Bats are unique in being the only mammals capable of flight. The mobility, speed, and agility associated with this means of locomotion must have been an important factor in their successful radiation, which has made this diverse group the second largest order of mammals. Excluding man, and possibly rodents, bats have the widest distribution of any terrestrial mammals (Simpson, 1945; Walker, 196...

The zoonotic potential of paramyxoviruses is particularly demonstrated by their broad host range like the highly pathogenic Hendra and Nipah viruses originating from bats. But while so far all bat-borne paramyxoviruses have been identified in fruit bats across Africa, Australia, South America, and Asia, we describe the detection and characterization of the first paramyxoviruses in free-ranging ...

Transparency technique to demonstrate cartilage and skeleton has been used from years 70. This consists basically of the muscle digestion through an enzyme (trypsine), and the staining of cartilage and skeleton using alcian blue and alizarin red on specimens previously fixed to formalin. This technique can be used to study the state of the cartilage and the bones in different stages of the deve...

Coronaviruses are closely monitored in the context of emerging diseases and, as illustrated with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV), are known to cross the species barrier and eventually to move from wildlife to humans. Knowledge of the diversity of coronaviruses in wildlife is therefore essential to better unders...

We design a representation based on the situation calculus to facilitate development, maintenance and elaboration of very large taxonomies of actions. This representation leads to more compact and modular basic action theories (BATs) for reasoning about actions than currently possible. We compare our representation with Reiter’s BATs and prove that our representation inherits all useful propert...

The adaptive value of fluorescence among the vertebrates has been studied most in fishes and birds, only a few observations have published regarding pelage mammals. Recently, reports some marsupials, platypus, flying squirrels become available. We report occurrence fluorescent properties mammals from Arkansas. Most carnivores, bats, rodents did not exhibit property when viewed under UV light. H...

Rodents have long been recognized as the principal reservoirs of hantaviruses. However, with the discovery of genetically distinct and phylogenetically divergent lineages of hantaviruses in multiple species of shrews, moles, and insectivorous bats from widely separated geographic regions, a far more complex landscape of hantavirus host distribution, evolution, and phylogeography is emerging. De...

Did you know there are numerous species of bat, 963 in all, making them second behind the rodents as the mammalian Order with the most number of species. The question addressed in this study was to focus on the ecology of bat reproduction and the many reproductive strategies that bats have evolved throughout time, such as: delayed ovulation, delayed implantation and sperm storage. Every bat spe...