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Humpback Whale Songs Spread From West to East
During humpback whale breeding season (July to October in the south), males all sing the same song. That song can evolve rapidly, and before long all the whales are singing the new tune. When scientists analyzed the songs sung by whales in the southern Pacific Ocean, they made a curious discovery—t...
April 14, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Birds Inherited Strong Sense of Smell From Dinosaurs
Feathers, air sacs, nesting behavior—the earliest birds owed a lot to their dinosaurian ancestors. The first birds also inherited a strong sense of smell.Modern birds have not been thought of as excellent scent-detectors, save for some super-smellers such as turkey vultures, which detect the scent ...
April 14, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Fourteen Fun Facts About Golden Lion Tamarins
Yesterday I visited the Smithsonian's National Zoo and took a quick look through the Small Mammal House. I noticed the zoo had quite a few golden lion tamarins (GLTs), small orange-haired monkeys that captured the attention of most of the visitors. But what are they, and why does the zoo have so ma...
April 05, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Attack of the Giant Pythons
The Smithsonian's noted bird sleuth, Carla Dove, eyes smelly globs to identify victims in Florida
April 2011 |
By Arcynta Ali Childs
The DMZ's Thriving Resident: The Crane
Rare cranes have flourished in the world's unlikeliest sanctuary, the heavily mined demilitarized zone between North and South Korea
April 2011 |
By Eric Wagner
Wild Things: Mongooses, Bladderworts and More...
Fairy-wrens, wasps, and a nearly 3,000 year old big toe
April 2011 |
By T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Laura Helmuth, Jesse Rhodes and Sarah Zielinski
Humans Pass on Deadly Infections to Endangered Mountain Gorillas
On the one hand, it's pretty amazing that I can find images of a specific mountain gorilla family in Rwanda through a simple Flickr search. But the availability of those photos comes from the numerous visits of humans to the national parks in Congo, Rwanda and Uganda where the world's remaining 786...
March 30, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
What Do You Call a Flock of Birds?
Recently, while perusing the shelves of my bird-crazy colleague Laura, I came across "Winged Wonders: A Celebration of Birds in Human History," by Peter Watkins and Jonathan Stockland. The book is full of examples of how birds can be found in art and language, but what particularly intrigued me was...
March 29, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Untold Story of the Hamster, a.k.a Mr. Saddlebags
The hamster may be ubiquitous now, but it was a pioneering scientist who brought the rodent into labs and homes across the world
March 25, 2011 |
By Rob Dunn
The Secret Lives of Animals Caught on Camera
Photographs shot by camera traps set around the world are capturing wildlife behavior never before seen by humans
March 24, 2011 |
By Megan Gambino
Migrating Moths Can Travel As Fast As Songbirds
If you held a short race between a silver Y moth and a European songbird, the bird would win hands down. These birds, such as warblers, thrushes and flycatchers, can fly about three times as fast as the silver Y moth. But when it comes to long-distance migration, from northern Europe to the Mediter...
March 22, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Amazing Bird Photo Shows a Mother's Love
Contrary to what Laura might have implied yesterday, I'm not anti-bird. And to prove it, I present to you one of the finalists in the Natural World category of Smithsonian magazine's 8th Annual Photo Contest. The photographer, Ho Sung Wee, captured this moment, titled "Mother's Love," in an orchard...
March 18, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
A Birds vs. Cats Blog Showdown
While Sarah the cat lover (really, she loves cats; see what I mean?) is busy with another project, she turned the blog over to me, a longtime birder. Heh heh heh.Now, cats do a fine job providing companionship and keeping a house mouse-free, and few things bring more instant joy to a room than a la...
March 17, 2011 |
By Laura Helmuth
Why Bird Brains Bloom in Spring
Aah, springtime. Crocuses are blooming, squirrels are cavorting, birds are singing ... and the HVc region of the neostriatum, the robust nucleus of the archistriatum and area X of the parolfactory lobe are recrudescing. Those are the bits of a male bird's brain responsible for singing, and they are...
March 07, 2011 |
By Laura Helmuth
Looking Back at A&E's "Dinosaur!"
In 1991, the cable channel A&E ran a four-part prehistoric extravaganza hosted by Walter Cronkite and simply called Dinosaur! I was only eight when it aired, and I remember begging my parents to stay up to watch the episodes. Irrepressible little dinosaur...
March 02, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Quagga: The Lost Zebra
Name: Quagga (Equus quagga quagga)Description: A type of zebra from South Africa whose stripes faded below the neck. Once thought to be a separate species, scientists who have performed DNA analyses on zebras now say that the quagga is a subspecies of the plains zebra.Why the Quagga is "Lost": Larg...
March 01, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Nothing Can Stop the Zebra
A 150-mile fence in the Kalahari Desert appeared to threaten Africa's zebras, but now researchers can breathe a sigh of relief
March 2011 |
By Robyn Keene-Young
Studying the Bond Between a Cat and Its Human
It took 120 hours of observing 40 cat-human pairs for scientists to conclude that the bond between the two can be similar to other human relationships. And, yes, I know that most of you who have cats---or know someone who has a cat---will not find that surprising, so let's delve into the details. I...
February 28, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Accidental Cure for Hair Loss
Before I go any further, I have to warn any balding individuals reading this hoping for a solution to their hair loss problems that I'm going to talk about a study in mice. Nothing—yet—has been tested in humans, so don't get too excited.Our story starts with a group of scientists studying chronic s...
February 17, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Biology’s Ten Worst Love Stories
Animal sex can get pretty weird. And we're not comfortable with some of its variants. I'm sure I'm on someone's watch list after researching this post; while searching for juicy examples, I kept coming across sites barred by the Smithsonian's internet filter—such as the Wikipedia entry on "sexual c...
February 14, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
