For green crabs, ship noise is like an anti–Barry White. The constant thrum of ship engines and other human noises can be a real nuisance for many sea creatures, disrupting their feeding, navigation, and communication. Now a new study shows that ship noise can also kill the mood for amorous crabs. Read more in Hakai.
animal behaviour
Social Fish Will Brave the Cold to Stay with Their Pals
Individuals will compromise on their own temperature preferences to gain the benefits of group life. You’ve probably experienced it: Your friends want to sit on a restaurant patio and you grudgingly go along even though it is clearly too cold to eat outside. It turns out, some fish know exactly how you feel. They will […]
Quiet Please, the Fish Are Flirting
Fish that fart together stay together. In an ocean full of clicking shrimp and singing whales, fish are often imagined as the silent actors. Fish use motion, color, and chemicals to communicate, but they lack the iconic mewl of a cat or trill of a bird. Yet in reality, many fish chat constantly to mark […]
Wise elk learn to outsmart hunters and tell apart their weapons
As female elk get older, they also get wiser: they learn how to avoid getting shot by hunters, and appear to adapt their behaviour to the types of weapon the hunters carry. Hunting by humans is known to affect how elk behave, selecting for more cautious behaviours by killing more of the bolder animals. But […]
Monkey mafia steal your stuff, then sell it back for a cracker
Long-tailed macaques living near an Indonesian temple have figured out how to run a ransom racket on visiting tourists. The monkeys grab valuables, such as glasses, hats, cameras or, in one case, a wad of cash from the ticket booth, then wait for temple staff to offer them food before dropping their ill-gotten gains and […]
Isolated crayfish are more resistant to the effects of alcohol
For crayfish at least, a more sociable life makes booze work quicker. When crayfish were put in water containing a little alcohol, the ones who had been kept on their own over the preceding week took longer to show signs of alcohol exposure – such as tail flips – than those who had been living […]
Dogs use deception to get what they want from humans (a sausage)
Dogs are all honest, loyal and obedient, right? Well, not always. Our pets can be sneaky and manipulative when they want to maximise the number of tasty treats they get to eat. Marianne Heberlein, who studies dog cognition at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, wanted to test the animals’ ability to use deception to […]
The devoted spider dads who fix up nurseries for their babies
Most male spiders bail out after mating – if they make it through the process alive, that is, as females of many spider species cannibalise their mates. But not this spider. Male Manogea porracea in South America not only help with childcare, they often end up as single dads. Read more in New Scientist.
Sword-slashing sailfish hint at origins of cooperative hunting
Cooperation makes it happen. Sailfish that work together in groups to hunt sardines can catch more fish than if they hunt alone, even without a real coordinated strategy. To catch their sardine dinner, a group of sailfish circle a school of sardines – known as a baitball – and break off a small section, driving […]
Chimps and bonobos interbred and exchanged genes
Chimpanzees and their relatives bonobos are closer than we thought. Bonobos seem to have donated genes to chimps at least twice in the roughly two million years since they last shared an ancestor. The two closely related apes have occasionally interbred in captivity, and bonobos are renowned for their free and easy sex life. But […]