Animals
- Animals
Fish in the dark still size up mates
Female cave fish still have their ancestral preference for a large male, even though it's too dark to see him.
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- Animals
Wasps drive frog eggs to (escape) hatch
A tree frog's eggs can match their response to the degree of danger: all-out mass action for snakes but less activity for one wasp.
- Animals
Vanishing Vultures: Bird deaths linked to vet-drug residues
The recent puzzling crash in vulture populations in Pakistan comes not from some new disease but from exposure to veterinary drug residues in livestock carcasses.
- Animals
Beetle fights bass in mouthwash duel
A whirligig beetle duels with a hungry fish by dribbling out a repulsive chemical while the fish tries to rinse it off.
- Animals
Cheap Taste? Bowerbirds go for bargain decor
When male spotted bowerbirds collect sticks and other doodads to wow females, they don't search for the rare showpiece but go for the cheap trinket.
- Animals
Whale Haunt: Nursing, feeding spot found off south Chile
A survey along the coast of southern Chile has turned up a previously undocumented blue whale hangout that seems to be a feeding ground.
- Animals
Not-So-Great Hunter: Said the spider to the fly—Eek! I’m outta here
The poisonous brown recluse spider may turn out not to be a fearsome hunter so much as a scavenger.
- Animals
First Impressions: Early view biases spider’s mate choice
In a new wrinkle on how females develop their tastes in males, a test has found that young female wolf spiders that see a male's courtship display grow up with a preference for that look in mates.
- Animals
Your Spiral or Mine? Snail gene reverses coil, makes new species
A snail with a shell spiraling to the right can't mate readily with a lefty, so changes in the single gene that controls shell direction have created new snail species.
- Animals
Bad Bubbles: Could sonar give whales the bends?
Odd bubbles of fat and gas have turned up in the bodies of marine mammals, raising the question of whether something about human activity in the oceans could give these deep divers decompression sickness.
- Animals
Carnivores in Captivity: Size of range in wild may predict risk in zoo
A survey of zoo reports of troubled animals suggests that the minimum size of a species' range predicts how well it will adapt to captivity.
