Smart Shelling

Some bottlenose dolphins have learned to use tools to help them catch fish, a clever technique that may be passed on from mother to calf. 

Scientists in Australia observed the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) chasing fish into empty seashells and carrying it to the surface before tipping the prey into their mouth. A young dolphin calf was also seen copying its mother by picking up a large shell in the same way. 

The behavior, known as shelling, is documented in a paper "Observations of Shelling Behavior and Potential Evidence of Vertical Social Learning by Bottlenose Dolphins in the Great Sandy Marine Park, Queensland Australia" published on August 08, 2026 in the journal Marine Mammal Science. The findings mark the first time evidence of tool use by dolphins was documented in video and suggest it may be more common behavior than previously thought. 

Scientists once believed that relying on tools separated humans from animals but research has shown that that’s not quite true. Chimpanzees use rocks to crack nuts and twigs to fish for termites, elephants use tree branches to swat flies, and crows even build their own tools by bending twigs into a hook shape to catch prey. 

It’s no surprise then that dolphins, being highly intelligent creatures, are no different. Tour guides near Queensland’s Great Sandy Marine Park in Australia have previously reported seeing dolphins engaging in shelling as far back as 2019, but it has so far gone undocumented. 

While studying dolphins on Australia’s east coast, the researchers behind the said study spotted two adult females using seashells as a fishing tool in July and October 2025. 

On July 06, 2025, an adult female dolphin named Stevie Nicks was seen lifting a shell out of the water. The researchers, however, did not see a fish slip out of the shell and could therefore not determine whether the dolphin’s attempt was a successful hunt.  

Later on October 01, 2025, another female, named Maserati, was spotted carrying a baler shell to the surface before a fish escaped out of it. The dolphin dropped the shell and chased after the fish, the researchers are not sure whether it ended up catching it or not. 

Remarkably, Maserati’s young calf, Bentley, was seen mimicking its mother’s behavior just moments after, surfacing with the same shell above the water. The footage shows a possible lizardfish poking out of the shell. Still, the researchers can’t confirm whether the dolphin got a meal out of it. 

Before the recent paper, shelling had previously only been reported in Shark Bay, Western Australia. Documenting the same behavior in Queensland, the researchers were able to show dolphins on opposite sides of Australia learning to use tools in the exact same way. 

This suggests that the same technique was developed by different dolphins independently of one another. Since shelling went undocumented for so many years, the researchers believe it is much more common among dolphins in Australia, as well as other parts of the world. 

Ultimately, these findings underscore how much we still have to learn about the hidden lives of marine mammals. By capturing shelling on video for the first time, researchers have opened a new window into the complex minds of dolphins, proving that their capacity for innovation and cultural transmission mirrors our own more than we ever realized.

Math Behind the Music

Language has long been considered a uniquely human trait, with features that mark it out as distinct from the communication of all other species. 

However, an international research team has uncovered a previously undetected structure in the songs of Bengalese finches (Lonchura striata domestica) that matches the exact statistical patterns found in human speech. 

The findings suggest that some of language's most fundamental building blocks may not be uniquely human after all, but rather a universal feature of learned communication.

Published in Vol. 12, Issue 32 of the journal Science Advances on August 07, 2026, the study "Language-like statistical structure arises in learned signaling: evidence from birdsong" shows that these birds – famous for their complex, learned songs – organize their singing using a mathematical formula known as a Zipfian distribution. By analyzing song data collected from Bengalese finches in Japan, the researchers observed that the songs contained statistically coherent sequences of notes, the avian equivalent of "words." Within these sequences, a few words are used very frequently while others are used rarely. Furthermore, frequently used chunks of syllables tend to be shorter, while less frequently used chunks tend to be longer – a specific pattern known as Zipf's law. 

To understand how this structure develops, the team used methods inspired by how human babies discover words in speech. They collected data across various stages of the birds' development and found that the patterns were already present during their earliest attempts at singing. This suggests that the structures emerge naturally as part of the learning process. 

Young songbirds listen to the sounds around them to unconsciously learn the statistical patterns and organize their songs. This mirrors how human infants figure out where one word ends and the next begins by recognizing which sounds frequently occur together. This statistical process is thought to make language easier to learn, helping infants identify recurring "chunks" of speech within a continuous stream of daily sound.

"We have become used to the idea that language is unique in the natural world", said study co-leader Simon Kirby (left) of the University of Edinburgh. "But by using insights from how babies learn language we've been able to take a closer look at birdsong, and have discovered a surprising commonality between these species separated by more than 300 million years of evolution. Both humans and songbirds pass on their communication through culture, and this is what creates the patterns that language and birdsong share".

This cultural transmission – meaning they learn their communication systems from each other – is a critical piece of the evolutionary puzzle. The team's findings build on their own recent discovery, alongside Ellen Garland from the University of St. Andrews, that humpback whales also rely on a similar systematic structure. 

Together, these discoveries suggest that evolution may repeatedly arrive at the exact same statistical solution whenever complex communication must be learned and passed down across generations. While this does not mean human language isn't special in other ways, it brings science closer to understanding what our speech shares with the rest of nature.

"People often think language is what makes humans unique", noted Inbal Arnon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Our findings suggest that some of the fundamental properties that make language what it is can emerge wherever communication is learned and passed from one generation to the next – and that this happens across evolutionarily distant species: humans, Bengalese Finches, and humpback whales".

For long-time researchers of avian behavior, the discovery opens up entirely new perspectives on familiar subjects. 

"I have studied Bengalese finch song for many years and thought I knew it rather well", added Kazuo Okanoya (right) of Teikyo University, Japan. 

"It was therefore a pleasant surprise to discover, through this international collaboration, that it shares yet another property with whale song and human language".

The Painted Rump

Out on the fringes of Botswana's Okavango Delta, several hundred cattle once wandered around with enormous eyes painted on their backsides, and not one of them got eaten by a lion. 

That is a literal accounting, not a gag. Across four field seasons between 2015 and 2018, a team near the village of Shorobe in the northern part of the country painted 683 cattle with big two-tone eyespots on the rump, gave 543 more a simple cross, and left 835 alone. 

Lions and leopards killed 15 of the unmarked animals and four of the cross-marked ones. Eyespot cattle killed: none. 

Cameron Radford, Neil Jordan and their colleagues published the tally in Communications Biology – "Artificial eyespots on cattle reduce predation by large carnivores" (2020), and it remains one of the stranger results in livestock protection. 

Jordan got the idea, watching a hunt collapse. He was in Botswana, a lion was stalking an impala, and the impala looked up at the wrong moment for the lion. 

“Lions are ambush hunters, so they creep up on their prey”, he told UNSW’s newsroom. Once the cat clocked that it had been seen, it quit. Behavioural ecologists call this pursuit deterrence, and it turns up everywhere. 

Brown hares stand up and face approaching foxes. Guppies that swim over and inspect a predator get attacked less often than the ones that stay put. Butterflies carry fake eyes on their wings for the same reason. 

No living mammal has evolved eyespots, which is presumably why nobody had thought to bolt them onto a cow. Fourteen herds took part, from six animals to 110, all belonging to farmers who had recently lost stock. Cattle there are penned overnight where possible, then graze unattended across the bush all day, and that is where most of the trouble happens. 

Painting happened at dawn as the animals filed through the crush, with acrylic paint and foam stencils glued to a plasterer’s float. Marks stayed sharp for roughly 24 days, so the crew returned monthly and redid them, 49 sessions all up. Annual spending on paint and supplies came to about a fifth of the price of one cow. 

A sceptic would object that the painted cattle simply got lucky, or stayed closer to home. So the researchers fitted GPS loggers to animals from all three groups. No meaningful difference in nights spent outside the enclosure, none in how far they roamed. 

Here is where the tidy story wobbles. Cattle wearing a plain painted cross also survived better than their unmarked herdmates, which is not what a pure eye-recognition effect predicts. 

Jordan flagged it as a genuine surprise in UNSW Sydney’s summary of the findings, noting that “novel cross-marks were better than no marks at all, which was unexpected”. 

Two explanations survive. Lions may be reading the eyes as a face turned towards them, or they may simply be wary of any bold, unfamiliar pattern on something they were planning to eat. The paper treats both as live options and rules out two rivals: that the marks divert attacks to other parts of the body, or that they mimic another predator. 

Anyone inclined to feel superior to the lions should know it works on humans too. Researchers at Newcastle University mounted signs featuring a pair of staring eyes above bicycle racks that had been suffering repeat thefts, and reported in PLOS ONE, "Cycle Thieves, We Are Watching You’: Impact of a Simple Signage Intervention against Bicycle Theft", Nettle D, Nott K, Bateson M (2012), that thefts at those racks fell by 62 percent. Thefts elsewhere on campus went up by 65 percent. 

The eyes did not abolish the behaviour. They relocated it. Which is precisely the uncomfortable question hanging over the cattle. Only about a third of each herd carried eyespots. Lions always had unpainted alternatives standing right there, and Jordan conceded in 2020 that he did not know whether the trick would hold once those easier targets were gone. 

Painting every animal in a herd has not been tested. Nor has the wet season, when the crew stayed out of the field and predators turn to livestock as wild prey disperses. 

Nineteen predation events are a thin base for a strong claim, in one landscape, with one set of predators. Eighteen of those kills were lions. A spotted hyaena took one animal from each group, which fits the theory rather than dents it, because hyaenas chase prey down instead of ambushing it and lose nothing by being seen early. 

One paper is one paper. The farmers themselves were not immediately convinced. 

“At first they thought it was a joke”, Radford told Atlas Obscura, before adding that they became glad to see the crew arrive. He also mentioned something more telling: informal copies had already started for leopards in India, jaguars in South America and predators in Nepal, back in 2020. No replication on the same scale has landed since. 

Cheap ideas travel faster than the evidence for them, and a bucket of acrylic paint travels faster than most. 

For the Botswana livestock, the lesson was clear: you don’t need to outrun the lion, and you don’t even need to outsmart it – you just have to stand there, look ridiculous, and let your unpainted herdmates do the dying for you! 😜

Mind the Gap: Why British Flies Can't Stick the Zebra Landing

I came across more research on the subject of zebra stripes. [Refer to my blog post "No Fly Zone: Why Zebras Wear PJs" published Wednesday]. 

A February 20, 2019 PLOS ONE study "Benefits of zebra stripes: Behaviour of tabanid flies around zebras and horses" by Tim Caro, Yvette Argueta, Emmanuelle Sophie Briolat, et al found that zebra stripes disrupt the landing and biting behavior of tabanid flies (Family name: Tabanidae), serving as a natural defense. The research indicates this visual confusion reduces harmful pest bites, providing a significant evolutionary advantage. 

Researchers from the University of Bristol and UC Davis, USA, spent time on a horse farm in Britain where they investigated the behaviours of tabanid horse flies around captive plains zebras and uniformly coloured domestic horses using video analysis techniques.

They discovered that the stripes don’t deter horse flies from a distance, with both zebras and domestic horses experiencing the same rate of circling from the flies. However, video analyses revealed differences in approach speed, with horse flies failing to slow down on approach to zebras, which is essential for a successful landing. 

Professor Tim Caro, Honorary Research Fellow from the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, said: “Horseflies just seem to fly over zebra stripes or bump into them, but this didn’t happen with horses. Consequently, far fewer successful landings were experienced by zebras compared to horses”. 

Dr Martin How, Royal Society University Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences, added: “This reduced ability to land on the zebra’s coat may be due to stripes disrupting the visual system of the horse flies during their final moments of approach. Stripes may dazzle flies in some way once they are close enough to see them with their low-resolution eyes”. 

To make sure that the effect was not caused by the difference in smell between zebras and horses, the scientists placed different coloured cloth coats – black, white or zebra-striped – over the horses to observe horse fly behaviour. Just as before, when horses wore coats with striped patterns, they experienced fewer horse fly landings compared to when they wore single-colour coats. 

The research also directly observed zebra and horse behaviour in response to biting flies. Zebras exhibited preventative behaviour, such as running away and tail swishing at a far higher rate than horses. Consequently, any horse flies that did successfully land on zebras spent less time there compared to those landing on horses, with few staying long enough to probe for a blood meal. 

In Africa, horse flies carry dangerous debilitating diseases such as trypanosomiasis and African horse sickness, which cause wasting and often death. Therefore, it is unsurprising that zebras utilise both behavioural defences and morphological striping to avoid horseflies. 

The scientists did acknowledge that the latest experiment was carried out in Somerset rather than around the biting flies of Africa, and other limitations included that the path of the flies could only be seen in two dimensions from video recordings and that the horse coats were made of different materials. 

However, this research provides new evidence for the theory that zebras evolved dichromatic striped coats to evade biting flies and has considerable implications for the horse industry.

Zoo-housed Lions Show Wild-style Behaviours When Fed Whole Carcasses

An Australian study "Effects of implementing a whole-carcass feeding routine on the behaviour of zoo-housed African lions (Panthera leo)" published August 2026 has found that feeding zoo-housed lions whole-animal carcasses on a feast-and-fast schedule encourages behaviours more closely aligned with those seen in the wild. 

The research from Adelaide University and Monarto Safari Park in South Australia released in ⁠Applied Animal Behaviour Science examined how African lions responded when animal care staff introduced whole-animal carcasses every nine days, building on an existing feast-and-fast feeding routine for a group of adult males. 

Using around-the-clock video monitoring over three months, researchers found the lions spent significantly longer feeding, rested more after meals and displayed activity patterns that mirrored the natural cycles of wild lions. 

Lead author Lesia Hryhorenko from Adelaide University's School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences said the study offers new insights into how feeding schedules influence the behavior of carnivores in human care. 

"Wild lions don't eat at the same time every day. They experience natural periods of feasting and fasting depending on hunting success", Hryhorenko said. "We wanted to understand how African lions in human care respond when feeding routines more closely resemble those natural patterns". 

The researchers monitored three adult male lions at Monarto Safari Park before and after the introduction of whole-carcass feeding. During the experimental phase, zookeepers fed the three adult male lions approximately 200 kilograms (441 pounds) of carcasses, which remained available for up to three days, followed by a period of rest and digestion. 

Eight infrared cameras recorded the lions' behavior continuously, creating one of the most detailed 24-hour data sets yet collected on African lions in human care under a carcass-feeding regime. 

The study found that feeding activity increased dramatically on carcass days, with lions spending almost three times longer feeding than they normally would. 

Feeding bouts were also more frequent and lasted longer as the animals tore, manipulated and consumed the carcasses, exhibiting a wider range of natural feeding behaviors. After feeding, the lions spent much more time lying down and resting. As the fasting period progressed, movement gradually increased again, creating a behavioral rhythm that closely resembled the feast-and-fast cycles observed in wild lion populations. 

"Providing whole carcasses changes much more than the nutritional content of the diet", Hryhorenko said. "It gives lions the opportunity to engage in behaviors such as tearing, pulling and manipulating food over extended periods, which are important components of their natural feeding ecology". 

Researchers also examined pacing, a repetitive behavior often associated with anticipation in carnivores in human care. While pacing increased slightly over the course of the study, it did not steadily rise during fasting periods. Instead, peaks occurred around routine keeper arrival and habitat-shifting times, suggesting the behavior was linked more closely to predictable feeding routines than hunger. 

The researchers observed no increase in aggression or social instability around carcass-feeding events. 

Co-author Alexandra Whittaker, an associate professor, said the study highlights the value of long-term, continuous monitoring when assessing animal behavior and management practices. 

"Many zoo studies focus only on what happens immediately after food is provided", Whittaker said. "Our results show that feeding schedules can influence behavior for days afterward, making it essential to look at behavioral patterns across the entire feeding cycle rather than a single feeding event". 

The researchers say future studies combining behavioral observations with physiological measures could help further evaluate how different feeding regimes affect animal welfare and well-being.

Butterflies On The Move

Around the world, ongoing environmental changes are prompting many butterfly species to relocate and search for new homes, a process referred to as species range shifts or species redistribution. 

As temperatures, rainfall and habitats change, butterflies can relocate over long distances, or even move vertically up and down mountain ranges. 

A new global study found one in ten known butterfly species has already shifted in range. So, where are they going – and why? 

Data from a collection of more than 6,180 reports (565 studies and 68 expert assessments) of butterfly range shift and which covered 1,758 species across 105 countries, showed 80% of the documented butterfly species had expanded their ranges latitudinally, meaning east to west, or longitudinally, meaning north to south. It found that 27% had reduced their range and 22% had shifted up or down slopes on hills or mountains. 

Many species showed a combination of these range changes. The public narrative is often simplistic: as the world warms, species are shifting towards cooler temperatures at higher latitudes, or moving upwards in mountains. This is happening, but it is only one piece of the puzzle. 

In fact, butterflies need more than to find new homes at the right temperature. Caterpillars often depend on specific host plants; adults need nectar, shelter and safe places to breed; and populations also require connected habitats so individuals can move easily through the landscape, meet, reproduce and breed. 

Some species show how fast changes can happen. The tawny coster (Acraea terpsicore) native to the Indian subcontinent, primarily centered in India and Sri Lanka, has expanded through Southeast Asia and into Australia. In Brazil, Godartiana byses has expanded from Rio de Janeiro and Bahia into São Paulo, a shift linked to climate warming. 

Other species show the opposite pattern. The small blue (Cupido minimus) has lost 40% of its habitat in the United Kingdom over the past 150 years. In Germany, the cranberry fritillary (Boloria aquilonaris) has lost much of its original habitat because of bog drainage. In Romania, an increase in farming has been linked to a severe range contraction of the danube clouded yellow (Colias myrmidone). 

Even range shifts along mountain slopes are not always straightforward. In Mexico, the painted lady (Vanessa cardui) shifted upslope at a rate of about 83 metres per year between 1988 and 2011. Over the same period, the queen butterfly (Danaus gilippus) shifted downslope at a rate of about 32m per year. 

Together, these examples show butterfly species range shifts are not simply a story of animals moving towards the poles. 

In the comprehensive study, climate change and extreme weather events were the most common reasons why butterflies shifted their range. 

But climate change is not the only factor. Agriculture, forestry, urban development and habitat destruction are also reshaping where butterflies can live and reproduce. These disturbances destroy host plants and breeding sites, and fragment large habitats into patches too small to sustain a healthy population. 

It is important to note that butterflies are part of the living fabric around us. Adult butterflies contribute to pollination. Caterpillars feed birds, spiders and other insects. When butterflies disappear, it can signal the plants, grasslands or woodlands once visited by butterflies are also changing. 

This matters for conservation. Many protected areas are based on maps of where species lived in the past. But if butterflies and other species are moving, those maps quickly become outdated. 

The message is simple. Conservation cannot only protect habitats where species once lived – it must include the places where they will relocate, and the wildlife corridors they will use to get there. If not, we may keep protecting yesterday’s nature while tomorrow’s nature has nowhere left to go.

No Fly Zone: Why Zebras Wear PJs

For most of the history of evolutionary biology, nobody has really known why zebras have stripes. 

This is not for lack of trying. The specific pattern is one of the most obviously puzzling features of any mammal on Earth – vivid, symmetrical, apparently costly to maintain, and completely useless for the sort of things stripes usually do in nature. 

Camouflage, the most intuitive explanation, doesn't work. As are the other explanations. Thermoregulation. Social recognition. Confusing predators during the chase. One by one, most of these suppositions have quietly collapsed. 

But one long-standing scientific hypothesis moved closer to confirmation, thanks to a unique experiment in Japan, conducted at the Aichi Agricultural Research Center in Nagakute City, Aichi Prefecture in the Chubu region of central Japan. Published on October 03, 2019, in PLOS ONE, the study "Cows painted with zebra-like striping can avoid biting fly attack" by Tomoki Kojima, Kazato Oishi, Yasushi Matsubara, et al demonstrates that painting black-and-white stripes on cattle significantly reduces biting fly attacks. 

Six Japanese Black cows* (Kuroge Washu) – a breed that is naturally uniformly dark – were assigned to three treatments using a Latin-square rotation: painted with black-and-white zebra stripes, painted with black-only stripes (to control for any effect of the paint itself), or left unpainted. 

[*Fun fact: These bovines make up over 90% of all ⁠Wagyu produced in Japan].

The cows spent time in each treatment on natural pasture where biting flies were abundant. Researchers photographed the animals at regular intervals and counted the number of flies visible on their bodies in each image. The results were direct. Cows in the zebra-stripe condition attracted approximately half as many biting flies as the same animals when unpainted or when painted with black-only stripes. 

The cows also showed substantially fewer fly-repelling behaviours – the head throws, ear beats, leg stamps, skin twitches, and tail flicks that cattle use to shake off biting insects. They were, measurably, being bothered less. 

The specific paint pattern did the work. The stripes were doing something. The current best explanation for the effect involves the specific visual mechanics of how biting flies land. 

Flies do not simply fly straight at a target. In the final approach, they rely on optical flow – the way visual patterns move across their compound eyes as they close in – to judge distance, speed, and the precise moment to slow down for landing. 

Uniform surfaces produce smooth optical flow. Striped surfaces produce something the fly’s visual system cannot interpret cleanly. The alternating light and dark bands create false movement signals, disrupting the fly’s ability to gauge how close it actually is to the surface. The result is that flies approach striped surfaces at the wrong speed, often overshooting or bumping off without properly landing. 

Over the course of an afternoon in a fly-heavy pasture, this small optical mismatch adds up to a substantial reduction in successful landings. None of this requires the fly to be repelled by the stripes in any active sense. It just requires the stripes to make landing physically harder. 

The insect-deterrent theory has taken decades to reach its current standing, because it has spent most of that time competing with three other serious explanations that biologists once found more plausible.

Why Other Theories Failed

• Camouflage against savanna vegetation fails because zebras stand out clearly to lions and hyenas at hunting distances instead of blending in.
• Thermoregulation: Tests on striped metal barrels showed no cooling effect from the pattern. 
• Social recognition does not offer a plausible evolutionary reason for zebra stripes because other closely related, highly social African equids (like wild donkeys and horses) recognize each other perfectly well without any stripes at all. 
• Predator confusion: Moving stripes offer only a minor distraction to large predators during a chase.

Nature solved pest control millions of years ago, not with chemicals, but with a simple optical illusion. It turns out that fashion-forward thinking is the ultimate shield against the animal kingdom's tiniest nuisances.

Franken-fish Invade the Philippines

Escaped ornamental aquarium fish have integrated into a local ecosystem in the Philippines, but scientists say they may be threatening the native biodiversity of the lake. 

Flowerhorn cichlids – human-bred hybrid fish prized for their brilliant and highly variable colours, typically displaying vibrant shades of red, orange, and gold, overlaid with metallic blue, green, and white "pearl" scales and prominent head humps – are believed to have escaped from breeding facilities into Lake Sampaloc, which sits in a volcanic crater in Laguna on the island of Luzon, during a typhoon.

[Note: Flowerhorn cichlids do not have an official scientific name. They are man-made hybrids. They were first bred in Malaysia in the 1990s. Breeders mixed several Central American cichlids. The primary ancestor is the Three-Spot Cichlid (Amphilophus trimaculatus). Other ancestors include the Red Devil (Amphilophus labiatus) and the Midas Cichlid (Amphilophus citrinellus). Because they are crossed like dogs of mixed breeds, they are simply listed as Amphilophus hybrid or named by their specific variety (like Kamfa or Thai Silk). Like a mutt dog, a flowerhorn is a mix. It does not exist in the wild naturally]. 

FYI, there is a variety of freshwater fish such as catfish, mudfish, tilapia, shrimp, ayungin, dulong and also snails. There are also many fish ponds here, which are one of the sources of income for the inhabitants of San Pablo City, Laguna, where they breed many different types of tilapia and shrimp. 

Research by Hannah Nicole C Gasmen and Dr Janice A Ragaza of Ateneo de Manila University has found that flowerhorns are being incorporated into the existing aquaculture system because, like tilapia, they can survive difficult conditions. Flowerhorns that have established wild populations and entered tilapia cages are sometimes kept and sold into the ornamental trade, while some local people stock them intentionally. 

The research, however, suggests that intentional stocking and sale could expand an already established invasive population. 

The 104-hectare (260-acre) Lake Sampaloc is already strained by sewage, household runoff, aquaculture nutrients and plastic waste, making it especially vulnerable to invasive species. Flowerhorns thrive in its eutrophic, polluted waters and compete for food, shelter and breeding grounds. 

The native ayungin, or silver perch (Leiopotherapon plumbeus), once a common catch, has become progressively rare and has even been classified as endangered by the IUCN. 

“Human-degraded habitats are generally the most vulnerable to invasion, and they are typically invaded by generalist species”, said Rupert Collins, a senior curator of fish at London’s Natural History Museum. “Cichlids are particularly successful in adapting. They are a textbook example of how new phenotypes can arise very quickly”. 

Concerns were also raised about potential parasites. Some flowerhorns in captivity have been found carrying Paracapillaria philippinensis, a roundworm capable of infecting humans. Some people have been observed fishing for flowerhorns recreationally and incorporating them into their cooking. The parasite has not been found in Lake Sampaloc’s flowerhorns, but the researchers advise against promoting the fish for human consumption. 

Dr Noël Juvigny-Khenafou, a lecturer in aquatic environmental science at the University of Stirling who was not involved in the research, noted that climate change may also intensify the problem. 

“Climate change may alter where aquaculture takes place and what species people are able to raise”, he said. “That could mean production shifting between regions and more non-native species being introduced into new places”. 

He said the research raised interesting questions: “What does that mean for the native species? What does that mean for the function of the ecosystem? Is the introduced species leading the ecosystem towards collapse, or is it simply becoming part of a new ecological community?” 

The researchers proposed long-term solutions including stronger pens, finer mesh, overflow barriers, routine inspections and community-led monitoring. They also suggest that invasive fish could be harvested for use in aquafeed, subject to screening for pathogens, heavy metals and microplastics. 

“Protecting and sustaining our aquatic ecosystems requires a collaborative approach among communities, research institutions and policymakers”, advised Gasmen.

The Environmental Havoc a Pet Goldfish Can Cause

Having a pet goldfish is all fun and games until you release it into the wild. 

There, the species (Carassius auratus) becomes an invasive pest, growing as large as 18 inches and living up to 30 years while devastating the ecosystem.

Scientists now have some of the best experimental evidence yet that releasing one into a local pond or lake can trigger a chain of ecological damage that’s difficult and costly to undo. 

According to a peer-reviewed study "Invasive goldfish trigger a regime shift in experimental lake ecosystems of varying trophic state" published April 27, 2026 in the Journal of Animal Ecology by researchers at the University of Toledo and the University of Missouri, goldfish, one of the most commonly kept pets in the world, once they enter the wild, can alter freshwater lakes, harming native species and degrading water quality across the board. 

Most people who release a pet goldfish into a nearby pond or stream think they are giving it its freedom. But that decision can cause serious ecological harm. Once in open water, goldfish do not remain small; they grow quickly, stir up lake sediment, consume large amounts of prey, and outcompete native fish for food and resources. 

"It is critically important to inform the public that their pets can become pests that will harm freshwater ecosystems. Releasing a goldfish into the wild might be seen as an act of kindness, but it can turn into a major ecological threat", said Dr. William Hintz (right), the study's principal investigator and associate professor in the University of Toledo's Department of Environmental Sciences and Lake Erie Center. 

To test the effects of goldfish, researchers built large experimental lake systems outdoors to simulate real conditions. Goldfish were introduced into two types of environments, nutrient-poor (oligotrophic) and nutrient-rich (eutrophic) waters, and tracked over time. The damage was quick and extensive. 

And they found that water clarity dropped almost instantly in nutrient-rich conditions as goldfish stirred up sediment from the lake bottom. Populations of snails, amphipods, and zooplankton the small invertebrates that are the base of healthy aquatic food webs crashed through direct consumption and habitat destruction. Native fish exhibited declining body condition, an early warning indicator of long-term population health. 

In invaded systems, researchers documented a "regime shift", the ecological term for a tipping point at which an ecosystem rapidly reorganizes into a fundamentally different, degraded state, and one that is notoriously difficult and expensive to reverse, the study finds. 

"If goldfish are released into the wild, they rapidly grow into very large fish that stir up lake sediments, consume large numbers of prey and compete with native fish", said Rick Relyea, professor at the University of Missouri and director of Mizzou's Johnny Morris Institute of Fisheries, Wetlands and Aquatic Systems, and co-author of the study. 

Already, the Ecological Risk Screening Summary for the US Fish and Wildlife Service (2017) identified goldfish as a species with a “high” history of invasiveness and with established non-native populations across much of the contiguous United States.

For sure, a pet goldfish requires a lot more responsibility than it might seem! 

Yeast Found in Gut Turned Into Very Good Sourdough

Even after his death in the Alps, a famous frozen mummy is still helping scientists make new discoveries − and even bake fresh bread. 

Researchers studying Ötzi the Iceman have identified living, cold-adapted yeast inside and around his preserved body and used one strain to bake sourdough bread, according to a study published June 03, 2026 in the journal Microbiome. 

The findings offer a rare glimpse into ancient human life and the microscopic organisms that have survived alongside the mummy for thousands of years. Scientists say the research also raises new questions about how best to preserve one of the world's most famous archaeological discoveries. 

"Our study reveals that Ötzi is not a static, biologically inert relic", lead author Mohamed Sarhan (right) of Italy's Eurac Research Institute told Reuters. "He is a dynamic ecosystem". 

Ötzi died roughly 5,300 years ago in the Alps near what is now the border of Italy and Austria. Research found he was probably killed by an arrow and was left preserved in glacial ice until hikers discovered his body in 1991. 

Today, the mummy is kept at minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit) in a special chamber at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Italy. The conditions closely match the icy environment that naturally preserved his remains for millennia. 

Scientists analyzed samples from Ötzi's skin, tissues and water collected from inside the mummy, according to Scientific American. They found evidence of ancient gut bacteria that helped digest food during his lifetime, along with yeasts that appear to have colonized the body shortly after his death. 

The study found several types of bacteria linked to high-fiber, pre-industrial diets. Some of these microbes still exist in modern humans, while others have become extremely rare, Reuters reported. 

Researchers said the findings support earlier studies showing Ötzi's diet included wild meat and cereals. According to Sarhan, some of the gut microbes found in the mummy are now seen mostly in non-industrialized populations, offering a snapshot of what the human microbiome looked like before processed foods, antibiotics and modern living changed it. 

The researchers were particularly surprised to find living, cold-adapted yeast. After reproducing the yeast in laboratory conditions, they used it to make sourdough bread. Sarhan told AFP that after several months of experimentation, the result was a "very, very good sourdough". 

The discovery may have implications beyond baking. Scientists found that some yeast species capable of breaking down phenol, a chemical used to disinfect the mummy after its discovery, have increased over time despite the freezing temperatures. Researchers say the finding could help improve preservation efforts for Ötzi and other frozen remains. 

"The main motivation of this study was the microbiological conservation of the mummy", Sarhan told Scientific American. "We wanted to understand whether the current conditions of the preservation are good enough". 

For now, the research suggests Ötzi remains more than a window into the distant past. Even after five millennia, scientists say, his body continues to reveal new secrets.

AI is Eroding Critical Thinking at Work

Most leaders believe their teams are using Artificial Intelligence as a tool. 

The research suggests something more consequential is happening. Workers are not just using AI to work faster. They are letting it decide, and in doing so, quietly ceding the human reasoning that determines whether those decisions are any good. 

A January 2026 paper from the Wharton School, "Thinking – Fast, Slow, and Artificial" (published February 02, 2026), introduced a term for what is now documented and measurable. Researchers Steven D Shaw and Gideon Nave call it cognitive surrender. 

They define it as adopting AI outputs with minimal scrutiny, thereby overriding both intuition and deliberation. Their framework extends Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman's model of fast intuitive thinking and slow deliberate thinking by introducing a third system: artificial cognition that operates entirely outside the brain. That third system, they argue, can supplement or supplant human reasoning. When it supplants it, AI stops being a thinking partner and starts being the decision-maker. 

The performance implications are direct. When workers in the study consulted an AI that was correct, their accuracy rose significantly above what they achieved on their own. When the AI was wrong, their accuracy fell well below the baseline of people who had no AI access at all. The problem is that workers had no reliable way to detect the difference. They accepted incorrect AI answers 80% of the time. Their confidence rose either way, whether the AI had helped them or led them astray. 

This dynamic is particularly consequential with the large language models now embedded in most workplace tools. LLMs do not retrieve facts. They generate plausible-sounding responses based on patterns in training data, without access to an organization's specific context, strategy, institutional knowledge, or the domain expertise of the person using them. They do not flag uncertainty. They speak with consistent confidence regardless of accuracy. 

Getting strong output from an LLM requires a skilled human on the other end: one who validates what it produces, identifies what it missed, expands the ideation beyond the initial response, and applies judgment to decide. Cognitive surrender eliminates every one of those steps. 

A Microsoft Research study "The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking" by Hao-Ping (Hank) Lee, Advait Sarkar, Lev Tankelevitch, et al, CHI '25, April 26-May 01, 2025, Yokohama, Japan, found that confidence in AI was among the strongest predictors of whether knowledge workers engaged in critical thinking at all. The higher the trust in the tool, the less scrutiny is applied to what it returned. 

As researchers noted in that same study, there is a fundamental irony at the center of automation: when routine cognitive tasks are mechanized and handed to an external system, the human is deprived of the routine practice that builds and sustains judgment. The reps disappear. And so, over time, does the muscle. 

And a McKinsey "State of Organizations 2026” report, published in February, found that only 23% of organizations qualify as AI Pioneers, those actively deploying AI across most departments and functions with a clear understanding of how it will reshape their work. The vast majority are still experimenting, running isolated pilots, or deploying AI in piecemeal ways that have yet to generate measurable enterprise-wide impact. 

That gap is the opportunity. Cognitive surrender is not yet the organizational norm. Supplementing human reasoning rather than supplanting it is still a choice leaders can architect into how AI gets deployed. The window to make that choice intentionally, before passive AI reliance becomes the default operating culture, is shorter than most leaders assume. 

The structural interventions the research points to are specific. Leaders who build these practices into how AI gets deployed now safeguard their organizations from a culture where AI supplants human reasoning rather than supports it, and from the performance costs that follow. 

• Build verification steps into AI workflows before employees read the output, not after. Once a confident-sounding response has been read, the cognitive tendency to accept it is already in motion. 
• Require employees to evaluate counter-arguments and alternative perspectives before concluding. Prompting for what the AI missed keeps human judgment actively in the process. 
• Build a culture of intellectual accountability in which employees are expected to interrogate AI output rather than relay it. 

The Wharton researchers found that workers with stronger confidence in their own expertise engaged in more critical thinking even when using AI, because they had a personal stake in the quality of the output.

That ownership does not emerge on its own. It has to be built into how leaders set expectations and design the work. The organizations that will extract the most from AI are not the ones deploying it most aggressively. They are the ones deploying it most intentionally, treating AI as an amplifier of human judgment rather than a replacement for it, and actively protecting the reasoning capacity that makes that amplification possible.  

Graffiti-ed Sea Turtles

Every year, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration track green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) migration. 

During nesting season, these turtles swim up to 1,200 miles to find a place to lay their eggs, often ending up on the French Frigate Shoals, an atoll in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. 

Nesting season is particularly important for these endangered marine reptiles, as it could support species recovery and conservation – but only if they are protected and safe to reproduce. So, NOAA biologists conduct field research and surveys in these areas to track turtle populations year over year. 

To do this, they carefully etch letters and numbers into the shells of these turtles using a dremel tool “similar to those used by nail technicians”, NOAA explain. 

“Using the clean, dremeled area as a guide, they apply non-toxic paint to the turtles’ shells to make it visible from afar”, an explainer from the agency continues. “The etch indicates where the turtle was found. This is a painless process, and many turtles actually sleep through it!” 

Though this process has been in place for decades, in 2017, some concerned citizens assumed these markings to be graffiti tags drawn onto the sea turtles. They began to report the etchings, and it ultimately inspired NOAA to start the Honu Count. 

FYI, the Honu Count (named after the Hawaiian word for green sea turtles), encourages locals to document any sightings of turtles with white alpha-numeric etching on the right side of their shells. This helps biologists understand the foraging habitats, migration, distribution, and survival status of these turtles. 

To participate, locals simply look for the turtles with etchings, keep a respectful distance while taking a photo on land or in water, record the date, time, and location of the sighting, and upload the information to the Honu Count Sighting Survey. 

Since the beginning of the Honu Count in 2017, nearly 600 people have reported 688 sightings of 253 individual turtles, according to NOAA. 

And it’s made a real difference. 

Brittany Clemans, a wildlife biologist who spent six months tracking these turtles in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, has published a new study using the crowdsourced data of the Honu Count to inform the boundaries of protected habitat for the species. 

“The data that was submitted by the community of our honu helped us essentially determine these important foraging sites, so we were able to really get the density of certain places that the majority of honu were frequenting”, Clemans told Hawai’i Public Radio. 

Her research helps determine where critical habitats are for the honu, making it that much easier for NOAA and other environmental officials to determine what areas are most in need of support to ensure the turtles’ survival. Plus, it builds trust between the science community and the general public. 

“It's important for the community to know that they are having a really positive impact on increasing this data set, which helps us understand this species more”, Clemans added. 

“This species is part of Hawaiʻi and part of the ocean as a whole, and I think it's also very important for people to just be excited and ask questions”.

Monkeys Eat Soil to Settle Upset Stomachs

Troops of Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) living on Gibraltar – the only free-ranging monkey population in Europe – have been scientifically observed for the first time regularly engaging in "geophagy", the practice of intentionally ingesting soil to settle their stomachs from all the junk food they consume. 

Scientists believe the dirt helps the monkeys line the gut to stop irritation from foods which are "extremely rich in calories, sugar, salt and dairy". 

The soil also provides bacteria and minerals missing from junk food. The snacks have negative digestive effects for the macaques and can cause symptoms from nausea to diarrhoea, but the food is "as delicious for them" as it is for humans, according to the Cambridge University study. 

Observations between summer 2022 and spring 2024 found that nearly a fifth of all food consumed by the macaques was junk food from tourists. Macaques that lived on the Rock of Gibraltar, which is particularly popular with tourists, were more than twice as likely to eat junk food than others. They also consumed the most soil. 

Dr Sylvain Lemoine (left), a biological anthropologist from Cambridge's Department of Archaeology, said the monkeys were fed junk food by locals as well as visiting tourists, who have offered salted peanuts, chocolate bars, crisps, dried pasta, bread, Coca-Cola, orange juice, M&M’s, ice-cream and more. “There’s a lot of ice-cream. They love Magnums and Cornettos. What they don’t like very much is sorbet”. 

In total, the researchers recorded 44 monkeys eating dirt on 46 occasions. In three instances, the macaques ate soil shortly after being fed ice-cream, biscuits or bread. When visitor numbers fell in the winter, the monkeys were 40% less likely to eat tourist food and more than 30% less likely to eat soil. 

Writing in Scientific Reports, Vol. 16, Article number: 13139 (2026), "Geophagy in Gibraltar Barbary macaques is a primate tradition anthropogenically induced", the researchers describe how the monkeys appear to learn the habit from others, with macaques favouring different types of soil depending on their troop. Most monkeys search out the terra rossa, or red clay, found across Gibraltar, but the Ape’s Den troop, which occupies the lower western slopes, favours tar-clogged soil from potholes in asphalt roads. 

Humans around the world eat soil, particularly pregnant women in parts of Africa, Asia and South America, where it is consumed to help with nausea or to provide critical minerals. But the researchers saw no rise in soil-eating among pregnant or lactating monkeys, suggesting the behaviour is not driven by a need to supplement their diets.

And, Lemoine added that the macaques seemed to eat the soil to “buffer their digestive system” against high-energy, low-fibre snacks and junk foods that are known to cause stomach upsets in some primates. 

Tourists are told not to touch or feed the monkeys on Gibraltar, but the rule is not well enforced. While the junk food may be harmful to the macaques, so might the soil, as much of it is found close to busy roads on the rock. “There are a lot of vehicles passing every day, and most are not electric yet”, Lemoine said. “We want to analyse the soil. We’re very interested in seeing the levels of pollutants”. 

The junk diet was "completely unlike" foods normally eaten by the species, such as herbs, leaves, seeds and the occasional insect – with the behaviour being "driven entirely by proximity to humans". 

Lemoine posited: "Humans evolved to seek out and store energy-dense fats and sugars to survive periods of scarcity, leading us to crave high-calorie junk food. Availability of human junk food could trigger this same evolutionary mechanism in macaques".

Orangutans Take Naps Too

Orangutans have been found to nap during the day to make up for lost sleep, according to a new study in the Indonesian rainforest. The research reveals how these great apes balance rest with the demands of daily life – and it seems they behave in a way very similar to humans. 

“Moving through the canopy, finding food, solving problems, navigating social relationships; these are all tiring and cognitively demanding tasks”, says Alison Ashbury (left), a scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) and the University of Konstanz, and the study’s first author. 

“When an orangutan doesn’t get enough sleep, it does what any sleep-deprived human might do: it climbs into bed, lies down, and takes a nap”. 

The findings, published in Current Biology, shed light on how one of our closest living relatives manages sleep in a complex, natural environment. 

The team studied data on 53 adult Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) and recorded 455 days and nights of sleep behaviour at the Suaq Balimbing Monitoring Station in Sumatra. They found that orangutans typically enjoy a sleep period of nearly 13 hours overnight, snoozing high in the rainforest canopy in specially built tree nests. 

These 'night nests' are constructed fresh each evening using branches and leaves, shaped into a stable platform with a leafy base and even a pillow. Mothers will share these nests with their young, but adult orangutans almost always sleep alone. From the forest floor, researchers could only hear movements and rustling, but this stillness proved to be a reliable indicator of sleep. 

“From our point of view on the ground, we usually can’t see orangutans at all in their night nests, but we can hear them rustling around, getting comfortable”, says Caroline Schuppli, the study’s senior author. “Eventually, everything goes quiet and still. And the reverse happens in the morning”. 

Several factors were linked to shorter night-time sleep periods: cold weather, travelling longer distances during the day, and proximity to other orangutans. The latter was particularly striking, suggesting that even orangutans experience disrupted sleep from social disturbances. 

“We thought it was really interesting that just being near other orangutans when building a night nest was linked to shorter sleep periods”, says Ashbury. “Imagine you stay up late hanging out with your friends, or your roommate is snoring so loudly in the morning that you get up early. I think it’s a bit like that”. 

To make up for this lost sleep, the orangutans were observed taking longer naps during the day. In fact, for every hour of reduced sleep at night, they added around 5 to 10 minutes to their nap time the next day. On 41% of observed days, orangutans napped at least once, with nap periods averaging 76 minutes. 

These naps usually took place in simpler, quickly made 'day nests'. Built in under two minutes, they were less elaborate than night nests but still provided enough comfort for a proper rest. 

“Day nests are less sophisticated, have fewer comfort elements, and are made quicker than night nests”, says Schuppli. “But even so, when we’re able to see an orangutan resting in a day nest, we see that their bodies are relaxed and their eyes are closed. They really do appear to be sleeping”. 

The researchers believe this habit may support the orangutans’ impressive cognitive abilities. The Suaq population is known for its use of tools and social learning, traits that may require more restorative rest. Their semi-solitary lifestyle also allows them the freedom to nap when needed, without having to co-ordinate with a group.

“Among all studied orangutan populations, the Suaq orangutans arguably exhibit the widest range of cognitively demanding behaviours”, says Schuppli. “This may be linked to their relatively high propensity for daytime nest use”.

The study highlights the value of observing animals in their natural habitats. “Studying sleep in the wild, in the natural social and ecological conditions under which it evolved, is important to broadening our understanding of the evolutionary origins and the ultimate functions of sleep”, says Meg Crofoot, co-author of the study. 

“If we’re going to answer this question, we need to bring sleep research out of the lab and into the field. Studies such as this one contribute to that effort”.