The giant panda is well known for eating bamboo and having an extra “thumb” to help it hold onto and manipulate the bamboo stems as it eats them. The “thumb” is not an extra digit, but a protrusion resulting from an enlarged wrist bone called a radial sesamoid. A group of scientists from various USA […]
Polar bears benefit from arctic warming, according reports in ScienceDaily 23 September 2020 and Global Change Biology, 23 September 2020, doi: 10.1111/gcb.15286. An international team of scientists have studied a population of polar bears living in Kane Basin a region in the high Arctic between Ellesmere Island, Canada and Greenland. They compared the bears’ overall […]
Biggest giant turtle found, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 12 February 2020, and Science Advances 12 February 2020, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay4593. Palaeontologists in South America have studied fossilised shells and jaws of a huge extinct turtle with the splendid name Stupendemys geographicus. The largest shell is 2.4 metres (7.9ft) long, making it […]
Fossil suction feeding surprise reported ScienceDaily 11 September 2019 and Science Advances 11 September 2019, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aax2742. Bony ray-finned fishes, such as bass, perch and carp, feed by using a method called suction feeding, where they are able to catch prey by sucking water into their mouths and then funnelling the water out through their […]