Another for the ‘gosh, isn’t this beautiful?!’ files: the Himalayan Monal (the national bird of Nepal). (Image via Facebook: Tambako the Jaguar; Flickr — with Robin Subba, Sarvesh Wangawad,Jeriko Angue, Roberto Delapisa, Jonas Mgr, Neelesh Suryavanshi, Shashank Asai,Sushant Bhujel and Pabitra Lamichhane.) This stunning bird (Lophophorus impejanus) is a type of pheasant, and like other pheasants the species is strongly sexually dimorphic: the males […]
Continue readingCategory: animal behaviour
the gastric-brooding frog – not quite back from the dead
I first found out about gastric-brooding frogs (Rheobatrachus silus) when reading Stephen Jay Gould’s essay "Here Goes Nothing" (as published in the 1991 book Bully for Brontosaurus). As he said, these frogs really do live up to their name: the frog swallows its fertilised eggs, broods tadpoles in its stomach, and gives birth to young frogs […]
Continue readingtool use – even more widespread than you thought
Yesterday my ‘Facebook science feed’ (ie daily browsing) brought me this stunning image (click the picture for the hyperlink). It’s from the book Thinkers of the Jungle: the Orangutan Report (Shuster, Smits & Ullal, 2008) & shows a young orangutan apparently using a long stick in lieu of a spear, copying local fishermen as they […]
Continue readinga cute little piggy (but why do we find it so?)
On Facebook yesterday, Science Alert posted a picture of a cute little piggy. Why, they asked, do humans feel such love for baby animals? Assuredly, this is a psychology experiment waiting to happen! Not so. For one of my favourite science writers beat them to it, by about 30 years. And in a rather entertaining manner. […]
Continue readingfostering is the cause…
… of a lack of time for other things. (Like writing ‘proper’ posts.) On Friday we became the foster parents of a tiny 4-year-old black toy poodle male (who’d previously been a stud dog). At least, we think he’s about four; could be a bit less or a bit more. Kanji (his new name) is […]
Continue readingmoss s*x and springtails
Sexual reproduction in flowering plants is often mediated by the birds & the bees (& other animal agents), but up until now the life cycle has appeared much simpler in plants like the mosses. Until fairly recently it was generally accepted that moss sex was a case of ‘just add water’: this released sperm from […]
Continue readingwhat constitutes beauty? – tarantulas!
Wellington Zoo has just imported 106 Chilean rose tarantulas as part of a captive breeding program for these lovely animals. From the tone of a letter in today’s Waikato Times, the spiders are also in need of a public relations officer.
Continue readingliterate primates?
A while back now, I wrote a brief piece commenting on the ability of at least some chimpanzees to recognise numbers. So it didn’t come as a huge surprise to hear that members of a baboon troop could distinguish between ‘real’ words and random strings of letters. Yes, really. A group of psychologists led by Jonathan […]
Continue readingthe sarcastic fringeheads
Wouldn’t that make a great name for a band? Rather to my surprise, I’ve discovered that ‘sarcastic fringeheads’ are actually…
Continue readingwaiter, there’s a fish in my cucumber!
My sea cucumber, that is. I was going to write something full of snark about the current brouhaha around predictions that the world is going to end on May 21st. But Darcy has beaten me to it! So instead (from the Echinoblog, and via PZ) I offer you… [drumroll]… the sea cucumber with fish residing in its nether […]
Continue reading