Authorities in Singapore seize largest ever shipment of Rhinoceros horn.

A consignment of 20 Rhinoceros horns weighing 35.7 kg and with an estimated value of US$870 000 has been seized at Singapore Changi Airport, according to a press release issued by the Singapore National Parks on 18 November 2025. The consignment was discovered on 8 November by Vengadeswaran Letchumanan, an employee of air cargo handling company SATS, who noticed a strange smell coming from a package labelled 'furniture fittings' which was being shipped from South Africa to Laos.

Rhinoceros horns seized at Singapore Changi Airport on 8 November 2025. Singapore National Parks.

Concerned by the smell, Mr Vengadeswaran, contacted his line manager, who intern contacted SATS Security, who opened the package. Upon discovering the contents of the first package, three other packages from the same consignment were X-rayed, revealing similar contents. As well as the Rhinoceros horns, the packages contained 150 kg of other Animal parts, which have yet to be identified, including bones, teeth and claws.

Animal parts seized at Singapore Changi Airport on 8 November 2025. Singapore National Parks.

The Rhinoceros horns have been identified by the Centre for Wildlife Forensics as having originated from White Rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum, a species currently listed as Near Threatened on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species. The international trade in Rhino horn was banned in 1977 under the terms of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, to which Singapore is a signatory.

South Africa is home to more than half of the world's surviving Rhinoceros population, but has (like many other countries) faced significant problems from poaching of the Animals for their horns. This reached a peak between 2013 and 2017, with more than a thousand Rhinos being killed each year in South Africa, according to Save the Rhino, although the number fell each year from 2015 until 2020. During the COVID 19 pandemic there was an increase in poaching, with the number killed rising slowly each year until 2023. There was a drop of about 15% in 2024, although this still resulted in 420 known Rhinoceros poaching incidents. The majority of Rhino poaching is thought to be carried out by organised crime syndicates, rather than opportunistic local hunters. 

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Ethiopian volcano erupts for first time in recorded history.

Hayli Gubbi, a shield volcano in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, erupted on Sunday 23 November 2025, for what appears to be the first time in recorded history. The volcano erupted for under twelve hours, from about 11.30 am to about 11.00 pm local time (about 8.30 am to about 8.00 pm GMT), producing an ash column about 14 km high, which drifted to the east over the Red Sea, according to the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre. Nobody was directly hurt by the eruption, but local farmers report crops being covered with ash, which may potentially lead to famine in the region.

An ash cloud over Hayli Gubbi on 23 November 2025. Afar Government Communication Service.

Hayli Gubbi is a 493 m high scoria cone (cone of ash) sitting on an older shield volcano (dome shaped volcano made up of layers of lava) located at the southernmost end of the Erte Ale Volcanic Chain. The volcano has never been observed to erupt before, and it is thought not to have erupted since the Late Pleistocene, more than 12 000 years ago, although the remote location of the volcano means that it has not been studied well. 

The deserts of Northern Ethiopia and Southern Eritrea are extremely volcanicly active, with dozens of volcanoes fed by an emerging divergent margin along the East African Rift; the Erta Ale Chain lies on the Ethiopian Rift, the boundary between the Nubian Plate and the Danakil Microplate. The African Plate is slowly splitting apart along the Ethiopian Rift and the East African Rift to the south (which is splitting the Nubian Plate to the West from the Somali Plate to the East). Arabia was a part of Africa till about thirty million years ago, when it was split away by the opening of the Red Sea Rift (part of the same rift system), and in time the Ethiopian and East African Rifts are likely to split Africa into a number of new landmasses.

Rifting in East Africa. The Danakil Microplate is the red triangle to the east of the Afar depression at the southern end of the Red Sea. Università degli Studi di Firenze.

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Outbreak of Marburg Virus in Ethiopia kills at least three.

At least three people have died due to infection with Marburg Virus Disease, with a further three deaths probably linked to the illness, in an outbreak in the town of Jinka in South Ethiopia, according to a press release issued by the World Health Organization on 21 November 2025. 

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health and Ethiopian Public Health Institute first raised the alarm about an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever in the town on 12 November, with the infection being confirmed as Marburg Virus by the National Reference Laboratory two days later. As of 20 November, 33 people have been tested for the Virus, with infection confirmed in six persons, three of whom have died, with the remaining three now receiving treatment. A further three people have died without testing, and are thought likely to have been infected. A total of 206 people who may have come into contact with the Virus have been identified, with an active program of contacting and testing in place.

This is the first known Human outbreak of Marburg Virus in Ethiopia, although the Virus has previously been found in Fruit Bats in the country. 

Map of Ethiopia showing location of Jinka town. World Health Organization.

Marburg Virus Disease is a haemorrhagic fever, similar to the closely related Ebola Virus Disease. Both are caused by single-strand negative-sense RNA viruses of the Filoviridae family. Both are easily spread though contact with bodily fluids, and can also spread by contaminated clothing and bedding.

Negative stained transmission electron micrograph of a number of filamentous Marburg Virions, which had been cultured on Vero cell cultures, and purified on sucrose, rate-zonal gradients. Erskine Palmer/Russell Regnery/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons.

Marburg Virus has an incubation period of between two and 21 days, manifesting at first as a high fever, combined with a severe headache and a strong sense of malaise. This is typically followed after about three days by severe abdominal pains, with watery diarrhoea and vomiting. In severe cases the disease develops to a haemorrhagic stage after five-to-seven days, manifesting as bleeding from some or all bodily orifices. This typically leads to death on day eight or nine, from severe blood loss and shock. There is currently no treatment or vaccine available for Marburg Virus, although a number of teams are working on trying to develop vaccines. 

Previous outbreaks of Marburg Virus have been reported in Rwanda, as well as the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. The Virus has also been reported in a number of other African countries, including Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania. The most recent outbreaks occurred in January this year in Tanzania.

The high rate of infection of healthcare workers seen in Marburg Virus is particularly alarming, as this tends to weaken communities ability to resist the Virus. The Virus can spread quickly in healthcare settings, infecting people whose immune systems are already stressed by other conditions, and creating aa reserve which can feed infections in the wider community. This makes it important to screen all people potentially infected with the disease as quickly as possible, and to arrange for patients to be treated in isolation, as well as quickly tracing all known contacts of any cases, and screening them for infection too.

Marburg Virus is a zoonotic infection (disease transferred from Animals to Humans), with a wild-reserve of the Virus known to be present in Egyptian Fruit Bats, Rousettus aegyptiacus, which are found across much of Africa, the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, and South Asia. These Bats form large colonies in caves or sometimes mines. They are frugivores, and can be major pests of farmed fruits, bringing them into conflict with Humans, and are sometimes hunted for food, all of which create potential avenues for the Marburg Virus to pass from a Bat host to a Human one.

A colony of Egyptian Rousette Bats, Rousettus aegyptiacus. Giovanni Mari/Flikr/iNaturalist.

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Athenar bermani: A new species of Diplodocoid Sauropod from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of Dinosaur National Monument, Utah.

In 1913 prolific American fossil hunter Earl Douglass excavated a Sauropod braincase and partial skull roof from the Carnegie Quarry site at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. This made its way to the collection of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, where it was given the specimen number CM 26552, and was largely forgotten for half a century (to give some context, Douglass excavated over 300 tonnes of material, including many complete skeletons of Jurassic Dinosaurs such as Diplodocus, Dryosaurus, Stegosaurus, Barosaurus, Camarasaurus, and Brontosaurus, which may have left museum staff a bit busy).

In 1978, palaeontologists David Berman and John McIntosh published a study in which they revised the genera Diplodocus and Camarasaurus, in which they assigned the specimen CM 26552 to Diplodocus. However, since that time our understanding of Sauropods as a group has developed significantly, notably in that proportional differences, which could change significantly as Sauropods grew, are no longer given the same emphasis, with modern palaeontologists instead placing more emphasis on character states (discrete features which can be present or absent).

In a paper published in the journal Palaeontologica Electronica in October 2025, John Whitlock of the Department of Science and Mathematics at Mount Aloysius College and the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Juan Pablo Garderes and Pablo Gallina of the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, the Argentina and Fundación de Historia Natural Félix de Azara, and the Centro de Ciencias Naturales, Ambientales y Antropológicas at Universidad Maimónides, and Matthew Lamanna, also of the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, formally redescribe specimen CM 26552, assigning it to a new species and genus.

Based upon their inspection of CM 26552, Whitlock et al. conclude that it should be placed in the Dicraeosauria, a sub-group of the Diplodocidae, the skulls of which can be determined by (1) the presence of postparietal and frontoparietal fenestrae, (2) the exclusion of the basioccipital from the dorsal margin of the occipital condyle by the exoccipitals, (3) the presence of a distinct prong on the squamosal, (4) the contribution of the frontal to the margin of the supratemporal fenestra, (5) an expanded crista prootica, (6) a free dorsal margin of the antotic process, (7) the presence of a “shelf” overhanging the foramen for the trigeminal (V) nerve, and (8) the flat distal margin of the paroccipital process.

Braincase CM 26552 in anterior (A), (C) and posterior (B), (D) views. Abbreviations: BO, basioccipital; BS, basisphenoid; BT, basal tubera; CPR, crista prootica; EO-OP, exoccipitalopisthotic; F, frontal; LS, laterosphenoid; OS, orbitosphenoid; P, parietal; PO, postorbital; POP, paroccipital process; PR, prootic; S, shelf overhanging the opening for cranial nerve V; SOC, supraoccipital; SQ, squamosal; I, opening for cranial nerve I; II, opening for cranial nerve II; IV, opening for cranial nerve IV; V, opening for cranial nerve V. Whitlock et al. (2025).

Within that group, however, specimen CM 26552 shows a unique combination of features, not seen in any other genera, plus one unique character state,  the presence of a ‘tooth’ in the parietal/opisthotic suture, which has not previously been seen. For this reason, Whitlock et al. assign CM 26552 to a new species and genus, under the name Athenar bermani, where 'Athenar' honours the musician Athenar, 'for whom no better palaeontological comparison exists than a broken skull', and 'bermani' honours palaeontologist David Berman, who did so much of the fundamental modern work on Diplodocoid skulls at Carnegie Museum of Natural History and was responsible for the initial description of the specimen. 

Given the limited material available, no size estimate is made for Athenar bermani, although Whitlock et al. note that it appears to have been larger than the mature Diplodocus CM 11161, but shows incomplete fusion of many of the sutures of the braincase, suggesting that the specimen was a subadult at its time of death. 

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At least ten dead and more than 100 injured following Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake in central Bangladesh.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.5 Earthquake at a depth of about 10 km, roughly 30 km to the northeast of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, slightly after 10.35 local time (slightly after 4.35 am GMT) on Saturday 22 November 2025. At least ten people, including at least one child, have died as a result of the event, with more than 100 injured. Most of those killed or injured appear to have been struck by debris falling from buildings in densely populated urban areas; three people were reportedly killed in a single incident when they were struck by a falling balcony. The event was felt across Bangladesh, as well as neighbouring areas of India.

Debris which fell from buildings into a crowded street in Dhaka, Bangladesh, during an Earthquake on 22 November 2025. Reuters.

Earthquake activity in northern Bangladesh is influenced by the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, due to the impact of India into Eurasia to the south. The Indian Plate is moving northwards at a rate of 5 cm per year, causing it to impact into Eurasia, which is also moving northward, but only at a rate of 2 cm per year. The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has led to the formation of the Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of southwest China, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush.

Block diagram showing how the impact of the Indian Plate into Eurasia is causing uplift on the Tibetan Plateau. Jayne Doucette/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Eastern Bangladesh is also in an area particularly prone to Earthquakes; much of nearby Myanmar lies on the Burma Plate, a small tectonic plate caught between  the Eurasian Plate to the northeast, the Indian Plate to the west and southwest and the Sunda Plate to the southeast. As these larger plates move together the Burma Plate is being squeezed and fractured, with a major fault line, the Kabaw Fault, having formed across much of the north of the country, along which the Burma Plate is slowly splitting. Most Earthquakes in the region are caused by movement on this fault.

The movement of the Burma and surrounding plates. Sheth et al. (2011).

The central part of Bangladesh is potentially affected by both tectonic systems, but is rather less prone to earthquake events, with only six Earthquakes of Magnitude 5.5 or greater since 1950. This may help to explain the level of deaths and injuries associated with this event, although building safety has been a long standing political issue in Bangladesh, marked by events such as the Tazreen Factory Fire in 2012, in which at least 112 people died in a fire at a nine-story factory building with insufficient fire escapes, and the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, in which an eight story commercial building collapsed, killing 1134 people. Since 2013, the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, 2018 Transition Key Accord, and most recently the Readymade Sustainability Council, have sort to get international garment manufacturing companies operating in Bangladesh to sign up to fire and building safety protocols, but there remains little general building regulation.

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