Animals
- Animals
Dawn Sneaks: Old birds sing early, cuckold sleepyheads
Among European birds called blue tits, older males join the springtime dawn chorus extra early—which may signal their charms to philandering females.
- Animals
Fishy Reputations: Undersea watchers choose helpers that do good jobs
Coral reef fish use smart-shopper techniques of looking for satisfied customers before choosing a small fish to provide cleaning services.
- Animals
Naked and Not
The Damaraland mole rat may be less famous than its naked cousin, but both have some of the oddest social structures found in a mammal.
- Animals
Mixed Butterflies: Tropical species joins ranks of rare hybrids
A South American butterfly is one of the few animal species that seems to have arisen via the supposedly rare path of crossing two older species.
- Animals
Leggiest Animal: Champ millipede located after 79-year gap
A millipede species that can grow up to 750 legs has turned up in California after decades with no sightings.
- Animals
Walking on Water: Tree frog’s foot uses dual method to stick
The tree frog can cling to both wet and dry terrains, despite its permanently lubricated foot.
- Animals
Lobster Hygiene: Healthy animals quick to spot another’s ills
Caribbean spiny lobsters will avoid sharing a den with another lobster that's coming down with a viral disease.
- Animals
True-pal lizards may show odd gene
Colorful lizards in California may offer an example of a long-sought evolutionary factor called greenbeard genes, a possible explanation for altruism.
- Animals
Jay Watch: Birds get sneakier when spies lurk
A scrub jay storing food takes note of any other jay that watches it and later defends the hoard accordingly.
- Animals
Monkey Business: Specimen of new species shakes up family tree
The new monkey species found in Tanzania last year may be unusual enough to need a new genus, the first one created for monkeys in nearly 80 years.
- Animals
No Early Birds: Migrators can’t catch advancing caterpillars
Pied flycatcher numbers are dwindling in places where climate change has knocked the birds' migration out of sync with the food-supply peak on their breeding grounds.
- Animals
Just turn your back, Mom
A female in a species of legless amphibians called caecilians nourishes her youngsters by letting them eat the skin off her back.
