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 […]
Eye evolution problem reported in Current Biology published online 19 July 2018 doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.05.055. A large and diverse group of invertebrates, the cnidarians, including jellyfish, corals and sea anemones, vary a lot in their ability to detect light and see their surrounding environment. Some have no eyes, some have eye spots and others have eyes […]
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 […]
Plant parasite evolved by gene loss, according to reports in Eurekalert 11 July 2018 and Nature Communications 11 July 2018 doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04721-8. Scientists in China have studied the genome and pattern of gene expression in a parasitic plant named Cuscuta australis, otherwise known as Australian dodder or southern dodder, to find out how parasitic plants […]
Snowshoe hares go brown in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 21 June 2018 and Science, 22 June 2018, doi: 10.1126/science.aar5273. Snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) that live in regions with snowy winters change the colour of their fur from brown to white at the beginning of winter, and back to brown during the summer. The change […]
Fish evolve in a 100 years, claims an article in Science News 1 June 2018, with the headline: “This saltwater trout evolved to live in freshwater—in just 100 years,” referring to a study also reported in ScienceDaily 31 May 2018, and Molecular Ecology, 26 May 2018; doi: 10.1111/mec.14726. Steelhead trout live in the ocean off […]
Back flip caused fish to evolve, according an article in Nature News and Science (AAAS) News 15 February 2018. In 2014 Steven Balbus of Oxford University UK claimed that the moon was 10% closer to the earth 400 million years ago and this would have resulted in larger tides, which would have left fish stranded […]
Butterflies evolved before flowers, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 10 January 2018, BBC News 11 January 2018, and Science Advances doi:10.1126/sciadv.1701568, 10 January 2018. Scientists studying rocks samples from drill cores extracted from Late Triassic and Early Jurassic rocks in Northern Germany, have found fossil butterfly wing scales in rocks dated […]
Galapagos finches speciate, according to reports in BBC News and ScienceDaily 24 November 2017, and Science doi: 10.1126/science.aao4593, 23 November 2017. A group of scientists from Sweden and USA claim to have observed a new species of finch evolve on the Galapagos Island of Daphne Major. In 1981 a male Large Cactus Finch Geospiza conirostris […]
Algal explosion got us here, according to articles in ScienceDaily 16 August, and ABC News and BBC News 17 August 2017, and Nature, doi: 10.1038/nature23457, Published online 16 August 2017. Scientists at Australian National University claim to have solved the mystery of how the first animals appeared on earth, and therefore how we got here. […]