A new social role for echolocation in bats that hunt together

Searching for food at night can be tricky. To find prey in the dark, bats use echolocation, their "sixth sense." But to find food faster, some species, like Molossus molossus, may search within hearing distance of their echolocating ...

Young dolphins pick their friends wisely

Strategic networking is key to career success, and not just for humans. A new study of wild bottlenose dolphins reveals that in early life, dolphins devote more time to building connections that could give them an edge later ...

DNA in fringe-lipped bat poop reveals unexpected eating habits

Poop is full of secrets. For scientists, digging into feces provides insights into animal diets and is particularly useful for understanding nocturnal or rare species. When animals eat, prey DNA travels all the way through ...

Vampire bats social distance when they get sick

A new paper in Behavioral Ecology, published by Oxford University Press, finds that wild vampire bats that are sick spend less time near others from their community, which slows how quickly a disease will spread. The research ...

Are animal traits the result of behavioral epigenetics?

A plant that is unremarkable in one environment becomes an invasive species in another, pushing through house foundations and sprouting up through roads. A house sparrow that's a perfectly charming resident of the English ...

Male sparrows are less intimidated by the songs of aging rivals

Few singers reach their sunset years with the same voice they had in younger days. Singing sparrows are no different. Duke University-led research reveals that elderly swamp sparrows don't sound quite like they used to—nor ...

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