Animals
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Animals
Cats kill more than one billion birds each year
New analysis doubles estimate of avian death tolls, revealing that hunting felines take bigger bite out of wildlife than expected.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Dung beetles steer by the Milky Way
The insects orient themselves using starlight, researchers find in planetarium experiments.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Finally, the truth about barnacle sex is revealed
A genetic analysis shows that the sessile crustaceans can broadcast sperm in water, contrary to previous assumptions.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Integrative and Comparative Biology
The hormonal roller coaster that is male pipefish pregancy and collision safety features for flying insects.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Claims of fairness in apes have critics crying foul
A report that chimps divvy up rewards much as people do draws criticism.
By Bruce Bower -
Science & Society
Insect illustrator
Taina Litwak is an “art department of one” in D.C. for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory.
By Roberta Kwok -
Animals
Early arthropod had a fancy brain
A 520-million-year-old fossil of a segmented animal shows that sophisticated central nervous systems are surprisingly ancient.
By Erin Wayman -
Animals
Right eye required for finding Mrs. Right
Finches flirt unwisely if they can only use their left eyes.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Face Smarts
Macaques, sheep and even wasps may join people as masters at facial recognition.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Epidemic of skin lesions reported in reef fish
A British-Australian research team has just found coral trout living on the south side of the Great Barrier Reef sporting dark skin raised, scablike, brown-black growths. Although the authors believe they’ve stumbled onto an epidemic of melanoma — a type of skin cancer — other experts have their doubts. Strong ones.
By Janet Raloff -
Animals
Tiny creature, giant sperm
Giant sperm appear in various other species, including some flatworms, beetles and a fruit fly species, Drosophila bifurca, with sperm nearly 6 centimeters long.
By Susan Milius