Published today in the open-access journal GigaScience is an article that presents the genome of the tegu lizard, which has mastered a trick that is highly unusual in the reptile world: it can turn on its own heating system.
Most reptiles are not able to control their body temperature like mammals do and instead must rely...
Newly discovered wasp turns social spiders into zombies
It sounds like the plot of the world's tiniest horror movie: deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, a newly discovered species of wasp transforms a "social" spider into a zombie-like drone that abandons its colony to do the wasp's bidding.
That's the gruesome, real-life discovery by University of British Columbia researchers, who detail the first example of...
Bee gene study sheds light on risks to hives
Efforts to protect the UK's native honey bees could be helped by research that maps their entire genetic make-up.
Experts also analysed the genetic profile of bacteria and other organisms that live inside bees, to shed new light on emerging diseases that threaten bee colonies.
Researchers say their findings could help to safeguard native bee populations from...
Effort clarifies major branch of insect tree of life
The insects known as Hemiptera are not a particularly glamorous bunch. This group includes stink bugs, bed bugs, litter bugs, scale insects and aphids. Their closest relatives are thrips, bark lice and parasitic lice. But with a massive number of species, two-thirds of which are still unknown to science, these insects together make up one...
'Old-fashioned fieldwork' puts new frog species on the map
Months of old-fashioned scientific fieldwork -- more than 2,000 surveys of chirping frog calls, hundreds of photos of individual frogs and tiny tissue samples taken from them -- has helped define the range and unique characteristics of the recently discovered Atlantic Coast leopard frog.
A study published this month in the journal PLOS ONE pinpointed the...
How ancient Mayan shell decor led to a new look at freshwater mussels south of the border
The ancient Maya are not particularly known for their love of freshwater mussels. Mathematics, maize, pyramids and human sacrifice, yes. But bivalves? Not so much.
Yet Florida Museum of Natural History archaeologists Ashley Sharpe and Kitty Emery could not sift through a single bag of material from their dig sites near the Mexican-Guatemalan border without turning...