In the last four decades, dugong (Dugong dugon) aggregations have been rarely reported from the geographically isolated, vast seascape of the Andaman Islands, India. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, hunting, coastal development, and habitat loss are the major causes of this change in the social system of dugongs in …
A FOSSIL jawbone, which was discovered in March near Inverloch, about 150 kilometres southeast of Melbourne, Australia, might change all that we know about the evolution of mammals. The established view is that almost all mammals - including humans - are placentals which originated in the northern hemisphere more than …
The findings of a study team, comprising zoologists led by Takeo Kawamachi of Osaka City University and commissioned by Japan's Mammalogical Society, say that half of Japan's mammals face the threat of extinction. The results also say that the government's official assessment has underestimated the country's wildlife crisis. The team …
scientists in China are attempting for the first time to create a test-tube panda. Since the beginning of this year, China's Laboratory of Genetic Embryo Engineering on Endangered Wildlife has been equipped to attempt this experiment. The only ingredients missing were the female panda eggs. But when the laboratory heard …
It seemed to be a rough dirt road leading to nowhere. But these are the the remains of hippo trails leading to dried-up wallowing pools in a remote part of Tanzania. Hippos wallow in freshwater pools during the day to escape the sun. At night they plow through the mud …
Giant pandas mate but once a year, producing at the most two cubs, only one of which usually survives the reproductive habits that try the patience of zoologists working to save the endangered species. Frustrated with the failure of other artificial breeding methods, Chinese scientists are now considering the possibility …
A savage territorial has been sparked off between chimpanzees in the tropical forests of this central African country. Apparently, logging in Gabon's forested area, is responsible for this incident, informed Lee White, a field biologist for one Wildlife Conservation society recently. Gabon, which has an estimated 50,000 chimpanzees, has until …
RECENT findings of a regional TRAFFIC (a joint programme of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature and the World Conservation Union) has expressed concern that trade in bear organs may continue to place pressure on the declining wild bear population, especially in Asia. East Asia is the centre for the …
A recent study of yellow baboons suggests that environmental stress leads to infertility in them. In a season when food is scarce, conception rates are likely to halve. Scientists could correlate the environmental stress to low levels of progesterone in these primates. The study strongly suggests that reducing stress levels …
Scientists attending the recent Annual Congress of European Society of Cardiology in Birmingham, UK, believe that the Chlamydia pneumoniae and Helicobacter pylori bacteria can cause heart attacks. People with coronary artery disease were observed having high levels of antibodies to these bacteria in their blood. The inflammation caused by the …
According to the latest red list of endangered species brought out by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), mammals top the list of animals facing extinction. This runs contrary to the generally held assumption that birds are the most threatened class of creatures. Interestingly, the new list suggests that 11 per …
nearly one-fourth of the world's species of mammals are threatened with extinction, and about half of those may be gone in as little as a decade, according to the most complete global analysis of endangered animal species ever compiled. The report, which several conservationists described as surprising and frightening, was …
startling expressions of possible environmental degradation have been found in Minnesota, us . Deformed frogs have been seen in more than 100 sites in 54 of Minnesota's counties. At a recent conference of scientists convened by the Environmental Protection Agency ( epa ) in Duluth, Minnesota, the recurring thought was …
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with those at the Marine Biological Lab in Massachusetts, US, have worked out the mechanism behind the fastest muscle among vertebrates. The toadfish's swim-bladder muscle contracts and relaxes 200 times per second as it makes its mating call, compared to 0.5-5.0 hertz …
scientists from the University of Miami in Florida, us, have concluded that it is a toxin secreted from red tide which has caused a record number of deaths among manatees (sirenian mammals belonging to the genus Trichechus , found in the waters of the Atlantic and adjacent rivers) in Florida …
THE development of a multicellular organism begins with a fertilised egg and proceeds through a series of inter- mediate steps -growth, cell division, differentiation into specialised parts, and so on -before culminating in the adult. An important part of the process is what is called pattern formation, the orderly arrangement …
Scientists from the Universities of Udine and Padova in Italy, and the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia, have observed a rather interesting habit among the European variety of toads called Bufo bufo and South American cane toads: they prefer the use of their right forelimbs. When …
THE chimaera - in Greek mythology - is a beast with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a snake. Biologists use the word to refer to something no less exotic: an organism whose tissues have two or more genetically different origins. Theoretically, …
PEGGY Rismiller of the University of Adelaide has unveiled the sexual exploits of the elusive and solitary egg-laying Australian mammal, the spiny anteater or echidna, which might help to successfully breed them in captivity. Rismiller found that during the breeding season, which occurs in winter, 10 or more males form …
THE ASIAN muskox was believed to be one of the species that became extinct about 10,000 years along with mammoths and other large mammals, when the Ice age or Pleistocene came to an end. But now, the discovery of a few skulls of the muskox and plaques depicting the animal …
AFTER three decades of dogged research, biologists have discovered how the sea urchin, a relative of the starfish, mates. They now hope this will help them solve some fundamental problems in developmental and evolutionary biology. The sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), like its other marine cousins, jettisons its eggs into the …
