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All tagged CommunicationsBiology
Remains of a long-necked dinosaur have been discovered at a fossil site 85 miles east of Madrid, in the central city of Cuenca. The new species (Qunkasaura pintiquiniestra) is described in Communications Biology.
Many species of dinosaurs have been discovered at Hermiin Tsav in the Gobi Desert over the years, but now there is something new to describe: the first swimming dinosaur. The creature was not a giant but a foot-long streamlined beast, with long jaws full of tiny teeth. The theropod, or hollow-bodied dinosaur, had three toes and claws on each limb and swam in prehistoric Mongolia 145 to 66 million years ago when there were lakes and rivers. Seoul National University paleontologist Sungjin Lee and colleagues have named the dinosaur Natovenator polydontus, the “many-toothed swimming hunter.”
We’ve known for some time that the Toxoplasma gondii parasite can infect the brains of rodents, forcing them via mind control into fatal encounters with predators. Now scientists have observed that wolves infected with T. gondii are also altering their behavior, in their case by taking more risks.
Ornithorhynchus anatinus is one odd duck. With a tail like a beaver’s, webbed feet, nostrils that can clamp shut for underwater foraging, this egg-laying mammal seeks prey by detecting electrical fields using receptors on their bills. Having no nipples doesn’t stop them from nursing their young, which feed through pores in mama’s skin.
For more than a century we thought the “fantastic giant tortoise” (Chelonoidis phantasticus) of the Galápagos was extinct, but a 50-year-old female of the species has been found. She’s been named “Fernanda,” after the Fernandina Island in the western Galápagos Archipelago where she was living.
