Evolution Diary

A fish species, which is all female, has survived for 70,000 years without reproducing sexually, experts believe.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh think the Amazon Molly may be employing special genetic survival “tricks” to avoid becoming extinct.

The species, found in Texas and Mexico, interacts with males of other species to trigger its reproduction process.

The offspring are clones of their mother and do not inherit any of the male’s DNA.

Typically, when creatures reproduce asexually, harmful changes creep into their genes over many generations.

The species will eventually have problems reproducing and can often fall victim to extinction.

Scientists at Edinburgh University have been studying complex mathematical models on a highly powerful computing system to look at the case of the Amazon Molly.
Keep reading →

The world’s oldest known living tree, a conifer that first took root at the end of the last Ice Age, has been discovered in Sweden, researchers say.

The visible portion of the 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) “Christmas tree” isn’t ancient, but its root system has been growing for 9,550 years, according to a team led by Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University’s department of ecology and environmental science in Sweden.

Discovered in 2004, the lone Norway spruce—of the species traditionally used to decorate European homes during Christmas—represents the planet’s longest-lived identified plant, Kullman said.
Keep reading →

An ancient ancestor of the elephant from 37 million years ago lived in water and had a similar lifestyle to a hippo, a fossil study has suggested.

The animal was said to be similar to a tapir, a hoofed mammal which looks like a cross between a horse and a rhino.

Moeritherium was almost certainly an animal that ate freshwater plants and led a semi-aquatic lifestyle, similar to that of hippos
Alexander Liu, University of Oxford

Experts from Oxford University and Stony Brook University, New York, analysed chemical signatures preserved in fossil teeth.

These indicated that the animal grazed on plants in rivers or swamps.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could shed light on the lifestyle and behaviour of modern elephants.
Keep reading →

What was lost tens of millions of years ago is now found.

A fossil animal locked in Lebanese limestone has been shown to be an extremely precious discovery - a snake with two legs.

Scientists have only a handful of specimens that illustrate the evolutionary narrative that goes from ancient lizard to limbless modern serpent.

Researchers at the European Light Source (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, used intense X-rays to confirm that a creature imprinted on a rock, and with one visible leg, had another appendage buried just under the surface of the slab.
Keep reading →

Sex is part of the “oldest profession” and is often called the subject of the “world’s oldest joke.” Now scientists think they’ve found evidence of the oldest known creatures to engage in sexual reproduction.

Nature’s first sexual encounter took place among tubular invertebrates called Funisia dorothea, which lived about 565 million years ago, a new study suggests.

Paleontologists found the F. dorothea fossils in 2005 on an ancient seafloor in the South Australian outback.

The ropelike creatures were tightly packed into groups that resemble those of modern sponges and corals.

These living invertebrates use a reproductive technique that releases floating eggs and sperm to produce mass births of many offspring, called larval spatfalls.

In a paper that appeared last week in the journal Science, the researchers argue that the way the F. dorothea fossils were found suggests they might have used the same body positions to ensure sexual success.
Keep reading →