What can pigeons teach us about the parental brain? What do COVID-19 testing and animal behavior analyses have in common? Read more about Victoria’s Ph.D. research to find out!
Author: Victoria Farrar
I'm a PhD student in Animal Behavior at UC Davis, studying how hormones work in the brain to control stress and reproduction (in birds!).
Sunday Sketch: Hungry Hungry Hummingbirds
A fact about why you shouldn’t challenge a hummingbird to an eating contest
Creature Feature: Pin-tailed whydah
This parasitic bird has moved across the world to the Hollywood hills with dreams of making it big in Los Angeles. But will it succeed, and will it threaten native species?
Creature Feature: Fire Salamander
We’ve seen psychedelic reptiles on this blog before. Surely, you may be thinking, the pool of psychedelic species is relatively limited. Not so fast! Poisons are incredibly important for amphibian defense, so there tend to be lots of poisonous amphibians around. And, for whatever reason, humans like to ingest these intended toxins to try and…
Creature Feature: Zebra finch
The zebra finch is arguably in the running to be the world’s next top model….organism, that is
Creature Feature: Tarantula Hawk Wasp
Read how the tarantula hawk transforms from a mean stinger to an invertebrate villain of science fiction proportions.
Creature Feature: Toxoplasma gondii
We’ve all heard the stereotype of the crazy cat person (usually lady) who really, really likes cats. So much so, that this person has a house teeming with felines, fur, and foul fish-flavored scent of cat food. It’s easy to tease friends for being at risk of becoming “crazy cat people”. But what if these…
Creature Feature: California Scrub Jay
Bird-brained shouldn’t be an insult. Learn about the amazing memory of scrub jays
Sunday Sketch: Blue Jays and Ants
Do blue jays use ants as deodorant? It was once hypothesized that blue jays (and other jay species) would use the formic acid from ants to clean their feathers of parasites or as a form of chemosignalling. However, a study in Chemoecology tested this hypothesis by providing jays with ants with or without formic acid. Turns out…
Sunday Sketch: Llama Ovulation
Humans ovulate once a month during a normal hormonal cycle, regardless of how much action (or not) we get. Llamas, however, have a much more efficient system. Did you know that male llamas can induce ovulation in females by copulating with them? This means that females llamas only ovulate when they’ve actually had sex! While…
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