Biology News

Fast-Evolving Species More Likely to Become Extinct, Paleontologists Say

Pleurosaurus, a remarkable, long-bodied swimming rhynchocephalian that lived during the Late Jurassic epoch, some 150 million years ago, in what is now Germany. Image credit: Roberto Ochoa.
Nov 10, 2021 by News Staff

‘Slow and steady wins the race,’ according to a new study of lepidosaurs (lizards, snakes, amphisbaenians, and tuatara) published in the journal Palaeontology. Pleurosaurus, a remarkable, long-bodied swimming rhynchocephalian that lived during the Late Jurassic epoch, some 150 million years ago, in what is now Germany. Image credit: Roberto Ochoa. The Lepidosauria is a subclass or superorder of reptiles, containing the orders Squamata (snakes,...

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The Inti tanager (Heliothraupis oneilli). Image credit: Louisiana State University / Lane et al., doi: 10.1093/ornithology/ukab059.

Inti Tanager: Colorful New Species of Bird Discovered in South America

Nov 3, 2021 by Natali Anderson

Ornithologists have discovered a new genus and species of tanager on the lower slopes of the Andes in southeastern Peru and western Bolivia. The Inti tanager...

New Type of Neuron Discovered in Mammalian Retina

Nov 2, 2021 by News Staff

Cell classes are the building blocks for the central nervous system. It is widely believed that major classes of neurons have been identified in the retina,...

Patagonian birds disperse viable spores of mycorrhizal fungi. Image credit: Caiafa et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.10.024.

Patagonian Birds Hunt for Truffles, Too

Oct 29, 2021 by News Staff

New research demonstrates that two common, widespread, and endemic Patagonian bird species — the chucao tapaculo (Scelorchilus rubecula) and the...

The Shelley’s eagle owl (Bubo shelleyi). Image credit: Robert Williams.

Extremely Rare Shelley’s Eagle Owl Photographed in Wild for First Time

Oct 28, 2021 by News Staff

The Shelley’s eagle owl (Bubo shelleyi) was photographed by Imperial College London researcher Joseph Tobias and freelance ecologist Robert Williams...

Giant panda Xiao Liwu at the San Diego Zoo.

Giant Panda’s Unique Black-And-White Coat Provides Effective Camouflage, New Research Confirms

Oct 28, 2021 by News Staff

While most mammals are drab browns and grays, there are a small number of well-known and intriguing exceptions. Perhaps the most famous of all is the giant...

True’s beaked whales (Mesoplodon mirus). Image credit: Roland Edler, Duisburg Zoo.

Marine Biologists Identify New Species of Beaked Whale

Oct 27, 2021 by Natali Anderson

The newly-identified species, named the Ramari’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon eueu), occurs throughout temperate southern hemisphere waters, with reports...

Indri indri. Image credit: Filippo Carugati.

Indri Lemur Songs Have Categorical Rhythm, New Study Shows

Oct 27, 2021 by News Staff

A lemur species called Indri indri displays, in its coordinated songs, the isochronous and 1:2 rhythm categories seen in human music, showing that such...

Bumblebees exhibit remarkable color pattern diversity that is primarily attributed to Müllerian mimicry. Previous research has identified the red-black mimetic color variation in Bombus melanopygus to be driven by genetic changes in a major upstream developmental gene (Hox gene Abd-B) dictating segmental morphology. Using a stage-specific transcriptomic approach, Rahman et al. unravel how this gene ultimately drives the melanic pigmentation differences, identifying a suite of genes from the most upstream Abd-B, to intermediate developmental genes, and finally to a set of interacting downstream melanin and redox genes. Image credit: Rahman et al., doi: 10.1093/gbe/evab080.

Researchers Discover Gene Network that Drives Color Variation in Bumblebees

Oct 26, 2021 by News Staff

A Hox gene, a major developmental gene that regulates the identity of structures on the segments of black-tailed bumblebees (Bombus melanopygus), turns...

Human-mediated selection for tusklessness in African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) during the Mozambican civil war appears to be driven by recent selection on at least one X-linked locus (AMELX) and one autosomal locus (MEP1a). Image credit: Benh Lieu Song / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Study: Intense Ivory Poaching Resulted in Rapid Evolution of Tusklessness in African Elephants

Oct 22, 2021 by News Staff

In response to heavy poaching by armed forces during the 20-year Mozambican civil war, populations of African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) in...

Anomalopus sp. Image credit: Paul Horner / South Australian Museum / Queensland Museum.

Two New Species of Limbless Skinks Discovered in Australia

Oct 20, 2021 by News Staff

Scientists have identified two new species of snake-shaped burrowing skinks (genus Anomalopus) living in mid-eastern Queensland, eastern Australia. Anomalopus...

To identify candidates for a new bacteriotherapy against skin infection, O’Neill et al. screened various bacteria from dogs and cats and co-cultured them with Staphylococcus felis C4 in liquid and agar antimicrobial assays. Image credit: O’Neill et al., doi: 10.7554/eLife.66793.

Feline Antimicrobial Bacterium May Help Fight Difficult-to-Treat Animal and Human Skin Infections

Oct 20, 2021 by News Staff

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (MRSP) is an important emerging zoonotic pathogen that causes severe skin infections. In new research,...

Allium negianum. Image credit: Pandey et al., doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.183.65433.

New Species of Onion Discovered in India

Oct 18, 2021 by News Staff

A team of researchers has described a new species of the genus Allium from the Uttarakhand Himalayan region of India. Allium negianum. Image credit: Pandey...

Transcardial injection of green algae or cyanobacteria in Xenopus laevis tadpoles distributed these photosynthetic microorganisms throughout the CNS causing a light exposure-timed increase of the oxygen concentration upon illumination of the brain; during a general, brain-wide extinction of neuronal activity by sub-atmospheric oxygen levels, green algae, and cyanobacteria were able to reversibly and repetitively reinitiate the spike activity upon illumination, thereby demonstrating the capacity of these microorganisms to rescue brain activity by photosynthetic oxygen. Image credit: Özugur et al., doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103158.

Study: Photosynthesizing Microorganisms Can Produce Oxygen in Brain Blood Vessels of Tadpoles

Oct 15, 2021 by News Staff

Biologists at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich have developed a method that allows tadpoles of African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) to ‘breathe’...

Hughes et al. demonstrate an endogenously-generated electric field proportional to the membrane potential Vm, and most likely caused by capacitive coupling between cytoplasm and extracellular medium, which manifests as changes in ζ-potential, low-frequency polarization and surface conductance; significantly, this shows red blood cells can alter the way in which they interact with their surroundings by the membrane potential rather than membrane composition, shedding new light on ion channel activity, cardiovascular disease, and drug action. Image credit: Allinonemovie.

Red Blood Cells Act as Tiny Electrodes, New Research Shows

Oct 13, 2021 by News Staff

A team of biologists from the University of Surrey, the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology, Wake Forest University and the École Centrale de Lyon has...

CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can cause hundreds of unintended mutations. Image credit: Lisichik.

Is Junk DNA What Makes Human Brain Unique?

Oct 11, 2021 by News Staff

In the genome of Homo sapiens, about 98% of DNA sequences are non-coding regions that were previously disregarded as ‘junk DNA.’ In fact, junk DNA...

Holotype of Amoria thorae, dredged off Cape Moreton, Queensland and Tweed Heads, New South Wales, Australia: (A) dorsal view; (B) ventral (apertural) view; (C) lateral view; (D) view looking down on spire showing detail of protoconch. Image credit: Healy et al., doi: 10.17082/j.2204-1478.62.2020.2019-02.

Scientist Discovers New Species of Carnivorous Marine Snail

Oct 11, 2021 by News Staff

Dr. John Healy, a marine biologist at the Queensland Museum, the University of Queensland, and the Field Museum of Natural History, has described a new...

Aenigmanu alvareziae in the Amazon rainforest. Image credit: Patricia Álvarez-Loayza.

New Tree Species Discovered in Amazon Rainforest

Oct 7, 2021 by News Staff

A strange tree found in the Manu National Park in Peru in 1973 is a new genus and species of the small, mainly neotropical plant family Picramniacea, according...

(A, B) the Nujiang pit viper (Gloydius lipipengi) and (C, D) the Glacier pit viper (Gloydius swild). Image credit: Shi et al., doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1061.70420.

Two New Species of Venomous Snakes Discovered

Oct 6, 2021 by News Staff

Scientists have described two new species of pit vipers in the genus Gloydius from Zayu in Tibet and Heishui in Sichuan, China. (A, B) the Nujiang pit...

Yolk in the intestinal lumen of Caenorhabditis elegans larva after being left on a plate with no food apart from vented yolk for 4 h. Top: Nomarski microscopy image. Bottom left: larva imaged immediately after removal from plates using reflectance confocal microscopy (RCM) to highlight the refractive material of the terminal web that surrounds the intestinal lumen (red) and superimposed airyscan image (green) for GFP-labeled yolk. Bottom right: same larva imaged 100 min later showing yolk no longer in the lumen, either due to defecation or digestion; this disappearance confirms that the green fluorescence indicated in the central panel corresponds to yolk within the intestinal lumen. Scale bar - 20 μm. Image credit: Kern et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25821-y.

Worm Mothers Provide Milk-Like Fluid for Their Offspring

Oct 6, 2021 by News Staff

Post-reproductive Caenorhabditis elegans nematode mothers exhibit a form of primitive lactation, releasing yolk milk through their vulva that can enhance...

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