Animals
- 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.
- Animals
Maybe what Polly wants is a new toy
Changing the toys in a parrot's cage may ease the bird's tendency to fear new things.
- Animals
Some female birds prefer losers
When a female Japanese quail watches two males clash, she tends to prefer the loser.
- Animals
The secret appetite of cleaner wrasses
The little reef fish that nibble parasites off bigger fish that stop by for service actually prefer to nibble the customers.
- Animals
City Song: Birds sing higher near urban traffic
Birds in noisier city spots tend to sing at a higher pitch than do members of the same species in quieter neighborhoods.
- Animals
Killer sex, literally
Videotapes of yellow garden spiders show that if a female doesn't murder her mate, he'll expire during sex anyway.
