Animals

Animals

Bumblebee 007: Bees can spy on others’ flower choices

Bumblebees that watched their neighbors feast on unusual flowers often later checked out the same kinds of blossoms themselves, a behavior that amounts to social learning.

Animals

What’s That Knocking? Sound evidence offered for long-lost woodpecker

Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology has released recordings from the woods of eastern Arkansas that researchers say could be the distinctive drumming and calls of the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Animals

Hey, kids, it’s time for drool

A researcher has for the first time decoded a vibrational signal used by paper wasps.

Animals

When a chipmunk teases a rattlesnake

Several of the Northeast's least ferocious forest creatures taunt rattlesnakes.

Animals

Faithful voles have hidden infidelities

Prairie voles, used for studying the biological basis of monogamy, do form social bonds but they also have more out-of-pair sexual encounters than most biologists had expected.

Animals

Coati version of spoiled brats

A biologist reports that ring-tailed coatis in Argentina have a kind of dominance structure never before documented in animals, with adolescents as a group outranking their moms and older half-sibs.

Animals

Getting the Gull: Baiting trick spreads among killer whales

A young male orca that spits up fish and then ambushes gulls attracted to the mess seems to have started a wave of cultural transmission.

Animals

Myth of the Bad-Nose Birds

Even though a lot of people still believe birds have no sense of smell, certain species rely on their noses for important jobs, such as finding food and shelter, and maybe even a mate.

Animals

Out of the Jungle: New lemurs found in Madagascar’s forests

Two new species of lemur have been discovered in Madagascar, the only home of these tiny and endangered primates.

Animals

Wing Ding: Bird rubs feathers for cricketlike song

Scientists say that they have found the first vertebrate to make its courtship music in the same way as a cricket does.

Animals

Meat-Eating Caterpillar: It hunts snails and ties them down

A newly named species of Hawaiian caterpillar sneaks up on a resting snail and quickly spins silk strands around it, lashing it to the spot, and then eats it.

Animals

Ladybug mom provides infertile eggs as baby food

When food gets scarce, multicolored Asian ladybugs lay extra dud eggs that can end up as emergency rations for their young.