Animals
- Animals
The truth is, frogs bluff and crabs cheat
Two research teams say they've caught wild animals bluffing, only the second and third examples (outside of primate antics) ever recorded.
- Animals
Music without Borders
When birds trill and whales woo-oo, we call it singing. Are we serious?
- Animals
Pregnant—and Still Macho
Some of the basic theories of sexual behavior and sexual selection are getting attention thanks to a burst of new studies in the topsy-turvy social world of the seahorse, where the males get pregnant.
- Animals
Hormone still rules no-tadpole frogs
Coqui frogs may skip the tadpole stage, but within the egg, they undergo a metamorphosis ruled by thyroid hormone.
- Animals
New frog-killing disease may not be so new
The skin disease that savaged amphibians in remote wildernesses in the 1990s has been linked to outbreaks in the 1970s.
- Animals
Flight puts the fight back into crickets
Researchers are just discovering what gamblers in China have known for centuries—flying can make a losing cricket fight again.
- Animals
When Ants Squeak
In the past 20 years, researchers studying sound communication in ants have discovered a sort of ant-ernet, zinging with messages about lost relatives, great food, free rides for hitchhikers, caterpillars in search of ant partners, and impending doom.
- Animals
Bees log flight distances, train with maps
After decades of work, scientists crack two problems of how bees navigate: reading bee odometers and mapping training flights.
- Animals
Why don’t racing horses fry their brains?
Lumpy sacs bulging out of a horse's auditory tubes may solve the mystery of how such an athletic animal keeps its brain from overheating during exercise.
- Animals
Redder is healthier in squawking birds
When barn swallow nestlings open wide for food, their parents may be looking for the healthiest throats.
- Animals
Butterfly ears suggest a bat influence
Researchers have found the first bat-detecting ear in a butterfly and suggest that the threat of bats triggered the evolution of some moths into butterflies.
- Animals
Who’s on first with hummingbird bills
A survey of 166 hummingbird species links sex differences in bill length to sex differences in plumage and to breeding behavior.
