Tabanids are among the most free-living adult flies which play a role as livestock pests. A single blood meal is used as a source of energy for egg production (100-1,000 eggs per meal), and females of certain species can oviposit before a blood meal is obtained (autogeny). Therefore, the maintenance of annual populations requires successful oviposition by only 2% of females. Wild animal blood s...

The habitats in which extinct hominids existed has been a key issue in addressing the origin and extinction of early hominids, as well as in understanding various morphological and behavioral adaptations. Many researchers postulated that early hominids lived in an open savanna (Dart, 1925; Robinson, 1963; Howell, 1978). However, Vrba (1985, 1988) has noted that a major global climatic and envir...

Ward et al. (1) ably show that samples of thickly enameled Middle Miocene hominoids that they attribute to a new genus, Equatorius, are distinct from Kenyapithecus. They fail to show, however, how Equatorius differs from Griphopithecus. In so doing, they may have missed the hominoid connection between Eurasia and Africa by 2 to 3 million years. The authors note the presence of a welldeveloped b...

C apitalizing on the opportunities presented by the surface tension of aqueous liquids against air shows natural selection at its most creative. The paper in PNAS by Rico-Guevara and Rubega (1) describes how protruded hummingbird tongues curl lengthwise into a pair of tubes containing nectar. As a tongue contacts nectar on its lower surface or is withdrawn from full submersion, the surface tens...

Many species are currently undergoing reductions in population size due to widespread habitat loss and expanding human activities. Because interspecific hybridization is often a consequence of population decline and fragmentation, identification of individuals or populations with hybrid ancestry is an increasingly important issue in conservation biology. In many wild cattle and bison species, t...