Posts tagged as:

animal behaviour

Samurai of the sea

9 June 2011

What sawfish really do with their saw Scientists thought that sawfish used their saw to probe the sea bottom for food.  But a Cairns researcher has found that these large (5 metres or more) and endangered fish actually use the saw to locate and dismember free-swimming fish – using a sixth sense that detects electric [...]

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Dinner for tuna: tracking tuna dining habits across the Indian Ocean

8 June 2009

Southern bluefin tuna can’t even have a quiet snack without CSIRO researchers knowing. They’ve developed a way of tracking when the tuna feed and also where, at what depth, and the temperature of the surrounding water.

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Owl CSI – feathers and DNA reveal night secrets

4 June 2009

…more than 2,000 feathers have been collected, some from highly threatened species, such as the elusive Rufous owl …

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Fin tips reveal the secret of underwater flight: ten times faster than an Olympic swimmer

17 June 2008

Certain small reef fish use wing-like fins to ‘fly’ underwater, allowing them to cruise at speeds equivalent to tuna, a team of Australian and US researchers has found. The design of the fins has drawn the attention of underwater submersible designers and the US Office of Naval Research.   

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Tuna research in 350-tonne waterbed

16 August 2007

 Bluefin tuna use three times as much oxygen as other fish their size, making them more difficult to culture. That’s just part of the valuable information uncovered by University of Adelaide PhD student, Quinn Fitzgibbon and his colleagues in a study where they monitored live tuna swimming inside a 350-tonne “waterbed”.

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How sea slugs fall in love

14 August 2007

Scott Cummins and his colleagues at The University of Queensland have uncovered a potent mix of chemicals which acts like a cross between Chanel No 5 and Viagra-but only if you are a sea slug.

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Playing possum: one love

10 August 2006

Why are some males faithful, stay-at-home partners while others sleep around, with no strings attached? In mountain brushtail possums, it turns out to depend on how disturbed their home is.

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Sheep smarter than we think

30 August 2005

Armidale sheep put to the test in a complex maze Sheep are smarter than we think. They can learn and remember according to CSIRO researchers from Armidale in NSW. The team is working to identify and breed smarter sheep as part of their work to improve animal welfare and production. Caroline Lee, a member of [...]

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Sight for sore eyes: ancient fish see colour

30 August 2005

The Australian lungfish-one of the world’s oldest fishes and related to our ancient ancestors-may have been viewing rivers in technicolour long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Recent work by postgraduate student Helena Bailes at the University of Queensland has found these unusual fish have genes for five different forms of visual pigment in their eyes. [...]

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Study takes the sting out of tropical swimming

17 August 2005

Box jellyfish are capable of moving several kilometres a day, but seem to stay within a relatively short stretch of beachfront. Those are some to the initial findings of a young researcher in North Queensland, who is undertaking the first detailed study of the movements of the potentially lethal animals. Matt Gordon of the Tropical [...]

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Frog sex in the city

31 August 2004

Tree frogs defy the trend of urban decline Central Melbourne used to be a Mecca for frogs, but now there is only one species left. Southern brown tree frogs can still be heard calling to attract females for mating in parks throughout inner Melbourne, including the Royal Botanic Gardens and Fitzroy Gardens. A survey conducted [...]

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The sport of lizards

31 August 2004

Sporting technology used on lizards to watch them run. The same camera that analysed the bowling action of Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan is being used to study how dragon lizards can escape a bigger, faster predator, the goanna. “It’s all in the running action,” says zoologist, Chris Clemente from the University of Western Australia. [...]

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Which sex is best for coral reef fish

19 August 2003

Puberty blues: goby fish choose their sex to find a mate New research on the Great Barrier Reef has revealed that some young reef fish can choose when they mature and which sex they want to be when they grow up.

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How bees shop

4 August 2003

What can bees teach us about speed shopping? Does trading off speed for accuracy pay? Bumblebees have been shown to have very fine colour vision – which they can use to find up to 5,000 flowers a day.

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Happy cows choose what to eat

22 August 2002

Cows produce more milk if they are given a choice of food, according to a study released today in Melbourne. “Presentation and choice of food affects how much we eat. It’s the same for cows,” says University of Melbourne researcher, Danni Marotti.

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What Females Want: Just what do fish find sexy?

26 May 2001

Scientists agree: some people are universally gorgeous. Studies in evolutionary biology show that few things are more advantageous to success than being attractive, since good looking individuals leave more offspring than their unattractive contemporaries.

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