Slug activity is associated with conditions of high humidity, and this association has, not unnaturally, led to the hitherto untested assumption that it was in some way induced by the necessarily damp conditions. The experimental examination of this phenomenon, described in this paper, has shown that certain changes in temperature, and not conditions of high humidity, induce activity. Such temp...

The Iranian cave barb (Iranocypris typhlops Bruun & Kaiser, 1944) is a rare and endemic species of the family Cyprinidae known from a single locality in the Zagros Mountains, western Iran. This species is "Vulnerable" according to the IUCN Red List and is one of the top four threatened freshwater fish species in Iran. Yet, the taxonomic position of I. typhlops is uncertain. We examined phylogen...

A new species of Nicrophorus in the nepalensis species-group, Nicrophorus efferens Sikes and Mousseau, is described from Bougainville Island in the Solomon Islands archipelago. It is distinguished from the known species of the genus Nicrophorus and its likely closest relative, Nicrophorus reticulatus Sikes and Madge, based on external morphology. A comparison among the four Nicrophorus species ...

Analysis of genes preferentially expressed in hairy roots caused by infection with Agrobacterium rhizogenes has provided insights into the regulation of lateral root formation. A hairy root preferential cDNA, HR7, has been cloned from hairy roots of Hyoscyamus niger. HR7 encodes a novel protein partially homologous to a metallocarboxypeptidase inhibitor and is expressed exclusively in the primo...

Rickettsiae of the spotted fever group (SFG) are zoonotic tick-borne pathogens. Small mammals important hosts for immature life stages two most common tick species in Europe, Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus. These vectors can be found diverse habitats with different vegetation types like grasslands forests. To investigate influence environmental individual factors on Rickettsia preva...