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Basic Articles about animals and ecology

 About animals variety
Animals 1.Polar animals
2.Tropics animals
3.Mountain animals
An interesting article
• The ability of a species to maintain many different types of individual in a
population, known as polymorphisms, is intriguing because rarer forms must have
some selective advantage to be preserved. Establishing diversity in a species
through the presence of polymorphisms can provide a step towards speciation
(the formation of new species). Writing in Nature, Yang et al. reveal a surprising
mechanism that affects the maintenance of colour polymorphisms in the
strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio). The finding has implications for our
understanding of evolution.
• Oophaga pumilio (Fig. 1) lives in Central America, and frogs of this species have
many widely differing types of skin colour. These bright colours warn predators
that the frogs are toxic. The colours have another important role, in that females
have strong preferences for the colour of males when choosing their mate.
Usually, for any given species, females’ mating preference for a type of male
drives a rise in the prevalence of the most popular female-preferred
polymorphism (such as a male colour). Thus, colour selection by female mating
preference is probably not sufficient to explain how multiple colour
polymorphisms are maintained in O. pumilio.
 Another interesting articles
Almost one in five vertebrates that live on land are traded on wildlife
markets — a much greater proportion than previously thought.
Rosy octopuses are more warty the deeper they dwell in
the sea
A species of bumpy pink octopus follows a simple
rule: the deeper the animals live, the wartier they
are.
Scientists have puzzled over the wart-encrusted
octopods creeping across the floor of the northern
Pacific Ocean. Some of the creatures have prominent
growths dotting their backs; others have warts so
small that their skin looks almost completely
smooth.

These observations have even raised doubts as to whether the animals all belong
to the same species, Graneledone pacifica.
The findings come from one of the most comprehensive studies of the
To find out, Janet Voight at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago,
international wildlife trade to date, which surveyed more than 30,000 species of
Illinois, and her colleagues counted and compared the warts of 50 presumed G.
mammal, bird, amphibian and reptile. The authors found the proportion of
pacifica specimens that had been picked up by submersibles and trawler nets.
traded animals to be 40–60% higher than previous estimates had suggested, and
The researchers’ results indicate that octopuses from deeper parts of the ocean
predict that it could rise to more than one in four.
are smaller than those from shallower depths. Animals dwelling at depth also
have fewer arm suckers, and their skin is wartier. But DNA analysis groups them
“This is the first time that somebody has tried to look at the full scope of the
all as members of the same species. Why these differences exist, the researchers
problem,” says Stuart Pimm, a conservation scientist at Duke University in
conclude, remains a mystery.
Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the study.
 ‘The story of our world is a story that is still imperfectly known.’

The story of our world is a story that is almost unknown because only
unthinking like stones, trees and water know this history.
But, then looking at animals we can understand, where is our
beginning. So, I think that this story isn’t known at all, but we can
appreciate our actuality, writing It, for the next generations that will have
like beginning, ‘our time’. Scientist already found some methods of
looking back in time. The most popular strategy is to look back using
black hole. Everybody is interested about this, but actually this chapter is
covered by fog.