We went for quite a few walks on the beach while we were in Port Douglas, usually in the early morning before things got too hot! We were surprised by the near-total lack of shells washed up on the sand (the copious cuttle-fish ‘bones’ didnt’ count). And fascinated by the way that the sand between […]
Continue readingCategory: animal behaviour
of ant hotels and homicidal figs
One of several highlights of our holiday was a guided tour of part of the Daintree National Park. There was so much to see! But we’d probably have walked straight past some wonderful plants & animals if it wasn’t for our guide, Ross. For example, the first time we encountered a Boyd’s forest dragon, all […]
Continue readingdo flies do housework?
Some more entertaining & educational reading for you while I’m away 🙂 This time it’s from the Bug Girl’s Blog, where the eponymous Bug Girl describes as ‘egregious’ the headline Fruit Fly Sperm Makes Females Do Housework After Sex. Visit the Bug Girl’s place to find out not only what egregious means, but also why she’s so annoyed about the headline. […]
Continue readinggannet monogamy model moot
When you studied animal behaviour in year 13 you probably learned about the different mating systems: polygamy (polygyny & polyandry), promiscuity – & monogamy: a bond between a single male & a single female. You may also have heard that in some species, such as swans, that bond is life-long. It turns out things are more complex than […]
Continue readinghummingbirds & the high cost of s*x
One of the nice things about reading books by great science writers is that I just know I’m going to learn lots. I’ve just got back into Nick Lane’s latest book Life Ascending (it’s been my lunchtime reading at work & recently other things have intruded…). Lane has a lovely lyrical way of writing that I really […]
Continue readinga question of isolation
I spent a lot of last weekend marking exam papers from my first-year bio students. Most of them chose one of my essay questions (it’s a team-taught paper & they had a choice of 3 essays in my section), & today one of the class told me that she’d really liked that question because it […]
Continue readingwolves in the cross-fire
A while back I wrote about the wolves of Yellowstone & what they can tell us about the ecological impacts of a top predator. Wolves were reintroduced to the US’s Yellowstone National Park in 1995, after an absence of around 50 years, & wildlife biologists were having a field day (pardon the pun!) examining the […]
Continue readingself-grooming in cows
From time to time my Significant Other’s thoughts turn to life in the country. This can manifest itself in the purchase of lifestyle-block magazines. I was flipping through one this morning & came across an item on self-grooming in cows, & thought I’d look into it a bit further as it seemed to fit with my […]
Continue readingteaching old cows new tricks
I originally wrote the material in this post for the Science on the Farm website. It’s re-posted here because I thought it might be an interesting extension for those of you currently studying animal behaviour. Automatic milking is an exciting technological innovation facing the dairy industry in New Zealand, with the potential to affect farming lifestyles […]
Continue readingblood-sucking vampire moths!
On the way to work this morning I was listening to a Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, & one of the topics under discussion was vampires. Vampire moths! How cool is that? Vampire bats I know about, & vampire finches, but blood-sucking moths? I had to find out more…
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