Flora and Fauna

Smelly Philippine Flower is Largest in World

Jun 5th, 2007

rafflesia worlds biggest flower can be found in the philippines The odds are good that you may have never heard of the Philippine flower known as rafflesia, a flower that ranks high above all and sundry in the plant world. It is literally just flower – without stems, branches, or leaves – and can grow to the size of a car tire. The odor – that’s right, odor, not scent, not aroma, odor – of this Philippine flower can be downright offensive. But for many, the rafflesia is a truly fascinating flower that deserves its rightful place in the pantheon of exotic Philippine flora.

More than twenty species of rafflesia exist all over Southeast Asia, with two Philippine flower rafflesias in particular growing in the Philippines, the rafflesia manillana, which may be found in Luzon, and the recently discovered rafflesia novum in Antique. (more…)

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Davao : the home of the Philippine Eagle

Jul 14th, 2006

by Philippine Travel Blog.

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Norita Scott-Pezett of Audubon-Panama, a fellow BirdLife International Global Council member (1999-2004), was shocked when I told her that, as far as I know, their Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) is the largest eagle in the world! â€œWhat?â€ she responded incredulously. â€œI thought all along that your Philippine Eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) is the largest in the world!â€ Huh? Really?

philippine eagle

Since then I started to doubt what I used to know and gladly suspected that she was right. I began to believe that the Haring Ibon is the largest eagle in the world even without any solid basis yet, save for my hazy recollection of two specimens displayed in the Smithsonian Museum at Washington, D.C.

Who or what authority proclaims which eagle is the largest in the world, anyway? What would be the basis? I personally had no access to any documents about it. Or perhaps, I was not looking hard enough in the right places.

Then on September 26, 2004, Haribon Executive Director Anabelle Plantilla and I had a meeting with Dr. Robert Kennedy at the Harvard University Museum of Natural History in Boston. (Dr. Kennedy is the principal author of the book A Guide to the Birds of the Philippines. He has extensively studied the Haring Ibon with excellent video documentation. He is a founding member of the Haribon Foundation).

New bird species discovered in Babuyan Islands

Jul 14th, 2006

by Philippine Travel Blog.

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By Patty Adversario

calayan rail For biologists, there are few things quite as exciting as discovering a new species. And though it has been said that the Philippines is one of the most gifted countries in the world in term of biodiversity, there are few things that demonstrate this fact quite as well as the discovery of a new form of life right here on our shores.

A new bird species, believed to be found nowhere else in the world, has been discovered on the remote island of Calayan, 70 km north of Luzon.

The bird will be named the â€˜Calayan Railâ€™ (Gallirallus calayanensis), after the island on which it was found. Calayan is the largest island in the Babuyan Island group that lies between Batanes and Luzon.

The discovery was made by a team of nine volunteer wildlife researches from the Philippines and the United Kingdom, who conducted a survey of birds, mammals, repriles, and amphibians on the islands from April to June. The team was led by conservationists Carl Oliveros and Genevieve Broad.

Carmela EspaÃ±ola, a Filipino wildlife biologist, found a group of these dark brown birds with their distinctive orange-red bills and legs foraging in the undergrowth near a stream while she was walking through a rainforest on May 11 this year. (more…)