Manis pentadactyla: The Chinese Pangolin confirmed to be living in Pakyong District, Sikkim.

Pangolins are solitary, nocturnal, and generally cryptic Mammals, found across Africa and Asia. They feed on Ants and Termites, and have a covering of scales, made from fused hairs, which are their main defence against predators, rolling into a ball with these forming the outer covering. There are eight recognised species of Pangolin, four in Africa and four in Asia, two of which are listed as Vulnerable under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species, three as Endangered, and three as Critically Endangered. One of these Critically Endangered species is the Chinese Pangolin, Manis pentadactyla, which is found across parts of Nepal, Bhutan, northern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, and Taiwan. In India it is known to be present in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, and Assam, with occasional reports of its presence in Sikkim and West Bengal, although none of these have been confirmed.

In a paper published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa on 26 June 2026, Prashanti Pradhan of the Sikkim Alpine University, and the Assam Downtown University, Jampal Dorjee Bhutia, also of the Sikkim Alpine University, and Prem Kumar Chhetri and Bharat Kumar Pradhan of the Forest & Environment Department of the Government of Sikkim, document the first confirmed sighting of the Chinese Pangolin in Pakyong District, Sikkim, and provide photographic evidence to support this.

Pradhan et al.'s report is based upon a Pangolin which was found in Barapathing Village in Pakyong District on 31 March 2024. Barapathing Village is located at an altitude of between 1150 and 1700 m in an area where subtropical to temperate broad-leaved forests are being encroached upon by agricultural land and Human settlements, with anthropogenic pressures increasing due to the construction of the 717B National Highway, and associated infrastructure. 

The Pangolin was found by a local villager wandering within their backyard, and apparently lost and looking for food. The villager, who was unfamiliar with the species, attempted to drive the Pangolin away, though it was unperturbed by this, and apparently tolerant of Humans, potentially indicating that it had been living in a Human-dominated environment for some time. The Pangolin was eventually allowed to settle in a room, while the resident called the Barapathing Territorial Range Forest & Environment Department, who collected the Animal and relocated it to a subtropical forest downstream of the village.

Chinese Pangolin, Manis pentadactyla, inside the home of a villager in Barapathing, where it remained until the arrival of the rescue unit of the Barapathing Territorial Range Forest & Environment Department. Sangita Ruchal in Pradhan et al. (2026).

The rescued Animal was identified as a Chinese Pangolin, Manis pentodactyla, on the basis of its distinct morphological characteristics, such as overlapping keratinous scales, an elongated snout, and robust body form. The photographic evidence collected by Pradhan et al. constitutes evidence that this species is present in the Pakyong District of Sikkim. Local people were able to identify the Animal as a Pangolin using the Nepali word 'Saalak', but reported that they had never seen one so close to a Human habitation before.

The photographs and a description of the Animal were later sent to Vikram Aditya, the principal scientist at the Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bengaluru, Karnataka State, and a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Pangolin Specialist Group, who confirmed the diagnosis of this being a Chinese Pangolin.

The Chinese Pangolin after being rehabilitated into the forest. Prem Kumar Chettri in Pradhan et al. (2026).

Pangolins are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, driven by deforestation, forest fires, and road development, across their range. Sikkim has had one of the greatest expansions of its road network of any state in India during the last decade, with a major road upgrading project close to the village of Barapathing, which is likely to have contributed to both habitat destruction and a greater rate of Human encounters for Pangolins in the area. 

Animals can sometimes survive in altered landscapes by adapting their behaviour, however, this can lead them vulnerable to additional hazards, such as increased hunting. The hunting and trafficking of Pangolins is known to be a hazard for Pangolins in Sikkim, in 2021 a group of five people was arrested trying to smuggle a dead Pangolin from Sikkim into Bhutan, and when questioned they confessed the Animal had been killed in a wildlife sactuary in Sikkim. They also hinted at there being an international wildlife trafficking network operating across the eastern Himalayan region. 

Pradhan et al. suggest that there is an urgent need for a baseline ecological study on Chinese Pangolins in Sikkim, in order to better understand the threats linked to development-related habitat fragmentation, illegal hunting and transboundary trafficking, and to enable the development of a conservation plan for the species in the state, 

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Hyksos settlement discovered in the Eastern Nile Delta.

Egyptian archaeologists working at a site called Tell El-Koua in the Ismailia Governorate have uncovered an ancient settlement dating to the Second Intermediate Period (between 1782 and 1550 BC), according to a press release issued by the Egyptian ‎Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (وزارة السياحة والآثار) on 29 June 2026. At this time the northern part of Egypt, as far south as Cusae, was ruled by a Semitic People called the Hyksos, recorded as the Fifteenth Dynasty, while the southern part of the country was ruled by two successive Egyptian dynasties, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth. This was the first time that a substantial part of Egypt was ruled by a foreign group, and Egyptian chroniclers had a low opinion of them, yet they introduced a number of innovations to Egyptian culture, including Horses, chariots, a sickle-shaped sword called the khopesh, and the compound bow, all of which contributed to the military success of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who reunited Egypt and formed the New Kingdom, which built an expanded Empire including much of the Middle East and Sudan.

The site uncovered includes a residential area, a group of tombs, and several kilns and grain silos. The site is clearly divided into residential areas, working areas, and burial grounds. The residential area covers an area of about 30 m by 60 m and is surrounded by a mud brick wall about 1.5 m thick, and is internally divided into rooms and corridors of various sizes, with ovens and grain silos located on its eastern side.

The area interpreted as a residential block at the Tell El-Koua site. Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The site included ten mud brick tombs, some of which were in the typical 'mustaba' style, while others had a variety of architectural facades and decorative elements. These tombs varied in size and orientation, and some of the individuals within them were buried in a crouched position, rather than laid out flat in typical Egyptian style. Several individuals had also been buried outside of tombs. All of the Human remains found are estimated to have come from individuals aged between 25 and 40. The mixture of burial styles suggests a people who had adopted some Egyptian customs, but to varying degrees and with an admixture of their own traditions. 

An individual buried in a crouched position in a tomb at Tell El-Koua. Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

A number of artefacts were found at the site, including scarabs, bronze tools, pottery vessels, alabaster kohl containers, and a number of Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware flasks, which are considered typical of the Hyksos Period in Lower Egypt, but have also been found at sites across the Middle East, particularly those associated with the Canaanite People and on the island of Cyprus. A large number of Animal bones were also discovered, which appear to relate to both meat consumption and funerary rights.

A Tell el-Yahudiyeh ware flask from the Tell El-Koua site. Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

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At least thirteen deaths amid flooding in Accra, Ghana.

At least thirteen people have died and a further seven are missing following flooding in the Ghanaian capitol, Accra, following a heavy rainstorm overnight between Sunday 28 and Monday 29 June 2026, with over 38 800 people from more than 7750 households displaced by floodwaters. The worst affected areas of the city is Ga East, where five people are known to have died, and another 2000 people have been displaced from their homes, and Ayawaso Central three people have died and one is missing, while about 3020 people have been displaced. Another three people have died in Tema West, where about 3450 have been displaced. In Ledzokuku one person has died and around 1200 have been displaced by the flooding. 

In Ga Central over 1800 people have been displaced, but there are no reports of any fatalities of missing persons, while in Ga West about 2300 people have been displaced, again with no reports of fatalities or missing persons. About 1850 people have been displaced from their homes in Adentan, while about 6500 have been displaced from  Korle Klottey. About 2620 people have been displaced by flooding in Okaikwei North, while in Okaikwei South the figure is about 3450 people. In Tema Metropolis about 3600 people were displaced, but no casualties have been reported. About 2200 people have been displaced by flooding in La Dadekotopon, and about 1100 in Krowor.

Officials from the Ghanaian National Disaster Management Organisation and soldiers from the 48 Engineer Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces rescue people trapped by floodwaters in Accra, Ghana. National Disaster Management Organisation.

Outside of Accra, twenty houses are reported to have collapsed due to flooding in the Cape Coast Metropolis, with five people killed inside one of these buildings when it collapsed, and a sixth person drowning in a separate incident. Two people were killed in another building collapse in Mfantsiman, with another person drowning separately, and in Gomoa Central one person was killed in a building collapse and another drowned. Altogether, 58 houses are reported to have been destroyed in Central Region, with flooding also reported in the Volta and Western North regions.

June falls in the middle of the rainy season in Accra, with the city receiving an average of 175 mm of rain during the month. West Africa has a distinct two season climatic cycle, with a cool dry season during the northern winter when prevalent winds blow from the Sahara to the northeast, and a warm rainy season during the northern summer when prevalent winds blow from the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. These warm winds from the Atlantic are laden with moisture, which can be lost rapidly when the air encounters cooler conditions.

Rainfall and prevalent winds during the West African dry and rainy seasons. Encyclopedia Britanica.

However, this year's rains have been far heavier than usual, with 169.2 mm of rain falling in 24 hours on Sunday 28 March, the fourth highest level of rainfall in a single day ever recorded in Ghana, and 593.2 mm of rain falling in June, the wettest month ever recorded in the city. The previous record-holding year was 2002, when 420.6 mm of rain fell in Accra during June, a figure which this year has exceeded by more than the average rainfall for the month. These rising rain levels are linked to greater sea surface temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean as the global climate warms, which leads to greater levels of evaporation from the sea, followed by increased precipitation on land.

Nevertheless, the high rainfall levels are not thought to be the main cause of the flooding which Accra has been suffering this week. Instead, local authorities are blaming the city's lax building controls, which have led to buildings and settlements spreading over and covering up drainage systems, as well as covering areas that were formally open soil with concrete, preventing water from soaking away. This has led to orders fir several illegally built properties to be demolished in the wake of the floods, though local community groups are asking for more consultation before any such plans are implemented, as in the past authorities have demolished properties without any plan to resettle their occupants, resulting in the rebuilding of properties once the authorities have left.

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Kissing Elephants Archway on the Maltese Island of Comino collapses.

The Kissing Elephants Archway, a famous sea arch on the island of Comino, Malta, collapsed into the Mediterranean Sea at about 7.30 local time on Saturday 27 June 2006. The archway collapsed after a tourist, described as a 32-year-old American man, jumped from it into the sea, although this is unlikely to have been the cause of the collapse. Tragically, a couple were passing under the archway on a jet ski at the time of the collapse, with one of them, described as a 26-year-old Chinese man being killed and the other, a 27-year-old Chinese woman, being severely injured.

The Kissing Elephants Archway before it fell. Malta Boat Trips.

Sea arches are dramatic features, and long-lived by Human standards, but are formed by coastal erosion and have a finite lifetime. Sea arches are formed when an exposed headland has a softer rock at its base than above (in this case a soft clay limestone beneath a harder coralline limestone), which causes the arch to be hollowed out as the underlying stone is washed away. Obviously this is an unstable situation, and eventually the arch becomes so undermined that it collapses into the sea.

Archway collapses are usually associated with storm events, which can batter already weakened structures and cause them to collapse. However, the Kissing Elephants Archway collapsed during a period of calm, but extremely hot, weather, during an unprecedented heatwave which has affected much of western Europe, and which has been associated with more than 1300 deaths so far. Though less obvious than storms or even frosts (which can crack rocks when water in crevices freezes and expands), extreme heat can also fracture rocks as the different minerals from which rock is made up expand and contract at different rates as they are heated and cooled. This is something which Humans have exploited since the palaeolithic, with rocks often being placed into fires to make them easier to crack.

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Trachischium lalremsangai: A new species of Worm-eating Snake from Mizoram State, India, and Chin State, Myanmar.

Members of the Natricid Snake genus Trachischium are commonly known as Slender Snakes or Worm-eating Snakes. They are fossorial in nature (live underground in burrows) and are distributed in the montane forests of India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh, typically at altitudes of between 800 and 2500 m above sealevel. Their lifestyle and habitat makes studying (or indeed finding) them difficult, and they are subsequently one of the least well known groups of Snakes. The genus Trachischium currently contains ten species, including two which were previously assigned to the genus Blythia; the two genera having been merged in 2024 on the basis that their defining criteria overlapped.

In a paper published in the journal Herpetozoa on 19 May 2026, Virender Bhardwaj, Amit Bal, and Chhangte Tluanga of the Developmental Biology and Herpetology Laboratory at Mizoram University, and Zeeshan Mirza of the Max Planck Institute for Biology, describe a new species of Trachischium from Mizoram State, India, and Chin State, Myanmar.

The new species is described on the basis of a specimen collected by Bhardwaj et al. in the Murlen National Park in 2025. A second specimen, which was collected in Chin State, Myanmar, in 2003, and now sits in the collection of the California Academy of Sciences, where it has been classified as Blythia reticulata (a species currently reassigned to Trachischium as Trachischium reticulata) on the basis of a scale pattern and colouration which matches the new species, but is atypical for Trachischium reticulata. 

Bhardwaj et al. name the new species Trachischium lalremsanga, in honour of Hmar Tlawmte Lalremsanga of Mizoram University for his contributions to herpetology in Northeast India, his guidance to numerous students, and his facilitation of research throughout the region and the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot. The species is described from two specimens, both male, one 409 mm in length and the other 506 mm, which makes it one of the larger species of Worm-eating Snakes. The dorsal surface of these Snakes is dark brown with a lustrous blue iridescence throughout, the front quarter of the ventral surface is a creamy white, the remainder brown with white speckles.

Trachischium lalremsangai, holotype male, MZMU 3757, in life. Bhardwaj et al. (2026).

The specimen Bhardwaj et al. collected was found moving along a road, close to the village of Murlen on the fringe of the Murlen National Park, 1560 m above sealevel, at about 9.30 in the evening, and shortly before a period of rain. This area forms part of the India-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot, and contains a mixture of tropical, semi-evergreen, and montane forests, with a dense canopy cover. Annual rainfall varies between about 2500 mm and about 3000 m, and the temperature varies between about 5°C in the winter and about 35°C in the winter. The area where the Snake was found has a diverse vegetation, including Oaks, Quercus spp., Needlewood, Schima wallichii, Birches, Betula spp., Champak, Michelia champaca, Khasi Pines, Pinus khasiana, Cherries, Prunus spp., Bayberry, Myrica spp., Rhododendrons, Rhododendron spp., dense stands of Thorny Bamboo, Arundinaria callosa, Cane Grasses, and a rich array of Orchids. The specimen collected in Myanmar was found at a site about 90 km away in a straight line, with a similar environment. Based upon this, Bhardwaj et al. estimate that the species may be present across northeast Mizoram and adjoining Manipur in India, as well as within the similar elevation realms of the Chin Hills.

The phylogeny of the genus Trachischium is still somewhat uncertain, and in need of thorough revision. Many species are described from single specimens, with only vague locations recorded. The genus is found from Jammu and Kashmir in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east, south as far as northern Myanmar and north as far as Tibet. At least one widely distributed species, Trachischium fuscum, is likely to be a species complex (group of closely related, yet reproductively isolated, and similar-appearing species). The genus Blythia was incorporated into the genus Trachischium as a junior synonym in 2024, yet this group of Snakes remain distinctive in appearance and this may be revised again; it is to this Blythia-group that the new species, Trachischium lalremsanga, belongs. Genetic data is available for only a single specimen of many species.

With this in mind, Bhardwaj et al. carried out a phylogenetic analysis for Trachischium lalremsanga using the mitochondrial 16S rRNA and cytochrome b genes and the nuclear oocyte maturation factor mos and recombination activating gene 1 genes, and comparing these to publicly available sequences from the GenBank database. 

This analysis found that the genus Trachischium can be split into three distinct subgroupings, which Bhardwaj et al. refer to as Clade 1, Clade 2 (which corresponds to the Blythia-group), and Clade 3. Clade 2 and Clade 3 are more closely related to one-another than either is to Clade 1, which forms an outgroup, so while Clade 2 could potentially be taken out of the genus Trachischium and returned to its original name, this would also require the renaming of Clade 3, with the designation Trachischium limited to Clade 1, which contains the type species for the genus, Trachischium fuscum (a type species is the species which defines a genus; other species are determined to belong or not belong to the genus on the basis of how closely they are related to that genus).

Maximum likelihood phylogeny based on concatenated two nuclear (c-mos and RAG-1) and two mitochondrial (16S and cyt b) genes of selected Natricine Snakes showing relationships within the genera Trachischium and Blythia. Numbers at nodes show maximum likelihood clade support. The new species from Murlen National Park is highlighted in red text. Bhardwaj et al. (2026).

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