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 The Animal Kingdom
14 April 2008
New Understanding Of Insect Olfactory Mechanism
Insects have adopted a strategy to detect odors that is radically different from those of other organisms - an unexpected and controversial finding that may dissolve current ideology...
4 April 2008
Animals "Stuck In Time"
Researchers investigating how animals perceive time have found that episodic-like memory in animals is qualitatively different from human episodic memory...
21 February 2008
Fat Cats, Diabetic Dogs Vex Veterinarians
Obesity is affecting an increasing number of pets, with a new study estimating the prevalence of obesity in the canine population at 40 percent...
13 February 2008
Primatologists Snap Rare Gorilla Nookie Pic
Scientists have released the first known photographs of gorillas performing face-to-face copulation in the wild...
17 January 2008
Parasite Turns Ants Fruity
A newly discovered parasite dramatically changes its ant host into what appears to be a juicy red berry, thus boosting its chances of being eaten by a bird and spread further afield...
10 January 2008
Chimp Culture Human-Like
Socially-learned cultural behavior thought to be unique to humans is also found among chimpanzees colonies...
20 December 2007
Squirrels Use Snake Eau de Cologne
Animal behaviorists have observed squirrels chewing up rattlesnake skin and smearing it on their fur to mask their scent from predators...
19 November 2007
Females Finessed By Fishy Fellatio
Male cichlid fish have evolved specialized fin markings that lure female fish close enough so the male can deposit sperm in the female's mouth...
22 October 2007
Ancient Proto-Eyes Turned-On By Moonlight
Romance and moonlight really do go together. Ancient light-sensitive genes, known as a cryptochromes, that occur in corals, fish and humans are responsible for triggering the annual mass spawning of corals that follows a full moon...
16 October 2007
Parenting Suffers With Too Much Testosterone
Ramping up testosterone production can help male birds win a mate, but it also turns them into bad dads, who are uninterested in parenting their young...
10 October 2007
Pregnant Moose Cozy Up To Traffic
Pregnant moose around Yellowstone are shifting closer to roads during calving season, specifically to avoid road-shy brown bears that might otherwise prey on their newborns...
7 September 2007
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?
Our hairy primate relatives have highly developed intelligence and social skills, as evidenced by their tool usage and hierarchical social order. But what about social intelligence? Could an opposable-thumb challenged chimp pass muster at a human social gathering?
30 August 2007
Monkeys Use "Baby Talk" With Infants
Just like human mothers, rhesus monkeys also use special "baby talk" vocalizations to engage and interact with their infants...
3 July 2007
Pesticide Suspected In Case Of AWOL Honeybees
A pesticide used to combat parasitic mites may be accumulating in hive wax and reaching concentrations that can cause honeybees to desert the hive...
28 May 2007
Extreme Specialization In Ants Plugs Potholes
The role of some army ants in South America is simply to hunker down in potholes, smoothing them over so the rest of the army can travel more efficiently to get their prey...
14 May 2007
Bee Boffins Abuzz With Theories About Honeybee Decline
Entomologists have pooh-poohed the idea that cell phone emissions are behind honeybee deaths and instead cite parasites, pathogens and/or pesticides as more likely suspects in the ongoing honeybee apocalypse...
7 May 2007
Urban Areas Turn Migratory Birds Into Couch Potatoes
Urbanized environments appear to be influencing certain birds to stay-put rather than pursue their usual migratory patterns...
23 April 2007
Monkeys Demonstrate Metacognitive Skills
The ability to reflect on one's knowledge was thought of as an exclusively human ability, but it seems that other primates can engage in meta-cognition as well...
16 April 2007
Cell Phones To Blame For Deserted Bee Colonies?
GSM cell phone radiation confuses honeybee navigation and researchers speculate that the effect may be behind widespread bee colony collapses...
9 March 2007
Bonobos Put One Over Chimps
Our free-loving cousins, the bonobos, can outdo chimps at certain tasks thanks to high levels of social tolerance, an attribute that chimpanzees lack...
6 March 2007
Birds Serve Seduction Apprenticeship
Male lance-tailed manakins serve as chorus line dancers for the alpha males in the hope of picking up some nifty dance moves so that they can eventually become alpha males themselves...
28 February 2007
Insects Keep Coming Back For Nicotine-Laden Pollen
Certain plants use nicotine in their nectar to increase the number of visits by birds and other pollinators, thus ensuring their pollen is spread more effectively and increasing their own genetic diversity...
15 February 2007
Honeybees Hit The Road
A mysterious ailment called Colony Collapse Disorder is causing agricultural honeybees around the country to abandon their hives and disappear...
25 January 2007
Rodent Sperm Cooperate For Success
The individual sperm from rodents have learned to band together in groups to maximize their chances of a successful fertilization...
23 January 2007
Honey, I Ate The Kids
A new study is the first to demonstrate that male fish are more likely to eat their offspring when they have been cuckolded during the act of spawning...
21 November 2006
Bizarre Deep-Sea Communities Give Up Secrets
Scientists have observed, for the first time, the bizarre deep-sea communities living around cold methane seeps off New Zealand's east coast...
3 November 2006
 Bow To Your Insect Overlords!
Exponential growth of insect numbers is well and truly on the cards if global warming continues unabated. They won't be huge in size, but there will be an awful lot of them. And some scientists think that's only the beginning of our problems, suggesting that we're looking at the wrong sources for the next epidemic or pandemic. While we all wring our hands over media reports of avian flu, insects really are a much bigger threat...
31 October 2006
Elephants Join Cognitive Elite
Experiments have revealed that elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, an important indicator of self-recognition that places them alongside humans, dolphins and great apes...
13 July 2006
Turbulence Gets Web-Slingers Flying
Researchers are using a new model to explain how spiders "fly" on their webs, a trick that lets them cover incredible distances on a single thread of silk...
1 June 2006
Testosterone A Mixed Blessing For Songbirds
Male songbirds with high levels of testosterone did better in the mating stakes, but their offspring fared less well...
9 May 2006
Jellyfish Quickest On The Draw?
An ultra-high-speed camera has captured the stinging action of Hydra, revealing that the stingers accelerate at more than 5,000,000 g, and hit with the power of a bullet...
22 March 2006
Chimps Command To Conquer An Itch
Counter to previously held assumptions, chimpanzees can effectively command their chimp buddies to perform various grooming tasks using “referential” hand gestures, just like their human relatives...
21 March 2006
When A Spotty Face Indicates A Healthy Partner
Having a big spot on your face is not usually considered an attractive attribute to a prospective mate, but what if the size of that spot indicated the robustness of your immune system?
11 October 2005
Endangered Species Get A Lift From Viagra
Chinese men are eschewing traditional Chinese virility remedies in favor of Viagra and the ones who benefit most could be tigers, sea horses and other endangered species...
1 September 2005
Forget Horsepower, Think Cow-Power
Rumen fluid - found in the digestive system of cows - contains microbes that can be used to generate prodigious amounts of electric power...
18 August 2005
Lions And Elephants For U.S. Great Plains?
The loss of large mammals from the Great Plains has had a profound effect on the ecosystems there, but researchers believe that re-populating the area with wild animals from Africa could reinvigorate the region and boost the economy...
11 July 2005
African Parrot "Understands" Zero
Who's a clever boy then? The avian brain may be smarter than we think, say researchers who have found that the African grey parrot appears to comprehend the concept of zero...
1 June 2005
Love, Just A Basic Mammalian Response
Researchers have been using magnetic resonance imaging to study the brains of young men and women who describe themselves as "madly in love". The results provide some interesting insights into many aspects of human behavior...
30 May 2005
For Some Females, Size Does Matter
Up till now, evolutionary scientists believed that genitalia were not subject to sexual selection, but a new study has found that females of some fish species display a distinct preference for males with larger sexual organs...
15 December 2004
Routine Tool Use By Wild Monkeys Observed
An entire population of wild capuchin monkeys using stone tools has been observed, behavior previously only seen in chimpanzees...
8 November 2004
Honeybee Puts Question Mark Over Chicxulub Asteroid Event
The tropical honeybee may challenge the idea that a post-asteroid "nuclear winter" was a big player in the decimation of dinosaurs...
15 October 2004
One Third Of Amphibian Species May Disappear
Earth's amphibian species are experiencing tens of thousands of years worth of extinctions in just a century, according to a new study...
19 May 2004
Magnetic Fields May Be "Visible" To Birds
Birds may see the earth's magnetic field as patterns of color or light intensity superimposed on their visual surroundings...
1 April 2004
Dogs Really Do Look Like Their Owners
At last, some research that finally proves what everyone has believed for years, dogs, at least pure bred ones, really do resemble their owners...
19 March 2004
For Sheep, Homosexuality Is In The Genes
Differences in the brains of homosexual and heterosexual sheep are providing clues to the processes involved in the development and regulation of sexual behavior...
15 May 2003
Globally, 90% Of Large Fish Are Gone
A new study shows that industrial fisheries take only ten to fifteen years to grind any new fish community they encounter to one tenth of what it was before...
21 April 2003
Cloned Pigs Differ In Looks And Behavior
Cloned pigs can have the same degree of variability in physical appearance and behavior as normally bred animals...
4 November 2002
Overfishing Threatens Genetic Diversity
Populations of marine fish may lose genetic diversity even if fishing stops while there are still several million individuals – a number previously assumed to be enough to preserve a diverse gene pool...
15 August 2002
Household Products Disrupt Sex Genes in Fish
Traces of ordinary products - flushed and tossed away from millions of homes - are more harmful to the sexual development and reproduction of fish than previously thought...
20 June 2002
Human Noise Wrecks Whales' Sex Lives
The artificial racket created by ships and other human sources could be interfering with whale reproduction and population recovery...
Related:
Biology
Environment
Evolution
Genetics
Humans
Mind/Brain
Prehistory
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