Highly dynamic sex chromosomes in cichlid fishes

The cichlids of Lake Tanganyika in Africa are highly diverse—including with regard to sex chromosomes. These have changed extremely frequently in the course of the evolution of these fish and, depending on the species, ...

Scientists dissect the complex choices of animals

What is important when you choose a home? Space, security, light—or a combination of these? Like humans, animals make choices about where to live that have important implications for their livelihoods. But unlike humans, ...

Hybridization boosts evolution

Animals that have either migrated to or been introduced in Central Europe, such as the Asian bush mosquito or the Asian ladybeetle, have adapted well to their new homes due to changing climatic conditions. If these newcomers ...

Brood parasitism in fish

There are other animals besides the cuckoo who smuggle their offspring into another animal's nest. The synodontis multipunctatus, which lives in Lake Tanganyika in Africa and is better known as the cuckoo catfish, is just ...

Evolution: On mosaics and melting-pots

Genetic studies of cichlid fishes suggest that interspecies hybrids played a prominent role in their evolution. Analysis of a unique fossil cichlid from the Upper Miocene of East Africa now provides further support for this ...

Fish cooperate for selfish reasons

Why do animals help raise offspring that aren't their own? A new study by an international team of researchers from Sweden, Canada and the UK shows that fish cooperate to raise another fish's offspring to reduce their own ...

How satellite data changed chimpanzee conservation efforts

Approximately 345,000 or fewer chimpanzees remain in the wild, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a substantial decline from the more than two million that existed a hundred years ago. Humans' ...

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