All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Female owls: First to advertise good genes
Swiss researchers find the first case of a female flashing ornaments that advertise her gene quality to choosy males.
- Ecosystems
Insects, pollen, seeds travel wildlife corridors
Strips of habitat boost insect movement, plant pollination, and seed dispersal among patches of the same ecosystem.
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Ah, my pretty, you’re…#&! a beetle pile!
Hundreds of tiny, young blister beetles cluster into lumps resembling female bees and hitchhike on the male bees that they seduce.
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Spying on Plant Defenses: Insects monitor toxin ramp-up
A common caterpillar can sense when a plant is gearing up to manufacture insecticidal toxins and respond by starting up its own detoxification system.
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Tests revise image of kangaroo rats
An ecological study of kangaroo rats has revised thinking about how these desert dwellers cope with their stressful home.
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Chicken Rank: Hen social position shifts egg hormones
A study of leghorn chickens has linked hormone concentrations in a hen's eggs to her rank in the pecking order.
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Do oxpeckers help or mostly just freeload?
A textbook example of mutualism—birds that ride around picking ticks off big African mammals—may not be mutually beneficial at all.
- Animals
That special wax lasts after courtship
Sandpipers' special wax for their wings during the breeding season may have less to do with courting a mate and more to do with sitting on eggs.
- Animals
The truth is, frogs bluff and crabs cheat
Two research teams say they've caught wild animals bluffing, only the second and third examples (outside of primate antics) ever recorded.
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Gene found for big, firm sheep rumps
Scientists have found the gene that gives sheep unusually big, muscular bottoms.
- Animals
Music without Borders
When birds trill and whales woo-oo, we call it singing. Are we serious?
