Animals
- Life
Spraying bats with ‘good’ bacteria may combat deadly white nose syndrome
Nearly half of bats infected with white nose syndrome survived through winter after being spritzed with antifungal bacteria, a small study finds.
- Animals
Southern right whale moms and calves may whisper to evade orcas
Mother-calf whale pairs call to each other quietly to stay in touch while avoiding attracting the attention of predators, a study suggests.
- Neuroscience
Both fish and humans have REM-like sleep
Sleeping zebrafish have brain and body activity similar to snoozing mammals, suggesting that sleep evolved at least 450 million years ago.
- Animals
Ground beetle genitals have the genetic ability to get strange. They don’t
A new look at the genetics of sex organs finds underpinnings of conflicts over genital size.
- Ecosystems
Moonlight shapes how some animals move, grow and even sing
The moon’s light influences lion prey behavior, dung beetle navigation, fish growth, mass migrations and birdsong.
- Animals
Some ancient crocodiles may have chomped on plants instead of meat
Fossil teeth of extinct crocodyliforms suggest that some ate plants and that herbivory evolved at least three times in crocs of the Mesozoic Era.
- Archaeology
Peru’s famous Nazca Lines may include drawings of exotic birds
Pre-Inca people depicted winged fliers from far away in landscape art.
- Life
These fungi drug cicadas with psilocybin or amphetamine to make them mate nonstop
Massospora fungi use a compound found in magic mushrooms or an amphetamine to drive infected cicadas to mate and mate and mate.
- Archaeology
Capuchin monkeys’ stone-tool use has evolved over 3,000 years
A Brazilian archaeological site reveals capuchins’ long history of practical alterations to pounding implements, researchers say.
- Animals
Parasites ruin some finches’ songs by chewing through the birds’ beaks
Parasitic fly larvae damage the beaks of Galápagos finches, changing their mating songs and possibly causing females to pick males of a different species.
- Animals
U.S. honeybees had the worst winter die-off in more than a decade
Colonies suffered from parasitic, disease-spreading Varroa mites. Floods and fire didn’t help.
- Genetics
DNA confirms a weird Greenland whale was a narwhal-beluga hybrid
DNA analysis of a skull indicates that the animal had a narwhal mother and beluga father.
