-
Scaldiporia vandokkumi, a new pontoporiid (Mammalia, Cetacea, Odontoceti) from the Late Miocene to earliest Pliocene of the Westerschelde estuary (The Netherlands)
-
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2017
-
Scheenstia bernissartensis (Actinopterygii: Ginglymodi) from the Early Cretaceous of Bernissart, Belgium, with an appraisal of the ginglymodians evolutionary history
-
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2019
-
Sclerochronological evidence of pronounced seasonality from the Pliocene of the southern North Sea Basin, and its implication
-
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2021
-
Sclerochronological evidence of pronounced seasonality from the late Pliocene of the southern North Sea Basin, and its wider implications
-
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2022
-
Sclerochronological evidence of pronounced seasonality from the late Pliocene of the southern North Sea Basin, and its implications
-
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2021
-
Sea Cucumbers of the Comoros Archipelago
-
Sea cucumbers have been harvested for centuries in the Far East. Overexploitation, coupled with increasing demand has led to local depletion of certain standing stocks. De novo investigation at Grande Comore (one of the four main islands of the Comoros Archipelago) allows reappraisal of local holothuroid biodi- versity. Comparison with neighbouring areas allows extrapolation of holothuroid species richness to the rest of the archipelago. The current exploitation of holothuroids has been documented and there are definite signs of overexploitation. Conservation measures are urgently needed if exploitation of sea cucumbers in this area is to become sustainable in the near future.
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications
-
Seasonality only works in certain parts of the year: The reconstruction of fishing seasons through otolith analysis
-
Seasonality estimations using incremental data usually suffer from small sample sizes and from the lack of comparison with sufficiently large modern samples. The present contribution reports on incremental studies carried out on large assemblages of plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) and haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) from a late medieval fishing village (Raversijde, Belgium) on the North Sea coast. In an attempt to refine previous seasonality estimates made for this site, and to expand conclusions concerning general methodology, extensive monthly samples of modern otoliths of these species, caught within the North Sea, have also been investigated. The modern material shows that the timing of the seasonal changes in the edge type (hyaline or opaque) of the otoliths is extremely variable and that it is dependent on the fishing ground, the year considered, and the age of the fish. It also appears that the increase of the marginal increment thickness is highly variable, to such an extent that the thickness of the last increment of a single otolith is mostly useless for seasonality estimation. Where large archaeological otolith assemblages can be studied, preferably from single depositional events, seasonality determination becomes possible on the condition, however, that the archaeological assemblage corresponds to fish that were captured during their period of fast growth. The growth ring study on the otoliths from Raversijde shows that plaice fishing took place in spring and that it was preceded by a haddock fishing season, probably in late winter/early spring.
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications
-
Secondary sex estimation using morphological traits from the cranium and mandible: application to two Merovingian populations from Belgium
-
It is generally accepted that the coxal bone is the most reliable bone for estimating the sex of adult subjects. When the coxal bone is not usable, researchers generally turn to methods based on the skull (cranium and mandible). However, these methods are less reliable, because they are largely based on an estimate of the robusticity, which can be influenced by characteristics independent of the sex of the subject. In the context of primary sex estimation, skull-based methods should therefore be avoided. However, by using morphological traits of the cranium and the mandible as part of a secondary sex estimation, we were able to estimate the sex of a relatively large number of individuals with a minimum reliability of 95%. Our study thus illustrates the value of using morphological characteristics of the skull for a secondary sex estimation conducted with a reliable statistical method.
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2024
-
Secrets of de Selys Longchamps archives: one watercolour and two records of nineteenth century observations of the grasshopper species Psophus stridulus (Linnaeus, 1758) and Locusta migratoria (Linnaeus, 1758) in Belgium (Orthoptera: Acrididae)
-
Next to voucher specimens in entomological collections, also historical archives and historical illustrations can contain valuable taxonomical as well as ecological and faunistic data. We report here faunistic data for two currently extinct Belgian grasshopper species from the year 1862, deduced from a letter accompanied by a watercolour. The letter and watercolour are stored in the archives of Edmond de Selys Longchamps at the Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences (RBINS). Both the watercolour and the letter are discussed, focusing on the observations of Psophus stridulus (Linnaeus, 1758) and Locusta migratoria (Linnaeus, 1758) (Orthoptera) at Lanaken in 1862. Two voucher specimens of these observations and their original labels, that are stored in the RBINS collections, were studied. We can conclude that Egide Fologne was the first to observe P. stridulus in Belgium. He reported this in a letter to Edmond de Selys Longchamps and supplied the watercolour depicting the specimen he collected and donated to Selys for his collection.
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2017
-
Self-domestication or human control? The Upper Palaeolithic domestication of the wolf
-
Located in
Library
/
RBINS Staff Publications 2018
