Animal behavior
- www.theguardian.com Cats appear to grieve death of fellow pets – even dogs, study finds
US researchers say findings challenge view that cats are antisocial and suggest bereavement may be universal
- www.theatlantic.com Elephants Are Doing Something Deeply Human
They’re part of a growing list of animals that use namelike calls.
- www.ctvnews.ca African elephants call each other by unique names, new study shows
African elephants call each other and respond to individual names — something that few wild animals do, according to new research published Monday.
- news.northeastern.edu Parrots love playing tablet games. That’s helping researchers understand them.
A new Northeastern study delves deep into how parrots use touchscreen devices, with the help of a bespoke gaming app.
- phys.org Not just humans: Bees and chimps can also pass on their skills
Bumblebees and chimpanzees can learn skills from their peers so complicated that they could never have mastered them on their own, an ability previously thought to be unique to humans, two studies said on Wednesday.
- www.nytimes.com It’s the Cat’s Meow but You Just Don’t Understand
A study suggests that humans often misinterpret a pet’s signals; even purring doesn’t guarantee a contented cat.
- www.sciencedaily.com Neurobiology: How bats distinguish different sounds
Bats live in a world of sounds. They use vocalizations both to communicate with their conspecifics and for navigation. For the latter, they emit sounds in the ultrasonic range, which echo and enable them to create an 'image' of their surroundings. Neuroscientists have now discovered how Seba's short...
- www.scientificamerican.com Dog 'Language Geniuses' Are Rare but Apparently Real
A subset of exceptional pooches can identify by name more than 100 different objects, mostly toys
- phys.org Physically impaired primates find ways to modify their behaviors to compensate for disabilities, find researchers
Primates show a remarkable ability to modify their behaviors to accommodate their physical disabilities and impairments according to a new literature review by Concordia researchers.
- www.theguardian.com Juvenile great apes love to tease and annoy their elders, study finds
Young chimps, orangutans, bonobos and gorillas show wide range of playful and sometimes aggressive behaviours
- www.scientificamerican.com Do Cats Experience FOMO?
Feline experts weigh in on clingy cats’ supposed “fear of missing out”
- news.utexas.edu Male Power Over Females Is Not the Default Social Dynamic in Primates
AUSTIN, Texas — Male dominance has long been assumed to be nearly universal in primates, with female power viewed as a rare exception to the rule. But
- www.theguardian.com Dogs may wag their tails so much due to rhythm-loving humans, scientists say
Experts hypothesise that attractiveness of behaviour was selected for during domestication process
- pubs.aip.org Why woodpeckers don’t get concussions
Contrary to popular belief, the birds don’t have shock absorbers in their heads.
- www.bbc.co.uk Mouse filmed tidying up man's shed every night
Retired postman Rodney Holbrook never expected to capture a Ratatouille-style scene in his own shed.
- www.abc.net.au Ibis add toxic cane toads to the menu with clever technique to eliminate poison first
Citizen scientists report the much-maligned ibis has an ingenious method of making sure poisonous cane toads don't cause them a problem.
- www.elephantlisteningproject.org Deep into Infrasound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_FRo2OiMwc 3-D model of the sounds made by forest elephants excited about a mating event in the Dzanga forest clearing, Central African Republic. Lowest frequencies are to the left. The height of the peaks indicates how much energy in in that frequency. Infrasound
- arstechnica.com Corvids seem to handle temporary memories the way we do
Birds show evidence that they lump temporary memories into categories.
- www.nytimes.com Chimps Can Still Remember Faces After a Quarter Century
Long-term memories may have been vital to our own evolution, suggests a new study of chimpanzees and bonobos.
- www.theatlantic.com A Sort-of-Common, Very Strange Cat Trick
Felines who fetch are an evolutionary mystery.
- www.nhm.ac.uk Serotine bats have sex unlike any other mammal
Their style of mating is more similar to birds than any known mammal.
- www.eurekalert.org The way dogs see the world: Objects are more salient to smarter dogs
<p>When we point at an object, the toddler focuses on the object, while the dog usually takes the gesture as a directional cue. In a recent study, researchers from the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University find explanations for this phenomenon. It appears that the discrepancy is not onl...
- www.psychologytoday.com Cows: Science Shows They're Bright and Emotional Individuals
A new essay reviews the detailed science that demonstrates bovine sentience.
- www.livescience.com Elephants give each other names — the 1st non-human animals to do so, study claims
Elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park appear to call to each other with individual names using low, complex "rumbles," a study has found.
- www.sciencenews.org How hummingbirds fly through spaces too narrow for their wings
Using high-speed cameras, a new study reveals Anna’s hummingbirds turn sideways to shimmy through gaps half as wide as their wingspan.
- www.zmescience.com Dutch scientists left a hamster wheel outside. Then, all the animals started playing with it
It seems that animals simply love to play.
- news.stanford.edu How mice choose to eat or to drink | Stanford News
A new Stanford study uses behavioral analysis, neural engineering, electrophysiology, and math to explore how mice decide whether to eat or drink when they are both hungry and thirsty.