All Articles Tagged As: bears

New study changes conditions for Spanish brown bears (3/19/2008)

Brown bears from the Iberian Peninsula are not as genetically different from other brown bears in Europe as was previously thought. A new study shows that, on the contrary, the Spanish bear was only recently isolated from other European strains. These findings shed new light on the discussion of how to save the population of Spanish bears. ...> Full Article

Frozen hair holds secrets of Yellowstone grizzlies (12/19/2007)

Locks of hair from more than 400 grizzly bears are stored at Montana State University, waiting to tell the tale of genetic diversity in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. ...> Full Article

Bear hunting altered genetics more than Ice Age isolation (11/27/2007)

It was not the isolation of the Ice Age that determined the genetic distribution of bears, as has long been thought. This is shown by an international research team led from Uppsala University in Sweden in the latest issue of Molecular Ecology. One possible interpretation is that the hunting of bears by humans and human land use have been crucial factors. ...> Full Article

The giant panda holds potential for further evolution (8/22/2007)

Employing microsatellite and mitochondrial control region (CR) sequences as genetic markers, CAS researchers have obtained some key information about the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and depicted its recent evolution history. They discovered that the lovely species still possesses high genetic diversity and evolution potentials, putting an end to the hypothesis suggesting the giant panda is facing an 'evolutionary dead-end'. ...> Full Article

Anthropologist Discovers Remains Of Earliest Giant Panda (6/20/2007)

Although it may sound like an oxymoron, a University of Iowa anthropologist and his colleagues report the first discovery of a skull from a "pygmy-sized" giant panda -- the earliest known ancestor of the giant panda -- that lived in south China some two million years ago. ...> Full Article