Therizinosaurs are a group of herbivorous theropod dinosaurs from the Cretaceous of North America and Asia, best known for their iconically large and elongate manual claws. However, among Therizinosauria, ungual morphology is highly variable, reflecting a general trend found in derived theropod dinosaurs (Maniraptoriformes). A combined approach of shape analysis to characterize changes in manua...

A new tardigrade, Doryphoribius maasaimarensis sp. nov., is described from a moss sample collected in Masai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya. The new species is characterized by having a reticulate dorsal cuticle with small tubercles; nine transverse rows of dorsal gibbosities (configuration IX:4-6-4-6-4-6-4-4-2); pharyngeal bulb with two macroplacoids and no microplacoid; claws with short and thin acc...

Pet birds, being previously unexposed to the many dangers of our industrial world, are prime candidates for the ingestion/inhalation of toxins. What follows is a highlight of the most common toxins found in our homes. These will include "acute" fast acting fatal toxins and the "chronic" more long term, but still deadly types of toxins. REMEMBER: WHEN CONSIDERING IF A PRODUCT MIGHT BE TOXIC OR N...

This study examines differences in Ž ghting strategies between small and large male crayŽ sh, Orconectes rusticus. Due to allometric growth of claws, Ž ghting weapons are of disproportionate size in large crayŽ sh compared to those in smaller individuals. Presumably, such differences in the prominence of claws are re ected in differences in the likelihood of injuries, and we thus explored Ž gh...

We derive a recursion for the genus distributions of the graphs obtained by iteratively attaching a claw to the dipole D3. The minimum genus of the graphs in this sequence grows arbitrarily large. The families of graphs whose genus distributions have been calculated previously are either planar or almost planar, or they can be obtained by iterative single-vertex or single-edge amalgamation of s...

Individuals in families of Aedes (Stegomyia) mosquitoes reared from females collected at Kloof, KwaZulu-Natal, were identified as Aedes demeilloni or Aedes segermanae or were indeterminate because tarsal claw morphology, the distinguishing character, varied. Similarly, Aedes (Stegomyia) simpsoni and Aedes (Stegomyia) bromeliae reared from ovitraps exposed at Ndumu, northern KwaZulu-Natal, showe...

Males often possess traits, such as horns, claws and tusks, which are used during male-male combat. Studies suggest that selection has fine-tuned these weapons to improve their effectiveness and that the shape of these weapons provide cues for males to assess the strength of rivals. Similarly, females might also assess a male’s weaponry to determine his value as a mate. The largest weapon relat...

Vertebrate claws are used in a variety of important behaviours and are typically composed of a keratinous sheath overlying the terminal phalanx of a digit. Keratinous claws, however, are rare in living amphibians; their microstructure and other features indicate that they probably originated independently from those in amniotes. Here we show that certain African frogs have a different type of c...

Postsynaptic morphogenesis of dendrites is essential for the establishment of neural connectivity in the brain, but the mechanisms that govern postsynaptic dendritic differentiation remain poorly understood. Sumoylation of the transcription factor myocyte enhancer factor 2A (MEF2A) promotes the differentiation of postsynaptic granule neuron dendritic claws in the cerebellar cortex. Here, we ide...