Latest Oology Stories

Watch the Video: A Snail Sex Story April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online From egg-laying to hatching, the male marine whelk, Solenosteira macrospira, does all the work – even though few of the babies are his. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have classified S.macrospira as belonging to a small club of reproductive outliers characterized by male-only childcare. Throw in extensive promiscuity and sibling cannibalism, and the species has one of the...

LINCOLN, England, August 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Numerous studies have been conducted into the long-term effects a lack of outdoor play and dissociation from nature can have on children. Those brought up in urban areas are more likely to suffer from high levels of stress, a higher risk of ADHD and decreased motor fitness. Being disconnected from nature may also lead to a lack of understanding of where food comes from which could contribute to poor eating habits and...

A male robin will be more diligent in caring for its young if the eggs its mate lays are a brighter shade of blue. Queen’s University biology professor Bob Montgomerie has been studying robins on and off for 25 years and has a particular fascination with the bright blue color of their eggs. To test a theory on the purpose of bright egg coloration, Dr. Montgomerie and MSc student Philina English, working at the Queen’s University Biological Station (QUBS) and other sites around...

A new study comparing the eggs of various biological species has determined that some types of Easter eggs purchased in the marketplace may actually have been inspired by dinosaurs, not birds. According to an Asian News International (ANI) report, research conducted by paleontologists in Spain and the UK analyzed fossil eggs estimated to be 70 million years old that were discovered in the Pyrenees. Their goal was to determine whether or not the eggs in question had been laid by birds or...

New research reveals how biological arms races between cuckoos and host birds can escalate into a competition between the host evolving new, unique egg patterns (or 'signatures') and the parasite new forgeries.Brood parasitic birds such as cuckoos lay eggs that mimic those of their hosts in an effort to trick them into accepting the alien egg and raising the cuckoo chick as one of their own.New research from the University of Cambridge has found that different bird species parasitized by the...

Most nature lovers know that the more colourful a male fish, reptile, or bird, the more likely it is to attract a female and to have healthy offspring. Females, on the other hand, tend to be drably coloured, perhaps to avoid predators while carrying, incubating, and caring for young.Curiously, the female striped plateau lizard, which lives in the rocky slopes of Arizona's south-eastern mountains, is an exception to this rule in the animal world. Females are more colourful than males "“...

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have discovered that cuckoo eggs are internally incubated by the female bird for up to 24 hours before birth, solving for the first time the mystery as to how a cuckoo chick is able to hatch in advance of a host´s eggs and brutally evict them.Published today (22 September 2010) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B, the research shows that internal incubation allows the cuckoo chick to hatch before its nest mates,...

Eggs from other females can be found in every fifth nestSome female zebra finches foist a part of their eggs on their neighbors. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen discovered that in every fifth nest there is one egg that is not produced by its social parents. The female birds act in a very well-targeted way: eggs are being placed in "foster-care" shortly before the hosts commence their own egg laying (online publication in Animal Behaviour, April...

Gene variation is the reason that some great tit populations are more curious than othersIn 2007, researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology found a gene related to individual variation in exploratory behavior in great tits. Birds with a certain variant of this so-called "dopamine receptor D4 gene" (DRD4 gene) showed stronger novelty seeking and exploration behavior than individuals with other variants. This association was originally tested and found in a lab-raised...

Reptiles are not known to be the most social of creatures. But when it comes to laying eggs, female reptiles can be remarkably communal, often laying their eggs in the nests of other females. New research in the September issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology suggests that this curiously out-of-character behavior is far more common in reptiles than was previously thought.Dr. J. Sean Doody (The Australian National University) and colleagues, Drs. Steve Freedberg and J. Scott Keogh,...