An Otago researcher has added another piece to the puzzle of the evolution of modern baleen whales with a world-first study examining the teeth and enamel of baleen whales' ancestors.
Modern baleen whales have no teeth when adults, instead they use large keratin plates called baleen to filter prey from large volumes of seawater. However, millions...
Human respiratory viruses continue to spread in wild chimpanzees
Less than two years after the first report of wild chimpanzees in Uganda dying as a result of a human "common cold" virus, a new study has identified two other respiratory viruses of human origin in chimpanzee groups in the same forest.
Writing this week (Jan. 21, 2019) in the journal Emerging Microbes and Infections, a...
New species of snake found in stomach of predator snake
Herpetologists at The University of Texas at Arlington have described a previously unknown species of snake that was discovered inside the stomach of another snake more than four decades ago.
The new snake has been named Cenaspis aenigma, which translates from Latin as "mysterious dinner snake." It is described in a recent paper in the Journal...
Green turtle: The success of the reintroduction program in Cayman Islands
The reintroduction program for the green turtle in the Cayman Islands is crucial in order to recover this species, which are threatened by the effects of human overexploitation, according to a study published in the journal Molecular Ecology and led by the experts Marta Pascual and Carlos Carreras, from the Evolutionary Genetics laboratory of the...
Bee surveys in newest US national park could aid pollinator studies elsewhere
Declines in native bee populations are widely reported, but can existing data really analyze these trends? In the Jan. 17, 2019, online edition of PLOS One, Utah State University and USDA researchers report findings about pollinator biodiversity in California's Pinnacles National Park derived from data collected from three separate surveys spanning 17 years. Their results...
Orchards in natural habitats draw bee diversity, improve apple production
Apple orchards surrounded by agricultural lands are visited by a less diverse collection of bee species than orchards surrounded by natural habitats, according to a new Cornell University-led study, published in the journal Science.
In turn, apple production suffers when fewer, more closely-related species of bees pollinate an orchard. Production improves in orchards surrounded by natural...