Red legs and golden gasters: Batesian mimicry in australian ants

 There are numerous reports of invertebrates that are visual mimics of ants, but no formal reports of mimicry of an ant, by an ant. Two endemic Australian ants, Myrmecia fulvipes and Camponotus bendigensis are remarkably similar in colour and size; both are generally black but have red legs and golden gasters. The density and hue of the pubescence of each ant's gaster are relatively uncommon in ants, but are very rare when combined with the black forebody and red legs. The ants are similarly sized but are smaller than other species closely related to M. fulvipes. The range of C. bendigensis lies entirely within that of M. fulvipes, and both species excavate ground nests in open woodland. Finally, workers of both species are crepuscular and forage solitarily. These data suggest that the relatively benign formicine C. bendigensis is a Batesian mimic of the formidable myrmeciine M. fulvipes. Received: 9 August 1999 / Accepted in revised form: 22 December 1999     

Persistence of Eclosion Rhythm in Drosophila melanogaster After 600 Generations in an Aperiodic Environment

 The ubiquity of circadian rhythms suggests that they have an intrinsic adaptive value (Ouyang et al. 1998; Ronneberg and Foster 1997). Some experiments have shown that organisms have enhanced longevity, development time or growth rates when maintained in environments whose periodicity closely matches their endogenous period (Aschoff et al. 1971; Highkin and Hanson 1954; Hillman 1956; Pittendrigh and Minis 1972; Went 1960). So far there has been no experimental evidence to show that circadian rhythms per se (i.e. periodicity itself, as opposed to phasing properties of a rhythm) confer a fitness advantage. We show that the circadian eclosion rhythm persists in a population of the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster maintained in constant conditions of light, temperature, and humidity for over 600 generations. The results suggest that even in the absence of any environmental cycle there exists some intrinsic fitness value of circadian rhythms. Received: 2 November 1998 / Accepted in revised form: 22 April 1999     

Activities of alkaline phosphatase in first trimester chorion biopsy tissue

We have determined the activity of alkaline phosphatase in chorionic villous tissue obtained in the first trimester of pregnancy, in order to obtain the normal range of values as a prerequisite for application to the prenatal diagnosis of the rare bone disease hypophosphatasia. The activities found were a combination of intestinal and liver/bone/kidney types; traces of placental type were present in only one sample.