Animals
- 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.
- Animals
Leashing the Rattlesnake
Even in the 21st century, there's still room for old-fashioned, do-it-yourself ingenuity in experimental design for studying animal behavior.
- Animals
Risk of egg diseases may rush incubation
Bird eggs can catch infections through their shells, and that risk may be an overlooked factor in the puzzlingly early start of incubation.
- Animals
Skin Chemistry: Poison frogs upgrade toxins from prey
For the first time, scientists have found a poisonous frog that takes up a toxin from its prey and then tweaks the chemical to make it a more deadly weapon.
- Animals
To Bee He or She: Honeybees use novel sex-setting switch
After more than a decade of work, an international team has found the main gene that separates the girls from the boys among honeybees.
- Animals
Snapping shrimp whip up a riot of bubbles
High-speed video and fancy math demonstrate that snapping shrimp make so much noise by popping bubbles.
- Animals
Musical Pairs: Egg-deploying bird species divide for a song
A new genetic analysis bolsters the idea that musical taste, rather than geography, split Africa's indigobirds into multiple species.
- Animals
Sexual conflict pushes species making
A novel comparison of 25 pairs of insect lineages finds that sexual conflict plays more of a role in making new species than scientists had realized.
- Animals
Why do two-sex geckos triumph?
Just the smell of an invasive species of gecko suppresses egg laying and subdues aggression in a resident.
