peregrine falcon

<p>See the world through the eyes of nature’s fastest animal: the peregrine falcon. Though once perilously endangered in the U.S., this spectacular predator is now thriving again in American cities and on every continent but Antarctica. What is the secret to its predatory prowess? To find out, follow a young family of peregrines in urban Chicago as the chicks hatch and learn from their parents to fly and hunt. And join expert falconer Lloyd Buck as he trains a captive peregrine and puts its hunting skills to the test. What’s the secret behind the peregrine falcon’s blistering speed, able to reach nearly 200 mph? (Premiered November 21, 2018)</p>

<p>See the world through the eyes of nature’s fastest animal—the peregrine falcon.</p>

World's Fastest Animal

Camila_ferrara_tartaruga P expansa hatchling.jpg

<p>Forty years of community engagement has brought the freshwater turtles of Brazil back from the brink—but lack of funding may imperil conservation.</p>

Amazon Turtles Recovering, Thanks to Local Volunteers

Whit Welles Wikimedia Commons Humpback Whale, breaching, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.jpg

<p>Drowned out by the din of passing ships, humpback whales attempting to breed off the coast of Japan are cutting their conversations short.</p>

Ship Noises Mute the Songs of Humpback Whales

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Nature

Koch Foundation

Draper

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<p>Camera technology is revolutionizing the study of animals—without them even noticing.</p>
<p>How do you study giant armadillos when hardly anyone has ever seen one? Or figure out if a whale is losing weight—without getting too close? Camera and drone technologies are allowing scientists to watch animals more closely than ever before, without disturbing them. Scientists in India are using thousands of camera trap photos to track tigers&#x27; movements. In Canada, caribou outfitted with collar cams show conservationists which habitats they rely on throughout the winter. Capturing everything from the unexpected to the comical, these technologies are giving wildlife managers insights that could ultimately help them fight extinction and habitat loss. <b>(Premiering November 27, 2019 at 9 pm on PBS)</b></p>
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<p>Camera technology is revolutionizing the study of animals—without them even noticing.</p>

Animal Espionage





  
      <div class="rich-text"><p>Of the many animals <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/team/andrew-tilker/">Andrew Tilker</a> studies, there are plenty he’s never actually seen in person.</p><p>It can feel a bit like chasing after mythical beasts, admits the Global Wildlife Conservation biologist. But that’s par for the course, he says, when you’re searching for species considered <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/search-for-lost-species/">“lost” to science</a>.</p><p>That’s certainly been the case for the <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/silver-backed-chevrotain/">silver-backed chevrotain</a> (<i>Tragulus versicolor</i>)—a fanged, cat-sized deer relative that looks like it lowered itself halfway into a bath of metallic paint before changing its mind. Though Western researchers have known about this skittish creature for more than a century, they’ve collected only five specimens, all corpses obtained from hunters in Vietnam.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>The last of these appeared nearly three decades ago, in 1990. No Western biologist—Tilker included—has ever glimpsed a silver-backed chevrotain alive.</p><p>But now, with the help of local knowledge and a cluster of well-placed camera traps, Tilker and his team have snapped the first-ever photos and videos of the silver-backed chevrotain in the wild. Their <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1027-7">findings</a>, published today in the journal <i>Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution,</i> go beyond the glamour shot: They confirm that, despite decades of illegal poaching and habitat destruction, this mysterious mini-mammal remains alive and well in its native Vietnam—for now.</p><p>“We should think that we’re still pretty damn lucky that this species is still around,” says <a href="https://www.uwo.ca/biology/directory/faculty/zanette.html">Liana Zanette</a>, a conservation biologist at Western University in Canada who wasn’t involved in the study. “We’ve been given another opportunity to try and preserve it, and that’s where the focus needs to be now.”</p><p>This scientific rediscovery is another notch in the belt of Global Wildlife Conservation, which, in 2017, launched a <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/lost-species-list/">campaign</a> to scour the world for 1,200 species lost to science. The silver-backed chevrotain is the first mammal checked off the organization’s 25 “most wanted” list, joining several other “found” plants and animals, including a <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/jacksons-climbing-salamander/">golden salamander</a> salamander in Guatemala, a <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/fernandina-galapagos-tortoise/">gargantuan tortoise</a> in Ecuador, a <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/wallaces-giant-bee/">giant bee</a> in Indonesia, and a <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/velvet-pitcher-plant/">flesh-hungry pitcher plant</a> in Canada.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="ncs016__ct016__2018-04-22__16-23-56(3)__Silver backed chevrotain.JPG" class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/ncs016__ct016__2018-04-22__16-23-563__Silver_b.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>A silver-backed chevrotain shows off its metallic backside. Image Credit: SIE/GWC/Leibniz-IZW/NCNP Copyright holder: Andrew Tilker</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Like many of its predecessors, the silver-backed chevrotain (sometimes called the Vietnam mouse-deer) is as enigmatic as it is elusive. It first came onto the scientific scene in 1907, after a biologist collected four dead specimens near Nha Trang, Vietnam. Like other chevrotains, they sported short, spindly legs that could help them scuttle through the forest, and odd, elongated fangs that males might use for fighting. But in contrast to the more common lesser chevrotain (<i>Tragulus kanchil</i>), a close relative also native to the region, the silver-backed species lacked a distinctive stripe on its throat and “looked as though someone had dunked two thirds of it in silver,” Tilker says.</p><p>There was only so much scientists could figure out from the bodies, which were filed away into collections in the hopes that more individuals would appear. But then the trail went cold.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="setting camera trap (2).jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="450" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/setting_camera_trap_2_e9GXfzy.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Researchers set up a camera trap to capture images of the elusive silver-backed chevrotain near Nha Trang, Vietnam. Image Credit: SIE/GWC/Leibniz-IZW/NCNP</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>The next chevrotain didn’t appear until 83 years later, when a team of Vietnamese and Russian scientists nabbed another hunter-killed specimen in Gia Lai, a province more than a hundred miles away from the original site.</p><p>By the time the species blipped onto the radar of Tilker and his colleagues some two decades later, it was clear in that the silver-backed chevrotain might be in some trouble. Poaching and habitat destruction had already triggered the decline of several other animals in the region—and scientists began to worry that they’d lose the strange little creature before it had truly been found.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>But “species shouldn’t be written off just because they haven’t been seen,” Tilker says. So he and his colleague <a href="https://www.globalwildlife.org/team/an-nguyen/">An Nguyen</a> decided to do some scientific sleuthing of their own. The best bet for pinpointing a chevrotin population, Nguyen says, would be to go back to the source: Nha Trang, where four of the five precious specimens had first been recovered—and, they later learned, where a photo of an oddly colored young chevrotain had supposedly been taken in 2004.</p><p>In 2017, a team led by Nguyen began interviewing residents around Nha Trang. While Western scientists have yet to glimpse a living silver-backed chevrotin, he says, the animals—known to the Vietnamese as <i>cheo cheo—</i>were nothing new to locals: About a quarter of the 35 people the researchers interviewed said they had recently spotted gray-looking chevrotains nearby.</p><div style="padding-bottom: 74.94553376906318%;" class="responsive-object">
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<p>That fall, the researchers planted three camera traps—which, when triggered by motion, snap images and record videos of their surroundings—near where the sightings had occurred. These devices, Zanette explains, give scientists a way to keep tabs on rare animals in remote regions without making the trek themselves.</p><p>When the team collected the traps the next spring, Nguyen wasn’t expecting to see much. But within the first 30 photos, a small, silver-speckled creature flashed onto his screen. Then there was another—and another. All three cameras had captured silver-backed chevrotains.</p><p>“I got very excited,” Nguyen says. “It was a joy to see.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="ncs015__ct015__2018-06-06__15-41-54(1)__Silver backed chevrotain.JPG" class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/ncs015__ct015__2018-06-06__15-41-541__Silver_b.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>The silver-backed chevrotain is a baffling mishmash of traits: a round body, sharp fangs, spindly legs, even-toed hooves, and a splash of metallic fur. Image Credit: SIE/GWC/Leibniz-IZW/NCNP Copyright holder: Andrew Tilker</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Eager for more, the team returned to the region, this time setting ten times as many traps as before. Within three months, they’d amassed evidence of another 208 sightings.</p><p>“This was a classic case of an animal that wasn’t that hard to find as long as somebody looked for it in the right place,” Tilker says.</p><p>One of the most exciting parts about this story is how critical local voices were to the scientists’ success, says <a href="https://www.mairinbalisi.com/">Mairin Balisi</a>, a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at La Brea Tar Pits who wasn’t involved in the study. “[Conservation] can’t just be scientists working together. It has to be scientists and local community members working together.”</p><p>That human element, in combination with the cutting-edge technology of camera traps, makes this “a fantastic detective story,” Zanette says. “You need the pictures to prove a species exists. Now we can do all that.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="IMG_20191101_121507_2.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="600" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/IMG_20191101_121507_2.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Study author An Nguyen gets a new tally mark on his wrist tattoo each time he discovers a mammal in the wild that he’s never detected before. The silver-backed chevrotain marks his fiftieth find. Image Credit: Courtesy of An Nguyen</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>The most important next step is to get a better sense of how many chevrotains are left, Tilker says, which is hard to do with just photos and videos. But, he notes, most of the team’s interviewees noted a recent and sharp decline in chevrotain numbers. Hunting and habitat destruction have stripped Vietnam and surrounding countries of many of their animals, where “<a href="http://enbt.jbrj.gov.br/mestrado_profissional/seminario/7_Redford%201992.pdf">empty forest syndrome</a>” has spread like contagion, Tilker says.</p><p>As such, Tilker and his colleagues have also been careful not to disclose too much about the chevrotain’s whereabouts. Awareness, he explains, is a double-edged sword: Hunters have previously used published scientific data to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/endangered-species-scientists-urged-not-publish-location-poachers-find-hunt-kill-animals-chinese-a7763156.html">home in on their marks</a>.</p><p>Even though it’s been found in the forest, the silver-backed chevrotain isn’t yet out of the woods.</p><p>“We...have this remarkable opportunity in our hands to protect a species that has come back onto the radar,” Tilker says. “Second chances like this don’t come around that often.”</p><p><i>To learn more about how scientists are spying on the world’s creatures, stream “</i><a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/animal-espionage/"><i>Animal Espionage</i></a><i>” or tune in on November 27 at 9/8c on PBS. </i></p></div>
  

  
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<p>The images confirm the species, which has been “lost” to science for 29 years, is alive and well in its native Vietnam.</p>

Feast your eyes on the first-ever photos of a silver-backed chevrotain in the wild





  
      <div class="rich-text"><p>If a new acquaintance leaned over and puked blood into your mouth, you might be less inclined to hang out with them again.</p><p>Unless, that is, you’re a common vampire bat (<i>Desmodus rotundus</i>).</p><p>These teacup-sized mammals, which are native to the Americas, maintain super-specific diets: They feed exclusively on the blood of other wild animals, slurping up an ounce or so of liquid at a time, and can die if they go just two or three days without food. So when a nighttime hunt goes poorly, vampire bats will rely on friends and family to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/why-bats-share-blood">share their sanguine snacks</a>—even if they’ve already swallowed them.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>During these feeding events, the bats get surprisingly cuddly, says <a href="https://eeob.osu.edu/people/carter.1640">Gerald Carter</a>, a behavioral ecologist at Ohio State University. “They get really close, belly to belly,” he says. “Then they just look like they’re kissing.”</p><p>These ritual regurgitations are actually an important way for vampire bats to form and strengthen social bonds—ones built on a wholesome cycle of generosity and reciprocity. It’s a system, Carter says, not unlike human friendship.</p><p>Carter has built a career playing platonic matchmaker to these oft-maligned bats. In his latest study, he and his colleagues report that vampire bat relationships are remarkably enduring—strong enough to survive even the stressful transition from captivity to the wild. The team’s <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)31364-8">findings</a>, published today in the journal <i>Current Biology,</i> suggest that it’s more than circumstance that brings (and keeps) these bitty blood-sippers together.</p><p>“For a long time, people assumed that there are certain characteristics limited to humans or primates,” says <a href="https://eeb.princeton.edu/people/christina-riehl">Christina Riehl</a>, an evolutionary biologist studying social behavior at Princeton University who wasn’t involved in the study. “It’s now emerging that social bonds occur in everything from fish to birds to bats...it’s more general than people originally thought.”</p><div style="padding-bottom: 56.25%;" class="responsive-object">
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<p>If their name is any indication, vampire bats get a pretty bad rap. Perhaps it’s no surprise, given their unconventional diet and toothsome smile—but they’re actually one of the more social species out there, Carter says. Though males leave their mothers early on to live somewhat solitary lives, females roost together, and can often be found grooming and swapping spit (and blood) with family and nonrelatives alike.</p><p>Building and maintaining this network gives bats something of a social safety net when times get tough, Carter says. The biggest predictor of whether Bat A will share food with Bat B is if Bat B shared food with Bat A. But there’s more to it than simple quid pro quo, he says. Gifts and favors can be doled out without the expectation for immediate payback; relationships appear to strengthen and evolve over time. What happens between vampire bats, Carter says, isn’t a cold, calculated business transaction. It’s genuine companionship, warm fuzzies and all.</p><p>This new study, led by <a href="https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/taxonomy/term/234/simon.ripperger">Simon Ripperger</a> of the Museum for Natural History in Berlin, is the latest to expand researchers’ understanding of vampire bat friendship. Years of observations had shown Carter and his team that captive bats seem to cozy up to the same individuals time and time again. But it wasn’t clear if these relationships, forged in an environment where bats don’t have the luxury to pick and choose their bunkmates, were born out of affection or mere convenience.</p><p>Riehl compares it to the social dynamics of a college dorm. Some will go out of their way to hang out with people they like; others find it easiest to just pal around with the folks next door.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="Desmo-boden.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="552" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/Desmo-boden.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>“You can just tell [these bats] are super intelligent,” says study author Simon Ripperger. “Usually when you catch a bat, it’ll try to bite your glove. Vampire bats just turn around and look you in the face. It’s a weird experience.” Image Credit: Uwe Schmidt</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>To test the limits of these batty bonds, Ripperger and Carter’s team put the residents of a vampire dormitory to the ultimate test: move-out day. After housing 23 wild-caught female vampire bats in an outdoor cage for 22 months, the researchers released them back into the Panamanian tree roost they’d originally been captured from.</p><p>During their stint in captivity, the bats were provided with regular meals of blood. But every month or so, the scientists would withhold food from one bat, giving them a chance to see who swooped in to help when the hungry animal rejoined the group.</p><p>After nearly two years of observations, it was clear where allegiances lay. To see if the sentiments would stick, the researchers returned the bats to their roost and set them free.</p><p>For the next eight days, the team monitored the bats’ behavior through small, ultra-sensitive sensors tethered to their backs—inventions of Ripperger’s. Every two seconds, the backpacks would log how close two tagged bats were to each other. An encounter within 20 inches was a “meeting”; less than one inch denoted “close contact.”</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Not all friendships are built to last. The once-captive colony experienced its fair share of fractures in the week post-rewilding, Ripperger says. But on average, the more bats had partnered up in the lab, the more likely they were to rendezvous at the roost. That suggests that the bonds they’d built in captivity were genuine relationships—ones resilient enough to weather an abrupt change in scenery, Carter says, and not just byproducts of being in “prison” for almost two years.</p><p>For bat buffs, the finding might not be a huge surprise, Riehl says. Among researchers, vampire bats are already renowned for their reciprocity. That said, tiny, blood-guzzling vampire bats still stand out among other animals known to engage in bona fide friendships—a list that includes big-brained, charismatic megafauna like elephants, chimpanzees, and dolphins. To manage such a filial feat, she says, “you need to remember what your cooperative partners have done before, and tell individuals apart. That requires a lot of mental hardware.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="215032.png" class="richtext-image full-width" height="355" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/215032.width-800.png"/><figcaption><p>A common vampire bat wearing one of the researchers&#x27; proximity sensors. When worn by a group of bats, these sensors can relay information about how close individuals are to one another every two seconds, allowing scientists to map their encounters precisely in both time and space. Image Credit: Sherri ad Brock Fenton</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Studies like this might help fight the stigma that’s often attached to vampire bats, which can carry diseases that <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/infectious-disease-zoonotic-model/">have the potential to hop into humans</a>, says <a href="http://evolve.zoo.ox.ac.uk/Evolve/Marina_Escalera.html">Marina Escalera Zamudio</a>, an ecologist at the University of Oxford who has studied vampire bats in the context of infection, but was not involved in the study. Bats come with a bevy of benefits, too, she points out. They’re important pollinators, and nosh on insect pests like mosquitoes.</p><p>And for researchers like Carter, bats represent an untapped resource for the study of complex social structure. They’re reminiscent of primates, he says, only much easier to study in their natural environment.</p><p>Diet aside, we humans aren’t all that different from these blood-loving buddies, Riehl says. “Vampire bats have complex social behaviors, just like humans do,” she says. “Maybe thinking about these bats as having friends can make people realize that they’re not as awful as just the ‘vampire’ part would imply.”</p></div>
  

  
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<p>The relationships these winged mammals forge in captivity are strong enough to survive the jarring transition back into the wild.</p>

Vampire bats form lasting bonds of ‘friendship,’ just like us





  
      <div class="rich-text"><p>The language of love is nothing if not subtle and complex. To woo potential mates, some species will whisper sweet nothings, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/ships-noises-humpback-whale-song/">sing a soft serenade</a>, or even <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews-science/Giant-Panda-Mating-Calls-Say-a-Lot-About-Them-180970390/">grunt a gentle come-hither call</a>.</p><p>But male <a href="https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/whibel2/overview">white bellbirds</a> (<i>Procnias albus</i>) aren’t here for your politeness and pleasantries. When they’re looking to couple up, these brightly plumed boys will sidle up real close to their ladies, inhale deeply, and scream their heads off—to the deafening tune of 115 decibels.</p><p>“That’s like having your head in a speaker at a rock concert,” says <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mario_Cohn-Haft">Mario Cohn-Haft</a>, an ornithologist at the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Brazil.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>As a mating strategy, it’s forward, to say the least. But it seems to work fine for the bellbirds, according to Cohn-Haft and his colleague <a href="http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/podos/">Jeff Podos</a>, a bioacoustician at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The astounding acoustic feat, <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)31190-X">reported today</a> in the journal <i>Current Biology</i>, earns these boisterous birds the title of loudest recorded song in the avian world—and may even make them a top contender among all land animals.</p><p>“Right now, I can’t think of anything louder,” says <a href="https://derryberrylab.wordpress.com/">Elizabeth Derryberry</a>, an animal communication expert at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who wasn’t involved in the study. “There can be hearing damage at this point.”</p><p>Cohn-Haft, who’s spent decades cataloguing avian diversity in the Amazon, has long been privy to the piercing, alarm-like anthems of the white bellbird. But it wasn’t until 2017, during an expedition into a particularly mountainous region, that he was able to get up close and personal with the birds’ impressive pipes. While prepping a bellbird specimen in the field, he was struck by its unusually robust abdominal muscles and sturdy ribcage.</p><p>Most birds maintain only scant musculature to keep light for flight, he explains. But the bellbird in his hands, he recalls, was absolutely ripped. “It had a washboard stomach,” he says. “It was really impressive, like a bodybuilder. And I thought, ‘That’s obviously some kind of adaptation for producing loud sound.’”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="proalb Pronias albus.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="543" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/proalb_Pronias_albus.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Male white bellbirds can open their bills wide enough to &quot;swallow a golf ball,&quot; says Jeff Podos of UMass Amherst. The flared opening of their mouths might act a bit like the end of a trombone, amplifying the sound that emerges. Image Credit: Anselmo d’Affonseca</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Cohn-Haft sent photos of the bird’s super-shredded physique to Podos, whose interest was instantly piqued. The next year, the pair ventured back into the Amazon, this time toting bags of sensitive recording equipment to measure the birds’ auditory output.</p><p>Historically, getting good measurements of volume hasn’t been an easy thing to do, Derryberry says. Until fairly recently, the technology wasn’t up to snuff. And out in the field, sounds can get muffled or warped by obstacles between animal and receiver if the data aren’t collected carefully.</p><p>But Podos and Cohn-Haft did things right, Derryberry says. With a state-of-the-art recording device in hand, the researchers embarked on a rigorous two day hike up the side of a remote mountain in northern Brazil. When they got within earshot of the treetop-perching bellbirds, they switched the machine on.</p><div style="padding-bottom: 56.25%;" class="responsive-object">
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<p>White bellbirds are about the size of a morning dove and weigh just half a pound apiece. But they stuff a lot in a small package: These birds, Podos says, can belt out notes roughly comparable in volume to the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347208003461">bellows of bison</a> and the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347203003701">hoots of howler monkeys</a>—brawny, big-mouthed mammals many times their size.</p><p>All in all, the researchers recorded more than 154 white bellbird songs, which fell into one of two categories: one very loud, and one very, <i>very</i> loud. The “quieter” ones were more common, and comparable in volume to those produced by the <a href="https://neotropical.birds.cornell.edu/Species-Account/nb/species/scrpih1/overview">screaming piha</a> (<i>Lipaugus vociferans</i>)—another Amazonian species known for a distinctive, three-part wolf whistle that, until now, was considered the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09524622.2004.9753527">loudest bird song ever documented</a>. But every once in a while, the bellbirds upped their game, blaring out another tune with <i>triple</i> the sound pressure (an objective measure of a noise’s intensity) of the piha’s signature scream.</p><p>“You can hear these birds a mile away,” Cohn-Haft says.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>These sonorous shenanigans all seem to be in service of sex. On several occasions, Podos and Cohn-Haft spotted females, drawn in by the acoustic stylings, joining males on their perches—presumably to get a better sense of the man behind the melody.</p><p>At this point, Podos say, you might expect the vocal braggadocio to grind to a halt. Instead, the females’ arrival prompted males to bust out the loudest parts of their repertoire, even dramatically swiveling mid-song to blast a final, emphatic note “right in her face,” Podos says.</p><p>Cohn-Haft can’t imagine this is a terribly pleasant experience. The females do back up a bit, he says. But they don’t peace out completely, often staying within a few feet of the male—well within the hot zone.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="proalb Procnias alba.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="581" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/proalb_Procnias_alba.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>A female white bellbird. Unlike males, females have camouflaging plumage. They also lack wattles and don&#x27;t sing. Image Credit: Anselmo d’Affonseca</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>“That’s where all the questions start,” Cohn-Haft says. It’s still unclear why the females are willing to endure the din, or how (even if) either party manages to escape the interaction with their hearing intact. Such over-the-top grandiosity can also make you conspicuous to predators, and even take a physiological toll: The louder the birds’ songs were, the shorter they got.</p><p>But something about the clang and clamor made this trait worth keeping around—so much so that it evolved in an extreme form, almost like the auditory version of a peacock tail, Derryberry says.</p><p>One possibility is that the songs help advertise males’ physical prowess, says <a href="https://nataliacgarcia.wixsite.com/mywebsite">Natalia García</a>, an acoustic communication expert at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who wasn’t involved in the study. Another theory, suggested to Podos by a colleague, is that the birds are intentionally trying to temporarily deafen females to the alluring songs of other males.</p><p>Whatever the reason, Derryberry says, “I guess these females like being shouted at.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="This image shows a male white bellbird screaming its mating call 2 CREDIT Anselmo d’Affonseca.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="628" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/This_image_shows_a_male_white_bellbird_screami.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>When male white bellbirds  open their mouths, &quot;it’s like an enormous black hole has opened up in this white blob,&quot; says Mario Cohn-Haft of the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Brazil. Image Credit: Anselmo d’Affonseca</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Podos and Cohn-Haft both express concern about being able to address these questions and more before time runs out. As humans continue to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/wildlife-trade-extinction-prediction/">impinge</a> on the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/animal-adaptation-climate-change/">natural world</a>, fragile habitats—and the vulnerable species that reside in them—are declining worldwide.</p><p>That includes parts of the Amazon, where the ballads of white bellbirds reverberate through the trees. Despite a long history of birdwatching, García points out, it took humans until now to document just how weird and wonderful these creatures truly are. There’s surely more, she says, that’s been overlooked.</p><p>“It’s overwhelming, thinking of all the biodiversity we’re losing,” she says. “There are species we won’t even know we’re losing before they’re gone.”</p></div>
  

  
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<p>Researchers aren’t sure how these birds maintain this deafening mating ritual without damaging their hearing.</p>

World’s loudest bird flirts by screaming in your face





  
      <div class="rich-text"><p>On Saturday, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya ran the world’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/sports/eliud-kipchoge-marathon-record.html">first sub-two-hour marathon</a>, dashing 26.2 miles in 1 hour 59 minutes 40 seconds. His astounding 13-mile-per-hour pace—just under half the 27.8-miles-per-hour rate of Usain Bolt’s <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/ai-100-meter-dash/">record-breaking 100-meter sprint</a>—made headlines around the world for shattering a barrier many people once considered impossible to break.</p><p>Members of the insect world, however, are less easily impressed.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Scaling swiftness to size, there are plenty of six-legged speedsters that could leave both Bolt and Kipchoge in the dust. Among them is the startlingly sprightly <a href="https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Cataglyphis_bombycina">Saharan silver ant</a> (<i>Cataglyphis bombycina</i>), an African native that can travel up to 108 times its body length in a <i>single</i> <i>second</i>. Bolt’s best is closer to 6 body lengths per second. To catch up, he’d need to blaze down a track at about 475 miles per hour.</p><p>So, yeah. The Saharan silver ant is <i>very</i> fast. Fast enough that this centimeter-long speed demon currently holds the title of world’s speediest ant, says <a href="https://www.uni-ulm.de/en/nawi/nawi-neurobio/research/prof-dr-harald-wolf/">Harald Wolf</a>, a neurobiologist at Ulm University in Germany, who’s spent years scuttling after the desert-dwelling insects.</p><p>Now, with the help of some mealworms and a high-speed camera, Wolf and his team have found a way to clue in to how Saharan silver ants accomplish their fleet-footed feat. Their <a href="https://jeb.biologists.org/content/222/20/jeb198705">study</a>, published today in the <i>Journal of Experimental Biology,</i> shows that <i>C. bombycina</i> uses a deft combination of fast pacing, light-footedness, and synchronized stepping to trounce the competition—including a closely-related species that boasts longer legs.</p><p>“To make yourself faster, minimize contact with the ground,” says <a href="https://crystalreynaga.weebly.com/">Crystal Reynaga</a>, a biomechanics expert studying animal movement at Duke University who wasn’t involved in the study. “I think that holds true for an ant or a human.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="CataglyphisBombycinaSoldier2UniUlmDouzFotoHWolf.JPG" class="richtext-image full-width" height="568" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/CataglyphisBombycinaSoldier2UniUlmDouzFotoHWol.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Saharan silver ants are especially cool—for more reasons than you might think. The hairs on their body can reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere, keeping them from overheating. Image Credit: Harald Wolf, Ulm University</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>Champion runners like Bolt and Kipchoge might make their living by being fast. But for the residents of the Sahara Desert, speed and surefootedness are an even bigger matter of life or death. Here, ants like<i> C. bombycina</i> survive as scavengers, feasting on the bodies of other insects that have perished in the sweltering sands—a macabre menu best served midday, when temperatures can exceed 140 degrees Fahrenheit.</p><p>The more time the ants spend foraging for food, the more vulnerable they are to the blistering heat and predators that hanker after sun-roasted bugs. To shorten their stints out of the nest, these insects have evolved two superpowers: <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/forget-gpsthis-robot-navigates-like-an-ant/">expert navigational skills</a> and breakneck speed.</p><p>To scope out the specifics of the latter, a team led by Wolf and neuroethologist <a href="https://www.uni-ulm.de/nawi/nawi-neurobio/research/dr-sarah-pfeffer/">Sarah Pfeffer</a> ventured deep into the Tunisian sector of the Sahara. Where the soil was loose and sandy, the researchers picked out nests of <i>C. bombycina</i> ants, before meandering into the region’s salt flats for colonies of <i>Cataglyphis fortis,</i> a speedy sister species that does most of its moving on hard clay.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>The team first funneled sand-filled tubes into the ants’ nests and baited them with mealworms. Once the insects emerged, a high-speed video camera snapped shots of their movements. The researchers then hauled several specimens of both species back to the lab to repeat their experiments in more temperate conditions.</p><p>On average, both species of ant ran faster at higher temperatures. But each petered out at a different max speed, with the clay-dwelling <i>C. fortis</i> topping out at around 620 millimeters per second, while its silver-toned cousin zoomed by at rates up to 855 millimeters per second.</p><p>Weirdly, the more sluggish <i>C. fortis</i> is actually the ant with longer limbs—an advantage that could theoretically give it a leg up (or six) on its kin, Pfeffer says.</p><p>But <i>C. bombycina</i> doesn’t just overcome its stubby gams: It leverages them to pick up the pace. “When you have a shorter limb, there’s less mass to get moving,” Reynaga explains. “That makes it a lot easier to turn that thing over quickly.” This then allows the insects to take more frequent steps and spend less time with their feet on the ground.</p><div style="padding-bottom: 56.25%;" class="responsive-object">
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<p>Silver ants also seem to be exceptionally spry. When humans run, they enter what’s called an <a href="http://mammals-locomotion.com/walking.html">aerial phase</a>, when both feet completely leave the ground. Silver ants can do the same with three times as many legs, and at surprisingly slow speeds—as low as a pokey 120 millimeters per second.</p><p>Getting airborne early has its perks. It means animals can essentially glide forward through the air. Here’s the ironic bit: Silver ants achieve this by acting as though their six legs are two—not unlike us humans, Wolf says. (Here, at least, is some validation for Bolt and Kipchoge.) This odd phenomenon is called an alternating tripod gait, where the front and back legs on the right and the middle leg on the left move in synchrony, and vice versa. Each tripod acts as its own cohesive, triangular foot, allowing the ant to jog in a near-bipedal fashion.</p><p>Wolf thinks this careful coordination might help the ants stay upright as they skirt around on the Sahara’s loose, slippery sands. In an unstable environment like this, he says, alternating between two tripods is a pretty good way to evenly distribute your body weight.</p><p>For <i>C. fortis</i>, which lopes around on salty, packed clays, the slip factor is much less of an issue, Wolf says. Here, the perks of long legs may be enough on their own.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="CataglyphisBombycinaWorkersUniUlmDouzFotoHWolf.JPG" class="richtext-image full-width" height="574" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/CataglyphisBombycinaWorkersUniUlmDouzFotoHWolf.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Saharan silver ants are expert navigators. When they venture out of the nest, they keep track of the sun’s position and use it to guide themselves home. Image Credit: Harald Wolf, Ulm University</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>The difference boils down to simple ecology, says <a href="https://rvndrpn.wixsite.com/ravindra">Ravindra Palavalli-Nettimi</a>, an entomologist and ecologist at Florida International University who was not involved in the study. The ants have a lot in common, down to their similar body plans, he says. But each species evolved its own strategy for speed, tailored to the demands of its own environment.</p><p>Still, victory’s all relative—and the silver ant shouldn’t get too cocky. When the arena’s expanded to all insects, at least of its two terrifyingly fleet-footed relatives can still zip ahead: the Australian tiger beetle and the Californian coastal mite, which can travel up to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4009161?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">171</a> and <a href="https://jeb.biologists.org/content/219/5/676">323</a> times their body lengths per second, respectively.</p><p>Pfeffer suspects the mite’s shocking speed might have something to do with its size. At just 0.7 millimeters long, it might be able to use its muscle mass more efficiently and deal with less drag from the surrounding air. The briskness of the beetles, which are comparable in size to desert ants, is a bit more mysterious.</p><p>Better luck next time, <i>C. bombycina.</i> Stuck in third place, you might be better known as the Saharan bronze ant.</p></div>
  

  
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<p>Saharan silver ants don’t have the longest limbs. But they make up for it with a sprightly combination of fast pacing, light-footedness, and synchronized stepping that effectively turns their six legs into two.</p>

World’s fastest-running ant scuttles over scalding Saharan sands at super speeds





  
      <div class="rich-text"><p>In April 2010, poachers opened fire on the last known Vietnamese Javan rhinoceros. The animal—the final member of the subspecies <i>Rhinoceros sondaicus annamiticus</i>—died, and its horn was sawed off its body. In an instant, a lineage that likely <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/poachers-drive-javan-rhino-to-extinction-in-vietnam/">once numbered in the thousands</a> was extinguished.</p><p>The Vietnamese Javan rhinoceros was neither the first casualty of wildlife trafficking, nor the last. In species ranging from <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/species/201707/experts-convene-save-one-world%E2%80%99s-most-trafficked-mammals">scaly mammals</a> to <a href="https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/bali-myna">brightly plumed birds</a>, history threatens to repeat itself—and, according to a <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aav5327">study</a> published today in the journal <i>Science</i>, the world is headed for more of the same.</p><p>By mining the world’s foremost databases on wildlife trade, a team of conservationists has found that 5,579 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles are now ensnared in the global market. As these animals are depleted, poachers and traders seeking similar goods will turn to their close cousins on the tree of life—a known replacement strategy that could imperil an additional 3,196 species not currently on the market, the researchers say.</p><p>If these predictions are accurate, close to 30 percent of all land-based vertebrates around today would be at risk of extinction from commoditization alone.</p><p>“This underscores the sheer magnitude of wildlife trade,” says study author <a href="https://brettscheffers.wordpress.com/">Brett Scheffers</a>, an ecologist at the University of Florida. “But knowing who is being traded and where is very powerful. We need a strategic plan to deal with wildlife…and now, we can at least make informed decisions.”</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>In both its legal and illegal forms, wildlife trade comprises a multibillion dollar industry that shuttles billions of plants and animals around the globe each year to meet demand for food, medicine, pets, and luxury items. No country is immune—and this lucrative market is now <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/biodiversity-the-ravages-of-guns-nets-and-bulldozers-1.20381">one of the biggest drivers</a> of extinction worldwide.</p><p>Even among threats to biodiversity, wildlife trade is unusual, Scheffers says. While habitat destruction and climate change tend to fell species indiscriminately, he says, the economic impetus behind trade puts intense focus on specific animals, vaulting some species like Sunda pangolins and helmeted hornbills onto the list of critically endangered species within the span of just a few years.</p><p>But for the most part, data on this global phenomenon has been lacking. The calculations reported by Scheffers and his team dwarf previous estimates of the extent and impact of wildlife trade by 40 to 60 percent.</p><p>That’s in part because their study is the first to pool data from the two largest databases documenting traded species: the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (<a href="https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/what.php">CITES</a>) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species (<a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/">IUCN Red List</a>). The final tally showed that the wildlife market affects roughly 18 percent of the world’s 31,745 terrestrial mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. And those are just the traded species we’re aware of, points out study author <a href="https://oliveirabrunno.wordpress.com/">Brunno Oliveira</a>, an ecologist at Auburn University at Montgomery.</p><p>“There are overlaps between these two sources of information...but also species that are missed in one or the other,” says <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HC_j51sAAAAJ&amp;hl=es">Ana Benítez López</a>, an ecologist at the Doñana Biological Station in Spain who was not involved in the study. “This approach is more comprehensive than what has been done before.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="iStock-580117316.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/iStock-1140161443.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Prized for their striking coloration, harlequin poison frogs (<i>Oophaga histrionica</i>) are some of the many amphibians traded worldwide. Due to trafficking, habitat loss, and other human disturbances, they are now listed by IUCN Red List as critically endangered. Image Credit: kikkerdirk, iStock</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>But the study’s biggest innovation, Benítez López says, was taking its analysis beyond present day.</p><p>As populations of certain species dwindle, traders often find substitutes to keep pace with demand, casting wider and wider nets across the tree of life—and putting more animals at risk. Faced with declining Asian pangolin populations, for instance, poachers have recently turned their attention to <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1562475/african-pangolins-in-nigeria-cameroon-face-chinese-poaching/">species in Africa</a>.</p><p>Preserving biodiversity requires transitioning from conservation’s typical reactive approach to one that’s proactive, Oliveira says. “And in order to be proactive, you have to know who is traded now, but also who has chances of being traded in the future,” Scheffers adds.</p><p>When Scheffers, Oliveira, and their colleagues scoured the 5,579 animals they’d already identified, they found that traded species tended to cluster in families and share relatively recent common ancestors. “Trade isn’t random,” Scheffers says. “If one species is traded, chances are that its cousin is, too.”</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="shutterstock_356197343.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/shutterstock_356197343.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>As populations of Asian pangolins (<i>Manis</i> species) have declined, poachers have filled market deficits with African pangolins (<i>Phataginus </i>and <i>Smutsia</i> species), which are now all listed as vulnerable. Image Credit: Peter Titmuss, iStock</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>That’s because wildlife trade isn’t driven by specific species, but by desirable traits—like plumage, fur, or scales—that are often shared between closely related animals, Scheffers says. The team also found large-bodied species to be particularly popular commodities.</p><p>The researchers used these patterns and more to pinpoint an additional 3,196 animal species, most of which are reptiles, likely to be exploited by the global wildlife market in the future. That brings the grand total to 8,775 species at risk of extinction from trade.</p><p>Because these vulnerable species are often cut from the same evolutionary cloth, these potential losses wouldn’t just prune the tree of life—it could hack off entire branches, Benítez López says. That, she says, would cause biodiversity on the whole to plummet. “We could be headed for a world that’s more homogeneous,” she says. “There’s no way to get [those species] back.”</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>But Scheffers and Oliveira both hope that their predictions can help researchers and policymakers get ahead of the extinction curve.</p><p>In particular, conservationists could use the team’s data to prioritize populations and geographic regions most vulnerable to trafficking and trade, Oliveira says. Many of the animals on the team’s list are concentrated in tropical regions—known hotspots of biodiversity—that are already under threat from other human disturbances. Species shouldn’t need to be teetering on the brink of extinction to warrant interventions, he says.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="iStock-1036227738.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="560" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/iStock-1036227738.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>A new analysis predicts that colorful birds like tanagers are at high risk of being traded in the future. Image Credit: Chelsea Sampson, iStock</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>The study’s predictions are sensible, and preemptive species protections are, in theory, a good idea, says <a href="https://nicholas.duke.edu/people/faculty/maguire">Lynn Maguire</a>, an environmental policy expert at Duke University. But actually implementing them, she says, would be “a very heavy lift politically and socially.” It’s hard enough to wrangle the attention and resources necessary to halt the wildlife trade that’s ongoing, let alone transactions that have yet to occur, she says.</p><p>And while evolutionary relatedness often guides where poachers and hunters look next, “you can’t always determine human whim,” says <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/experts/leigh-henry">Leigh Henry</a>, wildlife policy director at the World Wildlife Fund. As in any other market, demand for products can ebb and flow drastically on a near-daily basis. And the cultural triggers for species-specific surges can come from unexpected places: The international popularity of the Harry Potter franchise, for instance, is thought to have sparked a boom in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989417300525">trafficking of pet owls</a>.</p><p>Still, Maguire and Henry, neither of whom was involved in the study, laud the researchers’ efforts to bring attention to what has become an international threat to biodiversity.</p><p>“There’s no one approach that’s going to solve the problem,” Henry says. “We need to get ahead of the game and address species declines before they approach the point of no return.”</p></div>
  

  
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<p>A new analysis predicts that 3,196 animals will join the 5,579 already snared in the global wildlife market.</p>

Wildlife trade may put nearly 9,000 land-based species at risk of extinction





  
      <div class="rich-text"><p>In the 1960s, developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth had a breakthrough.</p><p>The intimate bond between an infant and its caregiver, she realized, wasn’t an all-or-nothing relationship. All babies were “attached” to their caretakers—they just had different ways of doing it.</p><p>Curious about the roots of this behavior, Ainsworth devised a test to sort kids into categories. Her technique, called the Strange Situation, involved a series of trials in which an infant was temporarily separated from its mother in an unfamiliar room full of toys. Some babies would protest their parents’ absence, but were quickly consoled upon their return, greeting them with pleasure. These infants Ainsworth dubbed “securely” attached, playing on the idea that they seemed to use their caregivers as a secure base from which to explore their surroundings.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Other infants, however, didn’t fare quite as well. These “insecurely” attached babies fell into one of two groups: “ambivalent” babies were initially clingy and anxious, exhibiting extreme distress upon separation and proving difficult to soothe afterward, while their “avoidant” counterparts seemed mostly indifferent to their parents, all but snubbing them when they returned.</p><p>Ainsworth died in 1999, three decades after she first <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1127388?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">published her findings</a> on the Strange Situation. But were she still alive today, she might have been pleased to see that, in broad strokes, her original delineations have stood the test of time. Though the numbers differ a bit depending on cultural context and socioeconomic status, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2724160/">through the generations</a>, most kids—<a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/infant-attachment-what-we-know-now">roughly 60 percent</a>—seem securely attached to their caregivers.</p><p>Here’s what Ainsworth probably didn’t see coming: The same could be true of kittens and their people.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="iStock-660678614.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/iStock-660678614.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Cat got your heart? Image Credit: vladans, iStock</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>“A lot of people have these stereotypes about cats, that they’re aloof or solitary,” says <a href="https://maueyes.com/about/">Kristyn Vitale</a>, an animal psychologist at Oregon State University. “But they [also] use their owners as a source of security when they’re stressed out.”</p><p>Vitale’s newest <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)31086-3">paper</a>, published today in the journal <i>Current Biology,</i> may suggest exactly that. Using a version of the Strange Situation adapted for domesticated felines and their human companions, she and her colleagues have found that the majority of cats tested appear to establish a secure bond with their caretakers—similar to the way that babies (and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787815001574">dogs</a>) do, they argue.</p></div>
  

  
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      <div class="rich-text"><p>Compared to Ainsworth’s original 21-minute protocol, which involved seven phases and the addition of a third party to test the child’s reaction to the presence of a stranger, Vitale’s technique was brief. (“Long testing times don’t work too well with cats,” she says.)</p><p>The idea, however, was pretty much the same, with a cat assuming the role of the infant. In Vitale’s three-phase version, each of 79 kittens spent two minutes in a strange room with their caretakers. The humans then left for two minutes, before returning for a two-minute reunion.</p><p>An analysis of video footage revealed that, when stacking cats up against humans and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787815001574">dogs</a>, the behavioral parallels are striking, Vitale says. Across species, roughly 60 percent of infants or pets fall into the “secure” camp. (With, of course, a few between-species differences: Whereas babies might reach eagerly for their parents, kittens rub up against their owners.)</p><p>The insecure felines in the study even segregated into distinguishable subcategories. Ambivalent kittens, for instance, became anxious attention seekers during their trials. “They were kind of glued to the owner’s lap, and engaged in a spinning behavior, almost like they couldn’t get comfortable,” she says.</p><p>Others were avoidant, and spent a lot of time shirking their owners’ touch—the sort of behavior cat critics might expect from these animals, Vitale points out. But to Vitale’s surprise, ambivalent kittens made up a whopping 84 percent of the insecure group, while avoidant kittens comprised just 12 percent.</p><p>Similar <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159118305616?via%3Dihub">studies</a> have been done in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787815001574">dogs</a>, Vitale points out, and some of them have found far higher proportions of avoidant canines. Maybe that’s another piece of evidence that contradicts the idea that all cats have cold shoulders, she says.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="cat attachments all.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="188" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/cat_attachments_all.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>From left to right: Secure, ambivalent, and avoidant attachment styles in cats. Securely attached cats explore the study room confidently and draw comfort from their owners&#x27; presence. Ambivalent cats are extremely clingy and distressed when left alone. Avoidant cats mostly snub their owners. Image Credit: Kristyn Vitale, Oregon State University</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
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            <p>A few kittens also fell into a fourth category researchers now know as “disorganized”—a newer descriptor, added ex post facto by Ainsworth’s graduate student Mary Main, for humans or animals who seem torn between approaching and avoiding their caretakers during testing. In babies, that can manifest in unusual behaviors, like jerking movements or bouts of freezing. Kittens in this category, on the other hand, seemed mostly indecisive.</p><p>It’s not totally clear how cats acquire their attachment (cattachment?) styles, Vitale says, but they seem to be pretty stable over time. After initial testing, about half the kittens in the study were enrolled in a six-week cat “kindergarten” that involved weekly, coached socialization trainings with their owners. More than 80 percent of them graduated displaying the same type of attachment to their people they did the first time around.</p><p>These patterns hint that a big part of attachment is innate—perhaps even genetic—and tied strongly to an animal’s personality, says <a href="https://www.sfspca.org/vet-services/hospital/doctor-bios/wailani-sung/">Wailani Sung</a>, a veterinary behaviorist at the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals who was not involved in the study.</p><p>That doesn’t discount the importance of environmental influences, though, Sung adds. <a href="https://www.vet.upenn.edu/people/faculty-clinician-search/CARLOSIRACUSA">Carlo Siracusa</a>, a veterinary behaviorist at the University of Pennsylvania, agrees, explaining that major events like trauma can still reshape a cat’s bond to its owner.</p>
            <figure class="richtext-image full-width"><img alt="iStock-1134074066.jpg" class="richtext-image full-width" height="533" width="800"
            src="/wgbh/nova/media/images/iStock-1134074066.width-800.jpg"/><figcaption><p>Cats have their critics, but they can be extremely social creatures with humans and felines alike. Image Credit: yacobchuk, iStock</p><div class="credit"><p></p></div></figcaption>
            </figure>
            <p>Siracusa also cautions against drawing too many parallels between babies and kittens, especially when interpreting the results of an experiment that was originally developed for humans. Pet owners and parents have a lot in common, but they’re not analogous—and other forays into cat attachment have yielded <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0135109">results that differ from Vitale’s</a>, he points out. “We should be open-minded about the idea that there are other variables [at play],” Siracusa says.</p><p>Perhaps the same could be said for the original iteration of the Strange Situation, which wasn’t without its critics. Some researchers believe the test was too artificial to yield a full picture of attachment, which also <a href="http://www.epi.msu.edu/janthony/requests/articles/Field_Attachment%20and%20Separation.pdf">hinges on positive experiences</a> between babies and their caregivers. And, like many other psychological tropes at the time, attachment theory grew out of datasets based on <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/475f/dda9e7e5a4c69734aeefe725442d5a6919dc.pdf">fairly homogeneous</a> populations of middle class Americans.</p><p>Still, Siracusa and Sung both praise the study for highlighting the social nature of cats—something that’s often underappreciated. Canines may hog the limelight in the field of pet psychology, Sung says. But felines, too, have fully realized personalities, she says, and are certainly capable of forming close relationships with people.</p><p>“Sometimes we fight the [notion] that cats are asocial...and they get poor reputations from that,” she says. “Hopefully this makes people think deeper about their cats, and see them in a better light.”</p></div>
  

  
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<p>They’re not as aloof as some think.</p>

Topic: Nature

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