Section:GDN 1N PaGe:20 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/8/2019 18:23 cYanmaGentaYellowbl
- The Guardian Wednesday 7 August 2019
(^20) World
Rise in drunk riding prompts calls
for Oktoberfest curbs on e-scooters
Fossils of
giant parrot
discovered
in New
Zealand
Philip Oltermann
Berlin
Politicians in Munich are calling for
e-scooters to be restricted during
Oktoberfest amid a rise in drunken
driving of the vehicles.
Use of the electric scooters was
legalised in June across Germany in
the hope that they could help reduce
the carbon footprint of commuter-
heavy urban areas. But since then
Munich police have caught and rep-
rimanded 418 people for riding them
under the infl uence of alcohol. The
same drink-drive limits apply to the
scooters as to cars.
For next month’s Oktoberfest, pol-
iticians are calling for restrictions on
Anna Ploszajski and Lisa Martin
Fossils of the largest parrot ever
recorded have been found in New
Zealand. Estimated to have weighed
about 7k g (15lb 7oz), it would have
been more than twice as heavy as the
kākāpō, a nocturnal, ground-dwelling
bird endemic to New Zealand that was
until now the largest known parrot.
Palaeontologists have named the
new species Heracles inexpectatus
to refl ect both its unusual size and
strength and the unexpected nature
of the discovery.
Prof Trevor Worthy of Flinders Uni-
versity in Australia, the lead author of
the research, published in the jour-
nal Biology Letters , said: “Once we
decided it was something new and
interesting, the challenge was to fi g-
ure out what family it was from.
“Because no giant parrots have
been found previously, parrots were
not on our radar – thus it took some
time to diff erentiate all other birds
e-scooters’ access to the main festival
site on Theresienwiese square. “Any-
one who’s had one too many should
not get on an e-scooter afterwards”,
said Kristina Frank, a Christian Social
Union (CSU) politician.
Over the weekend, several German
cities reported accidents involving
e-scooters and alcohol.
Other European cities have similar
problems. Last month in Copenhagen,
police arrested 28 people in a weekend
for riding e-scooters under the infl u-
ence of cannabis or alcohol. E-scooters
are banned on UK roads.
essentially from parrots to conclude
that the unique suite of characters was
defi nitive of a parrot.”
Paul Scofield, the senior cura-
tor of natural history at Canterbury
Museum, said the fossil had been
excavated in 2008, and initially the
research team had thought the bones
were part of a giant eagle.
The bones, which will go on display
in an exhibition in November , were
found in a fossil deposit from the early
Miocene epoch, about 19 m years ago,
near Saint Bathans in Central Otago,
New Zealand.
Although the area is now very cold
and known for its skiing, Scofi eld said
the climate at the time meant Heracles
inexpectatus would have lived near a
giant lake in a diverse subtropical for-
est. “Back then it was a subtropical
environment quite similar to north-
ern New South Wales and even had
similar vegetation .”
He said the parrot’s weight meant it
may have been fl ightless. Although the
bird’s diet is unknown, Scofi eld noted
that most parrots today are vegetar-
ian. “But as animals get larger, they
become predatory,” he said. “It was
so large it would have required a con-
siderable amount of calories per day.”
There were examples of omnivo-
rous New Zealand parrots that eat sea
birds, Scofi eld said.
Ecosystems on islands often evolve
large, unusual, often fl ightless birds
- for example, the kiwi of New Zea-
land and the dodo of Mauritius. New
Zealand has produced a particularly
large number of such species as a result
of its large size, complex ecosystem
and lack of predators.
Dr Daniel Field, an avian palaeontol-
ogist at the University of Cambridge,
who was not involved in the research,
said: “It has to do with arriving in a
place where there are no terrestrial
predators. Unfortunately, that can lead
to animals becoming susceptible to
extinction in the event that terrestrial
predators are introduced or evolved.
“It’s a tantalising fi nding, and we’d
love to know more about these extinct
birds. I hope they fi nd more remains .”
Next, Worthy’s team plan to study
songbirds from the same period.
He said: “There remain several
groups of birds from the Saint
Bathans fauna to describe and reveal
to the world – notably, what were
the songbirds we had back then? Do
they help to reveal the origins of the
modern endemic songbirds, or do they
show closer relationships to things
Source: Biology Letters from Australia?”
Heracles
inexpectatus
and a person
approximately
to scale▲ A reconstruction of Heracles inexpectatus shows its size in comparison to the
8cm Kuiornis, a prehistoric New Zealand wren IMAGE: BRIAN CHOO/FLINDERS UNIVERSITYРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS