Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology – Page 10

A unique Machairodus skull, described by French and Bulgarian scientists, contributes to the study of the emblematic cat

The detailed description was published on 16 April 2020 by Prof. Denis Geraads of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and Prof. Nikolay Spassov of the National Museum of Natural History at BAS in the renowned palaeontological journal Geodiversitas. http://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/en/periodiques/geodiversitas/42/9 The skull of which the description was made is one of the best preserved in the world. It was discovered in the 1980s by teacher Dimitar Kovachev during excavations at the palaeontological site near the village of Hadzhidimovo, together with his students from the high school in Asenovgrad. Today, the unique skull is stored at the “Dimitar Kovachev” Palaeontological Museum in Asenovgrad, a branch of the National Museum of Natural History at BAS. http://www.nmnhs.com/palaeontological-museum-in-asenovgrad-bg.html Machairodus is one of the most famous fossil animals, [...]

Nikolay Ikonomov2020-04-21T18:50:56+03:0021 April 2020|Categories: Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology|

The National Museum of Natural History with a pilot study of Antarctica’s fish diversity

Dr. Tihomir Stefanov, ichthyologist at NMNHS, during the expedition Field research under the project "Ichthyological studies in coastal sea in the Bulgarian Polar Base on Livingston Island" of the National Museum of Natural History of BAS (NMNHS-BAS) was conducted within the 28th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition. The main objective of the project is a pilot study of the ichthyological diversity, the biology of the species, the genetic profile and the parasitic fauna of the fish in the waters of Livingston Island in front of the Bulgarian Polar Base. As a result of the field studies, a total of 7 species of fish were identified - six representatives of the family Notothenidae of the genera Notothenia and Trematomus and one species of ice fish - [...]

Nikolay Ikonomov2020-03-24T13:58:45+02:0024 March 2020|Categories: Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology|

BAS to host Danube Academies Conference on climate research in October

The President of BAS - Prof. Julian Revalski, full member of the Academy, had a working meeting with Prof. Felix Unger, President of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. The meeting was held in BAS on 16 January 2020. One of the main activities of the European Academy has been holding of the Danube Academies Conference since 2011. In 2020, the Conference will be held in Sofia, and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences will host the event on 15 and 16 October 2020. The topic will be related to climate research. The meeting was attended by Prof. Evdokia Pasheva, Scientific Secretary-General of BAS, and Corr.-Mem. Dimitar Ivanov, Scientific Secretary of division “Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology”. The Danube Academies Conference brings together all the national [...]

Nikolay Ikonomov2020-01-21T14:27:59+02:0016 January 2020|Categories: Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology, Climate Change, Hazards and Natural Resources|

Remains of a new hominid from Germany (more than 11.5 million years old) change our views on the evolution of great apes and humans

Artists reconstruction by Velizar Simeonovski of male Danuvius guggenmosi The discovery of a 11.62 Million-year-old ape skeleton in Germany now fundamentally changes our views on the early evolution of the human family. These spectacular finds are announced by an international group of scientists from Germany, Canada, Bulgaria and the US in the journal NATURЕ (URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1731-0 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1731-0) The fossils of the newly described genus and species Danuvius guggenmosi (Genus name after the Celtic-roman river god Danuvius, associated with the Danube river) were discovered between 2015 and 2018 by Madelaine Böhme and her team from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment and Tübingen University, in the active clay pit of Hammerschmiede near Pforzen in the Allgäu area of Bavaria. The paleontological excavations [...]

Nikolay Ikonomov2019-11-12T13:44:03+02:007 November 2019|Categories: Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology, Selected|

An international team of scientists with Bulgarian participation with a new discovery on bedbugs

An international team of scientists from four continents: Europe, Asia, North and South America with Bulgarian participation published the results of a study of dozens of bedbug species on 16 May 2019. Dr. Nikolay Simov from the National Museum of Natural History at BAS is the only Bulgarian invited scientist in a team from 14 scientific institutions in 10 countries (Argentina, Bulgaria, UK, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, USA, the Czech Republic and Chile). […]

Nikolay Ikonomov2019-05-22T15:51:24+03:0017 May 2019|Categories: Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology|

An international team described a unique fossil found in Burmese amber

Using state-of-the-art technology, a Bulgarian-German research team established the first fossil representative of the Callipodida order. The new, unknown to science type of millipede with a size of only 8.2 millimeters is found in 99 million-year-old amber. The new species of arthropod who lived in the Cretaceous period along with the dinosaurs is much smaller than all the known representatives of its group and differs significantly from all the species known so far which is why the scientists have separated it in a specially created new family and suborder. During the Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic era, extending from 145 to 70 million years ago, the Earth was populated with various giants - from dinosaurs to centipedes with the size of a person. It turns [...]

Nikolay Ikonomov2019-05-14T15:24:30+03:003 May 2019|Categories: Biodiversity, Bioresources and Ecology, Selected|