When wild animals take refuge from predators by straying near people, the illusion of safety can be deadly. In the wilderness, mid-sized predators like coyotes have learned to fear larger…
Category: Animals
The Sonoran Desert toad can alter your mind — it’s not the only animal
The adage “all attention is good attention” may be true for marketers — not so for the Sonoran Desert toad. Last fall, the U.S. National Park Service sent out a…
Why some hammerhead sharks seem to ‘hold their breath’ during dives
Even fish sometimes hold their breath in cold, dark, deep water. Scalloped hammerhead sharks living near Hawaii spend their days basking in warm surface waters. But at night, these fish…
Pregnancy may hamper bats’ ability to ‘see’ in the dark
Pregnancy can do weird things to the body. For some bats, it can hamper their ability to “see” the world around them. Kuhl’s pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus kuhlii) echolocate less frequently…
Swarming locusts can deploy a chemical to avoid being cannibalized
For many locusts, life in a swarm is a picnic. Crowded conditions create a locust-eat-locust world. But it turns out some migrating insects deploy a “don’t-eat-me” pheromone that can deter…
A 2,200-year-old poop time capsule reveals secrets of the Andean condor
For over 2,000 years, Andean condors have been nesting — and pooping — in the same cliffside grotto high in the Andes. This gargantuan pile of guano is now providing…
This marine biologist is on a mission to save endangered rays
The first time Jessica Pate swam beside a manta ray off Florida’s southern coast, the 8-foot-wide fish flipped belly-up and slowed to watch her. “I was kind of obsessed after…
Mouse hair turns gray when certain stem cells get stuck
Hair might go gray when stem cells with wanderlust have their travels interrupted. Stem cells involved in making the pigment that gives hair its color behave much differently than other…
Here are 5 cool findings from a massive project on 240 mammal genomes
Citations N.S. Upham and M.J. Landis. Genomics expands the mammalverse. Science. Vol. 380, April 28, 2023, p. 359. doi: 10.1126/science.add2209. I. Gallego Romero. Seeing humans through an evolutionary lens. Science. Vol. 380, April 28,…
Pets and people bonded during the pandemic. But owners were still stressed and lonely
If you feel like you bonded with your pet during the pandemic, you’re not alone. Cat and dog owners in the United States gradually grew closer to their pets during…
