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Unlaid egg discovered in ancient bird fossil By John Pickrell Mar. 20, 2019 , 6:00 AM For the first time, researchers have found an unlaid egg inside a fossilized bird. The find— belonging to a sparrow-size flyer that lived in northwestern China 110 million years ago—is especially remarkable because fully formed eggs typically only stay within an adult bird for about 24 hours. Researchers were initially puzzled by the discovery, as they never suspected the unusual, squashed mass within the headless fossil’s abdomen (seen as a flattened brown layer in the center of the picture) could be an egg. But a microscopic analysis of a fragment revealed it to be eggshell. Further study suggested structural abnormalities that hint that the egg may have been the cause of this bird’s demise, the paleontologists report today in Nature Communications. The fossil eggshell’s structure doesn’t have the correct proportions seen in healthy eggs and consists of multiple layers ...

Upper figure: The first global map of species richness of trees, as produced by the new model. It illustrates the number of tree species that can be expected within areas of one hectare. The highest number of tree species (orange to yellow) can be found in the hot, humid tropics. The remaining white spaces are unforested areas. Lower figure: When tree diversity is observed on the scale of larger regions, the picture changes. A particularly high number of species (orange to yellow) can now be observed in mountainous areas like southern China, Mexico, or in the Ethiopian highlands, which all have high beta diversity. The biodiversity of our planet is one of our most precious resources. However, for most places in the world, we only have a tiny picture of what this diversity actually is. Researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) have now succeeded in constructing, from scattered data, a world map...

Continental Drift Theory First person to think the continents fit together – mapmaker, Abraham Ortelius First to propose the idea of Continental Drift was meteorologist – Alfred Wegener – Hypothesis that continents were connected but broke apart 200 million years ago and drifted to current position Pangaea Wegener suggested the continents were once connected as one large landmass called Pangaea The Earth appears to be cracked into pieces called plate tectonics. (Like a cracked egg shell) 5. Some plates move in opposite directions (Divergent). Some plates collide (Convergent) Some plates slide past each other (transform boundary) Divergent Boundaries Two plates that are moving apart. This is seafloor spreading Hot material rises to create new lithosphere Volcanoes and earthquakes common Rift valley – the crack Deep-sea trenches Ex: Mid-Atlantic Ridge Convergent Plate Boundaries Two plates move together A: Continental plate vs. continental plate – Same densities, neither sin...

In situ and Ex situ method of conservation Conservation is the protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife and natural resources such as forests and water. Through the conservation of biodiversity and the survival of many species and habitats which are threatened due to human activities can be ensured. There is an urgent need, not only to manage and conserve the biotic wealth, but also restore the degraded ecosystems. Types of Conservation: Conservation can broadly be divided into two types: 1. In-situ conservation 2. Ex-situ conservation In-situ conservation is on site conservation or the conservation of genetic resources in natural populations of plant or animal species, such as forest genetic resources in natural populations of tree species. It is the process of protecting an endangered plant or animal species in its natural habitat, either by protecting or cleaning up the habitat itself, or by defending the species from preda...