Yearly Archives: 2018

The Australian fire beetle is attracted to freshly burnt wood. Experts also call this pyrophilia ("love of fire"). This behavior is not very common in insects. Merimna atrata however has a good reason for this. The dead wood provides plenty of food for the larvae of the beetle, so it uses the wood for oviposition.

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[unable to retrieve full-text content]A study of foxes offers new insights into the brain changes that occur in wild canids as they become more tame, researchers report. The study links fox domestication to changes in gene activity in the pituitary gland, a brain center that kicks out hormones to regulate various bodily functions, including the...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Just like with humans, the skin on marine mammals serves as an important line of defense against pathogens in their environment. A new study sheds light on the skin microbiome -- a group of microorganisms that live on skin -- in healthy humpback whales, which could aid in future efforts to...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]In the first continent-wide study of the effects of fire on bird and mammal diversity in the African savanna environment, researchers have found that increasing 'pyrodiversity' boosts the variety of species of mammals by around 20 percent and of birds by 30 percent in savannas with high rainfall....

The African Matabele ants (Megaponera analis) tend to the wounds of their injured comrades. And they do so rather successfully: Without such attendance, 80 percent of the injured ants die; after receiving "medical" treatment, only 10 percent succumb to their injuries.

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[unable to retrieve full-text content]Clonal ants appear to be diverse in responding to sweetened water, suggesting epigenetic regulation in behavioral variation and colony survival....