All posts by Brent

Bizarre Furry Mammal Is A Giant Sengi

MSNBC:

In the 1970s, Rathbun first described the monogamous behavior of elephant-shrews, which maintain exclusive mating pairs. They got their nickname due to the animals’ long, flexible snouts. But recent research has shown that elephant-shrews, also called sengis, are more closely related to elephants than to shrews.

A Rare Find In Madagascar Gets Its Own Genus

Washington Post:

The palm, which researchers say essentially “flowers itself to death,” is not only a new species. It has forced palm biologists to invent an entirely new genus to accommodate it. That is an almost unheard of event in modern palm tree classification, but one made necessary by its many unique traits and by DNA testing suggesting the tree has been evolving independently of other palms for millions of years.

Mammoth Blondes

MSNBC:

Museum dioramas typically portray mammoths as having shaggy brown coats, but some of the hairy beasts might have been blonde, raven-haired or red-bodied in real life, thanks to a gene that controls hair color in humans and other mammals.

France Was Once An Amazon-like Jungle

MSNBC:

The new study, detailed in the Jan. 4 issue of The Journal of Organic Chemistry, reports the discovery of a new organic compound in amber called “quesnoin,” whose precursor exists only in sap produced by a tree currently growing only in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. The researchers say the amber likely dripped from a similar tree that once covered France millions of years before the continents drifted into their current positions.