Biology News

New Species of Barred Frog Discovered in Australia

The southern stuttering frog (Mixophyes australis) at Sharpes Creek, Gloucester Top NP, Australia. Image credit: Ross Knowles.
Jun 6, 2023 by Natali Anderson

The newly-identified species belongs to Mixophyes, an Australo-Papuan group of ground-dwelling frogs. The southern stuttering frog (Mixophyes australis) at Sharpes Creek, Gloucester Top NP, Australia. Image credit: Ross Knowles. Mixophyes is a genus of large ground-dwelling frogs from eastern Australia and New Guinea. They are commonly known as barred river frogs or barred frogs due to the distinctive dark cross-bars on their arms and legs, and their...

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The lesser thorn-tailed gecko (Strophurus spinula) from Mt Gibson in Western Australia. Image credit: Anders Zimny / Ray Lloyd.

New Species of Gecko with ‘Psychedelic Eyes’ Identified in Australia

May 29, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Researchers have described a cryptic new species in the spiny-tailed gecko genus Strophurus from inland areas of southern Western Australia. Two individuals...

CT images of osteoderms (colorized by thickness) in (A) Acomys cahirinus, (B) Lophuromys flavopunctatus, (C) Uranomys ruddi, (D) Deomys ferruguineus, (E) Cabassous chacoensis, (F) Chlamyphorus truncatus, and (G) Egernia hosmeri. Scale bars - 10 mm. Image credit: Maden et al., doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106779.

African Mouse-Like Rodents Possess Osteoderms beneath Their Tail Skin, Scientists Discover

May 26, 2023 by News Staff

Osteoderms are bony plates found in the skin of vertebrates, mostly commonly in reptiles where they have evolved independently multiple times, suggesting...

Live specimen of Sturisoma reisi from Guaporé River basin. Image credit: Willian Ohara.

Bizarre New Species of Catfish Discovered in South America

May 24, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Researchers have described a new species of the fish genus Sturisoma from Madeira River basin in Bolivia and Brazil. Live specimen of Sturisoma reisi from...

Torvosaurus gurneyi. Image credit: © Sergey Krasovskiy.

Study: Visual Perspective Taking Originated in Dinosaur Lineage, Likely Earlier than in Mammals

May 22, 2023 by News Staff

Taking someone else’s visual perspective marks an evolutionary shift in the formation of advanced social cognition. It enables using others’ attention...

Life restoration of a North American brontothere species called Telmatherium and other animals of the Eocene Clarno Nut Beds, Oregon, the United States. Image credit: Larry Felder, National Park Service.

Brontotheres Evolved Their Enormous Sizes as Way to Survive in Competitive Ecological Niches: Study

May 12, 2023 by News Staff

After the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, many mammals underwent a rapid increase in size. Several hypotheses for...

Giraffes can calculate which option is more likely to produce their preferred food based on basic statistical calculations. Image credit: Howard Wilks.

Study: Giraffes Can Make Decisions Based on Statistical Information

May 5, 2023 by News Staff

The ability to make inferences based on statistical information has so far been tested only in animals having large brains in relation to their body size,...

Schouten et al. find links at the atomic level between photosynthesis and exciton condensates, a strange state of physics that allows energy to flow frictionlessly through a material. Image credit: Evgeni Tcherkasski.

New Study Finds Link between Photosynthesis and Exciton Condensates

May 3, 2023 by News Staff

Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons — in which excitons condense into a single coherent quantum state, known as an exciton condensate —...

Morphological characteristics and phylogenetic position of Tripedalia maipoensis. Image credit: Sun et al., doi: 10.6620/ZS.2023.62-17.

New Species of Box Jellyfish Discovered in Hong Kong

May 2, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Scientists have described a new species of the jellyfish genus Tripedalia from an intertidal shrimp pond in the Mai Po Nature Reserve, Hong Kong. Morphological...

Scientists with the Zoonomia Project offer a vast quantity of insights into the workings and progress of mammalian genomes. Image credit: Victoria Regen.

Zoonomia: 240 Mammalian Genomes Reveal What Makes Humans Unique

May 1, 2023 by News Staff

Over the past 100 million years, mammals have adapted to nearly every environment on Earth. Scientists with the Zoonomia Project have been cataloging the...

Balto with Gunnar Kasson, his musher in the 1925 Serum Run. Image credit: Cleveland Public Library.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Famed Sled Dog Balto

Apr 28, 2023 by Natali Anderson

The sled dog Balto has been celebrated in books and movies for his role in delivering desperately needed diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska, in 1925....

Gann et al. show that in principle it is possible to grow rice plants in MMS1 but levels of (Mg(ClO4)2) can be critical to both germination and growth; moreover, they presented that editing SnRK1a could potentially provide an approach to develop as table rice line that can germinate and grow in MMS1 with (Mg(ClO4)2). Image credit: Gann et al.

Genetically Modified Rice Could Actually Grow in Martian Regolith, New Study Suggests

Apr 27, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

One of the biggest challenges to growing food on Mars is the presence of perchlorate salts, which have been detected in the Martian regolith (soil) and...

Small-scale battery-like microbial fuel cells are a promising alternative power source for future low-power electronics. Controllable microbial electrocatalytic activity in a miniaturized microbial fuel cell with unlimited biodegradable energy resources would enable simple power generation in various environmental settings. However, the short shelf-life of living biocatalysts, few ways to activate the stored biocatalysts, and extremely low electrocatalytic capabilities render the miniature microbial fuel cells unsuitable for practical use. In new research, heat-activated Bacillus subtilis spores are revolutionarily used as a dormant biocatalyst that can survive storage and rapidly germinate when exposed to special nutrients that are preloaded in the device. Image credit: Maryam Rezaie & Seokheun Choi, doi: 10.1002/smll.202301135.

Bacteria-Powered Biobattery Has 100-Year Shelf Life, Scientists Say

Apr 19, 2023 by News Staff

Scientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, have used a species of spore-forming bacterium called Bacillus subtilis to create a...

Banana-peeling behavior of the female Asian elephant Pang Pha depends on banana ripeness and is suppressed in social feeding experiments. Image credit: Kaufmann et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.076.

Scientists Describe Unique Banana-Peeling Behavior of Captive Asian Elephant

Apr 12, 2023 by News Staff

Like other elephants, Pang Pha — a female Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) handraised by human caretakers in the Berlin Zoo, Germany — consumes...

The red-bellied treefrog (Litoria haematogaster). Image credit: Steve Richards.

Five New Species of Treefrogs Discovered in Papua New Guinea

Apr 11, 2023 by News Staff

Biologists have described five new species of small treefrogs from hill and lower montane forests in the high rainfall belt that straddles the southern...

Siren sphagnicola, an adult hypertrophic male with a partially regenerated tail. Image credit: Fedler et al., doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.5258.4.1.

New Species of Siren Discovered in the United States

Apr 6, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Siren sphagnicola inhabits seepage areas in the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain of the United States. Siren sphagnicola, an adult hypertrophic male with a partially...

Cartwheeling behavior of the dwarf reed snake (Pseudorabdion longiceps). Image credit: Quah et al., doi: 10.1111/btp.13213.

Dwarf Reed Snakes Can Cartwheel to Escape Predators

Apr 5, 2023 by News Staff

A team of scientists from Malaysia and the United States reports an observation of cartwheeling behavior to escape predators employed by the dwarf reed...

Diurnal (A-C) and nocturnal basking (D-F) in freshwater turtles: (A) and (D) Emydura macquarii plus Crocodylus johnstoni in Australia; (B) Pelomedusa galeata in South Africa; (C) several Emydidae species in the United States; (E) Chelodina expansa in Australia; (F) Pelusios adansonii in Senegal. Image credit: Eric Nordberg / Cormac Price / Brad Glorioso / Malcolm Kennedy / Pearson McGovern.

Nocturnal Basking is Widespread in Freshwater Turtles, Study Shows

Apr 5, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

Diurnal basking (sunning) is common in many ectotherms (cold-blooded animals) and is generally thought to be a behavioral mechanism for thermoregulation....

Male African elephant (Loxodonta africana) in Okavango Delta, Botswana. Image credit: Charles J. Sharp / CC BY-SA 3.0.

African Elephants Use Their Acute Sense of Smell as Form of Communication, Study Says

Apr 4, 2023 by News Staff

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) live in stable, socially complex, multi-female groups, characterized by female philopatry, male dispersal and linear...

The rufous-naped bellbird (Aleadryas rufinucha). Image credit: Knud Jønsson.

Ornithologists Identify Two New Species of Toxic Birds

Apr 3, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Most people are familiar with South and Central America’s iconic poison dart frogs, especially the golden poison frog (Phyllobates terribilis), that...

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