As a dog owner, it seems to me as if my canine pal understands when I am happy or mad. But, is that seeming awareness due to my facial expressions or the tone of my voice? In a new study published in Behavioural Processes, researchers at the University of Lincoln and University of Sao Paulo attempted to unravel this mystery of how angry or happy human facial expressions might make […]
When I think of rainbow trout, the first image that comes to mind is usually something like this: In the wild, they look more like this: …not as appetizing, but a lot more fascinating. When salmonid fish like rainbow trout are in environments with limited food or space, they form social hierarchies. In one study of limited food availability, Grobler et al., found that when they placed 4 rainbow trout […]
This past weekend a man caught a very rare fish, called an opah (aka moonfish), off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland. What makes this fish so rare is that it is the only known warm-blooded fish. In fact, they are able to keep their whole body about 5 degrees Celsius above the water they swim in. Other fish lose heat generated from muscle movements to the environment as the […]
You would think that Thanksgiving is already over when visiting most stores as there are Christmas decorations and merchandise everywhere. Reds and greens are popular colors for Christmas decorations and dog toys. However, a new study suggests that your dog may be red-green color blind. The study examined the ability of dogs to detect colors by exposing animals to a colored image on a screen and measuring the eye, head […]
I don’t know about you, but I am terrified of scorpions. As if scorpions were not spooky enough, the Arizona bark scorpion (Centruroides sculpturatus) is the most venomous scorpion in North America. Gulp. Enter the pallid bat. Clearly not as intimidated, pallid bats (Antrozous pallidus) often dine on Arizona bark scorpions. Researchers at the University of California at Riverside wanted to examine whether the bats were truly resistant to the […]
Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle 