genus Iandumoema, New Eyeless Harvestman Species Found in Brazil

genus Iandumoema, The team, headed by Dr Ricardo Pinto-da-Rocha of the Instituto de Biociências da Universidade de São Paulo, named the new speciesIandumoema smeagol after the ‘Lord of the Rings’ character Smeagol.

“The species name refers to the hobbit named Smeagol, created by J.R.R. Tolkien, being the original name of Gollum – the dweller of the caves located below the Misty Mountains of Middle-earth of the Lord of the Rings book,” Dr Pinto-da-Rocha and co-authors wrote in a paper in the journal ZooKeys.

Two other extant species of the genus Iandumoema are I. uai and I. setimapocu.

According to the arachnologists, the newfound species is the most highly modified in the genus and only the second cave-dwelling harvestman with no eyes for Brazil. It also has a reduced amount of melanistic pigmentation, which shows through its pale yellowish colors.-READ MORE-http://www.sci-news.com/biology/iandumoema-smeagol-new-eyeless-harvestman-species-brazil-03451.html

New species of early anthropoid primate found amid Libyan strife -

LAWRENCE — During upheaval in Libya in 2013, a window of opportunity opened for scientists from the University of Kansas to perform research at the Zallah Oasis, a promising site for unearthing fossils from the Oligocene period, roughly 30 million years ago. From that work, the KU-led team last week published a description of a previously unknown anthropoid primate — a forerunner of today’s monkeys, apes and humans — in the Journal of Human Evolution. They’ve dubbed their new find Apidium zuetina. Significantly, it’s the first example of Apidium to be found outside of Egypt. “Apidium is interesting because it was the first early anthropoid primate ever to be found and described, in 1908,” said K. Christopher Beard, Distinguished Foundation Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and senior curator with KU’s Biodiversity Institute, who headed the research. “The oldest known Apidium fossils are about 31 million years old, while the youngest are 29 million. Before our discovery in Libya, only three species of Apidium were ever recovered in Egypt. People had come up with the idea that these primates had evolved locally in Egypt.” Beard said evidence that Apidium had dispersed across North Africa was the key facet of the find. He believes shifting climatic and environmental conditions shaped the distribution of species of Apidium, which affected their evolution. - See more at: https://news.ku.edu/2015/11/19/new-species-early-anthropoid-primate-found-amid-libyan-strife#sthash.Cmfdh4Zv.dpuf

New species of tree frog discovered

A new species of tree frog was discovered and another species of bush frog was rediscovered by a team of researchers during their recent exploration in the Western Ghats.

The discovery, published in the latest issue of International Taxonomic Journal Zootaxa , is a joint effort by a team comprised Robin Abraham, a researcher from the University of Kansas, USA; Anil Zachariah, a batrachologist from Wayanad and Vivek Philip Cyriac, a researcher, of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram.

The team discovered a new species of Rhacophorid tree frog of the genus Ghatixalus. The new species is named Ghatixalus magnus after its large size making it the biggest known tree frog from the Western Ghats.

Elusive species

The team has also rediscovered a frog that had been evading for the past many decades. Raorchestes flaviventris , a species of rhacophorid bush frog described from the Western Ghats by George Albert Boulenger in 1882, had never been reported from the region since its description. The team members have found this elusive frog from the High Ranges of Idukki district in Kerala. The discovery of this frog after around 132 years was published in International Journal Zootaxa .READ MORE PLUS PHOTO,S-http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/new-species-of-tree-frog-discovered/article7913832.ece

Tarantulas evolved blue colour 'at least eight times'

Tarantulas have evolved almost exactly the same shade of vibrant blue at least eight separate times.

That is the conclusion of a study by US biologists, exploring how the colour is created in different tarantula species.

The hue is caused by tiny structures inside the animals' hairs, but those shapes vary across the family tree.

This suggests, the researchers say, that the striking blue is not driven by sexual selection - unlike many other bright colours in the animal kingdom.

This argument is also supported by the fact that tarantulas have poor colour vision, and do not appear to show off their hairy blue body parts during courtship.

Blue branches

Nonetheless, Bor-Kai Hsiung and his colleagues found that 40 out of 53 groupings (genera) of tarantula exhibit a very vibrant blue.

"We collected published data and constructed a super-tree, which combined the previous published small trees," said Mr Hsiung, a PhD student at the University of Akron in Ohio and the first author of the study, published in Science Advances.READ MORE ON BBC LINK-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34944735

Tropical fossil forests unearthed in Arctic Norway

Prof John Marshall, of Southampton University, has accurately dated the forests to 380 million years.

The forests grew near the equator during the late Devonian period, and could provide an insight into the cause of a 15-fold reduction in levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere around that time.

Current theories suggest that during the Devonian period (420-360 million years ago) there was a huge drop in the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, thought to be largely caused by a change in vegetation from diminutive plants to the first large forest trees.

Forests pulled CO2 out of the air through photosynthesis – the process by which plants create food and tissues – and the formation of soils.

Although initially the appearance of large trees absorbed more of the sun’s radiation, eventually temperatures on Earth also dropped dramatically to levels very similar to those experienced today because of the reduction in atmospheric CO2.

Because of the high temperatures and large amount of rainfall on the equator, it is likely that equatorial forests contributed most to the drawdown of CO2. Svalbard was located on the equator around this time, before the tectonic plate drifted north by around 80° to its current position in the Arctic Ocean.

“These fossil forests shows us what the vegetation and landscape were like on the equator 380 million years ago, as the first trees were beginning to appear on the Earth,” said Dr Berry.

The team found that the forests in Svalbard were formed mainly of lycopod trees, better known for growing millions of years later in coal swamps that eventually turned into coal deposits – such as those in South Wales. They also found that the forests were extremely dense, with very small gaps – around 20cm – between each of the trees, which probably reached about 4m high.

“During the Devonian Period, it is widely believed that there was a huge drop in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, from 15 times the present amount to something approaching current levels.

“The evolution of tree-sized vegetation is the most likely cause of this dramatic drop in carbon dioxide because the plants were absorbing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis to build their tissues, and also through the process of forming soils.”

The new findings have been published in the journal Geology.

Ancient ‘hobbit’ humans evolved into new species

Ancient tiny people whose remains were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores evolved from large-bodiedHomo erectus individuals from Asia, according to the first ever comprehensive analysis of their teeth.

The study suggests Homo floresiensis, aka ‘the hobbit’, shrank due to what is known as “insular dwarfism” or “the island effect”, which happens when a population evolves in a limited-range environment where fewer resources and smaller territories are the norm.READ MORE-http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2015/11/19/hobbit-humans-evolved-new-species/

Wolves of the microscopic world: new Dracula ant species found in Madagascar

During a recently concluded study conducted over the last ten years, researchers from the California Academy of Sciences (CAS) working with the Madagascar Biodiversity Center (MBC) have discovered and described six new species of ants belonging to the genus Prionopelta. Commonly, known as ‘Dracula Ants’ for their unique feeding behavior, these new members of Prionopelta have been found to be tiny, ferocious social predators living within the subterranean, microscopic ecosystem of the forest floor soils in Madagascar.READ MORE-http://news.mongabay.com/2015/11/wolves-of-the-microscopic-world-new-dracula-ant-species-found-in-madagascar/