Animals
- Animals
Microbe lets mite dads perform virgin birth
A gender-bent mite—in which altered males give birth as virgins—turns out to be the first species discovered to live and reproduce with only one set of chromosomes.
- Animals
Fruit flies hear by spinning their noses
Drosophila have a rotating ear—and odor-sensing—structure that's new to science.
- 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
Will Mr. Bowerbird Fall for a Robot?
Push a button and she turns her head. But can she turn his?
- Animals
First mammal joins the eusocial club
Because naked mole rats exhibit permanent physical traits that distinguish certain castes of a colony, they belong to the same grouping as so-called eusocial insects such as bees, ants, wasps, and termites.
- Animals
Really big guys restrain youth violence
Importing six full-grown bull elephants into a park of youngsters stopped killing sprees by young males.
- Animals
Time to revise right whales’ family tree?
A statistical analysis of DNA from nearly 400 right whales around the world suggests there may be three species of Eubalena, not just two—a conclusion that may boost conservation efforts.
- Animals
Shielded cells help fish ignore noise
Fish can sort out the interesting ripples from the background rush of water currents through sensors shielded in canals that run along their flanks.
- Animals
Dull birds and bright ones beat so-so guys
The plumage of yearling male lazuli buntings shows signs of a rare form of evolutionary pressure called disruptive selection.
- Animals
Second bird genus shares dart-frog toxins
Researchers have found a second bird genus, also in New Guinea, that carries the same toxins as poison-dart frogs in Central and South America.
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- Animals
Wasps drive frog eggs to (escape) hatch
A tree frog's eggs can match their response to the degree of danger: all-out mass action for snakes but less activity for one wasp.
