The effect of diet, age, sex and state of hydration on the relationship between Na+, K+ and urate in the fat body tissue of the cockroach Periplaneta americana has been investigated. There is a significant correlation between K+ and urate concentrations in the fat bodies of both males and females in late nymphal and adult stages. Animals fed on a dextrin/casein diet, which had a K+ content of about one-third that of the rat pellets normally used for food, had a lower than normal K+/urate ratio. In both the normally fed and dextrin/casein-fed groups of animals, dehydration caused a decrease in the K+/urate ratio. Dehydration (and starvation) caused an increase in the amount of urate per unit weight of fat body. Some of the urate in the fat body is present in small spherical cellular inclusions. There is also a correlation between the K+ concentration and the number of spherules. The ratio of spherules/urate is significantly higher in hydrated animals than in dehydrated ones.
In the field: an interview with Martha Muñoz
Martha Muñoz is an Assistant Professor at Yale University, investigating the evolutionary biology of anole lizards and lungless salamanders. In our new Conversation, she talks about her fieldwork in Indonesia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and the Appalachian Mountains, including a death-defying dash to the top of a mountain through an approaching hurricane.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Trap-jaw ants coordinate tendon and exoskeleton for perfect mandible arc
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Trap-jaw ants run the risk of tearing themselves apart when they fire off their mandibles, but Greg Sutton & co have discovered that the ants simultaneously push and pull the mandibles using energy stored in a head tendon and their exoskeleton to drive the jaws in a perfect arc.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
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In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
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