The apes and monkeys represent one of the most interesting and numerous mammalian orders. With the lemurs, lorises and marmosets to set the tone for diversity, the need is to maintain conservation efforts and increase the chances for survival. Too much human expansion on this small planet is leaving little breathing space for other primates, or even ourselves in many cases. Limits have to be set and greed controlled before we are the only apes left.
Animals react to fire in varying ways. Here, the sensible approach is used by the monotreme mammal, indicating one possible way in which we all survived total wipeout!!!
Plants such as Rafflesia spp. are closest to the Euphorbias, but literally stand out as amazing examples of evolution to attract insects for pollination and mammals for dispersal. We take off our hats, and place it round our noses to a plant that parasitizes and almost paralyses us, and perpetually pleases flies!!!
The distribution of animals and plants can be absolutely fascinating. While fossils may not interest everybody, the mammals that occupy our earth currently give us a wealth of information. This concerns climate and geological change, as their ancestors, and those who didnt make it, show us the details of the climate changes that concern us very deeply at this moment in time.
How can Paris and its future effects have anything to do with our endangered large birds and mammals? The answer is in a clever paper today that explains why we are losing even more of our forests than we thought. Preserve our fauna, our flora, their habitats and the niches they conserve and we will see more trees and animals that these ecosystems desperately need.
Science has followed many large mammals recently, in efforts to conserve and understand their habitats and their lives. Now, new modes of migration in humpbacks open up a can of krill for yet more investigations.
It isnt just about apes. The whole study of animal society has been based on dogs, cattle and others such as our close relatives. Social behaviour undoubtedly began in another mammal group, even if it then became extinct. Investigating such behavioural structures has apparently totally neglected the very obvious, early small mammals that could well have advanced at least to the primate level, and we even left out the small species still here for us to observe.
This time, we dont need to hunt them down, although researchers found it almost impossible to find bowheads. They number 24,000 approximately, hidden beneath the ice and distant shores of uninhabited areas, but will prove useful as the longest-lived mammal. Their genes provide something we couldnt evolve for ourselves- a healthy life!
The sloths, anteaters and armadillos are bound together despite millions of years of evolutionary separation. The reason is their vision, limiting them to dimly-lit habitats, and causing many deaths in accidents for the armadillos (and humans.)
The mammals are great at adaptation to different niches, but we cant easily study many lost species that must have contributed to the ecology of living species, as well as being their ancestors!
The large whales are now almost considered as close relatives. We all regard them as conserved by our actions, apart from one or two nations. Now the need is to look at the smaller mammals, the almost-extinct, and those creatures who never get a look-in when the IUCN declare others as critically-endangered. Some species such as the whale can now function even as samplers of the species beneath them in the food webs. We can get some idea of other populations progress if we study the diet of certain critical animals. The plant kingdom have already given us information about dim and distant climates and still more will appear as technologies allow us access to information we urgently need about how the Earth works.
Any new species that is discovered is worth our time and effort to conserve. This mammal has been climbing in the Andean forest since the Incas kept them. We missed a lot of animals up there, as nobody lives in the remote area any more. Now we can make up for any Inca maltreatment, or reconcile with what may have been a cuddly pet!
The mammals and the birds are in competition. How many species will we find that can understand tool-using concepts, and then socially interact with their uses?
How could you classify the diets of mammals for so long without noting the need many species have for fruit, certain plants, or even a bit of animal material for a so-called herbivore? Carnivores need roughage in the same way the human diet has special requirements and herbivores can cheat by gaining essential minerals they would be unable to extract from plants.
We have problems with rare mammals everywhere, but to lose more of the precious faunal elements of the Australian bush amounts to an almost criminal lack of worldwide responsibility. The marsupials and monotremes do live in the Americas and New Guinea east of the Wallace Line, so their fascinating evolution and divergences can be discovered too.
How did social behaviour evolve, and why do we see it in so many animals, no matter what level of taxonomy they are found? Spiders, sticklebacks and insects, birds, mammals and reptiles are all involved in complex social interaction.
Animals of unfamiliar as well as familiar types took up niches in the ancient ecosystems, as birds and mammals developed and, of course, feathered dinosaurs ruled the roost!
Fish diversify into thousands of species, especially cichlids in African lakes. Mammals and birds can show equal diversity sometimes, so it would be intriguing to find more vertebrate classes subjected to investigations such as these, proving some genetic matches for lost and current animals we want to know more about.
When will the bees and other helpful insects be protected in the same way as (some) mammals and birds? It's obvious that the fruit industries will collapse without them, so for the most selfish of reasons, we know we have to try and preserve these species. Unfortunately, there are always those who suffer from short sight, or simply greed for bigger and bigger short-term profits.
Mammals survive only in habitats that we keep safe. In Asia, Africa and South America, the final discoveries are being made of almost extinct species, but they won't last long! We have reached the end of jungle, the loss of true discovery, but there is a possibility we can maintain our wonder at these individuals with adaptations to the forest that belong in our ancestors dreams.
We can visualise distant ancestral forms of many organisms by imagining similar species alive today, or complete fossils. Here the scarcity of evidence on early mammalian teeth makes it difficult, but not impossible, to show how incredible events shaped our past into the flower, insect and mammal-dominated Paleocene.
This lake will become a great tourist attraction with its unbeatable karst scenery, but at what cost do we develop for tourists, losing even mammal biodiversity.
The life of the Yasuni Reserve in the Amazon is not as we know it. With 44 times the biodiversity of the whole of one country in one hectare, it exhibits a show of insect, amphibian, bird and even mammalian species that we cant imagine. Now replace them all with oil rigs.
When Chinese people eat scales of pangolins, they are destroying several species of a unique and precious mammal in the forest food web. Vietnam has begun the slow process of re-education and also getting the animals back into a depleted number of habitats.
1031 large orders of the Mammalia, excluding whales and bats, have been followed during the Coenozoic since dinosaurs disappeared and some small mammals appeared.
The meat-eaters are an order of mammals with seven families. Among those, the otters are one of the five groups of the mustelid family.
Two dolphin-like Jurassic crocodiles ruled the sea like orcas do now. Whale-like reptiles have been recognised by several generations of fossil hunters as parallel to modern mammals.
T-Rex came and went, then mammals ruled, all the while the single-celled archaeon persisted with its slow growth lifestyle. Distantly related to bacteria, archaea have the slowest growth rate known to date.
Theropod dinosaurs ruled the earth then died out in the Cretaceous, leaving the little mammals to diversify. Many genomes are now examinable for signs of diversification in these species' past.
Mammals with greater diversity adapt better to climate change, an American study suggests. The research looked at how mammals adapted to changes in climate across North America over a 56 million year period known as 'deep time'.
Some carnivores often lose their taste for sweet foods and mammals that swallow their food whole have little ability to taste, scientists have found.
Some mammals can produce eggs into their adult life, providing hope that stem cells could become a staple of medical ideas. New research explores human female ovary capabilities.
Horse for Courses! Scientific models to project climate change are continuously being developed. New evidence on how mammals body size corresponds to global warming has just been published.
It takes 24 million generations for a mammal the size of a mouse to become as large as an elephant, but just 100,000 generations to reverse the process and reach extreme dwarfism, say scientists studying mammal evolution.
The Burmese python is an invasive species with established populations in the Everglades National Park in Florida. The pythons are having a devastating effect on native mammal populations.
Mammals, birds, amphibians and many other groups are exposed to development or climate change threats in isolated parts of the Andes in Amazonian Peru and Bolivia.
Dolphins, smaller whales, seals and other marine mammals are among the 87 species eaten in a staggering 114 countries throughout the world, a new study has revealed.
Human-Animal conflict research carried out by Dr. Lucy E. King was based on the premise that elephants, like most if us, are scared of being stung by bees. This led to an innovative beehive fence to reduce conflict between the huge mammal and the local people in Kenya.
A new edition of the Red List of Threatened Species includes the world's most vulnerable creatures who are in danger of being wiped out.
The whale itself is an incredible find, a new species, to be named after its origins as Aegyptocetus tarfa. Both Philip Gingerich of University of Michigan and Giovanni Bianucci of Universita di Pisa believe that 40 million years ago, this amazing link was hauling itself in and out of the sea at a time when these mammals were still semi-aquatic.
Guillermo Rougier of the University of Louisville, Kentucky report two very significant Dryolestoid fossil skulls from the Cretaceous. Rougier, Apesteguia, and Gaetano publish the paper in Nature as an Argentinian/US collaboration.
Mammals have developed a uniquely efficient blood clotting mechanism, which probably offered a survival advantage. But that same advantage comes at a price: a higher risk of heart disease. The culprits are important components of mammalian blood known as platelets, which helped protect early mammals from injury.
New research shows how elephants have adapted to extreme heat in a manner similar to desert mammals such as camels. Elephants have evolved a novel strategy for regulating body temperature, which allows them to endure soaring temperatures during the day without succumbing to heat stress.
Whales range across the oceans paying no heed to international boundaries, so a new deal between American and French Caribbean sancturies is good news for migrating humpback whales. Humpbacks travel more than 3,000 miles between the two safe havens, which will now better coordinate their conservation work and study the threats the majestic mammals face.
A camera trap study spanning three continents and seven countries has taken some 52,000 images, allowing a rare glimpse into the lives of some of the world's most endangered mammals. The study has made it clear that habitat loss and fragmented forests are detrimental to the survival of many species.
Despite a decade of conflict in Afghanistan, the country's wildlife is holding on. A new survey carried out by Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) scientists has shown that large mammals are surviving in some areas of Afghanistan after ten years of conflict.
With the bushmeat trade growing annually, experts recognise that innovative solutions are required to halt this illegal activity. Commercial trading in bushmeat - the meat and other parts of wild mammals, birds and reptiles - is a highly lucrative industry, particularly prevalent in central Africa. Bushmeat trading is on the rise within many central African countries
A dangerous toxin has been found in an endangered Hawaiian seal, further threatening its survival. Scientists from the American National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discovered ciguatoxin in the Hawaiian monk seal and are concerned other marine mammals may have come into contact with the poison which is produced by marine algae.
A research group from Brown University have discovered that rainfall distribution affected the chosen habitat of mammals over 200 million years ago. A team of scientists at Brown University have established that early mammals confined themselves to one area of the continent while early reptiles known as procolophonids lived in another section.
Acoustic surveying is bringing the amazing deep-sea hunts of beaked whales to light, in research published today in PloS One, the open-access science journal. Not only does the study provide a better understanding of an enigmatic group of marine mammals - the information could help avoid the tragedy of sonar-associated whale strandings.
A predilection for larger, fatter Weddell seals has been noted by NOAA scientists studying killer whales, in the icy waters off the Antarctic Peninsula. The study in Marine Mammal Science shows they use astounding tactics of cooperation to ensure Weddell stays on the menu - creating waves to wash their prey off of floes, and then sharing the hapless seal once drowned.
Although large animals in French forests are responsible for a certain amount of damage, they also are effective in contributing to plant diversity. They discovered that one plant, the gypsy flower, was not found at the time of the original survey and only began to appear in 1981. It is now widespread, particularly in areas most frequented by large forest mammals.
Zoos around the world are being asked to team up to shelter and breed endangered animals as a form of biodiversity insurance. The research found that between 20 and 25 percent of endangered species of mammals are already kept at the zoos and just a slightly lower figure for birds. However, the concern is that the species that are facing an acute risk of extinction are not so well represented.
Great white shark population is worryingly low, say scientists. Great white sharks have an unwarranted reputation. In the media, sharks are cast as villains - man-eaters and killing machines. This couldn't be further from the truth. Great white sharks rarely attack humans and they play a vital role in the marine ecosystem. As top predators, sharks help to control many fish and marine mammal populations
Research shows how newborn mammals have the ability to repair damage to their hearts - an ability that has been lost by adulthood. It might seem like something from science fiction, but researchers at The University of Texas South-Western Medical Centre have discovered that if the heart of a newborn mammal gets damaged it can completely heal itself.
Colombian rainforests under threat due to an increase in production of coca to meet world demand for cocaine. More than 1,821 species of birds, 623 species of amphibians, 467 species of mammals, 518 species of reptiles and 3,200 species of fish are found, mainly in the country's vast tracts of tropical forest.
Over the past few years, the polar bear has become something of a 'poster animal' for the environmental movement. Rightly or wrongly, campaigners have used the iconic mammal's plight as a wake-up call, warning government, businesses and individual consumers that, if they don't clean up their act, these bears, and many more species besides, will be lost forever.
Most years about 4000 marine mammals beach on US coasts and the causes are often hard to determine. New research in Florida tested the hearing of beached or net-entangled animals that survived, and found that almost 60% of stranding bottlenose dolphins were severely or profoundly deaf.