animal behavior

How our brain, a three-pound mass of tissue encased within a bony skull, creates perceptions from sensations is a long-standing mystery. Abundant evidence and decades of sustained research…

This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.In the pitch dark, Jason Bullard adroitly shoulders his rifle and levels it at the object. “That…

This story originally appeared on High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.Four radio-collared Tule geese left their summer breeding grounds near Alaska’s Cook Inlet…

In 1987, a researcher in Australia recorded a male musk duck named Ripper producing a vocalization that sounded very much like “You bloody fool,” along with sounds resembling a slamming door…

You’d think it would be easier to spy on a Risso’s dolphin. The species frequents nearly every coast in the world. Their bulging heads and streaky gray and white patterning make them some of…

The mantis shrimp boasts one of the most powerful and ultrafast punches in nature—it's on par with the force generated by a .22-caliber bullet. This makes the creature an attractive object…

The cane toad may be the poster animal for invasive species. Native to South America, it has been introduced to many other ecosystems in the hope it would chow down on agricultural pests.…

Can you remember what you had for dinner last weekend? That ability is a function of episodic memory, and how well we can recall the time and place of specific events typically declines with…

One explanation for the same neural framework evolving in such different brains is simply that it’s an efficient solution to a common computational problem. “It’s actually exciting, because…

Bartal expected to see this activity in the rescuer rats, because human empathy appears in these areas. But she was surprised that even the ones that didn’t rescue their cage mates showed…