Derived large-mouthed snakes (macrostomatans) possess numerous specializations in their skull and lower jaws that allow them to consume large vertebrate prey. In contrast, basal snakes lack these adaptations and feed primarily on small prey items. The sequence of osteological and behavioral modifications involved in the evolution of the macrostomatan condition has remained an open question beca...

1 Division of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2 Novel Bacteria and Drug Discovery Research Group, School of Pharmacy, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia, 3 UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute, UKM Medical Centre, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 4 Cente...

The tribe Bovini contains a number of commercially and culturally important species, such as cattle. Understanding their evolutionary time scale is important for distinguishing between post-glacial and domestication-associated population expansions, but estimates of bovine divergence times have been hindered by a lack of reliable calibration points. We present a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis o...

Grasses, by their high productivity even under very low pCO2, their ability to survive repeated burning and to tolerate long dry seasons, have transformed the terrestrial biomes in the Neogene and Quaternary. The expansion of grasslands at the cost of biodiverse forest biomes in Madagascar is often postulated as a consequence of the Holocene settlement of the island by humans. However, we show ...

A review of ‘lost’, obscure and poorly known African bird species: Butchart T corpse was partially squashed into the soil in a vehicle track, but it caught the attention of a group of British and Ethiopian wildlife surveyors during a night survey of Nechisar National Park, Ethiopia. As they prised it free, a few feathers blew away, but they salvaged a wing in good condition. It was about midnig...

Animals that live in a tropical environment are exposed to a variety of pathogens, including tick-borne pathogens, tsetse-borne pathogens and intestinal parasites. The clinical significance of pathogens on a population basis is in part determined by the exposure rate of animals to these pathogens. If the prevalence of pathogens is significantly high, the risk of exposure is high and the potenti...

A total of 135 postpartum suckled zebu cows were assigned randomly at calving to two treatments: cows exposed to vasectomised bulls (Mature Bull Exposure, MBE) and cows not exposed to bulls (No Bull Exposure, NBE) for a period of 150 days postpartum. This study was conducted to determine the influence of bull biostimulation, season and parity on postpartum reproductive performance of Bos indicu...

Postweaning, feedlot, and carcass data from crossbred calves sired by five Bos indicus breeds and one Bos taurus breed were evaluated. Data included records from F1 calves out of multiparous Hereford cows sired by Angus, Gray Brahman, Gir, Indu-Brazil, Nellore, and Red Brahman bulls. The Zebu crosses grew faster postweaning and were heavier and taller as yearlings than the Angus crosses (P < .0...

For the whole 20th century, bovine tuberculosis (BTB) challenged the international community efforts to control this zoonotic disease. Asia and Africa accommodate the largest BTB-infected zebu cattle in the world. Similar to other few Asian nations, Iran has been actively running its BTB-control plan for the last four decades. BTB however, is still a number-one health concern for Iranian veteri...

Cattle domestication from wild aurochsen was among the most important innovations during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. The available genetic and archaeological evidence points to at least two major sites of domestication in India and in the Near East, where zebu and the taurine breeds would have emerged independently. Under this hypothesis, all present-day European breeds would be desc...