ethology
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Orangutans Got Suspiciously Close to Inventing Stone Tools in New Zoo Experiments
Captive orangutans can use stone tools without minimal direction from humans, researchers reported today. Besides an affirmation of orangutan intelligence, the finding has implications for understanding how and when stone tool use evolved in ancient human ancestors.
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Which Animal Species Get Along the Best?
We have all come across or actively sought out videos of unlikely animals putting aside their differences to nuzzle one another or engage in similar cute behaviour, like when a larger animal gives a smaller animal a piggyback ride. There is of course an entire television show devoted to this phenomenon, plus thousands of viral…
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Wild Parrots in Australia Are Teaching Each Other How to Break Into Trash Bins
Scientists have discovered the latest fad sweeping across the sulphur-crested cockatoo parrots of Sydney, Australia: lifting up trash can lids to score a snack. In a new study this week, they detail the recent emergence and spread of this learned behaviour, which they say is a common but not always easily observed example of cultural…
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Albert Einstein Ponders Birds and Bees in Previously Unpublished Letter
In 1949, a 70-year-old Albert Einstein shot off a message to England-based radar researcher Glyn Davys. The topic wasn’t physics or radar — it was birds and bees and the way those animals navigate.