Laura van Holstein, a PhD student in Biological Anthropology at St John's College, University of Cambridge, and lead author of the research published today (March 18) in Proceedings of the Royal Society, discovered mammal subspecies play a more important role in evolution than previously thought.
Her research could now be used to predict which species conservationists should focus on protecting to stop them becoming endangered or extinct.
A species is a group of animals that can interbreed freely amongst themselves. Some species contain subspecies -- populations within a species that differ from each other by having different physical traits and their own breeding ranges. Northern giraffes have three subspecies that usually live in different locations to each other and red foxes have the most subspecies -- 45 known varieties -- spread all over the world. Humans have no subspecies.
A dead spacecraft the size of a truck ignites with plasma and pulverizes into dust and...
A total solar eclipse dazzled citizens of the United States, Mexico and Canada on Monday, giving...
Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the so-called "God particle" that helped...
Get ready for a spectacular show: A total solar eclipse will occur above the U.S. on...
