Animals
- Life
Male stag beetles face weighty problem for flight
Male stag beetles need enormous mandibles to fend off other males and find a mate, but computer simulations show that the giant jaws make running and flying very difficult.
By Susan Milius - Psychology
Quantity counts for baboons
Counting-like logic helps baboons track and compare accumulating sets of peanuts.
By Bruce Bower - Animals
A summer challenge: Observe nature
Opportunities for observing nature are plentiful, no matter where you live.
- Animals
Ants snap jaws, shoot skyward, escape death
Emergency trap jaw launchings help some ants pass death tests.
By Susan Milius - Animals
Deepwater dweller is first known warm-hearted fish
The opah, a deep-diving fish, can keep much of its body warmer than its surroundings, making it similar to warm-blooded birds and mammals.
By Susan Milius - Neuroscience
Fruit flies flee from shadows
Studying flies’ responses to an ominous shadow may lead to a deeper understanding of humans’ emotions.
- Animals
Early research asked whether cats dream
Early research asked whether cats dream; researchers still don’t know definitively.
- Animals
Nighttime light pollution sabotages sex pheromones of moths
Artificial lighting at night can trick female moths into releasing skimpy, odd-smelling sex pheromones.
By Susan Milius - Animals
Pruning bug genitals revives puzzle of extra-long males
Surgical approach highlights question of length mismatch in his and hers morphologies.
By Susan Milius - Animals
An island in the Maldives is made of parrotfish poop
Coral-eating parrotfish create much of the sediment that a reef island is made of, a new study finds.
- Paleontology
Ancient brain fossils hint at body evolution of creepy-crawlies
Fossilized brains — found in the Burgess Shale in western Canada — offer clues to how arthropods morphed from soft- to hard-bodied animals.
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