parental care
gregladen | November 27, 2012The phrase "Correlation does not imply causation" has developed in to a Falsehood, as I discuss here. This is in part because people often use the phrase to argue that a particular correlation has no meaning, which is a false argument. It is, of course, true that a correlation does not in and of itself prove a causal link between two things. And, as pointed out in a few places, but I'll refer you to this Mother Jones piece for background, the relationship between single mothers and homicide and other crime is ... well ... interesting.
The idea is to blame single mothers for crime. They,…
grrlscientist | March 29, 2010tags: evolution, evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, animal behavior, molecular ecology, parental care, mating systems, monogamy, sexual selection, frogs, poison dart frogs, Dendrobatidae, Ranitomeya, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper, journal club
Peruvian mimic poison frog, Ranitomeya imitator.
Image: Jason Brown [larger view]
To know the breeding system is to know the genetic architecture of a species.
To know the evolution of a breeding system is to know how evolution works ..
~ Lewis & Crowe, Evolution (1955)
Genetic tests have revealed the…
grrlscientist | December 19, 2008tags: evolution, behavioral ecology, parental care, egg incubation, dinosaurs, birds
The Oviraptorid dinosaur, Citipati osmolskae,
on a nest of eggs that was unearthed in the Gobi desert
of Mongolia by the American Museum of Natural History.
Image: Mick Ellison, American Museum of Natural History.
Oviraptors ("egg seizer") were given their name because their fossil remains were first discovered on top of a pile of eggs. Because of their close proximity to clutches of dinosaur eggs, it was initially assumed that these dinosaurs were eating them. However, in his 1924 paper, their…
grrlscientist | February 9, 2008tags: caecilian, amphibian, parental care, flesh-eating amphibians, behavior, evolution, streaming video
The Purple Caecilian, Gymnopis multiplicata,
is native to Costa Rica, South America.
Image: WildHerps.com
What is that peculiar creature in the above image? Did you guess that it is a worm? Many people do, never realizing that there are strange subterranean vertebrates that resemble worms, but are actually amphibians. So far, only 114 species of these creatures, known as caecilians [seh SEE lee ans], have been identified, but because they rarely come to the surface of the earth, the…