The social brain hypothesis posits that the cognitive demands of social behaviour have driven evolutionary expansions in brain size in some vertebrate lineages. In insects, higher brain centres called mushroom bodies are enlarged and morphologically elaborate (having doubled, invaginated and subcompartmentalized calyces that receive visual input) in social species such as the ants, bees and was...

Morphology is the most direct approach biologists have to recognize uniqueness of insect species as compared to close relatives. Ants of the genus Procryptocerus possess important morphologic characters yet have not been explored for use in a taxonomic revision. The genus is characterized by the protrusion of the clypeus forming a broad nasus and antennal scrobes over the eyes. The toruli are l...

Toddalia aculeata (Syn. T. asiatica, T. rubicaulis, T. nitida and Scopolia aculeata) is a climbing shrub of natural order Rutacea. Vernacular, Sanskrit, kauchana; Hindi, kanj; dahan lalian (Rajputana); meinkara (Nepal); saphijirik (Lepclia); melkaranai kandvi (Tamil); konda-kathinda (Telegu); janglikali-mirchi (Bombay); kudur-7niris (Ceylon). It grows in sub-tropical climates of India, Java, Su...

The structures, names, bioactivities, and references of 124 briarane-type natural products, including 66 new metabolites, isolated between 2014 and 2016 are summarized in this review article. All of the briarane diterpenoids mentioned in this review were isolated from octocorals, mainly from Briareum violacea, Dichotella gemmacea, Ellisella dollfusi, Junceella fragilis, Junceella gemmacea, and ...

Twenty species of the subgenus Pedionis occurring in the Chinese fauna are recognized, including two new species, P. aculeata sp. nov., P. papillata sp. nov. from Guizhou Prov., China. And, P. nankunshanensis Li, Dai & Li, 2011 is here considered as a junior synonym of P. yunnana Zhang & Viraktamath, 2010. A key to Chinese species of subgenus Pedionis is also provided as well as a checklist.

the purpose of this research was to study the antimicrobial activities of the endophytic fungi from sesbania grandiflora (l.) pers. the endophytic fungi were isolated from branches and leaves of sesbania grandiflora (l.) pers., and sixty nine isolates were obtained. all isolates were screened for antibacterial and antifungal activities. the indicator organisms were 4 bacteria including staphylo...