Assessing the impact of a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus upon the Elephant Seal population of South Georgia.

The Southern Elephant Seal, Mirounga leonina, is the largest species of Pinniped (the group which includes Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses) and an important predator in the circumpolar Southern Ocean. They breed annually, coming ashore on Sub-Antarctic islands in the southern summer. The males emerge first, carving out territories in bouts of competitive fighting, which they then defend for the rest of the season. The pregnant females emerge later, settling in the territories of one of the males, to form harems, groups of females defended by a male. Here they give birth, wean their cub, and finally, at the end of the season, come into oestrus, allowing the male to mate with them before they return to the sea.

Elephant Seals on a beach on South Georgia Island. George Lemann/South Georgia Museum.

There are four genetically distinct populations of Southern Elephant Seals, the  Peninsula Valdés Population, which breeds on the Argentinian coast, the South Georgia Population, which breeds on the islands of the South Atlantic, including South Georgia, South Sandwich Island, and the Falkland Islands, the Macquarie Population, which breeds on the Islands of the South Pacific, and the Heard and Kerguelen Population, which breeds on the islands of the southern Indian Ocean, including the Crozet and Prince Edward archipelagos. Of these populations, the South Georgia Population is thought to be the largest, containing about 54% of the global population.

Because Southern Elephant Seals live in remote locations, data on their populations is difficult to gather, making it difficult to compare populations directly. The Peninsula Valdés Population, possibly the easiest to monitor, is known to have grown by between 1 and 3.4% each year for the past five decades. The South Georgia Population is thought to be stable. The Macquarie Population is thought to have shrunk throughout the twentieth century, going through a slight recovery in the early twenty first century, before starting to shrink again more recently. In the Indian Ocean, the sub-population on Marion Island, in the Prince Edward Archipelago, has declined by 83% since 1950, which represents an annual decline of 5.8%, the Îles Crozet sub-population shrank by 5.4% per year between 1970 and 1990, but more recently have been growing at about 5.1, while the Îles Kerguelen sub-population shrank by 47% between 1952 and 1987, then rose by almost 1% per year between 1987 and 2009, and has been rising at about 1.6% annually more recently.

Influenza A Viruses are Negative-strand RNA Viruses which circulate naturally in both Animal and Human populations, causing seasonal flu. Occasionally a particularly more virulent strains of Influenza A appear, causing large mortality rates among affected species, such as the notorious Spanish Flu, which may have killed over 100 million people between 1918 and 1920. Avian Influenza is a form of Influenza A Virus which first appeared on poultry farms in China in late 2003, rapidly spreading to other farms across East Asia during 2004, causing mass deaths of poultry everywhere it reached. In 2005 it caused a mass death of wild Birds on Qinghai Lake in central China, a lake which is used as a stopover for many migratory Bird species. Later that year cases began to appear in Europe and Africa. While mainly affecting Birds, Avian Influenza can infect Mammals, including Humans, however, although it can be fatal, it seldom spreads between members of most Mammal species, limiting the size of any outbreaks. However, some Mammals appear to be more vulnerable than others with the Virus spreading without the need for further contact with Birds. Such vulnerable Mammals include Cows and Seals.

Negative stained transmission electron micrograph showing  recreated 1918 influenza Virions that were collected from supernatants of 1918-infected Madin-Darby Canine Kidney cells cultures 18 hours after infection. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons.

Since this time several strains of Avian Influenza have appeared, which have been loosely divided into Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses, which typically kill more than 75%  of the Birds in any infected population, and Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses, which typically kill less than 75%. The 2.3.4.4b clade is a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus which first appeared in Europe in 2020, and has subsequently spread to North and South America, where it caused mass deaths among Seabirds and Marine Mammals in 2022. In September 2023, a Brown Skua, Stercorarius antarcticus, on Bird Island, South Georgia, was found to have died as a result of infection with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus, with the infection subsequently spreading to Gentoo Penguins, Pygoscelis papua, Snowy Albatrosses, Diomedea exulans,Antarctic Fur Seals, Arctocephalus gazella, and Southern Elephant Seals. In 2024, the Virus was also confirmed on Îles Crozet and Îles Kerguelen in the southern Indian Ocean.

During the 2023/4 breeding season, Southern Elephant Seals on South Georgia were monitored for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus via sample collecting at sites which could be accessed from the sea, in combination with observations made from research vessels and cruise ships, suggested that the colony could have lost as many as 97% of its pups.

In a paper published in the journal Communications Biology on 13 November 2025, Connor. Bamford, Nathan Fenney, Jamie Coleman, Cameron Fox-Clarke, and John Dickens of the British Antarctic Survey, Mike Fedak of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at University of St Andrews, Peter Fretwell, also of the British Antarctic Survey, Luis Hückstädt of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at the University of Exeter, and Phil Hollyman, again of the British Antarctic Survey, and of the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University, present a study of the three largest Southern Elephant Seal numbers on South Georgia, based upon photographic data collected by an uncrewed aerial vehicle.

In October 2024, 4373 female Southern Elephant Seals were observed at St Andrews Bay, whereas 6305 were recorded in October 2022. At Hound Bay, 1154 females were observed in 2024, compared to 1901 in 2022. This represents a 47% decline in the number of breeding females at these two sights between 2022 and 2024, and a 33.7% decline compared the long term population average (taken between 1958 and 2022). Bamford et al. extrapolate for that this would represent in a total fall in the number of breeding females across South Georgia of about 55 000.

Locations of the largest breeding colonies of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina, on South Georgia. Sites of the three largest breeding colony beaches of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina, on South Georgia (by total number of breeding females from the 1995 census where aerial imagery was collected in 2022 and 2024, Bamford et al. (2025).

Bamford et al. note that there are gaps in our knowledge of Elephant Seal breeding, which affect how their data should be interpreted. It is possible that the reduction in the number of breeding females represents a direct measure of the rate of adult mortality suffered by Southern Elephant Seals on South Georgia as a result of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus infection. However, female Seals whose pups die tend to leave the breeding beaches fairly quickly, and it is therefore possible that many Seals left beaches in 2023 before coming into oestrus and mating, and therefore did not return in 2024 to raise pups. It is unclear how female Elephant Seals return to the breeding population after losing a pup, although it seems unlikely that they simply stop breeding altogether. 

Another potential disruption to Elephant Seal breeding behaviour comes from sea ice. In 2023 sea ice in the Southern Atlantic cover was the lowest ever recorded at that time (2024 subsequently produced even lower ice levels). This potentially had an impact on the Elephant Seals, as sea ice has a stabilising effect on the Southern Ocean, tending to suppress the formation of storms, as well has having an impact on the ecology of many prey species. However, Bamford et al. do not believe that this is likely to have caused a sufficient disruption to the Seals to explain the observed population drop, given the wide area over which they typically forage.

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The Leonid Meteor Shower.

Each year between 6 and 30 November (approximately) the the Earth encounters the Leonid Meteors, with peak activity this year expected before dawn on Monday 17 November. Unlike most such showers, which are essentially composed of dust particles, the Leonids comprise particles of up to 8 mm across and up to 85 g in mass, leading to some spectacular fireballs, and each year the shower is thought to deposit 12-13 tonnes of material on the Earth. The Leonid Meteor Shower is so called because the meteors they appear to originate in the constellation of Leo. (Note a meteor is a 'shooting star', a piece of material visibly burning up in the atmosphere and detectable via the light it produces when doing this; a meteorite is a piece of rock that has fallen from the sky and which a geologist can physically hold; and an asteroid is a chunk of rock in orbit about the Sun, to small to be regarded as a planet.

The radiant point of the Leonid Meteor Shower. EarthSky.

The Leonid Meteors are thought to originate from the tail of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 33 years, on an orbit that brings it slightly within the orbit of the Earth then out to slightly beyond the orbit of Uranus. Comets are composed largely of ice (mostly water and carbon dioxide), and when they fall into the inner Solar System the outer layers of this boil away, forming a visible tail (which always points away from the Sun, not in the direction the comet is coming from, as our Earth-bound experience would lead us to expect). Particles of rock and dust from within the comet are freed by this melting (strictly sublimation) of the comet into the tail and continue to orbit in the same path as the comet, falling behind over time. 

The orbit of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, and its position on 17 November 2025. JPL Small Body Database.

The material in the meteor shower is densest close behind the comet, and, since Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle has a 33 year orbit, the Leonid Meteor Shower has a 33-year cycle, with a particularly spectacular display every thirty-third year, then a gradual decline in meteor number till the end of the cycle. The last such peak year was in 1998.

Image of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle taken on 31 January 1998, 60 second exposure. Martin Mobberley.

Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle was discovered in December 1865 by German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel, and independently in January 1866 by the American Horace Parnell Tuttle. The designation 55/P implies that it is a Periodic Comet (comet with an orbital period of less than 200 years), and that it was the 55th such body discovered. As a Comet with a Period of less than 200 years and more than 20 years it is also regarded as a Halley-type Comet.

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Body of missing West Virginia miner found.

The body of a West Virginia miner went missing in a flood at coal mine on Saturday 8 November 2025 has been recovered, according to rescue workers. Steve Lipscomb, 42, a foreman at the Rolling Thunder Mine in Nicholas County was last seen helping workers to escape following an inrush at the mine, about a kilometre below ground. Since this time rescue workers have been working round the clock, pumping an average of 1.4 million litres out of the mine every hour, but on several occasions encountering new packages of water, hampering efforts to reach the area where Lipscomb went missing. His body was finally recovered on Thursday 13 November.

The Rolling Thunder Mine in Nicholas County, West Virginia.  Sean McCallister/AP.

Floods and inrushes typically occur when miners accidentally break through into pockets of water and gas trapped within rocks. Since such buried waters are often under high pressure due to the weight of rocks above them, they tend to escape into the mine rapidly, and on occasion explosively, leading to a highly dangerous situation in which miners are often rapidly overwhelmed. Such inrushes can also occur when miners encounter flooded disused mineworkings, a danger in areas where mining has occurred for a long time but good records have not been kept.

The Rolling Thunder Mine, which is operated by Tennessee-based Alpha Metallurgical Resources, is located close to a former coal mine, which was in operation in the 1930s and 40s, and targets the Eagle Coal Seam, which runs below the drainage of Twenty Mile Creek, following the path of this waterway. Despite this, it is unclear what steps the mine's owners took to identify any hydrological risks at the site. A report produced by consulting firm Marshall Miller & Associates in February 2024 suggested that the area had been sufficiently explored in the past for there to be 'no significant hydrologic concerns'. However, this report is primarily economic in focus, and also reports that hydrologic testing should be undertaken as part of the mine permitting process.

The Rolling Thunder Mine is one of eleven deep pit mines operated by Alpha Metallurgical Resources in West Virginia. The company also operated four surface mines in the state, and three underground mines and one surface mine in Virginia. This is the third death at an Alpha Metallurgical Resources facility in West Virginia this year, with previous incidents having occurred at the Marfork Coal Processing Facility and the Black Eagle Mine. 

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Dyckia semperflorens: A new species of Bromeliad from the cold region of Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil.

Bromeliads are herbaceous Monocotyledons native to the Americas (with a single species known from West Africa) and related to the Sedges and Grasses. They have a distinctive rosette shape, with blade-like leaves spiraling out from a central point. In some cases the centre of this rosette forms a water reservoir held in place by tightly overlapping leaf-bases, which can contain entire miniature ecosystems. Many Bromeliads are epiphytes, living on the branches of trees, particularly in rainforests, but others live on the ground and many are found in deserts.

The genus Dyckia contains 188 recognised species of Bromeliads, making it one of the most specious genera within the group. The majority of these are found in arid areas of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil, with about two thirds of all species being found in Brazil. Species of Dyckia tend to have spiny leaves and a succulent form, and often grow on thin soils or directly on rock. They also tend to be highly endemic, with most species having a limited geographical range, and several species known only from a single location.

In a paper published in the Nordic Journal of Botany on 17 October 2025, Henrique Mallmann Büneker and Jorge Ernesto de Araujo Mariath of the Laboratório de Anatomia Vegetal and Programa de Pós-graduação em Botânica at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, describe a new species of Dyckia from an escarpment beside the Rio dos Touros in the municipality if Bom Jesus in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil.

The new species is named Dyckia semperflorens, where 'semperflorens', means 'continuously flowering'; when the species was first observed in 2017 a live specimen was collected and brought to the Planeta Bromélia nursery in Porto Alegre, where it has remained in bloom ever since. Specimens of Dyckia semperflorens reach 65-96 cm in height, and have a rosette diameter of 38-65 cm. Leaves are 47-107 cm in length, with the inner leaves being semi-erect, while the outer ones are more relaxed, all have an elongate triangular shape with a waxy surface and sparse spines on the edges. Flowers are born on an erect or semi-erect peduncle, 20-36 cm in length. Flowers are tubular and greenish or reddish, flowers on the base of the peduncle are larger than those towards the tip.

Dyckia semperflorens.  (A) Habitat, (B) clumping habit, (C) flowering plant habit, (D) rosette, (E) detail of the inflorescence. Henrique Mallmann Büneker in Büneker & Mariath (2025).

Dyckia semperflorens is known from a single location, on a rocky escarpment along the banks of the Touros River, 1054 m above sealevel, in the municipality of Bom Jesus, Rio Grande do Sul State, in southern Brazil. The local environment is dominated by grassland, with patches of  Araucaria forest. The climate here is temperate, with frost and snowfall in the winter. 

The only known population of Dyckia semperflorens grows in an area currently under pressure from cattle grazing and frequent anthropogenic fires, which are used for grassland management in the region. However, there are other similar areas in the region which could potentially support the species, and which have not been explored yet, so Büneker and Mariath refrain from assigning a conservation status to the species at this time.

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The Museum of West African Art Archaeology Project.

The city of Benin in southern Nigeria (not to be confused with the modern Benin) formed the capital of the Kingdom of Benin (or Edo) between about 1200 AD and 1897, when it was sacked and burned by a 'Punitive Expedition' led by Admiral Sir Harry Rawson. Following this event, loot taken from the city was sold by the officers involved to museums across Europe and North America, a group of artefacts known collectively as 'Benin Bronzes' due to the large amount of exquisite bronze-ware among the collections, although the term is used to refer to all looted items from this period, regardless of the material from which they were manufactured.

Gaining the return of these artefacts has been a long term goal for many people in Benin, and indeed Nigeria and the Nigerian diaspora, and many (though not all) western museums have agreed to return objects from their collections. To this end, in 2020 architect Sir David Adjaye was commissioned to design a museum in Benin to house those artefacts, a museum due to open on 11 November 2025, as the Museum of West African Art.

An aerial view of the new Museum of West African Art in Benin, Nigeria. Museum of West African Art.

The museum has been built on a site previously occupied by a hospital built in the 1970s, and before that a police barracks from the early twentieth century. Before this, the area had been a part of the historic Palace Complex of Benin, with the clearing and excavation of this site for foundations creating the opportunity for the first major archaeological excavation in Benin for over 50 years.

To this end, the Museum of West African Art Archaeological Project was set up as a collaborative project between the Museum of West African Art, the British Museum, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, and Wessex Archaeology. This project involved the training and employment of ten early-career Nigerian archaeologists, who were given the opportunity to undertake placements in London, Cambridge and Cyprus, as well as 58 additional fieldwork roles.

In a paper published in the journal Antiquity on 23 October 2025, Caleb Folorunso of the Museum of West African Art and the University of Ibadan, Sam Nixon of the Department of Africa, Oceania and Americas at the British Museum, Segun Opadeji, also of the Museum of West African Art, Abidemi Babalola, also of the Department of Africa, Oceania and Americas at the British Museum, Charles Le Quesne, again of the Museum of West African Art, Anna Adamu of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Marcus Brittain and Matthew Brudenell, of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit at the University of Cambridge, and Chris Breeden of Wessex Archaeology, present the initial results of the archaeological work at the Museum of West African Art site.

Wider site context: (a) map of Museum of West African Art  Campus and excavation zones within Benin City; (b) Rainforest Gallery excavations in foreground and Institute building top left. Folorunso et al. (2025).

A series of pits at the site reached a maximum depth of 3.0 m, with straitified cultural layers reaching to depths of between 1.45 and 1.60 m. The oldest radiocarbon dates obtained came from the first millennium AD, although these were below any cultural layer. The main settlement layers begin in the mid fourteenth century, progress through a peak cultural stage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, recording the palace through to its destruction in 1897, and above this layers associated with the colonial police barracks and post-colonial hospital.

Map showing excavation locations. Folorunso et al. (2025).

The area excavated covered a large portion of the former complex, including the 'wives quarter' or erie, a zone formerly occupied by a number of shrines, as well as a number of other buildings recorded on nineteenth century maps. A number of walls and floors from the earliest phases of occupation were excavated and examined, with final phase, eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings following the same axis as earlier buildings, implying a continuity in urban planning. The wives quarter was surrounded by a substantial earthen wall and a large wooden gate, close to which was a 5 m pit, which may have served as a source of building material.

Plan of structural complex (upper levels) excavated in Area 4 highlighting key areas of interest: (1) & (3) moulded chalk (nzu) arrangements; (2) arranged inverted pots; (4) oven feature and associated pottery; (5) cowries in complete pot; (6) inverted pot; (7) chalk spread; (8) pottery spread and bottles. Folorunso et al. (2025).

The large excavated building contained substantial evidence of ritual activities at the site, including upturned pots, caches of Cowrie shells (also in pots), and moulded chalk arrangements, and is interpreted to have been a shrine. This building also contained over 100 glass bottles, most of which appear to have contained gin, with trade marks such as Africana, Van Hoytema, and Van Marken. These were found alongside Giant Snail shells and quantities of iron, making it likely that they were offerings at a shrine.

Stratigraphy in Area 5: structural levels 1–7 (a)–(c) and work in progress (d)–(e). Folorunso et al. (2025).

The excavations also uncovered evidence of artisanal activity, including pits containing charcoal and traces of metal slag, thought to date from the nineteenth century. Also found were pieces of crucibles and fragments of copper alloys, although these are still under investigation. Over 120 000 pieces of pottery and ceramics were unearthed, including imported glazed wares, although most were of local origin. Other finds included smoking pipes, beads, glass bottles and metal objects. The ceramic fragments appear to represent a sequence, which has the potential to be developed and applied to other sites, although this is also still being worked on. Plant remains include crops such as Oil Palm, Pearl Millet, Cotton, and Foxtail Millet. Many pollen samples have also been collected, which in combination have the potential to shed light on changing agricultural practices and diet over the history of the site.

Selected material culture: (a) metallurgy; (b) other finds. Folorunso et al. (2025).

Post 1897 finds at the site include a European cemetery, believed to have been founded shortly after the fall of the city and now mapped for the first time. A building complex made from mud bricks with mortar, interpreted as a potential early governor's residence, and a cache of colonial era police regalia.

While the window of opportunity for excavations was short, and studies of the excavated material are still ongoing, the Museum of West African Art Archaeology Project is already the most comprehensive archaeological study of the City of Benin, providing new information on all eras including the Kingdom of Benin in the immediate pre-conquest phase and the early colonial period. The project has the potential to greatly improve our understanding of urbanism, architecture, artisanal practice, ritual, trade, diet and the environment of pre-colonial Nigeria. The work has the potential to help establish the Museum of West African Art as a new, world class, research centre.

The Museum of West African Art was due to open on 11 November 2025, however, that opening has now been delayed, following a series of protests at the site on Sunday 9 November. These protests centre around the ownership of artefacts within the museum, many of which were looted by the British military in 1897. Many local people believe that these artefacts should be returned to the Kingdom of Benin, and therefore be placed in the custody of the current traditional ruler of the city, His Royal Majesty, Omo N’Oba N’Edo, Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ewuare II (CFR), the Oba of Benin.

Protesters at the Museum of West African Art on Sunday 9 November 2025. Toyin Adedokun/AFP/Getty Images.

The Museum of West African Art is a Federal Nigerian institution, and the protesters felt that, in containing objects they associate with the traditional office of the Oba, the museum was falsely presenting itself as a royal institution. The museum itself insists that it does not own any of the objects within it, but merely acts as a repository, exhibition centre, and place of study. This enables it to hold artefacts which European institutions have only returned on 'permanent loan', as well as exhibitions of art from other countries, or modern artists.

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