Brazilian zoologists have found the latest type of freshwater dolphins that live in the Amazon. The view was named Inia araguaiaensis the name of the river where they live. Description of the newest kind published in the journal PLoS ONE, briefly about it reported ScienceNow.
Freshwater dolphins family Inia was formerly divided into 2 types: Inia boliviensis and Inia geoffrensis. However in the new study, researchers showed that the animals that live in the river basin of Aragua, not mixed with their own relatives from Amazon for about 2 million years. To install it turned out the comparison of the nucleotide sequences of the family living in different parts of the tropical Brazil.
Besides the difference in DNA, scientists found between 3 types of small morphological differences - skull adherents of the newest kind was wider than that of other dolphins. Data about the anatomy of the newest kind due to the inaccessibility of skeletal remains were obtained based On the version of researchers, most likely the newest form separated from their own family members at the time, as a river of Aragua changed his own hands and stopped to fall into the Amazon. This situation contributed to the geographic isolation of the population and eventually to the formation on its basis of new species. This mechanism is a traditional case allopatric speciation.
Not so long ago zoologists locate the latest views of the sea humpback dolphins. Almost as in history with representatives of Inia, genus was divided not into 3, and 4 species. To install this happened also with the help of methods of molecular taxonomy. Other relevant recent discovery of mammalian is olegito, - live in the jungle of Ecuador "a cross between a cat and Teddy bears".
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