Quimsacocha National Recreation Area is located on the western slope of Andes in Azuay Province, southern Ecuador. All sampling locations were high paramo and Andean forests (3,572 to 3,865 m). The habitats include paramo, bogs, riparian, patches elfin forests, secondary cloud forest. We set Sherman, pitfall, camera traps (3,600 trap nights), mist nets collect 117 specimens. Eight species colle...

The mirine plant bug genus Diognetus Distant, 1904 (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Miridae: Mirinae: Mirini) is revised. Eighteen Oriental and Eastern Palearctic species are properly assigned to the genus. Diplotrichiella Poppius, 1915, syn. nov. Yamatolygus Yasunaga, 1994, synonymized with Diognetus; accordingly following two new combinations, one substitute name synonymy proposed: flavigenis (Horvát...

Uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) is present exclusively in brown adipose tissue, and contributes to body temperature control during cold exposure. We cloned UCP1 cDNA of plateau pika (Ochotona dauurica), a small, non-hibernating, diurnal lagomorph that inhabits in relatively cold climates and at high altitudes in Mongolia and in northern China. The nucleotide sequence of pika UCP1 was highly homolog...

Comparative genomic data for ochotonids (pikas) are important for understanding the karyotype evolution of lagomorphs. Here, we have established the first genome-wide chromosomal homologies between human and the Forrest's pika (Ochotona forresti, 2n = 54) by cross-species chromosome painting. Integration of our map with the published comparative chromosome map between human and rabbit has enabl...

Introduction: Loxoscelism is a medical condition resulting from the envenomation by recluse spiders (Loxoscelesspp.), which could lead to necrotic tissue symptoms. The only species of this genus recorded from Iran, Loxosceles rufescens, or the Mediterranean recluse spider, has a cosmopolitan distribution and have already been recorded from numerous parts of Iran, including Bandar Abbas. This st...

Recent research on mountain-dwelling species has illustrated changes in species distributional patterns in response to climate change. Abundance of a species will likely provide an earlier warning indicator of change than will occupancy, yet relationships between abundance and climatic factors have received less attention. We tested whether predictors of counts of American pikas (Ochotona princ...