Press releases

Scientists have now demonstrated that the Tasmanian tiger, also known as Tasmanian wolf or thylacine, possessed limited genetic variability prior to its extinction. This might have been caused by geographical isolation when Tasmania was isolated from mainland Australia 10-13 thousand years ago.

Researchers have found which mechanisms are responsible that elephants have the longest pregnancy in the world. With up to 680 days their pregnancy is longer than in any other mammal studied so far.

During autumn, migratory bats use a combination of fat reserves and food to fuel their strenuous  long-distance flights to the south.

Ayone who is healthy has more enthusiasm for reproduction. The same is true even for bats. Male bats with a good immune system are more successful in being selected by females during mate choice and reproduction than their ailing counterparts.

Some animal and human populations were shown to shift their birth sex ratio from the expected unity. Using fluorescence in situ hybridisation, a research team now shows in a study that males in a captive endangered pygmy hippopotamus population may be able to adjust the ratio of X- and Y-chromosome bearing spermatozoa  in their ejaculates, in favour of producing more female. This could represent a way for the males to reduce competition for females from other males in this captive population.

Jena`s Leibniz Institute for Age Research - Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI) and Berlin`s Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) from Germany are jointly starting a project for ageing research in 2012. Within the framework of the “Joint Initiative Research and Innovation” (PAKT), researchers want to identify molecular networks responsible for a long life in health. Naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) act as a model organism, these animals can reach a high age without suffering from age-related diseases. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal States invest 1.5 million euro within three years for this innovative research.

One of the biggest puzzles in evolution is why some groups of organisms contain many species while others have only a few. You might expect that groups of the same geological age would have a similar number of species, but that is seldom the case. Among mammals, the New World Leaf-Nosed bats comprise almost 200 species, while their closest relatives include only 10 species despite evolving over the same period of time. Why are there so many species of New World Leaf-Nosed bats?

An international team of  researchers has used ancient DNA to shed new light on the realism of  horses depicted in prehistoric cave paintings.

The first Borneo Carnivore Symposium (BCS) was concluded on a high note this week as worldwide experts determined species priorities for the Bornean nations of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

On Monday, 7th February 2011, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the State Government of Sabah (Malaysia), represented by the Sabah Forestry Department (SFD) and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) of Germany.