A special August issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, presents a host of studies that investigate the way that animals adapt their calls, chirps, barks and whistles to their social situation.
The special issue, Acoustic Interaction in Animal Groups: Signaling in Noisy and Social Contexts, reports on findings from [...]
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Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs, salamanders and their ilk, according to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley.
In a new article published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers argue that substantial die-offs of amphibians [...]
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Scientists have identified the world’s smallest snake — a reptile about 4 inches long and as thin as spaghetti that was found lurking under a rock on the Caribbean island of Barbados.
The new species, named Leptotyphlops carlae, is smaller than any of the other 3,100 previously known snake species, according to Pennsylvania State University biologist [...]
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Lack of oxygen can do in most creatures, but a new study has found epaulette sharks have evolved a clever solution for avoiding suffocation — they shut down their body’s electrical activity and even go temporarily blind until they can properly “breathe” oxygen again through their gills.
The discovery puts the shark on the short list [...]
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Just as humans tune into individual radio stations, an unusual Chinese frog can shift its hearing from one frequency to another in order to selectively choose what it hears, according to a paper published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The frog, Odorrana tormota, is the only known animal in the world [...]
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It’s a long way from the dull hums of the amorous midshipman fish to the strains of a Puccini aria — or, alas, even to the simplest Celine Dion melody. But the neural circuitry that led to the human love song — not to mention birdsongs, frog thrums and mating calls of all manner of [...]
As the world drags its feet on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, respected scientists have proposed some crazy stopgap solutions, from orbital mirrors to manmade volcanoes.
Conservationists are taking a similar approach, but with animals.
A commentary published today in Science marks the center-stage debut of assisted colonization — saving vanishing species by picking them up and [...]
When you were young, did you ever lie on your belly in a field, watching a bug crawling up a blade of grass? Did you stand perfectly still in a creek, hoping to catch a frog? Did a garter snake ever slither across your bare foot in the backyard, only to be caught in your [...]
A farm irrigation canal would seem a healthier place for toads than a ditch by a supermarket parking lot.
But University of Florida scientists have found the opposite is true. In a study with wide implications for a longstanding debate over whether agricultural chemicals pose a threat to amphibians, UF zoologists have found that toads in [...]
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Scientists were surprised with findings of a recent study that reveals many animal species believed to persist in small contained areas actually need broad, landscape level conservation to survive.
With more species at risk of extinction today than any other time in human history, the findings of the study published in the debut issue of Conservation [...]
