Vocal behavior in tropical hummingbirds is a new area of study. Here, we present findings on the vocalizations and associated behaviors of two species: Sombre Hummingbird (Aphantochroa cirrhochloris) and Rufous-breasted Hermit (Glaucis hirsutus). These are the only hummingbirds in which the brain areas activated by singing have been demonstrated. They are also among the basal species of their r...

Otiditaenia macqueeni, Raillietina sp., Paronchocerca tonkinensis, and Allodapa sp. were recovered from a group of rufous-crested bustards {Eupoditis ruficrista) which died after importation into the United Arab Emirates. Associated findings at postmortem examination in cluded cardiac rupture, weight loss, trichomoniasis, and enteritis. Histologie examinations revealed Paronchocerca sp. microfi...

Bacteriophages were observed in forestomach contents from three species of Australian macropodoid marsupials possessing a foregut fermentative digestion: the eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus), the eastern wallaroo (Macropus robustus robustus), and the rufous bettong (Aepyprymnus rufescens). Forty-six morphologically distinct phage types, representing the families Myoviridae, Siphovirid...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.04.036 0003-3472/ 2014 The Association for the Study of A Males generally outperform females in spatial tasks. This difference in spatial performance may reflect differences in cue preference because males often use both spatial cues (distance and direction) and feature cues, whereas females prefer to use feature cues. However, studies in birds are few a...

The stroke-cam flapping mechanism presented in this paper closely mimics the wing motion of a hovering Rufous hummingbird. It is the only lightweight hummingbird-sized flapping mechanism which generates a harmonic wing stroke with both a high flapping frequency and a large stroke amplitude. Experiments on a lightweight prototype of this stroke-cam mechanism on a 50 mm-long wing demonstrate that...

Previous studies have demonstrated a correlation between song repertoire size and volume of song control regions (SCRs) in the brains of songbirds. In the present study we demonstrate that 2 congeneric species of tropical duetting wrens, the rufous-and-white wren (Thryothorus rufalbus) and the bay wren (T. nigricapillus), share the same relationship between SCR volume and vocal complexity. In e...

For as long as dinosaurs have been known to exist, there has been speculation about their appearance. Fossil feathers can preserve the morphology of color-imparting melanosomes, which allow color patterns in feathered dinosaurs to be reconstructed. Here, we have mapped feather color patterns in a Late Jurassic basal paravian theropod dinosaur. Quantitative comparisons with melanosome shape and ...

We develop an approach to utilize anisotropic metamaterials to solve one of the fundamental problems of modern plasmonics--parasitic scattering of surface waves into free-space modes, opening the road to truly two-dimensional plasmonic optics. We illustrate the developed formalism on the examples of plasmonic refractor and plasmonic crystal, and discuss limitations of the developed technique an...