Penguins are very agile swimmers and able to turn within one body length. Scientists from Tokyo Institute of Technology filmed Gentoo penguins swimming in an enclosure at Nagasaki Penguin Aquarium to see how they manoeuvre underwater. The researchers analysed the movement of the penguin wings and body and worked out the hydrodynamic forces involved. They […]
Seahorse and pipefish have an unusual method of reproduction – males carry developing babies in a brood pouch and give birth to live young. Scientists at Sydney University have studied the process of how males gave birth. They originally thought it would be like the female birth process in other vertebrates that give birth to […]
Bat wings consists of a skin-covered fibrous membrane attached to the sides of their bodies and extending over their arms and elongated fingers. The wings also contain long thin thread-like muscles embedded in the wing membrane. Researchers at Brown University, USA, set out to see how these contribute to bat flight by getting bats to […]
Because no vertebrate has an odd number of limbs, having three limbs is considered a “forbidden phenotype”, i.e. a body structure that cannot happen. However, some animals can use other body parts as well as their limbs to help them move around. Researchers at noted that some parrots use their beaks to help them climb […]
Featherwing beetles are the world’s smallest beetles – less than 0.4mm long. They are named featherwing because their wings consist of bristles rather than a solid sheet of tissue as in other flying insects. The individual bristles have outgrowths giving them a brushlike appearance and their wings are folded under a pair of wing cases, […]
If you have ever banged a nail into wood and then tried to extract it you will know how hard it is to overcome the friction that holds the nail into the wood. Woodpeckers are well known for banging their beaks into tree trunks and branches and extracting them at an incredibly rapid rate. Scientists […]
A group of scientists from UK, USA and France have studied the structure of the leaves of the giant Amazonian water lily to see how the leaves can grow so large without becoming too massive for the plant to maintain. The leaves are the largest floating leaves in the world and can grow up to […]
Panda jaw evolved for bamboo, according reports in ScienceDaily and University of Turku (UTU) Press Release 9 July 2021 and Scientific Reports, 9 July 2021, doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-93808-2. When pandas eat bamboo stems they first use their premolar teeth to peel off the outer layer which contains harmful chemicals and abrasive crystals. Then they grind up […]
A pterosaur neck is like a bicycle reports Cell Press via SciTech Daily and ScienceDaily 14 April 2021, and iScience 14 April 2021 doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102338. Azhdarchid pterosaurs were the largest flying animals that ever lived, with a wingspan of up to 10 metres (33ft) and “ridiculously long necks” that could be longer than a giraffe […]
Neanderthal ears tuned for human speech, according to articles ScienceDaily and SciTech Daily 1 March 2021, BBC Science Focus 2 March 2021, and Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1 March 2021 doi: 10.1038/s41559-021-01391-6. An international team of scientists have studied high resolution CT scans of Neanderthal and modern human skulls to reconstruct their ear structure, and […]