Latest Biological evolution Stories
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online When you inspect the legs of most birds you will find everything from the knee down is scaly rather than feathery. There is an exception to this rule however. Some birds of prey, such as eagles, have more feathering below the knee extending down to the feet. As for those with scaly legs, it is a remnant of their ancestry, when birds evolved from small two-legged dinosaurs millions of years ago. For the most part, experts...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online Officials at a Japanese aquarium are looking for a high-tech apparatus that will help an injured, endangered loggerhead turtle regain the ability to swim after she lost both front flippers in a 2008 shark attack. The 25-year-old turtle, which is named Yu, currently resides at the Suma Aqualife Park in Kobe, where she was transported following the attack five years ago, according to Ruairidh Villar of Reuters. "She was in a...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online More evidence has emerged, published in the journal Current Biology, claiming birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. The prehistoric Archaeopteryx and bird-like dinosaurs before them had a more primitive version of a wing, according to the recent findings. Scientists are piecing together how the wing evolved, lending to evidence that gliding dinosaurs spent much of their days in the trees. "Before, it seemed that we had more...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online One of the most complete dinosaur fossils ever discovered suggests that feathered dinosaurs were more prevalent than previously thought and could have been the norm, not the exception. The 150 million-year-old fossil found in northern Bavaria shows that the dinosaur had down-like feathers over parts of its front and back as well on its tail. Scientists dubbed the creature Sciurumimus albersdoerferi after "Scirius”, the scientific...
In the animal kingdom, everything is not as it seems. Individuals of the same species can look very different from each other - what biologists term 'polymorphism.' Sometimes the number of distinct visible forms - 'exuberant polymorphisms' -- in a single animal population can reach double figures. But why?Scientists at the University of York have developed computer models that may help to explain how this level of variation arises and persists. Their research is reported in the latest issue...
