forty-nine preserved specimens (31 male and 18 female) of trachylepis aurata transcaucsasica were examined with respect to metric and meristic features and dry skull anatomy to assess sexual dimorphism. thirty-one morphological characters and 36 anatomical characters in dry skulls were examined. subdigital lamellae under the forth toe, neck length, neck length/snout vent length, and six skull c...

Allometric growth pattern and body shape changes of the Green terror (Andinoacara rivulatus)(Cichlidae) were studied using landmark-based geometric morphometric (GM) and traditional methods, from hatching up to 1266 Hours Post Hatching (HPH) under culture conditions. The left side of specimens were photographed using digital camera and morphometric characters, including total length, head lengt...

The fixed-rate entropy-constrained vector quantizer draws its motivation from the large gap in the performance of the optimal entropy-constrained scalar quantizer (ESCQ) and the fixed-rate LMQ for most non-uniform sources and tries to bridge this gap while maintaining a fixed-rate output. Having a fixed-rate output avoids all problems associated with a variable rate output such as error propaga...

Pterosaurs are extinct flying reptiles, the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight. Our understanding of the evolutionary transition between basal, predominantly long-tailed forms to derived short-tailed pterodactyloids remained poor until the discovery of Wukongopterus and Darwinopterus in western Liaoning, China. In this paper we report on a new genus and species, Douzhanopterus zhengi, ...

Patterns of selection are widely believed to differ geographically, causing adaptation to local environmental conditions. However, few studies have investigated patterns of phenotypic selection across large spatial scales. We quantified the intensity of selection on morphology in a monogamous passerine bird, the barn swallow Hirundo rustica, using 6495 adults from 22 populations distributed acr...

The poly(A) tail, co-transcriptionally added to most eukaryotic mRNAs, plays an important role in posttranscriptional regulation through modulating mRNA stability and translational efficiency. The length of the poly(A) tail is dynamic, decreasing or increasing in response to various stimuli through the action of enzymatic complexes, and changes in tail length are exploited in regulatory pathway...

The translational control of many maternal mRNAs in oocytes and early embryos relies on changes in poly(A) tail length; the factors controlling poly(A) tail length are being identified in a range of species.

ancylostoma tubaeforme was originally described as a separate species parasitizing the cat. the adults of a. tubaeforme are 7 to 12 mm long. a. tubaeforme can be differentiated from the adults of a. braziliense and a. ceylanicum by the presence of three teeth. here we describe the first re­port of a. tubaeforme in a persian young female leopard, 2-3 years old, with head and trunk length 120 cen...