Animals
- Animals
Getting stabbed is no fun for land snails
When hermaphroditic land snails mate, they stab each other with “love darts.” But being darted comes at a price, a new study finds.
- Animals
Nanocrystals explain chameleons’ color shifts
Tiny crystals embedded in chameleons’ skin reflect specific wavelengths of light based on their position, explaining how chameleons change colors.
- Animals
A brain chemical tells when to fight or flee
Crickets tally the knocks they take in a fight, and flee when their brains release nitric oxide to tell them they’ve had enough.
- Paleontology
How arthropods got their legs
New fossils reveal how arthropods evolved branching limbs.
- Animals
Flowers make the menu for nearly all Galapagos birds
Almost every species of Galapagos land bird has been found feeding on the nectar and pollen of flowers. Such an expansion of diet has never before been observed.
- Animals
Hummingbird may get promoted
Not just a subspecies: A flashy, squeaky hummingbird should become its own species, ornithologists argue.
-
- Ecosystems
When animals invade human spaces
‘Feral Cities’ explores the wildlife living amongst us, sometimes noticed and sometimes not.
- Animals
Lemurs expected to lose much of their ranges this century
As the climate warms, Madagascar’s little primates will lose habitat, threatening some with extinction.
- Animals
How a young praying mantis makes a precision leap
Videos of juvenile praying mantises flying through the air reveal how the insects manage to always make a perfect landing.
- Animals
Killer whales follow postmenopausal leaders
Taking the lead on salmon hunts may be postmenopausal killer whales’ way of sharing their ecological knowledge.
- Animals
Insects may undermine trees’ ability to store carbon
Insects eat more leaves on trees grown in carbon dioxide-rich environments than those grown without the extra CO2. That may undermine forests as carbon sinks in the future.
