After ravens see a friend get a beat down, they approach the victim and appear to console it, according to new research. This is the first evidence for birds consoling one another.
Ravens are one species of corvid, a famously smart group of birds, so they are a natural set of study subjects for researchers probing the uniqueness of mammalian behaviors like empathetic consolation. The consolation of fight victims has only been definitely shown in chimpanzees and bonobos. Recent studies show similar behaviors in dogs and wolves, but how consolation works in those animals hasn’t been tested.
The scientists noticed that birds with whom a victim spent a lot of time were most likely to approach it after a fight. A victim’s “friends” seemed to notice when it was stressed by the fight.
Canadian beavers built the world's longest dam -- so big it can be seen from space. At 2,790 feet, it is more than a half mile long.
It is twice the size of what was the world's largest, the Hoover dam, which borders Arizona and Nevada in the U.S. and spans 1,244 feet. The furry critters use trees, mud and stone to make a type of moat where they can use their swimming skills to evade any predators.
The dam, located on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park in Northern Alberta, central Canada, was spotted by experts monitoring the size and spread of beaver dams in North America.
It is thought that several beaver families joined forces to create the massive dam, containing thousands of trees, and took many months to complete it.
Scientists studying New Caledonian crows have found they can use three different tools in succession to gain a food treat. The crows are known to solve problems and fashion and use tools in the wild, but their clevernes and innovation in the experiments astounded the researchers.
Investigations into the abilities of the New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) revealed the birds can create tools out of unfamiliar materials, and they can also use several tools in succession.
The scientists captured seven wild crows and placed them in an aviary where they were presented with a complex problem in which meat was placed out of reach. It could be drawn out by a long stick, but the stick was out of reach inside a barred toolbox. The long stick could be retrieved using a short stick, but this was attached to a string tied to a branch. So to win the treat, the birds had to first pull up the string to retrieve the short stick, then use the short stick to pull out the long stick, and then use the long stick to draw out the meat.
One of the birds (nicknamed Sam) spent the first 110 seconds simply inspecting the parts of the task, and then completed it the first time without error. Below is Sam's successful first trial:
Below is Professor Russell Gray discussing recent research on New Caledonian crows, their capacity to make and wield tools, and experimental results which suggest that their understanding of tool use should not be overestimated:
Remarkable footage of a rarely seen giant deep sea jellyfish has been recorded by scientists. Using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), they captured a video of the huge Stygiomedusa gigantea. (Click on the link above to see a page with the video).
The jellyfish has a disc-shaped bell than can be a meter wide, and has four arms that extend up to six metres in length. The jellyfish has only been seen 114 times in the 110 years it has been known to science, say researchers.
Color-changing frogs, the world's longest stick insect and a slug that shoots "love darts" are among the biological "treasure" discovered by scientists in the lush green heart of Borneo.
The number of new plant species discovered in Borneo in the last three years outnumbers all the other categories combined. Sixty-seven new plants have been found, along with 29 invertebrates, 17 new species of fish, one bird, five amphibians and five reptiles.
Below are pictures of several newly discovered creatures:
The below pictures are of Red Pandas, which are native to the forests in the Himalayas. There are only an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 of them worldwide.
In the past Red pandas have been misclassified as being in the same families as raccoons and bears, but have recently been reclassified in a family all their own. In fact, they are considered “living fossils" and are only distantly related to Giant Pandas.
The below video shows an octopus grabbing a diver's video camera while he was filming underwater and then swimming away with it (while it was still filming).
The diver had been filming the eight-armed bandit off the coast of Wellington, New Zealand, when it suddenly reached out with a tentacle and grabbed at him.
The diver initially thought he was being attacked and tried to get back up to the surface. But he soon realized the octopus was only after his bright blue underwater camera.
The diver caught up with the octopus then held out his speargun in a bid to distract it. When it grabbed the gun with several tentacles, he used the chance to free his camera.
In the video below, Wired goes to the California Academy of Sciences to see the Chambered Nautilus, an animal that hasn't evolved much since its earliest relatives lived 500 million years ago.
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