The raping of our natural heritage

Yes, I know it's not a local, county, state or national "park." That's not the point, though. Most of our natural heritage -- the diversity of life we humans are dependent upon -- exists not on land protected for its conservation value but on the more ordinary places like ridgetop forests in Chittenden County, Vt. Increasingly, that flora and fauna exists in "island" habitats, places that've been cut off from other natural habitat by human artifacts like sprawl development.

I've been walking by this particular land-raping scene for several months now; even watched the earth-moving machines at work.

New scorpion species found, described in Ariz.

New plant and animal species are being found and described in the scientific literature almost daily. But the march to extinction continues at the same moment in time. AZCentral.com reports that a new species of scorpion, dubbed Vaejovis brysoni, has been found in the Santa Catalina Mountains. Rich Ayrey, a Flagstaff nurse and former biologist recognized it as a new species. Ayrey has discovered and named five other scorpion species. This particular scorpion was found by University of Washington post-doctoral scholar Robert Bryson, who spotted it in the Santa Catalina Mountains and sent samples to Ayrey and a collaborator to identify last April. The 2-inch-long, mahogany-colored scorpions were found above 6,000 in the mountains during a hiking trip. This discovery is the 10th known mountain scorpion species in Arizona. View a photo of the newlyh described/named scorpion at this link.