Summaries | Headlines

For Honey Bee Queens, Multiple Mating Makes Her Attractive To Workers (October 10, 2007) -- The success of the "reign" of a honey bee queen appears to be determined to a large degree by the number of times she mates with drone bees. A honey bee queen mates early in her life, researchers ... > full story

Tiny Crow Camera Spies On Clever Birds (October 10, 2007) -- Researchers can now 'hitch a ride' with wild birds and witness their natural and undisturbed behaviour. Scientists developed miniaturised video cameras with integrated radio-tags that can be carried ... > full story

Dogs That Bite Children Have Often Not Bitten Kids Before (October 4, 2007) -- Dogs that bite children have often not bitten kids before, but they tend to have underlying behavioral or medical problems, indicates new research. Young children were much more likely to be bitten ... > full story

Saber-toothed Cat Was More Like A Pussycat Than A Tiger (October 2, 2007) -- In public imagination, the sabre-toothed cat Smilodon ranks alongside Tyrannosaurus rex as the ultimate killing machine. Powerfully built, with upper canines like knives, Smilodon was a fearsome ... > full story

Altruism Evolved From Maternal Behavior, Wasp Genetics Study Suggests (September 28, 2007) -- Researchers have used an innovative approach to reveal the molecular basis of altruistic behavior in wasps. Like honey bee workers, wasp workers give up their reproductive capabilities and focus ... > full story

Cockroaches Are Morons In The Morning, Geniuses In The Evening (September 28, 2007) -- In its ability to learn, the cockroach is a moron in the morning and a genius in the evening. Dramatic daily variations in the cockroach's learning ability are reported in a new study. The few ... > full story

You Can Teach An Old Dog New Tricks -- With The Right Diet (September 27, 2007) -- Nutritional supplements have successfully been used to improve the memory, ability to learn and cognitive function of old dogs -- and might be able to do the same thing with humans. These supplements ... > full story

Cell Death In Sparrow Brains May Provide Clues In Age-related Human Diseases (September 20, 2007) -- A remarkable change takes place in the brains of tiny songbirds each year, and some day the mechanism controlling that change may help researchers develop treatments for age-related degenerative ... > full story

Who's Afraid Of The Big, Bad Wolf? Coyotes (September 19, 2007) -- While the wily coyote reigns as top dog in much of the country, it leads a nervous existence wherever it coexists with its larger relative, the wolf, according to a new study. In fact, coyote ... > full story

Primate Behavior Explained By Computer 'Agents' (September 15, 2007) -- The complex behavior of primates can be understood using artificially-intelligent computer "agents" that mimic their actions, shows new research. Scientists using agents programmed with simple ... > full story

Color Night Vision In The Aye-Aye, A Most Unusual Primate (September 12, 2007) -- A quest to gain a more complete picture of color vision evolution has led scientists to an up-close, genetic encounter with one of the world's most rare and bizarre-looking primates. They have ... > full story

Primates Expect Others To Act Rationally (September 10, 2007) -- Researchers have found that when understanding behavior, primates assume rationality and make inferences based on environmental restraints. The researchers studied over 120 primates from the three ... > full story

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Instinct -- Instinct is the inherent disposition of a living organism toward a particular behavior. Instincts are generally inherited patterns of responses or reactions to certain kinds of stimuli. Instinctive ... > full article

Comparative psychology -- Comparative psychology, taken in its most usual, broad sense, refers to the study of the behavior and mental life of animals other than human beings. It is synonymous with animal psychology, but ... > full article

Dog training -- In the wild as pack animals, canines have natural instincts that favor training. These instincts are manifested when the dog lives with humans as a desire to please a handler, as a dog would please ... > full article

Bird intelligence -- The level of intelligence in birds, as a scientific inquiry, has not been as thoroughly researched as similar questions regarding primates and other mammals. However, there is a general belief that ... > full article

Pigeon intelligence -- Pigeons have featured in numerous experiments in comparative psychology, including experiments concerned with animal cognition, and as a result we have considerable knowledge of pigeon intelligence. ... > full article

Animal cognition -- Animal cognition, or cognitive ethology, is the title given to a modern approach to the mental capacities of non human animals. It has developed out of comparative psychology, but has also been ... > full article

Dog intelligence -- Dog intelligence is the ability of a dog to learn, think, and solve problems. Dog trainers, owners, and researchers have as much difficulty agreeing on a method for testing canine intelligence, as ... > full article

Dog attack -- Dog attacks on humans have become more common in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. There is much debate over whether the attacks can be blamed on the prevalence of certain breeds of dogs or ... > full article

Omnivore -- An omnivore is an animal that eats both plants and meat. Omnivores lack the specialist behaviour of carnivores and herbivores, searching widely for food sources, and are thus better able to withstand ... > full article

Pheromone -- A pheromone is any chemical produced by a living organism that transmits a message to other members of the same species. There are alarm pheromones, food trail pheromones, sex pheromones, and many ... > full article

Cat intelligence -- Cat intelligence is the considered capacity of learning, thinking, and problem solving ability possessed by the domestic cat. Cats learn by trial and error, observation and imitation. Cat learning ... > full article

Obedience training -- Obedience training involves training an animal, most often a dog, to obey basic control commands such as sit, down, and heel. There are almost as many methods of training as there are trainers, but ... > full article

Horse breaking -- Horse breaking (or horse starting) refers to the process used by humans to get horses to let themselves be ridden or harnessed. Before such a learning process is accomplished, a horse will normally ... > full article

Great Ape language -- Research into non-human Great Ape language has generated a great deal of evidence suggesting that apes are capable of using sophisticated communication with humans and other apes. Gorillas and ... > full article

Cetacean intelligence -- Cetacean intelligence denotes the cognitive capabilities of the cetacean order of mammals and especially the various species of dolphin. Cetaceans include whales, porpoises, and dolphins, and while ... > full article

Whooping Crane -- The Whooping Craneis a very large crane. It is the tallest North American bird. Adults are white; they have a red crown and a long, dark, pointed bill. They have long dark legs which trail behind in ... > full article

House mouse -- Mus musculus is the common house mouse. This mouse is believed to be the second most populous mammalian species on Earth, after Homo sapiens. House mice almost always live in close proximity of ... > full article

Intelligence of squid and octopuses -- The cephalopod class of mollusks are considered the most intelligent invertebrates and an important example of advanced cognitive evolution amongst animals in general. The coleoidea sub-class of the ... > full article

Mirror neuron -- A mirror neuron is a neuron which fires both when an animal performs an action and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal. Thus, the neuron ... > full article

Anger -- Anger is a term for the emotional aspect of aggression, as a basic aspect of the stress response in animals in which a perceived aggravating stimulus "provokes" a counterresponse which is likewise ... > full article