How sloths got their long neck
19 Oct 2010New research gives insight into one of the few mammals with more than seven neck vertebrae.
News from the Department of Zoology.
New research gives insight into one of the few mammals with more than seven neck vertebrae.
Fishermen barely eking out a profit because of overfishing of their target stock, shrimp, are now surviving by selling their bycatch (the low-value fish also caught in the large, indiscriminate nets). Although good for the fishermen, scientists warn that the prolonged trawl fishing along certain areas will lead to an "ecological catastrophe" and the "permanent loss of livelihoods for fishers" as well as other individuals who work in the industry.
Just as afternoon tea is traditional in England but not in France, different groups of meerkats have different ways of doing things, Cambridge zoologists have found.
Tropical fish alter their behaviour with an eye to the future, researchers at Cambridge have found. This is the first time such behaviour has been seen in any animals except humans.
Using field experiments in Africa and a new computer model that gives them a bird's eye view of the world, Cambridge scientists have discovered how a bird decides whether or not a cuckoo has laid an egg in its nest.
Mother birds communicate with their developing chicks before they even hatch by leaving them messages in the egg, new research by a team from the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, has found.
How two butterfly species have evolved exactly the same striking wing colour and pattern has intrigued biologists since Darwin's day. Now, scientists at Cambridge have found "hotspots" in the butterflies' genes that they believe will explain one of the most extraordinary examples of mimicry in the natural world.
The commonly held assumption that as primates evolved, their brains always tended to get bigger has been challenged by a team of scientists at Cambridge and Durham.
Since Darwin’s time, Amazonian butterflies have intrigued biologists as examples of evolution in action.
Professor Jennifer Clack’s research into one of the major events in the evolutionary history of life on Earth has been honoured by the National Academy of Sciences.