The beads of Mozambique Island.

Mozambique Island, on the northern coast of the African country of the same name, was the first place where Portuguese explorers, having rounded the Cape of Good Hope, encountered the trade networks of the Indian Ocean. At this time the island was ruled by a Muslim sheikh, with merchants using the island as a base from which to trade with the African interior or wider Indian Ocean needing his permission to do so, with all such merchants needing to be Muslims themselves. The island was quickly brought under Portuguese rule, with a Captain appointed to rule the island on behalf of the Portuguese Crown, and became a crucial stopover on the journey between Lisbon and Goa. While the Portuguese Captain in theory had control over all commerce occurring in the port, in practice many commodities were not regulated, and the island gained as a reputation as place where fortunes could be made with little interference from the Portuguese authorities.

During the Early Modern Era, beads were extensively used by European traders as a means of currency, being both a portable, high value item, and a desirable commodity which they could control the supply of. This certainly appears to have been the case on Mozambique Island, where large numbers of beads, many of them apparently derived from shipwrecks off the coast of the island, are today collected from the island's sandy beaches and made into necklaces, which are then sold to tourists.

In a paper published in the journal World Archaeology on 22 November 2024, Tânia Manuel Casimiro of História, Territórios e Comunidades at Nova University Lisbon, Yolanda Duarte of Archaeology at Eduardo Mondlane University, and Jéssica Iglésias, also of História, Territórios e Comunidades at Nova University Lisbon, present the results of an analysis of the origin of beads from Mozambique Island, and the implications of this for the history of the island.

Today, beads are collected by shovelling sand from the beaches into 25-50 kg bags and taking these to a flat, clean surface, where the sand can be sifted through for beads. No permit is needed for this activity, and no attention paid to the archaeological context of the beads by the collectors. However, some of the necklaces made by the bead-gatherers have been obtained by local people with an interest in the island's heritage, and it is from such collections that Casmiro et al. gained the beads used in their study.

Process for recovering the beads. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Casmiro et al. examined a sample of 12 166 beads, recording the material they were made from, as well as their style. Many of the glass beads were apparently Venetian, with Venice being a major manufacturing centre for beads used as colonial trade goods from the sixteenth century onwards, although Casmiro et al. note that many 'Venetian' beads were in fact made in other European cities in imitation of the Venetian style. However, such beads are clearly of European origin, easily distinguished from Indian beads (also very common around the Indian Ocean) which tend to be carved from a mineral such as carnelian or agate. Because of the way in which the beads were obtained, it was not possible to date them by context, although it was possible to build up a limited chronology for beads from the sixteenth to nineteenth century, with a few beads coming from outside this period.

Strings of beads sold to tourists on Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

The majority of the beads (10 626) were made of glass. Most of these were of a single colour, with examples of white, black, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red beads being found, along with some which combine a several colours. These glass beads also vary greatly in shape, with tubular, oblate, cylindrical, ellipsoidal, spherical, bicone, and barrel-shaped beads all present. After glass beads, the most common were stone beads,  followed by coral, shell, bone, ivory, and plastic.

A 'Venetian' glass chevron bead transformed into a pendant. Casmiro et al. (2024).

The most common glass beads (7789 examples) are seed beads, small spherical beads at most a few millimetres across, which have been manufactured in Europe since at least the fifteenth century. Another common type are Green Heart Beads (540 examples), cylindrical glass beads made up of layers of different glass, with the innermost being green, giving a shimmering, multi-hued effect, which were produced in Venice between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.

(Top) Glass Heart Beads. (Bottom) Seed beads. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Hudson's Bay Beads (235 examples), sometimes also known as White Heart Beads, or Cornaline d’Aleppo, were made in Venice between 1830 and the early 1900s. These again were cylindrical beads with multiple layers, this time having an inner layer of white or yellow glass.

Hudson's Bay Beads. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Chevron beads (11 examples) were elongate beads made by building up multiple layers of glass onto a central star-shaped moulded cane. These beads were invented in the late fifteenth century by craftswoman Marietta Barovier of Murano, and made at a number of glassworks in Murano and Venice, and probably elsewhere, although it is not generally possible to tell where an individual bead was made.

Chevron beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

A-Speo beads (186 examples) were made by drawing out a thick glass straw, which was then chopped into short segments. These segments were then placed on a metal rod, and placed in a furnace to melt them into a rounded shape (the name 'a-speo' derives from the Italian phrase for 'to skewer'). This technique was probably invented in Venice or Murano, but was practiced in many areas of Europe. 

A-speo beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Skunk beads (14 examples), were made in Venice (and probably other European bead-making centres) in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, by adding small globules of glass to an a larger glass bead of a different colour, to give a speckled effect. These were most commonly black with added white speckles, hence the name 'skunk beads', but other colour patterns were also produced. 

Skunk beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Tubular beads (12 examples) were first made in Venice in the fifteenth century, but due to their ease of manufacture, continued to be made at centres across Europe for the next six centuries. Padre, or Pekin Glass, beads were made in Venetian and Czech workshops in the nineteenth century, in imitation of blue glass beads from China, themselves made as a cheaper substitute for jade beads.

(Top) Tubular beads and (bottom) Pekin Glass beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Millefiori beads are glass with complicated floral patterns, made since Roman times. They are manufactured by producing glass canes with a flower-shaped cross-section, which are then cut into thin slices, which are in turn incorporated within blown glass products, including beads. The name millefiori derives from the Italian for 'thousand flowers'.

Millefiori beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Eye beads (2 examples), which superficially resemble eyes, have been made around the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, and South Asia for thousands of years, often as a charm against the Evil Eye. The earliest forms were made of clay, but the manufacture of glass eye beads can be traced back to about 1500 BC.

'King' or 'Golo' beads (2 examples) were made in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a high value trade item for African markets. There were large, striped, biconed beads which came in a range of colours, though green beads with yellow, black, and red stripes were the most common.

Dog Teeth, or ruffled beads (two examples) were made in Venice in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mostly for trade with Nigeria. These are black beads with an irregular shape, and a 'ruffle' of white marks (or 'teeth') around their centre.

A single Nueva Cadiz bead was found on Mozambique Island. These were squared, tubular beads in a distinctive blue colour, made originally in Venice for trade with the Americas, but which were subsequently made in a number of other European cities. These beads are very common at sites on the Atlantic coast of Africa, but surprisingly rare at sites on the Indian Ocean.

The single Nueva Cadiz bead found on Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Bohemian beads (1147 examples) were made in the modern Czech Republic, where they developed a range of distinct techniques of their own, notably pressed glass. These beads often have vertical and horizontal lines, circular incisions, coloured bands, phytomorphic and zoomorphic decorations.

Bohemian beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Russian blue beads (183 examples) were a distinctive type of Bohemian bead produced in the eighteenth centuries. These beads were multifaceted with six, seven, or eight sides, and typically a transparent blue, although amber, green, and clear examples are also known.

Russian blue beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Vaseline beads (1 example), sometimes also called uranium beads because of the uranium used to tint the glass green, were large faceted of shaped beads made in Bohemia in the late  nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Haj beads (5 examples) were made in Bohemian the early twentieth century for export to the city of Mecca, where they were sold to pilgrims, often becoming heirloom objects within their families. Two of the examples found on Mozambique Island had moon-and-star symbols, while the remaining three had the name of the Prophet Mohammed written upon them.

Dutch opalescent beads (9 examples), sometimes known as moon beads, were glass beads made to resemble pearls by adding ash to the glass, made in the Netherlands, Bohemia, Germany, and Venice, in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Dogon beads (187 examples) are large, chunky beads with a rough texture, which were produced in Amsterdam and possibly Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, principally for trade with the Dogon people of southern Mali, but were also traded to other areas of Africa.

Dogon beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Prosser beads (9 examples), sometimes known as Kakamba Prosser Beads after a town in what is now the Republic of Congo where they were popular. These were made in the nineteenth century by a French craftsman called Jean-Félix Bapterosses, who modified a technique developed by the Prosser Brothers of London to cold-press glass and porcelain buttons, instead producing disk-shaped opalescent beads.

While the majority of the examined beads were glass, stone beads were also common, with 996 in the collection. The most abundant stone types are jet and carnelian, with agate and garnet beads also quite common. Stone beads have been manufactured around the world, which can make it difficult to determine the origin of individual beads, although most stone beads found around the Indian Ocean originate from India or Southeast Asia. This potentially makes these beads the oldest on Mozambique Island, with some examples likely to have reached the island before the first Europeans.

Stone beads from Mozambique Island. Casmiro et al. (2024).

Three beads from Mozambique Island were identified as being of Chinese origin, although details of these are not given. China began to export large volumes of beads in the early twentieth century, something it does to this day, and has produced beads from porcelain, wood, cinnabar, cloisonné, enamelled metal, stones, and glass, among other materials.

Filigree is a form of intricate metalwork consisting of tiny beads and twisted threads soldered together, made in the Islamic world largely between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Fifty five silver elements from Mozambique Island are probably derived from filigree jewellery, most likely originating from Mauritania.

Beads derived from Animal materials such as shell, bone, ivory, and coral were also quite common (469 examples), although it is difficult to assess where these came from, as these materials are available, and have been worked, across much of the globe.

Plastic beads (8 examples) are clearly of twentieth century origin, since the first plastic (Bakalite) was invented by the Belgian-American chemist Leo Hendrick Baekelandin 1909. Plastic beads are cheap and easy to manufacture, and are produced in many countries. The low number of these on Mozambique Island suggests that they may never have been a commercial import, but may have been brought to the island by people wearing them, or possibly even have floated there on ocean currents.

Finally, five items were found in the collection that probably did not start out as beads, but which had been repurposed as such. These were a black glass button or pendant, two jet buttons, a rectangular piece of jet with three diagonal incisions of unknown origin, and what appeared to be the bottom half of a Frozen Charlotte doll (a type of rigid doll, typically made out of china, made between about 1850 and about 1920, mostly in Germany for the US market).

Casmiro et al.'s study revealed the presence of a wide range of beads, made from a variety of substances, on Mozambique Island. Despite this variety, about 90% of the beads were glass, and of European origin. Glass trade beads have been considered to be powerful symbols of European colonial influence, which seems to be particularly relevant on Mozambique Island, a vital trade hub within the Portuguese Empire. The beads of the same designs as those found on Mozambique Island have been found at other sites around the world, although overwhelmingly in colonial contexts.

Glass beads were, of course, made before the fifteenth century, and it can sometimes be hard to differentiate these from later beads, but none of the glass beads found on Mozambique Island appear likely to be this old. The stone, and animal-derived, beads found on the island may date to before the arrival of Europeans in the area, although such beads continue to be made until the present day, making it hard to be certain of their age. Mozambique Island is known to have been a trading hub before the arrival of the Portuguese, but it appears to have become much more important once integrated into the global Portuguese network.

Curiously, the high abundance of European beads on Mozambique Island is in contrast to the situation in South Africa, where European beads are unusual at archaeological sites, but beads from India quite common. It has been suggested that this South African preference for Indian beads may have been established before the arrival of European traders, and that with South African customers unwilling to switch, European traders may instead have imported beads from India to cater for this market.

Casmiro et al. also note that the beads once brought to Africa by Europeans to trade for commodities such as slaves, ivory, and gold, have now taken on a new role in places such as Mozambique Island, being traded back to European tourists as a means of gaining hard currency, a much needed twenty first century trade commodity.

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Macrofossils from the Early Ediacaran Brachina Sequence of the central Flinders Ranges, South Australia.

Fossils of soft-bodied organisms were first discovered in the Ediacaran Hills, part of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia in 1946. At the time, these fossils were presumed to be Medusae (Jellyfish) of Early Cambrian age, since it was believed that there were no Precambrian fossils. In the 1950s, fossils were found in reliably-dated Precambrian rocks in Charnwood Forest, England, showing that this presumed Cambrian appearance of life was incorrect. Furthermore, the Charnwood fossils closely resembled fossils previously described from Namibia (then Southwest Africa) in the 1930s, suggesting that these were of similar age.

Eventually, all of these fossils were grouped together as the 'Ediacaran Fauna', found at numerous locations in the world, and eventually split into three separate assemblages, each with its own distinct fossils, laid down in different environments at different times; the Avalon Assemblage, which appeared about 578 million years ago, and persisted to about 555 million years ago, the White Sea Assemblage, which included the Ediacaran Hills fossils, and which appeared about 560 million years ago, and persisted to about 551 million years ago, and the Nama Assemblage, which appeared about 555 million years ago, and disapeared 539 million years ago (around the onset of the Cambrian).

The earliest of these Ediacaran fossil assemblages seemed to have appeared slightly after the Gaskiers Glaciation, between 580.9 and 579.2 million years ago, taken as a middle point for the Ediacaran Period, leading to the assumption that the appearance of large Metazoans post-dated this event. However, a number of locations have subsequently produced Ediacaran-type fossils that apparently predate the Gaskiers Glaciation. Notably, the Charnwood Forest fossils can be dated to 603 million years before the present (Early Ediacaran), while the Lantian Biota of Anhui Province, China, has been dated to  605 million years ago. 

Since the discovery of the original Ediacaran Hills fossils, sporadic attempts have been made to find older fossils within the Flinders Ranges, although an absence of obvious fossils, combined with a perception that they were unlikely to exist, has tended to limit such searches. In 2021, Philip Plumber of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, reported finding macro-fossils in the approximately 700 million years old (Cryogenian) Areyonga Formation, and 970–950 million years old (Tonian) Heavitree Formation of Central Australia, opening the possibility that pre-Middle Ediacaran fossils might be more widespread in Australia.

In a paper published in the journal Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia on 2 September 2024, Philip Plumber reports macrofossils from the Early Ediacaran Brachina Sequence of the Flinders Ranges. 

The Brachina Sequence spans the interval between the end of the end of the Marinoan Glaciation, 635 million years before the present, which marks the boundary point between the Cryogenian and the Ediacaran periods, and the Acraman Asteroid Impact, 580 million years ago, which is coeval with the onset of the Gaskiers Glaciation. The Brachina Sequence begins with the Nuccaleena Dolostones, which overlay the Marinoan glacial deposits, above which lies the purple Moolooloo Siltstone, made up of clastic deposits brought into a shallow marine basin by turbid bottom currents. Around 620 million years ago, the tectonic situation changed, causing a delta to spread across the basin from the southwest. These delta deposits form the ABC Range Quartzite, formed in a shallow, wave-dominated environment, while other parts of the basin were covered by a tidal flat environment, recorded as the Moorillah Siltstone. 

Stratigraphic column (not to chronostratigraphic scale) showing positions of the fossiliferous Ediacara and Nilpena members (Pound Subgroup) and Moorillah Siltstone (Brachina sequence) within the Ediacaran succession. Plumber (2024).

The first fossil described by Plumber was first recorded in 1969 by palaeontologist Martin Glaessner, who identified it as a trace fossil, Bunyerichnus dalgarnoi, apparently made by a 'bilaterally symmetrical animal which used rhythmic muscular contractions rather than discrete appendages for propulsion'. The exact stratigraphic position where this fossil originated is unclear, but it was found on a surface bedding plane on a partly cross-laminated dark purplish micaceous siltstone, at the entrance to Bunyeroo Gorge in the central Flinders Ranges, which would imply it came from either the upper Moolooloo Siltstone or the lower Moorillah Siltstone.

Subsequent to this discovery, other intepretations of Bunyerichnus have been put forward. The curving shape of the fossil led to the suggestion that it might be a portion of a Medusa, but this did not explain why the specimen appeared to taper to one end. An alternative suggestion is that the specimen might be a trace left by a Rangeomorph (frond-like) Ediacaran sweeping over the sediment in a shallow setting. Plumber notes that Rangeomorph fronds were described from the base of the ABC Range Quartzite in 1985 (when the age of these deposits was unknown, although they were recognised as being stratigraphically significantly lower) by Ian Dyson of Flinders University, and that these would have been of approximately the same age as Bunyerichnus.

(a) Partial fossil of the Medusoid Paramedusium showing radial marking across its outer ring compared to (b) arcuate Bunyerichnus from the lower to mid Brachina sequence, Bunyeroo Gorge, Flinders Ranges. (c) Impression of the rangeomorph Akrophyllas (South Australian museum specimen SAM P24593) and (d) sketch of the rangeomorph Pteridinium showing transverse ridges extending from a central stem similar to Bunyerichnus. Plumber (2024).

Plumber also notes a number of circular features 0.5 to 1.0 cm in diameter from the base of the Moorillah Siltstone about 22 km southeast of Bunyeroo Gorge. These were first described by Plumber in 1980, when he interpreted them as inorganic fluid escape structures. However, subsequent examination of the specimens by Jim Gehling of the South Australian Museum led them being re-interpreted as examples of Aspidella, a Rangeomorph holdfast impression, with a fallen frond-lying next to the largest example. Plumber dates the horizon from which these fossils were recovered to about 620 million years before the present, firmly within the Early Ediacaran, older than the Charnwood Forest fossils, and about 60 million years older than the Ediacaran Hills biota.

(a) Several circular Aspidella on the bedding plane of a fine sandstone, near the base of the Moorillah Siltstone (lower Brachina Sequence), southeast of Wilpena Pound, Flinders Ranges (South Australian Museum specimen SAM P59911). (b) Enlargement of fallen frond (outlined) compared to (inset) the type specimen of the Ediacaran fossil Charniodiscus arboreus (South Australian Museum specimen SAM P19690a). Plumber 2024.

The Moorillah Siltstone of the Brachina Sequence has been dated to between 620 and 605 million years before the present. Philip Plumber reports the presence of frond-like Rangeomorph fossils near the base of the Moorillah Siltstone, suggesting that these must therefore be close to 620 million years in age. Such fossils are roughly coeval with the Lantian Biota of South China, and at least 40 million years older than the global Avalon Assemblage. These fossils therefore contribute to growing body of evidence for the emergence of Metazoan life before the Gaskiers Glaciation in the Middle Ediacaran Period.

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Numenius tenuirostris: The Slender-billed Curlew declared extinct.

The Earth's biodiversity is considered to be facing a crisis at a global level, with many experts believing that species may be going extinct at a rate as high as during the great extinctions recorded in the fossil record. Despite this, it is very hard to determine how many species are going extinct, in part because many species have never been documented, but also because it is generally impossible to tell whether a species is extinct, unless it can be confidently asserted that all populations were being monitored prior to extinction. The best recorded organisms tend to be Vertebrates, and one of the most extensively monitored Vertebrate groups are the Birds, a group which tend to be highly visible, and which are often recorded extensively by non-professional citizen-science groups. Despite this attention, many species of Birds have not been seen for a long time, and this cannot always be taken as evidence that they have become extinct: for instance, the Black-browed Babbler, Malacocincla perspicillata, was rediscovered in 2020 after not being observed in 180 years. The apparent extinction of species can be problematic, causing conservationists to cease efforts to protect a species which is close to extinction; conversely failure to realise that a species has become extinct can lead to efforts being dedicated to preserving it which could otherwise have been directed towards other species which might still be saved.

In a paper published in the journal Ibis on 17 November 2024, Greame  Buchanan of the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, Ben Chapple of the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research at University College London, Alex Berryman of BirdLife International, Nicola Crockford of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Justin Jansen of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, and Alexander Bond of the Bird Group at the Natural History Museum, formally declare the Slender-billed Curlew, Numenius tenuirostris, to be extinct.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species currently lists the Slender-billed Curlew as Critically Endangered, on the assumption that the total population is less than 50 Birds and declining. The species is believed to be restricted to the Palaearctic biogeographical region, breeding in central Asia and migrating to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Arabian Peninsula. Slender-billed Curlews are thought to breed to the east of the Ural Mountains, in the area around Omsk in southern Russia. Isotope studies of museum specimens suggest that the species may also have bred further south, in northern Kazakhstan, while some eggs assigned to the species, also in museum collections, indicate that the species may also have bred to the west of the Urals. Outside of the breeding season the Birds ranged west as far as Western Europe and the Atlantic coast of North Africa, being known from across the Mediterranean Region, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Pannonian Plains of southeast Central Europe.

Once widespread in Europe, Slender-billed Curlews were last observed in Brittany, France, in February 1968, and in North Yemen in January 1984. A colony, thought to be the last, was known on the Atlantic coast of Morocco in the 1990s, with the last reported sighting in the winter of 1997/8, although a flock of Slender-billed Curlews was photographed in southern Italy in  March 1995. No subsequent observations of the species have been made, despite extensive searches across its former range, including the Middle East and Central Asia.

The last known photograph of a group of Slender-billed Curlews, taken in southern Italy in March 1995. Marco Basso in van den Berg (1995).

The Slender-billed Curlew was first observed breeding in 1912 by Russian ornithologist Valentin Ushakov, who first noted that the species appeared to be in decline. The possibility that Slender-billed Curlews might be at risk of extinction was first raised in 1943 by German ornithologists Erwin Stresemann and Hermann Grote, but it was not until 1988 that the species was identified as Threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The species was listed as Critically Endangered in 1994, following a re-assessment of its status, and an action plan for its recovery was produced in 1996. 

Based upon this long absence from its known range, and the extensive, yet unproductive, searched which have been made in the last three decades, combined with the declining number of sightings recorded throughout the twentieth century, Buchanan et al. carried out a statistical analysis of the probability that the species might still exist. Based upon this, they conclude that is most likely that the species became extinct in the 1990s, with only a miniscule possibility that the species might still exist in the 2020s.

If this analysis is correct, then the Slender-billed Curlew is only the third species of Bird known to spend a large part of its annual cycle in the Western Palaearctic to have become extinct since 1500, joining the Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis, last reported in 1844, and the Canarian Oystercatcher, Haematopus meadewaldoi, last observed in 1913. 

A preserved museum specimen of a juvenile male Slender-billed Curlew, Numenius tenuirostris. Naturalis Biodiversity Center/Wikimedia Commons.

It is difficult to directly assess the cause of the extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew, since it is likely that the species finally died out around the time that an action plan for its survival was first drawn up. When that plan was produced, it identified that the species was threatened by habitat loss across its range, and potentially being hunted in some areas as well. 

The only records of breeding by the Slender-billed Curlew are those made by Valentin Ushakov in southern Russia in the early twentieth century. It is possibly that the main breeding area for the species was further south, on the steppes of northern Kazakhstan, which were extensively converted to croplands by the Russian Empire and Soviet Union in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in the process destroying extensive wetlands, which might have served as breeding grounds for Slender-billed Curlews, however, without further evidence, this is purely speculative. 

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Global number of Measles cases rose by 20% in 2023.

The number of Measles cases recorded worldwide rose by 20% in 2023 (compared to 2022), with 10.3 million cases recorded globally, according so a joint press release issued by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The main driver of this rise in cases is thought to be inadequate immunization coverage.

Two doses of Measles vaccine is sufficient to protect against infection with the disease, but 17% of children who should have received their first dose of the vaccine in 2023 are thought not to have done so (more than 22 million children), while 26% of children who should have received a second dose in 2023 did not do so. A vaccine coverage rate of 95% or higher for both vaccine doses is thought to be needed to prevent Measles spreading within a population.

Fifty seven countries are thought to have suffered Measles outbreaks due to gaps in vaccination coverage, a 60% rise on the 36 countries which suffered such outbreaks in 2022. The World Health Organization's African, Eastern Mediterranean, European, South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions were affected, with over half of outbreaks occurring in the African Region. Only the Americas Region was not affected by a Measles outbreak in 2023.

A doctor examines a girl with measles at the Republican Infectious Diseases Clinical Hospital, Bishkek city, Kyrgyzstan. Danil Usmanov/World Health Organization.

'Measles vaccine has saved more lives than any other vaccine in the past 50 years,' according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the World Health Organization. 'To save even more lives and stop this deadly virus from harming the most vulnerable, we must invest in immunization for every person, no matter where they live.'

Measles is a human disease caused by a Virus in the Paramyxovirus family. The Virus infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body. It can lead to major epidemics with significant morbidity and mortality, especially among vulnerable people. Among young and malnourished children, pregnant women, and immunocompromised individuals, including those with HIV, cancer or treated with immunosuppressives.

Thin-section transmission electron micrograph revealing the ultrastructural appearance of a single Viron, of the Measles Virus. The measles Virus is a Paramyxovirus, of the genus Morbillivirus. It is 100-200 nm in diameter, with a core of single-stranded RNA, and is closely related to the Rinderpest and Canine Distemper Viruses. Two membrane envelope proteins are important in pathogenesis. They are the F (fusion) protein, which is responsible for fusion of virus and host cell membranes, viral penetration, and hemolysis, and the H (hemagglutinin) protein, which is responsible for adsorption of virus to cells. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons.

It is estimated that 107 500 people died of Measles in 2023, most of them children below the age of five. This is an eight 8% drop in fatalities compared to 2022. The reason for this lower fatality rate in 2023, despite a higher infection rate, is thought to be that more cases of Measles were reported in 2023 in countries with generally better healthcare and childhood nutrition rates, where infected children are less likely to die. However, this is not all good news, as even where Measles is not fatal, it can cause a number of severe health problems, including blindness, pneumonia, and encephalitis (swelling of the brain, often leading to brain damage).

Measles is one of twenty life-threatening diseases which it was hoped could be eliminated through vaccination campaigns by 2030 under the remit of the Immunization Agenda 2030 program. In the first week of November 2024, Brazil was declared to be Measles-free, meaning that the disease had been eliminated in the Americas Region, and at least one nation in each of the other regions, with the exception of Africa, also having Measles-free status. However, the decline in vaccine-uptake, and the subsequent rise in Measles cases around the world, means that this project is now threatened.

The African and Eastern Mediterranean regions are thought to be in particular need of urgent and targeted interventions to ensure vaccine availability and uptake, particularly in conflict-affected and other vulnerable settings. Greater surveillance for cases is also needed in all regions, in order to facilitate prompt responses to outbreaks when they occur.

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Chyliza colenutti: A new species of Chylizine Rust Fly from the Eocene of the Isle of Wight.

Rust Flies, Psilidae, are small-to-medium sized Dipteran ('True') Flies with elongate bodies and rounded heads, found largely in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Their larvae are parasitic on Plants, and some species, such as the Carrot Fly, Chamaepsila rosae, are considered to be significant agricultural pests. The Family Psilidae is divided into three subfamilies, the Chylizinae and Psilinae, which are considered to be sister groups, and the Belobackenbardiinae, which forms a sister to the other two groups combined. The oldest known fossil Rust Fly is Electrochyliza succini from Baltic Amber, which is probably Late Eocene in age. Electrochyliza succini is not placed within any extant subfamily, being considered to be a sister taxon to Chylizinae and Psilinae closer than Belobackenbardiinae, which suggests it appeared after the ancestor of these groups split from the Belobackenbardiinae, but before they had themselves diverged. 

In a paper published in the journal Insect Systematics and Diversity on 13 November 2024, Andrew Ross of the Department of Natural Sciences at National Museums Scotland, Jiale Zhou of the Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution at the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Department of Entomology at the China Agricultural University, Christel Hoffeins of Hamburg in Germany, and Bill Crighton, also of the Department of Natural Sciences at National Museums Scotland, describe a new species of Chylizine Rust Fly from the Late Eocene Insect Limestone Bed of the Bembridge Marls of the Isle of Wight, England.

The Insect Limestone is a single bed of fine-grained micrite found within the Bembridge Marls member of the Bouldnor Formation on the Isle of Wight. This bed is noted for the production of exquisitely preserved Insects, which often show three-dimensional preservation, for which reason it is sometimes known as 'opaque amber'. This bed has been precisely dated to 34.3 million years before the present.

The new species is described upon the basis of a single specimen collected by George William Colenutt, a prominant Isle of Wight solicitor and amateur geologist, and donated to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in 1931. The species is placed in the genus Chyliza, the sole genus in the subfamily Chylizinae, on the basis of comparison of its wing venation to that of living members of the genus, and named Chyliza colenutti in honour of the collector.

Chyliza colenutti, Holotype; (A) part, OUMNH M.177; (B) counterpart, OUMNH M.175; Insect Limestone, Bembridge Marls, north-west Isle of Wight, UK. Colenutt Collection. Scale bar is 5 mm. Ross et al. (2024).

The specimen is preserved in a split block as part and counterpart, and has a preserved body length of 3.9 mm and a maximum abdomen width of 1 mm. The forewing is 3.6 mm in length and 1.4 mm wide. All of the wings appear coloured towards their tips.

Prior to the description of Chyliza colenutti, the oldest described Chylizine Rust Fly was a Middle Miocene specimen identified as Chyliza sp. from the Middle Miocene Upper Freshwater Molasse of southwestern Germany, which is thought to be between 15 and 12 million years old. 

The dating of Baltic Amber can be problematic, as it ranges from Middle Eocene to Middle Oligocene in age (i.e. is between 48 and 27  million years old), and tends to reach collections via amber dealers, often trading hands several times before coming to the attention of a scientist, with any data on the location and age of the specimens often being lost. However, the majority of Baltic Amber comes from the Upper Blue Earth Member of the Prussian Formation, which has been dated to between 36.5 and 33.5 million years old. 

Electrochyliza succini in Baltic amber. Hoffeins Collection CCHH 1829-10. Scale bar is 1 mm. Ross et al. (2024).

This gives a gap of around 20 million years between Electrochyliza succini and Chyliza sp., which led many palaeoentomologists to conclude that there was a long gap between the divergence of the Belobackenbardiinae from the common ancestor of the Chylizinae and Psilinae, and the splitting of these two groups, particularly as no specimens assigned to either of these groups have been found in Insect-rich deposits such as the Dominican and Mexican ambers. However, if Ross et al.'s interpretation of Chyliza colenutti as a Chylizine is correct, then the group was present 34.2 million years ago, making it unlikely that it is more than two million years younger than Electrochyliza succini.

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