Plastics shed thousands of chemicals into the sea, including oleamide – an industrial lubricant that also occurs naturally. In lab aquariums, researchers tracked 31,500 hunting interactions between the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) and crabs, snails, and clams. Oleamide shifted octopus prey preference, dulled crustaceans’ predator avoidance, and increased encounters – without boosting successful kills. The subtle disruption lasted days, hinting that plastic chemicals could reshape coastal food webs by altering how species sense, feed, and interact. By mimicking biological signals, plastic-derived oleamide may quietly rewire marine behavior.

Artificial light at night (ALAN) can significantly affect animals by changing their physiology, behavior, and geographic distribution. However, how ALAN influences ecological and genetic patterns in closely related species remains unexplored. A new study investigated how ALAN shapes differences between two isopod species in Tokyo Bay, revealing clear ecological separation between the species based on patterns of nighttime urban lighting. The findings highlight how urban factors can be adjusted to support biodiversity.

Africa’s largest monkey, the mandrill, Mandrillus sphinx, is being forced out of its home within a national park due to hunting pressure, new research has revealed.

From dragonflies to starfish, new research shows that the speed of visual perception across the animal kingdom is driven by lifestyle and environment.

Animals don’t just see the world differently from one another, they experience time itself at dramatically different speeds. That is according to a new study that considered 237 species across the animal kingdom, and which revealed that how fast an animal lives and moves strongly predicts how quickly it can visually process the world around it.

In research published in leading international journal Nature – Ecology & Evolution, scientists from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Galway show that species with fast-paced ecologies, such as flying animals and “pursuit predators”, which chase fast, manoeuvrable prey, have much faster visual perception than slow-moving or sedentary species.