Rare contagious cancer discovered in wild catfish
Mysterious black lesions found on Brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) in Lake Memphremagog in Canada turned out to…
How naked mole-rat queens stop rivals reproducing
Naked mole-rat queens produce a chemical that stops other females from reproducing.Credit: Neil Bromhall/Getty Naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber)…
Oo oo, ha ha: why humans and great apes giggle alike when tickled
Great apes and human children produce similar patterns of vocalization when laughing.Credit: Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP via Getty Tickling a…
Dwarf mongooses pre-emptively alter their behaviour relative to the threat posed by different rival groups
Braga Goncalves, I., Morris-Drake, A., Kennedy, P. & Radford, A. N. Fitness consequences of outgroup conflict. eLife 11,…
Can an army of babies and dogs rescue psychology from its reproducibility crisis?
Baby Zoe sits on her mother’s lap and watches a puppet show featuring three shapes with googly eyes.…
Meet the biologists deciphering marine-mammal histories from baleen, whiskers and tusks
Male narwhals fighting over the carcass of a female off Baffin Island, Canada.Credit: Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures via Alamy…
The sleep paradox: why do humans sleep so little when we need it so much?
The Sleepless Ape: The Story of Sleep in Human Evolution David R. Samson Princeton Univ. Press (2026) Sleep…
Cephalopods deserve higher welfare standards in research
You have full access to this article via your institution. Cephalopods such as octopuses are known to feel…
‘Bat feast’ animal videos at African cave offer clues to how deadly viruses spread
Researchers caught an African leopard on camera eating bats from a cave in Uganda. It might be the…
researchers identify two sounds straight from the horse’s mouth
Whinnies seem to play a part in horses’ social interactions. Credit: Mumemories/Getty The horse whinny, or neigh, has…
This bonobo had a pretend tea party — showing make believe isn’t just for humans
Kanzi the bonobo, pictured in 2016.Credit: First Run Features/Everett Collection via Alamy A male bonobo called Kanzi is…
What were the first animals? The fierce sponge–jelly battle that just won’t end
Which animals came first? For more than a century, most evidence suggested that sponges, immobile filter-feeders that lack…