For starlings and meerkats in the Kalahari Desert, the fork-tailed drongo, a songbird with glossy black feathers and garnet-red eyes, is like the neighborhood dog: a trustworthy pal that's always ...

The little black birds spend their days listening in on the alarm calls of small birds and mammals—sociable weavers, pied babblers, meerkats, and the like—and will impersonate these manic ...

Meerkats also prey on birds, reptiles, and scorpions. However, they are mainly insectivores, meaning they prefer insects during hunting. Another unique fact about their eating habit is water ...

The fork-tailed species will follow meerkats as they forage, taking beak-sized morsels that they dig up or flush out, and even occasionally stealing prey from the meerkats themselves.

On the plains of Africa, you’ll find a surprising cooperation between two typically adversarial animals—the drongo bird and the meerkat.

Three meerkats were born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in D.C. on May 10 for the first time in 16 years. ... Trump science cuts target bird feeder research, AI literacy work and more ...

Listen to more stories on the Noa app. At the start of the spring of 2015, Jeffrey, a three-year-old meerkat, was happily eating, tussling with his brothers, and surveying zoo patrons from his ...

During key moments, quadrupeds stand up on their hind legs and use their tails to balance. This stance, called the tripod stance, improves observation, surveillance, foraging, and even fighting. One ...

Well that evidence is no longer anecdotal. In a new study published today, Tom Flower from the University of Cambridge has indeed found that fork-trailed drongos can deceive meerkats into scurrying ...

Besides protection from predators, meerkats stand up for the sake of dispute. Meerkats may live in large family units, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have rivalries.