Publications by authors named "Wendy Panaino"

Article Synopsis
  • Myrmecophagous mammals, which specialize in eating ants and termites, have evolved separately across five different placental orders, prompting questions about the role of natural selection versus phylogenetic constraints in their development.
  • Researchers generated 29 gut metagenomes from nine different myrmecophagous species to identify over 300 bacterial genomes, focusing on chitin-degrading enzymes crucial for digesting the insects’ tough exoskeletons.
  • The findings revealed both common and unique gut bacteria among these species, emphasizing the significance of gut microbial symbionts in the dietary adaptations of myrmecophagous mammals and the evolution of their gut microbiota.
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Climate change is impacting mammals both directly (for example, through increased heat) and indirectly (for example, through altered food resources). Understanding the physiological and behavioural responses of mammals in already hot and dry environments to fluctuations in the climate and food availability allows for a better understanding of how they will cope with a rapidly changing climate. We measured the body temperature of seven Temminck's pangolins () in the semi-arid Kalahari for periods of between 4 months and 2 years.

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This study assesses the functional morphology of the ankle extensor muscle-tendon units of the springhare Pedetes capensis, an African bipedal hopping rodent, to test for convergent evolution with the Australian bipedal hopping macropods. We dissect and measure the gastrocnemius, soleus, plantaris, and flexor digitorum longus in 10 adult springhares and compare them against similar-sized macropods using phylogenetically informed scaling analyses. We show that springhares align reasonably well with macropod predictions, being statistically indistinguishable with respect to the ankle extensor mean weighted muscle moment arm (1.

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