Page 18 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #04

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BIG BAT DOWN UNDER
Agiant fossilised relative
of NewZealand’s strange
burrowing bats has been
unearthed on South Island.
According to Scientific
Reports,Vulcanops
jennyworthyae
foraged on foot
aswell as on
the wing,and
was about
three times
Female zebrafish may the sizeof the
choose to mate with
older males because their modern bat.
offspring could have a
Q REPRODUCTION better chance of survival. SUCKER PUNCH
The discovery offossil
GETTING BETTER WITH AGE butterflies 70 million
years older than the first
flowering plants,reported
Like memory, eyesightand But biologists have found one accident–males with less in ScienceAdvances,
energy levels (among many very good reason why females genetic quality tend not to challenges theidea that
other things), an animal’s mightchoose to mate with make it thatfar. the insects’characteristic
fertility declines with age. So them – those offspring that In species where males help coiled proboscis evolved to
why are the females of many they do father have higher raise offspring, females might tap nectar.Indeed,flowers
species happy to choose mates survival rates. be better off going for younger, may even have evolved in
that are past their best? New This suggests not onlythat fitter models, but older mates response to the insects.
research on zebrafish might the genetic quality of their maybe particularly attractive in
provide an answer. sperm is little affected by the others such as zebrafish, where LOT OF ROTTERS
Older male zebrafish are less ageing process, but also that males contribute nothing to Dead trees harbour 12 times
virile than their more youthful older males may actually pass reproduction other than sperm. as many species of fungi
competitors, producing fewer, on superior genes to their than was thought.Modern
more sluggish sperm that are offspring. After all, animals genetic techniques allow
SOURCE Proceedings of the Royal Society B
less likely to fertilise an egg. don’t reach a ripe old age by LINK http://bit.ly/2nZjHtO fungi to be identified even
without the visible fruiting
Fish: Linda Lewis/FLPA; hooves: Alex Bamford/Getty; bat illustrat on by Gavin Mou dey; octopus: Brandon Cole/naturep .com
bodies,and The ISME
Journal reports that 300
Q EVOLUTION
trunks in German forests
HOW THE HORSE horse’s digits contained 1254 species.
Tiptoe: the
GOT ITS HOOF have become FRILL SEEKING
one over time.
A new species of giant
Horses are the masters of tiptoe locomotion. The octopus has been
story goes that, for reasons of speed, strength discovered in Prince
and lightness, they have gradually lost all but the William Sound,Alaska.The
middle toe over millions of years of evolution. American Malacological
But new research shows it’s more a case of all Bulletin reports that it
five digits being rolled into one big one. is a frillierversion of the
It has long been suspected that two splint-like Pacific giant octopus,
slivers of bone attached to the remaining toe are which can weigh up to
remnants of the second and fourth digits, and now amalgamation of tissues 75kg.Only immature
amalgamation of tissues
a detailed study of the fossils of ancestral horses derived from digits one, two, four and five, and specimens have been
and of the embryological development of modern nerves and blood vessels from the “missing” digits found so
ones has confirmed this. It has also revealed are also present. far.
that bone from the first and fifth digits has been All in all, the missing toes seem to have been
incorporated into the base of the third, where it recycled, not discarded.
articulates with the wrist bones.
Meanwhile, the‘sole’of the hoof itself is an SOURCE Royal Society Open Science LINK http://bit.ly/2CefUOy

18 BBC Wildlife