Rattlesnakes can calm down their friends, study shows

"Research reveals that rattlesnakes, like humans, experience stress reduction when in the presence of a companion snake, a phenomenon known as social buffering."

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/07/rattlesnakes-can-calm-down-their-friends-study-shows/

#herpetology #biodiversity #ecology #BehavioralEcology #animalbehavior #snakes

Snakes Can Hear You Better Than You Think

Researchers have dispelled the myth that snakes are deaf to airborne sound and can ‘hear’ only ground vibrations. Snakes were placed in a soundproofed room, and sounds with different frequencies were played on speakers. [...] The experiment suggests that snakes can indeed hear sounds in the frequency range and volume of a human voice.

https://www.sciencealert.com/snakes-can-hear-you-better-than-you-think
#snakes #herpetology #reptiles #behavioralecology #animals #squamata #biodiversity

Just listened to a brilliant piece on #BehavioralEcology. #BBC4 #InOurTime #GameTheory #NicoTinbergen

Best quote: "I'm an expert in #MatingStrategy, which really means my whole point is making sex uninteresting. And I'm very good at it. To be fair, I think the first part of sexual reproduction is really the boring part."

Hello synapse.cafe!

Just migrated from sciencemastodon, a perfectly good instance, but I think this will feel a little more like home. Anyway, #introduction time again!

I’m an assistant #professor at the University of Manitoba in #Winnipeg. I run the #Invertebrate #Neuroethology #Laboratory, where we study #AnimalBehavior, #Neuroscience, and #BehavioralEcology. We are interested in the #NeuralCircuits of #Learning, #Memory, and #DecisionMaking, especially with respect to #TimeMemory, other areas of #Chronobiology, and #MultisensoryIntegration. We work mostly with #HoneyBees (#Apis #mellifera), but we like all #inverts!