WRONG WAY HOME: AN INFANT SOUTHERN ELEPHANT SEAL (MIROUNGA LEONINA) ARRIVAL ON SOUTHEASTERN BRAZILIAN BEACHES

ABSTRACTRecords of southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) as vagrants along the SE Brazilian coast date back the late 50’s and have been relatively common over the last decades. These large marine mammals usually call much attention when they arrive on tropical beaches worldwide and are generally treated as ‘occasional visitors’ and ‘vagrants’. This note reports on sightings of a youngelephant seal along SE Brazil in the summer and autumn of 2020. We also reviewed records in both the literature and open sources, totaling eight records of infant southern elephant seals known since the late 70’s along the Brazilian coast. It was noted that the arrival of an infant in February of 2020is coincident with a previous cyclonic activity off the SE and NE Brazilian coast. The connection of such unlikely records of pinnipeds on tropical beaches and extreme weather events associated to ocean currents should be better evaluated in the context of climatic change RESUMOÉ reportada uma ocorrência recente de um infante de elefante-marinho (Mirounga leonina) na costa do estado do Rio de Janeiro com um intervalo aproximado de um mês entre as avistagens do mesmo indivíduo. A comparação das fotografias obtidas em ambos os registros permitiu a comparação e confirmação. Em adição, se discute a presença de infantes na costa brasileira, que totalizam oito casos, mas que não apontam uma sazonalidade marcada, mas uma tendência aos registros serem reportados em junho, seguido por outubro e novembro. Como o presente registro se deu em janeiro, pico do verão, fatores climáticos de larga escala podem estar atuando para deslocar alguns indivíduos muito ao longe das suas colônias.Palavras-chave: Mirounga leonina; Movimentos; Vagante; Atlântico Sul

Lista bibliografica

Questa lista bibliografica contiene il secondo aggiornamento della bibliografia della Lisy e deriva dall’assemblaggio da parte della redazione (M. Serdoz ed E. Panfili) dei contributi parziali stilati dai gruppi regionali

The bear in Eurasian plant names: Motivations and models

Ethnolinguistic studies are important for understanding an ethnic group's ideas on the world, expressed in its language. Comparing corresponding aspects of such knowledge might help clarify problems of origin for certain concepts and words, e.g. whether they form common heritage, have an independent origin, are borrowings, or calques. The current study was conducted on the material in Slavonic, Baltic, Germanic, Romance, Finno-Ugrian, Turkic and Albanian languages. The bear was chosen as being a large, dangerous animal, important in traditional culture, whose name is widely reflected in folk plant names. The phytonyms for comparison were mostly obtained from dictionaries and other publications, and supplemented with data from databases, the co-authors' field data, and archival sources (dialect and folklore materials). More than 1200 phytonym use records (combinations of a local name and a meaning) for 364 plant and fungal taxa were recorded to help find out the reasoning behind bear-nomination in various languages, as well as differences and similarities between the patterns among them. Among the most common taxa with bear-related phytonyms were Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng., Heracleum sphondylium L., Acanthus mollis L., and Allium ursinum L., with Latin loan translation contributing a high proportion of the phytonyms. Some plants have many and various bear-related phytonyms, while others have only one or two bear names. Features like form and/or surface generated the richest pool of names, while such features as colour seemed to provoke rather few associations with bears. The unevenness of bear phytonyms in the chosen languages was not related to the size of the language nor the present occurence of the Brown Bear in the region. However, this may, at least to certain extent, be related to the amount of the historical ethnolinguistic research done on the selected languages