50 Years Ago

Savage found that pondweeds in the presence of light stimulate spawning in Xenopus laevis ... This finding prompts me to report my own experience with this amphibian under more natural conditions ... At the Provincial Fisheries Institute, Lydenberg, fishponds ... are filled with water and fertilized with fowl manure in spring for the breeding of fish. Within 2 or 3 days after fertilization such ponds usually contain large numbers of Xenopus, which immediately start spawning, so that by the time plankton has developed the pond is teeming with larvae ... that they are attracted by fertilized water and spawn before an algal bloom develops suggests that the primary stimulus for spawning ... could be the fertilizer.

From Nature 3 September 1966

100 Years Ago

Mr. Beebe has had a wide experience of jungle-life in many lands, and hence his latest experiences in Brazil have the greater value ... Abundance of species and a relative fewness of individuals, he remarks, are pronounced characteristics of any tropical fauna ... He quickly discovered that more was to be obtained by watching particular trees ... [D]uring the space of a week of intermittent watching he obtained no fewer than seventy-six new species ... Just before leaving a brilliant idea struck Mr. Beebe ... he suddenly bethought him to fill a bag with four square feet of jungle earth, and this was examined ... while on board ship on the voyage home ... Among the captures thus made were representatives of two genera of ants new to science. There can be no doubt that important discoveries ... would accrue if this example of Mr Beebe's were generally followed in the future.

From Nature 31 August 1916 Footnote 1