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Sex in the city: uncovering sex-specific management of equine resources from prehistoric times to the modern period in France
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Sex identification from fragmentary archeozoological assemblages is particularly challenging in the Equid family, including for horses, donkeys and their hybrids. This limitation has precluded in-depth investigations of sex-ratio variation in various temporal, geographic and social contexts. Recently, shallow DNA sequencing has offered an economical solution to equine sex determination, even in environments where DNA preservation conditions is not optimal. In this study, we applied state-of-the-art methods in ancient DNA-based equine sex determination to 897 osseous remains in order to assess whether equal proportions of males and females could be found in a range of archeological contexts in France. We found Magdalenian horse hunt not focused on isolated bachelors, and Upper Paleolithic habitats and natural traps equally balancing sex ratios. In contrast, Iron Age sacrificial rituals appeared to have been preferentially oriented to male horses and this practice extended into the Roman Period. During Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Period, cities emerged as environments largely dominated by horse males. This strong sex-bias was considerably reduced, and sometimes even absent, in various rural contexts. Combined with previous archaeozoological work and textual evidence, our results portray an urban economy fueled by adult, often old, males, and rural environments where females and subadults of both sexes were maintained to sustain production demands.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2022
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Sex ratio bias caused by endosymbiont infection in the dwarf spider Oedothorax retusus
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Sexual dimorphism and morphometric variability of cheek teeth of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus)
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Shaking the wings and preening feathers with the beak help a bird to recover its ruffled feather vane
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The feather of a bird consists of barbs which again comprise numerous barbules with micro-hooklets. This hierarchically organized feather structure provides a smooth vane to bear the load from the airflow; however, the feather vane is vulnerable to disruption by external pulling forces during collision with the branches of a tree and hitting some small obstacles in flight or strong turbulence. The feather is unable to carry the weight of the bird's body if the vane could not be recovered immediately. Here we discovered that the feather vane can be re-established easily by birds themselves. A bird can always recover its feather vane from ruffled state by shaking its wings and preening its feathers with its beak because of the cascaded geometries of barbs and barbules. This biophysical mechanism of self-healing suggests that the hierarchical vane structure can be used to design artificial feathers for a flapping robot.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2019
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Shallow marine ostracode turnover in response to environmental changes during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum in northwest Tunisia.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Shallow Suberitida (Porifera, Demospongiae) from Peru
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023 OA
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Shallow-water holothuroid (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) biodiversity and biogeography of the subtropical coast of South Africa
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Shallow-water Holothuroidea (Echinodermata) from Kenya and Pemba Island (Tanzania)
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A total of 225 specimens - representing three orders, four families, 12 genera, 44 species and one variety - collected in the shallow-waters of Kenya and Pemba Island (Tanzania) - are investigated. Bohadschia cousteaui, B. similis, Holothuria (Metriatyla) albiventer; Pearsonothuria graeffei, Thelenota anax, Euapta godeffioyi, Opheodesoma grisea, 0. spectabilis and Synaptula recta are new records for Kenya and from Pemba Island (Tanzania). H. (M) timana is a new record for the western Indian Ocean. Diagnostic characters and descriptions (including some brief notes on the ecology) are given for most species. Identification keys up to the species level are also included. The results are compared to the shallow-water holothuroid biodiversity of the western Indian Ocean. This study stresses the richness of the holothuroid biodiversity of Kenya and Pemba Island. The holothuroid fauna of Kenya (with Pemba Island) is now represented by 48 species.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Sharing is caring? Barcoding suggests co-introduction of dactylogyrid monogeneans with Nile tilapia and transfer towards native tilapias in sub-Saharan Africa
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023 OA
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Shell anatomy of the African Paleocene bothremydid turtle Taphrosphys congolensis and systematic implications within Taphrosphyini
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The bothremydid pleurodiran turtle Taphrosphys congolensis is a member of Taphrosphyina from the Paleocene of the Cabinda Province (Congo Basin, Angola). Very few specimens corresponding to elements of its shell have been so far figured. Abundant unpublished remains are analyzed in this paper. As a consequence, several regions of the shell are figured and characterized here for the first time, and intraspecific variability is recognized for several characters. Previous authors proposed some putative differences between the shells of Taphrosphys congolensis and the North American Paleocene Taphrosphys sulcatus. The increase in the knowledge about the shell of this African form allows us to refute most of them, the shell of both forms being recognized as more similar than previously identified. Thus, the identification of the genus Taphrosphys as restricted to three forms (i.e. the skull taxon Taphrosphys ippolitoi, and the skull and shell forms T. congolensis and T. sulcatus) is supported, and the record unquestionably attributable to this genus is modified from the Upper Cretaceous–Eocene lapse of time to the Paleocene exclusively.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2018