August 15, 2011. From hot pink to traditional French and Lady Gaga’s sophisticated designs, manicured nails have become the grammar of fashion. But they are not just pretty — when nails appeared on all fingers and toes in modern primates about 55 million years ago, they led to the development of critical functions, including finger pads that […]
July 27, 2010. Hormonal contraceptives change the ways captive ring-tailed lemurs relate to one another both socially and sexually, according to a Duke University study that combined analyses of hormones, genes, scent chemicals and behavior. Contraception alters the chemical cues these scent-reliant animals use to determine genetic fitness, relatedness and individuality. And, as a sort of double […]
May 27, 2010. Political and social chaos and a lack of international protections have put several species of rosewood trees in Madagascar in danger of becoming extinct from illegal logging, according to a policy forum paper in the latest issue of Science. Read the full story here.
May 10, 2010. It’s in the teeth. An odd mosaic of dental features recently unearthed in northern Egypt reveals a previously undocumented, highly-specialized primate called Nosmips aenigmaticus that lived in Africa nearly 37 million years ago. Because it is only known from its teeth, the paleontologists who discovered it don’t know what its body looked like, but […]
January 20, 2010. How did the lemurs, flying foxes and narrow-striped mongooses get to the large, isolated island of Madagascar sometime after 65 million years ago? A pair of scientists say their research confirms the longstanding idea that the animals hitched rides on natural rafts blown out to sea. Read the full story here.
December 2, 2009. Chemical identifiers secreted from the genital glands of lemurs, allow them to avoid incest and also to engage in nepotism. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have identified the smells used by both male and female ring-tailed lemurs to advertize their family ties. Read the full story here.
June 23, 2008. Perhaps judging a man by his cologne isn’t as superficial as it seems. Duke University researchers, using sophisticated machinery to analyze hundreds of chemical components in a ringtailed lemur’s distinctive scent, have found that individual males are not only advertising their fitness for fatherhood, but also a bit about their family tree as well. […]
May 15, 2008. Smaller primates expend no more energy climbing than they do walking, Duke University researchers have found. This surprising discovery may explain the evolutionary edge that encouraged the tiny ancestors of modern humans, apes and monkeys to climb into the trees about 65 million years ago and stay there. The researchers compared the energy consumed […]
