Biology News | Sci.News

Pectinereis strickrotti, a live male specimen. Image credit: Ekin Tilic.

Marine Biologists Discover Remarkable New Species of Deep-Sea Worm

Mar 6, 2024 by Natali Anderson

Marine biologists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and the Centro de Investigación Científica...

Qi Zai, the only brown panda living in captivity. Image credit: Ailie HM / CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed.

Scientists Solve Mystery of Brown Giant Pandas

Mar 6, 2024 by Natali Anderson

Brown-and-white giant pandas are distinct coat color mutants found exclusively in the Qinling Mountains of China. Qi Zai, the only brown panda living in...

Tomson et al. found that the interplay of macro and micromorphology in green wall plant species determines their particulate matter removal potential. Image credit: Tomson et al. 2024., doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170950.

Study: Green Walls Can Strip Pollution from Air, Some Plants Do It Better than Others

Mar 5, 2024 by Natali Anderson

Biologists at the University of Surrey have investigated inter-species variation in particulate matter accumulation, wash-off, and retention on ten broadleaf...

The function of CLV3 in Arabidopsis and tomato is conserved despite extreme divergence in cis-regulatory sequences. Image credit: Ciren et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1011174.

Plant Scientists Shed Light on 125-Million-Year-Old Genetic Mystery

Mar 5, 2024 by News Staff

Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have discovered that two distantly related model plants, Arabidopsis thaliana and the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum),...

Danionella cerebrum has a pair of extrinsic, indirect sonic muscles that house the drumming cartilage. When a sonic muscle contracts, the fifth rib is pulled anteriorly and builds tension as it pulls the cartilage. The sudden release of the cartilage causes it to rapidly strike the swim bladder, producing a short, loud pulse. A burst of pulses is generated with either bilaterally alternating or unilateral muscle contractions. In sum, this mechanism enables loud and stereotyped sounds that can be elicited in structured sequences, making it a unique solution for acoustic communication and ultrafast skeletal motion in vertebrates surpassing the limitation of muscle contraction speed. Image credit: Ralf Britz, Senckenberg Natural History Collections.

Miniature Cyprinid Fish Can Produce Sounds over 140 dB, Ichthyologists Say

Feb 27, 2024 by News Staff

Danionella cerebrum, a translucent fish species of only 12 mm length, produces high amplitude sounds exceeding 140 dB (re. 1 µPa, at a distance of one...

Lysandra bellargus. Image credit: Eric Sylvestre.

Study: Butterfly and Moth Genomes Have Remained Largely Intact through 250M Years of Evolution

Feb 26, 2024 by News Staff

This stability exists despite the incredible diversity seen today in wing patterns, sizes, and caterpillar forms across over 160,000 species globally,...

The Pilbara delicate mouse (Pseudomys pilbarensis). Image credit: Ian Bool.

Two New Species of Native Mice Discovered in Australia

Feb 22, 2024 by News Staff

Mice of the genus Pseudomys are among the few terrestrial placental mammals that colonized Australia without human intervention. The Pilbara delicate mouse...

These images show adult sea lampreys (top and left) and a developing sea lamprey embryo. Image credit: Stowers Institute for Medical Research.

Study: Sea Lamprey’s Brain Development is Remarkably Similar to That of Humans

Feb 21, 2024 by News Staff

The hindbrain of both sea lampreys and humans is built using an extraordinarily similar molecular and genetic toolkit, according to new research led by...

The yellow-crested helmetshrike (Prionops alberti). Image credit: University of Texas at El Paso.

Ornithologists Capture First-Ever Photos of Elusive Yellow-Crested Helmetshrike

Feb 21, 2024 by News Staff

The yellow-crested helmetshrike (Prionops alberti) is listed as a ‘lost bird’ by the American Bird Conservancy because it had not seen in nearly two...

Eunectes akayima. Image credit: Rivas et al., doi: 10.3390/d16020127.

New Species of Anaconda Discovered in Orinoco Basin

Feb 20, 2024 by Natali Anderson

An international team of herpetologists led by New Mexico Highlands University and University of Queensland scientists has described a cryptic new species...

Ghosh et al. suggest that retroviral endogenization played a prominent role in the emergence of vertebrate myelin. Image credit: Ghosh et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.01.011.

Study: Ancient Retroviruses Shaped Vertebrate Brains

Feb 19, 2024 by News Staff

Biologists from Altos Labs-Cambridge Institute of Science, the University of Cambridge and elsewhere have found that a retrovirus-derived genetic element...

Bothriechis rahimi. Image credit: Lucas Bustamante.

Five New Species of Eyelash Pitvipers Discovered in South America

Feb 13, 2024 by News Staff

Scientists have identified five cryptic species of the venomous viper genus Bothriechis living in the jungles and cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador. Bothriechis...

Structural color in wax bloom produces blue appearance on fruits across a wide phylogeny: (A) undamaged highbush blueberries growing on the plant; (B) blueberry with (i) unmodified wax, (ii) mechanical wax removal, (iii) chloroform wax removal, (iv) surface application of (almost) index-matching oil, (v) surface application of water, (vi) outer skin peeled to reveal flesh, and (vii) underside of peeled skin; (C) transmission optical microscopy of peeled blueberry skin from internal edge showing red pigmentation in epidermal cells. Scale bar - 200 μm; (D) (i and ii) a selection of plum (Prunus domestica) fruits with different cell pigmentation, (i) with wax intact and (ii) with wax removed. Image credit: Middleton et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adk4219.

Study: Tiny Structures in Wax Coating of Blue-Pigmented Fruits Give Them Their Blue Color

Feb 7, 2024 by News Staff

Many visually guided fruit-eaters have eyes highly adapted for blue sensitivity, which makes it perhaps surprising that blue pigmented fruits are not more...

Agasthyagama edge, an uncollected female in its habitat at the type locality in Kulamavu, Idukki district, Kerala, India. Image credit: Sandeep Das.

New Species of Kangaroo Lizard Discovered in India

Feb 2, 2024 by Natali Anderson

A research team led by University of Calicut scientists has described a new species of agamid lizard from the Indian state of Kerala. Agasthyagama edge,...

A new octopus hatchling swims away from its egg near a small outcrop of rock unofficially called El Dorado Hill. Image credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Four New Deep-Sea Octopus Species Discovered in Pacific Ocean

Feb 1, 2024 by News Staff

Marine biologists aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s R/V Falkor discovered at least four new species of deep-sea octopuses during two 2023 expeditions...

The clouded tiger cat (Leopardus pardinoides). Image credit: Johannes Pfleiderer.

Scientists Identify Cryptic New Species of Tiger Cat

Jan 31, 2024 by Natali Anderson

In 2013, the oncilla (Leopardus tigrinus), a species of small spotted cat from the Americas, was split into two species: the northern tiger cat (Leopardus...

A photograph of the tardigrade Ramazzottius varieornatus, in the center of a phylogeny of CAHS, the largest of the six desiccation-related protein families analyzed by Fleming et al. Image credit: Kazuharu Arakawa, Keio Institute of Advanced Biosciences.

New Research Sheds Light on Evolutionary History of Tardigrade Extremotolerance

Jan 30, 2024 by News Staff

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, can tolerate high doses of radiation, low-oxygen environments, desiccation, and both high and low temperatures...

Vasas et al. show 3 male orange sulphurs (Colias eurytheme). These butterflies display strong angle-dependent UV iridescence on the dorsal side of their wings. The UV-iridescent portions appear more orange to the human observer than the otherwise yellow wings (see human-visible inset). The avian false color depiction (main image) is based on the coordinates of the receptor noise-limited (RNL) opponent space. Coordinates in this space represent differences in an animal’s photoreceptor responses, and the distances between the coordinates approximate the perceptual distances between the colors. The inset color key illustrates human-visible colors around the perimeter of a circle colored according to RNL coordinates, where UV colors start at the epicenter and mix with other colors. In this depiction, the UV-iridescent portions appear purple, because they most strongly reflect in the ultraviolet and the red part of the spectrum. The ventral part of the wings, visible when the animals are in their resting position, are depicted as gray-brown, just like the leaves, as they are close to the achromatic point. Image credit: Vasas et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002444.

Novel Camera System and Software Records Natural Animal-View Videos with Over 90% Accuracy

Jan 24, 2024 by News Staff

A new camera system and associated software package allows scientists to produce videos that accurately replicate the colors that different animals see...

Bierenbroodspot et al. sequenced 24 new transcriptomes of Klebsormidiophyceae and combined them with 14 previously published genomic and transcriptomic datasets. Image credit: Bierenbroodspot et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.070.

Study: Multicellularity Emerged in Streptophyte Plants about One Billion Years Ago

Jan 23, 2024 by News Staff

New research led by University of Goettingen scientists provides evidence that the first multicellular streptophytes likely lived about a billion years...