Another tool in the tool box

Dear Rainbow Lorikeet Observers,

There have been a couple of exciting developments this week.

We have been contacted by mapping specialist who will be helping us to map the distribution of land use and vegetation to the distribution of the lorikeet paralysis cases. He will be working with Lauren after the first of the year.

We also just got our first results back from Rachel Wilson, a scientist who can explore the DNA sequences found in bat and now lorikeet poo and determine what they have been eating. We got back our first results from 8 birds and can clearly see what species of plants they fed on in the day before they developed the lorikeet paralysis syndrome. We will be meeting with Rachel next week to expand the study and include control samples from birds that present for reasons other than lorikeet paralysis syndrome.

Again thank you all for your many observations and continued support of this work.

Have a great week,
David,
Lauren
Maya

Publicado el lunes, 06 de diciembre de 2021 a las 08:58 PM por david4262 david4262

Comentarios

Exciting news for the research! We are still keeping our eye out here on the Gold Coast. During our transport of Lorikeets who are unable to fly to Currumbin Wildlife Hospital as part of the work done by Wildcare Australai Inc, we see a lot who appear with the characteristics of LPS. We are not vets! but we have eyes! Do Scaly-breasted Lorikeets also make up part of the study group? Of the 6 animals we picked up from members of the public and vets yesterday, four were Lorikeets with the characteristics with which we are very familiar. Two of them were Scaly-breasted Lorikeets and the other two were RBLs. Just to reiterate, we are NOT vets, but this is what we see !

Anotado por bleuen hace mas de 2 años

Thanks for your comment @bleuen Definitely very exciting new steps into the LPS research. While they are less common, Scaly-breasted Lorikeets have been documented with LPS, and we would be happy to have observations on what they are feeding on as well. Thank you for your participation with this project and look forward to your observations. Happy Rainbow Lorikeet spotting!

Anotado por lozb97 hace cerca de 2 años

Añade un comentario

Entra o Regístrate para añadir comentarios