Q & A: New Research Explores Evolutionary History of Central and South American Anoles
Jonathan Huie, a CCAS doctoral student, recently published a paper that bucks long held assumptions about which environments are hotbeds for extreme morphologies.
The mainland ground anole Anolis tandai from Brazil. (Photo: Ivan Prates)
June 02, 2021
By Kristen Mitchell
A George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences Ph.D. student recently published a paper about the evolution of Central and South American anoles, a group of tropical lizards that have been historically understudied compared to their distant relatives in the Caribbean. The study was a collaboration with researchers from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
Lewis address will honor Margaret Collins, legendary Black entomologist and civil rights advocate
Vernard Lewis, Ph.D., BCE
Annapolis, MD; May 24, 2021 Vernard Lewis, Ph.D., BCE, emeritus cooperative extension specialist at the University of California, Berkeley, has been selected to deliver the Founders Memorial Award lecture at Entomology 2021, the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America (ESA).
The Founders Memorial Award was established in 1958 to honor the memory of scientists who made outstanding contributions to entomology. Each year at the ESA Annual Meeting, the recipient of the award delivers the Founders Memorial Lecture, the topic of which is a deceased entomologist.
Nala Rogers, Staff Writer
(Inside Science) When you first hear it, a cicada chorus may sound like simple buzzing. But to a cicada, that cacophony is full of meaning.
There are three species in Brood X, the cohort of 17-year cicadas now emerging in much of the eastern U.S. Members of each species congregate with their own kind and talk to each other with their own species-specific sounds. Males sing to court females and jam the songs of other males, while females make clicks with their wings to encourage or repel suitors.
Humans can learn to decode these sounds. John Cooley, a biologist at the University of Connecticut, can speak cicada so well he can seduce insects of either sex. He uses his voice to imitate males and gentle finger snaps to imitate females.
Biden Admin Urges Change in Fishing Practices to Save Endangered Whales
U.S. commercial fishing practices must change to prevent the extinction of North Atlantic right whales, the administration of President Joe Biden said on Thursday, as it prepares a list of new regulations to prevent whale entanglements in lobster and crab gear.
The scientific assessment from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries unit is a milestone in finalizing a handful of proposed reforms of commercial fishermen mainly intended to reduce the amount of vertical rope in whale habitat.
The lobster industry, centered in Maine, has said it is willing to make changes to protect the whales if necessary, but argues that they have seen little evidence their gear is to blame for whale deaths.
The world’s oldest known tools used for creating tattoos have been discovered in Tennessee. The sharpened ends of turkey leg bones, which were believed to have been used as tattoo needles, date back to at least 3,620 years ago. As a matter of fact, they could be as old as 5,520 years.
These are significantly older than the tattoo kit that was found in Tonga and date back about 2,700 years. That tattoo kit included tools made from human bones, bone combs, and an ink pot.
The tools found in Tennessee were analyzed and experts believe they were used by Native Americans thousands of years ago. They were uncovered in a male’s burial pit located at the Fernvale site. Additional finds in the pit included two turkey wing bones that contained pigment residue. This suggests that those bones were also used during the tattooing process. Seashells with pigment stains indicate that they were used to hold the ink that the tattoo artists dipped the bone needles into. (A picture of the turkey b