The brown pansy, Junonia stygia (Aurivillius, 1894) (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), is a widespread West African forest butterfly. Genome skimming by Illumina sequencing allowed assembly of a complete 15,233 bp circular mitogenome from J. stygia consisting of 79.5% AT nucleotides. Mitochondrial gene order and composition is identical to other butterfly mitogenomes. Junonia stygia COX1 features an atypical CGA start codon, while ATP6, COX1, COX2, ND4, and ND4L exhibit incomplete stop codons. Phylogenetic reconstruction supports a monophyletic Subfamily Nymphalinae, Tribe Junoniini, and genus Junonia. The phylogenetic tree places Junonia iphita and J. stygia as basal mitogenome lineages sister to the remaining Junonia sequences.

The morphological features of fossorial animals have continuously evolved in response to the demands of survival. However, existing methods for animal burrowing mechanics are not capable of addressing the large deformation of substrate. The discrete element method (DEM) is able to overcome this limitation. In this study, we used DEM to develop a general model to simulate the motion of an animal body part and its interaction with the substrate. The DEM also allowed us to easily change the forms of animal body parts to examine how those different forms affected the biomechanical functions. These capabilities of the DEM were presented through a case study of modeling the burrowing process of North American Badger. In the case study, the dynamics (forces, work, and soil displacements) of burrowing were predicted for different forms of badger claw and manus, using the model. Results showed that when extra digits are added to a manus, the work required for a badger to dig increases considerably, while the mass of soil dug only increases gradually. According to the proposed efficiency index (ratio of the amount of soil dug to the work required), the modern manus with 5 digits has indeed biomechanical advantage for their fossorial lifestyle, and the current claw curvature (25.3 mm in radius) is indeed optimal. The DEM is able to predict biomechanical relationships between functions and forms for any fossorial animals. Results can provide biomechanical evidences for explaining how the selective pressures for functions influence the morphological evolution in fossorial animals.

To initiate its development into a plant, a small dark-grown seedling (prior to its emergence from the ground) must penetrate through the growth media. The path that the seedling takes during this journey has yet to be explained. As such, we conducted non-destructive tests using CT scans to observe the growth of dark-grown seedlings in soil over time; we also developed a model to simulate the dynamics of an emerging seedling, and to examine effects of various growth medium conditions, including Lunar soil. It was previously postulated that, with gravitropism in a terrestrial growth medium, a dark-grown seedling would grow directly upright. However, our CT scan results showed that dark-grown soybean seedlings departed from the vertical path in soil, as far as a lateral distance of approximately 10 mm. The phenomenon of the non-straight path was also demonstrated by the model results. Through simulations, we found that an emerging seedling naturally weaves through the particles of growth medium, in search for the path of least resistance. As a result, the seedling ends up travelling a longer distance. Compared with a seedling that was artificially forced to take a straight path in a growth media, the seedling taking the natural path encountered significantly lower resistances (20% lower) from the growth medium, while travelled 12% longer distance during the emergence process. A seedling encountered a much higher impedance in Lunar soil. Our results suggest that taking the path of least resistance, in addition to shaping and orientating itself for mechanical advantage, are strategies evolved by plant species that have contributed to its vast success. An understanding of plant behavior and survival strategies on Earth lay the foundation for future research in agriculture in novel environments, including on celestial bodies.