Ravens understand the relations among others

Like many social mammals, ravens form different types of social relationships – they may be friends, kin, or partners and they also form strict dominance relations. From a cognitive perspective, understanding one's own ...

Power struggles are best kept out of the public eye

For animals, prevailing in a fight affects their likelihood of winning future conflicts. The opposite is true of losing a fight. The sex hormone testosterone is often believed to mediate this "winner effect". Researchers ...

Ant executions serve a higher purpose, research shows

Natural selection can be an agonizingly long process. Some organisms have a way of taking matters into their own hands, or—in the case of the ant species Cerapachys biroi—mandibles.

Bull elephants' social behavior varies with the rainfall

(PhysOrg.com) -- The lone bull elephant is an image as iconic to the African savanna as the lonesome cowboy on horseback is to the American West. Although female elephants form tightly knit groups guided by a matriarch, ...

High social rank comes at a price, researchers find

Being at the very top of a social hierarchy may be more costly than previously thought, according to a new study of wild baboons led by a Princeton University ecologist.

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