Meet the Tarsier - they always look surprised to see you

A tiny, carnivorous primate with big eyes, these nighttime creatures are both cute and vicious. Learn more about them!!

My Thumbnail

...continue reading

Share Button

2 Comments

Photo by Andrew/Polandeze via Flickr/Creative Commons

Photo by Andrew/Polandeze via Flickr/Creative Commons

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that our pet cats are predators at heart, especially if you just fill their bowl of kibble every now and then. But beneath that fuzzy, cute exterior is a potentially vicious killer, even if your cat doesn’t have the opportunity to practice mass destruction of small animals. That’s where playtime with interactive toys comes in! But more on that later!

There are two major categories of predators: specialists – those who hunt just one or two prey types; and generalists – animals with a broad diet or who may show a wide range of prey preferences within a species. Both types are likely related to prey available, and how an animal has adapted over time to that prey availability. These preferences could be learned during development, such as when a mother cat brings injured prey to her kittens, or could be a response to changes in the environment. If prey abundance changes, predators have to change their responses too…or go hungry.

...continue reading

Share Button

Bees need a break after all that social time

Bees sleep more after hanging out with bees than they do after spending time alone - five hours more! It could be the flood of information they have to process after encounter so many of their colony members - the extra sleep may help with learning and memory. Read more here!

My Thumbnail

...continue reading

Share Button

7 Comments

voxWho would have guessed that the big research questions of 2014 would be all about cats (okay, I’m biased)? Do cats really love us? Do they recognize our voices? Do they hate petting? Why do they love boxes? Does anyone understand them (even our vets?)? Why are cats so mysterious???

the cutI wrote about several cat studies that came out in the last year or so: on whether cats ignore us when they hear our voices, whether cat bites are related to depression, whether play can prevent behavior problems, how people feel about stray cats, how little veterinarians know about cat behavior, and of course the yet-unpublished study claiming that cats aren’t attached to us.

...continue reading

Share Button

What? Last Friday Faves of 2014?

Did Santa leave an assault course for your backyard squirrels?

One of my fave blogs, GrrlScientist, proposes a squirrel maze as a lovely alternative to the chemistry set as a family science project. I couldn't agree more!

My Thumbnail

...continue reading

Share Button

This week's cute and bizarre

We humans are a little self-obsessed, we just love images of squirrels doing things we do

My Thumbnail

sqlordsI think maybe if I used recreational drugs, this video would have been even funnier. I can’t even really understand it.

...continue reading

Share Button

Connecting technology, movement and emotion to study animals

Scientists are using accelerometers on various animals - from cockroaches to elephants - and correlating their movements with positive or negative experiences. So far they have found significant differences in how animals move their bodies during positive or negative states. This potentially gives us new, non-invasive tools for studying animal emotions! So cool! Now tell me, what does my Fitbit say about my mental state?

My Thumbnail

...continue reading

Share Button

Dogs + Humping: Match made in heaven

Leave it to two of my science-blogging faves, DogSpies and BuzzHootRoar to bring us the top reasons that dogs hump, complete with animated GIFs. We can all just go home now, science journalism is done.

My Thumbnail My Thumbnail

...continue reading

Share Button

Black_cat_Animal_Rescue_GalawebDesign

Does your kitty have a history? Photo by Galawebdesign via Wikipedia/Creative Commons

I think most of us who adopt a kitty from a shelter (especially if they are an adult) wonder about their past life, before we brought them home. Who fed them? Were they born under a bed or under a bridge? But how important is it to adopters to know that their cat previously lived in a home, with people? A new study, "Is There a Bias Against Stray Cats in Shelters?" suggests that there might be a bias against stray cats with an unknown history.

The authors of the paper, Kathryn  Dybdall and Rosemary Strasser, did three studies. In the first, they examined shelter records of adult adoptable cats (12 months or older) who had been listed as either owner-surrender or stray. Owner-surrender cats tended to be adopted on average in 26 days, compared to 32 days for stray cats.

...continue reading

Share Button

What's the science behind your relationship with your cat?

catpplAre cat people just a little different? Do we relate to our pets a little differently too? Yes. I wrote on this subject for the Dodo many months ago, and was interviewed for this excellent piece by Gwynn Guilford that was released this week on Quartz (qz.com).

...continue reading

Share Button