Archive | conservation biology

Siemens donates SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner to National Museum of Natural History

Siemens donates SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner to National Museum of Natural History

With the gift of a Siemens SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner from Siemens Healthcare, Smithsonian researchers are acquiring information about museum objects that is fundamentally changing the way scientists examine specimens [...more]

New Acquisitions, anthropology, conservation biology, materials science Comments (1)

New genetic evidence confirms coyote migration route to Virginia and hybridization with wolves

New genetic evidence confirms coyote migration route to Virginia and hybridization with wolves

In a new study researchers from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation and Evolutionary Genetics used DNA from coyote scat (feces) to trace the route that led some of the animals to colonize in Northern Virginia. [...more]

Featured, conservation biology, zoology Comments (1)

Tree dwelling animals were first to fly, study shows

Tree dwelling animals were first to fly, study shows

Adding wings to a robotic bug helped it run faster and better, but was it enough to achieve takeoff? [...more]

conservation biology, zoology Comments (1)

Super tough seed coat keeps Michaux’s sumac on critically endangered list

Super tough seed coat keeps Michaux’s sumac on critically endangered list

It is one of the rarest shrubs in the southeastern United States but for scientists trying to save it, the critically endangered Michaux’s sumac (Rhus michauxii) is not cooperating. [...more]

conservation biology Comments (1)

Dodo bird a resilient island survivor before the arrival of humans, study reveals

Dodo bird a resilient island survivor before the arrival of humans, study reveals

A new study on the dodo’s island home of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, paints a picture of this unusual bird as an intrepid survivor on par with the giant tortoise for its resiliency. [...more]

conservation biology, paleontology Comments (1)

Location matters: For invasive aquatic species, it’s better to start upstream

Location matters: For invasive aquatic species, it’s better to start upstream

These green crabs have been doing a number on native shellfish. They eat a lot of clams. And they're a very cosmopolitan species—they've now spread all over, to places as far afield as the West Coast of the U.S. and South Africa. [...more]

conservation biology Comments (1)

What makes rainforests unique? History, not ecology.

What makes rainforests unique? History, not ecology.

History and geology, not current ecology, are likely what has made tropical forests so variable from site to site. [...more]

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Ability to raft with flotsam and use non-reef habitats helps tropical fish journey to new places, study finds

Ability to raft with flotsam and use non-reef habitats helps tropical fish journey to new places, study finds

Depending on where the fish disperse from, the use of ‘stepping stones', flotsam or simply being an adult can help in the journey to find a new home. [...more]

Research Topics, conservation biology, zoology Comments (0)

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This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of long-proboscid insects that lived in Asia from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. The paper documents the first formal record of fossil Aneuretopsychidae in China. The new fossils reveal previously unknown and detailed structure of the mouthparts, antennae, head, thorax, legs and abdomen of this distinctive insect lineage.

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