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Animals living in natural ecosystems often live with the background noise produced by water features or insect calls, for example. This background noise can interfere with an organism’s abilities to effectively distribute their acoustic signals or perceive other acoustic signals … Continue reading
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Many neuroscientists have studied the development of Individual Recognition in the natural world, which is the ability of one organism to recognize another and change their behavior in response. For instance, the simplest type of individual recognition (called binary individual recognition) … Continue reading
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Flying insects, such as mosquitoes, have evolved the ability to evade looming objects such as predators and swatting hands. This is a useful skill since the intended blood hosts of mosquitoes often exhibit defense behaviors, like swatting or tail swishing, … Continue reading
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You’re walking through the forest on a warm summer day, and you feel the familiar sting of a mosquito biting your arm. As you swat away the fly you notice a smattering of other bites you have accrued throughout your … Continue reading
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Wolves (Canis lupus) are predators. Beavers are foragers. They both use their keen sense of smell to survive. That much is clear. But wolves have the overwhelming advantage in speed and you might think they take advantage of that to … Continue reading
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Social organisms experience a trade-off between the benefits of group living and the potential fitness costs generated by spatial crowding. The advantages of group living are partially offset by the cognitive challenges present in maintaining social boundaries. Group-living organisms typically … Continue reading
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Mockingbirds have the extraordinary ability of imitating non-mockingbird and even non-bird animals. A great deal of research has been done on birds’ mimicry of other birds, but examples of birds imitating non-bird models are very limited; included among this small … Continue reading
Animals rely on their sensory systems to gather information about their environments and use that information to help them behave in ways that will be beneficial to their ability to survive and reproduce. However, anthropogenic noise in the environment can … Continue reading
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Wherever you’re reading this from, whether it be your home, the library, wherever, you had to navigate to your current location. We don’t typically think of this as navigation as it usually requires minimal effort when following known routes. But … Continue reading
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Vision is incredibly important for spotting predators and prey, especially for animals that live in open and flat environments. Dragon lizards, a genus of 29 different lizard species endemic to Australia, are one such group. Despite a lot of similarities … Continue reading
