Biology News

Scientists Investigate Stone Tool Making and Using Abilities in Orangutans

Loui, the juvenile male orangutan, uses the core as an active element to vertically strike on the concrete floor of the testing room. Image credit: Motes-Rodrigo et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263343.
Feb 17, 2022 by News Staff

Early stone tools represent one of the most important technological milestones in human evolution. The production and use of sharp stone tools significantly widened the ecological niche of our ancestors, allowing them to exploit new food resources. However, despite their importance, it is still unclear how these early stone technologies emerged and which behaviors served as stepping-stones for the development of systematic stone tool production in...

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Fairy Pittas Prepare Food for Their Nestlings, New Study Shows

Feb 15, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Insect-eating birds that feed nestlings with grasshoppers, beetles, or moths perform insect prey preparation before feeding nestlings so that the nestlings...

This photo shows a chimpanzee female, Roxy, applying an insect to a wound on the face of an adult chimpanzee male named Thea. Image credit: Tobias Deschner.

Chimpanzees Regularly Capture Insects and Apply Them onto Wounds

Feb 8, 2022 by News Staff

In a new paper published this week in the journal Current Biology, University of Osnabrück’s Dr. Simone Pika and colleagues report the first observations...

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are attracted to specific colors, including red, orange, black and cyan. Image credit: Kiley Riffell.

Mosquitoes are Attracted to Specific Colors, New Study Shows

Feb 4, 2022 by News Staff

Mosquitoes track odors, locate hosts, and find mates visually. The color of a food resource, such as a flower or warm-blooded host, can be dominated by...

A person’s appreciation of nature and their tendency to visit natural spaces are heritable characteristics. Image credit: Adam Derewecki.

Study: Our Desire to Be in Nature and How We Experience It are Partially Heritable

Feb 3, 2022 by News Staff

Using the TwinsUK panel, an international team of researchers led by the National University of Singapore examined the extent to which genetic versus environmental...

The number of tree species and individuals per continent in the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative (GFBI) database. This dataset (blue points in the central map) was used for the parametric estimation and merged with the TREECHANGE occurrence-based data (purple points in the central map) to provide the estimates in this study. Green areas represent the global tree cover. GFBI consists of abundance-based records of 38 million trees for 28,192 species. Depicted here are some of the most frequent species recorded in each continent. Some GFBI and TREECHANGE points may overlap in the map. Image credit: Gatti et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2115329119.

There Are About 73,000 Tree Species on Earth, New Study Shows

Feb 1, 2022 by News Staff

Tree diversity is fundamental for forest ecosystem stability and services. However, because of limited available data, estimates of tree diversity at large...

The Meratus white-eye in the Meratus Mountains, South Kalimantan province, Indonesia, on July 9, 2016. Image credit: Eaton et al.

Two New Bird Species Discovered on Borneo

Jan 31, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Ornithologists have described two new species of the flycatcher genus Cyornis and the white-eye genus Zosterops from southeastern Borneo, Indonesia. The...

Hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) at the Mpala Research Centre in Laikipia county, central Kenya, on August 26, 2016. Image credit: Sci-News.com / Mpala Research Centre.

Hippos Use Vocal Recognition to Manage Inter-Group Relationships: Study

Jan 31, 2022 by News Staff

A new study shows that the hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), an iconic African megaherbivore for which little is known about social communication,...

The hogfish (Lachnolaimus maximus). Image credit: Brian Gratwicke / CC BY 2.0.

Sound Communication is Widespread among Fish, Study Says

Jan 28, 2022 by News Staff

New research led by Cornell University scientists shows that sound production appeared in the ray-finned fishes (clade Actinopterygii) circa 155 million...

Male song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) deliberately shuffle and mix their song repertoire possibly as a way to keep it interesting for their female audience. Image credit: Mdf / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Study: Songs of Song Sparrows More Complex than Previously Thought

Jan 27, 2022 by News Staff

Male song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) sing with eventual variety, repeating each song type in a consecutive series termed a ‘bout.’ A new study, published...

Researchers Successfully Regrow African Clawed Frog’s Lost Leg

Jan 26, 2022 by News Staff

Limb regeneration is a frontier in biomedical science. Organisms such as the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) — whose limited regenerative capacities...

New Species of Branching Worm Discovered in Waters Off Japan

Jan 21, 2022 by Sergio Prostak

Marine biologists have described a third species of branching syllid worm — and the second within the genus Ramisyllis — living inside an undescribed...

The black-browed albatross (Thalassarche melanophris). Image credit: Uwe Kils / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Albatrosses Can Dive to Much Greater Depths than Previously Thought

Jan 20, 2022 by News Staff

New research by scientists from the University of Oxford, British Geological Survey, and Portugal’s Marine and Environmental Sciences Center shows that...

A male giant panda named Xiao Liwu at San Diego Zoo, California, the United States. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Giant Pandas Gain More Weight when Eating Bamboo Shoots: Study

Jan 20, 2022 by News Staff

Shifts in the gut microbiota of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in the season when nutritious bamboo shoots become available helps the herbivorous...

Crossota millsae is one of the most colorful residents of the ocean’s midnight zone. Image credit: MBARI.

Psychedelic Jellies Caught on Video in Monterey Canyon

Jan 18, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Marine biologists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have observed several species of the jellyfish genus Crossota in Monterey Bay,...

The nests of the Jonah’s icefish (Neopagetopsis ionah) in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Image credit: Purser et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.12.022.

Marine Biologists Discover Enormous Breeding Colony of Icefish

Jan 17, 2022 by Natali Anderson

A vast breeding colony of a fish species called the Jonah’s icefish (Neopagetopsis ionah) has been discovered in the southern Weddell Sea, Antarctica. The...

The Greta Thunberg’s rainfrog (Pristimantis gretathunbergae). Image credit: Konrad Mebert.

New Rainfrog Species Found in Panama

Jan 13, 2022 by Natali Anderson

An international team of scientists has described a new species of the rainfrog genus Pristimantis from the cloud forests of Panama and named it after...

The Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) is one of few mammalian species to develop adaptations for scavenging. Image credit: A. Ananda.

Tasmanian Devils are Unique among Scavenging Mammals, Study Shows

Jan 12, 2022 by News Staff

Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) — one of the few mammalian species to have developed physiological and behavioral specializations for scavenging...

Infrared thermographic image taken from FLIR Tools, showing an aggressive encounter between two juvenile pheasants (middle right of the image). The scale at the top indicates the color coding of temperatures, while the red, upwards-pointing triangles automatically pinpoint the maximum temperature within a selection box drawn manually around each pheasant’s head. Here, the aggressor on the left (Bx1), with a maximum head temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius, has just delivered an aggressive peck to the recipient on the right (Bx2), who has a maximum head temperature of 35.7 degrees Celsius. The background reference temperature is 26.5 degrees Celsius, taken from a white plastic drinker filled with water (Sp1), suspended above the pen floor (top left of image). Image credit: Sophia et al., doi: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0442.

Study: Aggressive Interactions Induce Rapid Temperature Changes in Pheasants

Jan 10, 2022 by News Staff

In a new study, researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Plymouth monitored thermographic changes in captive flocks of juvenile...

Chou et al. found that Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium found in soil, creates concentric rings reminiscent of developmental stripes created by a segmentation clock; they discovered that bacterial biofilms use a clock-and-wavefront process for cell patterning similar to plants and animals. Image credit: Kwang-Tao Chou.

Bacterial Communities are More Advanced than Previously Thought

Jan 6, 2022 by News Staff

Biologists from the University of California San Diego and elsewhere have found that biofilm cells are organized in elaborate patterns, a feature previously...

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