Evolutionary Biology

The Lepidopteran is the first one found to have sex determined by RNA rather than by a protein

The high levels may help the seals survive their long, deep dives

An octopus might be one of the most intelligent invertebrates, but it doesn’t always know what, exactly, its arms are doing. How these animals manage to avoid tangling themselves up is a major feat.

If you appreciate John J. Audubon’s exacting detail and beautiful compositions and you marvel at the encyclopedic knowledge and delicate illustrations in the famous Sibley Bird Guides you may be interested to know that there are many contemporary masters following in their footsteps today.

A review of Nicholas Wade’s book, “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History“. In this book NYT science writer Nicholas Wade advances two simple premises: firstly, that we should stop looking only toward culture as a determinant of differences between populations and individuals, and secondly, that those who claim that race is only a [...]

In a further effort to relieve Turtle Guilt (see the previous turtle-themed Tet Zoo article), I give you the following article devoted wholly to kinosternids, an exclusively American group of about 25 species of seemingly mundane and unspectacular turtles.

Say “Hello, my baby. Hello, my darling...” to 14 newly described frog species that kick and dance like Michigan J. Frog from the classic Warner Brothers animated cartoon, One Froggy Evening.

Summer beckons in the northern latitudes. As temperatures warm, beachgoers will flood sandy coasts, carrying bags of potato chips and sandwiches.

An evolutionary analysis shows that the two species diverged within the past 500,000 years

In 1828, in a short paper in the journal Spicilegia Zoologica, British zoologist John Edward Gray reported six “new and undescribed” marine animals, among them a small dolphin found off southern Africa’s Atlantic coast.

There's been a bit of a monitor lizard thing going on here for the past few months: articles have covered Australian goannas, the Komodo dragon Varanus komodoensis, Dumeril's monitor and Timor and Peachthroat monitors, and the `prasinoid' tree monitors.

Perhaps you’ve heard of — or even read — the children’s book “Everyone Poops“. This illustrative tome explains that because everyone eats, everyone poops.