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Living world news: Animals, plants, and microbes
'Deepest ever' living fish filmed
(Oct 7, 2008)
The "deepest ever" living fish have been discovered, scientists believe. A UK-Japan team found the 17-strong shoal at depths of 7.7km (4.8 miles) in the Japan Trench in the Pacific – and captured the deep sea animals on film. The scientists have been using remote-operated landers designed to withstand immense pressures to comb the world's deepest depths for marine life.
Read more. Source: BBC |
'Ant from Mars' found in Amazon jungle
(Sep 16, 2008)
A unique, blind, subterranean, predatory ant has been discovered in the Amazon rainforest. On first sight, legend of evolutionary biology and ant expert Edward O Wilson of Harvard University quipped that it was so unusual that it must have come from Mars. Unfortunately, the specimens dried up and crumbled before they could be formally described.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
Bumblebees outwit robotic spiders
(Sep 5, 2008)
Scientists have found that bumblebees learn from their "near-death" encounters with crab spiders and adapt their future foraging strategies. They watched real bees in an artificial meadow – containing yellow "flowers" and robotic crab spiders. Bees that had been "captured" spent longer inspecting flowers during subsequent foraging trips.
Read more. Source: BBC |
New giant clam species discovered
(Aug 30, 2008)
A new species of giant clam has been discovered in the Red Sea. The fossil record suggests that, about 125,000 years ago, the species Tridacna costata accounted for more than 80% of local giant clams. The species may now be critically endangered, researchers report in Current Biology journal.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Magpie 'can recognise reflection'
(Aug 20, 2008)
Magpies can recognise themselves in a mirror, scientists have found – the first time self-recognition has been observed in a non-mammal. Until relatively recently, humans were thought to be uniquely self-aware. Scientists now know that most chimpanzees and orangutans can recognise their own reflections.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Wild dolphins tail-walk on water
(Aug 19, 2008)
A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity. The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide. One of them spent a short time after illness in a dolphinarium 20 years ago and may have picked up the trick there.
Read more. Source: BBC |
World's smallest snake discovered
(Aug 4, 2008)
The world's smallest snake, averaging just 10cm (4 inches) and as thin as a spaghetti noodle, has been discovered on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The snake, found beneath a rock in a tiny fragment of threatened forest, is thought to be at the very limit of how small a snake can evolve to be. Females produce only a single, massive egg – and the young hatch at half of their adult body weight.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Live fish caught at record depth
(Aug 1, 2008)
A live deep-sea fish has been caught at a record depth of 2,300m on the hot vents of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Three shrimp species were also pulled to the surface, researchers report in the journal Deep-Sea Research. Scientists have engineered a new device that allows recovery of live animals under their natural pressure at greater depths than previously achieved.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Sloth's lazy image 'a myth'
(May 14, 2008)
The sloth's popular image as a lazy creature that sleeps for most of the day has been called into question. Rather than snoozing for more than 16 hours a day, as observed in captivity, sloths in the wild doze for less than 10 hours, research suggests. Scientists caught sloths living in the rainforest of Panama and fitted them with a device that monitors sleep.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Colossal squid's big eye revealed
(May 5, 2008)
The huge eye of the world's largest squid has been revealed by scientists dissecting a rare, intact half-tonne specimen in New Zealand. About 27cm (11in) across, researchers believe the colossal squid's eye is the biggest animal eye ever found.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Squid thaw set for a fresh start
(Apr 28, 2008)
Technicians in New Zealand are set to begin defrosting a rare colossal squid, following a day's postponement. Having removed the creature from the freezer on Sunday, the team realised it would defrost too early for a planned examination by scientists on Wednesday.
Read more. Source: BBC |
World's only lungless frog leaves scientists gasping
(Apr 8, 2008)
An unassuming little frog from Borneo has been found to have an exceedingly rare anatomical feature – introducing Barbourula kalimantanensis, the only known frog with no lungs. The Bornean flat-headed frog gets all of its oxygen through its skin. Local gold-mining operations, however, are fast polluting the streams where the frog lives.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
Dolphin woos with wood and grass
(Mar 30, 2008)
A South American river dolphin uses branches, weeds and lumps of clay to woo the opposite sex and frighten off rivals, scientists have discovered. Researchers observed adult male botos carrying these objects while surrounded by females, and thrashing them on the water surface aggressively. Writing in the journal Biology Letters, they say such behaviour has never before been seen in any marine mammal.
Read more. Source: BBC |
'Bizarre' new mammal discovered
(Feb 1, 2008)
A new species of mammal has been discovered in the mountains of Tanzania, scientists report. The bizarre-looking creature, dubbed Rhynochocyon udzungwensis, is a type of giant elephant shrew, or sengi. The cat-sized animal, which is reported in the Journal of Zoology, looks like a cross between a miniature antelope and a small ant eater.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Chameleons' colourful flashes are social signals
(Jan 28, 2008)
Chameleons are famed for changing colour to blend in with their surroundings and hide from predators – but new research on chameleons in their native habitat shows some of their colour changes evolved for exactly the opposite purpose – attracting attention.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
Synthetic life 'advance' reported
(Jan 25, 2008)
An important step has been taken in the quest to create a synthetic lifeform. A US team reports in Science magazine how it replicated the entire DNA code from a common bacterium in the laboratory. The group hopes eventually to use engineered genomes to make organisms that can produce clean fuels and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Giant palm tree puzzles botanists
(Jan 17, 2008)
Botanists have discovered a new species of giant self-destructing palm in Madagascar which is so large that it can be seen in satellite photos. The plant, which only exists in the remote north-west of the island, is unlike anything else ever found on the island before. Although villagers had known about it for many years none had seen it flower.
Read more. Source: BBC |
'Laughs' not exclusive to humans
(Jan 4, 2008)
The basis for laughter may have originated in an ancient primate ancestral to both humans and modern apes, a study suggests. Scientists found that orang-utans had a sense of empathy and mimicry which forms an essential part of laughter. Facial expressions, such as the open, gaping mouth resembling laughter, were picked up and copied by orang-utans.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Giant rat and new possum found in Indonesia
(Dec 18, 2007)
Two new undocumented mammals – a pygmy possum and a giant rat – have been found in the jungles of a remote mountain range in Indonesia's Papua province, according to a conservation group. During an expedition to Papua's Foja Mountains in June, Conservation International and Indonesian scientists documented the two mammals – a Cercartetus pygmy possum, one of the world's smallest marsupials, and a Mallomys giant rat.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
How elephants keep tabs on family
(Dec 5, 2007)
Elephants keep track on up to 30 absent relatives by sniffing out their scent and building up a mental map of where they are, research suggests. Herd members use their good memory and keen sense of smell to keep in touch as they travel in large groups, according to a study of wild elephants in Kenya. The University of St Andrews studied 36 family groups of elephants living in Amboseli National Park.
Read more. Source: BBC |
'Extraordinary memory' of chimps
(Dec 3, 2007)
Chimpanzees have an extraordinary photographic memory that is far superior to ours, research suggests. Young chimps outperformed university students in memory tests devised by Japanese scientists. The research, published in Current Biology, suggests we may have under-estimated the intelligence of our closest living relatives.
Read more. Source: BBC |
Monkeys reveal brain is hard-wired for counting
(Oct 30, 2007)
You may not want a monkey to balance your chequebook, but you still have to give them credit – new research supports the idea that not only can monkeys understand written numbers, but that individual brain cells may become dedicated to specific numbers. The small study of two rhesus monkeys reveals that cells in their brains respond selectively to specific number values – regardless of whether the amount is represented by dots on a screen or an Arabic numeral.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
Possum breaks record with year-long snooze
(Oct 15, 2007)
A possum has set an enviable record for doing absolutely nothing. After stuffing itself full of food in a laboratory, one curled up and hibernated for a record 367 days. Some mammals, such as ground squirrels, hibernate for up to six months through winter, while a western jumping mouse (Zapus princeps) once hibernated for 320 days in a lab.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
Eighty million years without sex
(Oct 12, 2007)
The mystery of how an animal has survived for 80 million years without sex has been solved by UK scientists. A Cambridge team says the single-celled creature owes its existence to a genetic quirk that offers some recompense for prolonged celibacy. Many asexual organisms have died out because they cannot adapt to changes in the natural world.
Read more. Source: BBC |
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