Since Snowball the sulphur-crested cockatoo went viral with his dance moves, plenty of cockatoos and other parrot species have been observed boogieing to their favorite jams. What makes these birds such good dancers? The leading hypothesis is that their innate vocal learning ability has equipped them with the special perceptual and cognitive tools that allow them to feel the rhythm and move to a beat.
Sunday Sketch: Aquatic Landscapers keep coral reefs tidy and thriving
Coral reefs & algae have a symbiotic relationship, where single-celled algae (called zoozanthellae) living inside corals provide energy to build the intricate calcium-carbonate structures that host an entire underwater ecosystem (for more on reef-building corals check out this Creature Feature). However, as with most things in life, too much of a good thing can turn bad; too…
Field Frame Friday: You know what they say about long tails..
Although all Paradise flycatcher (Terpsiphone mutata) females are red, males come in multiple colors, including red/blue, white/blue, and intermediate patterns as shown here. Males sport long tails almost the length of their body, which may help them gain mating advantages as they compete for females. [Photo and caption by Meredith Lutz] Sinclair, I., & Langrand,…
Field Notes Supplementary Material: Facing COVID-19 as a scientist on the move.
In case last week’s Field Notes left you wanting more, researcher Alexander Vining provides some “supplementary material” about what it is like to migrate amid a pandemic.
Sunday Sketch: Shrimp Make Good Moms and Dads
Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata boggessi) are a common ornamental salt water aquarium invertebrate species beloved by many hobbyists for their bright candy cane stripes and lively behaviors. What most people don’t know is that these shrimp are considered protandric simultaneous hermaphrodites. When they first reach adulthood they have male reproductive organs, but as they get bigger they…
Field Frame Friday: Cat Call via Crab Claw?
“Hey there, wanna check out my burrow?” Fiddler crabs (genus: Uca) have sexual dimorphism, meaning that males and females have different characteristics aside from their sexual organs. This male thick-legged fiddler crab (Uca crassipes) has a claw that is much larger than the female (on the right) and can be used for communication, courtship, and…
Field Notes: Research in the time of COVID-19
COVID19 has been a tough pill to swallow for everyone, from teachers, to parents, to everyday employees. The global pandemic has caused unprecedented impacts not only on the workforce and economy, but everyday life as well. Academic research has both suffered and flourished in new and surprising ways under the heel of COVID19. Last month, as we were all adapting to stay-at-home orders, we highlighted some of our animal behavior researchers’ pandemic version of “the field.” For this month’s field notes, we are checking in with them to find out just how the pandemic has impacted their research for worse, or for better.
Creature Feature: Whooping Cranes
Come and celebrate Endangered Species Day with our latest creature feature on the Whooping Crane!
Sunday Sketch: Make me crabby and I’ll get jabby
Lybia edmondsoni, also known as the “boxer crab” or “pom pom crab”, employs a rather unique anti predator defense. With the aid of minute sea anemones in each claw, these crabs can attack oncoming predators by delivering a jab and electric shock. This relationship is mutualistic, meaning that the anemones get something in exchange for…
Mixed-species groups are all around us: insights from quarantining with a puppy
Like many people around the world, I am working from home. Like many people, I have taken up new “at-home” hobbies like sourdough baking and gardening. And, like so many people, I have brought home a new pet during this uncertain time. Her name is Gouda, like the cheese, and she is an 11-week-old puppy….
Sunday Sketch: Sushi to you, Environmental regulator to the ocean
Celebrate World Tuna Day with us!
Field Frame Friday: Incoming sea gull! Take (algae) cover!
Sea urchins, including this purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) will use their tiny tube feet to grab and cover themselves in pieces of algae, small rocks or shells. It is thought that this behavior protects urchins from drying out in tidepools, getting eaten by seagulls, or being damaged by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. [Photo and…
Creature Feature: Fat-tailed dwarf lemur
A primate that hibernates? Check out this week’s Creature Feature to learn more about the fat-tailed dwarf lemur, a nocturnal, hibernating primate from Madagascar!
Sunday Sketch: World Penguin Day
Emperor penguins may be cute polar mascots, but they have a secret habit of child-snatching!
Field Frame Friday: Fossa need some floss-a
The Malagasy civet (Fossa fossana) is a small terrestrial carnivore from Madagascar’s rain forests. Contrary to their name, they are not closely related to civets, but rather a part of the endemic family Eupleridae. They have a diverse diet including crabs, frogs, snakes, millipedes, rodents, and tenrecs. This photo was captured using camera-traps, a type…
Sunday Sketch: Daddy Day Care
Titi monkeys (Callicebus cupreus) are studied not only for their monogamy, but also because fathers are actually the primary caretakers of the babies! Mothers will provide nourishment through nursing, but most of the time you’ll see the baby titi monkey clinging to their father for the first few months of their life. However, for families…
Field Frame Friday: Webbed-toes and ringed tails
Ring tailed mongooses (Galidia elegans) have webbing in between their toes, which allows them to more easily run around the unstable forests that they call home. This adaptation can even allow them to swim! [Photo and caption by Meredith Lutz] Goodman et al. (2012) Les Carnivora de Madagascar. Association Vahatra Guides Dur La Diverstié Biologique…
Newsroom: Optimizing cattle grazing, a review!
Check out this week’s newsroom, featuring Maggie Creamer and her systematic review on strategies for managing cattle grazing!
Field Notes: Leaping Through the Year with Lemurs
Seasonal changes in the rainforest? ABGGer Meredith Lutz recounts the seasonal shifts during her latest 8 month stint in Madagascar.
Creature Feature: Tongue-eating louse
“Hey Mr. Fish, Cat got your tongue?” Nope! Actually, it’s the parasite Cymothoa exigua, commonly known as the tongue-eating louse. Despite their louse-y nickname, C. exigua are actually isopods (a type of crustacean like crabs or shrimp). And as you probably guessed from their common name, they do some pretty freaky stuff! Tongue-eating lice are…
Sunday Sketch: Monarch Conservation
Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), shown in caterpillar form above, are experiencing dramatic declines in population numbers. One method to help conserve species in decline is to rear and release captive individuals into the wild. Of course, this plan of action only works if captive-reared individuals are as capable as their wild counterparts. In a study…
Field Frame Friday: Silky, elusive, and endangered
Silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus) are among the worlds most endangered primates, with less than 1000 remaining in the wild. Native to the steep, mountainous rainforests of northeastern Madagascar, silkies, as they are often called, make ‘zzuss’ vocializations. Sounding like a combination of a sneeze, a lip smack, and sifaka, these calls act as both alarm…
Newsroom: Improving Wildlife Welfare
Check out this week’s newsroom, featuring Karli Chudeau and her recent publication on how enrichment influences seal behavior and its importance for the reintroduction success of rehabilitated animals.
Science & Culture: Opening the Door to the Cell
What are cell membranes? Every human is composed of billions of cells. Cells perform a multitude of important activities, like making energy, digesting nutrients, and managing our immune system. To operate these processes without interference, each cell protects itself with an outer shell called a cell membrane. These shells do a plethora of activities for…
Sunday Sketch: Lamprey Immunity
Suddenly we are all spending a lot more time thinking about our immune systems—but what about the immune systems of the animals around us? For a long time it was thought that only animals with jaws and vertebrates had lymphocytes, but research with sea lampreys suggests otherwise. Researchers found lymphocyte-like cells in the gut of these charming…
Field Frame(s) Friday: COVID-19 Edition
COVID-19 Edition: While navigating through uncharted waters of a pandemic, scientists are dealing with physical isolation, the inability to run lab experiments, the uncertain fates of upcoming field seasons, and learning how to work from home! In the upcoming weeks, unable to resist our scientific endeavors, we will be sprinkling in how animal behavior researchers at UC Davis continue research in the “field.”
Newsroom: Animals poop – a critical ecological function!
Check out this week’s newsroom piece, featuring Alex McInturf and her review on the ecological importance of animal defecation.
Creature feature: Common poorwill
At a time when people are encouraged to isolate themselves and remain indoors to slow the spread of the 2019 coronavirus, many of us are feeling antsy or idle. But sitting inactive for long periods of time is the name of the game for the common poorwill. These birds are a member of the nightjar…
Sunday Sketch: Social Distancing
We are all adjusting to a new normal, but for some animals social distancing is a way of life. Take the slow loris for example. These guys are happiest hanging out at home by them selves. One study found that these guys only spend 3% of their time in association with other slow lorises and…
Newsroom: Do Sharks Abide by the Tide?
Check out this week’s newsroom about Alex McInturf and her study on how sharks move around in the San Francisco Bay!
Sunday Sketch: International Day of the Seal!
Did you know that March 22 is the International Day of the Seal? Seals are a part of the phylogenetic suborder Pinnipedia that consist of seals, sea lions, and walruses. Seals (Family: Phocidae) live in both the northern and southern hemispheres of our planet, from the cold, polar regions of the arctic and antarctic, to the…
Newsroom: What’s in a Song?
Our newest piece features Allison Lau, who investigates individuality in singing titi monkeys!
@AllisonRLau @BalesLab
Creature Feature: Ringneck snake
To readers with ophidiophobia, or the fear of snakes, Ireland should be high on your vacation destination list. Popular legend attributes the Emerald Isle’s lack of legless reptiles to the actions of St. Patrick. He is said to have banished all snakes from Ireland in the 5th century AD after the serpentine critters attempted to…
Sunday Sketch: Thumbless but not helpless
Most primates have opposable thumbs that that help them grasp and manipulate objects. However, the spider monkey, Ateles geoffroyi, is one exception in which their hands have no thumbs at all! Instead, spider monkeys have a specialized prehensile (grasping) tail that is hairless on its underside and has a fleshy pad that is unique to each monkey…
Field Notes: The Inconvenient Truth (about field work)
Hello Ethogrammers! Maggie and Karli here, your editors who work behind the scenes with all the wonderful Field Notes writers each month. For many of us, field seasons are fast approaching, and while Field Notes gives you the glamorous, adventurous parts of our contributors’ science adventures, there is a lesser-known but equally important part of…
Sunday Sketch: Get Ready for Aardvark Week
Aardvarks, Orycteropusafer afer, are ant eaters but aren’t anteaters. In other words, Aardvarks in Africa do primarily feed on ants and termites but actually aren’t very closely related to their anteater counterparts in South America. Many of their similarities arise due to convergent evolution associated with their diets. Aardvarks use their long, sticky tongue to…
Field Frame Friday: A Sunrise Serenade with Song and Smells
Many bat species sing complex ultrasonic songs to attract mates and repel rivals [1]. An extremely eloquent singer is the neotropical great sac-winged bat (Saccopteryx bilineata). Males of this bat species sing year round during dusk and dawn, but singing is most intense during the annual mating season [2]. Then, harem males will sing for…
Creature Feature: World Wildlife Day
Biodiversity encompasses all life on Earth: from the adorable birds in your backyard to the terrific trees that provide shade each summer, the fresh fish in your tacos to the sneaky squirrel that tries to snag your snack . . .
Sunday Sketch: Get ready for World Wildlife Day!
This Tuesday, March 3rd, is World Wildlife Day! The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 1, 12, 14, and 15 commit to preventing biodiversity loss by reducing poverty, promoting sustainable use of our planet’s resources, and conserving all plant and animal life on land and below the water. Join The Ethogram this Tuesday for a full…
Field Frame Friday: Not So Busy Bee
Busy bee? Not so much. This bee is taking a nap in this flower, which is more common than you may think! Social bees like honey bees have a nest to come home to every night and only sleep outside if they get lost during sundown or become too cold to fly back to the…
Sunday Sketch: Child Labor
Like almost all activities in a social insect colony, nest building involves team work. Weaver ants, Camponotus (Myrmobrachys) senex, build elaborate nests made of stitched together leaves that are subdivided into small interconnected chambers. The work of tying these leaves together involves a surprising joint effort by both adults workers and larvae. Adult workers will carry individual…
Creature Feature: the Greater Spear-Nosed Bat
“I think he’s in the termite mound!” I shouted. Camila Calderón, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, called back: “No! Let’s keep looking over this hill! Maybe the signal is bouncing!” Camila studies the greater spear-nosed bat, Phyllostomus hastatus (or just Phast to its friends). With a typical adult wingspan of…
Newsroom: Titi Vocal Individuality
Check out our newest newsroom piece, featuring Allison Lau and her recent publication on titi monkey vocal individuality!
