Biology News | Sci.News

New Species of Rat Snake Discovered

May 30, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of scientists has described a cryptic new species of rat snake in the genus Elaphe. The Urartian rat snake (Elaphe urartica) in Armenia....

de la Cuesta-Zuluaga et al find age and sex of an individual strongly influences the bacterial diversity of the gut microbiome. Image credit: University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.

Young Women Have Higher Gut Bacterial Diversity than Young Men

May 23, 2019 by News Staff

In a new study in the journal mSystems, an international team of researchers analyzed the relationship of age and sex to gut bacterial diversity in adult...

A young juvenile male bonobo is groomed by his mom in the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Image credit: Martin Surbeck.

Study: Bonobo Mothers Play Strong Role in Helping Adult Sons Find Mate

May 22, 2019 by News Staff

In many group-living mammals, mothers may increase the reproductive success of their adult daughters. However, whether such maternal effects exist for...

This study was conducted on a colony of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) housed at the Kristiansand Zoo in Kristiansand, Norway. Image credit: Motes-Rodrigo et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215644.

Chimps Use Tools to Excavate Underground Food, Study Says

May 17, 2019 by News Staff

Naïve chimpanzees are able to spontaneously use tools in order to excavate underground food, according to a new study, published in the journal PLoS ONE....

This digitally-colorized scanning electron micrograph revealed some of the ultrastructural morphology displayed on the ventral surface of Cimex lectularius; from this view you can see the insect’s skin piercing mouthparts it uses to obtain its blood meal, as well as a number of its six jointed legs. Image credit: Janice Harney Carr, CDC.

Bedbugs Arose 115 Million Years Ago, Roamed Earth alongside Dinosaurs

May 17, 2019 by News Staff

Bedbugs are blood-sucking parasites in the family Cimicidae. A multinational research team led by University of Sheffield, the University Museum Bergen...

The lanternfish has bioluminescent organs and an increased number of rod opsin genes. Image credit: Zuzana Musilová, Charles University.

Deep-Sea Fishes Catch Color with Rods

May 13, 2019 by News Staff

Some deep-sea fishes have developed highly sensitive color vision that could help them determine predator from prey in the dimly-lit depths. The lanternfish...

The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum). Image credit: Dan Griffin.

Researchers Find ‘World’s Oldest Wetland Tree’

May 13, 2019 by News Staff

Bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) over 2,000 years old grow in the forested wetlands along Black River south of Raleigh, North Carolina. One of the...

Cryo-EM image of a DNA-ﬁlled medusavirus particle viewed from a 3-fold axis; spike, capsid, and membrane are labeled. Scale bar - 100 nm. Image credit: Yoshikawa et al, doi: 10.1128/JVI.02130-18.

Medusavirus: Newly-Discovered Giant Virus Turns Its Hosts into ‘Stone’

May 10, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers has isolated a new giant virus from hot spring water in Japan. Named medusavirus, the virus infects a species of amoeba called Acanthamoeba...

The European paper wasp (Polistes dominula). Image credit: Adrian Benko / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Paper Wasps are Capable of Logical Thinking, Suggests New Study

May 9, 2019 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Michigan has found evidence of transitive inference — a form of logical reasoning that involves using...

This colorized image shows a species of the haloarchaea genus Halorubrum. Scale bar - 2 μm. Image credit: Reid et al, doi: 10.1017/S1473550406002916.

Biologists Find Arsenic-Breathing Microbes in Oxygen-Poor Regions of Pacific Ocean

May 9, 2019 by News Staff

A team of marine biologists from the University of Washington has found communities of arsenic-breathing microbes in the oxygen-deficient zones of the...

While wolves rely heavily on cooperation, dogs do so substantially less thus leading to the prediction that wolves are more prosocial than dogs. However, domestication hypotheses suggest dogs have been selected for higher cooperation, leading to the opposing prediction -- increased prosocial tendencies in dogs. To tease apart these hypotheses, Dale et al adapted a paradigm previously used with pet dogs to directly compare dogs and wolves. In a prosocial choice task, wolves acted prosocially to in-group partners; providing significantly more food to a pack-member compared to a control where the partner had no access to the food. Dogs did not. Additionally, wolves did not show a prosocial response to non-pack members, in line with previous research that social relationships are important for prosociality. Image credit: Dale et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215444.

Wolves are More Prosocial than Dogs, New Study Finds

May 8, 2019 by News Staff

In touchscreen experiments that allowed animals to provide food to others, wolves (Canis lupus) acted more prosocially toward their pack members than did...

The western yellow wagtail (Motacilla flava), a small passerine bird in the family Motacillidae. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Songbirds Have Unusual Chromosome in Germ Cells: Study

May 7, 2019 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has discovered that all songbirds have an additional chromosome in their germ cells — the ‘germline restricted...

A male giant panda named Xiao Liwu at San Diego Zoo, California, the United States. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Study: Giant Pandas are ‘Macronutritional Carnivores’

May 3, 2019 by News Staff

Giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) feed almost exclusively on highly fibrous bamboo, yet they bear a mix of herbivore and carnivore traits. A new study...

Isarachnanthus nocturnes. Image credit: Stampar et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-42621-z.

Tube-Dwelling Anemone Has Biggest Mitochondrial Genome Ever Sequenced

Apr 30, 2019 by News Staff

The banded tube-dwelling anemone (Isarachnanthus nocturnes), a sea creature that resembles a prehistoric flower, now holds the record for the largest mitochondrial...

The bicolored striped-sweat bee (Agapostemon virescens), a male, on spotted knapweed in the Rutgers-owned Hutcheson Memorial Forest in Franklin Township, Somerset County. Image credit: Michael Roswell / Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

Study: Male and Female Bees Frequent Different Flowers

Apr 29, 2019 by News Staff

For scores of wild bee species, females and males visit very different flowers for food, according to a new study published in the journal PLoS ONE. The...

Microbes drive most ecosystems and are modulated by viruses that impact their lifespan, gene flow, and metabolic outputs. However, ecosystem-level impacts of viral community diversity remain difficult to assess due to classification issues and few reference genomes. Gregory et al established an 12-fold expanded global ocean DNA virome dataset of 195,728 viral populations, now including the Arctic Ocean. Image credit: Arek Socha.

Biologists Find Nearly 196,000 Virus Species in Earth’s Oceans

Apr 26, 2019 by News Staff

Marine biologists on the Tara Oceans global oceanographic research expedition have identified nearly 196,000 marine virus species, which vastly exceeds...

The Wakatobi white-eye and the Wangi-wangi white-eye. Image credit: Nicola Marples / David Kelly.

Two New Species of White-Eyes Discovered in Indonesia

Apr 25, 2019 by News Staff

Two new species of the bird genus Zosterops (white-eyes) have been discovered in the forests of the Wakatobi Archipelago, Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Wakatobi...

Researchers Find Odor Receptors on Human Tongue

Apr 24, 2019 by News Staff

Functional olfactory receptors — the sensors that detect odors in the nose — are also present in taste cells found on the human tongue, according...

A coelacanth. Image credit: Laurent Ballesta, Gombessa expeditions, Andromede Oceanology Lt.

Coelacanth Reveals Secrets of Vertebrate Skull Evolution

Apr 23, 2019 by News Staff

A new study into one of the world’s oldest types of fish, the coelacanth, illuminates for the first time the development of the brain and skull of this...