Behavioral Science News

December 13, 2024

Top Headlines

How Fighting Female Flies Focus on Their Foes

Dec. 12, 2024 — New research uses pioneering tools to show how aggressive female fruit flies' vision is regulated to focus on what's ...

Pups of Powerful Meerkat Matriarchs Pay a Price for Their Mom's Status

Dec. 9, 2024 — In meerkat society a dominant female is in charge, growling, biting, pushing and shoving to keep others in line. The matriarch's bullying behavior is fueled by high levels of testosterone that can surge to twice those of her male counterparts when ...

Desert Ants Use the Polarity of the Geomagnetic Field for Navigation

Dec. 6, 2024 — Desert ants of the Cataglyphis nodus species use the Earth's magnetic field for spatial orientation, but rely on a different component of the field than other insects. The survey suggests that the ants also use a different mechanism for ...

Chimpanzees Perform the Same Complex Behaviors That Have Brought Humans Success

Dec. 5, 2024 — A new study suggests that the fundamental abilities underlying human language and technological culture may have evolved before humans and apes diverged millions of years ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:18pm EST

Buffalo Besties: Feral Female Buffalo Build Friendships Based on Similar Personality Traits

Dec. 5, 2024 — A new study by researchers investigating a unique free-ranging feral population of water buffalo on Lantau Island in Hong Kong has discovered that ...

The Secret to Our Big Brains Might Be in Our Gut

Dec. 3, 2024 — Brain tissue is among the most energetically costly in the body, and as a result, larger-brained mammals require more energy to support brain growth and maintenance. Exactly which biological changes ...

Male African Elephants Develop Distinct Personality Traits as They Age

Dec. 4, 2024 — Male African elephants have distinct personality traits, but also adapt their behavior to suit the social context, according to a new ...

Can Plastic-Eating Bugs Help With Our Microplastic Problem?

Dec. 3, 2024 — Previous research found that insects can ingest and absorb pure, unrefined microplastics -- but only under unrealistic, food-scarce situations. Zoologists have now tested mealworms in a more ...

Inside the 'Swat Team' -- How Insects React to Virtual Reality Gaming

Nov. 26, 2024 — Humans get a real buzz from the virtual world of gaming and augmented reality but now scientists have trialled the use of these new-age technologies on small animals, to test the reactions of tiny ...

Fowl Play: Why the Hunt for Thanksgiving's Favorite Bird Could Get Tougher

Nov. 27, 2024 — If hunters continue to follow their current strategies and prey continue their same routine, turkeys may become tougher to harvest in the future, according to new ...

Machine Learning Reveals Behaviors Linked With Early Alzheimer's, Points to New Treatments

Nov. 26, 2024 — Scientists used a new video-based machine learning tool to pinpoint otherwise-undetectable signs of early disease in mice that were engineered to ...

Can We Avert the Looming Food Crisis of Climate Change?

Nov. 26, 2024 — Researchers share a mathematical model created to capture the nonlinear relationships between CO2, temperature, human population, and crop growth. Increasing evidence of chaotic and complex dynamics ...

The Next Evolution of AI Begins With Ours

Nov. 25, 2024 — The genome has space for only a small fraction of the information needed to control complex behaviors. So then how, for example, does a newborn sea turtle instinctually know to follow the moonlight? ...

Friendly Social Behaviors Are Contagious for Chimpanzees

Nov. 20, 2024 — Chimpanzees are more likely to engage in play or groom each other if they see others performing these social behaviors first, researchers ...

Bats' Amazing Plan B for When They Can't Hear

Nov. 25, 2024 — When bats can't hear, new research finds that these hearing-dependent animals employ a remarkable compensation ...

New Model of Neuronal Circuit Provides Insight on Eye Movement

Nov. 22, 2024 — Working with week-old zebrafish larva, researchers decoded how the connections formed by a network of neurons in the brainstem guide the fishes' gaze. The study found that a simplified ...

Caste Differentiation in Ants

Nov. 22, 2024 — Scientists have revealed how a specific hormone regulates ant caste differentiation by phenotypic measurements of organ-level developmental changes and matching transcriptome ...

These Wild Chimpanzees Play as Adults to Better Cooperate as a Group

Nov. 21, 2024 — Compared to children, adults don't play as much, but social play into adulthood is considered a universal human trait. Play has a role in building tolerance, cohesion, bonding, and cooperation. ...

Sweet Tooth Ethiopian Wolves Seen Feeding on Nectar

Nov. 20, 2024 — For the first time, Ethiopian wolves have been documented feeding on the nectar of Ethiopian red hot poker flowers. This is the first large carnivore species ever to be documented feeding on nectar. ...

Automated 3D Computer Vision Model Offers a New Tool to Measure and Understand Dairy Cow Behavior and Welfare

Nov. 20, 2024 — Dairy cows typically rest for 10 or more hours a day, so a dry, clean, and comfortable place -- such as a freestall -- to lie down and rest is essential for their health, well-being, and production ...

Diverse Diets of Civets in Borneo Rainforest Allow Them to Live in Same Geographical Area

Nov. 20, 2024 — Typically, closely related animal species have difficulty coexisting because they are competing for similar resources. Despite eating the same figs, binturong, small-toothed palm, masked palm, and ...

Vultures and Artificial Intelligence(s) as Death Detectors: High-Tech Approach for Wildlife Research and Conservation

Nov. 19, 2024 — In order to use remote locations to record and assess the behavior of wildlife and environmental conditions, the GAIA Initiative developed an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that reliably and ...

How Children Learned for 99% of Human History

Nov. 19, 2024 — Unlike kids in the United States, hunter-gatherer children in the Congo Basin have often learned how to hunt, identify edible plants and care for babies by the tender age of six or seven. This rapid ...

How Cells Habituate

Nov. 19, 2024 — Up until recently, habituation -- a simple form of learning -- was deemed the exclusive domain of complex organisms with brains and nervous systems, such as worms, insects, birds, and mammals. But a ...

New Model Can Help Understand Coexistence in Nature

Nov. 18, 2024 — Different species of seabirds can coexist on small, isolated islands despite eating the same kind of fish. A researcher has been involved in developing a mathematical model that can be used to better ...

One or Many? Exploring the Population Groups of the Largest Animal on Earth

Nov. 15, 2024 — Hunted nearly to extinction during 20th century whaling, the Antarctic blue whale, the world's largest animal, went from a population size of roughly 200,000 to little more than 300. The most ...

Scientific Thought on Emotions in Animals

Nov. 14, 2024 — How do animal behavior researchers feel about the feelings of animals? A new survey helps to answer that ...

Backyard Birds Learn from Their New Neighbors When Moving House

Nov. 14, 2024 — Scientists have found a trigger for social learning in wild animals. An experiment on great tits has pinpointed a single factor --immigration -- that can cause birds to pay close attention to others, ...

Behavioral Analysis in Mice: More Precise Results Despite Fewer Animals

Nov. 14, 2024 — Researchers are utilizing artificial intelligence to analyze the behavior of laboratory mice more efficiently and reduce the number of animals in ...

AI Method Can Spot Potential Disease Faster, Better Than Humans, Study Finds

Nov. 14, 2024 — A 'deep learning' artificial intelligence model can identify pathology, or signs of disease, in images of animal and human tissue much faster, and often more accurately, than people. The ...

How Conflicting Memories of Sex and Starvation Compete to Drive Behavior, Study in Worms Shows

Nov. 14, 2024 — Two conflicting memories can both be activated in a worm's brain, even if only one memory actively drives the animal's behavior, finds a new ...

NeuroMechFly V2: Simulating How Fruit Flies See, Smell, and Navigate

Nov. 14, 2024 — Scientists have advanced their NeuroMechFly model, simulating fruit fly movement in the real world. With integrated vision and smell, NeuroMechFly v2 helps us understand brain-body coordination, ...

Bluetooth Technology Unlocks Urban Animal Secrets

Nov. 13, 2024 — Mobile phones could be the key to a cheaper and more reliable way of tracking animals for ecology and conservation research, according to a new ...

Stress Is Contagious -- For Animals, Too

Nov. 13, 2024 — What happens to animals when their friends are stressed? Is it possible to document the spread of stress within groups of ...