Their insights, expertise and practical experience were most welcome and helpful in drawing up the roadmap for Ghana.
Under the auspices of the Children's Department, 30 key representatives and decision-makers took part in the workshop to discuss the need for the OSC and to develop the roadmap for a pilot program. The participants represented the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the Social Welfare Department and the specialised Domestic Violence Unit of the Police service – DOVVSU. Medical representative and international child rights organisations including ActionAid, World Vision, International Needs, UNFPA and UNICEF were also present.
The most important results of the workshop at a glance:
Development of a roadmap for the establishment of a pilot in Accra
National coordination agency of the One-Stop-Center pilot program will be the Ministry of Health with support of other ministries
An inter-ministerial conference is scheduled for the first quarter of 2019 to decide on the roadmap and timetable
A core group will identify a possible location for the pilot program in Accra
Working groups during the workshops.
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Young people fight for sustainability
July 11, 2018 /in Education for Sustainable Development, News, Rights of Children /by Nico Scagliarini
The collaboration with the Julius-Leber-Schule in Hamburg began with an Erasmus+ project, called sustain.me, which was attended by the head of our children's rights department, Samia Kassid, in the early summer of last year. As part of sustain.me, second-level students from Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and Spain came together to work together on the project on sustainability.
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Chinese Delegation visited Maryland to learn about Environmental Education
August 14, 2018 /in Education for Sustainable Development, News, Rights of Children /by Miriam Petersen
Silver Winner of FPA 2015, Maryland, inspires education experts from China
Environmental Education has been a priority in the Chinese education system. But unfortunately, there was no significant increase in the students' engagement for environmental protection so far. China is therefore interested in learning from successful models in other countries.
We organised a conference in Maryland in 2016, and presented their award-winning Environmental Literacy Standards. During the conference, we looked into the success factors of the legislation which aims to educate students to become environmentally and sustainability aware citizens.
A Chinese delegation has also been present back in 2016. Inspired by the conference, they now visited Maryland again and met with officials at Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). They discussed various topics and questions, for instance regarding the curriculum framework and the relationship between government environmental agencies and school systems. How to provide more suitable materials and publicity channels for environmental education? How to improve the teaching staff's environmental education level? And how to raise national awareness of environmental protection and establish public awareness of environmental supervision?
The delegation would like to conduct exchanges of experience in environmental education legislation in Maryland, particularly its experience in formulating environmental education standards, as well as successful cases of environmental improvement through education.
The World Future Council facilitated the meeting will follow up on this topic with the Chinese delegation.
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Policy Handbook: Advancing Education for Sustainable Development
February 26, 2019 /in Education for Sustainable Development, Publications, Rights of Children /by Miriam Petersen
Given the huge challenges the world faces, it is clear that we need to teach, learn and live in a fundamentally different manner. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is increasingly recognised as playing a central role in empowering learners of all ages to positively respond to local and global challenges and act in a more peaceful, just, inclusive and sustainable manner. This approach is already helping people develop the skills, values and attitudes necessary to create more resilient societies and transition towards the skilled, green, low-carbon economies of the future.
This handbook explores some of the central success factors in policy, process and practice in some of the pioneering countries and contexts where ESD is being effectively embraced. It examines some of the major trends, case studies and challenges in introducing this more holistic, progressive, hands-on education.
Read more in the latest UNESCO Newsletter
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12 countries sign Declaration on Securing Children's Rights
December 1, 2017 /in Child Participation, Child Protection, Press Releases, Rights of Children /by Annette Diegel
The signatories from across Africa and Asia commit to end violence against children, strengthen child rights and advocate to increase budgets for children
-PRESS RELEASE-
Zanzibar, 1 December 2017: At the International Child Rights Conference in Zanzibar on sharing best practice and policy on child protection, justice and participation, convened by the World Future Council (WFC), representatives and policymakers from Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Somaliland, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zanzibar and experts on children's rights and representatives from civil society signed the Zanzibar Declaration on Securing Children's Rights. In addition, there were detailed country commitments on how each jurisdiction will take forward their own child rights and protection plans. The declaration was facilitated by Dr. Amb. Gertrude Ibengwé Mongella, WFC Honorary Councillor and former President of the Pan-African Parliament. Read more
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Policymakers gather to share child rights best practice on protection and participation in Zanzibar
January 10, 2018 /in Child Participation, Child Protection, News, Rights of Children /by Miriam Petersen
From the 28 – 30 November the World Future Council (WFC) hosted an international child rights conference in Zanzibar to explore the positive impacts of Zanzibar's Children's Act and share success stories on child protection, child friendly justice and participation from around the world. Representatives of ministries and policymakers from 12 countries, mainly from Africa and Asia, alongside experts on children's rights and representatives from civil society drew up the Zanzibar Declaration on Securing Children's Rights, committing themselves to taking strong action to eradicate all forms of violence against girls and boys. The assembly greatly benefited from the expertise and passion of two WFC Councillors Dr. Gertrude Ibengwé Mongella, former President of the Pan-African Parliament and Dr. Auma Obama, Chair and Founder of the Sauti Kuu Foundation.
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When good laws change lives
January 4, 2018 /in News, Rights of Children /by Miriam Petersen
Securing Child Rights in Zanzibar
Some of the loudest applause at our recent international gathering of child rights policy-makers in Zanzibar came after the representative from Indonesia took to the floor to list his key priorities for progress on child rights law: "implementation, implementation and implementation!" he boomed to a receptive audience. That this struck a chord with the assembled delegates is testament to the long history of good laws on paper and poor on-the-ground enactment that still plagues child rights policies around the world. It was to tackle this problem that over 100 participants from 15 countries were gathered by the World Future Council in Zanzibar last month, eager to learn and share best practice. We came to see for ourselves how this semi-autonomous island region of Tanzania had made some decisive moves to deliver real progress in how children experience justice and protection.
School girls in Zanzibar City
This was well illustrated by a series of field trips our visiting international legislators made to Zanzibar's new or improved child rights institutions. One of the striking things you immediately notice is the child-friendly atmosphere that has been created throughout the system. At the new Children's Court murals adorn the walls, staff dress in civilian clothes and closed circuit video links mean young people can give evidence in a non-threatening environment. The new One Stop Centres, which comprise a 3-room unit of plain clothed police officers, medical personnel and counsellors who provide health, legal and psychosocial services to survivors of violence 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, reduce the trauma of victims of abuse to a minimum while streamlining the collection of evidence and the provision of care.
Conselling room in Zanzibar, specially designed for children who became victims of violence
Another clear feature of the system is coordination. The National Child Protection Unit (NCPU), is the coordinating agency responsible for the implementation of the national strategy. A small team coordinates responses across governmental sectors (social welfare, health, education, justice, etc.), and involves civil society, international agencies, families and children to ensure that child justice and protection is being delivered effectively. Similarly a new Child Rights Centre serves as a hub for civil society organisations working in the field of child rights, identifying gaps in training and filling them. From here the 'Baba Bora' ("good father") campaign is run to engage fathers, men and boys in changing attitudes and behaviours toward women and children, promote gender equality and transform traditional beliefs and norms in order to promote non-violence. The campaign has got the islanders talking with local exhibitions on children's views on positive parenting, public debates and even a popular R&B song promoting the message.
Of course, there is much still to do in Zanzibar to fully operationalise its child rights laws and action plans and ensure that the rights of children are truly safeguarded. But for many of us who have seen the system first-hand, the innovations and progress made were impressive, particularly given Zanzibar's limited resources. If anything, it is the system-wide approach that can serve as a model for others. So why has similar progress been so slow in some other parts of the region?
"Because children don't vote often the political class ignores them altogether"
Part of the answer is certainly the cost. Across the African continent, children represent close 50% of the population, but this does not translate into them becoming a priority in national planning and resourcing decisions. In fact as Dr. Nkatha Murungi from the African Child Policy Forum noted "Because children don't vote often the political class ignores them altogether". When there is funding and resourcing available, too much is dependent on external development partners.
Young people deserve a chance. Zanzibar has a number of places to go for young people if they have become victims of violence and abuse, or if they want to escape from violent environments.
Child protection services in the context of Africa require long term and sustainable investment in the social welfare workforce and developing an effective system and this doesn't come cheap. The Zanzibar national plan of action will cost $4m annually over the next four years. But it's clear that adequate budgeting is a crucial instrument for advancing the survival, protection and development of children, particularly in the case in Africa where there are huge unmet needs for access to basic services.
It's also clear that there can be no better way of spending resources, no matter how scarce, than on our youngest citizens. After all investing in children is investing in the success of our collective future. Whether nations and societies grow and prosper will depend to a large extent on the health, education, protection and the ideas and innovations of the coming generations. We have a huge opportunity to make progress on child rights through the global sustainable development goals (SDGs) whether on poverty (Goal 1), hunger (Goal 2), health (Goal 3), education (Goal 4), gender equality (Goal 5), climate change (Goal 13) or violence against children (Goal 16.2). There's also no time to lose; 1 year is 6% of a childhood. Any delay in protecting their interests is a lost opportunity. Let's get to it!
This article by Jakob von Uexull was originally posted on his HuffPost blog
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An Inspiring Future Policy Award Ceremony 2019 Celebrated the World's Most Impactful Policies Empowering Youth


Sethu Vijayakumar, Professor of Robotics at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and judge on BBC2's Robot Wars, has spent his career in robotics pioneering the use of large scale machine learning techniques for use in healthcare, in our homes and in ground breaking unmanned missions to Mars, the precursor to a potential human Martian colony.
We shouldn't be afraid of robots, he says. Instead we need to become comfortable that robots will be more efficient than us and make less mistakes than us. Our future is shared and fully autonomous robots. Humans just need to become content with relinquishing some control of our world.
In this Brainwaves, Pennie Latin meets Sethu Vijayakumar in his lab in Edinburgh, along with some of his robots - from a relatively simple prosthetic forearm to one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the world, Valkyrie."


Dr. Donna Gibbas, MD is a pediatrics specialist in Atlanta, GA and has been practicing for 47 years. She graduated from University Of Maryland School Medicine in 1969 and specializes in pediatrics.
My child started seeing Dr. Donna Gibbas at age of 2 when noone else could diagnose her. Dr. Gibbas new the 1st time she saw her that she had JRA, she found 2 rare forms of it and needed massive doses of steroids to keep her fever down. But Dr. Gibbas was her dr for 11 years and was just amazing.
×Post a ResponseAre you Dr. Donna Gibbas, MD?
Very compassionate and caring, took time and really got to know my child. I really want to get Micaiah back in to see you if I can!
How was your experience with Dr. Gibbas?


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PATRIOTS: Mahomes on the range for Chiefs
Glen Farley The Enterprise @GFarley_ent
At the age of 23 and in his first year as a starter, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has enjoyed an MVP season.
FOXBORO – To hear Patriots head coach Bill Belichick speak, you'd think Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was some sort of 23-year-old phenom deserving of the NFL's MVP award.
Come to think of it, that's exactly what he is.
"He's an outstanding player in every facet of the game," Belichick said of the young gun his team will face in the AFC Championship game at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday (6:40 p.m.). "He's got a strong arm. He can throw the ball the length of the field. He's got a great touch. He's got the ability to read coverages, extend plays, make good decisions, make explosive plays without taking too much of a risk and putting his team in jeopardy. So he does all those things well.
"That's a credit to him. It's a credit to their team and certainly their coaching staff for being able to put together the variety and the explosiveness and the complementary plays that they have that make it so difficult to defend them."
While Belichick has been known to, well, stretch the truth a bit when talking about an upcoming opponent during game week – this is a man who stood before the gathered media a few days before the Patriots' regular-season finale and claimed (with a straight face) that the New York Jets posed a "big challenge" to his team (the Pats proceeded to do as expected, humiliating them, 38-3) – this is one case where he wasn't.
In his second year in the league and his first as a starter (he spent his rookie season watching Alex Smith), Mahomes, the 10th overall pick in the 2017 draft out of Texas Tech, has been that good.
Throwing for 50 touchdowns, Mahomes tied the Patriots' Tom Brady (2007) for the second-most in a season in NFL history behind only Peyton Manning's 55 with Denver in 2013. His 5,097 yards passing were second in the league this year only to Ben Roethlisberger's 5,129 with Pittsburgh. His passer rating of 113.8 this season was second only to Drew Brees' 115.7 with New Orleans.
"He's extremely gifted," Patriots special teams captain Matthew Slater, a 10-year veteran who is a true student of the game, said. "You look at him play the game of football it's something that's really fun to watch. He's got so many unique talents, unique skill sets, I think, when it comes to throwing the football and making plays to help his team win. We've seen that week after week after week. He's done a tremendous job."
Folks may have seen it week after week, but the Patriots witnessed it first-hand the night of Oct. 14 at Gillette Stadium, the Chiefs QB rebounding from a two-interception performance in the first half that contributed to a 24-9 halftime deficit to throw four second-half touchdown passes in rallying his team to a 33-30 lead before they bowed, 43-40.
Mahomes' value goes beyond the statistics, though, for here is a quarterback who truly makes opponents defend the entire field, one who can make every throw, even some of the made-for-SportsCenter variety (across his body, across the field, with his left hand as well as his right, and Magic Johnson-type no-look passes), and create plays with his feet as well as his arm.
"You certainly have to defend the whole field with him," said Belichick. "Andy (Reid, the Chiefs head coach) does a good job of that, anyway. With the plays that they run they attack you from sideline to sideline and from the line of scrimmage, behind the line of scrimmage on screen plays and things like that to 60 yards downfield and all the spots in between. And Mahomes can make it even more of a problem by extending a play or scrambling around, which he's done many times.
"We've seen that many times on film, talked to our players about it. We don't want the situation to come up, but I'm sure at some point it will. Probably more than once and we'll have to deal with it then. So, yeah, it's very challenging. He can do a lot."
It was certainly challenging to the Patriots three months ago when Mahomes couldn't pull out a win for his team but earned his opponents' respect.
Asked what impressed him most about Mahomes that night, Patriots linebacker Dont'a Hightower said: "I think the same thing that kind of impressed everybody. I think the fact that he kind of came in and the whole game he kind of kept his composure, he made a lot of key throws when he needed to, he extended plays which really hurt us – not necessarily to run but to give Tyreek (wide receiver Tyreek Hill) or to give (tight end Travis) Kelce or whoever it was an extra second for those guys to untie and get open. And just the way that he kind of managed the offense, whether it was him making checks from what he'd seen or maybe it was a 'check with me' thing within the game plan, just the way he carried himself the whole game."


Koolmees, 4-room bungalow. Simple furnishings: open living/dining room with dining table and TV (flat screen), radio, CD-player, hi-fi system and DVD. Exit to the terrace. 2 rooms, each room with 2 beds (90 cm, length 200 cm). 1 room with 1 double bed (140 cm, length 200 cm). Open kitchen (4 hot plates, dishwasher, electric coffee machine, combination microwave). Shower/WC. Terrace furniture. Please note: non-smoking house. Pet on request.
Terwolde 17 km from Apeldoorn: Child friendly holiday development Scherpenhof. On the outskirts, 10 km from the centre of Deventer, directly by the river, in the countryside. For shared use: park, swimming pool (01.06.-30.09.). Tennis (extra), children's playground. In the house: reception, restaurant, WiFi, bowling (extra). Central parking spaces. Supermarket 1.7 km, bar 100 m. Nearby attractions: Paleis het Loo 18 km, Koningin Julianatoren 20 km, Apenheul 22 km, Stadscentrum Zwolle 37 km. Hiking paths: Recreatiegebied Bussloo. Please note: car recommended. Baby equipment on request. The photograph shows a typical example. There are more similar properties for rent in this same residence. Please note: payment by credit card is not possible. Workers are not allowed. Youngsters have to pay a deposit of 250 Euro, in cash on the spot.
Luxurious holiday apartment 200m from the beach from € 335,00 DREAM HOLIDAY!
Beautiful romantic cottage directly by the Loosdrechtse Plassen.