Animals
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Animals
Courting Costs: Male prairie dogs seem too busy mating to dodge predators
Male prairie dogs get so distracted during mating season that predators find them easy pickings.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Krill kick up a storm of ocean mixing
Scientists have measured living creatures' contribution to the stirring of ocean water, and they found that little kicking krill legs do a lot.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Silky feet
Zebra tarantulas can secrete silk from their feet, a feat that may help them better adhere to surfaces.
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Animals
Scent Stalking: Parasitic vine grows toward tomato odor
A wiry orange vine finds plants to raid for nutrients by growing toward their smell. With video.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Mother deer can’t ID their fawns by call
Fawns can distinguish their mom's voice from another deer's, but a mom can't pick out her fawn's call.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Crickets on Mute: Hush falls as killer fly stalks singers
Within just 5 years, singing has nearly died out among a population of cricket on a Hawaiian island.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Sexually Deceptive Chemistry: Beetle larvae fake the scent of female bees
Trick chemistry lets a bunch of writhing caterpillars attract a male bee that they then use as a flying taxi on their way to find food.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Family Tree: An arboreal genome is sequenced
Researchers have sequenced the genome of a tree for the first time.
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Animals
Battle of the Hermaphrodites
A biologist argues that combining the sexes can actually make gender wars worse.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Hey, Roach Babe: Male cockroaches give fancy courting whistles
Some male cockroaches whistle at females with surprisingly complex, almost birdlike whistles.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Flea treatment shows downside of social life
The flealike parasites that build up in a shared burrow take an unexpectedly large toll on the ground squirrel's reproductive success.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
How do female lemurs get so tough?
Female ring-tailed lemurs may get masculinized by well-timed little rises of prenatal hormones.
By Susan Milius