Latest Terry Ord Stories

One of the world's strangest animals – a unique fish that lives on land and can leap large distances despite having no legs – has a rich and complex social life, a new study has found. The odd lifestyle of the Pacific leaping blenny (Alticus arnoldorum) has been detailed for the first time in research findings that throw new light on how animal life first evolved to colonies the land. The Pacific leaping blenny is a marine fish yet is terrestrial in all aspects of its daily adult...

Male Anole lizards signal ownership of their territory by sitting up on a tree trunk, bobbing their heads up and down and extending a colorful throat pouch.They can spot a rival lizard up to 25 meters away, says National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded biologist Terry Ord of the University of California at Davis. Ord and colleagues published their results this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.The lizards' signals need to be strong enough for a rival to see, but not vivid...