Category Archives: Animal behaviour

The inner lives of dogs: what our canine friends really think about love, lust and laughter

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They make brilliant companions, but do dogs really feel empathy for humans - and what is going through their minds when they play, panic or attack?

Read more: the inner lives of cats: what our feline friends really think

It is humanity’s great frustration, to gaze into the eyes of a dog, feel so very close to the creature, and yet have no clue what it’s thinking. It’s like the first question you ask of a recently born baby, with all that aching, loving urgency: is that a first smile? Or yet more wind? Except that it’s like that for ever.

I can never know what my staffie is thinking. Does Romeo realise that what he just did was funny, and did he do it on purpose? Is he laughing on the inside? Can he smile? Can he feel anxious about the future? Can he remember life as a puppy? Does he still get the horn, even though I had his knackers off some years ago? And, greater than all these things: does he love me? I mean, really love me, the way I love him?

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The inner lives of cats: what our feline friends really think about hugs, happiness and humans

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They do what they want, all the time – and can teach us a lot about how to live in the present, be content and learn from our experience

I wanted to know the exact amount of time I spend ruminating on the inner lives of my cats, so I did what most people do in times of doubt, and consulted Google. According to my search history, in the two years since I became a cat owner I have Googled variations of “cat love me – how do I tell?” and “is my cat happy 17 times. I have also inadvertently subscribed to cat-related updates from the knowledge website Quora, which emails me a daily digest. (Sample: Can Cats Be Angry or Disappointed With Their Owner?)

How do I love my cats? Let me count the ways. The clean snap of three-year-old Larry’s jaw as he contemplates me with detached curiosity is my favourite sound in the world. I love the tenor and cadence of my six-month-old kitten Kedi’s miaows as he follows me around the house. (High-pitched indignant squeaks means he wants food; lower-pitched chirrups suggest he would like to play.) I love the weight of Larry on my feet at night and the scratchy caress of Kedi’s tongue on my eyelid in the morning.

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Walrus leaves Arctic comfort zone for snooze on Dutch submarine

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Unclear if ‘Freya’ is conducting protest lie-in or just waylaid, though Dutch navy note her choice of ‘Walrus-class submarine’

The disruption from the climate emergency being experienced by marine wildlife reached a new high in the first week of Cop26, when a female walrus was discovered sleeping on a submarine in a naval base in North Holland.

Walruses normally live in the polar regions – several hundred miles north. This particular animal is one of at least two of the species that have been seen far from their Arctic habitat. Another wandering walrus, seen off the Scilly Islands, France, Spain and West Cork, Ireland, has since been sighted back in Icelandic waters.

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‘Genius dogs’ can learn names of more than 100 toys, study finds

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Six canines, all border collies, have proved some possess a remarkable grasp of human language

Your dog might follow commands such as “sit”, or become uncontrollably excited at the mention of the word “walkies”, but when it comes to remembering the names of toys and other everyday items, most seem pretty absent-minded.

Now a study of six “genius dogs” has advanced our understanding of dogs’ memories, suggesting some of them possess a remarkable grasp of the human language.

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Could whistling shed light on the origins of speech?

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Whistled languages exist on every inhabited continent – now some scientists think similar dialects could have preceded the spoken word

For centuries, shepherds from the small village of Aas in the French Pyrenees led their sheep and cattle up to mountain pastures for the summer months. To ease the solitude, they would communicate with each other or with the village below in a whistled form of the local Gascon dialect, transmitting and receiving information accurately over distances of up to 10 kilometres.

They “spoke” in simple phrases – “What’s the time?”, “Come and eat,”, “Bring the sheep home” – but each word and syllable was articulated as in speech. Outsiders often mistook the whistling for simple signalling (“I’m over here!”), and the irony, says linguist and bioacoustician Julien Meyer of Grenoble Alpes University in France, is that the world of academia only realised its oversight around the middle of the 20th century, just as the whistled language of Aas was dying on the lips of its last speakers.

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Yappy dogs, moody cats… why lockdown owners are full of ‘pet regret’

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Charities are warning of a surge in people struggling to cope
with animals bought last year

Animal behaviourists and charities are warning of a surge in lockdown pet regret as owners struggle to cope with pets bought during the last year.

“We have a lot of new, very inexperienced owners – people who either haven’t had pets before or had them in childhood,” said Linda Cantle from Wood Green, The Animals Charity. She said Wood Green’s free pet behaviour helpline now receives 66% more calls each month, on average, than it did last June.

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An oyster: they can hear the breaking waves | Helen Sullivan

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To eat an oyster raw is to eat it alive

On the oyster’s edge, under the sea, on a rock, a tree root, a bamboo pole, a pebble, a tile or another shell, the bivalve’s cilia – from the Latin for eyelash – are waving. Together, they move water over the oyster’s gills – its shell is open, its muscles are relaxed. The oyster has lungs. It has a three-chambered heart. An hour passes; the oyster has filtered five litres of water. The oyster has listened to the breaking waves: it opens and closes according to the tides.

One valve is the cupped half of the shell, the other is the flat half. A cargo ship sounds its horn. The oyster shuts in fright.

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There’s a bear in there: animal gets stuck up Arizona power pole – video

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A bear in southern Arizona caused a brief power outage after it climbed up a power pole and became stuck. The utility company in the city of Willcox was notified a bear had become tangled in power lines, and workers quickly disabled the power. The linemen then climbed into a bucket lift to coax the animal down with a fibreglass stick, before the bear eventually went down on its own and retreated to the desert. It is the second time in a month a bear in the state has climbed a power pole

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Monkeys adopt ‘accent’ of other species when in shared territory – study

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Brazilian Amazon primates found to adapt their calls to get along better with their neighbours

Monkeys will use the “accent” of another species when they enter its territory to enhance communication, much like a British person living in the US might forgo their ‘tomahto’ for ‘tomayto, researchers have found.

Researchers investigated the behaviour of 15 groups of two roughly squirrel-sized primate species in the Brazilian Amazon: pied tamarins (Saguinus bicolor) and red-handed tamarins (Saguinus midas).

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‘What appointments did these dogs have to keep?’: long lunches and brief liaisons in a radical new dogumentary

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To mark National Puppy Day, Elizabeth Lo’s acclaimed film Stray gives humans rare insight into the canine gaze, courtesy of homeless mutts in Istanbul

From the moment Zeytin makes her first appearance in Elizabeth Lo’s feature Stray, there is no doubt you are in the presence of a unique spirit. As she surveys an Istanbul side street at dawn, her features are alert, her gaze is uncompromising and her deep, dark eyes sparkle with intelligence. There’s something of Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen about her, or maybe Brad Pitt in one of his less kempt moments. But non-dog comparisons don’t do her justice. This is one indomitable bitch.

Lo first encountered Zeytin and her friend Nazar on a 2017 casting trip to Turkey, and knew immediately that she had found the star she was looking for – which is to say, a dog who could carry a human film. “We were wandering through a busy underground tunnel filled with people when suddenly these two giant stray dogs streaked past us,” she says. “They were running with such a sense of purpose and it was so intriguing. What appointments did these dogs have to keep?”

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Dolphins have similar personality traits to humans, study finds

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Curiosity and sociability among traits found, despite dolphins having evolved separately for millions of years

Dolphins have developed a number of similar personality traits to humans, despite having evolved in vastly different environments, researchers have found.

A study, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, looked at 134 male and female bottlenose dolphins from eight facilities across the world, with each dolphin’s personality being assessed by staff at the facilities. The results of the study found a convergence of certain personality traits, especially curiosity and sociability.

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Pigs can be trained to use computer joysticks, say researchers

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Study found pigs were able to move a cursor to hit a wall on a screen and earn a treat

They’ve long been thought of as smarter than your average animal, but now researchers claim they have taught pigs to use a joystick, suggesting they are even cleverer than previously thought.

Pigs have previously been found to be capable of a host of tasks, including solving multiple-choice puzzles, and learning commands such as “sit”.

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Nice phone: Bali’s thieving monkeys can spot high-value items to ransom

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Study finds macaques go for tourists’ electronics and wallets over empty bags and then maximise their profit

At the Uluwatu temple in Bali, monkeys mean business. The long-tailed macaques who roam the ancient site are infamous for brazenly robbing unsuspecting tourists and clinging on to their possessions until food is offered as ransom payment.

Researchers have found they are also skilled at judging which items their victims value the most and using this information to maximise their profit.

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Baby sharks emerge from egg cases earlier and weaker in oceans warmed by climate crisis

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Weaker sharks are less effective hunters, which can upset the balance of the ecosystem, say authors of study into impacts of hotter oceans

Baby sharks will emerge from their egg cases earlier and weaker as water temperatures rise, according to a new study that examined the impact of warming oceans on embryos.

About 40% of all shark species lay eggs, and the researchers found that one species unique to the Great Barrier Reef spent up to 25 days less in their egg cases under temperatures expected by the end of the century.

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‘The platypuses were glowing’: the secret light of Australia’s marsupials

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The discovery that bilbies, bandicoots, Tasmanian devils and echidnas emit bio-fluorescence under UV light has sparked the burning question. Why?

Dr Kenny Travouillon turned off the lights and headed straight for the shelf holding the stuffed platypus, armed with an ultraviolet torch to test something out. Would the monotreme glow?

“All the platypuses were glowing,” says Travouillon, the mammals curator at the Western Australian Museum in Perth. “We went through with other mammals and we found they were glowing too.”

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‘What’s that Skip?’ Researchers say kangaroos can communicate with people

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Study shows animals with no long history of domestication show patterns of interaction with humans similar to that of dogs or horses

The classic TV show Skippy, about a child speaking with a highly intelligent kangaroo, might not be as fictional as we once thought, according to Australian and UK researchers.

A study from the University of Sydney and the University of Roehampton in London suggests that kangaroos are capable of intentionally communicating with humans, suggesting a higher level of cognitive function than previously thought.

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Scientists baffled by orcas ramming sailing boats near Spain and Portugal

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From the Strait of Gibraltar to Galicia, orcas have been harassing yachts, damaging vessels and injuring crew

Full story: ‘I’ve never seen or heard of attacks’ – scientists baffled by orcas harassing boats

Scientists have been left baffled by incidents of orcas ramming sailing boats along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts.

In the last two months, from southern to northern Spain, sailors have sent distress calls after worrying encounters. Two boats lost part of their rudders, at least one crew member suffered bruising from the impact of the ramming, and several boats sustained serious damage.

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‘Smelly and create great stains’: emus banned from pub in outback Australia town

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Kevin and Carol, friendly emus who wander the town of Yaraka in Queensland, have been barred from the only pub after leaving droppings on the floor and stealing toast

It can’t be easy being an emu in outback Australia at the best of times what with the heat and the perennial droughts.

But to be banned from your local pub for bad behaviour must now be added to the list of grievances inflicted upon the big birds.

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Snake eels burst through the stomach of predators in bid to escape being eaten alive

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Creatures’ attempts are in vain, and as they are unable to burrow through the fish’s ribcage, the eels become trapped in the gut of their captor

It’s no secret that nature can be brutal and violent, but a new Queensland Museum report on the death of some snake eels reads more like the plot of a horror movie than a scientific paper.

Snake eels are a family of eel species that live most of their lives burrowed in the soft sand on the floor of the ocean.

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Why glass frogs have see-through skin becomes clear in study

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While colour of body changes little, legs are more translucent to help amphibians to blend in

The mystery of why glass frogs have see-through skin has been solved, scientists say: the unusual feature is a type of camouflage.

Glass frogs are found in tropical Central and South America, and get their name from their skin.

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