When studying how organisms evolve, biologists consider most traits, or features, as derived from some earlier version already present in their ancestors. Few traits are regarded as truly "novel."
Plants & Animals
Nov 21, 2019
3
1024
You mightn't think that the life of a dung beetle, a creature who eats poop every day of its short life, could get any worse, but you'd be wrong. Dung beetles, also known as rollers, pretty much live in manure. They can be ...
Ecology
Sep 24, 2019
0
5
Animals around the world are seeing their environments change. Climate change is causing heating and changes to weather patterns, the oceans are becoming more acidic, and previously undisturbed habitats are being altered ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 30, 2019
0
5
Researchers have shown for the first time that an animal uses different directional sensors to achieve the highest possible navigational precision in different conditions. When the sun is high, dung beetles navigate using ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 25, 2019
0
0
Food safety regulations increasingly pressure growers to remove hedgerows, ponds and other natural habitats from farms to keep out pathogen-carrying wildlife and livestock. Yet, this could come at the cost of biodiversity.
Ecology
Mar 19, 2019
0
453
Nearly half of all insect species worldwide are in rapid decline and a third could disappear altogether, according to a study warning of dire consequences for crop pollination and natural food chains.
Ecology
Feb 11, 2019
0
3400
Of all nocturnal animals, only dung beetles can hold their course using polarized moonlight. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that beetles can use polarized light when its signal strength is weak, which ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 5, 2019
0
217
Horns have evolved independently multiple times in scarab beetles, but distantly related species have made use of the same genetic toolkit to grow these prominent structures, according to a study publishing October 4, 2018 ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 4, 2018
0
2
A team of researchers at Indiana University has found that a type of nematode offers a positive influence on the dung beetle larval microbiome. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ...
New research led by scientists at the University of Bristol has uncovered that long-term use of some pesticides to treat cattle for parasites is having a significantly detrimental effect on the dung beetle population.
Ecology
Jul 9, 2018
0
312
