New video of male riflebirds’ extreme wrist flares and feather noises reveals how these show-offs do their dazzle. Males of the four Ptiloris species, a group within the birds of…
Category: Animals
At-home experiments shed light on cats’ liquid behavior
Cats may seem solid, but they’re actually somewhat liquid — at least according to one 2017 theoretical physics paper inspired by videos of cats squeezing under doors, into tight vases…
DNA from old hair helps confirm the macabre diet of two 19th century lions
A pair of male lions that roamed Kenya more than a century ago gained notoriety as the “man-eaters of Tsavo.” To be sure, the big cats hunted and ate people…
The largest arthropod to ever live finally has a head
Two newly discovered fossils are helping scientists wrap their heads around the anatomy of the largest arthropod of all time — a millipede that grew longer than a king-sized bed…
To tell a right-trunked elephant from a lefty, check the wrinkles
There’s a Sherlock Holmes tale in here somewhere: A clever observer could check wrinkles and whiskers on an elephant trunk to catch a left-trunker pachyderm perp masquerading as a righty,…
These sea creatures can fuse their bodies
In a Frankenstein-y feat, a small, gelatinous sea creature can merge its body with a neighbor’s. The animals — called sea walnuts, a type of comb jelly — can then…
Some tadpoles don’t poop for weeks. That keeps their pools clean
Some tadpoles don’t poop for the first weeks of their lives. At least, that’s the case for Eiffinger’s tree frogs (Kurixalus eiffingeri), scientists report September 22 in Ecology. Eiffinger’s tree…
Dolphins’ open-mouth behaviors during play are like smiles, a study claims
Dolphins are known for what appear to be big, contagious smiles. But do they actually, well, smile? The answer, according to a new study of dolphin play, is a resounding…
Coyotes have the face muscles for that ‘sad-puppy’ look
Coyotes turn out to have face muscles that look capable of making that big-eyed, sad-puppy face that dogs have used to melt human hearts for eons. That discovery supports a…
Bird nests made with a toxic fungus seem to fend off attacking ants
When building a bird nest in ant territory, the best defense could be an offensive fungus. Swollen-thorn acacia trees are aggressively defended by multiple species of ants. And yet, several…
