Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Flamingos, T. rex Tails, Burmese monkeys and more...

  • By Amanda Bensen, T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Jess Righthand and Sarah Zielinski
  • Smithsonian magazine, January 2011
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Tyrannosaurus rex Greater Flamingo Liverworts Burmese snub-nosed monkey Religious festival
liverworts

Liverworts are the most ancient plant group (Jan-Peter Frahm)


The First Greens

Plants that greened the earth 400 million years ago probably needed help. In experiments with liverworts, the most ancient plant group, scientists in Britain and Australia found that fungi may have provided nutrients to the plants as they spread across the continents.

Learn more about liverwort at the Encyclopedia of Life.

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Additional Sources

"Greater flamingos Phoenicopterus roseus use uropygial secretions as make-up," Juan A. Amat et al., Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, October 23, 2010

"An indigenous religious ritual selects for resistance to a toxicant in a livebearing fish," M. Tobler et al., Biology Letters, September 8, 2010

"Mutualistic mycorrhiza-like symbiosis in the most ancient group of land plants," Claire P. Humphreys et al., Nature Communications, November 2, 2010

"A New Species of Snub-Nosed Monkey, Genus Rhinopithecus Milne-Edwards, 1872 (Primates, Colobinae), From Northern Kachin State, Northeastern Myanmar," Thomas Geissmann et al., American Journal of Primatology, October 27, 2010

"The Tail of Tyrannosaurus: Reassessing the Size and Locomotive Importance of the M. caudofemoralis in Non-Avian Theropods," W. Scott Persons IV and Philip J. Currie, The Anatomical Record, November 12, 2010




 

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Comments (1)

It's interesting how this can happen so fast.



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