zoology

This image took the top prize at the 2022 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

Sounds made by more than 50 vertebrates previously thought to be mute push back the origin of this type of communication by at least 100 million years, a study finds.

Small charges carried by individual insects can add up, a study finds, with larger swarms generating substantial electrical fields.

People with more carboxylic acids in their body odor are more attractive to mosquitoes, a study finds.

In the book's introduction, author Carol Gigliotti makes the case that intricate behavioral patterns can be just as important to conserve as species’ genomes.

When species disappear, more than their genomes are lost. The potential for their creative innovation to benefit ecosystems vanishes as well.

Nearly 50 million birds have been culled amid efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus, which continues to ravage the Northern Hemisphere.

The broken-wing display, in which birds fake being wounded to protect their nests from predators, is found across the avian phylogenetic tree, a study finds.

All multicellular creatures interact with bacteria, but some have taken the relationship to another level with highly specialized structures that house, feed, and exploit the tiny organisms.

Specialized structures in plants and animals help attract and mediate communication with bacterial symbionts.

A survey of more than 200 whale skulls has unveiled bursts of evolution over the past 50 million years.

Other winners of this year’s prizes include research on the physics of ducklings and the therapeutic potential of ice cream.

Australians are resorting to increasingly drastic measures to keep cockatoos out of their garbage bins.

Researchers say they've figured out how some reproductive ants live up to 30 years—far longer than workers.

Though it’s poetic to say that ants were grieving the bee at a funeral, the reality is a bit more prosaic.

In Chapter 1, “The Science of Animal Dreams,” author David M. Peña-Guzmán relays the history of researchers digging into the mental realities of nonhuman brains.

A high-quality genome sequence for this versatile insect will likely aid eco-evolutionary research.

Pet dogs produce a larger volume of tears when they are reunited with their owners than with acquaintances, possibly because of surging oxytocin levels—findings that could be the first evidence of emotional crying in nonhuman animals.

Tortoise leaf beetles enjoy the protection the fungus provides from insect predators such as ants, then carry the microbe to a mutual plant host, which their fungal symbiont infects.

Neurons in mosquito antennae can express more than one olfactory receptor at a time, a redundancy that likely ensures they don’t lose a potential host’s scent.