Animals

Animals

Secret Signal: Fish allurement that predators don’t see

In a rare demonstration of secret messaging in animals, a swordtail fish uses ultraviolet courtship signals that are invisible to a predator.

Animals

At last, a bird that nails killer chicks

For the first time, researchers have found a bird species—Australia's superb fairy-wren—that reacts when all its own chicks disappear and a giant imposter takes their place.

Animals

Techno Crow: Do birds build up better tool designs?

Researchers surveying tool use by New Caledonian crows propose that the birds may be the first animals besides people shown to ratchet up the sophistication of their technology by sharing design improvements.

Animals

Ants lurk for bees, but bees see ambush

A tropical ant has perfected the un-antlike behavior of hunting by ambush, but its prey, a sweat bee, has developed some tricks of its own.

Animals

Fish That Decorate: Females prefer nests with pizzazz

If scientists give foil strips to male stickleback fish, the fellows carry them back to their nests for decoration, and it turns out that females seem to like guys with lots of shiny stuff.

Animals

Vampire bats don’t learn from bad lunch

For the first time, a mammal has flunked a controlled test for developing a food aversion after getting sick just once, and that unusual creature is the common vampire bat.

Animals

Flowers, not flirting, make sexes differ

Thanks to lucky circumstances, bird researchers find rare evidence that food, not sex appeal, makes some male and female hummingbirds look different.

Animals

Sibling Desperado: Doomed booby chick turns relentlessly violent

The first known case among nonhuman vertebrates of so-called desperado aggression—relentless attacks against an overwhelming force—may come from the underling chick in nests of brown boobies.

Animals

He and she cooperate on anti-aphrodisiacs

Scientists have for the first time identified a chemical that serves as a butterfly anti-aphrodisiac.

Animals

Better Than Real: Males prefer flower’s scent to female wasp’s

In an extreme case of sex fakery, an orchid produces oddball chemicals to mimic a female wasp's allure so well that males prefer the flower scent to the real thing.

Animals

One-Two Poison: Scorpion starts with a cheap shot

A South African scorpion economizes as it stings, injecting a simple mix first, followed by a venom that's more complicated to produce.

Animals

Retaking Flight: Some insects that didn’t use it didn’t lose it

Stick insects may have done what biologists once thought was impossible: lose something as complicated as a wing in the course of evolution but recover it millions of years later.