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Angel the red-tailed hawk is leucistic, which is similar to being albino.Almost 2.5 million rad-tailed hawks call North America home, but one of those birds in Tennessee is changing how scientists think, thanks to her survival story. Angel, the red-tailed hawk, is leucistic, similar to being albino. While an albino animal loses all of its pigmentation, a leucistic animal only loses part; both conditions, scientists say, can lower survival rates. “Back in the early 2000s, scientists and conservation biologists would say that leucistic and albino animals cannot exist in the wild.” Window to Wildlife’s Connor O’Brien said. “It would be...

Researchers from Durham University have decoded the meaning of markings found in Ice Age drawings, providing evidence of early writing at least 20,000 years ago.The team were studying cave art, found in at least 400 European caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, which contains a series of lines and dots found alongside drawings of animals...The team has revealed that the lines and dots indicate the mating and birthing seasons of animals. A "Y" sign formed by adding a diverging line to another has also been determined to mean "giving birth".By using the birth cycles of equivalent animals today as...

While the rest of us can’t imagine life without beauty, its absence would certainly make life easier for evolutionists. They will just have to accept their beautiful plight. I don’t often think about evolution, but I recently found myself doing so under the warm, cerulean waters of Sharks Cove on the North Shore of Oahu. I was snorkeling, taking in the tropical fish schooling around me. I thought, how did their diverse and extravagant beauty come to exist? If natural selection is the engine that created the living world, what is the reason behind this opulence? Why does beauty even...

Jon Bates owns Addicted to Fitness, a gym in Naples, Florida. As a personal trainer, he ends his nights by running 3.5 to 4 miles for both mental therapy and as a way to get his workout in. Bates said his friends give him a hard time about being outside in the humidity and heat when he has access to an air-conditioned gym, but he enjoys his outdoor runs, and the chance to sweat in the fresh air. So last Monday, he set out for his usual run, but on a slightly different route. He told Runner’s World he kept...

BARROW, Alaska — Most Alaskans and Canadians have a bear story — tales of fearsome grizzlies, even polar bears. But a mix of the two? They’re known as pizzlies or grolars, and they’re a fusion of the Arctic white bear and their brown cousins. It’s a blend that’s been turning up more and more in parts of Alaska and Western Canada. Last week, a strange-looking bear was shot by a hunter in Nunavut, a remote territory that curves around Canada’s Hudson Bay. Its head was large, like a grizzly’s, but its fur was white. The bear’s genetics were not...

You feel like you’re in romantic purgatory. It’s real. It’s not a hazy paranoia. And it’s not a matter of being too fat or too loud, too timid or too aggressive, too slutty or too frigid. If you’re a single, college-educated woman in Manhattan, the cards of love are stacked in favor of you remaining single—but it has nothing to do with texting a guy too soon or (not) sleeping with someone on a third date. As financial reporter and author of Date-Onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game, Jon Birger puts it, “It’s not that He’s Just not...

It is sometimes necessary for men wanting to attract the opposite sex to come out of their shell. Yet it seems that by often choosing the bolder males, women may be missing out on the best possible mate. Researchers have found that the shyest males actually have the most to offer a potential lover - at least in the world of hermit crabs.

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- A female Malayan tiger at the San Diego Zoo died during mating after the male tiger bit her neck and severely injured her spinal cord, zoo officials said. The two endangered Malayan tigers were involved in the mating process Saturday before guests arrived at the zoo, but it appeared as though the male tiger, Conner became a little too rough with the female, Tiga Tahun, U-T San Diego reported Monday.

Although emasculated spiders can no longer be lovers, they are better fighters, a new study says. In many spider species, males have sex using two appendages known as pedipalps. But males will often lose one or both pedipalps during the act—behavior that might seem like a bad idea evolutionarily, since it renders the male sterile. (Related pictures: "'Torture' Phalluses Give Beetles Breeding Boost.") Scientists have proposed that such genital amputation plugs up a female to help ensure that other males don't successfully impregnate her. To learn more about why male spiders become eunuchs, scientists examined the mating behaviors of the...

(PhysOrg.com) -- The angle we tilt our head can play a significant role in how attractive we are to the opposite sex, according to latest research. The findings, published in the latest edition of Evolutionary Psychology, are the result of joint research by a husband-and-wife team at the University of Newcastle and Macquarie University that investigated whether differences in visual perspective can alter the face’s appeal and attractiveness.

Neanderthals mated with some modern humans after all and left their imprint in the human genome, a team of biologists has reported in the first detailed analysis of the Neanderthal genetic sequence.

When Stephen Fry goes in search of the rare kakapo - "the old night parrot of New Zealand" - he finds himself privy to an unusual mating ritual which is "one of the funniest things he has ever seen".

Scientists discovered that being able to pull off dance floor moves with the ease of John Travolta indicates strength and ability to produce healthy offspring Researchers found that the men who women said looked attractive on the dance floor are actually physically stronger than those who are considered to have two left feet. This in turn indicates an ability to have strong children. Researchers recorded video clips of 40 heterosexual male students dancing to the drum track of the Robbie Williams song Let Me Entertain You. They found those whose moves were rated attractive and assertive by members of the...

For chimps, candy is dandy but steak is quicker Tue Apr 7, 2009 8:06pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Human females may get offended at dates who expect a little something extra after they buy a steak dinner, but for chimpanzees, the exchange may be a fair one, German researchers reported on Tuesday. They found that female chimpanzees mate more frequently with males who often share meat with them. "Our results strongly suggest that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex, and do so on a long-term basis," Cristina Gomes of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany said...

The best women's chess player in the world flipped a dirty diaper into the trash as she pondered her next move after a dominating year. "I want to open a chess academy online, keep training, doing the podcast," South Floridian Alexandra Kosteniuk said during a recent stroll with her baby, Francesca. "But right now, my priority is being a mommy." Kosteniuk, 24, won the Women's World Championship in her homeland of Russia in September. After several months of traveling the globe, Kosteniuk, her husband, Diego Garces, and their 20-month-old daughter are settled back at their home in Key Biscayne, Fla....

Los Angeles, CA – A new study in the journal Personal Relationships reveals that women prefer mates who are recognized by their peers for their skills, abilities, and achievements, while not preferring men who use coercive tactics to subordinate their rivals. Indeed, women found dominance strategies of the latter type to be attractive primarily when men used them in the context of male-male athletic competitions. Jeffrey K. Snyder, Lee A. Kirkpatrick, and H. Clark Barrett conducted three studies with college women at two U.S. universities. Participants evaluated hypothetical potential mates described in written vignettes. The studies were designed to examine...

Which is more important in a mate? Looks Intelligence

Whales choose mates based on singing, Australian research suggests Wed Feb 1, 4:18 AM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - It's long been thought that singing is used by whales to attract mates or repel rivals, but new Australian research indicates the serenades may be the basis on which the females select their sexual partners. University of Queensland researchers said Wednesday that they believe the male's songs are part of an elaborate courtship ritual between humpback whales as they appear to be directed more towards females than to warn off rival males. "The male singers are spending a lot more time singing...

Men who spend big money wining and dining their dates are not frittering away hard-earned cash. According to a pair of UK researchers, they are merely employing the best strategy for getting the girl without being taken for granted. Using mathematical modelling, Peter Sozou and Robert Seymour at University College London, UK, found that wooing girls with costly, but essentially worthless gifts – such as theatre tickets or expensive dinners out – is a winning courtship strategy for both sexes. Females can assess how serious or committed a male plans to be and males can ensure they are not just...

WASHINGTON - Scientists have identified the "come hither" scent that female German cockroaches use to lure males, a discovery that may help control one of the world's most troublesome and resistant household pests. Female cockroaches emit a pheromone, or chemical attractant, to let males know they are ready to mate. Researchers earlier identified the courtship chemicals used by other cockroach species, but the romance scent of the German cockroach remained elusive. "The German cockroach is the one we wanted because it is a worldwide pest that gives all the other cockroaches a bad name," said Wendell L. Roelofs, a Cornell...