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ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, England has introduced a new giraffe to the world, six-foot-tall Wilfred, born on Remembrance Day (Veterans’ Day, across the pond). The new arrival is named after World War I poet Wilfred Owen.
Christie’s was about to auction off a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in Hong Kong this month, looking to fetch between $15 million and $25 million, but canceled the sale when doubts were raised about how much of the fossilized bones were really old and how the critter was described in marketing materials.
The king of England has banned foie gras from all royal residences. Not a surprising development since, as the Prince of Wales, Charles had kiboshed foie gras from his properties.
Italian media went a little bit berserk last week when two hikers in South Tyrol called for help. The 23-year-old women had encountered a pack of seven or eight creatures approaching them “threateningly” before moving away and watching them from a distance.
Researchers at Simon Fraser University have been watching the mating rituals of the false widow spider (Steatoda grossa). They find that the female spins her web, douses it with pheromones to attract males, then tweaks the composition of her come-hither chemicals as necessary to elicit the desired sexual response.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals claim that global food-delivery giant HelloFresh uses coconut milk obtained by monkey labor in Thailand. The animal-rights group this week posted its third report on Thailand’s coconut industry, “in which chained monkeys are forced to spend long hours climbing tall trees and picking heavy coconuts.”
Turns out humans aren’t the only animals who like to bop to a beat. Researchers in Japan played some jams for rats and found that they too like to groove when the song is right. “Rats displayed innate — that is, without any training or prior exposure to music — beat synchronization most distinctly within 120-140 bpm (beats per minute), to which humans also exhibit the clearest beat synchronization,” explained Hirokazu Takahashi from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Information Science and Technology.
The National Park Service’s Halloween-night message started with a couple of “toad-ally terrifying” bad puns, then it got serious. “As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking,” the agency posted on Facebook.
Drone photographer Jess Wohling captured a most unusual image off the coast of Western Australia last week: an adult southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) swimming alongside a juvenile humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).
Scientists are deploying all manner of tech to listen to (and even interpret) the sounds of wildlife. Will drones, artificial intelligence, and digital recorders lead us to “a zoological version of Google Translate”?
Ornithorhynchus anatinus is one odd duck. With a tail like a beaver’s, webbed feet, nostrils that can clamp shut for underwater foraging, this egg-laying mammal seeks prey by detecting electrical fields using receptors on their bills. Having no nipples doesn’t stop them from nursing their young, which feed through pores in mama’s skin.
A barred owl in Hansville, Washington has a territorial feud ongoing with a local woman. The aggressive bird has attacked her twice – silent swoops from above that result in painful smacks to the back of her head – and biologists say such avian sorties will become more common.
When neuroscientist Margaret Livingstone published “Triggers for a mother’s love,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in September, there wasn’t much of a reaction in scientific circles. Then social media began discussing the details of the study and a backlash began, leading to a damning letter to PNAS, co-signed by 250 scientists calling for retraction.
In the past couple of weeks, local news outlets across the US (to the extent they still exist) have published articles on dangerous chemicals polluting our waterways. That’s because the Waterkeeper Alliance just published an exhaustive report on “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances,” more handily known as PFAS.
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London have taught bumblebees to roll little wooden balls around for no discernible reason, which makes bumblebees the first insects known to engage in “play.”
It’s that time of year when humans foist Halloween upon their pets by making them wear costumes – dogs dressed as pumpkins or hotdogs or even as cats, the final indignity.
Observing the natural world every day is a task that is always educational, often wondrous, and sometimes a little gross. Case in point, an article published this week in the Journal of Zoology: “A review of nose picking in primates with new evidence of its occurrence in Daubentonia madagascariensis.”
Joaquin Phoenix turns 48 on Friday (October 28), which means the Academy Award-winning actor has been an advocate for animal rights for a solid 45 years.
A female African lion named Zuri has raised eyebrows (and other bodily hair) at the Topeka Zoo & Conservation Center. For the past two years the 18-year-old has been growing a mane, just like a dude.
The African giant pouched rat, also called the Gambian pouched rat, is a large, nocturnal rodent with terrible eyesight. It is also intelligent and fairly easy to train – mostly to seek out landmines, but its skill set is expanding.
