animals

In East Africa lives a species of spider that drinks mammalian blood. But fear not - Evarcha culicivora is an indirect vampire - it sates its thirst by preying on female mosquitoes that have previously fed on blood themselves. Even though its habitat is full of non-biting midges called "lake flies", it can tell the difference between these insects and the blood-carrying mozzies it carries. Robert Jackson from the University of Canterbury discovered this behaviour a few years ago and one of his colleagues, Fiona Cross, has now found that the blood isn't just a meal for the spiders, it's an…
The prospect of infections spreading from animals to humans has become all too real with the onset of the current swine flu pandemic, and the threat of a bird flu still looming. But infections can jump the other way too. Decades before the world's media were gripped with panic over bird flu, humans transferred a disease to chickens and it has since caused a poultry pandemic right under our noses.  The infection in question is a familiar one - Staphylococcus aureus, a common human bacterium that's behind everything from mild skin infections to life-threatening MRSA. It causes chicken…
Today was a big day for non-canine service animal news, which I keep tabs on here as part of ongoing follow up to my New York Times Magazine article, Creature Comforts, about the use of non-canine service animals (which include ducks, monkeys, horses, goats, and at least one kangaroo).  The biggest news is that a court in Missouri has rejected the discrimination case filed by Debby Rose, who I featured in my story. She was forbidden to bring her Macaque monkey Richard into local businesses, despite the fact that she says he's a service monkey trained to help with her agoraphobia (Richard…
The most incredible eyes in the animal world can be found under the sea, on the head of the mantis shrimps. Each eye can move independently and can focus on object with three different areas, giving the mantis shrimp "trinocular vision". While we see in three colours, they see in twelve, and they can tune individual light-sensitive cells depending on local light levels. They can even see a special type of light - 'circularly polarised light' - that no other animal can. But Nicholas Roberts from the University of Bristol has found a new twist to the mantis shrimp's eye. It contains a…
tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." --Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
Nature is rife with charlatans. Hundreds of animals have evolved to look like other species in order to fool predators into thinking they're more of a threat, or to sneak up on unsuspecting prey. In the Indo-Pacific lives a fish that does both and has the rare ability to switch between different disguises - the bluestriped fangblenny. Common though it is, mimicry is usually restrictive and most fakers are stuck with one disguise. Until a few years ago, the only known animal that could switch between different acts was the amazing mimic octopus, which contorts its flexible body to look like…
There is a deep hole in a tree trunk and within is a tasty dollop of sweet, nutritious honey. It's a worthwhile prize for any animal skilled or clever enough to reach it, and chimpanzees certainly have both of these qualities. But the solutions they find aren't always the same - they depend on cultural traditions. Chimps from the Sonso community in Uganda are skilled at the use of sticks and unsurprisingly, they manufacture stick-based tools to reach the honey. Chimps from the Kanyawara community in a different part of Uganda have never been seen to use sticks in the wild. Instead, they…
By directing the evolution of a worm, scientists have confirmed answers to the age-old question: "What is the point of having sex with someone else?" For most people, that would hardly be a tricky query but it's no reflection on the lives of evolutionary scientists that sex has been one of biology's oldest puzzles. The problem is this: many creatures can reproduce by fertilising themselves instead of getting someone else to do it, and at first glance they should do much better individuals that cross-fertilise. For a start, they'd ensure that all of their genes reach the next generation,…
Cast your mind back to June, when a stunning fossil animal called Darwinius (alternatively Ida or "The Link") was unveiled to the world to tremendous pomp and circumstance. Hyperbolic ads declared the day of Ida's discovery as the most important for 47 million years. A press release promised that she would "change everything", headlines proclaimed her a "missing link in evolution" and the scientists behind the discovery billed her as "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor". And according to a new study, none of that is true. Mere months later, Erik Seiffert from Stony Brook…
In the forests of South Africa lurks an arachnophobe's nightmare - Nephila kowaci, the largest web-spinning spider in the world. The females of this newly discovered species have bodies that are 3-4 centimetres in length (1.5 inches) and legs that are each around 7.5cm long (3 inches). This new species is the largest of an already massive family. There are 15 species of Nephila - the golden orb weavers - and at least 10 of them have bodies that are over an inch long. Many spin webs that are over a metre in diameter. The first of these giants was discovered by Linnaeus himself in 1767 and…
tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." --Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. Imagine you get a bad cold, but you decide to put on a brave face and go into work anyway. Instead of jokingly covering their mouths and making jibes about staying away from you, your colleagues act perfectly normally and some even and start rubbing up against you. It's a weird scenario, but not if you were an ant. With their large colonies and intense co-operation, ants are some of the most successful animals on the planet. But like all social insects and animals, their large group sizes make them…
Our one and only sighting of the spotted hyena, an animal that is far more beautiful than its reputation might suggest. Hyenas are powerful predators too; as much if not more of their meat comes from their own kills as it does from scavenging. I know this shot is blurry but I quite like it nonetheless. A hyena mansion. In Sabi Sands, spotted hyenas make their homes in termite mounds, taking over and enlarging burrows and entrances previously created by aardvarks. They're sturdy lodgings but not exactly luxurious ones - they are infested with parasites.
In the movie industry, special effects and computer-generated imagery are becoming better and more realistic. As they'd improve, you'd expect moviegoers to more readily accept virtual worlds and characters, but that's not always the case. It turns out that people are incredibly put off by images or animations of humans that strive for realism, but aren't quite there yet. A character like Wall-E is lovable because he's clearly not human but has many human-like qualities and expressions. In contrast, the more realistic CG-characters of Beowulf or The Polar Express are far closer to reality but…
In Latin America, there lives a unique spider called Bagheera kiplingi. It's a jumping spider and it shares the group's large, acute eyes and prodigious leaping ability. But it also has a trait that singles it out among all 40,000 species of spider - it's mostly vegetarian. Virtually all spiders are predators. They may hunt using different methods but they all end up sucking the liquidised innards of their prey. If they consume plants, they do so rarely, even accidentally. Some take the odd sip of nectar to supplement their diet of flesh. Others accidentally swallow pollen while recycling…
tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." --Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
The white rhinoceros - the planet's second largest land mammal. Even though it's the most common of the five existing speceis of rhino, there are still just over 17,000 left in the wild. For comparison, more than five times as many humans pack into Wembley Arena when there's a match on. With that in mind, we felt lucky and priveleged to see these magnificent animals, not just once but on four separate occasions. These photos come from the clearest daylight sighting (most were of far-off animals lurking behind thicket), when we followed two individuals for about ten minutes. As you can see,…
tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books "How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature." --Edgar Kincaid The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
Every weekend, I'm going to post new wildlife photos from our recent South African holiday. The vast majority will come from the four-day safari we went on, and what better way to start this series than with shots of an animal named Safari. She's a leopard, and undoubtedly one of the highlights of the trip. We crossed her path twice and on both, she was totally unperturbed by our presence. On our second encounter, she even posed for pictures, sitting gracefully atop a termite mound bathed in a golden sunset. If you're wondering why this leopard in particular is so recognisable, here's the…
This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. The blog is on holiday until the start of October, when I'll return with fresh material. Every month, at the full moon, tourists and students gather on the beach at Koh Phangan, Thailand for a night of booze, dancing, and debauchery. But the moon-themed antics of these party-goers look positively tepid when compared to those of the Great Barrier Reef's corals. With the help of two genes and a spot of moonlight, the corals synchronise one of the greatest spectacles of the natural world - a mass annual…