Requiem for ancient tongue worm: New species of intruder discovered

Researchers have discovered the 425-million-year-old fossil remains of a new species of parasite, still attached to the host animal it invaded long ago. The new species is a type of tongue worm, an arthropod that has a worm-like body, a head, and two pairs of limbs. Its modern-day relatives live within the respiratory system of host animals, sometimes even humans, after being ingested via an intermediate host such as a fish. An international team of researchers found several specimens of the new species, named Invavita piratica (meaning "ancient intruder" and "piracy"), in 425-million-year-old rocks in Herefordshire, England. The specimens were "exceptionally well-preserved," according to the researchers, and range in size from about 1 to 4 millimeters long. A study describing the ancient parasite appears in the May 21 edition of the journal Current Biology. "This is the most important fossil evidence yet discovered of the origins of this type of parasitism," said Yale University paleontologist Derek Briggs, co-author of the study. Briggs is the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale and curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. This is the first fossil tongue worm species to be found associated with its host. In this case, the host is an ostracod—a group of micro-arthropods with two shells that are joined at a hinge.READ MORE -http://phys.org/news/2015-05-requiem-ancient-tongue-worm.html

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DNA hints at earlier dog evolution

Swedish researchers say that dogs may have been domesticated much earlier than some other studies suggest. A genetic study indicates that dogs may have begun to split from wolves 27,000 years ago. The discovery, in Current Biology, challenges the view that dogs were domesticated much more recently, around 15,000 years ago as humans changed from being hunter-gatherers to farmers. The study might also explain the deep bond between dogs and humans. [Dogs] are part of our own evolution into a modern society Peter Smith, Wildwood Trust Other researchers had proposed that the domestication of dogs arose with the emergence of agriculture, when human hunter-gatherers settled and formed communities. The new study, which was led by Dr Love Dalen of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, challenges this view.-READ MORE-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32691843

Ocean's hidden world of plankton revealed in 'enormous database'

The hidden world of the ocean's tiniest organisms has been revealed in a series of papers published in the journal Science. An international team has been studying samples of plankton collected during a three-year global expedition. They have so far found 35,000 species of bacteria, 5,000 new viruses and 150,000 single-celled plants and creatures. They believe that the majority of these are new to science. Dr Chris Bowler, from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), in Paris, told BBC News: "We have the most complete description yet of planktonic organisms to date: what's there in terms of viruses, bacteria and protozoa - we finally have a catalogue of what is present globally."-READ MORE -http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32831814

How spiders create the sounds of love

Scientists have revealed the musical, flirtatious side of a common spider. Alexander Sweger and Prof George Uetz from the University of Cincinnati recorded the percussive courtship display of the so-called purring wolf spider Gladicosa gulosa. They played the male spiders' call to females, revealing that they used leaves to transmit sound. They presented the findings at the Acoustical Society of America annual meeting. The researchers think this could provide clues about the earliest evolution of sound-based communication. When the team started their research on this North American spider species they found that the few papers that had been published on it mentioned the sound it made - a quiet "chorus of spiders" that ecologists reported hearing in the forests of the US. Most spiders use and detect physical vibrations, sensing through their legs the presence of one another, and of prey and predators. Recording studio "I decided I wanted to find out whether this species using airborne sound to communicate," Mr Sweger told BBC News. To do this, he and the team set up a tiny spider recording studio - putting male READ MORE-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32845010 ALSO LISTEN TO SPIDER PURRING

Boy, now 18, who found 'bizarre' dinosaur species excited 'kids will be talking about me'

Diego Suarez was not of those 7-year-olds obsessed with dinosaurs. He was more into contemporary mammals, he says, and he kept a vast collection of cow and sheep bones he had found nearby the summer cottage his parents, both geologists, had recently built in the Chilean Patagonia. “That’s how I began to know the texture of bones,” said Suarez, who is among an elite circle of people who have a species of dinosaur named after him. And not just any species, but the first vegetarian theropod (a well-known carnivore in the T-Rex family) ever found in that part of the world and one described by paleontologists as “one of the most bizarre dinosaurs ever found.”READ MORE AND SEE PHOTOS-http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2015/05/15/boy-who-found-bizarre-dinosaur-species-now-18-excited-kids-will-be-talking/

Manipur’s Ngapang revealed to world as new catfish species

Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have discovered a new species of catfish, Glyptothorax senapatiensis, in the Chindwin river drainage in Senapati district of Manipur. The people of the region have been having the six-cm-long freshwater fish as food for long, calling it Ngapang.

“It is a small but edible fish with high nutritional value and a lot of oil content,” ZSI scientist Laishram Kosygin told The Hindu. The fish has a thoracic adhesive apparatus that helps it cling on to the rocky riverbed in mountains against strong currents. All Glyptothorax-genus fish have this characteristic.

Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters, an international journal published from Germany, recorded the new species in March, with Mr. Kosygin, Nongthombam Premananda and Bano Saidullah authoring the paper.

Scientists say the Northeast has a rich aquatic biodiversity, with 361 of the 816 fish species found in India present there. Several important species of catfish, a diverse group of ray-finned fish with prominent barbells resembling cat whiskers, are found there.

Manipur has a high diversity of aquatic fauna because of the two important river drainage systems. “The western half is fed by the Barak-Brahmaputra drainage and the eastern and central valleys are crisscrossed by the Chindwin river drainage, and these account for the variety in the aquatic fauna,” Mr. Kosygin said.