The world’s only bioluminescent millipedes use their glow as a warning signal to nocturnal predators, a UA-led research team has discovered
As night falls in certain mountain regions in California, a strange breed of creepy crawlies emerges from the soil: millipedes that glow in the dark. The reason behind the glowing secret has stumped biologists until now. (more…)
*Global sampling of 48 sites on five continents yields unprecedented data set*
For decades, ecologists have toiled to nail down principles explaining why some habitats have many more plant and animal species than others.
Much of this debate is focused on the idea that the number of species is determined by the productivity of the habitat.
Shouldn’t a patch of prairie contain a different number of species than an arid steppe or an alpine tundra? (more…)
Birds may have a more highly developed sense of smell than researchers previously thought, contend scholars who have found that penguins may use smell to determine if they are related to a potential mate. (more…)
Plant lineages with multiple copies of their genetic information face higher extinction rates than their relatives, researchers report in Science magazine.
While duplication of hereditary information is a relatively rare event in animal evolution, it is common in plants. Potatoes, coffee, bananas, peanuts, tobacco, wheat, oats and strawberries, to name but a few, all carry multiple copies of their genetic material, in a condition called polyploidy. (more…)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The USGS Alaska Science Center has released new high-resolution video of Pacific walruses hauling out near Point Lay, Alaska, in late August, 2011.
Also available on the USGS Alaska Science Center walrus website are animations of the walruses’ movements as tracked by radio transmitters, and FAQs on the ongoing walrus studies. (more…)
Appalachian tiger swallowtail butterfly is hybrid of other swallowtails
Flitting among the cool slopes of the Appalachian Mountains is a tiger swallowtail butterfly that evolved when two other species of swallowtails hybridized long ago. (more…)
Invasive Asian longhorned beetle has potential for wide reach in region’s forests
Are new England’s iconic maple trees at risk? If a beetle has its way, the answer may be yes. (more…)
*Northeast China fossil provides new information about earliest ancestors of today’s mammals*
A well-preserved fossil discovered in northeast China provides new information about the earliest ancestors of most of today’s mammal species–the placental mammals. (more…)
