Animals with attitude make evolutionary sense
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Why does one sparrow boldly grab crumbs from an outstretched hand while another hops about nervously at a safe distance, afraid to collect a free meal?
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While crows have a reputation for being clever birds, research now suggests they could be as intelligent as great apes.
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Elephants use their feet to &quot;hear&quot; calls from other herds but react most if the calls come from elephants they know, New Scientist reports.
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Why do we gossip? Evolution may hold some surprising answers.
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Why changes in the workplace may give females an evolutionary advantage
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The manatee has unique perceptual abilities, perfectly suited to its niche in the world. New research challenges the notion that these sea mammals are not all that bright.
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A family of proteins known to fight off microbes surprisingly also helps determine whether a poodle's coat will be black, white or somewhere in between, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a finding that may also help explain why people come in different colors and weights.
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Big evolutionary insights sometimes come in little packages. Witness the startling discovery, in a cave on the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, of the partial skeleton of a half-size Homo species that
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Fossilized dinosaurs often have wide-open mouths, heads thrown back and tails that curve toward the head. Paleontologists have long assumed the dinosaurs died in water and the currents drifted the bones into that position, or that rigor mortis or drying muscles, tendons and ligaments contorted the limbs.  &quot;I&#39;m reading this in the literature and thinking, &#39;This doesn&#39;t make any sense to me as a veterinarian,&#39;&quot; said Cynthia Marshall Faux, a veterinarian-turned-paleontologist at the Museum of the Rockies. ...
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A fascinating new study in the January/February 2007 issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology looks at the benefits of huddling vs. solitude, comparing strategies used by striped skunks to get through long, cold winters in northern climates.
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For cats, the act of stepping over an object can make for a long-lasting memory of it.
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Scientific study of the secrets of "freeze-tolerant" animals may yield clues for improving human medicine.
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Is it possible to outrun evolution? Two new lizard-behavior studies look at why it's not always just the fittest that survive.
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Researchers say elephants can tell whether a human is a friend or foe by their scent and colour of clothing.
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By Steve Connor  It will come as no surprise to owners of cantankerous cats or disobedient dogs, but scientists have now confirmed what pet lovers have always known: that each animal has its own distinct personality.
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It is one of the world&#39;s oldest questions: Why did the chicken cross the road? It might seem like a &#39;poultry&#39; subject to weigh on the minds of hundreds of scientists, but research published yesterday has brought us a little closer to the answer.
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Evolution has gotten faster, and scientists think they know why: Microbes are swapping DNA from one species to another, giving the Darwinian process an added boost.