A James Cook University-National Geographic expedition to Cape Melville in north-east Australia has found three vertebrate species new to science and isolated for millions of years—a bizarre looking leaf-tail gecko, a golden-coloured skink and a boulder-dwelling frog that doesn’t need water to breed. The rugged…
The ancestor of snakes and lizards likely gave birth to live young, rather than laid eggs, and over time species have switched back and forth in their preferred reproductive mode, according to our new research, published in print in Ecology Letters Dec. 17. This is a very unusual and controversial finding, and a…
Seadragons are known for their elaborate appendages that help them blend in with their kelp and algae habitats. But an evolutionary tree based on molecular data showed that one of the three species was a faker. The two southern species, the leafy and weedy seadragons, were shown to be each other’s closest…
Sea Star Meltdown A shocking trend has emerged in the world’s premiere ecosystem for sea star biodiversity. The coastline of British Columbia has seen extensive “melting” in its sea star populations, particularly among sunflower sea stars (P. helianthoides.) Divers report that the coastline is thick with these…
