Smallest island dwelling flightless bird got there how? According to ScienceDaily 1 November 2018 and Science Alert 7 November 2018 and Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2018.10.007, the world’s smallest flightless bird lives on a small island in the South Atlantic named Inaccessible Island. Not surprisingly it has been named the Inaccessible Island Rail. Since […]
Bird voice box is unique, according to ScienceDaily 24 September 2018 and Science (AAAS) News 5 October and PNAS published online 24 September 2018, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1804586115. Reptiles, amphibians and mammals produce sounds in the larynx – a structure in the throat at the top of the trachea (windpipe), but bird sounds are produced in a […]
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 […]