Issues

Summary: This Review considers how the complexities of the honeybee waggle dance and ant path integration during foraging might provide additional constraints when modelling path integration and its underlying neural mechanisms.

Summary: Inhibition of mitochondrial respiration rate and production of reactive oxygen species during cold acclimation and anoxia, while preserving mitochondrial content and morphology, is central to the anoxia tolerance of freshwater turtle hearts.

Summary: Multichannel stroboscopic videography (MSV) is a technique for automated measurements of multiple types of visual information using a single camera.

Summary: Individual honey bees flexibly use recently acquired navigation experience and previously stored navigation information to generate waggle dance duration for a novel feeder distance.

Summary: The relationship between body condition and blood and muscle O₂ stores in beluga whales may represent a vicious cycle, in which decreases in condition impair foraging ability, leading to further reductions in condition.

Highlighted Article: Prey-directed behavior changes as a praying mantis (Tenodera sinensis) becomes more sated; this modulation is paralleled by injection of the peptide hormone insulin.

Summary: The modulation of the excitability of neurons of the electromotor command nucleus emerges as a novel cellular mechanism expanding the repertoire of electric communication signals in freshwater weakly electric fish.

Highlighted Article: Territorial dragonflies pursuing conspecifics use an underdamped interception strategy, resulting in oscillating pursuit paths that may serve to intimidate or herd intruders out of the territory.

Summary: An African tropical starling has the physiological capacity to deposit retinol in its integument and create bright yellow coloration, revealing a new class of external biological pigments.

Summary: Morphological, histological and electrophysiological characterization of the sound apparatus, interpreted with visual and acoustic recordings conducted in semi-natural conditions, identify Scorpaena spp. as the species complex emitting the /Kwa/ sound.

Editors' Choice: A modification of the classic Morris water maze enabled the first demonstration of a cognitive map in a frog.

Summary: Early-life nutritional stress has immediate, but no lasting effects, on immune function or stress physiology and incites a compensatory growth response that has long-term effects on fitness and survival.

Summary: Examination of the extent to which thermal performance curves differ across traits and the timing of the temperature exposure, with regard to predictions of species responses to climate change.

Summary: SELENOT, a thioredoxin-like protein, is proposed as a cardiac modulator in the goldfish Carassius auratus, with a potential role in hypoxia tolerance.

Summary: Myrmecia midas show navigational performance differences based on foraging experience. Differences in navigational success correspond with the degree of similarity between the panorama at release locations and panoramas at known locations.

Summary: The tendinous tissues of the tibialis anterior play a key role in absorbing mechanical energy as the foot contacts the ground, as well as helping to power rapid acceleration of the ankle into dorsiflexion to aid foot clearance during leg swing.

Summary: A reduction in paracellular permeability occurs when the Malpighian tubule of caterpillars switches from ion secretion to ion reabsorption, preventing harmful back-flux of organics into the haemolymph.

Summary: Cortisol relays its action via glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors (MRs) in fish tissues; mr knockdown in a cultured trout gill epithelium shows that MRs play a role in cortisol-mediated tightening of this tissue.

Summary: Both stereoscopic visual cues and changing luminance cues can enable detection of approaching objects. We show that mantises use looming rather than stereo cues to detect motion-in-depth.