Ecology & Zoology

Many men have been a little overexcited on the dance floor and showed off moves that have never been seen before. Blame alcohol.  Testosterone has a similar effect. A little too much and the frequency of overzealous wooing behavior may increase, but the quality won't go up with it. For the male canary, the ability to sing a pitch-perfect song is critical to wooing female canaries and as the seasons change, so does song quality and frequency.  Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University have found that introducing testosterone in select areas of a male canary's brain can affect…

When you think of crocodiles, you usually envision them climbing trees. Probably not. Most people imagine them in water or waddling on the ground, but a study has found that the reptiles can climb trees as far as the crowns.  Vladimir Dinets, a research assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, says he is the first to thoroughly study the tree-climbing and basking behavior.  Dinets and colleagues observed crocodile species on three continents — Australia, Africa and North America — and examined previous studies and anecdotal observations. They found that four species…

People who live in cities love the infrastructure, the nightlife, the hobos, the fact that you can find a Starbucks on every corner. People who live in the country love the cleaner air, the openness, the fact that you can go for a walk without being accosted by hobos. Is it just personal choice? If so, birds face many of the same dilemmas about how best to live life. Larger groups bring risks of disease and aggression by neighbors. What other factors may be involved?  One possible explanation is that animals and birds might be genetically influenced to breed in smaller or larger colonies…

A new study has found that several types of aquatic algae can detect orange, green and blue light. Land plants have receptors to detect the common visual optical wavelengths in the air, light on the red and far red of the spectrum. That allows them to sense the light and move and grow as their environment changes, such as when another plant shades them from the sun. But the ocean is a different environment. Water absorbs red wavelengths and reflects colors such as blue and green. As part of the study, and the team sequenced about 20 different marine algae and found they were capable of…

Can diet give you a better memory? It seems to, at least when it comes to an animal cognition test using lemurs. A study of five lemur species found that fruit-eatershad better spatial memory than lemurs with a more varied diet. The researchers conclude that relying on foods that are seasonally available and far-flung gives a competitive edge to individuals with certain cognitive abilities - such as remembering where the food is. Researchers Alexandra Rosati at Yale University and Kerri Rodriguez and Brian Hare of Duke compared spatial memory skills across five species of lemurs living…

A highly sexed mouse-like marsupial from Queensland's Springbrook National Park, the Black-tailed Antechinus , has been identified as a new species. It's the third new species in the genus Antechinus Dr. Andrew Baker's research team has discovered in the past two years, all from south-east Queensland. This one has a strange life. Males are unlikely to survive to see the birth of their children, the stress of mating seems to be too much for them. Baker said he suspected the rare, Black-tailed Antechinus was a separate species when he and his team came across it last May because it had…

Call it the buoyancy of the brood. When facing a flood, ants build rafts and find other ways to minimize injury or death - they can basically use the brood to act as a life preserver - according to a new paper. The queen ant goes in the middle and is protected on all sides by the rafting ants. Ants are social, Edward O. Wilson has written whole books on that, and when put in harm's way, social animals are often able to work together to enhance the survival and welfare of the group. Ants living on flood plains are known to link to together to create rafts during floods, but less is known about…

Julie Hartup, Mariana Islands Program Leader for the Manta Trust, has caught mantas on Guam in the act of having a party. Several of Hartup's paddler and free diving friends told her about seeing mantas congregating in an area where surgeonfish were spawning, and they knew the exact date. With the date, Hartup was able to calculate the moon phase - many fish synchronize their spawning with the moon - and using this information she predicted when the spawning event would occur that upcoming year and was there to witness a shoal of spawning surgeonfish accompanied by a fever of mantas. Hartup's…

Asian longhorned beetles are an invasive pest that affects about 25 tree species in the United States.  Female Asian longhorned beetles lure males to their locations by laying down sex-specific pheromone trails on tree surfaces, according to an international team of researchers.   The researchers isolated and identified four chemicals from the trails of virgin and mated female Asian longhorned beetles -- Anoplophora glabripennis -- that were not found in the trails of males. They found that the pheromone trails contained two major components -- 2-methyldocosane and (Z)-9-tricosene…

In 1832, the HMS Beagle arrived at Bahia Blanca, Argentina and Charles Darwin disembarked. On his way to Buenos Aires, Darwin collected several fossils of large mammals along with many other living organisms, including several insects. February 12 is Darwin's birthday scientists and scientists have named after him a long lost but new to science beetle genus and species from his collection. The beetle was discovered and described by Dr. Stylianos Chatzimanolis, an entomologist at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a new genus and species of rove beetles, a group of insects with…