Speeding up Aussie evolution, according articles in Nature News 23 July 2018 and Conservation Biology, published online 13 June 2018, doi: 10.1111/cobi.13149. Ecologists are hoping the save the northern quoll from extinction by trying to “speed up evolution”. The northern quoll is a small carnivorous marsupial, about the size of a squirrel, that lives in […]
Moth tails baffle bats, claim scientists in reports in Science (AAAS) News, Science Daily 4 July 2018 and Science Advances 4 July 2018 doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aar7428. Moth wings vary a lot in their shape. Some moths have rounded wings and others have elongated tails on their back wings. As moths are preyed on by bats a […]
Survival of the whitest, according to an article in BBC Earth News 6 November 2009. The American black bear Ursus americanus has a uniformly black coat and lives mainly in forested areas of USA and Canada. However, on two islands off Western Canada 20 to 30 percent of black bears have white coats. These bears […]
Squished squirrels evolve as road kill victims of “evolutionary illusions”. New Scientist 22 April 2006, p11 reported they are doing things they “evolved to do, but at the wrong time or in the wrong place.” Ecologist Joel Brown of University of Chicago, Illinois claims this explains why so many squirrels end up being squashed on […]
Reverse evolution in fish, claims an article in EurekAlert, 15 May 2008. Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle, have studied armour plating in stickleback fish in Lake Washington. Fifty years ago the lake was very murky, due to pollution, but following a massive clean-up the lake is now much clearer. The stickleback fish […]
Rapid evolution of finches observed, claims evolutionary biologist David Reznick of the University of California, Riverside, commenting on a study of finch adaptation reported in Science, vol. 295, p25, 11 Jan 2002. Ecologists at Auburn University Alabama, studied two populations of house finches that had recently moved into new habitats. One group of birds moved […]
Lizard evolution explained, according to a report in Science vol. 304, p65, 2 April 2004. In a report entitled “How the Horned Lizard Got it Horns” biologists from Utah State University, Logan and Indiana University Bloomington, present “data from the wild, showing natural selection by loggerhead shrikes favours longer horns in the flat tailed horned […]
Killer ladybird arrives in UK and after only six months has become a threat to Britain’s 46 milder mannered native ladybirds. The Asian Harlequin ladybird was first spotted in Britain in September 2004, and since then there have been some 200 sightings. Dr Michael Majerus (Cambridge University) has stated, “The harlequin is a deadly threat […]
Humans made pigs and prey evolve, according to articles in EurekAlert 12 and 15 Jan 2009 and New Scientist, 16 Jan 2009. A team of researchers led by evolutionary ecologist Chris Darimont from University of California, Santa Cruz have analysed changes in 29 species that are commercially harvested, including fish, shellfish, bighorn sheep, caribou, and […]
Diets shaped chameleon heads, according to Science (AAAS) News 31 March 2017 and Functional Ecology vol. 31, pp 671–684, March 2017, doi: 10.1111/1365-2435.12750. A group of scientists studying a genus of South African dwarf chameleons named Bradypodion were intrigued by the variety of head shapes within the same genus – some tall, some wide and […]