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York, England (UPI) Dec 21, 2010 Researchers say gene studies may have settled a long-running debate by proving there are two distinct species of African elephants, savannah and forest species. Scientists say the two types have been separated for at least 3 million years and are genetically completely different from each other, the BBC reported Tuesday. Savannah-dwelling elephants, weighing 6 or 7 tons, are about twice as heavy as the elephants living in forest habitats. Along with other differences in size and shape, this led some researchers to conclude there are two species -- the savannah elephant, Loxodonta africana, and the forest species, Loxodonta cyclotis. Scientists from the United States and Europe say genetic studies have proved the case. "The divergence of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of the Asian elephant and woolly mammoths," Michi Hofreiter, a specialist in ancient DNA at the Britain's York University, said. "The split between African savannah and forest elephants is almost as old as the split between humans and chimpanzees," Hofreiter said. "This result amazed us all."
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Meat-Eating Dinosaurs Not So Carnivorous After AllChicago IL (SPX) Dec 22, 2010 Tyrannosaurus rex may have been a flesh-eating terror but many of his closest relatives were more content with vegetarian fare, a new analysis by Field Museum scientists has found. The scientists, Lindsay Zanno and Peter Makovicky, who will publish their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used statistical analyses to determine the diet of 90 species of thero ... read more |
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