Biology

A team of marine biologists from the United States, Spain and Taiwan has discovered a new species of the snapper genus Etelis living in Indo-West Pacific waters. Etelis boweni, caught in American Samoa. Image credit: NOAA Fisheries. Etelis is a small genus of massive bottom-dwelling fishes in the family Lutjanidae. …

Feral equids (horses and donkeys) reintroduced to desert regions in the North American southwest regularly dig wells to expose groundwater, increasing water availability — and sometimes providing the only water available locally — for a wide variety of plant and animal species and ecosystem processes, according to new research led …

Otus brookii brookii, a subspecies of the Rajah scops-owl (Otus brookii) that had been lost to science since 1892, has been discovered alive and photographed in the montane forests of Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, Malaysia. The first photograph of the Bornean Rajah scops-owl (Otus brookii brookii) in the wild. Image …

The two subspecies of the South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) — the Indus river dolphin (Platanista gangetica minor) and the Ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica gangetica) — should each be recognized as distinct full species, according to a new study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science. The Indus …

Arachnologists have discovered a new species of peacock spider (genus Maratus) in the vicinities of Mount McIntyre and Nangwarry in Australia. Maratus nemo. Image credit: Joseph Schubert. Maratus is a relatively large genus of jumping spiders found in Australia and China. Commonly referred to as peacock spiders, they have a …

In a new study, published this week in the journal iScience, a team of researchers showed that Brazil reef octopuses (Octopus insularis) have two different quiescence states that fulfill the behavioral criteria for sleep, namely ‘quiet sleep’ and ‘active sleep.’ Brazil reef octopuses (Octopus insularis) have ‘quiet’ and ‘active sleep,’ …

Biologists have analyzed T cells from the gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica) and uncovered a previously unknown lineage, called γµ T cells, in the marsupial’s spleen. Scanning electron micrograph of a human T cell. Image credit: NIAID. The immune systems of all vertebrates contain T cells that play a fundamental …

Ornithologists from the United States, Brazil and Finland have described two new species of the owl genus Megascops from the Amazon and Atlantic forests. The Alagoas screech owl (Megascops alagoensis) in Brazil. Image credit: Gustavo Malacco. Megascops is the most species-rich owl genus in the Americas, with 21 species currently …

Viruses may be the missing piece of the puzzle that could help explain how soft microbial mats transition into hard stromatolites that are prevalent in such places as Shark Bay and the Pilbara in Australia. Stromatolites at Shark Bay, Western Australia. Image credit: Paul Harrison / CC BY-SA 3.0. Stromatolites …

New research led by the University of Cambridge and the Marine Biological Laboratory demonstrates that common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) can tolerate delays to obtain food of higher quality. The common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis). Image credit: Roger Hanlon. The common cuttlefish is a cephalopod native to the Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, …