Press releases

The recently extinct Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis) was one of three species of monk seal in the world. Its relationship to the Mediterranean and Hawaiian monk seals, both living but endangered, has never been fully understood. Through DNA analysis and skull comparisons, however, Leibniz scientists and colleagues have now clarified the Caribbean species’ place on the seal family tree and created a completely new genus. This is the first time in more than 140 years that a new genus has been recognized amongst modern pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses). The team’s findings are published in the scientific journal ZooKeys, May 14.

Retroviruses invaded the genome of koalas with strongly pathological effects: the viruses weaken the immune defense and threaten the viability of the already reduced koala population. An international team of scientists from Europe and North America now applied the technique of hybridisation capture to analyse the entire genome of koala retroviruses and used museum samples to monitor its variation across 130 years. The findings were just published in the scientific online-journal PLOS ONE.

An international team of researchers led by scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) Berlin examined the incidence of skull malformations in lions, a problem known to be responsible for causing neurological diseases and increased mortality. Their results suggest that the occurrence is a consequence of a combination of environmental and genetic factors. These findings were published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Reproduction of the Indian rhinoceros faces greater difficulties than was previously recognised. Researchers from the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research Berlin (IZW) together with American colleagues discovered that benign vaginal and cervical tumours cause infertility even in young females. This substantially affects breeding success in zoological gardens.

The Senate of the Leibniz Association has published the results of the external scientific evaluation of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), Berlin, Germany. It commends the institute for its excellent work and recommends that the government should fund the institute for another seven years.

Increasing light pollution in tropical habitats could be hampering regeneration of rainforests because of its impact on nocturnal seed-dispersers.

Understanding the mechanisms which control reproduction in lynx is essential for their continued viability and effective conservation.

An international team of scientists studied how Bornean orang-utans cope with habitat modifications caused by logging in rainforests

Knut, the polar bear of the Berlin Zoological Garden, drowned in 2011 after suffering seizures and falling into the enclosure pond. Necropsy and histology at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research suggested the cause was encephalitis most likely due to viral infection. After one of the most intensive investigations in veterinary history for a single animal, utilising state-of-the-art pathological techniques and high-throughput next-generation molecular sequencing methods, the conclusions of the investigations are presented.

In drought periods browsing springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) feed on all plant material they can find, while grazing gemsbok (Oryx gazella gazella), in contrast, switch their diet to a high proportion of poisonous plants – and they survive. These findings were just published in the scientific online journal PLOS ONE.