Animals
- Animals
Highway bridge noise disturbs fish’s hearing
In the lab, blacktail shiners had trouble hearing courtship growls over Alabama bridge traffic recordings.
By Susan Milius - Animals
Ant-eating bears help plants
A complex web of interactions gives a boost to rabbitbrush plants when black bears consume ants.
- Animals
Chameleon tongue power underestimated
A South African chameleon species can shoot its tongue with up to 41,000 watts of power per kilogram of muscle involved, a new study finds.
By Susan Milius - Paleontology
Snakes crawled among Jurassic dinosaurs, new timeline says
Earliest snake fossils provide evidence snakes evolved their flexible skulls before their long, limbless bodies.
- Life
Fast and furious: The real lives of swallows
In the fields of Oregon, scientists learn flight tricks from swallows.
By Nsikan Akpan - Life
Flying animals can teach drones a thing or two
Scientists have turned to Mother Nature’s most adept aerial acrobats — birds, bees, bats and other animals — to inspire their designs for self-directed drones.
By Nsikan Akpan -
- Animals
Humboldt squid flash and flicker
Scientists capture the color-changing behavior of Humboldt squid in the wild.
- Animals
If pursued by a goshawk, make a sharp turn
Scientists put a tiny camera on a northern goshawk and watched it hunt. The bird used several strategies to catch prey, failing only when its targets made a sharp turn.
- Animals
Diving marine mammals take deep prey plunges to heart
In spite of their diving prowess, Weddell seals and bottlenosed dolphins experience irregular heart rates when they venture beyond 200 meters under the sea.
- Animals
Cringe away, guys — this spider bites off his own genitals
After sex, a male coin spider will chew off his own genitals, an act that might help secure his paternity.
- Animals
Cone snail deploys insulin to slow speedy prey
Fish-hunting cone snails turns insulin into a weapon that drops their prey’s blood sugar and eases capture.
By Susan Milius