Flamingos are
friendly and loyal birds,
research has shown.
Exeter University studied
four flamingo flocks for
four years. They found that,
despite being in giant flocks of
up to two million, flamingos
form small friendship groups,
teaming up to help with
feeding and nesting.
It’s called a stereophonic,
a long, stringy, stingy creature
related to jellyfish.
Biologists from the Western
Australian Museum spotted it
and, although not officially
measured, it is believed to
be around 150 ft long, which
would make it three times as
long as a humpback whale!
A study by Kazushige Touhara, professor and
biochemist at the University of Tokyo, found that the
males release a fruity-smelling perfume from glands
on their wrists when they want to impress a female.
They rub their tails against the gland, before
waving their tail around so that females can smell
their “perfume”. The behavior is known as “stink
flirting”.
Ring-tailed lemurs are known for using different
smells to communicate with each other. They
use scent for marking their territory and to
show where each animal ranks in their social group.
Scientists now plan to further investigate the smells that
the lemurs use to attract females, and how successful it
makes them when it comes to securing a mate.
The full report is published in the nature journal
Current Biology.
ANIMAL NEWS PUZZLE