In many places around the world, people are living longer and are having fewer children. But that’s not all. In a study of people living in rural Gambia, it appears that this modern-day “demographic transition” may lead women to be taller and slimmer, too. Researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) as well as British, American and Gambian institutes and universities just published their discovery in the Cell Press journal Current Biology.

Scientists have visualised the short pregnancy of a small species of the kangaroo and wallaby family of marsupials, the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii), for the first time by high-resolution ultrasound. The study has shed light on a number of developmental events that are likely to be fundamental to all marsupials. These include a very rigid program of embryonic and fetal development with very little variation in pregnancy length, specialised movements of the endometrium that roll the embryo around the uterus prior to attachment, and climbing movements of the tiny fetus up to three days before birth. This latter finding is one of the earliest developmental behaviours observed in a
mammal and prepares the immature young for the journey to its mother’s pouch.

Die Bengalkatze scheint sich in Nutzwäldern wohl zu fühlen: Sie kommt dort häufiger vor als in vollständig naturbelassenen Lebensräumen. Dies fanden Wissenschaftler unter der Leitung des Leibniz-Instituts für Zoo- und Wildtierforschung (IZW) in einer Studie heraus. Doch mit ihrer Fähigkeit, sich auch in gestörten Lebensräumen gut zurechtzufinden, ist die häufigste Katzenart Asiens eine Ausnahme unter den Raubtieren des tropischen Regenwaldes.