When dogs hear their owners speak, they are listening for consonants in words rather than vowels, a new study suggests, apparently mimicking a similar human bias that is found across many languages.

Although dogs don鈥檛 have language, they live in a speech-rich environment, says at E枚tv枚s Lor谩nd University in Hungary.

鈥淲e knew from our previous studies that dogs care about what we speak and how we speak, but until now there was no evidence that dogs鈥� experience with speech can actually shape how their brains function,鈥� says Andics.

To investigate how a life with humans and listening to constant talk has impacted dogs鈥� brains, Andics and his colleagues recruited 20 adult human Hungarian speakers and 20 companion dogs with Hungarian owners.

Andics says while many Eastern European languages are consonant heavy, Hungarian isn鈥檛.

鈥淭here are some studies suggesting that consonant bias during speech segmentation is weaker, or not there, in people who mostly listen to Mandarin or Danish, in which languages consonants are not, or not that much, more informative about word boundaries than vowels,鈥� he says.

During the experiment, the human and dog participants separately listened to continuous, unsegmented speech streams of nonsense words while connected to EEG monitors, measuring the electrical activity of the participants鈥� brains.

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Consonants and vowels alternated throughout these streams, with no pauses or other acoustic cues separating them, says Andics.

There were three types of nonsense streams. In the first, recurring consonant patterns formed consecutive three-syllable words 鈥� such as 鈥渕ozite鈥�. In the second, stronger vowel patterns formed the skeleton of the words 鈥� such as 鈥渮obefu鈥�. And in the third, there were no recurring patterns at all, with syllables in a random order 鈥� such as 鈥渇umoza鈥�.

He says the team made use of a phenomenon called 鈥渘eural synchronisation鈥�, in which brain activity can take on the rhythm that we detect in the sounds we hear.

鈥淭he more reliably we detect that rhythm, the more rhythmic the brain response becomes,鈥� says Andics. 鈥淲e expected that if a species鈥� brain has a preference for consonants, it should follow the rhythm of the words more easily when consonants form the structure of those words.鈥�

The difference was substantial, the scientists found. In dogs, the neural response to consonant-based regularities was 42 per cent stronger than the response to vowel-based regularities, and 55 per cent stronger than the response to the random stream.

鈥淪o, this is how much more dog brains tracked word rhythm when consonants defined the words,鈥� says Andics.

In humans, the response to consonant-patterned words was nearly 25 per cent higher than to vowel-based regularities and 77 per cent higher than to the random condition.
The team thinks that dogs who weren鈥檛 exposed to human speech wouldn鈥檛 have this bias, although they haven鈥檛 yet tested this idea.

鈥淲e argue that the only reason companion dogs have a consonant bias is that human speech, and specifically the characteristics of words, reshaped their brains,鈥� says Andics.

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at the University of Sydney, Australia, says the team convincingly shows that these dogs display more sensitivity to statistical patterns in consonants, rather than in vowels.

But with some important caveats 鈥� especially that these are Hungarian dogs, living with Hungarian speakers.

鈥淭here鈥檚 7000 different languages in the world and some of them rely a lot more on things like tonal distinctions,鈥� says Enfield. But if you do want your dog to pay attention to you, there may be a practical take home, he says.

鈥淭he lesson here may be to give your dog a name with more consonants in it than one with more vowels.鈥�

Young orangutans who spend little time working out for themselves how to build a broad diet can partly compensate by watching how other orangutans choose what to eat.

The findings suggest that orangutans have different strategies for developing broad survival skills, says at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

Young orangutans acquire a substantial body of knowledge before they can survive independently, which they must do by the time they are 8.5 years old. This includes understanding what foods are safe to eat, where to find them and how to process them in a rainforest offering hundreds of food options of varying levels of accessibility 鈥� from easy-to-access leaves to the more inaccessible but also more nutritious seeds at the heart of a tough, spiny neesia fruit.

女生小视频s already know that orangutans can acquire this knowledge both by observing their mothers and other individuals in their social circle 鈥� a process known as social learning 鈥� and by exploring entirely on their own without any input from others, which is known as individual learning. But how these two forms of learning work together 鈥� and how they affect what orangutans learn to eat before becoming independent 鈥� hasn鈥檛 been clear.

To find out, Thillaikumar and her colleagues analysed nearly 7000 instances of learning recorded during more than 1700 hours of observations of wild Sumatran orangutans at Suaq Balimbing, a research station in Indonesia. The observations, collected over 12 years, tracked 21 youngsters as they closely watched other orangutans who were interacting with foods and other objects.

The young apes varied considerably in how much they relied on different kinds of learning, with some using more social learning, and others exploring independently much more often. This might, in part, reflect personality differences, and might also be influenced by early development 鈥� including differences in how mothers care for their young, says Thillaikumar.

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Youngsters who learned by watching others also tended to continue manipulating new objects or trying new foods for about 145 minutes after they had closely observed another orangutan. This activity is reminiscent of the way in which children will spend time imitating an activity they have just seen demonstrated by an adult, says Thillaikumar. 鈥淵eah, it鈥檚 practice.鈥�

Next, the researchers drew on about 4700 hours of feeding observations for 13 of the youngsters to estimate the range of foods they had learned to eat by the time they reached independence. Unsurprisingly, the team found that the individuals who had engaged in plenty of social learning and plenty of individual learning had acquired the broadest diets.

But they also found that young orangutans who engaged in very little truly individual learning could partially compensate and develop a reasonably broad diet if they were good social learners.

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at Duke University in North Carolina says she鈥檚 impressed by the sheer scale of the work, following young orangutans through the rainforest across their entire, lengthy period of dependency on adults. She was particularly intrigued by how often social observation was followed by young orangutans practising the techniques they had observed. 鈥淚n simpler terms, they show clearly what we see in human children and other apes 鈥� that they watch others perform a behaviour and then go try it out on their own.鈥�

The variability in learning styles 鈥� even at an individual level 鈥� is especially interesting, says , also at Duke University. It suggests that no single form of learning can tell the whole story. 鈥淧redicting dietary breadth at maturity requires looking at all types of learning.鈥�

Some 150,000 baby common octopuses (Octopus vulgaris) have just been released into the waters off Italy鈥檚 Adriatic coast in one of Europe鈥檚 first pilot experiments to test whether the species can help control the invasive blue crab (Callinectes sapidus), which eats native shellfish and threatens the fishing industry and marine ecosystems.

鈥淭he project is appropriate as a carefully controlled pilot experiment, but it is not yet a proven effective control strategy,鈥� says聽, a marine ecologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, who isn鈥檛 involved in the initiative.

Two years ago,聽听补苍诲听, two aquaculture researchers at the University of Bologna, Italy, began to wonder whether octopuses offered a way to control blue crabs off the coast of Emilia-Romagna, a region of north-east Italy where damage caused by the blue crabs has cost the fishing industry 拢14.7 million since 2022.聽

Previous studies had聽, backing up what local fishers had been seeing for a decade as populations of the Atlantic-native invasive species began to surge along Italian coasts.

However, octopuses tend to do better on rocky seabeds, while the Adriatic coast is rather sandy, which may help explain why octopus numbers there have been falling in recent decades. The regional government of Emilia-Romagna has installed artificial shelters for octopuses in an effort to reverse the decline.聽

Under a research project co-financed by the regional government, Mordenti and Casalini caught eight common octopuses 鈥� four females and four males 鈥� from the Emilia-Romagna coast, transferred them to the laboratory and gave them about three months to acclimatise to their new surroundings. Their tanks were carefully monitored and maintained under conditions designed to simulate those at sea. 鈥淣ot only did we find that the fishermen were right, but we also found that octopuses could consume up to four blue crabs a day,鈥� says Mordenti.

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The researchers then arranged the octopuses into four breeding pairs and allowed them to mate and produce eggs.聽

Earlier this week, the scientists released 150,000 millimetre-long, lab-raised larvae into the waters off the coastal towns of Cesenatico and Riccione.聽

They estimate that only 1 per cent will survive to adulthood. After hatching, octopuses start their lives as tiny, free-floating larvae known as paralarvae. They drift through the water and may be eaten by fish. The hope is that a few will escape this fate and grow large enough to begin preying on blue crabs 鈥� a feat even small common octopuses weighing less than 800 grams are capable of, the researchers say.

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鈥淥ur aim was to bolster the population of a native species already found naturally in the Adriatic,鈥� says Casalini.聽

鈥淲e鈥檒l work with fishermen to assess whether the releases will have had an effect by the end of the year,鈥� says Mordenti.聽

But some scientists argue that this strategy needs more study. 鈥淏lue crabs are extremely prolific and fast鈥慻rowing, and their preferred habitats often differ from those of octopuses,鈥� says marine biologist聽聽at the Institute of Marine Research, Spain.聽

鈥淪tarting by releasing paralarvae as if they were wheat seeds scattered in the water seems like a rather simplistic approach,鈥� says聽, a zoologist at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. 鈥淎 controlled environment is one thing; the open sea is a whole different ball game.鈥�

Large predators can make people safer by reducing the number of road accidents involving collisions with deer. A study in Washington state has shown that the presence of cougars led to a 76 per cent reduction in the number of such accidents.

鈥淚 think that this road-safety benefit could be playing out in many other places,鈥� says of the non-profit Conservation Science Partners. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 just one of several ecosystem services that these large carnivores provide.鈥�

A 2021 study in Wisconsin found that the return of wolves to a county , providing economic benefits 63 times greater than the costs of wolves killing livestock. These reductions were due to changes in deer behaviour, as well as deer numbers falling due to predation by wolves, the study concluded.

Now Suraci and his colleagues have looked at what鈥檚 happening on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state, where there鈥檚 a stable population of cougars 鈥� also known as pumas 鈥� and deer. 鈥淲e worked with Native American communities, who are running their own wildlife monitoring programs,鈥� he says.

More than 500 camera traps have been set up as part of these programs, and nearly 60 cougars were collared. This allowed the researchers to see where and when deer and cougars were present. Their analysis shows that deer avoid road edges and the margins of towns and cities when cougars are present, making them less likely to be hit by cars or trucks.

鈥淭hose habitat edges are the best hunting habitat for pumas. They can hide in the forest and attack a deer foraging along the roadside,鈥� says Suraci. 鈥淪o what we think is happening is that deer are moving away from these more fragmented, edgy areas with higher road density where the pumas are present.鈥�

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When cougars were present, deer were also less active at night and more active during the day. This is likely a response to the fact that cougars hunt mainly at night, and may also have contributed to the reduction in accidents.

This is an example of a 鈥渓andscape of fear鈥� in action, says at Western University in Canada. 鈥淭his is an excellent paper. It provides many compelling lines of evidence that paint a clear picture 鈥� that large carnivores benefit society. The authors beautifully demonstrate that the mere presence of large carnivores can reduce vehicle collisions with deer.鈥�

鈥淭hat is good news all around,鈥� she says. 鈥淎s though that weren鈥檛 enough, cougars also provide this service completely free of charge.鈥�

Suraci also thinks this will be generally true for large predators. Discussions about the reintroduction of large predators tend to focus on the negative aspects, such as the killing of livestock, he says. But many benefits often aren鈥檛 obvious.

For instance, large predators may also reduce the damage deer do to crops and gardens, and the spread of diseases .

In 2013, things were looking bleak for a malnourished, undersized parrot who was missing half his beak and struggling to survive in the wilds of Arthur鈥檚 Pass in New Zealand鈥檚 South Island.

Then, says at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, one of her students came across the struggling kea (Nestor notabilis). The bird had lost the upper part of its beak, probably due to trauma. Because the kea is classified as an endangered species, the student decided to bring him into captivity.

Little did anyone know that this was a decision that would change the bird鈥檚 life and thrust greatness upon him.

The carers at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch, New Zealand, named the bird Kati, assuming that such a small parrot must have been a female. That assumption also made sense because it was the top half of the beak that the bird lacked. The upper beak is huge in male kea, and used for digging. It looks 鈥渓ike it could bite your finger off鈥�, says Nelson.

But a DNA test revealed that Kati was actually male, so the parrot was given a new name: Bruce 鈥� 鈥渢he silliest name we could think of鈥�, says Nelson.

This wasn鈥檛 the only surprise. Bruce is one of nine males and three females held at Willowbank. But in spite of his beak, he quickly asserted himself as the alpha male in the 鈥榗ircus鈥� 鈥� the collective name for a group of kea.

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The key to Bruce鈥檚 success was that, without the top half of his beak, he could use the bottom portion as a weapon.

Nelson says it is not just bluffing on Bruce鈥檚 part, as his lower beak is 鈥渧ery straight and sharp and can be used to joust the other birds鈥�.

The other males, most of which are over a kilogram and outweigh the 800-gram Bruce, can鈥檛 respond in kind because their upper mandibles cover their lower beaks.

鈥淪o even if they tried headbutting another bird, it would just be a blunt rounded curve that would hit them,鈥� Nelson says. 鈥淲hereas Bruce pushes himself so fast forward against another bird that he kind of topples over.鈥�

She adds that it鈥檚 鈥渁 serious jab, and the other birds really don鈥檛 like it. I mean, when he does that, they鈥檙e just wings in the air, jumping back as fast as possible.鈥�

Out of 162 aggressive interactions recorded between all the male birds over a total of four weeks, Bruce always came out on top, winning each of the 36 interactions in which he took part.

He also maintained absolute control and priority over the four feeding stations in the birds鈥� enclosure and even co-opted lower-status birds to help clean his lower beak and preen him 鈥� something none of the other captive birds did.

The team then wanted to see what kind of toll Bruce鈥檚 dominance was taking on the males fighting for their place in the hierarchy. They found that Bruce鈥檚 stress hormones levels were by far the lowest, seemingly, because his alpha status was so secure, he only had to display aggression a fraction of the times required of the other males.

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The team says, with the exception of humans, Bruce provides the first example of a severely injured animal 鈥渋ndividually achieving and maintaining alpha male status through behavioural innovation alone鈥�.

They also say he is living proof that a difference is not always a disadvantage, and that it proved unnecessary to repair his beak with a prosthetic.

鈥淚 really like Bruce, actually,鈥� Nelson says. 鈥淲hen there is reason to fight, yeah, he鈥檒l fight and he鈥檒l fight hard, and scrappy. But he鈥檚 not a bully.鈥�

Even the giant kangaroos that roamed Australia thousands of years ago might have been able to hop, according to a new analysis of bones.

Some of the kangaroos living during the Pleistocene were more than twice as heavy as those that live today. One group, the sthenurines, were so bulky that it was thought they couldn鈥檛 possibly hop 鈥� they must only have walked on their hind legs.

鈥淪thenurines are what most people are talking about when they talk about giant kangaroos. They鈥檙e the really weird ones,鈥� says at the University of Manchester, UK. 鈥淭hey have these really short, boxy skulls and a single toe on each foot. A large male red kangaroo is the biggest you鈥檙e going to get today, at about 90 kilograms, but the largest sthenurine was about 250 kilograms.鈥�

That giant was Procoptodon goliah, the biggest kangaroo species known to have existed, standing at about 2 metres tall. It died out about 40,000 years ago.

However, there has always been debate about how much stress its legs could have taken. To try to get a better handle on this, Jones and her colleagues collated bone measurements from 67 species of macropods, a group that includes existing kangaroos, wallabies, potoroos, bettongs and rat kangaroos, as well as the extinct giant kangaroo lineages.

Taking measurements of leg bones including the femur, tibia and calcaneus 鈥� the bone the Achilles tendon inserts into 鈥� and data on body mass, the researchers estimated how big the attached tendons would be and how much force they could handle.

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鈥淭he Achilles tendon in today鈥檚 kangaroos is quite dangerously close to breaking, but that serves a purpose,鈥� says Jones. 鈥淚t allows them to store a lot of elastic energy so they can push into the next hop. If you just took today鈥檚 kangaroo and scaled it up, you鈥檇 be running into problems.鈥�

But she says the ancient kangaroos aren鈥檛 just scaled up. They have shorter feet and a wider calcaneus, for example. The researchers鈥� calculations show that this would have helped the bones of the giant kangaroos resist the bending moments involved in hopping and accommodate tendons large enough to resist the loads generated during the activity.

鈥淚t鈥檚 evidence that they weren鈥檛 mechanically barred from hopping,鈥� says Jones. 鈥淲hether they did hop is a different question.鈥�

Hopping almost certainly wasn鈥檛 their primary mode of locomotion, but they might have used it for short bursts of speed, she says.

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鈥淭he study supports what is now a solidifying picture of the iconic kangaroo hop as a functionally adaptable component of a surprisingly variable gait repertoire,鈥� says at Upsala University in Sweden. This repertoire has been key to the ecological success of macropods over many millions of years, he says.

That flexibility is still in evidence today. Although we may think of red kangaroos, for example, as always hopping, they can also walk using their tail as a fifth limb, says Jones. 鈥淎nd tree kangaroos basically do everything under the sun: they walk, they hop, they bound, they walk quadrupedally and even bipedally.鈥�

Same-sex sexual behaviour may help monkeys and apes rise up the social ranks and ultimately have more offspring 鈥� and it seems to be especially beneficial in harsh environments where there are lots of predators, say, or a shortage of food.

That鈥檚 the implication of a study looking at why the level of same-sex behaviour varies in different primate species. It supports the idea that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, same-sex sexual behaviours in apes and monkeys are an adaptive trait that boosts survival.

It has often been claimed that same-sex behaviour is somehow 鈥渦nnatural鈥�. But in addition to people, it has now been reported in at least 1500 animals, from insects and dolphins to bison and bonobos.

There are many reasons to think this is the tip of the iceberg. Most species haven鈥檛 been closely studied; same-sex behaviours often aren鈥檛 recognised when seen because the sexes of the individuals involved may not be clear; and even when such behaviours are recognised they may not be reported.

Of the 20 or so mammal species that have been closely studied over long periods, same-sex behaviour has been . In a colony of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) on the Puerto Rican island of Cayo Santiago that has been studied for many decades, for instance, three-quarters of males engage in same-sex behaviour, at Imperial College London and his colleagues reported in 2023.

In other words, there can now be no doubt that same-sex behaviour is entirely natural. The question is why?

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This has sometimes been referred to as 鈥渢he Darwinian paradox鈥�, because of the common assumption that homosexual behaviour is non-adaptive 鈥� that is, that it doesn鈥檛 help individuals have more offspring, or boost the survival chances of those they do have.

Various explanations have been proposed for why same-sex behaviour is so common if it is non-adaptive. One is that same-sex behaviour occurs , that is, because individuals can鈥檛 tell the difference between males and females. This is probably true of simple animals such as insects, but it鈥檚 certainly not the case for highly intelligent animals such as apes and dolphins.

Another is that it鈥檚 a side effect of selection for other traits. For instance, it has been suggested that some traits that boost reproductive success in women may be linked to a greater likelihood of homosexuality in men.

It鈥檚 also possible that same-sex behaviour is adaptive, after all. One idea is that it helps males build coalitions that ultimately give them more access to more females. 鈥淪ame-sex behaviour is, if you want, a currency that you can use to navigate your way in these societies,鈥� says Savolainen.

His team has now analysed data on the prevalence of same-sex behaviour in 59 primate species and looked for associations with environmental and social factors. Among other things, they found that it was more likely to occur in drier environments where food was scarce or where there was more predation pressure, as well as in more complex societies.

For a behaviour to become more common in stressful environments does suggest it is adaptive. If, say, same-sex behaviour was done for pleasure only, you鈥檇 expect it to be less common in stressful environments.

鈥淪ame-sex behaviour may facilitate better cooperation and cohesion by strengthening social bonds, which is particularly important in these stressful environments,鈥� says team member , also at Imperial.

鈥淏ut to demonstrate adaptive value, the behaviour needs to be linked to increased fitness, that is, a higher number of offspring,鈥� says Savolainen. 鈥淭his is precisely what I intend to test in macaques.鈥�

So we are not yet at the point where we can conclusively say same-sex behaviour in at least some primates is adaptive, but it could be that science is about to turn yet another of our preconceptions about this behaviour on its head.

What does this tell us about homosexual behaviours in people? Well, if these findings are confirmed, it might help explain why it is as common as it is. What it does not tell us, the researchers stress, is anything about the rights or wrongs of such behaviour 鈥� this is the so-called naturalistic fallacy. That is, human behaviours should not be judged based on what animals do.

That said, there is a certain delicious irony in the idea that when it comes to the survival of the fittest, we may need to redefine who the fittest really are.