Animals

Animals

Will Mr. Bowerbird Fall for a Robot?

Push a button and she turns her head. But can she turn his?

Animals

First mammal joins the eusocial club

Because naked mole rats exhibit permanent physical traits that distinguish certain castes of a colony, they belong to the same grouping as so-called eusocial insects such as bees, ants, wasps, and termites.

Animals

Bird Calls

The Macaulay Library at Cornell University has the largest collection of animal sounds in the world. More than 67 percent of the world’s birds are represented in the center’s 160,000 recordings, along with sounds made by insects, fish, frogs, and mammals. The Library also archives and preserves a sampling of the behaviors of different animal […]

Animals

Separate Vacations: Birds winter apart but return in sync

Mated pairs of black-tailed godwits may fly off to winter refuges a thousand kilometers apart but can still arrive back at their breeding site the next spring within a few days of each other.

Animals

Beat Goes On: Carp heart keeps pace when fish lacks oxygen

Without oxygen, a Scandinavian fish not only can survive but also maintains a normal heartbeat for days.

Animals

Pirates of the Amphibian: Males fertilize eggs of another guy’s gal

For the first time among amphibians, scientists have found frogs that sneak their sperm onto egg clutches left by another mating pair.

Animals

Super Bird: Cooing doves flex extra-fast muscles

Muscles that control a dove's cooing belong to the fastest class of muscles known.

Animals

Owls use tools: Dung is lure for beetles

Burrowing owls' habit of bringing mammal dung to their burrows attracts edible beetles and counts as form of tool use.

Animals

Mom bears more sons when she gets extra bouquets

When researchers spiff up a male starling's courtship by delivering some extra bouquets to his mate on his behalf, the couple tends to produce more sons than usual.

Animals

Policing egg laying in insect colonies

Kinship by itself can't explain the vigilante justice of some ant, bee, and wasp workers.

Animals

How dingoes got down under

DNA analysis suggests that Australia got its famous dingoes from a very few dogs brought along with people fanning out from East Asia some 5,000 years ago.

Animals

Time to revise right whales’ family tree?

A statistical analysis of DNA from nearly 400 right whales around the world suggests there may be three species of Eubalena, not just two—a conclusion that may boost conservation efforts.