April 18, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
On April 17, the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium announced that the unfamiliar galatheoidea (a superfamily of decapod crustaceans comprising some squat lobsters and porcelain crabs) that they found is a new species of galathea, or squat lobster. The staff member of the aquarium who discovered the new galatheoidea, Takuo Higashiji, and a researcher carried out a joint study and posted an article on it in an academic journal about zoological classification. Using the...
March 15, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
On March 14, a black-faced spoonbill that had been entangled in fishing line recovered from its troubled situation flew into the sky over the Toyosaki mudflats, Tomigusuku. Two staff members of the Nature Conservation Section of the Okinawa Prefectural Government...
March 12, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
On the evening of March 11, a black-faced spoonbill that had been found with a fishing line wrapped around its beak on March 4 at the mud flats in the southern part of the main island, was taken into care.
From around 4:30pm that day, more than a dozen people...
March 13, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
In Ishigaki, people saw the first baby water buffalo in many a year, and have named it Katsuzakura. Yoji Fukunaka, a teacher at Yaeyama Agriculture High School and Karin Heanza, a second grade student, have been taking care of the buffalos. Katsuzakura is the first...
March 8, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
At around 10:00pm on March 5, Kouki Tarama, a police officer of the Yagaji Police Substation in Nago caught a poisonous habu snake that was about 1.5 meters in length in the front yard of the police substation. Nago Police Station drew residents’ attention...
March 7, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
On March 7 courtship displays by rare bearded mudskippers (tokagehaze or Scartelaos histophorus) were seen on the tidal flats in Fusozaki, Nanjo. Because the temperature was relatively high, the mudskippers stand up to attract each other before cuddling...
March 5, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
On March 4 in the southern part of Okinawa’s main island, a black-faced spoonbill, a species listed by the Ministry of Environment as “critically endangered” on its Red List, was found with a fishhook in its beak. A similar accident occurred four years ago,...
February 15, 2012 Photograph by Hiroaki Yamashiro
A high-pressure zone over the Okinawa region on February 14 brought blue skies and a summer-like day. A temperature of 26.5 degrees was recorded at Hateruma and on the Iriomote Islands, and in Naha it was 25 degrees, the sort of temperatures...
January 1, 2012 Ryukyu Shimpo
As it does every year, to celebrate the Year of the Dragon the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Motobu organized a special display of creatures. Visitors enjoyed watching sea horses and other creatures named after dragons as they swam gracefully in their tanks.
The...
December 29, 2011 Yoshikazu Miyazato correspondent of Ryukyu Shimpo
In the morning of December 28, the first five humpback whales of this season were confirmed as being seen in the sea to the west side of Zamami Island. They are usually first seen in the middle of December, but this year sightings...
November 3, 2011 Ryukyu Shimpo
On November 2, the Ministry of the Environment’s Naha Nature Conservation Office announced numbers confirmed at the end of November 1 for accidents on roads involving Yanbarukuina or Okinawa rails and Ryukyu long-haired rats. The figures released represent...
