Animals
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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.
By Susan Milius -
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.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Bird hormone cuts noise distractions
A jolt of springtime hormones makes a female sparrow's brain more responsive to song.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Grammar’s for the Birds: Human-only language rule? Tell starlings
A grammatical pattern called recursion, once proposed as unique to human language, turns out to fall within the learning abilities of starlings.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Worm can crawl out of predators
A parasitic worm can wriggle out through a predator's gills or mouth if the predator eats the worm's insect host. With video.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Into Hot Water: Lab test shows that worms seek heat
Worms from deep-sea vents prefer water at temperatures near the upper limit of what animals are known to survive.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Foodfree growth
Rattlesnakes undergo a hibernation-like state to survive long periods of famine, while continuing to grow longer.
By Janet Raloff -
Animals
Hummingbirds can clock flower refills
Hummingbirds can keep track of when a particular flower has replenished its nectar and is worth visiting again.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Sharpshooter threatens Tahiti by inedibility
A North American insect is menacing Tahitian ecosystems by getting itself killed and proving surprisingly toxic to its predators.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Wary male spiders woo lifelessly
When trying to court a cannibalistic female spider, males of a certain species play dead.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
Hairy crab lounges deep in the Pacific
A newly discovered deep-sea creature has the body of a crab, but with long, fluffy, blonde hair covering its legs.
By Susan Milius -
Animals
That’s One Weird Tooth
The narwhal's distinctive spiral tusk has structures that could make it phenomenally sensitive, raising new questions about its functions.
By Susan Milius