To understand how these structural properties of human behaviours evolved, we can gain valuable insight from studying the sequential behaviours of nonhuman animals. Among the behaviours of nonhuman apes, tool use has been hypothesised to be a domain of behaviour which...
Article Spotlight: Among the world’s smallest vertebrates: a new miniaturized flea-toad (Brachycephalidae) from the Atlantic rainforest
This new species is distinguished from its congeners by a combination of morphological, bioacoustic, and genetic data. Despite being among the smallest frogs globally (the second smallest amphibian species), it exhibits skeletal traits typical of larger frogs, such as...
Article Spotlight: Divergent effects of short-term and continuous anthropogenic noise exposure on Western Bluebird parental care behavior
Sensory environments are rapidly changing due to increased human activity in urban and non-urban areas alike. For instance, natural and anthropogenic sounds can interfere with parent-offspring communication and mask cues reflective of predation risk, resulting in...
Article Spotlight: Relationship between tooth macrowear and jaw morphofunctional traits in representative hypercarnivores
The mammalian adult dentition is a non-renewable resource. Tooth attrition and disease must be accommodated by individuals using behavioral, physiological, and/or musculoskeletal shifts to minimize impact on masticatory performance. From a biomechanical perspective,...
Article Spotlight: Phylogenetic and taxonomic revisions of Jurassic sea stars
Contrary to prior assumptions, our results indicate that none of the Jurassic taxa investigated belong to Asteriidae or any other modern families, and instead represent stem-forcipulatids. Furthermore, our phylogenetic results suggest that Asteriidae likely originated...
Article Spotlight: Combining citizen science, phylogenetics, and bioacoustics to inform taxonomy and conservation of the Near Threatened Proceratophrys paviotii
Herein, basel on novel data gathered by citizens scientists and specialists, we contribute to the improvement of scientific knowledge and conservation of the Near Threatened Proceratophrys paviotii in order to: 1) test for the first time the phylogenetic position and...
Article Spotlight: A small venomous reptile from the Late Triassic (Norian) of the southwestern United States
Reptile feeding strategies encompass a wide variety of diets and accompanying diversity in methods for subduing prey. One such strategy, the use of venom for prey capture, is found in living reptile clades like helodermatid (beaded) lizards and some groups of snakes,...
Article Spotlight: Sloth metabolism may make survival untenable under climate change scenarios
Although climate change is predicted to have a substantial effect on the energetic requirements of organisms, the longer-term implications are often unclear. Sloths are limited by the rate at which they can acquire energy and are unable to regulate core body...
Article Spotlight: World of Crayfish™: A Web Platform for Global Mapping of Freshwater Crayfish and Pathogens
Freshwater crayfish are amongst the largest macroinvertebrates and play a keystone role in the ecosystems they occupy. Understanding the global distribution of these animals is often hindered due to a paucity of distributional data. Read the research Phys.org Read...
Article Spotlight: The departure of sperm whales in response to the declining jumbo squid population
As sperm whales are important predators that control energy flux in the oceans, changes in their population can be used as a sentinel to measure of ecosystem health. The present study conducted a sperm whale survey of the eastern Midriff Islands Region in the Gulf of...