All Stories by Susan Milius
- Animals
Faithful voles have hidden infidelities
Prairie voles, used for studying the biological basis of monogamy, do form social bonds but they also have more out-of-pair sexual encounters than most biologists had expected.
- Animals
Coati version of spoiled brats
A biologist reports that ring-tailed coatis in Argentina have a kind of dominance structure never before documented in animals, with adolescents as a group outranking their moms and older half-sibs.
- Animals
Getting the Gull: Baiting trick spreads among killer whales
A young male orca that spits up fish and then ambushes gulls attracted to the mess seems to have started a wave of cultural transmission.
- Animals
Myth of the Bad-Nose Birds
Even though a lot of people still believe birds have no sense of smell, certain species rely on their noses for important jobs, such as finding food and shelter, and maybe even a mate.
- Animals
Wing Ding: Bird rubs feathers for cricketlike song
Scientists say that they have found the first vertebrate to make its courtship music in the same way as a cricket does.
- Animals
Meat-Eating Caterpillar: It hunts snails and ties them down
A newly named species of Hawaiian caterpillar sneaks up on a resting snail and quickly spins silk strands around it, lashing it to the spot, and then eats it.
- Animals
Ladybug mom provides infertile eggs as baby food
When food gets scarce, multicolored Asian ladybugs lay extra dud eggs that can end up as emergency rations for their young.
- Plants
Mommy Greenest
Green leafy moms take care of their offspring in ways that go beyond wrapping them in nice, snug seed coats and packing a nutritious lunch for them.
- Earth
Arctic Foulers: Foraging seabirds carry contaminants home
When seabirds go out looking for food, they can bring home traces of pollutants that build up around their nesting colonies.
- Animals
Is eyeless sea creature fishing with a red light?
Researchers off the coast of California have captured three deep-water siphonophores, relatives of jellyfish, and observed in the lab that the creatures twitch little red lights that could be lures for fish.
- Plants
Honey, We Shrank the Snow Lotus: Picking big plants reduces species’ height
Years of harvesting the larger plants of a Himalayan wildflower used in traditional medicines may be driving the evolution of a stubbier plant form.
- Animals
More junk makes for better dads
A new analysis links dutiful fatherhood in prairie voles to a stretch of DNA once dismissed as meaningless.
