Urban sophistication has real sex appeal -- at least if you're a Central American amphibian. Male frogs in cities are more attractive to females than their forest-frog counterparts, according to a new study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Frogs in urban areas have more conspicuous and complex vocal calls, in part because they have fewer...
Scientists discover how birds and dinosaurs evolved to dazzle with colourful displays
Iridescence is responsible for some of the most striking visual displays in the animal kingdom. Now, thanks to a new study of feathers from almost 100 modern bird species, scientists have gained new insights into how this colour diversity evolved.
Iridescence refers to the phenomena where colour changes when an object is viewed from different angles....
The fauna in the Antarctica is threatened by pathogens humans spread in polar latitudes
The new study, which detected bacteria from humans in the genus Salmonella and Campylobacter in Antarctic and Subantarctic marine birds, reveals the fragility of polar ecosystems and warns about the risk of massive deaths and extinctions of local fauna populations due pathogens.
Reverse zoonosis: when the human species infects other living beings
Explorers, whalers, scientists -and lately,...
New method to treat life-threatening heart arrhythmias in dogs
Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers have developed a new treatment for dogs with a rare, but life-threatening, arrhythmia caused by atrioventricular accessory pathways (APs). The minimally invasive technique, which uses radiofrequencies, is modified from a human cardiology procedure and has a more than 95 percent success rate in treating dogs with this type of arrhythmia.
The technique,...
Tiny Australian wallaby the last living link to extinct giant kangaroos
A Queensland University of Technology (QUT) led collaboration with University of Adelaide reveals that Australia's pint-sized banded hare-wallaby is the closest living relative of the giant short-faced kangaroos which roamed the continent for millions of years, but died out about 40,000 years ago.
Published in Systematic Biology, the research involved the first near-complete mitochondrial (mt) genome...
Invasive species and habitat loss our biggest biodiversity threats
Invasive species and habitat loss are the biggest threats to Australian biodiversity, according to new research by the Threatened Species Recovery Hub in partnership with The University of Queensland.
Lead researcher Stephen Kearney from UQ's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences said Australia was rich in unique biodiversity, but has had a poor track record since...