Category Archives: Behaviour
CAN ANTS TEACH?
September 2007 One of the main distinguishing features of humans is that we teach. Even chimps, which use tools for example to fish out termites, don’t teach their offspring – learning takes place by observation. Nigel Franks (Bristol) argues in this article in … Continue reading
GIANT LION-EATING CHIMPS
September 2007 Stories abound from the Congo about a group of large, aggressive chimps. Cleve Hicks (University of Amsterdam) claims that the stories are true. Read this article and see a) whether you believe him and b) if you don’t, how could you … Continue reading
THE FLIGHT OF THE GODWIT
September 2007 The bar-tailed Godwit flies from Alaska to New Zealand, and back again. One female took just 8 days to fly the 11,500 km, which meant she was flying at around 60 kph…
MASSIVE MIGRATION
September 2007 Stunning pictures of a recently-studied migration pattern in the Sudan. Amazing.
MORAY EEL – THE ORIGINAL ALIEN?
September 2007 Moray eels possess a second pair of evertible jaws which come out and bring prey back into the throat, once it’s been seized by the nasty teeth you can normally see. Excellent set of videos and articles at the Nature … Continue reading
TWO MORE PODCASTS
September 2007 Science podcast on ape/human cognition, feathered dinosaurs, saving tigers. Science podcast on cooperative breeding and the mystery of the Ivory-Billed woodpecker – is it extinct?
Filed under Audio files, Behaviour, Birds, Conservation, Dinosaurs, Primates
MAKING SCENTS OF THE BEE WAGGLE DANCE
September 2007 Bees do a waggle dance in the dark of the hive to show their sisters where food can be found. It turns out they are also releasing chemical signals while they do this. Magazine article from PLoS Biology (open access); research article … Continue reading
BONOBOS AND LANGUAGE – PODCASTS
May 2007 Dr Ginger Campbell, a medic who works in an A&E department in Texas, has an excellent series of podcasts dealing with scientific issues. This series is called “The BrainScience podcast – the podcast for everyone with a brain”. This one is … Continue reading
Filed under Audio files, Behaviour
KILLER FEMALE CHIMPS
May 2007 In certain circumstances, female chimps will kill the offspring of other females. Explained in this Current Biology research article, this Current Biology magazine article, and summarised in this BBC article.
TRACKING WALRUSES AND GODWITS
May 2007 Tracking animals might seem a cinch in the age of GPS. But it doesn’t always turn out that way – the BBC website’s “Walrus Watch” has come seriously unstuck, with only one of the eight tags still working… A more traditional … Continue reading
