Ecology & Zoology

There Is No Such Thing As Reptiles Any More – Here's Why

No, it's nothing to do with a reptilian existential crisis – just a name game. Credit: melanie cook /Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA By Dustin Welbourne You have likely been to a zoo at some point and visited their reptile house. A building where the climate con ...

Article - The Conversation - Oct 14 2014 - 4:36pm

Insects Also Prize Good Leadership

Not every human can be a great leader but not everyone is made to follow either. This has been shown to apply to elsewhere in the animal kingdom as well: insect larvae follow a leader to forage for food, both leaders and followers benefit, growing much fa ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 16 2014 - 7:30am

Giant Kangaroos Were More Likely To Walk Than Hop

Modern day kangaroos exhibit a hopping form of locomotion. Credit: Leo /Flickr, CC BY-SA By Christine Janis, Brown University Extinct giant kangaroos may have been built more for walking, rather than hopping like today’s kangaroos, especially when moving ...

Article - The Conversation - Oct 17 2014 - 12:01pm

Lemurs Like To Make An Informative Visit To The Bathroom

Human bathroom walls contain messages that are wonderfully informative about our modern condition- they can tell you who to call if you have an evolutionary mandate to procreate or even notify you that someone else once peed in the same spot. White-footed ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 16 2014 - 11:43am

Earth's Biggest Migration Gets A New Explanation

By Peter Gwynne, Inside Science (Inside Science) – Each day small sea creatures known as plankton rise from deep underwater to the ocean's surface during the night and then return to the depths in daytime. Zoologists describe this “diel” movement, na ...

Article - Peter Gwynne - Jun 7 2015 - 2:13am

Hunters Unite: Global Warming Implicated In Animal Size

Alpine goats appear to be shrinking in size, according to scholars at Durham University, and that is due to global warming over the past 30 years, they say.   Young Chamois now weigh about 25 percent less than animals of the same age in the 1980s, they fo ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 21 2014 - 10:14am

Ferns Will Survive

Ferns are an old plant species, dinosaurs munched on them over 200 million years ago. If we want to know how to survive against nature's onslaught over the long haul, ferns are as good a place as any to start. Even recent ones can show us how to evol ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 23 2014 - 5:23pm

Fish Stories? Some Fish Personality Types Are Most Likely To Get Caught

Talk to long-time anglers with a favorite spot and they will often tell stories of one fish they could never get. In mythical overtones, they will speak of its ability to avoid capture, attributing an almost supernatural intelligence (for a fish). Such st ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 28 2014 - 10:09am

Politics Is Quacked: How To Win Friends And Influence Ducklings

Courtesy of Guiomar Liste By: Nala Rogers, Inside Science (Inside Science)-- When ducklings head out to bathe in a pool, they usually follow the same individual, new research has found. But do they visit the pool that’s best for everyone, or just the one ...

Article - Inside Science - Oct 28 2014 - 4:40pm

The Vampire Deer Of Afghanistan

More than 60 years after the last confirmed sighting, a strange deer with vampire-like fangs is roaming the rugged forested slopes of northeast Afghanistan, according to a research team which confirmed the species presence during recent surveys. ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 31 2014 - 10:08am