Zoology articles within Nature

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  • Authors |

    Spider silk structure holds secret to catching water as well as flies.

  • News & Views |

    Detailed analyses of foot kinematics and kinetics in barefoot and shod runners offer a refined understanding of bipedalism in human evolution. This research will also prompt fresh studies of running injuries.

    • William L. Jungers

  • Letter |

    Although humans have engaged in long-distance running either barefoot or with minimal footwear for most of human evolutionary history, the modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. Here, runners who habitually run in sports shoes are shown to run differently to those who habitually run barefoot, with the latter often landing on the fore-foot rather than the rear-foot. This strike pattern may have evolved to protect from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by runners.

    • Daniel E. Lieberman
    • , Madhusudhan Venkadesan
    •  & Yannis Pitsiladis

  • Letter |

    Echolocation is usually associated with bats. Many echolocating bats produce signals in the larynx, but a few species produce tongue clicks. Here, studies show that in all bats that use larynx-generated clicks, the stylohyal bone is connected to the tympanic bone. Study of the stylohyal and tympanic bones of a primitive fossil bat indicates that this species may have been able to echolocate, despite previous evidence to the contrary, raising the question of when and how echolocation evolved in bats.

    • Nina Veselka
    • , David D. McErlain
    •  & M. Brock Fenton

  • Letter |

    Animals use the Earth's magnetic field for orientation but the biophysical basis of this is unclear. The light-dependent magnetic sense of Drosophila melanogaster was recently shown to be mediated by the cryptochrome (Cry) photoreceptor; here, using a transgenic approach, the type 1 and 2 Cry of the monarch butterfly are shown to both function in the magnetoreception system of Drosophila, and probably use an unconventional photochemical mechanism.

    • Robert J. Gegear
    • , Lauren E. Foley
    •  & Steven M. Reppert

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