Behavioral Ecology Blog

Aspirin and Sex Video, also here

A man’s sex drive in adulthood could be weakened if his mother took aspirin while pregnant. As this ScieneCentral News video reports, that’s the suggestion of a new study done in rats.

Radio tags track wasp behaviour

To track the wasps, the team fitted the insects with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and placed sensors at the entrance of each nest to record their movements, in real time, in and out of the nests.

5 Komodo dragons born at British zoo

In an evolutionary twist, the newborns’ eight-year-old mother Flora shocked staff at Chester Zoo in northern England when she became pregnant without ever having a male partner or even being exposed to the opposite sex.

“Flora is oblivious to the excitement she has caused but we are delighted to say she is now a mum and dad,” said a delighted Kevin Buley, the zoo’s curator of lower vertebrates and invertebrates.

Study Reveals Who Gets Spanked

Children in homes full of books and educational games are less likely to get spanked, new research shows.

Recent studies have found that corporal punishment can cause significant antisocial behavioral, such as lying, cheating, and hitting, in children as they grow older. So Andrew Grogan-Kaylor of the University of Michigan and his colleague Melanie D. Otis of the University of Kentucky wanted to find out what factors, independent of others, predict whether or not a parent is likely to “spare the rod.”

Rodent sperm work together for better results

Although, sperm are inseminated in millions each sperm goes it alone. However, under some circumstances it might be advantageous for sperm to cooperate with one another. This is especially likely to be the case when females are promiscuous and sperm of one male have to compete against those of rival males.