A new study involving bat skulls, bite force measurements and scat samples collected by an international team of evolutionary biologists is helping to solve a nagging question of evolution: Why some groups of animals develop scores of different species over time while others evolve only a few. Their findings appear in the current issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
It is difficult for humans to imagine that a world of color and sound exists outside of the one that we can perceive, but for some organisms that world is a reality. Usually these animals aren’t ones that we can readily relate to; bats and dolphins are two examples that both possess the ability to hear and emit high-frequency sounds. Continue reading Tarsiers — Communication in the Ultrasound
Large, poisonous rats roam the Earth. It sounds like a post-apocalyptic scene from a B movie, but it’s not. Jonathan Kingdon, who mammalogists will know as the author of the The Kingdon Pocket Guide to African Mammalsand many other books on African mammals, and his colleagues discovered one of the most interesting and unusual behaviors in mammals.
You may have heard of freshwater sharks, but what about freshwater cetaceans? Pods of gregarious white belugas leave the ocean and move up large rivers (e.g. St. Lawrence River) in the summer months to feed on fish and benthic invertebrates. However, these beautiful whales are only temporary visitors to riverine environments. River dolphins are the true freshwater cetaceans.
This is a blog about mammals, mammalian research, and mammal news. The goal is to inform mammalogists, students of mammalogy, and the public about the fascinating lives of mammals.