The Dichotomius speciosus species group, endemic to the highlands of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and included in the subgenus Luederwaldtinia is taxonomically revised. Dichotomius alvarengai new species and D. malyi new species are described. Dichotomius bucki is here considered to be a new synonym of D. opalescens, for which a lectotype is designated. The group, as well as its species, is di...

The large Japanese field mice (Apodemus speciosus) were captured and kept in stainless cages under a constant condition at 23°C and 14 L: 100 photoperiod, and the growth, development and reproduction were investigated in this species. Modification of feeding condition and nest materials and introduction of a chamber and a running wheel apparatus into each cage first enabled this species to bree...

Saussurea costus (Falc.) Lipschitz from the family Asteraceae is an important medicinal drug, the roots of which are widely used in folk medicine. The antioxidant activity of the plant has been studied using its ability to scavenge DPPH, nitric oxide, superoxide radicals along with its ability to inhibit lipid peroxidation and GSH oxidation. The 1 mg mL(-1) extract had antioxidant activity with...

in this study, the genetic diversity of 25 iranian saffron genotypes from three species (crocus speciosus, crocus cancellatus and crocus sativus) has been evaluated using 16 morphological traits and rapd marker. c. sativus was different with speciosus in the leaf number per plant, tepal length, flower weight, inflorescence stem height and the stigma length, but had no significant difference wit...

Insulin plant (Costus pictus) is one of the folk medicines used for the treatment for Diabetes mellitus. This plant belongs to Costaceae family, which has been separated from Zingiberaceae on the basis of the presence of spirally arranged leaves and rhizomes being free from aromatic essential oils. The plant commonly known as spiral ginger is originated in Mexico and is found to have antidiabet...

The phylogenetic relationships of Costaceae, a tropical monocotyledonous family sister to the gingers (Zingiberaceae), were investigated with a combination of two chloroplast loci (the trnL-F locus, including the trnL intron, the 3'trnL exon, and the trnL-F intergenic spacer, and the trnK locus, including the trnK intron and the matK coding region) and one nuclear locus (ITS1-5.8s-ITS2). The re...