Tasmanian tigers were hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 1900s, and the last tiger, or thylacine, died in captivity in 1936. But now scientists have resurrected a bit of the thylacine's DNA in a mouse.
Credit: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

The brown-throated three-toed sloth has become the first free-ranging animal to get brain wave monitoring for sleep studies. Read more...
Credit: Max Planck Institute

Mouse lemurs, a group of hamster-sized mammals native to Madagascar, distinguish potential lovers from their look-alikes by their song, scientists report. Having different booty calls prevents the creatures from pursuing a mate of the wrong species, says zoologist Pia Braune of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany. Read more
Credit: Tiho Hannover

More than one species of the nocturnal, diminutive primates called mouse lemurs may dwell in the same area of the forest and often they look extremely similar, says zoologist Pia Braune of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, Germany. But experiments that played back the calls of grey mouse lemurs and golden brown mouse lemurs reveal that the animals respond more to crooning from their own species than outsiders. Analyses of the animals’ ultrasonic calls revealed differences in the length and composition of each species song. During mating season, the night swells with noise, s...
Credit: Andrea Weidt

OUT WITH THE BOYS For two weeks, multiple male moor frogs (Rana arvalis) congregate and call for females. Credit: Theresa Knopp
Credit: Theresa Knopp

Silently slinking through tight corridors between the branches of corals, moray eels spook fish, squid and divers alike. Fish and squid more so, of course, as they may well become the next meal for the voracious predators. Unlike other eels and bony fishes, morays consume large prey whole and with a minimum of jostling — the tight space around them would never allow such freedom of movement. They accomplish the task by gripping their victims with a second pair of pharyngeal jaws in their throat. Rita Mehta of the University of California, Davis documents the throaty jaws and the feeding proc...
Credit: Rita Mehta

Flocks of starlings flying over Rome. Physicists used computers to track the motion of single birds in flocks of up to 4,000 starlings. Read the full story.
Credit: STARFLAG Project/INFM-CNR

With computer tracking, physicists found that each starling in a flock adjusts its trajectory to those of its six or seven neighbors, no matter how close or far they are. The technique helps the flocks stay cohesive when attacked by a predator such as a peregrine falcon — although in that case a flock will often still break up into two. Read the full story.
Credit: STARFLAG Project/INFM-CNR

More flocks of starlings’ evening acrobatics — a behavior that may be explained by the need to help other starlings navigate home to their roosting sites after a day spent roaming for food. Read the full story.
Credit: STARFLAG Project/INFM-CNR