91
votes
Accepted
Do animals exhibit handedness (paw-ness?) preference?
Short Answer
Yes. handedness (or Behavioral Lateralization) has been documented in numerous vertebrates (mammals, reptiles and birds) as well as invertebrates.
This includes domestic cats (see Wells ...
- 28.5k
30
votes
Accepted
Can beavers control the direction a tree falls?
It is difficult to find a scientific answer to this question, but let me insert this citation from a specialist site:
Contrary to popular belief, beaver cannot plan the direction in which trees ...
- 5,650
29
votes
Accepted
Do ants really find the shortest path to a food source?
Short answer
Do ants really find the shortest path to a food source?
No! But they can find a decent path
Longer answer
Optimization algorithms are used to search through a possibility space that ...
- 67.8k
23
votes
Accepted
What is this grasshopper doing?
It's its ovipositor & it's trying to dig a hole to lay its eggs.
"How Do Grasshoppers Dig Holes to Lay Their Eggs? After breeding, female grasshoppers dig a hole in the ground in which to lay ...
- 801
23
votes
Do spiders learn how to build webs?
Spiders’ ability to weave webs is a classic example of an innate or instinctual behavior. They do not learn to make webs.
The earliest English-language scientific publication that I can find to back ...
- 8,206
20
votes
Accepted
Why do humans suffer anxiety when they view "Trypophobia trigger images"?
Trypophobia is not a recognised specific anxiety disorder (Washington Post). It is worth mentioning that anyone can have a phobia to anything, this is merely a question of whether many people ...
- 11.3k
16
votes
Accepted
Identify this giant green moth(?) with great taste?
That appears to be an Oleander Hawk-moth a member of the Sphinx moth family.
I think the only other possibility for Taiwan is the quite similar Jade Hawk-moth, but that supposedly has a dark ...
- 5,513
15
votes
Accepted
Why do flies "rub" their front legs when resting?
Flies rubbing their legs are cleaning themselves. They can also often be seen rubbing their back legs often. Additionally, flies also often clean their wings, compound eyes and bodily bristles. Legs ...
- 51.8k
15
votes
Accepted
Why do we laugh?
Like so much of biology, we just don't know!
I'll preface this answer by disappointing you; this answer doesn't entirely answer your question. That's because this is a pretty big mystery in research ...
- 11.3k
13
votes
Do spiders learn how to build webs?
For many species the mother abandons the eggs after laying them and there is no maternal care (sometimes the mother dies after laying eggs, so really no possibility of maternal care). Paternal care is ...
- 271
12
votes
Accepted
Crow branch pecking behaviour
This is a good question. This type of behavior -- pecking at a branch, wiping the side of the beak on a branch, pulling off twigs and dropping them, or knocking off pieces of bark -- is quite common ...
- 1,771
12
votes
Why do humans suffer anxiety when they view "Trypophobia trigger images"?
As someone who is very disgusted by this kind of image, I think it is a caused by an association with maladies like burns, infections, and especially parasites. It is difficult for me to even describe ...
- 129
12
votes
Do ants really dispose of their own dead, and how/why?
Eating the dead makes far more likely you will catch whatever killed them. They transport and dispose of the dead for the same reasons we do, to reduce disease vectors. They dispose of their garbage ...
- 13.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Why do chameleons move back and forth?
The movement you observed serves two functions:
Imitation of leaves to protect against predators
Improved stereoscopic vision while scanning for their own prey
Imitation of leaves (mimesis)
...
9
votes
Accepted
Are there any animals that gradually approaches the predator to search for food?
The behaviour that you describe is common in most animal species, as part of the natural trade-off between access to food, minimizing risk, habituation and hunger. Animals usually choose to forage in ...
- 16.6k
9
votes
Birds brewing beer?
I think you're observing drinking and food moistening. Since birds have no teeth, food like bread, especially if dry, is easier to consume if it is moistened first.
Drinking from a gutter is ...
- 8,799
9
votes
Accepted
Why do birds legs' not get frostbite?
Birds have a few adaptations and behaviors to keep their legs warm in cold weather:
Blood vessels (veins and arteries) run very close together or are intertwined:
The arteries and veins intertwine ...
- 891
8
votes
What biological functions does crying serve?
Lets break this question into parts and answer them one by one.
Do tears really save us from harm?
Well, yes. Tears, mucus and saliva contain an enzyme lysozyme that breaks down the cell wall of ...
8
votes
Why do some people become more aggressive when tired?
From Poor sleep as a potential causal factor in aggression and violence
In most people poor sleep will not evoke actual physical aggression, but certain individuals, such as forensic psychiatric
...
- 2,603
8
votes
What is the mechanism behind cats' geolocating homing behavior?
It is explained with path integration in behavioral neuroscience. Not only cats, but other mammals, birds and even insects use path integration to return to a starting point.
Here is a relevant ...
- 1,107
7
votes
Accepted
Fire Ant Behavior
They do! It's called necrophoresis, and it's a way of keeping infections from spreading. A paper published in 2009 suggest that ants constantly produce "I'm alive" chemicals while they're alive; once ...
- 1,138
7
votes
Why do people sing?
Nice question, I'll answer it in parts:
Is it necessary for our body?
Well, there can be many perspectives for why humans like singing. Let's talk about the evolutionary perspective first. I found ...
7
votes
Accepted
What are the factors that contribute to genetically identical individuals behaving differently?
Your question has actually more to do with developmental biology and the origin of phenotypic variance in populations than with neuroscience.
Here is a list of factors which variance explain observed ...
- 67.8k
7
votes
Why do fruit flies go so close to large reservoirs of liquid when they are likely to fall in due to surface tension?
Although this is from a popsci article, a biologist says that fruit flies can normally land on liquids and take off from them thereafter:
However, simply leaving a shot glass full of fruit-vinegar ...
- 3,042
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible