Animal behavior is the scientific study of the observable actions, interactions, and behavioral patterns of animals, typically investigated within ethology, behavioral ecology, and comparative psychology. It encompasses mechanisms (proximate causes such as neural, hormonal, and genetic control), development (ontogeny and learning), function (adaptive value in survival and reproductive success), and evolution (phylogenetic history and divergence among taxa). Research on animal behavior quantifies activities such as foraging, mating systems, parental care, communication, social organization, and antipredator strategies, often integrating experimental, observational, and modeling approaches to understand how behavior emerges from organism–environment interactions and contributes to fitness and ecological dynamics.
Scientists have shown that the stride length of the front legs (but not the hind legs) of senior and geriatric dogs decreases as their cognitive performance worsens. In contrast, chronological age itself was a poor predictor ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 25, 2026
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Deep within the dark caves of northeastern Mexico lives a fish that has spent hundreds of thousands of years adapting to a world without light. The blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) has evolved in perpetual darkness, ...
Evolution
Jun 24, 2026
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For conservation and the management of human–wildlife conflicts, it is of great interest to know which species are eaten by carnivores. Scientists from the Ngorongoro Hyena Project at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 24, 2026
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If drought in an area persists longer, elephants move closer to areas near human settlements. This is the finding of research by biologist Irene Bouwman of Radboud University. During short-term droughts, the animals remain ...
Ecology
Jun 23, 2026
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A new study has uncovered a fundamental link between brain size and offspring size, helping to solve a long-standing evolutionary puzzle: Why do birds lay such disproportionately large eggs?
Evolution
Jun 23, 2026
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220
Many bat species emit echolocation calls and use the returning echoes to find their way, detect the presence of fluttering insects, and locate and catch them. A new study investigated this behavior in greater horseshoe bats ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 23, 2026
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Some fish swim in synchrony. Others, it turns out, breathe in synchrony. This is true for arapaimas, an obligate air-breathing species living in the Amazon. A new study in Communications Biology, led by the Leibniz Institute ...
Ecology
Jun 23, 2026
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White barn owls are effective killing machines. They fly silently through the night air and swoop down on unsuspecting prey with their sharp talons. But they have something you would think goes against being a stealth predator: ...
In a novel experiment at the University of Cincinnati, researchers recently isolated kissing bugs, fruit flies, mosquitoes and spider beetles in a climate- and light-controlled environment and found that they responded predictably ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 22, 2026
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9
Domestic cats age in remarkably similar ways to humans and show comparable age-related patterns of brain deterioration, according to an international collaboration among the University of Bath in the U.K., Auburn University ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 22, 2026
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