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Interesting movement and activity patterns of Asiatic lions in India

The Asiatic lions are spread across ~30000 km2 in the Saurashtra region of the Gujarat state in India, collectively known as the Asiatic Lion Landscape. The landscape includes five protected areas (Gir National Park, Gir Wildlife Sanctuary, Paniya Wildlife Sanctuary, Mitiyala Wildlife Sanctuary, and Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary) and other natural forest patches. Thanks to the effective conservation measures in the […]

Nose-picking primates eat their own snot

The internal anatomy of an aye-aye plucking its nose is depicted. Réné BoistelHave you ever wondered whether animals other than humans pick their noses and consume their own snot? I was shooting an aye-aye at the Duke Lemur Centre when I noticed this behaviour, which is when I originally thought of this question. As I watched Kali (let’s call her […]

You are what you eat – how diet influences spine mobility in Neotropical bats

Bats are an incredibly ecologically diverse radiation of mammals that inhabit a wide array of ecosystems, have a variety of locomotor and navigational strategies, and consume many different types of food. We expect teeth and jaws to be shaped by diet because they are directly used to consume food. Bats, however, have furthered their dietary specializations to include their flight […]

Mormyrid fish as models for investigating sensory-motor integration

Weakly electric fish are the definition of all that is strange and amazing about the natural world. They have a special sensibility that we don’t have. To navigate, forage, and communicate in their dark, aquatic surroundings, these fish produce and sense low voltage electric fields. The Gymnotiformes from the Neotropics and the Mormyriformes from Africa are two lineages that have […]