Other (Animal) Blog Posts

A new rat model for neonatal white matter injury

Preterm birth is a major problem in neonatal healthcare. Erik van Tilborg developed a new animal model to closely mimic this clinical situation, an important step in finding new treatment options.

Exercise vs anabolic steroids: a rat study

A recent study shows that the use of anabolic steroids diminishes the positive effects of exercise in rats.

Tracking chickens: A promising approach for identifying feather-peckers

Manually observing chickens in barns is a tedious job to which ultra-wideband tracking offers a solution. But does it interfere with normal behavior?

IR backlight in rodent behavioral testing

How do mice act in complete darkness? Ann-Kristina Fritz and her colleagues ordered a large, round open field with IR backlight, custom made by Noldus, to investigate.

Brain & behavior: data integration in horse studies

EEG recordings – they produce useful data, but are not always easy to obtain in animal studies. You can’t really ask a horse to sit still, so these researchers invented a promising new system for EEG recording.

Behavioral tests to select police horses

The personality of police horses influences how well they do in their ‘job’. That’s why personality tests are important for both animal and human welfare and safety.

Video tracking makes bird watching much easier

Everyone with children knows the phenomenon that what is good for a child is not always the best for a parent. The same counts for birds.

Ticking clocks – tides and activity peaks in American horseshoe crabs

Recently, I came across an interesting paper in which American horseshoe crabs were video-tracked to investigate their internal clocks.

Flower preference in solitary bees

Mason bees are fascinating and friendly creatures. Tibor Bukovinszky and his colleagues investigated how their foraging behavior affects their offspring.

Time is of the essence in fish studies

You recently moved into your new house. How do you feel? How do you act in this new space? The answers may depend on how long you have lived there…

Dynamic winners and sluggish losers

We all know the phenomenon: some have it all. Look around a classroom and you see immediately who gets all the attention and who doesn’t, who are “winners”, and who are “losers”. Are we born this way, or do we learn it?

To be ravenous or to be social

Prosocial behavior, a voluntary behavior to benefit another, is an interesting concept from an evolutionary point of view. At first sight it may seem logical to be social.