Ecology & Zoology

Whales & Squid: Three Million Battles A Day

When we want to blow our minds with the sheer vastness of nature, we often turn to astronomy. In fact, we use the word  astronomical to mean really a whole lot. But today, I'd like to make a case for biology. ...

Article - Danna Staaf - Jul 21 2013 - 9:40pm

Ctenus Monaghani: A Hobbit Helps Find A Spider Far From Mt. Doom

In J.R.R. Tolkeins's fantasy epic "The Lord of the Rings", a hobbit discovers a giant in the caves under Mt. Doom. More recently, another famous hobbit helped discover a much smaller kind of spider. And the researchers who get credit for it ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 29 2013 - 1:47pm

Fish Aggregation Devices: Why Do Tuna Love Floating Objects?

2 000 years ago, Roman fishermen knew that some species of fish liked to gather under floating objects. No one knew why and it didn't matter, that behavioral mechanism was just used to catch more fish in the Mediterranean. Today, artisanal and industr ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 29 2013 - 1:59pm

Why Male Mammals Choose Monogamy- Unwillingness To Share

In what the authors are calling perhaps the most comprehensive and definitive effort to date, zoologists say they have explained the processes that drove male mammals to adopt social monogamy as a breeding strategy.  Because male mammals have a much highe ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 30 2013 - 2:56pm

Better Marine Conservation By Using Water Tanks To Send Fish To School

Raising fish in tanks  doesn't help them all that much when they are released into the wild- but there may be an easy fix: put in hiding places and obstacles. It makes fish smarter and improves their chances of survival in nature, according to a new ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 31 2013 - 8:00am

Baby Bird Sleep Patterns Are A Lot Like Baby Humans

The sleeping patterns of baby birds are similar to that of baby mammals they even appear to change in the same way as it does in humans. Studying barn owls in the wild, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and the University of Lausan ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 2 2013 - 1:17pm

Polar Bear Accelerometer May Answer Some Questions About Climate Change

There is lots of speculation about the impact of climate change on polar bears but little data. Society needs to understand the potential impact of sea ice retreats but polar bears are difficult to study in the wild. "Direct behavioral observations ar ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 4 2013 - 12:01pm

Zoonoses is Not to be Confused with Zoo Noses

The word zoonoses…. seeing that on my screen makes me wonder how many of us giggle at the idea of zoo noses. You know, like an elephant’s trunk or the orangutan’s smooshed up nose? But zoonoses doesn’t have a space in the middle and it is a really serious ...

Blog Post - Janice Person - Aug 6 2013 - 1:55pm

Dolphins Retain Social Memories, Even After 20 Years

Dolphins can recognize the whistles of former tank mates even after being separated for more than 20 years; that's the longest social memory known outside people. This adds to evidence that dolphins have a level of cognitive sophistication comparable ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 7 2013 - 7:30am

Climate Change Implicated In Collapse Of Bronze Age Civilizations

Some of the ancient civilizations that flourished in regions of the Eastern Mediterranean- Aegean, Egyptian, Syro-Palestinian, and Hittite civilizations- collapsed during the late Bronze Age.  Hieroglyphic and cuneiform text remains portray invasions of t ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 14 2013 - 6:08pm