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Tag: animal behaviour

  • Pigeons are misunderstood: These little-known facts will prove why

    Pigeons are misunderstood: These little-known facts will prove why

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    A pigeon looks in the photographer's camera in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on November 17, 2016. / AFP / dpa / Frank Rumpenhorst / Germany OUT (Photo credit should read FRANK RUMPENHORST/DPA/AFP via Getty Images)

    Pigeons have a lot more going on that you might assume

    I had always felt ambivalent towards pigeons. Pigeons are everywhere in London, where I live, and that made them fade into the background for me. I didn’t hate them, but neither did I take any particular interest in them.

    Then a chance encounter set me wondering if I could learn to love the humble pidge, a question that I spent some of this year delving into. As I started my research, I stumbled upon pigeon fact after pigeon fact that really surprised me. Here are a few of those facts – they just might change the way you think about these much-maligned city birds.

    1. Pigeons produce ‘milk’

    It is odd to think of pigeons producing milk, but it’s true. It doesn’t come from a mammary gland, but instead a special area of cells in the lower oesophagus called the crop, and adult pigeons regurgitate it for their young for the first 10 days after they hatch. Although it is yellower and more solid than what we might think of as milk, it has a similar blend of nutrients and immune-boosting properties. A few other species of bird produce this “crop milk” too, including penguins and flamingos.

    2. They make hilariously bad nests

    Perhaps my favourite thing about pigeons is that they make truly awful nests – think a few sticks placed in the approximate vicinity of an egg. There is even an account on X that documents them called Bad Pigeon Nests. Outside of cities, pigeons would naturally have nested among rocks, so wouldn’t have…

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  • The amazing talents of pigeons – and why we should learn to love them

    The amazing talents of pigeons – and why we should learn to love them

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    ITALY. Venice. A tourist takes a picture while pigeons surround her. 2005.

    “Hello again!” Pigeons can remember individual human faces

    Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

    I was walking in the park with a friend recently, when they pointed at a pigeon and told me I was looking at their favourite bird. I was incredulous. Pigeons? Those winged vermin? My friend responded with this twisted logic: it makes a lot of sense for pigeons to be your favourite bird, because you get to enjoy them all the time.

    Temporarily bemused, I wondered if anyone could really be so enamoured with pigeons. Turns out, the joke’s on me. When I spoke to other friends and colleagues, a surprising number of them had a lot of love for the humble pidge. One New Scientist colleague, who will remain nameless, confessed to having a secret pigeon tattoo. I even saw a news report about a couple whose adopted pigeon sleeps in their bed.

    As I read around a little, I found that pigeons do have a lot to recommend them. Aside from their well-known homing abilities, they are unassumingly intelligent. They are no mammal, but do produce a kind of milk. They kiss each other, applaud themselves after sex and can recognise individual people (and can remember the ones who are mean to them). Add all that together and maybe, I thought, I could learn to love this seemingly ordinary bird after all. So, armed with my curiosity and a bag of oats, I set out to do just that.

    A bit of bird-watching

    I wanted to conduct my investigation with at least a whiff of scientific integrity, so I conceived of an “experiment”. First, I…

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  • Will humans ever speak wolf? A scientist unravels the complexities of animal chatter

    Will humans ever speak wolf? A scientist unravels the complexities of animal chatter

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    Download Nature hits the books 09 December 2024

    Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum has spent his career studying animals and how they communicate in the wild. In his book Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication, Arik takes a deep dive into the various forms of communication, from wolf howls to gibbon songs, to look at how different species get their points across, why they do it the way they do, and what insights they provide into our own use of language.

    Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication Arik Kershenbaum Penguin (2024)

    Music supplied by SPD/Triple Scoop Music/Getty Images

    Wolf howl via NPS & MSU Acoustic Atlas/Jennifer Jerrett

    Slowed down dolphin whistle via Arik Kershenbaum

    Hyrax song via Arik Kershenbaum

    Pileated gibbon song via Rushenb CC BY-SA 4.0

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  • Robotic rat uses AI to befriend real rodents

    Robotic rat uses AI to befriend real rodents

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    New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

    Live rats played and tussled with the robot rodent

    Shutterstock / Bilanol

    A robotic rat on wheels has learned how to interact with real rats while mimicking the rodents’ play and fight behaviours.

    “[The] robotic rats have similar appearances and movements to animals, and even the same odour,” says Qing Shi at the Beijing Institute of Technology in China. “It has become an important tool for exploring individual or collective rats’ behavioural responses.”

    The robotic rat, which Shi and his colleagues developed, has two front arms, a…

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  • Fast ground-to-air transition with avian-inspired multifunctional legs

    Fast ground-to-air transition with avian-inspired multifunctional legs

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  • Fossilized faeces helps explain dinosaurs’ rise to dominance

    Fossilized faeces helps explain dinosaurs’ rise to dominance

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    Download the Nature Podcast 27 November 2024

    In this episode:

    00:50 Fossilized faeces give news insights into dinosaurs’ diets and rise

    A huge collection of fossilized digestive contents has provided clues as to how dinosaurs grew to become the dominant animals on the planet. Why these animals rose to dominance has been unclear, with one theory proposing that a chance event wiped out other species, whereas another suggests that dinosaurs had adaptations that better allowed them to thrive. By analysing more than 500 vomit and faeces fossils, researchers have better identified what dinosaurs ate, and their interactions with other animals. The new work suggests both of these theories are correct, with dinosaurs benefiting from one or the other at different points in time. The researchers believe this work demonstrates how useful fossilized food contents are for understanding these ancient creatures.

    Research Article: Qvarnström et al.

    News and Views: Wastes of time — faeces and vomit track how dinosaurs rose to prominence

    News: Fossilized poo and vomit shows how dinosaurs rose to rule Earth

    10:05 Research Highlights

    Bacteria found on an asteroid actually came from Earth, and why play helps chimps to cooperate.

    Research Highlight: Bacteria found on a space rock turn out to be Earth-grown

    Research Highlight: Chimps tickle and wrestle in play to pave the way for teamwork

    12:46 A commensal fungus found in mouse guts

    By testing mice across the United States, researchers have identified a fungus that is well adapted to living in the gastrointestinal tracts of mice, an important step in modelling the role these microorganisms play in the body. Fungi are known to be a constituent of the gut microbiome, but very little is known about what they do. Now, a team has identified that the fungus Kazachstania pintolopesii is probably a long-term resident of mice guts, which they hope will allow them to study how these microbes interact with the immune system, and the role they play in host defence and allergies.

    Research Article: Liao et al.

    21:57 The key takeaways from COP29

    The United Nations annual climate change conference, COP29, finished last week. Largely, the discussions revolved around climate finance — the idea that wealthier countries who have benefitted most from past carbon emissions should pay to help poorer, vulnerable countries adapt to the effects of climate change. Although a last-minute agreement was hammered out at the conference, not everyone was happy with the text and promised actions. We discuss this and the other key outcomes of COP29.

    Nature: Is the COP29 climate deal a historic breakthrough or letdown? Researchers react

    Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.

    Never miss an episode. Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music or your favourite podcast app. An RSS feed for the Nature Podcast is available too.

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  • Orcas have begun wearing salmon hats again – and we may soon know why

    Orcas have begun wearing salmon hats again – and we may soon know why

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    An orca carrying a salmon in its mouth in south-east Alaska

    Minden Pictures/Alamy

    Some of the orcas off North America’s west coast have taken to wearing dead salmon on their heads, resurrecting a curious trend that was first reported in the 1980s.

    Local photographers noticed the salmon-wearing orcas last month – and so did researchers. Deborah Giles, science and research director for the non-profit organisation Wild Orca, was observing the marine mammals in South Puget Sound in south-west Washington a few weeks ago. “We saw one with a fish on its head,” she says. “So that was fun –…

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  • How a unique puppy kindergarten lab put the science into dog training

    How a unique puppy kindergarten lab put the science into dog training

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    New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

    “Oreo was my best friend growing up,” says Brian Hare. If Hare wanted to hone his baseball pitching skills, his Labrador enthusiastically took on fielding duties. If he decided to explore the nearby woods, Oreo was an ever-willing companion. But there was one place where boy and dog always parted company. “Oreo never set foot in our house. Not one time,” says Hare.

    Today, the front door is no longer closed to most dogs in higher-income countries – and many spend their days relaxing on sofas and watching TV. You would think they would be in doggy heaven. But Hare, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, thinks the development has left them in the doghouse. For millennia, he says, we expected dogs to guard our property and protect our family at nighttime. Now, we have a different set of expectations. Not only do we want our indoor dogs to be friendly around strangers and rest quietly through the night, they should also respond to potty training, refrain from chasing other animals and keep their dirty feet off the upholstery. “It’s an evolutionary mismatch,” says Hare.

    The good news is that this problem is solvable. A glut of recent studies indicate that selective breeding and careful training can help dogs adapt to indoor life. Meanwhile, Hare and his team have set up a “puppy kindergarten” in their lab to drill down into the behaviours required and shed new light on dogs’ cognitive developmental milestones. Better yet, the researchers have devised techniques…

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  • Chimps tickle and wrestle in play to pave the way for teamwork

    Chimps tickle and wrestle in play to pave the way for teamwork

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    Adult chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) play together to promote cooperation and ease tension, according to field observations1.

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  • Our trust in society is eroding. We need to fight back

    Our trust in society is eroding. We need to fight back

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    A recent scandal over food hygiene ratings shows how deception destroys trust within society. We need to fight back, says Jonathan R. Goodman

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