Animals
- Animals
Wild baboons don’t recognize themselves in a mirror
In a lab test, chimps and orangutans can recognize their own reflection. But in the wild, baboons seemingly can’t do the same.
- Animals
Feeding sharks ‘junk food’ takes a toll on their health
Many blacktip reef sharks in French Polynesia are commonly fed by tourists. But the low-quality diet is changing the sharks’ behavior and physiology.
- Life
This drawing is the oldest known sketch of an insect brain
Found in a roughly 350-year-old manuscript by Dutch biologist Johannes Swammerdam, the scientific illustration shows the brain of a honeybee drone.
- Animals
Chatty bats are more likely to take risks
Bats may broadcast their personalities to others from a distance, new experiments suggest, which could play into social dynamics within a colony.
- Ecosystems
Like flyways for birds, we need to map swimways for fish
Mapping fish migration routes and identifying threats is crucial to protecting freshwater species and their habitats, ecologists argue.
- Animals
Cricket frogs belly flop their way across water
Cricket frogs were once thought to hop on the water’s surface. They actually leap in and out of the water in a form of locomotion called porpoising.
- Animals
Fever’s link with a key kind of immunity is surprisingly ancient
When sick, Nile tilapia seek warmer water. That behavioral fever triggers a specialized immune response, hinting the connection evolved long ago.
- Animals
Mole or marsupial? This subterranean critter with a backward pouch is both
Genetic analyses have solved the riddle of where a marsupial mole fits on the tree of life: It’s a cousin to bilbies, bandicoots and Tasmanian devils.
- Animals
In chimpanzees, peeing is contagious
The first study of copycat urination in an animal documents how one chimpanzee peeing prompts others to follow suit. Now researchers are exploring why.
- Animals
Hand-feeding squirrels accidentally changed their skulls
When fed peanuts, red squirrels in Britain developed weaker bites — showing that food supplements to threatened animals could have unintended side effects.
- Animals
More new geckos have been found hiding in Southeast Asia’s limestone towers
Nearly 200 new gecko species found in living in karst landscapes reveal the rugged regions as dynamic areas of speciation.
- Animals
Poop is on the menu for a surprising number of animals
A new tally finds dozens of species giving food a second go-round, from babies boosting their microbiomes to adults seeking easier-to-access nutrition.
