Author: The Ethogram

The official blog of the UC Davis Animal Behavior Graduate Group.

Field Frame Friday: A Little Moo for You!

Jersey dairy calves (like the cutie seen here) are smaller than their Holstein counterparts, which are the black and white spotted dairy cows. Jerseys typically weigh around 60 pounds (27kg), compared to Holstein calves who can be born at over 100 lbs (45kg)! These are the two most common breeds of dairy cows in the…

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Field Notes: Calves, collars and cuteness

You’d think that looking at baby animals all day would be the perfect job, but it certainly comes with some unique challenges… ______________________________________________________________________ I study abnormal behaviors in dairy cattle (for more info on what it’s like to do research at the Dairy, check out my previous field notes piece here), which we see performed…

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Creature Feature: Three-toed Sloths

Here is a species that lives up to its namesake. Sloths are known for being extraordinarily slow, with a maximum speed of around 250 meters per hour moving amongst the trees [1]. For comparison, humans tend to walk around 5000 meters per hour. Have you ever wondered why these animals are so, well, slothful? Let’s…

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Science Heroes: Hedy Lamarr

It’s the mid-1910s and the bustling city of Vienna, Austria is alive with gossip about the end of World War I and the fall of the Habsburg Austrian-Hungarian empire. Zippers have recently been invented, freeing women to move about much more comfortably than while wearing their restricting, recently abandoned, corset-bound attire. In a Jewish neighborhood…

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Field Frame Friday: Simply Ravenous

Common Ravens (Corvus corax) are famously smart, adaptable and opportunistic, and while these traits serve them well, they can often get them into trouble, too. What kind of trouble do you think the raven on the left got itself into to earn a bright blue tag and the attention of scientists? The tagged raven and…

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Creature Feature: Seahorse

As orange sunlight begins to creep over the shallow seabed and scatter across the tropical water, seahorses emerge from their hiding spots within the gently-swaying marine vegetation. Before long, they wriggle toward one another, pairing up at predetermined rendezvous points and begin swimming up and down, tails oscillating side to side. The ritual dances have…

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