Volume 8

  • No. 3 March 2024

    200 years of dinosaurs

    2024 marks 200 years since William Buckland presented Megalosaurus, arguably the first dinosaur to have been named by science. Depictions have changed since Mary Morland Buckland’s sketches of the Megalosaurus jaw accompanied her husband’s work, and a wealth of palaeontological and palaeoecological discoveries in the interim two centuries lie behind Mark Witton’s 21st-century take on a megalosaur attacking its sauropod prey in a lush Jurassic forest landscape.

    See Editorial

  • No. 2 February 2024

    Tasmanian predator interactions

    The spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus, pictured) is a mesopredator that is subordinate to Tasmanian devils ((Sarcophilus harrisii). New genomic data show that quoll genetic structure has increased as devil populations have declined from a fatal, transmissible cancer. Top predators are declining globally, and this study shows that such declines can cause evolutionary responses in other predators, as well as ecological changes in food webs due to reduced competition.

    See Beer et al

  • No. 1 January 2024

    African raptor declines

    Many African raptors have suffered severe, widespread declines since the 1970s, and at the same time have become significantly more dependent on protected areas. Their loss has the potential to trigger extensive cascading effects, particularly in the case of large, apex predators such as this martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus), seen here having just killed a black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas).

    See Shaw et al.