The Litoria phyllochroa species-group are small hylid frogs that occur in wet forests of south-east Australia. This group has had a long history of taxonomic confusion and has received little attention in the last decade. A population of this species-group at Kroombit Tops, several hundred kilometers north of all other populations, has been recognised for some time as being genetically highly d...

Samples of liver and kidney of Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea) collected on Sepetiba Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were analysed for their copper, zinc, cadmium, lead, chromium and nickel content. Mean concentration levels in liver and kidney (μg.g dry weight) were 6.32955 and 6.57136 (Cd); 78.17409 and 96.89409 (Zn); 44.01727 and 65.20864 (Cu); 41.15091 and 39.62318 (Pb); 2.80091 and 4.164...

Song complexity is thought to be a sexually selected trait in passerine birds; however, quantifying relevant parameters of song complexity is the first step in testing the theory that song complexity is a sexually selected trait. We show here that blue grosbeak (Guiraca caerulea) males sing a single song type but the properties of that song type vary between renditions. This pattern of song del...

Prompt detection of declines in abundance or distribution of populations is critical when managing threatened species that have high population turnover. Population monitoring programs provide the tools necessary to identify and detect decreases in abundance that will threaten the persistence of key populations and should occur in an adaptive management framework which designs monitoring to max...

This study reveals the peculiar in vivo cell kinetics and cell turnover of the marine sponge Halisarca caerulea under steady-state conditions. The tropical coral reef sponge shows an extremely high proliferation activity, a short cell cycle duration and massive cell shedding. Cell turnover is predominantly confined to a single cell population, i.e. the choanocytes, and in this process apoptosis...

Trichodischia Bigot, 1885 is a Neotropical genus with confusing taxonomic history. This was initially composed of two species: T. caerulea and soror 1885. Later, the Trichoraea Cortés, 1974 erected for caerulea. When reviewing history both species, we discovered that genera have been considered synonymous based on erroneous information without formal synonymy being proposed. Herein, redescribed...

Objective: Scutellaria luteo-caerulea Bornm. & Snit. is one of the species of genus Scutellaria, within the family of the Lamiaceae, that is used for immune system stimulation and antibacterial effects in traditional medicine in Iran. The aims of this study were to analyze essential oils and mineral element contents of leaves of  S. luteo-caerulea in flowering stage of development. Materials an...

Spin-transfer-torque magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) attracts extensive attentions due to its non-volatility, high density and low power consumption. The core device in STT-MRAM is CoFeB/MgO-based magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), which possesses a high tunnel magnetoresistance ratio as well as a large value of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA). It has been experimentally proven th...

We describe a small hylid frog species with a highly distinctive tadpole from the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. The new taxon is morphologically very similar to Litoria meiriana but can be differentiated using a combination of adult and larval morphology and male calls. Tadpoles of the new taxon can be readily differentiated from those of L. meiriana by their unique black, gol...