How Do Cuttlefish Hide? Scientists Search for the Secret to Camouflage.
Cephalopods are masters of camouflage. Scientists want to decipher how the process works in the brain.
animals
Dogs, devils, clams and catfish: When cancer is contagious
In a handful of animals, tumors can be transmitted like infectious diseases or parasites, defying science’s tidy definitions
The crows in our midst - High Country News
Every winter night, thousands of crows flock together to sleep in downtown Portland. Their presence is controversial, but one writer finds a surprising kinship with this curious gathering.
Is Beef the Next Internal-Combustion Engine?
Bill McKibben on beef consumption in the U.S., R.F.K., Jr.,’s recent recommendations, and the environmental harms of the cattle industry.
arnegiacomo/fugleramme: E-ink bird frame for Raspberry Pi - real-time bird detection by audio using BirdNET-Go
E-ink bird frame for Raspberry Pi - real-time bird detection by audio using BirdNET-Go - arnegiacomo/fugleramme
Will farm animals always suffer? - Works in Progress Magazine
The Mysterious Life of Birds Who Never Come Down
Swifts spend all their time in the sky. What can their journeys tell us about the future?
Why the Andoque of the Amazon fear the seductive dolphin | Aeon Essays
The Andoque of the Amazon know what we have forgotten: the forest’s most beautiful creatures are also its most dangerous
Africa's Wild Dogs Are the Most Hated Carnivores on the Continent. Here's Why Some Conservationists Are Saving Them Anyway
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Meet the team that closely monitors the playful canines, which need help to form diverse packs and stop their numbers from dwindling
The Horseshoe crab, vampirism and medical engineering
Biomimicry: Engineering inspired by nature
Dogs can tell if you're scared or sad - Ars Technica
fMRI scans show happiness, fear, anger, and sadness have distinct brain activity patterns in doggy brains.
Birdsong follows a fundamental law of human language
A fundamental law of human language has now been found in both songbirds and whales
The upper limits of biology
The limits of breeding for speed
Extreme evolution: The animals evolving at super speed to survive
Humans have become one of the world's greatest evolutionary forces. To survive our cities, animals from urban foxes to glass-climbing lizards are responding with extreme adaptation.
How fruit flies chase invisible ribbons of smell to get to their source - Ars Technica
Tracking smells in turbulent air takes a keen sense of direction and sharp memory.
Life, in Dog Years – Texas Monthly
My father always pampered his pets. So when he fell ill and moved in with us, it was no surprise that his corgi came to rule our home. What I didn’t expect was for Trilby to care for me after Dad was gone.
A strange transmissible cancer is spreading through the catfish in this lake
For more than a decade, there's been something fishy going on in a lake that straddles Vermont and the province of Quebec. It involves cancer, a kind of catfish, and — possibly — clues about how tumors metastasize.
Will humans one day talk to animals? This scientist is bringing us closer
Julie Elie has been studying zebra finch vocalizations for years. Now, she has won the Coller-Dolittle Prize for progress toward a world where humans can talk to animals
A day with England's hunt saboteurs
They were once seen as radicals • Now they work with the police • Armed with drones, balaclavas and vegan sausage rolls
How the Bird Eye Was Pushed to an Evolutionary Extreme | Quanta Magazine
The bird retina is one of the most energetically expensive tissues in the animal kingdom, yet it doesn’t use the energy advantage of oxygen. New research finally explains how this is possible.
‘Bat feast’ animal videos at African cave offer clues to how deadly viruses spread
Researchers filmed 10 species eating or scavenging bats at known Marburg-virus hotspot — and caught hundreds of humans visiting.
Even more astounding is that the team caught on video more than 200 people — tourists, trainees from a local wildlife institute and children with school groups — approaching the cave during the four-month period when the cameras were active. Only one visitor, a tourist, wore a mask. This is despite…
'It's so chaotic': Humpback whales are forming super-groups
On a misty morning in December, two photographers captured the images of 304 individual humpbacks – the highest number of large whales ever identified in a single day.
The Vampire Rabbit of Newcastle upon Tyne - The Haunted Palace Blog
Newcastle upon Tyne is best known for its proud history of industry, its football club, and its vibrant nightlife. Many people who walk the busy streets of the Toon, are unfamiliar with its dark history: real life witch trials, public executions, and of course, the terrifying…
Why humpback whale rescue effort got called off
It was a tough decision to leave Timmy the humpback whale to die on a small island in the Baltic Sea
We need to talk about naked mole rats - The Oatmeal
This is a comic about naked mole rats, aka tube goblins.
When Coyotes Threatened Livestock on Central Texas Ranches, the Solution Was to Unlock an Ancient Ability in Dogs
Killing the predators is not nearly as effective as the intimidating presence of well-trained guardians, a role some breeds have played for 5,000 years
Learning about longevity from long-lived animals
The secrets to extending human lifespans might lie in the animals that can already live for centuries.
Double Take - Orion Magazine
Are people crying Bigfoot when it’s really a bear?
In Nepal, Sacred Cattle Collide with Urban Realities – SAPIENS
Following the Life of an Abandoned Bull in Nepal
Animal origami: The physics of nature’s folds
Insects that tuck away wings; a protist with an accordion-like neck — studying these clever creases may inspire foldable structures for drones
Why the origin of the word 'dog' remains a mystery
Although "dog" is ubiquitous today to describe man's best friend, it remains a mystery where the word originally came from.
Unmasking the Sea Star Killer
After a decade of carnage, we finally know what’s devastating sea stars along North America’s West Coast. Does that mean scientists can save them?
Leopard Seals Sing Songs That Resemble Human Nursery Rhymes—Here’s Why
Every night, a male leopard seal slips off the ice and sings underwater for hours. It sounds structurally like a human nursery rhyme...
How Humans Wielded Insects in Early Battlefield Skirmishes
Insects are among the oldest of weaponry
Bonobos May Combine Words In Ways Previously Thought Unique To Humans - Slashdot
A new study shows bonobos can combine vocal calls in ways that mirror human language, producing phrases with meanings beyond the sum of individual sounds. "Human language is not as unique as we thought," said Dr Melissa Berthet, the first author of the research from the…
The Origins of Adjuvants
More than a century after the invention of vaccines, a veterinarian stumbled across a technique to boost their efficacy in an unlikely way — by observing wounded horses.
Bonobos’ calls may be the closest thing to animal language we’ve seen
300 aspects of each call were cataloged, letting researchers estimate meaning.
Big Fish
The luxury tuna industry is killing the Mediterranean.
The Dingo’s Fate
The convoluted story of how a species of dog first arrived in Australia and subsequently took over the Outback challenges fundamental notions about what it means to be “native.”
Elephants Never Forget War - Nautilus
Violence is written in their genes.
Jennifer Dunn’s Hilarious Heartwarming Watercolor Paintings Of Sassy Animals With Pop Culture References
Jennifer Dunn, the artist behind the Instagram account Mossy Hollow, characterizes her work as "Watercolor meme art," a distinctive blend of pop culture referen
Living with Predators - NeuroLogica Blog
For much of human history, wolves and other large carnivores were considered pests. Wolves were actively exterminated on the British Isles, with the last wolf killed in 1680. It is more difficulty to deliberately wipe out a species on a continent than an island, but across…
Inside the Fight to Save the World’s Most Endangered Wolf
Once, the red wolf roamed every Southern state. Today, only seventeen remain in the wild on a swampy peninsula in Eastern North Carolina, a number on the rise thanks to the passionate team of biologists determined to help them thrive once more
Why Elephants Rarely Get Cancer - Nautilus
What snakes, ferrets, and elephants are revealing about cancer resistance
The Hunt for Malaysia's Elusive Wildlife Trafficker - bellingcat
After a decade of elusive wildlife trafficking, we traced one anonymous dealer to a house in Malaysia, all thanks to a customer complaint.
Animals as chemical factories - Works in Progress
Horses bled for antivenom, crabs drained for endotoxin tests, and silkworms boiled for silk. Science can now replace these practices with synthetic alternatives — but we need to find ways to scale them up.
Islands of the Feral Pigs | Hakai Magazine
In Hawai‘i, people, pigs, and ecosystems only have so much room to coexist, and the pigs exist a little too much.
Iconic Bird of American Horror Stories Faces Its Own Terrifying Fate
The Whip-Poor-Will’s shrill, death-proclaiming song populates the works of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. But the bird itself has fallen on hard times. Could it become a ghost of Halloweens past?
How Two of the Rarest Horses on Earth Got Lost
The entire world’s population of Przewalski’s horses once dwindled to a mere dozen. So how did a pair named Fiona and Shrek end up in livestock auctions in the West?