Food Calls
Hungry bats: Listen up
February 11, 2025
Spix’s disc-winged bats shrieked when they were first shown mealworms, a new food for them. Were they alarmed, or were they communicating their excitement to their fellow bats?
Spix’s disc-winged bats shrieked when they were first shown mealworms, a new food for them. Were they alarmed, or were they communicating their excitement to their fellow bats?
A baby hummingbird hatches. But it has fluffy feathers on its back, looking just like a dangerous caterpillar. Could this be something unusual among hummingbirds?
Have you ever wondered how city life affects animals like frogs? A new study reveals that urban Túngara frog tadpoles develop faster —but end up being smaller — than tadpoles from forests, probably resulting in smaller adults. This might be an adaptation to warmer urban puddles with fewer predators or to constantly changing environmental conditions in the city.
A discovery by a Smithsonian intern in Panama is published by the journal Science.
I’ve gotten used to performing long-term studies, and shorter-term field experiments, but most of all try to mix and match what is both interesting and useful. Many studies have come to fruition, and those I continue to expand consider 1) ecology and taxonomy of stingless bees and orchid bees, 2...
At one of the oldest Maya sites, STRI staff archaeologist, Ashley Sharpe, discovered dog bones from the Guatemalan highlands deep within two pyramids.
It is much faster to learn to recognize a new prey item from a neighboring species, than to learn by trial and error.
What slows or stops a disease epidemic if the pathogen is still present? It appears that wild frogs are becoming increasingly resistant to the chytrid fungal disease that has decimated amphibian populations around the world.