Animal-human relationship and other linked stuff that appeals to me
The experts have told us that giant millipedes as long as a car weighing 50 kg roamed across Great Britain 326 million years ago, which at that time was at the equator. We are...
If ever you had doubts about the way evolution works to create a camouflaged coat to enhance the prospects of survival of the world’s wild species, this photo should dispel those doubts. Some people...
Why are giant pandas black-and-white? It looks as if they can’t be camouflaged with such sharp lines between the white and black parts of their fur. But a really good photograph accompanied by a...
GORONGOSA NATIONAL PARK, MOZAMBIQUE-NEWS AND COMMENT: This is an interesting example of how the intervention of humans can inadvertently alter the course of evolution. The story is also interesting for the fact that, looking...
Researchers from the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh have very recently calculated that humanity’s roots stretch back to about 3.3 million years ago. This is 500,000 years earlier than had previously been thought. They...
The fictional film giants Godzilla and King Kong, which have grown in size over decades, would be unviable in the real world because their bones would break in carrying such enormous weights. Apparently it’s...
Unquestionably, non-human animals do, indeed, have culture. It is another example of an erosion of the concept of human exceptionalism. Humans like to think that they are special and different to animals but I...
A study carried out by researchers at the University of Exeter using twenty-two years of data on American squirrels in Yukon, Canada, found that when red squirrels live beside “familiar neighbours” it “boosts a...
Why do some insects not have wings when having wings is an advantage? Wings on insects are described as “being the key evolutionary innovation leading to the success of the group” (Daly 1978). I...
NEWS AND VIEWS (COMMENT): They are worth millions but they are unsaleable. Cambridge University has lost two of Charles Darwin’s notebooks written in 1830 after he visited the Galapogos Islands. They are considered to...
Scientists have come to a neat theory as to why some of the best-known dinosaurs evolved into having such enormously long necks. And when you think about it, it makes sense. Over millions of...
The argument by scientists who have published a research paper in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, is that if you poison an unwanted predator such as the dingo (Canis lupus dingo) they...
It is probably universally agreed today that the domestic dog’s wild ancestor is the Asiatic wolf. They lived in the warmer parts of the planet and their build is similar to that of the...
“Dishonest signalling” describes an animal making a sound which portrays itself as bigger than it really is. Often the purpose is to attract mates. It sounds like human behaviour doesn’t it? Humans often exaggerate...