INTRODUCTION The vertebrate inner ear mediates hearing and balance through a complex arrangement of mechanosensory hair cells, nonsensory supporting cells and sensory neurons. All of these cell types derive from the otic placode, a transient ectodermal thickening adjacent to the developing hindbrain (Barald and Kelley, 2004; Fritzsch et al., 2006). Otic placode formation is a multistep process ...

Two new species of anthiine fishes are described from the Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. Plectranthias flammeus was found at depths from 20-45 m and is characterized by dorsal rays X, 14 or 15, with spines 1-6 bearing fleshy white tabs at their tips, longest fleshy tab on spine 4; 14 unbranched pectoral rays; lateral line incomplete with 16-17 tubed scales; preopercle with 8-10 small spin...

The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was a mast-mounted instrument on the Mars Pathfinder lander which landed on Mars’ Ares Vallis floodplain on July 4, 1997. During the 83 sols of Mars Pathfinders landed operations, the IMP collected over 16,600 images. Multispectral images were collected using twelve narrowband filters at wavelengths between 400 and 1000 nm in the visible and near infrared (V...

Coleus spp. have long been prized for their colorful foliage, which may combine shades of green, yellow, pink, red and maroon. They are plants for all locations. Besides their ornamental nature, Coleus spp. are also valued in folk medicine. C. blumei Benth., a natural hybrid of several Coleus spp. is an ornamental plant growing all over the world in an enormous number of different cultivars tha...

The inverse relationship of testicular size and circulating follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) concentrations has been documented, and accompanying this relationship is the change in color of the parenchymal tissue of the testes. Large testes (300 to 400 g) are pink to light red and small testes (100 g) are dark maroon with color gradations for weights in between. It was hypothesized that this ...

X A N T H I N E dehydrogenase (XDH) o€ Drosophila melamgaster is controlled by at least three loci. Electrophoretic evidence (YEN and GLASSMAN 1965) indicates that r y (rosy eye color, 3-52.4), a mutant that lacks XDH (GLASSMAN and MITCHELL 1959), is the structural gene for this enzyme. Mutants of the other two loci, ma-1 (maroon-like eye color, 1-64?) and lxd (low xanthine dehydrogenase, 3-33?...

We describe a new species of Andean toad of the genus Osornophryne from montane cloud forests of northwestern Ecuador between 2500–2750 m above sea level. The new species is characterized by moderately large size (snout-vent length 32.5–36.0 mm in adult females, 21.1–23.2 mm in adult males), dorsal skin highly rugose with scattered irregular warts, dorsolateral ridges of round or oblong glandul...