Tag animals with down syndrome

On Aug. 21, 2017, a solar eclipse shrouded The Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in Columbia, South Carolina, in near-total darkness for 2½ minutes.

In the time leading up to the darkness, during it, and after, zoo personnel observed and documented the behavior of many of the animals to see if the meteorological event would spark any changes. Oh did it.

Three female gorillas approached the den enclosure entrance as if it was time to go in for the evening, while the one male gorilla became unusually aggressive. The seven giraffes all stopped eating to huddle at the back of their

A nearly 4-metre crocodile which has been “stalking” animals and people in Queensland for almost a month has been captured by wildlife officers.

The crocodile, which some locals nicknamed “Herbie”, lingered around Herbert River stalking domestic and farmed animals, making it a “dangerous animal”, Tony Frisby, a senior wildlife officer said.

“Thankfully the property owner reported the animal.”

The reptile was captured in a trap on the banks of a private property on the Herbert River in Cordelia on Sunday. Separately, a 3-meter crocodile was also caught in a trap in the Ross River, Townsville, less than two hours south.

The idea that male mammals tend to be larger than females has been scientific dogma since Darwin. Bigger bodies, the thinking goes, are better in the battle to win the attention of choosy females.

Turns out, that dogma may need updating.

In just over half of roughly 400 mammal species, females equal, or outweigh, their male counterparts, researchers report March 12 in Nature Communications. The persistence of the larger male narrative, the scientists say, reflects biases in the scientific literature that has existed for over a century and has constrained biologists’ understanding of how sexual selection works.