BHL - Biodiversity Heritage Library

This is a SnapShot of BHL in my iTunes

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913)

If you enjoy topics related to Biodiversity and the Origin of Species, the Biodiversity Heritage Library has over 64,000 volumes digitalised from known authors, such as Charles Darwin and Russel Wallace.

Authors that with their knowledge contributed to the development of Natural Sciences therefore deserving a special mention here. Using the iTunes application Darwin's personal notes left on his private library estate, at the University of Cambridge, have been digitally reconstructed and placed among the best volumes of the collection. 

For free, you can download almost all of these books and enjoy their original pictures and their authors private comments.

BHL also sponsors a blog full of interesting articles and every week a different perspective of a scientist' work is eligible for his contribution on the scientific outlook community. 

This week the scientific work chosen was the historical framework of the british naturalist Afred Russel Wallace, known as Darwin's man behind the scenes. 

Known in history as second after Darwin, in a position as unfair as Buzz is over Armstrong, BHL brings us some light over Wallace roll in all the process of the natural selection and the transmutation of species theory.

Hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Map from Wallace's book - "ISLAND LIFE"

Should EXTINCT animals be brought BACK?

TASMANIAN TIGER

National Geographic published today an article about bringing back from the tomb extinct animals through genes manipulation.

Can it be done?

Scientist have made huge advances with cloning technologies and new methods of reading and writing DNA may lead to a genetic proximity of the extinct species whenever DNA can be retrieved from a preserved specimen.

But there are some controversial issues which have been discussed concerning the advantages, or not, of bringing back extinct species.

Isn't it true that, at the present moment, there are so many species in risk of disappearing in the next decade? Shouldn't all efforts and resources be focuses on those species which can still be saved instead of trying to produce miracles on reviving those which haven't their specific environment anymore?

The idea of reviving a specie looks tempting but shouldn't we look straight forward the future?

The discussion is open among scientists and in my opinion it would be interesting to have a Tasmanian Tiger on Earth again, although Indian Tigers are collapsing, as well as Siberian or Sumatrian. 

I remember posting here about the last 3.200 Tigers in the Wild. 

Can we do something NOW in order to prevent cloning these beautiful animals in the near future?

Lets worry about the future and not about the past.

Domenican Republic - A Fly with 20 million Years Old

This is the only known fossil of a bat fly, a specimen at least 20 million years old that carried malaria and fed on the blood of bats. (Photo by George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of Oregon State University)

It was found on an amber piece, dated 20-30 million years.

It's a bat fly. An aggressive blood parasite which consumes blood from their victims. They inhabit from sheeps to humans where they suck their bodies living like parasites from their daily blood collecting.

Researchers, from Oregon State University, discovered this well preserved specimen on the Dominican Republic, on an amber stone, in what was then an oozing tree sap.

This is the only fossil ever found of a bat fly, and scientists say it’s an extraordinary discovery. It was also carrying malaria, further evidence of the long time that malaria has been prevalent in the New World. The genus of bat fly discovered in this research is now extinct. from here

Cricket Sounds from the Jurassic with 165 Million Years

 

Behaviors are always challenging to get reconstructed, specially if we are talking about a Jurassic sound with about 165 million years. But that was exactly the challenged that scientists faced when they decided to inraveal the song that the Archaboilus musicus stridulating katydid, on a dinnassours era.

It was upon discovery of a bushcricket fossil, from the Jurassic period, with well preserved wings and well visible stridulating organ, that researchers could compare the exctinct cricket to 59 living species.

Based on physiology and the comparisons, they estimated the pitch and length of each note that the ancient species sang. Here’s the call: [Cricket sound] coming from a Jurassic era.

After all, it's not so different from any nowadays little country cricket.

 from here

Missing Links - Dinosaur Fethers Color Determined

Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx lived in the Late Jurassic Period around 150 million years ago, in what is now southern Germany during a time when Europe was an archipelago of islands in a shallow warm tropical sea, much closer to the equator than it is now.

Similar in shape to a European Magpie, with the largest individuals possibly attaining the size of a raven, Archaeopteryx could grow to about 0.5 metres (1.6 ft) in length. Despite its small size, broad wings, and inferred ability to fly or glide, Archaeopteryx has more in common with other small Mesozoic dinosaurs than it does with modern birds. In particular, it shares the following features with the deinonychosaurs (dromaeosaurs and troodontids): jaws with sharp teeth, three fingers with claws, a long bony tail, hyperextensible second toes ("killing claw"), feathers (which also suggest homeothermy), and various skeletal features.

For the very first time, scientists have determined the color of fossilized feather Archaeopteryx, a birdlike dinosaur that represents an evolutionary transition between dinosaurs and today's birds.

In a research taken partially by the National Geographic Society, headed by Ryan Carney of Brown University, investigators used a specialized type of electron microscope to determine the pigmentation of the feather, which they say was black. -  from here

Galapagos Tortoise - Rediscovered

Yale University

A giant Galapagos tortoise, made famous by Darwin and thought to be extinct for over 150 years, still exists on the volcanic slopes of the northern shore of the tropical island "Isabela" in the Galapagos archipelago, according to new research.

Genetic analysis found that hybrids resulted from matings between the "extinct" tortoise and another species.
This is the first time that a species has been rediscovered using genetic footprint tracking. from here

Neither animal nor bacteria

Cientists have been perplexed with the origin of an unusually complex appearance of a group of 570-million-year-old fossils from Doushantuo, China. 

The discovery has sparked debate among palaeontologists but researchers haven't been able to decide whether the remains come from animals, bacteria or close relatives of animals that thrived at the dawn of animal evolution. 

But a team has now used three-dimensional scanning techniques to take a closer look at the fossils — and has decided that in fact, they are none of these.
more here

X-ray microtomography reveals the shape of the 'cell nuclei' (yellow) in a computer model of a fossil from Doushantuo in China, shown against the backdrop of the rock in which it is found.
- Swedish Museum of Natural History -

Head Features Diversified before Body Shapes and Types

Two radiations of ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii), Carboniferous forms (facing left) and acanthomorph teleosts (facing right) underwent distinct cranial (feeding) and later postcranial (habitat) stages in trait diversification. Credit: Photographs by Lauren Sallan and Matt Friedman

By analyzing the physical features of fossil fish that diversified around the time of two separate extintion events, scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of Oxford found that head features diversified before body shapes and types. The discovery disputes previous models of adaptive radiations and suggests that feeding-related evolutionary pressures are the initial drivers of diversification.

"It seems like resources, feeding and diet are the most important factors at the initial stage," said lead author Lauren Sallan, graduate student in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago. "Strange heads show up first – crushing jaws, animals with big teeth, with long jaws – but they're all pretty much attached to the same body." more here

Fossils of an extinct giant have been dicovered in Tasmania

An artist's impression of a dicynodont living in the lush forests of its time.
Credit: Pat Rick/Kadimaraka

Fossils found in Tasmania have scientists convinced the dicynodont, considered a distant ancestor of mammals, once roamed Australia and survived the Great Extinction.
The 250 million-year-old remains of the 'mammal-like reptile' were discovered by a nature-loving Hobart couple out on a walk.

The bull-sized creature, which scientists say had 10cm-long tusks and somewhat resembled a giant wombat, lived through an event sometimes called the Great Dying between the Permian and Triassic periods.

The disaster wiped out 90 per cent of land-based life and 70 per cent of that in the seas. The dicynodont pre-dated dinosaurs by 30 million years and became extinct around 20 million years ago.more here