#adaptation

#adaptation

390 Million Years Ago, This Trilobite Developed a "Hyper-Eye" with 200 LensesBack in the 1970s, radiologist and amateur paleontologist Wilhelm Stürmer took some x-ray images of trilobites of the suborder Phacopina from the Devonian age. (These were arthropods that became extinct about 251 million years ago.) At the time, Stürmer believed that the filaments under the arthropod's eyes were nerves that served as a light guiding system. Unfortunately, scientists did not believe his theory. Now, decades later, a re-examination of Stürmer's images proved that his conjectures were true after all.The research team today has learned that the trilobite's eye system was unique. Each eye contained about 200 large lenses that spanned six normal compound-eye-facets, which formed a compound eye. Furthermore, scientists have identified a structure thought to directly process visual information from this hyper-eye.It is believed that this hyper-eye was an evolutionary adaptation, as the trilobite lived in low-light environments.Learn more about this trilobite and the study over at the University of Cologne.(Image via University of Cologne)#Evolution #Trilobite #Eye #XrayImageAnalysis #Adaptation

Animals Cope With Global Warming By Changing Their ShapesWith the world slowly getting hotter each moment that passes by, how do animals cope with the heat? Unlike we humans who have air-conditioners which could keep an enclosed environment cool, animals don’t have this revolutionary piece of technology. So how are they able to withstand the scorching heat? To solve this temperature problem, animals have resorted to “changing the sizes and shapes of certain body parts”.The animals’ shapes-shifting changes make sense, researchers say. In biology, an established concept called Bergmann's rule states that creatures that live in colder climates tend to be larger and thicker than those closer to the equator—to better conserve heat. The rule is named after Carl Bergmann, a nineteenth century biologist who first described the pattern in 1847. Thirty years later, another biologist, Joel Asaph Allen further expanded the concept, stating that animals that adapted to cold climates have shorter limbs and bodily appendages—to keep the warmth in. For similar thermoregulatory reasons, the reverse is also commonly true—in hotter climates warm-blooded animals’ appendages become larger, relative to their body size.The team of researchers from Deakin University in Australia and Brock University in Canada found that, since 1871, parrots have enlarged their beak surface by up to 10 percent, while roundleaf bats have very slightly increased their wing size since the 1950s.Learn more about this study over at Smithsonian Magazine.(Image Credit: Alexandra McQueen)#GlobalWarming #ClimateChange #AnimalAdaptation #Adaptation #Birds #Bats