In the present work, fat, skin, liver and muscle samples from Leptonychotes weddellii (Weddell seal, n=2 individuals), Lobodon carcinophagus (crabeater seal, n=2), Arctocephalus gazella (Antarctic fur seal, n=3) and Mirounga leonina (southern elephant seal, n=1) were collected from King George Island, Antarctica, and analysed for POPs (PCBs, organochlorine pesticides and PBDEs) and stable isoto...

Equid herpesvirus 9 (EHV-9) was isolated from a herd of Thomson's gazelles affected by encephalitis. The natural host of EHV-9 is unknown, but zebras are suspected to be the source of infection in gazelles. To prove this hypothesis, we analyzed 43 sera from Burchell's zebras (Equus burchelli) and 21 Thomson's gazelles (Gazella thomsoni) from the Serengeti ecosystem for neutralizing antibodies. ...

Zero offset correction of diving depth measured by time-depth recorders is required to remove artifacts arising from temporal changes in accuracy of pressure transducers. Currently used methods for this procedure are in the proprietary software domain, where researchers cannot study it in sufficient detail, so they have little or no control over how their data were changed. GNU R package diveMo...

and rolling slopes interspersed with lake basins. The vegetation includes open alpine steppe communities with c. 15% vegetation cover. Vegetation is usually dominated by grass, and biomass rarely exceeds 15 g m−2 (Schaller, 1998; data from adjoining sites in Tibet). The growth season is limited to June–September and temperature regularly falls to −30°C during the long winter. The gazelle was re...

Imagine an individual called “hunter” that expends a good deal of energy to capture a gazelle. As the hunter is consuming his small prey, a second individual called “recipient” approaches and begins feeding peacefully alongside the hunter. A few weeks later the roles reverse, such that the previous recipient has now captured a gazelle, and the previous hunter is taking advantage of the recipien...

Cheetahs exhibit extreme mobility not only in running speed, but also in agility. In particularly, tail-assistive maneuver in chase of a gazelle shows the potential usage of tail in robotic quadruped as well. This talk presents several examples of appendage-assisted dynamic balance in nature along with hypothesized principles. Although the benefits of using additional limbs to augment the agili...

The relationship between environmental change and hominin evolution remains obscure. For the most part, this stems from the difficulty of reconstructing ancient hominin habitats. Bovids are among the most frequently utilized paleoenvironmental indicators, but little is known about the habitat preferences of extinct taxa. It is generally assumed that fossil bovids both ate the same things and oc...