All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Why do two-sex geckos triumph?
Just the smell of an invasive species of gecko suppresses egg laying and subdues aggression in a resident.
- Animals
Maybe what Polly wants is a new toy
Changing the toys in a parrot's cage may ease the bird's tendency to fear new things.
- Animals
Some female birds prefer losers
When a female Japanese quail watches two males clash, she tends to prefer the loser.
- Animals
The secret appetite of cleaner wrasses
The little reef fish that nibble parasites off bigger fish that stop by for service actually prefer to nibble the customers.
- Animals
City Song: Birds sing higher near urban traffic
Birds in noisier city spots tend to sing at a higher pitch than do members of the same species in quieter neighborhoods.
- Earth
Double Trees: City trees grow bigger than country cousins
Clones of an Eastern cottonwood grow twice as well in the New York metropolitan sprawl as in rural New York State.
- Animals
Killer sex, literally
Videotapes of yellow garden spiders show that if a female doesn't murder her mate, he'll expire during sex anyway.
- Plants
Crop genes diffuse in seedy ways
A study of sugar beets in France suggests that genes may escape to wild relatives through seeds accidentally transported by humans rather than through drifting pollen.
- Animals
Flight burns less fuel than stopovers
The first measurements of energy use in migrating songbirds confirms that birds burn more energy during stopovers along the way than during their total flying time.
- Animals
Sumo wrestling keeps big ants in line
In a Malaysian ant species, the large workers establish a hierarchy by engaging in spectacular shaking contests.
- Animals
Moonlighting: Beetles navigate by lunar polarity
A south African dung beetle is the first animal found to align its path by detecting the polarization of moonlight.
- Animals
Strange Y chromosome makes supermom mice
An otherwise rare system of sex determination has evolved independently at least six times in one genus of South American mice.
