Animals
This newfound longhorn beetle species is unusually fluffy
Discovered in Australia, the beetle is covered in whitish hairs and has distinctive eye lobes, antennae and leg shapes.
Animals
More Stories in Animals
- Ecosystems
Flowers may be big antennas for bees’ electrical signals
The finding suggests a way for plants to share information about nearby pollinators and communicate when to trigger nectar production.
- Animals
Eavesdropping on fish could help us keep better tabs on underwater worlds
Scientists are on a quest to log all the sounds of fish communication. The result could lead to better monitoring of ecosystems and fish behavior.
- Genetics
Here’s why some pigeons do backflips
Meet the scientist homing in on the genes involved in making parlor roller pigeons do backward somersaults.
- Neuroscience
Chickadees use memory ‘bar codes’ to find their hidden food stashes
Unique subsets of neurons in a chickadee’s memory center light up for each distinct cache, hinting at how episodic memories are encoded in the brain.
- Neuroscience
Here’s how magnetic fields shape desert ants’ brains
Exposure to a tweaked magnetic field scrambled desert ants’ efforts to learn where home is — and affected neuron connections in a key part of the brain.
- Animals
By fluttering its wings, this bird uses body language to tell its mate ‘after you’
New observations suggest that Japanese tits gesture to communicate complex messages — a rare ability in the animal kingdom and a first seen in birds.
- Neuroscience
Dogs know words for their favorite toys
The brain activity of dogs that were expecting one toy but were shown another suggests canines create mental concepts of everyday objects.
- Animals
American bullfrogs may be threatening a rare frog species in Brazil
A search for environmental DNA from critically endangered Pithecopus rusticus frogs turned up DNA from invasive American bullfrogs instead.
- Animals
Daddy longlegs look like they have two eyes. That doesn’t count the hidden ones
Despite its two-eyed appearance, Phalangium opilio has six peepers. The four optical remnants shed light on the arachnids’ evolutionary history.
