Crows can recognise and ascribe numerical meaning to symbols, a new study shows, suggesting that the unusually intelligent birds may be able to “read” numbers and simple icons. Crows are known for their…
A new report on Australian birds has added four more species to the critically endangered list and found that a total of 39 species or sub-species are more threatened now than they were a decade ago. The…
Why do females cheat on their partners? A new study of songbirds in the US – published today – suggests cheating females are more successful in the long-run and get more grandchildren. Why? Because the…
The circulation of a new strain of the H5N1 avian flu virus from China and Vietnam has prompted calls from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN for health authorities to be ready for a possible…
As little as 15 years ago, the boundary between birds and dinosaurs was a fairly sharp one. On one side was Archaeopteryx, a 150 million-year-old magpie-sized creature from Bavaria, southern Germany, long…