Insights

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology An international team of scientists has named five new species of tiny frogs found across the island of Madagascar. The largest of them could sit happily on your thumbnail. The smallest is just longer than a grain of rice. The study was published in the open access mega-journal PLoS ONE. […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology Another great success for the Bavarian State Collection for Zoology: 661 species of digger wasps, closely related to the bees, were genetically investigated through DNA barcoding. Together with colleagues from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Canada, ZSM scientists have published the results of an international project to create a genetic […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology During the Late Pleistocene period (between 125,000 to 12,000 years ago) two bear species roamed Europe: brown bears (Ursus arctos) and extinct cave bears (Ursus spelaeus s.l.). It is generally assumed that fossil brown bears had a similar diet to extant brown bears, but the situation is not as clear […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology During the Late Pleistocene period (between 125,000 to 12,000 years ago) two bear species roamed Europe: omnivorous brown bears (Ursus arctos) and the extinct mostly vegetarian cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). Until now, very little is known about the dietary evolution of the cave bear and how it became a vegetarian, […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology Madagascar is a chameleon paradise. More than 40% of the 206 known species are found exclusively on the island. A team of researchers based in Munich, Germany and Madagascar have now discovered three new species, among them a beautifully coloured rainbow chameleon, and a species with a large hole in […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology Chameleons are famous for their colour language. Using colour changes and colourful patterns they communicate with their conspecifics. A research team from Munich, Germany, has now found that many chameleons have bony tubercles on their head, which glow blue under UV light and form impressive patterns. The skin in this […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology Madagascar is a famous hotspot of biodiversity. 319 species of frogs are officially known from this island off the East African coast. Recent studies have shown that at least 200 additional new species are still awaiting scientific description and naming. An international team has now described 26 new species of […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology Researchers from the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, Munich, studied a gecko’s colonization of islands in the Western Indian Ocean. By applying molecular dating of a family tree of gecko species (“molecular clock”) they found that the volcanic island of Grand Comoro is likely much older than previously estimated based […]

Bavarian State Collection for Zoology Madagascar is famous for its high levels of species diversity and endemism. Almost 300 species of frogs and approximately 400 species of reptiles live in the rainforests, mountains and arid areas of the island, and new species are regularly discovered. More than 40% of the 193 named chameleon species occur […]