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The spider genus Asceua Thorell, 1887 contains 34 species, almost entirely limited to Indochina, India, Sri Lanka and China, with a regional distribution. Eleven species of Asceua are currently only known from China, five of them are described only from one sex.Two new spider species of the genus Asceua are reported from China, A. haocongi sp. n. (♂♀, Hainan) and A. zijin sp. n. (♂♀, Jiangsu). Photos and a morphological description of the new species are provided.

Abstract Play behavior is a significant trait of immature nonhuman primates (hereafter primates) that plays an important role in sensory, locomotor, socio‐cognitive, and developmental processes. It has been suggested that the function of play is to practice and improve motor skills related to foraging, avoiding predators, attracting mates, raising offspring, and strengthening the skills needed for the formation and maintenance of social bonds. From September 2009 to August 2010, we investigated the play behavior of 1–12 month‐old infant white‐headed langurs (Trachypithecus leucocephalus) a Critically Endangered primate species endemic to China. We carried out this study in the Guangxi Chongzuo White‐headed Langur National Nature Reserve, and recorded 4421 play bouts and 1302 min of play engaged in by seven infants. We found that infants of different ages exhibited different patterns of play behavior. Specifically, nonsocial play behaviors appeared at one month of age, social play behaviors at two months, and an expanded repertoire of social and non‐social play behaviors at three months of age. The frequency and duration of nonsocial play peaked at five months of age and then decreased, while social play gradually increased with age. Nonsocial play did not differ between the sexes, whereas social play showed sex specificity, with a higher frequency and longer duration of social play in male infants compared to female infants. In addition, male and female white‐headed langur infants appeared to prefer individuals of same sex as social playmates, but no obvious choice preference for a specific individual. In conclusion, we provide the first report of play behavior in a population of wild Critically Endangered white‐headed langurs. We suggest that age‐ and sex‐specific differences in play behavior of infants form the bases for age and sex‐based differences in the social interactions of adult langurs.

Captive animals and wild animals may exhibit different characteristics due to the heterogeneity of their living environments. The gut microbiota play an important role in the digestion and absorption, energy metabolism, immune regulation, and physiological health of the host. However, information about the gut microbiota of captive and wild Gekko gecko is currently limited. To determine the difference in gut microbiota community composition, diversity, and structure between captive and wild geckos, we used the Illumina miseq platform to conduct high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis of the v3–v4 hypervariable region of 16S rRNA in 54 gecko samples. Our results showed that Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria were the dominant gut microbiota phyla of the gecko. The dominant genera comprised mainly Pseudomonas, Burkholderia-caballeronia-paraburkholderia, Ralstonia, Romboutsia, and Bacteroides. Captive geckos had significantly higher alpha diversity and potential pathogenic bacteria than wild populations. Moreover, significant differences in beta diversity of gut microbiota were observed between two populations. Functional prediction analysis showed that the relative abundance of functional pathways of wild geckos was more higher in metabolism, genetic information processing and organismal system function than those in captive geckos. Total length significantly affected gut microbial community (R2 = 0.4527, p = 0.001) and explained 10.45% of the total variation for gut microbial community variance between two groups. These results may be related to differences in diet and living environment between two populations, suggesting that the management of captive populations should mimic wild environments to the greatest extent possible to reduce the impact on their gut microbiota.

Daily activity patterns and micro-variations in specific behaviors are essential for understanding how primates meet their energetic and/or nutritional requirements while dealing with environmental change. However, such data regarding the Assamese macaques living in limestone forests has yet to be obtained. This study focused on the daily activity patterns and temporal distribution of feeding behaviors of Assamese macaques at the Nonggang National Nature Reserve in southwest Guangxi, China, using instantaneous scan sampling method. Our results indicated that the Assamese macaques included two feeding peaks and two resting peaks. However, the resting peaks in the fruit-rich season occurred at midday (10:00–12:00) and at dusk (17:00–19:00), whereas the resting peaks in the fruit-lean season occurred in the morning (7:00–9:00) and at dusk (18:00–19:00). Meanwhile, the intervals between the feeding peaks in the fruit-lean season were shorter than in the fruit-rich season. Moreover, fruit consumption generally peaked during the morning (37%). The consumption of young leaves during the morning was lower than that in the afternoon, likely being attributed to their higher water content. The implication of the findings is that Assamese macaques not only adjust their daily activity patterns and feedings to cope with the seasonal and micro-variations in temperature and dietary requirements, but also to adapt to their particular environment. Keywords: Assamese macaques Macaca assamensis, Feeding behaviors, Limestone forests, Daily activity patterns

This paper is concerned with the convergence analysis of numerical methods for stochastic delay differential equations. We consider the split-step theta method for nonlinear nonautonomous equations and prove the strong convergence of the numerical solution under a local Lipschitz condition and a coupled condition on the drift and diffusion coefficients. In particular, these conditions admit that the diffusion coefficient is highly nonlinear. Furthermore, the obtained results are supported by numerical experiments.

The stochastic Θ-method is extended to solve nonlinear stochastic Volterra integro-differential equations. The mean-square convergence and asymptotic stability of the method are studied. First, we prove that the stochastic Θ-method is convergent of order 1/2 in mean-square sense for such equations. Then, a sufficient condition for mean-square exponential stability of the true solution is given. Under this condition, it is shown that the stochastic Θ-method is mean-square asymptotically stable for every stepsize if 1/2≤θ≤1 and when 0≤θ

This paper discusses the stochastic Lotka-Volterra system with time-varying delay. The nonexplosion, the boundedness, and the polynomial pathwise growth of the solution are determined once and for all by the same criterion. Moreover, this criterion is constructed by the parameters of the system itself, without any uncertain one. A two-dimensional stochastic delay Lotka-Volterra model is taken as an example to illustrate the effectiveness of our result.

Although species within Lagomorpha are derived from a common ancestor, the distribution range and body size of its two extant groups, ochotonids and leporids, are quite differentiated. It is unclear what has driven their disparate evolutionary history. In this study, we compile and update all fossil records of Lagomorpha for the first time, to trace the evolutionary processes and infer their evolutionary history using mitochondrial genes, body length and distribution of extant species. We also compare the forage selection of extant species, which offers an insight into their future prospects. The earliest lagomorphs originated in Asia and later diversified in different continents. Within ochotonids, more than 20 genera occupied the period from the early Miocene to middle Miocene, whereas most of them became extinct during the transition from the Miocene to Pliocene. The peak diversity of the leporids occurred during the Miocene to Pliocene transition, while their diversity dramatically decreased in the late Quaternary. Mantel tests identified a positive correlation between body length and phylogenetic distance of lagomorphs. The body length of extant ochotonids shows a normal distribution, while the body length of extant leporids displays a non-normal pattern. We also find that the forage selection of extant pikas features a strong preference for C(3) plants, while for the diet of leporids, more than 16% of plant species are identified as C(4) (31% species are from Poaceae). The ability of several leporid species to consume C(4) plants is likely to result in their size increase and range expansion, most notably in Lepus. Expansion of C(4) plants in the late Miocene, the so-called 'nature's green revolution', induced by global environmental change, is suggested to be one of the major 'ecological opportunities', which probably drove large-scale extinction and range contraction of ochotonids, but inversely promoted diversification and range expansion of leporids.

Neutral differential equations have been used to describe the systems that not only depend on the present and past states but also involve derivatives with delays. This paper considers hybrid nonlinear neutral stochastic functional differential equations (HNSFDEs) without the linear growth condition and examines the boundedness and exponential stability. Two illustrative examples are given to show the effectiveness of our theoretical results.

To understand the evolutionary processes leading to the diversity of Asian colobines, we report here on a phylogenetic, phylogeographical and population genetic analysis of three closely related langurs, Trachypithecus francoisi, T. poliocephalus and T. leucocephalus, which are all characterized by different pelage coloration predominantly on the head and shoulders. Therefore, we sequenced a 395 bp long fragment of the mitochondrial control region from 178 T. francoisi, 54 T. leucocephalus and 19 T. poliocephalus individuals, representing all extant populations of these three species. We found 29 haplotypes in T. francoisi, 12 haplotypes in T. leucocephalus and three haplotypes in T. poliocephalus. T. leucocephalus and T. poliocephalus form monophyletic clades, which are both nested within T. francoisi, and diverged from T. francoisi recently, 0.46-0.27 (T. leucocephalus) and 0.50-0.25 million years ago (T. poliocephalus). Thus, T. francoisi appears as a polyphyletic group, while T. leucocephalus and T. poliocephalus are most likely independent descendents of T. francoisi that are both physically separated from T. francoisi populations by rivers, open sea or larger habitat gaps. Since T. francoisi populations show no variability in pelage coloration, pelage coloration in T. leucocephalus and T. poliocephalus is most likely the result of new genetic mutations after the split from T. francoisi and not of the fixation of different characters derived from an ancestral polymorphism. This case study highlights that morphological changes for example in pelage coloration can occur in isolated populations in relatively short time periods and it provides a solid basis for studies in related species. Nevertheless, to fully understand the evolutionary history of these three langur species, nuclear loci should be investigated as well.