shutterstock.
Talking cows, talking pigs? It’s enough to send you vegetarian. Maybe …
Before LOLcats, there were LEOcats.
When elephants venture into human settlements, they cause significant damage to crops and property.
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Elephant numbers are increasing in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Their search for food is leading them into conflict with farmers living adjacent to game parks. Bees could prove to be the answer to the problem.
Giraffes are under threat due to habitat fragmentation and degradation.
Francois Deacon
Giraffes are facing a silent extinction and need conservation strategies to help them.
Kitty-in-Boots.
Image courtesy Frederick Warne & Co / the V&A Museum
What can we expect from this newly discovered manuscript from a much-beloved author?
Africa is the go-to destination for tourists seeking animal safari trips.
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Safaris are a major tourist attraction for those travelling to Africa - and visitors are spoiled for choice on the continent.
Can a machine really think, be in awe and wonder?
Shutterstock/Photobymhu
As machines get ever more complex as we strive to make them complete more complex tasks, it’s time to ask again: will they ever be able to think? But what is thinking anyway?
All dressed up.
Scott Schiller
Scientists have used maths to explain why some cats’ fur makes them look like they’re wearing a tuxedo.
The genetically modified salmon (rear) grows twice as fast as a non-GM fish.
Aquabounty Technologies
The US food authority may have approved GM salmon for our consumption, but it may take time before any appear in our stores.
Biting your partner’s nose - a winner for birds, not always for humans.
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From dancing to giving presents, animals have evolved some effective and surprisingly familiar ways of wooing a mate.
Paul Meyerheim’s Victorian menagerie.
Exotic animal escapes are relatively rare today, but in the 19th century it wasn’t unusual to find a tiger loose in the street.
Roaming Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Dave Inman/flickr
It’s an amazing evolution story happening in our backyards and forests – should this wily canid be called the eastern coyote a ‘coywolf’?
Your beak’s in my ear, darling.
Dave Crim/Flickr
Animals can be remarkably reminiscent of humans when it comes to relationships – changing behaviour, eating habits and even friends for the sake of their mates.
Hair as helpers in the quest for cleanliness.
stratman²
Cleanliness is next to godliness. Did you know hairiness is a part of the equation as well?
Sunflowers contain less protein than aloe plants and bees need more of this.
Chamanti Laing
Nutrition is another factor - in addition to pesticides and bee disease - that has led to the dwindling of the global bee population.
Mass extinctions are more complicated than ‘strength in numbers’.
Corinata/wikimedia
Being big – larger than a dog – increases the risk of being wiped out in a mass extinction.
Myths and theories abound about how and why the zebra got its stripes.
Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
There are a number of reasons why zebra’s stripes are useful to a zebra. The key question is: could some of them benefit society?
Guppies who are under constant threat of predation do worse than those who live without predators.
Reuters
Humans can learn a thing or two from animals on how to deal with stress.
Thomas Piketty’s book provides new tools to consider the property status of animals in contemporary society.
Morgan Lieberman
Should animals be treated like other forms of property such as land, machinery and “stocks”? What role do animals that are owned by humans play in the concept of global wealth?
Not hard to read.
herepup.com/Flickr
Pain is a subjective experience that often relies on talking to patients so it’s harder to know what animals think.