behaviour

‘Heartbreaking and extremely rare’: Mother humpback whale carries stillborn calf through the ocean; scientists explain the unusual behaviour

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‘Heartbreaking and extremely rare’: Mother humpback whale carries stillborn calf through the ocean; scientists explain the unusual behaviour

A mother humpback whale was filmed repeatedly returning to her stillborn calf off Australia’s Gold Coast, displaying prolonged attention toward the newborn in an encounter researchers describe as the first scientifically documented case of such behaviour in the species. The footage, recorded in July 2025, is now detailed in a new study published in Discover … Read more

Male redback spiders somersault directly towards a female’s fangs during mating; scientists found the bizarre behaviour may come from surprisingly simple genetics

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Male redback spiders somersault directly towards a female’s fangs during mating; scientists found the bizarre behaviour may come from surprisingly simple genetics

Breeding scheme to produce backcross males and (b) possible inheritance patterns of self-sacrificial mating traits. Credit: Biology Letters (2026) Male Australian redback spiders perform an acrobatic somersault during mating that sends their abdomen directly toward the female’s fangs. Scientists have now found that this deadly self-sacrifice behavior comes from a surprisingly simple genetic region.In a … Read more