How The Near Extinction of Indian Vultures Led to Disaster
Vultures have an incredible tolerance for botulism: they can eat it like candy. But being adapted to the toxins and pathogens found in carcasses didn’t prepare them for diclofenac. The veterinary drug...
View ArticleWithin The Animal Kingdom, Sometimes Father Knows Best
Who’s your daddy? If you’re a giant salamander, he’s the one who fanned your nest with his tail, of course. A recent article in the Journal of Ethology describes paternal care behaviors in the giant...
View ArticleMimics of the animal kingdom
Deep in the Amazon rain forest, biologists have discovered a bird which disguises its babies as poisonous caterpillars. The bird, known as the cinereous mourner, is hatched from the egg covered with...
View ArticleThe Mystery of Super-Spreaders
It’s easy to develop a paranoia of social situations at this time of year. It seems like every friend, relative, coworker, and stranger on the bus is a potential carrier of the cold and flu viruses...
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Animal penises can tell us a lot about evolution
Lizard penises evolve much faster than the rest of the lizard, according to new research in the Caribbean. The study provides some confirmation for a long-standing assumption in evolutionary biology,...
View ArticleA Democratic Experiment Among Baboons
May this quorum of democratic baboons come to order! New research on baboon troops suggests that they employ democratic decision-making. When deciding which direction to move, baboons don’t passively...
View ArticleThat kangaroo? It’s left-handed
Most kangaroos are left-handed, er, pawed, according to a recent study. A large study involving multiple species of kangaroos discovered that a clear majority had a preference for which paw they used,...
View ArticleTo Find Forgotten Land Mines, Researchers Look To Elephants
Elephants in Angola have learned how to detect and avoid landmines. Following Angola’s civil war, the countryside was littered with landmines, killing elephants and people with impunity. After a time,...
View ArticleThe Importance of Being Outraged: JSTOR Daily Reads the News
In The News In this past weekend’s New York Times Sunday Review, four authors of a recent study ask, “What’s the point of moral outrage?” The authors suggest that, beyond the altruistic value of...
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Lessons in Senescence: Not All Animals Age the Same
In Re: Wild, Juliet Lamb draws on her experiences as a wildlife biologist to explore our enduring connection to the wilderness. A colleague of mine once claimed she could tell the difference between...
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Every Week Is Shark Week for Shark Biologist Dave Ebert
Dr. David Ebert is on a global search for the world’s “Lost Sharks”—little known or undiscovered species of sharks that are overshadowed by a handful of high-profile charismatic species (like the great...
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National Parks Are Like Islands for Wildlife
Summer is in the air, and America prepares to take to its highways. As bleary adventurers emerge from hibernation, dust off their hiking boots and RVs, and plot their escapes into the wilderness,...
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What Lies Beneath the Museum?
Among the many part-time jobs I held in college, my favorite might have been the semester I spent as a fish librarian. The fish library was a vast series of underground rooms below a natural history...
View ArticleWho Needs Mitochondria Anyway?
Though science has long maintained that all complex organisms have mitochondria, an organism without mitochondria has been discovered. All organisms more complicated than bacteria are eukaryotic,...
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No, Trophy Hunting Won’t Protect Wildlife
A year ago—approximately an eternity in internet time—trophy hunting had its dubious moment. Photos of American hunters posing alongside dead wildlife began appearing on celebrity Twitter feeds,...
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Why Do Animals Share?
A common vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus, returns from a successful night of feeding. She snuck up on a sleeping cow, consuming enough of its blood to increase her body weight by 50%. Upon arriving at...
View ArticleThe Astounding Adaptations of Long-Distance Flyers
Frigate birds are truly champion fliers. New research has shown that the large, ocean-going birds can fly for weeks without stopping, at altitudes up to 13,000 feet. Unlike most sea birds, frigate...
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The Curious Science of Animal Personalities
My first brush with personality in wild animals occurred during the summer I spent interning at a wildlife rehabilitation center. At the time, the center was caring for several young gannets (large...
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Are There “Transgender” Proclivities in Animals?
I spent last week at a bird conference in North Carolina, a state where gender identity has been at the forefront of conversation. Between scientific talks, I sat down with a group of conference...
View ArticleDinosaur Brains And Other Unusual Fossil Finds
Poking around an old bog near East Sussex, England, an amateur fossil hunter picked up an odd-looking pebble which turned out to be a piece of dinosaur brain. Scans revealed that parts of the brain...
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