What is it like to be a bee? Or a spider? Does a crab feel pleasure or pain? Behavioural and welfare science have moved on considerably in the past 20 years, but there is still a huge amount we don't know about how animals actually feel—or, indeed, whether they all do.

Charles Darwin wrote a book called "The Power of Movement in Plants" with his son Francis in which they first identified the root apex as the central command center of plants. In contrast to our own orientation with respect to Earth's gravitational field, Darwin proposed that the root apices represented the anterior cognitive pole of the plant or tree, while the shoot apices represented the posterior pole. In this view, the root apices are solely responsible for identifying and targeting […]

Coral reefs that are in close proximity to larger populations of people tend to have fewer sharks and other fish due to higher fishing pressure. But new research shows there's one group of predators that's the exception—moray eels.

Scientists say stable seafood consumption amongst the world's poorer coastal communities is linked to how local habitat characteristics influence fishing at different times of the year.

'Shell-crushing'—exactly what it sounds like—is a predatory mode used by numerous marine life from crabs to octopuses to large fishes and mammals when they eat hard-shelled mollusks like clams, oysters and conchs. These predators have to break apart the shell using robust claws or fortified jaws to access the prey's soft tissues.