The Animal Kingdom

n international team of American and Chinese paleontologists has discovered a new species of mammal that lived 125 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era, in what is now the Hebei Province in China. The new mammal, documented in the March 15 issue of the journal Nature, provides first-hand evidence of early evolution of the mammalian middle ear–one of the most important features for all modern mammals. The discovery was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)……..

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A new report, the first to take a comprehensive look at market competition between wild and farmed salmon, sheds new light on the contentious and complex issues surrounding farmed and wild salmon. The Great Salmon Run: Competition Between Wild and Farmed Salmon, released by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of World Wildlife Fund and IUCN-the World Conservation Union identifies two important trends that have remade the salmon industry in the last 25 years: farmed salmon has grown from just two percent of the world supply in 1980 to 65 percent in 2004. About three-fourths of the fresh and frozen salmon consumed in the United States is now farmed. In response, the value of the North American wild fishery has plummeted, as indicated by the decline in the value of annual Alaska salmon catches from more than $800 million in the late 1980’s to less than $300 million. The decline in value of wild salmon catches has had wide-ranging economic and social effects on wild salmon fishermen and fishing communities……..

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When it’s time to stop reading, I usually grab the nearest flat object that’s lying around to use as a bookmark: a train ticket, beer mat, Kraft cheese slice, almost anything will do. My books have been starting to smell a bit though, so I should probably invest in one animal bookmarks. An animal bookmark clips onto the front cover of your chosen reading material, allowing you to jam the animal’s long tail between your desired pages to keep your place. I’m afraid they’re only available in Japan at the moment though. Anyway, I’ve just realized that I shouldn’t buy one of these ………

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A popular game fish mistaken by researchers for a dog snapper is actually a new species discovered among the reefs of the Abrolhos region of the South Atlantic Ocean. The international science journal Zootaxa recently published the discovery of Lutjanus alexandrei, a new snapper species that belongs to the Lutjanidae family, by scientists Rodrigo Moura of Conservation International (CI) and Kenyon Lindeman of Environmental Defense. The study published in Zootaxa provides a revised key for identifying all Lutjanus species in the western Atlantic, along with evidence that the new species completes its life cycle in different but interdependent marine habitats, such as coral reefs and mangroves……..

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Smithsonian researchers and his colleagues report a new study that may shake up the way paleontologists think about how environmental change shapes life on Earth. The scientists summarized the environmental, ecological and evolutionary consequences for Caribbean shallow-water marine communities when the Isthmus of Panama was formed. They concluded that extinctions resulting when one ocean became two were delayed by 2 million years……..

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WASHINGTONAny easing of the current Chinese ban on trading products made from tigers is likely a death sentence for the endangered cats, as per a new TRAFFIC report released recently by World Wildlife Fund and TRAFFICthe wildlife trade monitoring program of WWF and IUCN. The report warns that Chinese business owners who would profit from the tiger trade are putting increasing pressure on the Chinese government to overturn its successful 1993 ban and allow domestic trade in captive-bred tiger parts for use in traditional medicine and clothing to resume. For example, investors in the growing number of large-scale captive-breeding “tiger farms” in China are pushing for legalizing trade of products from these facilities, which now house 4,000 tigers. The farms keep captive-bred tigers together in large enclosuresa condition not found in the wildand feed live animals to them before busloads of tourists. Such farmed tigers are unsuitable for reintroduction into the wild……..

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Recently, a ban prohibicommercial hunting of whales grabbed attention when a proposal to depose it was supported by nearly 33 countries attending a convention over the issue of whale-hunting though nearly 32 nations voted against it. But the ban is still prevailing as three-fourth of the total participating countries must support its termination. ………

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Why do some individuals sacrifice their own self-interest to help others? The evolution and maintenance of cooperative behavior is a classic puzzle in evolutionary biology. In some animal societies, cooperation occurs in close-knit family groups and kin selection explains apparently selfless behavior. Not so for the lance-tailed manakin. Males of this little tropical bird cooperate in spectacular courtship displays with unrelated partners, and the benefits of lending a helping wing may only come years down the line. Instead of fighting over females, pairs of male lance-tailed manakins team up to court prospective mates. Two males dance together for interested females, using tightly synchronized ‘leapfrog’ and flight displays to impress the opposite sex. But when the dance is over, only the dominant male, the alpha, gets the chance to mate. Emily DuVal, of UC Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, studied these birds to answer the question of why subordinate beta males cooperate. Starting in 1999, DuVal color-banded and observed wild lance-tailed manakins in Panam to follow changes in status over multiple years. Then she used genetic analyses to determine chicks’ paternity and genetic relationships among adults……..

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UC Irvine scientists have combined genetic and geographic data of the H5N1 avian flu virus to reconstruct its history over the past decade. They observed that multiple strains of the virus originated in the Chinese province of Guangdong, and they identified a number of of the migration routes through which the strains spread regionally and internationally……..

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Researchers at the University of Illinois have conducted a genetic analysis of vespid wasps that revises the vespid family tree and challenges long-held views about how the wasps’ social behaviors evolved. In the study, reported in the Feb. 21 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists found genetic evidence that eusociality (the reproductive specialization seen in some insects and other animals) evolved independently in two groups of vespid wasps……..

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For the past century, fruit fliesor Drosophilahave provided innumerable insights into the genetics and biology of development, learning and memory, behavior, vision, and other processes. But for scientists who conduct these studies, the logistics of housing and feeding the hundreds or thousands of flies needed for experiments can be daunting. To address this concern, the current issue of Cold Spring Harbor Protocolsreleased online today www.cshprotocols.org includes a series of articles for maintaining and manipulating flies in the laboratory……..

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Why do some birds fly thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas every year whereas others never travel at all? . One textbook explanation suggests either eating fruit or living in non-forested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behavior. Not so, report a pair of ecologists from The University of Arizona in Tucson. The pressure to migrate comes from seasonal food scarcity……..

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A new study suggests that the iron-rich winter runoff from Pacific Northwest streams and rivers, combined with the wide continental shelf, form a potent mechanism for fertilizing the nearshore Pacific Ocean, leading to robust phytoplankton production and fisheries. The study, by three Oregon State University oceanographers, was just published by the American Geophysical Union in its journal, Geophysical Research Letters……..

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Using a variety of new approaches, researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego are forging a new understanding of the largest mammals on Earth. In one recently published study on blue whales, Scripps scientists used a combination of techniques to show for the first time that blue whale calls can be tied to specific behavior and gender classifications. In a separate study, scientists used recordings of blue whale songs to determine the animal’s population distributions worldwide……..

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Digital atlases of the brains of humans, monkeys, dogs, cats, mice, birds and other animals have been created and posted online by scientists at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience. BrainMaps.org features the highest resolution whole-brain atlases ever constructed, with over 50 terabytes of brain image data directly accessible online. Users can explore the brains of humans and a variety of other species at an unprecedented level of detail, from a broad view of the brain to the fine details of nerves and connections. The website also includes a suite of free, downloadable tools for navigating and analyzing brain data……..

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Why do some birds fly thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas every year whereas others never travel at all? One textbook explanation suggests that eating fruit or living in nonforested environments were the precursors needed to evolve migratory behavior. Not so, report ecologists W. Alice Boyle and Courtney J. Conway of the University of Arizona, Tucson, in the recent issue of the American Naturalist. Conway is also a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. The two showed the pressure to migrate comes from seasonal food scarcity. It’s the first time the technique called phylogenetic independent contrasts has been used to identify the causes of bird migration. “It’s not just whether you eat insects, fruit, or candy bars, or where you eat them it matters how reliable that food source is from day-to-day,” Boyle said. “For example, some really long-distance migrants like Arctic Terns are not fruit-eaters.”…….

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Promiscuity is common among female rodents, leading to competition between the sperm of rival males over who fertilizes the eggs. It now seems that possessing a longer penis may give males an advantage in this competition, as per new research would be reported in the recent issue of The American Naturalist. Dr. Steve Ramm, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Liverpool, UK, compared the relative size of the penis bone in several mammal groups: “The data for rodents seem pretty clear cut. Species where sexual competition between males is most intense also tend to have the longest penises. But, interestingly, a similar pattern was not detected in either primates or bats.” Understanding the reasons for these differences will require a better understanding of the precise mechanisms through which male rodents benefit from longer penises, something which comparative data alone cannot address……..

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Marine turtles almost always return to the same beach to lay their eggs. The egg-laying sites are often far from the feeding areas and the females cross several hundred kilometers of ocean with no visual landmarks. How do they manage to return to the same spot? A study by Simon Benhamou of the Center for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology at Montpellier1, France, together with other groups (CNRS, IRD, IFREMER, CEDTM2, University of Pisa), shows that the marine turtles use a relatively simple navigation system involving the earths magnetic field, and this allows them to return to the same egg-laying site without having the ability to correct for the deflection of ocean currents. This work, published in Current Biology and Marine Ecology Progress Series, should allow better conservation strategies for this endangered species……..

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A team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. The bird was captured by a trapper and handed over to WCS biologists, who recorded the birds call while it nursed an injured foot. Once fully recovered, the bird will be released back into the wild……..

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