The discovery in 2019 of a lone small female tortoise living on one of the most inaccessible islands of the Galapagos Islands has baffled evolutionary biologists. Only one other tortoise, a large male discovered in 1906, ...
Evolution
Jul 19, 2022
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134
Remember the movie The Princess Bride, when the characters debate the existence of R.O.U.S.es (Rodents of Unusual Size), only to be beset by enormous rats? That's kind of what happened here.
Plants & Animals
Sep 27, 2017
1
761
Three dozen endangered giant tortoises, born and raised in captivity, have been released into the wild on one of the Galapagos islands, where their kind is from.
Ecology
Mar 4, 2021
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133
The evolution of giant tortoises might not be linked to islands, as has previously been thought. In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers from Argentina and Germany have presented the most comprehensive family tree of extinct ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 24, 2018
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18
The giant African land snail is a poster child of a global epidemic: the threat of invasive species. The snails are native to coastal East Africa, but are now found across Asia, the Pacific and the Americas – in fact, almost ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 25, 2017
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7
Each year, the land-dwelling Christmas Island red crab takes an arduous and shockingly precise journey from its earthen burrow to the shores of the Indian Ocean where weeks of mating and egg laying await.
Ecology
Oct 10, 2013
2
0
Islands are "laboratories of evolution" and home to animal species with many unique features, including dwarfs that evolved to very small sizes compared to their mainland relatives, and giants that evolved to large sizes.
Evolution
Mar 9, 2023
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178
Spending time with offspring is beneficial to development, but it's proving lifesaving to Galápagos Islands Darwin's finches studied by Flinders University experts.
Plants & Animals
Dec 15, 2021
2
379
Australia, recently devastated by severe wildfires, is no stranger to the consequences of climate change, habitat destruction and invasive species.
Plants & Animals
Feb 24, 2020
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29
"Pepe the Missionary," a giant tortoise who rose to fame as one of the most photographed animals on Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, has died at age 60, officials said Friday.
Ecology
Aug 23, 2014
2
0
