SIDELINES...

FANCIFUL MAYOR

Melih Gokcek, the veteran mayor of Ankara, the Turkish capital, resigned on 23 October. Hosting a group of foreign journalists recently, he gave a gruesome Powerpoint demonstration about last summer’s failed coup, and claimed that the Obama administration had created Daesh, and that American and Israeli seismic vessels were setting off earthquakes near Turkey’s Aegean coast. Economist, 28 Oct 2017.

SOCK TERRIFIES

RSPCA officers called to a house in Coventry on 8 September to rescue a lizard from under a bed discovered the reptile was actually a pink stripy sock. A “terrified” family thought a dangerous creature had entered their teenage daughter’s bedroom. D.Telegraph, Metro, Guardian, 15 Sept 2017.

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

A new genus of large forest tree abundant from southern Peru to Ecuador, yet previously unknown to science, has been identified and described by researchers from the Smithsonian and Wake Forest University. Named Incadendron esseri and growing up to 100ft (30m) tall, the tree is a new genus commonly found along an ancient Inca path in Peru, the Trocha Unión. It belongs to the spurge family, Euphorbiaceæ, best known for rubber trees, cassava, and poinsettias. phys.org/news, 7 Sept 2017.

MEGAMIGRATION

The tsunami that struck northeast Japan on 11 March 2011 has carried 289 species of sea life 4,800 miles (7,725km) across the Pacific to beaches in Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii, and British Columbia. In the longest maritime migration ever recorded, around a million creatures – mostly crustaceans, sponges, sea slugs and sea worms – traversed the ocean on a flotilla of 600 pieces of debris (mostly plastic) between June 2012 and February 2017. Two thirds had never been seen on the US west coast before. theguardian.com, 29 Sept; NY Times, 30 Sept; Metro, 5 Oct 2017.