Amphibian chytridiomycosis, caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has been recognized as the infectious disease causing most catastrophic loss of biodiversity known to science, with South America being impacted region. We tested whether Bd prevalence is distributed among host taxonomy, ecoregion, conservation status and habitat preference in America. Here we provide a synthesis on exte...

Monoecocestus thomasi sp. n. (Cestoda: Anoplocephalidae), from the northern flying squirrel, Glaucomys sabrinus (Shaw), in Oregon, is described and distinguished from its congeners. Monoecocestus thomasi is the sixth species of Monoecocestus to be described from nearctic rodents, and the first from a member of the family Sciuridae. Our comparisons of taxonomic characters of the nominal species ...

Dinemoura discrepans Cressey, 1967 (Copepoda, Siphonostomatoida, Pandaridae) is redescribed based on the specimens taken from four species of sharks caught off the southeast coast of Taiwan. The four species of sharks are: pelagic thresher, Alopias pelagicus Nakamura; bigeye thresher, A. superciliosus Lowe; blacktip shark, Carcharhinus limbatus (Müller et Henle); and oceanic whitetip shark, C. ...

Mechanisms that mediate limb development are regarded as highly conserved among vertebrates, especially tetrapods. Yet, this assumption is based on the study of relatively few species, and virtually none of those that display any of a large number of specialized life-history or reproductive modes, which might be expected to affect developmental pattern or process. Direct development is an alter...

The success of non-native species may depend on the genetic resources maintained through the invasion process. The Coqui (Eleutherodactylus coqui), a frog endemic to Puerto Rico, was introduced to Hawaii in the late 1980s via the horticulture trade, and has become an aggressive invader. To explore whether genetic diversity and population structure changed with the introduction, we assessed indi...

This study focuses on the fossil beetles assigned previously to the family Hydrophilidae described from the localities in the southern part of the Upper Rhine Graben: Brunstatt (France, Alsace) and Kleinkems (Germany, Baden-Württemberg) (both dated ca. to Eocene-Oligocene boundary, 34 Ma). The identity of Escheria convexa Förster, 1891 is fixed by the designation of its neotype, the species is ...

Direct developing frogs lack a free-living larval phase, such that miniature adults hatch directly from the eggs. Even under such extreme reorganization of the ancestral biphasic developmental pattern, direct developers still undergo thyroid hormone (TH)-dependent post-embryonic development. Hypothalamic regulation of TH synthesis and release plays a central role in controlling the timing of me...