Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 30, 2007

Crabs Shack Up in Safe Sandcastles

Female fiddler crabs find male suitors more attractive if the chaps can arrange safe sand castles for booty calls, new findings suggest. In the animal kingdom, females are often attracted to outrageously showy displays such as a peacock's plumage. If gaudy males can escape from predators despite their flamboyant ornaments...

Apr 30, 2007

Farfetched? Hint of Free Will Found in a Fly

A spark of free will may exist in even the tiny brain of the humble fruit fly, new findings that could shed light on the nature and evolution of free will in humans. Future research delving further into free will could lead to more advanced robots, scientists added. The result,...

Apr 30, 2007

Virgin Shark Gives Birth

Female sharks may not need males around anymore, because they can reproduce without having sex, surprised scientists have found. The startling discovery, announced today, has a long history. It was initially made after the unexpected birth of a baby hammerhead shark in the aquarium of Nebraska’s Henry Doorly Zoo in...

Apr 30, 2007

Top 10 Most Incredible Animal Journeys

Top 10 Most Incredible Animal Journeys Monarch butterflies adorn a thistle. The species is getting walloped by extreme weather. (Image credit: USFWS.)Animals will make extraordinary and often mysterious expeditions to find a good meal, sexy mates, and the perfect place to raise a family. In early spring every 17 years,...

Mar 31, 2007

Study Reveals Why Some Dogs Are So Small

From the Chihuahua that’s tiny enough to fit in a purse, to the most massive mastiff, dogs have an incredible, and scientifically baffling, range in size. “Dogs have the biggest range of sizes of any mammal in existence,” said biologist K. Gordon Lark of the University of Utah. “One of...

Mar 31, 2007

Whales Break Distance Record With 5,100-Mile Migration

A group of humpback whales seeking balmier waters have traveled a record-breaking 5,100 miles, the longest-ever documented migration undertaken by a mammal. Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Southern Hemisphere are known to migrate from their high-latitude feeding areas in polar waters, rich in shrimp-like critters, to more tropical regions...

Feb 28, 2007

Caterpillars Click and Puke to Stop Predators

Caterpillars can fend off hungry birds and other predators by clicking at them, scientists now report. These clicks warn that the caterpillars will be unsavory to eat—at least, after they regurgitate a foul brown fluid. To understand the clicking and barfing, neuroethologist Jayne Yack at Carleton University in Ottawa headed...

Feb 28, 2007

Study Reveals Real Reason Birds Migrate

It's food scarcity, not dietary preferences, that motivates birds to migrate thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas each year, new research shows. It's not whether you eat insects, fruit, nectar or candy bars or where you eat them--it matters how reliable that food source is...

Feb 28, 2007

Male Spiders Leave Chastity 'Plug' to Ensure Paternity

A male orb-web spider leaves behind a post-coital gift that helps to ensure that any subsequent offspring are his. He leaves the tip of his genitals in the females' sexual orifice, effectively blocking future males' efforts to inseminate the female, new research shows. Video: Spider CouplingThe behavior damages the males'...

Feb 28, 2007

Dino Bones Reveal DNA Surprise

The distinction between birds and the dinosaurs from which they evolved is getting even murkier. The genomes (complete DNA sequences) of both groups are short, researchers now say. Scientists used to think that relatively shorter genomes were associated with flight. Birds have short genomes compared to other vertebrates, or animals...

Feb 28, 2007

Key Found to Reindeer's Throaty Mating Call

A large air sac in a male reindeer's neck allows him to let loose a throaty mating call that may boast of his fighting ability to rival males and contribute to his sexual prowess and reproductive fitness, new research shows. The inflated air sac expands the neck region and influences...

Feb 28, 2007

Bird Eavesdrops on Another Bird's Alarm Calls

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nuthatches appear to have learned to understand a foreign language -- chickadee. It's not unusual for one animal to react to the alarm call of another, but nuthatches seem to go beyond that -- interpreting the type of alarm and what sort of predator poses a threat....

Feb 28, 2007

Genetically Tweaked Mice Get Human-Like Vision

Scientists have some lab mice seeing red. The animals had their vision genetically upgraded and can now see colors normally invisible to rodents. The finding, detailed in the March 23 issue of the journal Science, has implications for the evolution of full-color, or “trichromatic,” vision in our own ancestors. “What...

Jan 31, 2007

Bats Found to Feed On Migrating Birds at Night

The blood of the largest bat in Europe reveals it can devour birds in midair at night, the only animal known to do so thus far, evidence now strongly suggests. Roughly five billion songbirds migrate across the Mediterranean Sea every year, mainly at night. Although more than 90 percent of...

Jan 31, 2007

You Can Help: Great Backyard Bird Count

People from all walks of life will don binoculars, if they can find them, and trek outside this weekend to count birds ranging from finches to juncos for 15 minutes as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count. In its 10th year, the project relies on participants to create a...