Bottlenose dolphins work in groups to stir up nets of sand, and then wait for the fish to come to them.
via [Cute Overload]
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All posts for the month January, 2010
Through repeated training sessions, sheep not only learn to approach locations that provide rewards and avoid those that result in the presentation of a dog, but they also increasingly ignore ambiguous locations that provide neither positive nor negative reinforcement.
[Behavioural Processes], [photo]
Hong the elephant may not be creating a self aware, free-form portrait, but her skilled recreation of a learned pattern of brushstrokes demonstrates artistic prowess through refined motor control and visual memory.
Bees have been shown to be able to discriminate between different images of human-like faces.
[Journal of Experimental Biology] via [Science Daily], [photo]
The best part of this video is the very end.
Prairie dogs live in large communities, and during their lifespan they develop the ability to communicate with each other using distinct vocalizations to convey a vast number of contexts, including unique calls and responses for different predators. They layer levels of information within their calls, and in a recent study they produced slightly different barks depending the shirt color of an approaching human as well as his or her size.
[Ethology, Ecology, and Evolution] and [Behavioural Processes] via [The Telegraph], [photo]
“Clever Hans” fooled the public and many scientists alike during the early 1900′s by seemingly performing arithmetic and dragging his hoof the appropriate number of times to answer questions, but his actual problem solving method (interpreting the inadvertent body language of his audience and handler in order to start and stop moving his hoof at the right time) is even more impressive.
More details at: [Damn Interesting] Photo
