To help exemplify the overall phenomenon of flying foxes shrinking, two specimens from the Field Museum's collections. The smaller specimen on the left is from 1995; the larger specimen on the right is from 1948. (Field Museum via SWNS) The world’s biggest…
The world’s biggest bats are shrinking, reveals new research. Flying fox fruit bats are getting smaller — and it may be down to human hunters, according to the study. Comparisons of the bats with five-foot-wingspans collected over time in Madagascar suggest…
Madagascan flying foxes, easy targets for hunters, have shrunk since the 1980s Malagasy flying foxes (Pteropus rufus) (shown) have skulls that are 6 percent smaller than they were prior to the 1980s. Large-scale hunting by humans may be the reason. These big bats…
A review argues that zebrafish's extra round of whole genome duplication 350 million years ago created duplicated gene pairs whose joint study reveals how protein function, regulation, and disease mechanisms evolve.
Published Oct 29, 2026 10:00 AM EDT It’s the stuff of nightmares. A bat the size of a large-breed puppy with five-foot-wide wingspans darting across the sky. But don’t worry. The giant flying foxes want fruit, not your blood. However, biologists do have…
A new study of eight field bindweed accessions from Marsa Matrouh, Egypt, shows that flower color biotypes carry distinct morphological and genetic signatures, yet geography outweighs color in shaping genetic clustering.
The most compelling candidates were genes flagged consistently across all five methods. Among them was MITF, described by the authors as a key regulator of pigmentation and protection against ultraviolet radiation. The second was ACSL6, which the authors note participates in…
An integrative study of Camellia species from section Tuberculata synonymizes Camellia zengii with C. lipingensis while confirming C. rhytidocarpa as a distinct species. Botanists studying a group of wild camellias from southern China have settled a decades-old naming dispute with an unusually…
In an effort to keep NSF.gov current, the archive contains older information that may not reflect current policy or programs. Marine biologists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have created a line of sea urchins whose genetic makeup is…
Zoo-housed ruffed lemurs responded to a new scent enrichment made from the odour of a fertile female, with sexual behaviours increasing significantly and two females becoming unexpectedly pregnant after the study, according to a peer-reviewed study published in BMC Zoology…
Evolution in action: natural selection, adaptation and speciation, convergent and sexual selection, experimental evolution and how traits evolve.
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