Animals

Animals

Oops! Grab That Trunk: High-diving ants swing back toward their tree

Certain tree-dwelling ants can direct their descent well enough to veer toward tree trunks and climb back home.

Animals

Bad Breath: Insects zip air holes to cut oxygen risks

The need to avoid overdosing on oxygen may drive certain insects to shut down their breathing holes periodically.

Animals

Crow Tools: Hatched to putter

The New Caledonian crow is the first vertebrate to be shown definitively to have an innate tendency to make and use tools, according to researchers who doubled as bird nannies.

Animals

Sparrows learn song from pieces

Young white-crowned sparrows don't have to hear a song straight through in order to learn it; playing the song in mixed-up paired phrases will do.

Animals

Mixing Genes: Bird immigrants make unexpected differences

A pair of decades-long studies of birds moving into other birds' neighborhoods show that immigration can have a quirkier effect than predicted by the usual textbook view.

Animals

Paper wasps object to dishonest face spots

Female wasps with dishonest faces, created by researchers who altered the wasps' natural status spots, have to cope with extra aggression.

Animals

Song Fights

Birds settle many of their disputes by some rough-and-tough singing bouts, and recording equipment now lets researchers pick a song fight, too.

Animals

Grow-Slow Potion: Pheromone keeps bee youngsters youthful

Researchers have identified a compound made by the senior workers in a honeybee colony that prolongs the time that teenage bees stay home babysitting.

Animals

Color at Night: Geckos can distinguish hues by dim moonlight

The first vertebrate to ace tests of color vision at low light levels—tests that people flunk—is an African gecko.

Animals

Birds may inherit their taste for the town

Tests switching cliff swallow nestlings to colonies of different sizes suggest the birds inherit their preference for group size.

Animals

Elephant Voices

Elephants are highly social animals and have a well-developed method of communicating with each other. For nearly 30 years, scientists at a national park in Kenya have been studying elephants and their behavior. The researchers have found that these intelligent beasts use more than 70 kinds of vocal sounds and 160 different visual and tactile […]

Animals

Poison Source: Toxic birds may get chemical from beetle

When some poisonous New Guinea birds eat certain tiny beetles, they may be stocking up on the toxic substance they use to defend themselves.