Joshua Rapp Learn, Author at ��è��Ƶ

Pandas use tools to scratch thanks to a strange evolutionary quirk

Joshua Rapp Learn — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:25:12 +0000

Bamboo is not just for eating

Magouki/Shutterstock

Giant pandas have been seen using twigs or pieces of bamboo to scratch themselves. Other than an old anecdotal report about giant pandas rubbing dirt into their fur, this is the first recorded instance of tool use among these animals, says at the Shaanxi Institute of Zoology in China.

“Because pandas spend a lot of time eating and resting, they give the impression of being lazy, fond of food and cute,” says Yang. “So, when we discovered that pandas can use tools, it changed our previous perspective about them.”

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Yang and his colleagues had noticed this behaviour during other work and set out to learn more about it. They recorded 383 instances of tool use over 50 days of observation of 18 captive giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in a zoo in China, including both males and females.

The pandas mostly used twigs or pieces of bamboo they broke off trees, and almost always to scratch. This meant they could scratch parts of the body that would be hard to reach without the tools.

Since the giant pandas at this zoo live in a naturalistic outdoor setting, Yang says wild pandas may also use tools in this way, although no observations of wild pandas doing this have yet been reported.

Unlike other bears, pandas have a “false thumb” on their paws, a sixth digit much shorter than human thumbs that allows them to grasp objects in a way that other bears can’t. Pandas have relatively large brains – the breaking off of sticks specifically to use as tools suggests a capacity for short-term planning, the researchers say.

“Pandas might have more complex cognition and behaviours than previously thought,” says Yang, but more work would be needed to learn more about this behaviour, including whether they can be directed to use tools.

Journal reference:

Current Biology

How ‘forever chemicals’ reached one of the world’s most pristine areas

Joshua Rapp Learn — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 12:00:53 +0000

��è��Ƶs have found significant concentrations of a type of PFAS chemical in the air deep in the Amazon rainforest, suggesting it travelled over 100 kilometres from an industrial hub

Huge crater in India hints at major meteorite impact 4000 years ago

Joshua Rapp Learn — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 08:00:18 +0000

The Luna structure, a 1.8-kilometre-wide depression in north-west India, may have been caused by the largest meteorite to strike Earth in the past 50,000 years

Animal deaths on UK roads fell sharply during covid-19 lockdowns

Joshua Rapp Learn — Mon, 01 May 2023 07:00:35 +0000

The coronavirus lockdowns presented a rare natural experiment to see what happens to wildlife collisions when the traffic declines drastically

The garden dormouse glows under UV light – but we don’t know why

Joshua Rapp Learn — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 12:00:54 +0000

Dormouse fur shines under UV light, appearing purple or, when red when viewed through a yellow filter

Karmel Ritson and Grete Nummert

Garden dormice may not seem particularly flamboyant. In fact, the small, brownish-white rodents spend much of their life trying not to be seen. But new research shows that under the right light, these animals shine with bright pinks and greenish-blues. Photoluminescence occurs when a substance absorbs photons of ultraviolet light and re-emits them at longer wavelengths, often as visible colours. It occurs in many marine animals, some insects and millipedes and in the plumage of some birds. It encompasses two processes: fluorescence, when photons are re-emitted almost immediately, and phosphorescence, which can last for several minutes. After seeing recent studies that found photoluminescence in nocturnal mammals such as and , at Tallinn Zoo in Estonia wondered if garden dormice (Eliomys quercinus) display it too. She made a high-stakes bet with a colleague that this would be the case: “The losing one would bake a cake,” says Nummert. She and her team gathered a few of the garden dormice kept at Tallinn Zoo while they were sleeping and shone ultraviolet light on the animals. Most of the mice’s fur glowed a bright purple colour, which looked reddish pink in photographs taken with a yellow filter on the camera lens. The feet and the nose, on the other hand, were bluish green. To expand their observations, the researchers examined dead dormice stored at the Estonian Museum of Natural History under the UV light. These specimens also displayed photoluminescence, though their colours had faded over the years. Nummert, who says the cake she won was “delicious”, isn’t sure yet why the dormice are photoluminescent. Some parrots use photoluminescence to signal to potential mates. Springhares have a patchy photoluminescence that may help camouflage them among plants that reflect light in a similar way, depending on what kind of creatures are looking. It is also possible that the photoluminescence exhibited by dormice and other rodents is just a by-product of something they eat or some other natural process. It isn’t even clear if the dormice can perceive these colours themselves — humans certainly can’t without the help of an intense, artificial source of UV light. “There is a whole world we cannot see,” says Nummert. “Animals perceive the world differently from us.”

Journal reference:

Zoology

Shock collars could keep elephants out of conflict with humans

Joshua Rapp Learn — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 09:00:40 +0000

Elephants fitted with electric shock collars quickly learn to avoid approaching the place where they get shocked, suggesting a way to keep elephants away from crops that may be more humane than alternative approaches

Bandicoots can be trained to flee predators more quickly

Joshua Rapp Learn — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 12:16:42 +0000

After being captured and released by researchers, seven species of Australian marsupial, including bandicoots and bettongs, learned to flee more quickly the second time

Hurricane that hit Jamaica helped low-lying trees spread to mountains

Joshua Rapp Learn — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 11:00:15 +0000

Hurricane Gilbert struck Jamaica in 1988, and the damage it left in its wake might have allowed warm-adapted trees that normally grow at low altitudes to take root on the island’s mountains

Jackals seen stealing kills from lynx as they expand range in Europe

Joshua Rapp Learn — Tue, 10 May 2022 07:00:39 +0000

Camera traps in Slovenia have recorded golden jackals eating deer recently killed by Eurasian lynx in the first sign of conflict between these carnivores

Spiderwebs catch microplastic particles floating in city air

Joshua Rapp Learn — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 08:00:03 +0000

Tiny plastic particles from clothing and car tyres stick to spiders’ webs in cities, which could prove useful to researchers monitoring this form of pollution

Joshua Rapp Learn, Author at ��è����Ƶ