No more moldy bats!
White-nose syndrome is the fungal disease (you might recall) that’s killing bats. Millions of them. But now, National Geographic is giving us hope that a […]
zoology
A new hybrid super-termite… made in Florida.
PopSci reports on the PLOS One study on what happens when two invasive exotic species combine forces: The two termite species, which originated in separate […]
Science Art: Vespertilio Formosus
Click to embiggen A mouse-eared bat, from Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, as found on the Biodiversity Heritage Library. It falls between a […]
Science Art: Nest of the Honey-Wasp Attacked by Jaguar, 1916
Click to embiggen From Marvels of Insect Life: A Popular Account of Structure and Habit, edited by Edward Step, found in the BioDiversity Library. This […]
Dancing to the beat makes fiddler crab sexual… failures.
New Scientist turns our human expectations upside down once in the world of fiddler crabs. They seem musical (thus the name, after all), and they […]
New poison dart frog discovered. Tiny. Cute. Poisonous. But tiny. And cute.
National Geographic reveals the newest Panamanian sensation to enter the world of science: A new species of poison dart frog so teeny it can fit […]
Science Art: Tadarida teniotis Rafinesque.
This is a bat from Tajikstan. According to the 2002 State of the Environment Report, it’s a rare bat. The European free-tailed bat. No, he […]
Science Art: Polar Bear – POV Cams (Spring 2014), by the USGS
As the U.S. Geological Survey puts it: This video was edited and compiled from raw footage recorded by a camera equipped radio collar that was […]
Animals are people too.
Or so says National Geographic-profiled biopsychologist Lori Marino, an expert in the brains of “lesser” animals: Formerly a full-fledged research scientist who found measuring the […]
Elephants really never forget… their enemies’ words.
Nature reveals proof that elephants recognize individual humans – including the languages used who did them wrong: Biologists Karen McComb and Graeme Shannon at the […]
Guild Salute: Michael Hearst, Songs for Unusual Creatures
Michael Hearst! Composer! Writer! Player of atypical instruments! Science fan! You are compiling instrumentals based on wonderful animals, like the glass frog, the magnapinna squid, […]
Elephants empathize.
Science magazine reaches out with new research showing that elephants don’t just mourn their dead, but also try to comfort those in anguish: The study […]
Chimp civilization found in Congo.
OK, that’s a little hyperbolic, but only a little. The Guardian has more on the last chimp “mega-culture” just found in the central African jungle: […]
Dogs poop in alignment with the Earth’s magnetic field
I can’t even begin with this one. But yes, researchers at the Czech University of Agriculture have determined that dogs orient themselves to magnetic north […]
Science Art: Plate 721: Mus minor, Souris; Mus major, Rat from … well, ostensibly Description, vertus et usages de sept cents dix-neuf plantes…,
Rodents, as appearing in a book of medicinal herbs (619 of them?) by Etienne-Francois Geoffroy and Francois Alexandre de Garsault. Or so BioDiv Library would […]