Foster care
Baby vampire bat adopted by mom’s best friend
February 09, 2021
The strong relationship formed between two female adult vampire bats may have motivated one of the bats to adopt the other’s baby.
The strong relationship formed between two female adult vampire bats may have motivated one of the bats to adopt the other’s baby.
At the Smithsonian’s Bocas del Toro Research Station, in Panama, marine biologist Rachel Collin runs an educational program that recruits international experts to teach and create videos about how to collect, preserve and observe marine invertebrates, passing down their very specific knowledge to aspiring taxonomists.
“Her unification of developmental plasticity and genetics is a huge advance in our understanding of evolution. Her decades-long work with tropical social wasps focusing on careful field observation is testimony to what a careful observer of natural history can contribute to evolutionary biology.”-the Linnean Society
How does having a third choice (a decoy) change the way fruit-eating bats choose what to eat?
Long-term monitoring of the bat species Saccopteryx bilineata in their natural setting revealed that pups display babbling behavior strikingly similar to that of human infants
How can larger animals bear the increased energetic costs of maintaining disproportionately large weapons?
Colorful female Jacobins in the wild may feed more frequently and for longer periods than their drab counterparts
A mobile hearing test determined that the hearing sensitivity of Neotropical bats is associated with the sounds generated by their prey, demonstrating how hearing ability may relate directly to niche differentiation.
The adaptation of certain plants to drought and high temperatures involves a fundamental reprogramming of their metabolism, not just a simple adjustment that can be made by regular plants.
Self-professed spider-fan and arachnid systematist Stephany Arizala would like more people to study this megadiverse group, so that we can do a better job of protecting them.