'Hybrid' sharks found in Australia

BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Interbreeding between shark species has created hybrid animals swarming the east coast of Australia, researchers say.

Multiple generations of the shark, a hybrid of the genetically distinct Australian black tip -- whose range extends north from Brisbane -- and the larger common black tip found in southeastern coastal waters, have been found in five locations between northern New South Wales and far north Queensland, The Australian reported Monday.

"Wild hybrids are usually hard to find, so detecting hybrids and their offspring is extraordinary," Jennifer Ovenden of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries said.

"To find 57 hybrids along 2000km (1,200 miles) of coastline is unprecedented," she said.

Some scientists say the discovery suggests shark species might be interbreeding as an adaptation to climate change.

However, other researchers said they could not determine how or even when the hybridization had taken place.

"I don't think it's a result of climate change per se, but it could certainly give the sharks more genes to cope with change in the environment," University of Queensland research scientist Jess Morgan said.

"By mixing their DNA, the species considered more tropical has been able to extend its range into cooler waters," Morgan said.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/01/02/Hybrid-sharks-found-in-Australia/UPI-10171325546276/#ixzz1iUYEIrtf

Hybrid mountain pygmies hold hope of a bright future

''I HOPE you're sitting down,'' the email sent to Marissa Parrott last week began. As the reproductive biologist at Zoos Victoria read on, she discovered why. The email contained the results of a much-anticipated paternity test on Healesville Sanctuary's precious population of mountain pygmy possums.

The results showed that the tiny alpine possums, listed as endangered in Victoria and critically endangered internationally, were capable of doing what Dr Parrott had hoped for but had never seen any evidence of - producing a litter fathered by two males.

''We're all extremely excited,'' Dr Parrott said. ''It's a huge step forward in the conservation of the species.

But there was more to come. The paternity tests conducted at Melbourne University also proved for the first time that hybrid males were fertile - providing a vital new path for boosting the species' genetic diversity.

Since 2007, the mountain pygmy possum captive breeding program at Healesville Sanctuary - the only one of its kind in Australia - has been breeding hybrid animals, with one parent from Mt Buller and the other from Mt Hotham. But because the two populations are genetically distinct - a result of being separated for 10,000 years - there was no guarantee that the hybrid offspring would be fertile.

The first hybrid litter was born in 2008. All three females produced young last year, but it was only last week that the sole male of the litter, Beau, was confirmed as a first-time father.

''This was what we were hoping for, as it shows that a genetic rescue to conserve the species is possible,'' Dr Parrott said.

With just 1500 of the animals left in the wild, scientists' main challenge is keeping the species' gene pool deep enough to maintain healthy populations.

The Mt Buller population - which now numbers fewer than 30 - is of greatest concern, and it is there that the hybrid possums will be released in 2013.

The author of the email was Andrew Weeks from Melbourne University's centre for environmental stress and adaptation research. He said the Mt Buller population had had a genetic diversity rate of 60 per cent in 1996. That has since crashed to 20 per cent.

Dr Weeks said establishing that a single litter could be fathered by multiple males would bode well for the species, as the rate of genetic diversity had the potential to increase at a faster rate. ''It means we can breed up a population that is not as related as it could be and then we can release them back into the wild a lot quicker.''

Healesville Sanctuary's 81 mountain pygmy possums are about to come out of hibernation and begin their breeding season. Dr Parrott said that even before she received the paternity results confidence was high that this would prove a bumper season, with the number of young born eclipsing the record 38 last year.


Bridie Smith
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/animals/hybrid-mountain-pygmies-hold-hope-of-a-bright-future-20111016-1lriq.html#ixzz1b2J6uj6e

Appalachian Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly Is a Hybrid of Two Other Swallowtails, Scientists Find

ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2011) — Flitting among the cool slopes of the Appalachian Mountains is a tiger swallowtail butterfly species that evolved when two other species of swallowtails hybridized long ago, a rarity in the animal world, biologists from The University of Texas at Austin and Harvard University have found.
They discovered that the Appalachian tiger swallowtail, Papilio appalachiensis, evolved from mixing between the Eastern tiger swallowtail, P. glaucus, and the Canadian tiger swallowtail, P. canadensis. The Appalachian tiger swallowtail rarely reproduces with its parental species and is a unique mixture of the two in both its outward traits and inward genetic makeup.

Their research is published in PLoS Genetics.

"How new species form is one of the central questions in evolutionary biology," says Krushnamegh Kunte, a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard who began his research as a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin. "Hybrid speciation is more common in plants, but there are very few cases in animals. This study may create the fullest picture we have to date of hybrid speciation occurring in an animal."

Kunte and colleagues studied three of the eight species of North American tiger swallowtail butterflies. These large insects are generally recognized by yellow wings with black stripes and small "tails" on their hind wings.

Of the three species, Eastern tiger swallowtails prefer warmer climes and lower elevations, and the females come in two different forms. They are either striped (yellow and black) or almost entirely black, the latter mimicking a poisonous butterfly called the Pipevine swallowtail, Battus philenor. Canadian tigers are only striped yellow and black, and found in cooler habitats at higher latitudes and elevations.

The Appalachian tiger exhibits a mix of those traits. It shares an affinity for cooler habitats with the Canadian tiger, while sharing the ability to mimic the black Pipevine swallowtail with the Eastern tiger.

Digging into the butterflies' genomes, the scientists found that the Appalachian tiger inherited genes associated with cold habitats from males of the Canadian tiger, and inherited a gene for mimicry from Eastern tiger females.

They also found that the Appalachian tiger's genome has become significantly distinct from the genomes of its two parental species, even though the butterflies come into contact with each other in the wild (the Appalachian tiger's range nudges against the Canadian tiger in the northern Appalachian Mountains and against the Eastern tiger in the lower elevations surrounding the mountains).

The conventional view of speciation is that one species splits into two over time. With time, the new "sister" species become more and more reproductively isolated from each other.

In the case of hybrid speciation, new species are formed when two species interbreed to create viable hybrids that then evolve on their own. This can occur when two young species haven't yet evolved over a long enough period to be completely reproductively isolated.

Kunte says this is probably the case with these tiger swallowtails. The Eastern and Canadian tigers diverged from each other a mere 600,000 years ago. The Appalachian tiger seems to have diverged from both the parental species only about 100,000 years ago.

"That's not a very long time," says Kunte, "but still we found that the Appalachian tiger has been isolated long enough to have a different appearance and genetic makeup than its parent species."
As for identifying the species in the wild, Appalachian tigers are twice the size of Canadian tigers. Kunte says it's a bit more difficult to distinguish the Eastern and Appalachian tigers. The Eastern tiger has more blue on the hind wing and a spotted yellow band on its forewing underside compared with a solid broad band on the Appalachian tiger.

"Once you train your eyes to tell them apart," says Kunte with a confidence that comes from years of collecting butterflies, "they are relatively easy to distinguish."

Kunte's coauthors include Marcus Kronforst at Harvard, and his graduate advisers Larry Gilbert and Tom Juenger at The University of Texas at Austin. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110908171631.htm

Taxidermist creates animal hybrids in New Zealand

An amateur taxidermist has caused controversy over his hybrid animal stuffings which combine body parts from creatures that have been killed on the roads.

Andrew Lancaster, 57, took up taxidermy in his spare time 14 years ago – shortly after moving from England to New Zealand. Entirely self- taught, Mr Lancaster has experimented with animal creations for the last two years, regarding the work as ‘art’.

“Some people call me sick and some think it’s pretty good,” Mr Lancaster told New Zealand website Stuff. “I saw heaps of dead things on the side of the road and thought it was a waste. When I’m driving along the road and see something I pull up and go back for it,” he admitted.
Mr Lancaster, now living in Tauranga, New Zealand, sells the animal hybrids on Trade Me – the Kiwi equivalent of Craigslist. Working during the day as a marina caretaker, he creates his custom animals in the evenings and on days off.

The amateur taxidermist said he collects birds, pheasants, rats, ferrets and has even found possum babies – discovered inside of their mother’s pouch. Mr Lancaster insists that he only works on animals he finds dead and would never hunt an animal. The unique hybrids have developed a following as his Facebook site ‘Andrew Lancaster Taxidermy Creations’ currently has 241 fans.

Mr Lancaster’s wife has stopped him from keeping many of the animals but he admitted to keeping a pheasant that he “picked up from the road one morning”.     

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/taxidermist-creates-animal-hybrids-in-new-zealand.html