“Pihoqahiak” means “ever-wandering one,” and is an Inuit name for the polar bear, a creature known to roam vast expanses of sea ice, sometimes plodding thousands of kilometers a year…
Category: Animals
Here’s why pumpkin toadlets are such clumsy jumpers
Some frogs just can’t stick the landing. After launching into a leap, pumpkin toadlets careen through the air as if flung from a toddler’s fist. They roll, cartwheel or backflip…
Butterflies may lose their ‘tails’ like lizards
On some butterfly wings, “tails” may be more than just elegant adornments. They’re survival tools too, a study suggests. The tails seem to attract the attention of attacking birds, keeping…
Lucy Cooke’s new book ‘Bitch’ busts myths about female animals
BitchLucy CookeBasic Books, $30 To Charles Darwin, nature had a certain order. And in that order, males always came out on top. They were the leaders, the innovators, the wooers…
Mosquitoes prefer dozing over dining when they are sleep-deprived
Turns out there is rest for the wicked: Sleepy mosquitoes are more likely to catch up on missed z’s than drink blood, a new study finds. Most people are familiar…
How mammals took over the world
The Rise and Reign of the MammalsSteve BrusatteMariner Books, $29.99 In my opinion, the most satisfying science documentary TV series ever made was a 1970s British production called Connections. Hosted…
Trained dogs sniff out COVID-19 as well as lab tests do
Dogs are as reliable as laboratory tests for detecting COVID-19 cases, and may be even better than PCR tests for identifying infected people who don’t have symptoms. A bonus: The…
An ‘acoustic camera’ shows joining the right boy band boosts a frog’s sex appeal
Loud sounds matter in both car design and frog flirting. So New Hampshire biologists lugged an acoustic camera used by car designers to springtime frog-mating pools to explore female preferences.…
High altitudes may be a climate refuge for some birds, but not these hummingbirds
Cooler, higher locales may not be very welcoming to some hummingbirds trying to escape rising temperatures and other effects of climate change. Anna’s hummingbirds live no higher than about 2,600…
‘Wandering’ salamanders glide like skydivers from the world’s tallest trees
In one of the tallest trees on Earth, a tan, mottled salamander ventures out on a fern growing high up on the trunk. Reaching the edge, the amphibian leaps, like…
