All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Zebra stripes may be mainly defense against flies
The function of zebra stripes may not be for camouflage or cooling, a new analysis finds.
- Life
When hummingbirds fly unfriendly skies
Hummingbirds hover easily in turbulent air as long as the disturbances aren’t too wide.
- Animals
A parasitic cuckoo can be a good thing
Great spotted cuckoo chicks show that brood parasites may benefit their hosts.
- Animals
Like a boomerang, relocated python comes back again
Burmese pythons, which have invaded the Everglades, can find their way home when people move them dozens of kilometers.
- Animals
Elephants can tell men’s voices from women’s
Amboseli elephants may pick out age and gender — and even distinguish between languages — when listening to human voices.
- Ecosystems
City spiders may spin low-vibe webs
Spider webs built on human-made materials have less background bounce than those built on trees and other natural surfaces, which might shrink the arachnid’s hunting success.
- Animals
Pelican spiders: slow, safe assassins
Spiders, thank goodness, haven’t evolved assassin drones. But the specialized hunters of the family Archaeidae can kill at a distance.
- Animals
Peacocks sometimes fake mating hoots
Peacocks may have learned a benefit of deception by sounding their copulation calls even when no peahens are in sight.
- Life
Rivalry helps fruit flies maintain brainpower
In lab tests, males dim mentally after generations without competitors.
- Life
Big study raises worries about bees trading diseases
Pathogens may jump from commercial colonies to the wild.
- Animals
‘Packrat’ is the new term for ‘really organized’
The more eclectic hoarder species segregate pantry from lumber room from junk museum. The result is more orderly than the closets of some human packrats.
- Animals
In crazy vs. fire, the ant with the detox dance wins
Tawny crazy ants pick fights with fire ants and win, thanks to a previously unknown way of detoxifying fire ant venom.
