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?
How can larger animals bear the increased energetic costs of maintaining disproportionately large weapons?
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.
Over the last 50 years, since 1972, Panama has lost almost 50% of its mangroves primarily due to urban expansion and the conversion of mangroves into agricultural land.
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.
A group of high school students describe how Azteca alfari ants respond to damage to their host plant
After being taught annually for three decades, the Smithsonian Introductory Field Life Sciences Course was suspended due to the pandemic, but it made a digital comeback in 2021.