Outwardly, the tiny wood frog, Rana sylvatica, does not look like your regular arctic inhabitant. Yet despite their tiny stature, these little frogs are actually quite hardy and can tolerate freezing of up to two-thirds of ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 23, 2013
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Communicating over long distances is difficult; for example, the sound of our voices can rarely be heard or understood further away than 100 m. Yet, long before the invention of the telephone or e-mail, humans were successfully ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 8, 2013
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Getting the undivided attention of a female is tough at the best of times but it's even harder when surrounded by other male suitors. It's no wonder males often resort to ostentatious displays to distinguish themselves from ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 24, 2013
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During the hot summer months, there's nothing quite like a nice refreshing and cooling dip in a pool, and it would seem that elephants agree. In fact, in some game parks, elephants will rarely stray far from water, and have ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 11, 2013
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Horses experience back pain so riders do their best to minimise the loads exerted on horses' backs, but how much of a difference do the different trotting techniques make to the loads horses experience? Patricia de Cocq from ...
Plants & Animals
May 1, 2013
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Sea hares are not the favourite food choice of many marine inhabitants, and it's easy to see why when you find out about the chemical weapons they employ when provoked – namely, two unpalatable secretions, ink and opaline, ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 27, 2013
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Many whales filter food from water using racks of baleen plates in their mouths, but no one had ever investigated how baleen behaves in real life. According to Alexander Werth from Hampden-Sydney College, baleen was viewed ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 13, 2013
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Setting up home in the stinging tentacles of a sea anemone might seem like a risky option, but anemonefish – also known as clownfish and popularised in the movie Finding Nemo – are perfectly content in their unlikely ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 27, 2013
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Homing pigeons are usually remarkably efficient navigators, however, on rare occasions, things go drastically wrong. So, when Jon Hagstrum of the US Geological Survey read in his local newspaper about two races when pigeons ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 30, 2013
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Mantis shrimps pack a powerful punch, whether they smash or spear their victims. According to Maya deVries and Sheila Patek from University of California, Berkeley, smasher mantis shrimps power their claws' ballistic blows ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 22, 2012
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